Yarn Woes (but sort of the good kind)
My mother... she loves the estate sales and the garage sales. I've always told her to buy any yarn she finds there if it's less than 50% acryllic.
So, when I got here from DC, I found this...
Now, I wasn't surprised by this, mainly because my mother had called me about it. On my cell phone. When I was trying on sports bras at Macy's. That was an interesting moment.
This stuff is full of dust. I imagine it's somewhere between ten and twenty years old. It is the dreaded
Sugar 'n' Cream cotton. But it's old school.
OLD SCHOOL! Seriously, old school. I have never seen that label before. I'm going to buy a ball or two of bright blue and make it into a
Mitered Square Rug from Summer 2004 Interweave (web only). The color scheme matches my parents' bathroom and my mom liked the idea, so... (And the pattern wants 10.5 needles, so hopefully that will be easier on my wrists than 7s)
Also, I managed to find a picture of one of my first sweaters!
This sweater is from the book
Sweaters from a New England Village by Candace Strick. It's 100% acryllic yarn that I got at a garage sale for $1 a skein.
This is back when I didn't know any better. I knew how to read a pattern, knit a sweater with a somewhat cabled yoke, but I didn't understand about yarn quality or gauge or anything like that. So I made a neon orange sweater in the medium size, which ended up being a good fit for my (then) size 18 self. I'd bought 7 skeins of the yarn and ended up with a few skeins left over. I don't know where they went, but I also don't miss them.
This sweater was a great learning experience, and it went off to charity. (It's one of my mom's charities - I don't remember the name, but they made sure that it got to someone who needed it and not at goodwill for a dollar) I hope whoever got it enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it. And I hope they can pull off that color of orange!
Kestrels & Koalas!
The kestrel bag is finally finished!
Or so says my koala, Katie. (That shot was for you,
Gail!!)
The bamboo handles I got at Joann's, along with a package of D-rings I used to attach to the bag. I wouldn't recommend the D-rings, as I needed a Big Strong Man (my dad) and two sets of pliers to get these things open, threaded and then closed. And I consider myself a pretty strong person.
The cat fabric I bought from
Tipper and I just love it. I'm probably going to use another set of cat fabric to line my candy bag.
I also shaved off a good handful of lint from this thing earlier today. I'd always giggled at the idea of shaving a bag until I realized the huge difference it made. Now I know better. But I'm not buying an electric razor for the sole purpose of shaving felt.
Candy!
I have to stop making Fair Isle bags.
This needs a couple of rounds in the washing machine to felt it, but it's basically finished. All yarn that I spun meself. You might recognize some of the blues from the kestrel bag, but probably not.
The pattern is from
Wendy's Fearless Fair Isle, from the basic bottom up bag pattern I have that I really should publish somewhere, as I am fabulous. =) I had originally intended to do five panels, but I realized that the three was closer to what I wanted from a bag.
Handles and a lining I already have - handles are here, but lining is in DC, so I need to wait a bit. But this is a good shape because of what I use.
Also, my parents recently went to LA to take the little brother off to college. As a result, they brought me apple mentos!
If you're confused about why I'm blogging about candy, it's simple. When I was in 8th grade, I went to France with my mother and my French class. I found apple mentos. Since I've always enjoyed fake apple taste, I greatly enjoyed them. I took a couple of rolls home. I think one even lasted past the plane ride.
Then I discovered... they don't exist in America. Really. So then, four years later, when my little brother and my father went to France, they brought me back six rolls of apple mentos (I'd made repeated, heated requests). I think those lasted a week.
Apparently, seasonal versions of the mentos live. Much like the strawberry only rolls of mentos. They exist but are rarely seen.
Bags & An Excessive Amount of Photos of Them
So, the kestrels bag is almost entirely finished. I swear, it will never die.
I need to attach the handles and sew in the lining. I also need to fix a few areas, but that'll just take a few minutes.
Since I made the floats too short, I cut the majority of the floats and square knotted ends together to get the puckering to, well... stop. Here, I detail the process of cutting the floats. Enjoy. We start with the too-tight floats.
Halfway through the cutting I was amazed at the sheer amount of fabric being revealed, so I took a midway shot.
Finished, the inside of the bag looked... well.. just weird.
But the outside looked pretty cool.
Four rounds in the washing machine later, and I had a felted bag. Unfortunately, there were a few areas where I cut the floats too short and with sippery yarns, some narsty looking holes had been created.
But, like I said, fixable. And now, instead of puckering, the bag sort of scallops out in a V shape, but it looks pretty cool.
In other news, I'm really enjoying watching the Olympics, but it's really hard to knit while doing so. I look down and someone does fifty quadrillion backflips. D'oh.
Flowers and Birds
Two of my friends recently bought a house and moved in. You know what that means. House warming presents. As in 'What the ?! could they possibly need that will cost me less than $20 and won't clash with their color schemes?'
