Super Quick Socks!

I finished my socks. Took
less than a week which is super quick for me. I did a basket weave rib which wad easy and fun. I knit it on size 2 needled- could have done it on size three- the yarn is super chunky. I am super pleased with them. hurrah!

Found hat

some kid lost a hat on Alberta street. it was pretty cute and waiting for
the owner to come and get it!

Angela Davis Weisman

Me showing off the hat that Naomi knit me and my fingerless gloves doing my best to look like a hard ass

Lysdexic Knitter

So anyone who knows me, knows that I am a very highly functioning dyslexic. It’s fun. It makes my handwriting illegible , my spelling hilarious, I have no idea the difference between Left and Right and attention span nil. The upshot is I am one smart cookie, a very creative and visual thinker and have developed pretty decent coping skills. I have always been a little leery of knitting charts. All those dots and dashes just look like one confusing puzzle to me. However, I was going through a knitting slump. I needed a challenge, and felt like I wanted to add a little spicy lace in my life. I came out with some pretty dern clever tricks.
The first one is a super simple lace patten for socks. I got out my coloring pencils and colored in the Knits vs the Slip Slip Knits so I can very cleary see the difference. This pattern looks super simple= but trust me- I already screwed it up and had to rip out the sock.

The second one was my Pinion hat the pattern was pretty complicated because each line was different. Fortunately all the shaping is mostly just knit2 tog so that I didn’t have to worry about telling the difference between K2tog and SSK. The problem is is that there were a lot of blank spaces that represented knit stitches. I couldn’t tell you if it was one stitich or 7, that makes me go all crossed eyed and buggy. I very carefully counted the blank spaces and wrote it down in the last line. This way my eye could just skip to the last line to see how many stitches I needed to knit.

Finally- the tool that I use MOST is one of those magnetic boards that cross stitches use. It has little black magnets that I can use to mask out the line I am working on. It works awesome. I have been collecting the boards so I have enough for my various projects!

Mish Mosh

I recieved a box of goodies in the mail. Bags and bags of little bits of yarn! Bags and bags of the stuff. I am working on a way to incorporate the bits into yarn. First i tried grinding it up into really really tiny pieces.

I then carded it (very loosely) and sandwiched the bits in-between the roving. I like the general effect. I mostly used mills end fiber. Which needs a bit more carding than regular roving. Because I really only wanted to pass the fiber through the carder once- the yarn was crazy lumpy. I love the texture, but need to keep working on it. I think I am going to do a good carding of the fiber before I put the yarn bits into it so I can spin the yarn a little thinner. We shall see!

The Birds

I have been pretty vocal about my spinning slump. The good news is its OVER. I made the super coolest yarn ever. EVER. My dear client had sent me this skirt that has these Asian cranes all over it. Its t-shirt material. Her only mandate was to “use the cranes”. Hmmmm. At first I was going to have them just dangle kind of limply, then I thought I might stuff them and quilt them. I wasn’t sure but I wanted to give them more body than they had and liked the idea that they would dangle down from the yarn. My friend suggested that I sew them to vinyl backing. I have been really enjoying the intersection of knitting and spinning and love to experiment so I had a ton of fun making the birdies. First I cut out the birds and then sewed them to the vinyl.
then I sewed them to some thing black bamboo yarn I found at the craft thrift-store. Yes Portland has a craft thrift store. Here is a photo of the birds being attached to the yarn. I sandwiched the yarn with a little bit of left over vinyl so it would be stronger and my sewing machine wouldn’t have just the yarn to pierce. I tried that and the yarn was splitting like crazy- so I came up with the vinyl sandwich.
I used the bamboo yarn as the core and spun the roving around it. I am happy to report that none of the birds flew off in the spinning process and they all managed to make it through my crazy giant wheel.
I also wanted to ply the yarn. I recently picked up a bead spinner at Tuesday Morning and was keen to try it. You know what? When used correctly that sucker works. When used incorrectly it’s a major pain in the ass. Guess how I know that! Anyway I attached the seed beads to thread that I used to ply the bird yarn. Yikes!
I am SO proud of how this stuff came out. Its super cool. The beads bling it up just the right amount. I can’t wait to send it to Mary so she can knit with it!

Bay Bay Stuff

I have some dear friends who are having a baby. We have been having our own adoption woes. As part of my therapy I think I went a little over the top making stuff for them. It was good for me to do and I am happy to send it to them. I made some more super fancy burp cloths (someone told me that they were too fancy for baby puke) but I enjoyed making them. a super tiny an super cute little stuffed rattle. I have actually made several of these. I am having issues turning the neck. They are filled with little bells so they actually rattle. This is my most favorite material ever and I keep using up the tinniest bits.
And finally the sweetest baby hat on the planet. I swear it simultaneously makes my barren ovaries ache and gives me the diabetes. This sounds too dangerous to knit. It may killllllllll me.

An Awesome Hat!

My friend Naomi is the most amazing knitter/spinner on the planet. Yes she is- don’t argue. I often call her the “string whisperer” because she can spin three-ply lace weight on a drop spindle. If you understood any of that- you will understand how amazing she is. Well she was looking for a pattern tester for this new hat that she designed. I spent the weekend working on it. I was VERY impressed with the pattern. It was a suitably challenging lace pattern- not impossible but one that you need to concentrate on when knitting it. The directions were great- very clear- there was both a chart and written directions. I mainly used the chart but also followed along on the written directions for confirmation. The hat came out super cute. She is going to post the pattern on Raverly really soon.

I used Bamboo Ewe from Stitch Nation in Periwinkle. I had some issues with this yarn. It was SUPER splitty. I had to pull back a few rows in the beginning of this pattern- the yarn really looked exhausted and had to be tossed. Also when I blocked the yarn- it grew amazingly. I had to put it in the dryer and shrink it back into shape. The color is beautiful and it is nice and shiny, but I am not sure if I would recommend this yarn for future use. I will have to see how the garment wears. However, the yarn was cheep, had a fair bit of yardage and is a decent bang for your buck. Just use with caution. I also picked up a skein of the Full of Sheep. So we will see how that goes.

This is my new favorite photo of myself-its a motion shot of me laughing my ass off because Andy told me to “smise” which is to Smile With My Eyes. I guess all those years of me watching America’s Next Top Model have really paid off.