Blogaversary

Next week Monday is the fifth anniversary of my blog!

To celebrate, I want to give away one of the binary stitch marker sets from yesterday. In your comment please let me know which one you would like.

For your viewing pleasure here are Jake and Danny:

Things are still going okay with them, aside from some tussling over toys. 

New Project started

I finished 2 projects last week, plus my shawl the week before, so I felt perfectly comfortable in starting a new project. Here it is, modeling some of the new stitch markers in use. They are wonderful to use; no catching on anything, and just the right size.



DD1 spent the afternoon on Saturday, and while we were sitting talking on the front porch my hands were busy with this:



Three sets of binary stitch holder dangles. (They are not in order.) On the top set I added a blue bead to the red and white, just because it is July. I still have to make the soldered loops, but that will just take a couple of minutes.

I mentioned I finished a couple of projects. Here is a hand towel made out of cotton thread. I like how it turned out, but I did not enjoy knitting it. The crosswise stitch you can see is a yarn over that is pulled over the 2 next regular knit stitches. It was not a fast knit, and then cotton is not as much fun to knit with either.



I also finished a cowl with lace-weight hand spun yarn. I love how this one looks, but I will have to wait until cooler weather to find out how it feels.



At our summer program at church I am teaching knitting. Here is one of my students doing her homework. G is the same age as C. Isn't this a wonderful picture?

We are considering remodeling the house to look like a shoe. We have added P's dog to the mix... since P & C's dad is moving Danny would not have had a home so we took him in. He is another golden retriever. So far things seem to be going okay... hopefully it will only get better.

Jewelry for your knitting

I have been thinking about stitch markers for a couple of weeks now.

(Stitch markers are used to keep from having to count your stitches every time you do a row, or to separate repeats on a lace motif, or to show the beginning of your round, or to mark where to make the increase/decrease, etc.)

Here is my current project with a hodge podge of stitch markers. To show the beginning of the round I have a small matrushka doll, that was a gift from Moonsilk Stitches, a couple of split ring markers, a couple of flat markers that look like they were punched out of a sheet of plastic, and a ring. They get the job done, but they are not very inspiring.



On my Citron shawl I didn't use markers, but I should have. I had to make evenly spaced increases (24 of them!) on rows 13 and 19 of every repeat. I ended up counting all my stitches before every one of those rows...

Of course you don't really need ring stitch markers. You can always tie a little circle out of some left-over yarn and use those instead, but what is the fun in that?

When we went to the Midwest Fiber Fest, I said that I was going to shop for stitch markers. I wanted some pretty ones. I didn't find any that I liked. There were some that had charms on them, but I was afraid those would get caught in my knitting (plus they were way expensive, 2 markers for around $7). I kept looking and found some markers I liked, but they were included in a kit that I was not interested in buying. However, the girl/knit designer/kit maker was there, and said she had made them herself (hmmm) and had soldered every joint so they wouldn't catch on anything. (more hmmm.) They were cute, made out of wire for the ring, and a bead dangle; one of the dangles was different so you could use that one to show the end of your round.

I thought about that for a while, thinking of what would be needed (beads, check; soldering gun, DH has one, check; wire for the rings, store has those, check; head pins for the dangle, should be some in stash, no, back to the store, check; know how to solder, not so much; know how to do a wire wrap, know the theory, but not up on the practice).

So I stopped at the bead store (such a sacrifice!) and got wire and head pins. Checked You Tube for information on how to do a wire wrap, and tried a couple (not impossible, hopefully will improve with practice). DH took 5 minutes and showed me how to solder.

Here's the set-up for the soldering:



Here are the first two sets I made. On the left are rings that were wrapped around a size 13 needle with chain mail rings on them. There are 2 colors and I tried to represent Roman numerals with the different colors. (I had wanted to use indigo for "I," and violet for "V" but I didn't find mail rings in those colors.) On the right are bead dangles (plain old Mill Hill beads) and the rings are sized on a size 8 knitting needle. Of course, you cannot use a size 8 needle with them, since the dangle wire took up some of the space, so these would probably have to be used for socks or smaller.



Then I started going through my bead soup bucket and found and made these (size 13):



and these (only 5 of these pretty beads):



and these (the orange one can be your end of row marker):



(I have a lot more of these butterfly beads... )

Here is where my craziness took me, though:



These are on a size 10.5, so will be good for working on worsted on down. There are enough to mark 24 increases. Actually, there are 32 of them, and they are in binary code. It starts with 0 on the left, and goes up to 31 on the right. I want to try this again with different colors, and maybe even bigger beads. Size 6 beads would show up really well. It is going to be fun trying to keep them in order until I can get them into my project.

It makes me smile just to look at them, even though my inner geek is showing. (For my mom, check it out, the design is capicua! [translation: palindromic].)

Which ones are your favorite?

Finished! (almost)

Sorry about disappearing like that! I have been knitting away (and reading of course) and yesterday afternoon I finished my latest big project. 

But first I wanted to show you my latest little project! I finished this cute little sweater in two afternoons! It isn't perfect by any means, but I like it so much! I showed my hand holding it so you could see how little and cute it is.



The big project I finished is the Citron Grande shawl. It was originally published in the on-line magazine Knitty as "Citron." Knitty magazine is amazing! It comes out 6 times a year and is just stuffed with interesting patterns, and did I mention, it is free!? You can find the pattern here. All the back issues are on line. I found the Citron Grande modification on Ravelry.

