Strings & Yarn

Flat Stanley arrived at our house and he spent some time here learning all sorts of fun things to do. Instead of taking him around Eugene (we had a lot of yucky rainy weather), we decided to show him what we do with our spare time. If you would like to check out what Anthony did with Flat Stanley (vroom vroom!) check out his site, Ride Three.

First I took Flat Stanley out to coffee.

You just can’t visit the Pacific Northwest without getting coffee. Flat Stanley didn’t like the coffee that much, so I drank up the coffee while Stanley got to work. We went to the coffee shop to learn how to knit. I showed him the cuff of the sock I was working on.

Learning to knit and purl.

Then he started working on his first project, the Ripple Dishcloth.

Look at him go!

He had gotten quite a bit done on the dishcloth when he went into my knitting bag and we had to go home. After our trip to the coffee shop, I had to go to work, but now Flat Stanley had something to do with his spare time. So when I got home I took him out of the knitting bag and he had finished the dishcloth!

He gave it to me as a gift for showing him how to knit! He must have know that knit dishcloths are one my favorite things! I have to stay that Flat Stanley was an excellent guest. He was very kind, considerate, and we had a great time!

Flat Stanley wrapped up in a Baby Surprise Jacket.

Thanks Flat Stanley! Hope you enjoyed Eugene, Oregon!

Since I know you are all checking my notebook in ravelry obsessively, I’m sure you all know that I’ve published another pattern. While I was putting together my Saturday Market Bag pattern into pdf form, I found several other mostly complete and half finished patterns that needed some TLC. The pattern that was closest to completion was the Fuzzackles.

The pattern is available via Ravelry for now, but if you are interested in it and cannot get it from ravelry, just send me a quick e-mail.

I was trying to think of the perfect gift for a bachelorette party and I had to do it on a budget. Having a little bit of Lamb’s Pride left over from another project, I decided to knit up a quick pair of kinky handcuffs to spice up their honeymoon. Plus they didn’t have to worry about loosing the keys.

This was a great way to introduce myself to the felting process. These cuffs are a quick and easy project that can be done in traditional gray or with your… I mean your friend’s favorite color.

I’m just full of FO’s lately.  Things have been flying off the needles, and not a whole lot of new WIP’s are going on.  I had cast on for so many large projects that it was time to have a few pick-me-up quick projects.  The Koolhaus (or kool ass as Anthony liked to call it) was cast on for a friend .  She is close to finishing up all of her major exams for her PhD in music history.  Something definitely worth celebrating.

I love how this hat works for both men and women.  As you can see Anthony is modeling it since I’m picky about how pictures are taken.

I love how the top turned out.  Actually, if you haven’t figured it out yet, I love symmetry.   I  love swirls and circles too, so the top of this hat fulfills many of my aesthetic loves.

The yarn was handspun that I received in the one skein swap ages ago.  It’s a wool silk blend spun in a DK weight.   I hadn’t done anything with it partially because the yardage was enough to do something bigger with it, but not a ton.  However, this green was perfect for my friend and even though I had more than enough for a hat I couldn’t resist.  I may still have enough for a scarf to go with it later.

The yarn was much skinnier than what the pattern calls for so I ended up increasing the CO to 132 and doing the larger size.  I probably could have put another repeat in before I did the decreases, but it turned out to just cover the tops of the ears.

It felt great to be using yarn that had been sitting in the stash for awhile, and giving a gift to a friend who needed to feel like the work she had put in was more than just jumping through bureaucratic hoops.

I’ve tempted the fates, I have knit Anthony’s first sweater and we are not married. However, just to try and find a loophole in the curse I have told him it’s on loan until we’re married. If something was to happen, the sweater is mine.