I'd covered their first move with that vase you keep spoons in and their second move with liquor. So, what do you give the people who have everything?
Hand knitted washcloths! So they can feel even more guilty about never using what you gave them because you made it. The pattern is taken from
Weekend Knitting by Melanie Falick and was featured in the Winter 2003 Interweave Knits (where I got it).
It's made with the leftover sugar 'n' creme cotton from my
Vanilla Swirl. There was enough leftovers for five dishcloths and a remnant ball that went to one of the movers who knits and makes cat toys and such.
And I will never, EVER knit with Sugar 'n' Creme cotton again.
Not that I have anything against Sugar 'n' Creme. It just KILLS MY WRISTS. DEAD. DEAD. After working on these things for a week, I had to take a week off from knitting because my hand was aching so much.
Speaking of sore wrists, I finished my kestrel bag, but I have to finish my duplicate stitching and then felt it.
It's amazing how much definition the pattern takes on with the swift application of yarn. I kind of regret using a thick 'n' thin yarn for the white, but it was my first spinning attempt and I had to do SOMETHING with it. For the actual belly of the bird, it looks frickin awesome. For the rest of the beast, not so much. But I'm not ripping back and I'm actually really happy with how it's looking.
Except the puckering. Have you noticed the puckering? There's puckering. Like, just ate two unsweetened lemons straight puckering. Basically, my fair isle is rusty and I made my floats waay too short. It probably didn't help anything using three main colors instead of two. (I floated the offwhite, white and various greens) It has saved me a LOT, and I mean A LOT, of duplicate stitch, but still. It's a pain.
I have three more kestrels and four wing interiors, then I have to cut floats and then I can FINALLY FELT THIS THING! And then attach handles and a lining. I would really like this to be finished before I get back to DC.
No! Not the needles!
Also, using
the burn test on yarn is really kinda fun.
Hm.
Now that I've finally found
the perfect handle for my bag, I have to wonder... how does one attach such a thing?
I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure.
Hello from the Sunshine State!
I'm visiting my parents in California for the next few weeks. But before I left, I had to take a picture of this little guy snoozing on my fence:
But once I got into California, I could finally get my hands on this:
Those hanks are some of the first yarn I've ever spun. New spinners, take note, this is what your first yarn will look like:
Full of over and under twisted areas and thick and thin areas. It will end up making great novelty scarves, though.
Something I recently found out is necessary for handspun yarn is to wash before using in a project, as the handspun will shrink quite a lot after the first washing. And it's better to find out sooner rather than later how much. So, that being said, I washed all of those hanks of yarn in shampoo and conditioner. After wringing them out, I actually paid attention to directions (even if it was from the fairly incomprehensible
knitty spinning article) and found something to thwack the yarn against to remove excess water and set the twist. (My shoulder hurts a LOT now!) It ended up being the side of my parents' new garden arbor. Standing there, in the sun, throwing hanks of yarn against the metal... well, it was quite fun and a good stress relief. Rather than lay the hanks out on the towel, I decided to utilize the arbor's scrollwork for other purposes.
Everything was dry by last night and I set to work on my kestrel bag. Here it is, in progress:
Both the green and white are my handspuns, while the oatmeal is this beautiful wool from a Hungarian shepherd. I'd been thinking I would felt it, but I may be changing my mind. Maybe only one run through the washer just to make it fuzzy.
I'm going to spend the next few days updating my non blog sites - getting them to have the new template and adding my more recent projects. Maybe I'll finally finish up the chiagu pattern... Anyone good at proofreading patterns and willing to read mine and give corrections/suggestions in two days? Keep in mind this would get you a free copy of my pattern. Free is always good!
More vintage fun!
These are from
Afghans: Traditional and Modern, by Bonita Bray.
Some of these are just classic 70's cheesy posed pictures.
If I smile long enough, I can get a real modelling job!
This is what happens when you make your ponch too long. Do we understand why I don't like them?
These... I don't even need to say anything about them.
And of course, there are some very pretty pictures in here too.
I might have to make the second at some point.
Hopefully, this interlude will help make up for the boringness of working on a top secret project.
Officially.
It is officially THE. WORST when you're 3/4 of the way through your seamless raglan, past the difficult fair isle bits (and I don't care what they say, fair isle flat is not that big a deal), and you try on your sweater to realize that yes, you should have made those sleeves that half inch longer.
Son of a...
Well, what now?
So, in case you're wondering, I took the week off from knitting. My right hand was getting incredibly sore and I figured a much needed rest was due.
Instead, I beaded and spun, and that didn't help for the most part. But in my down time at work, I sat and sketched instead of knitting.
The coolest idea worked best for something like a lunchbox that would be great in metal - but it would also require welding metal, a skill I do not currently possess. Alas, alack.