So here it is:

 

(I waited too long this morning to get someone to take a picture of me modeling it, so we will have to do with pictures of it draped on the porch.)

Here is the beginning. You start with 3 stitches cast on, at the center top, and then it grows, and grows.

 

To make the ruched detail, you double the stitches in your row for 6 rows, and then halve the number again. There are 10 sections of alternating smooth and ruched rows, and then you come to the ruffled edge. There are over 1000 (yes, one thousand) stitches in the last 11 rows and cast off edge!

 

The yarn I used is Jaggerspun Zephyr: 50% wool and 50% silk from the Webs store at Yarn.com. It came on a cone:



I was a little worried when the cone arrived, the way it was on the cone it had no give to it at all, it felt hard and stiff. I needn't have worried though, the knitted fabric feels like a cloud in your hand. This yarn is sold by the ounce, with a minimum of 4 ounces. After some math, I decided I should have enough with 5 ounces (which made it very affordable, by the way). Originally, this cone had at least 1/2 an inch of yarn on it (I should mention this is lace weight, so a little goes a long way). Now you can see the cardboard cone through the yarn. I had more than 1,500 yards of yarn, and I never really worried about running out; but there isn't a lot extra.

I would use this yarn again in a minute! (I am thinking of a white shawl with a Lily of the Valley motif? I think I saw a pattern for that in a Piecework magazine.)

The reason I said it is almost finished is because I have the ends to sew in: the beginning and the end. All that length was in 1 piece!

DD2 asked what I was going to start next. I have 3 WIPs that I should get to, and then I have a shawl pattern and yarn that I bought last year at the Fiber Fest in Grey's Lake. We went again this year and I got 2 more kits... and I started another temari SAL.

Next week I start teaching a knitting/crochet class for kids. So far I have 1 sign-up, a little girl about C's age. I have to find out what her favorite color is.

Knitting and a Temari ball

A couple of weeks ago I finished this mitten:



I had to do quite a bit of fussing to get the mitten to fit me, but I really liked the knitting pattern.

The mittens turned out to be fraternal twins, and the color jump at the thumbs was not too drastic, so that was fine. DD2 is making me a pair of fingerless mitts to go under them; the combination is so wonderful in the wintertime! My fingers were the warmest and toastiest they have ever been with my red and white mittens this past year!



These mittens are made from the same yarn I used for my window pane scarf and the tam.

I also followed the tutorial by Joan Z on the Temari Challenge group, and made this temari:



I am very pleased with how it turned out! In the first two steps you add more and more detail, and then in the 3rd step you cover over a bunch of the stitching and leave only what you want to show. I have admired this temari in one of the Japanese books (Kii Temari) for a long time, and couldn't even imagine how it was stitched. With Joan's explanations I think this one was successful. The variegated thread I used make it even more confusing to figure out, because it looks like I used a green and a coral/purple.

I am always taken aback when I use this color pink for a temari. I always feel like the thread is a brighter pink, but when I go to match it, it turns out to be a more mauve pink.

I am going to try this one again with more contrast. Do you like the negative space flowers?

I was doing quite well, with only a couple of started projects, but... I fell in love with a shawl pattern, I found the yarn for a reasonable amount (wool and silk laceweight!) and couldn't resist casting it on. It is mostly stockinette stitch, but with enough complications to keep it interesting to look at, and interesting to knit. I will get a picture for you soon.

Another day at the Zoo

The nice thing about a zoo membership is that you can go whenever you want to, and it doesn't have to be a killer day, because you can always go back to see what you missed. We went on Monday, the first full day without school. Of course, we were not the only ones with that idea, so the zoo was a little crowded.

The kids were a little excited:



We got free tickets to the dinosaur exhibit with our membership. The exhibit was a lot of fun. Here are DD2, P & C making the dinosaur roar, breath, and move his head and tail.



These things were so scary looking, I was really glad they were only fake.



Here's our primates playing with another primate:



Near the wading birds pool they were showing off a Red-tail hawk. I was interested to see jesses; I have read about them in many books, but it was interesting to see how they actually worked. They are small leather anklets around the bird's feet with leather straps hanging down which the keeper holds on to. This bird is a little upset because it kept getting dive-bombed by the resident grackles, who of course were not happy with this predator in their neighborhood.



We had lunch in a different restaurant, one we had never been to before. In the dining room they had several weavings hanging up that were absolutely gorgeous. This one is birds and bugs; there was another that was birds and fish. I just love the color progression on this one, from darker gray around the outside, through gradual color changes to light at the center. The butterflies in the corner are really beautiful.



We had a wonderful day, and got home without even feeling complete exhaustion. We still have our tickets for the Dolphin show too, so we will have reasons to visit again soon.

Every-day life

There has been a  lot going on that I haven't blogged about.

Talent night with DH rocking it with the Halestones at church.



P having the honor of carrying the flag at the burger-burn.



A concert:




End of season party. If you didn't guess, the theme was hats!



P competed in the Pine Car derby; he did not win one of the trophies.



I finished a surprise baby sweater to go with the baby blanket. The mom-to-be loved it!



I am feeling the urge to work on a temari... and I am hoping the urge will not go away. Hopefully I will have some pictures to share on that front soon.