I love how it’s turned out! The pattern is the Cambridge Jacket by Ann Budd. It’s in the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits, and the Best of Interweave Knits Book. I knit the body in the round until I got to the sleeve openings. I knit both sleeves at the same time to make them identical. The sleeves ended up being too long, so I simply folded under the excess and sewed the hem. The pattern called for a single crochet stitch all along the bottom edge to help it from rolling up. While this did help, it didn’t eliminate the rolling all together. However, with it’s first washing (I’m a bad knitter and don’t block out before wearing) I may be able to block it slightly straighter. The yarn was purchased in June 2007, started knitting in August 2007, and finished in March 2008. I could have finished this much quicker, but it got shoved aside several times for things with deadlines.

This sweater began on our trip to Albuquerque in June last summer. I had actually already started spinning yarn for a sweater out of a dark blue wool silk blend (this will someday become a Cobblestone Pullover). Anthony has gotten pretty used to me wanted to hit a yarn store on our travels. As we were perusing Village Wools, he came up to me with a skein declaring his love. He was even brilliant enough to find some buttons of his liking! (I think he’s a keeper.) Of course we went straight to the cash register and I immediately had a vision of the finished project.

After the sweater was finished we went for a walk around Mt Pisgah. We had known that I wanted to give him something to wear for our engagement, and a few weekends before we found a pendant that suited him. It’s funny because even though the jewelery makes more sense, (you just can’t wear a sweater everyday, people start looking at you funny) the sweater meant more to me. It was important to me that the sweater and the pendant went together as a gift symbolizing our commitment to each other.  Now it’s time to decide what gets knitted for the wedding!

Yup you heard me right.  As a matter of fact we aren’t just going to do a meet up, we’re going to copy the Rhinebeck folks and have bingo, but we need people to play.  Here’s the information!

1) You can either be a player, a square or both. If you are a square you’ll display the Blacksheep Bingo logo while at the event. If you are a player, you will get your bingo cards a week before so you can check out who you will be looking for. If someone isn’t wearing their logo, but you know they are on your card, take this as a sign that they may need a bingo breather.

2) Play space will be limited to the fair grounds public space. I think we should avoid tent spaces and camping. Depending on how many people we get together this could be very intrusive to people who are camping. However, the different buildings on the fairgrounds are all game!

3) If you would like to participate e-mail blacksheepbingo (at) gmail (dot) com. Please put “Participation” in the subject line. Here’s the info you need to put together.

-Participation: (Player/Square/Both)

-Name

-Email Address

-Blog Name (if applicable)

-Blog Address (if applicable)

-Ravelry Name (if applicable)

-What day(s) will you be attending the gathering (Fri, Sat, Sun)?

4) All participants will be put in a drawing for the prizes. Overall, this is a chance for us to meet each other and share a great fiber gathering! If you are interested in donating prizes please email blacksheepbingo (at) gmail (dot) com with the subject line “Prizes.” If you would like to e-mail a picture of what you’ll be including, I’ll be making sure to feature donations and prizes on my blog.

I would like to open this up to bloggers as well as ravelers, so it’s time to get the word out! Post on your blogs, message other people who you know will be going to blacksheep. The more people there are, the more fun this will be!

So I got word that Magknits is no more because I’ve received several e-mails and ravelry messages.   I’m sad to see that Magknits isn’t going to be around anymore, but I’m glad there is still so much interest in the bag.

I had always just linked to Magknits, but seeing as that is no longer a way to get to the pattern, you can now download it on raverly or you can just download it here; Saturday Market Bag(pdf).

I’m sure I’ll be converting the Uniscarfity pattern to a pdf also, but since it’s a little less popular, I’ll get to it when I have a little more time.  In the mean time, Farmer’s Market (or Saturday Market for Eugeneites) season is coming up soon, so get knitting!

A few weeks ago we had our Monday night knitting group at the Eugene Textile Center instead of Market of Choice. Now I’ve been going regularly to Monday night knitting since I started working full time (January ‘07), and it has become a necessary part of my routine (I would say it’s up there with drinking coffee in the morning). I feel weird if I haven’t got to a knitting group for awhile. The company and the advice I get from these fellow comrades in fiber is invaluable.

I’m not talking about just the the fiber advice. I have formed some great friendships with the women at knitting. We all have decided that knitting would be a major part of our lives, and naturally I connect with people who have similar priorities.

Knitting groups also are a great mix of people; different ages, different stages of life, different experiences, different knitting levels.  We are mostly women in this particular group, but we do have an occasional man join us.

It was extra special to be in a different place and get to see the new Eugene Textile Center.  I missed the grand opening the weekend after this, but I heard it was a great party.  Getting a new business that pushes fiber is always welcome in my mind, and I made sure to get a few pictures to share with you on the blog.

Since I don’t weave, there are a lot of things in here that I won’t be using, but the spinning fiber and dye space is wonderful. The space is centered around education and classes (pdf) in order to spread all the fibery goodness.

They had a large grand opening party and a good article in the Register Guard. I am excited about having another great local resource. If you are heading towards Eugene (Black Sheep Gathering is coming up!), make sure to put this on your visit list.

I finished the Bayerische Socks yesterday and it looks like val of abehap is going to get to keep her $50. I had to rip back and put in contrasting toes.

The second sock also has some visible lines where I changed balls of yarn. Apparently they were just slightly different shades of green. Oh well, you knit and learn. I’m still very happy with how they feel and fit. The smaller stitches and gauge did wonders for this fabric, and I hope they last longer because of it.  I will definitely be using my size 0 needles again for socks.

I was a little worried for awhile that I wasn’t going to finish this months challenge. Since I successfully finished, I have now done one pair of socks for the past seven months. The whole process has been overall very rewarding, and I’m looking forward to having 12 months of socks finished in the end.

So it got me thinking about setting longer goals with my knitting. Maybe once this is finished I set a number of sweaters I want to finish in a year or a number of skeins spun per year. I usually only think from one project to the next.  The challenge has gotten me thinking about my projects in terms of a years length of time. I think that having a future goal has worked wonders for my knitting due to having a group goal.  Something about having some guidelines, knowing that I am knitting along with many other knitters and having a definite due date has kept me knitting.  Or maybe it’s just the possibility of prizes. 

Are any of you out there participating in the Sock Knitter Anonymous Sock Down challenge? Do you give yourself goals to meet? Would anyone else be interested in trying to set some goals as a group?

I also wanted to let you all know that I’ve been working on a big update of my etsy shop.  As always, thank you for your continued support!

I just managed to finish my first sock for the February part of SKA. They are Bayerische Socks (ravelry link) by Eunny Jang. (Yes I know it is no longer February, and that March’s end is looming in the near future. It’s a good thing I have spring break, because I’m going to have to do some intense knitting to get these done before the end of March and get my next pair cast on.)  I’m so happy with the results that I may even wear only one sock around tomorrow.  Having one leg means that is an acceptable practice.  Haha!

I love how they feel. Since they were knit on size 0 needles and have tons of small cables, the fabric has this wonderfully dense and comfortable fit. Unfortunately that means that they are yarn guzzlers, and I was a little worried I wouldn’t have enough yarn. I decided to weigh the sock and the yarn I have left to see what I was in for.

I weighed the sock first. Phew!! It looks close, but I should have enough. Let’s check the yarn just in case.

Rio de la Plata yarn in Seaweed.

By the skin of my teeth! Why do I have three balls of yarn you ask? Well, this ball had issues from the beginning. When on the swift, strands that weren’t supposed to be cut got cut, leading to more ends. It ended up sitting in time out (not even with the rest of the stash. This yarn had to sit out in it’s own bag in isolation) for six months or so, until I started these socks and this yarn was screaming to be knit. Not including our first skirmish this yarn has been great to work with, and the color is beautiful.

I won’t be weaving in my ends at the toes until these are finished. Just in case I need to rip back and make contrasting toes on both socks. Here’s to extreme knitting!

Things have been warming up around here, and spring is just around the corner. Starting in February, we finally get a reminder that sun does exist behind all those clouds in the Northwest, and that it will stop raining someday. The few glorious days are enough to start the spring fever, big time.

I started in the garden much sooner this year, knowing a little bit more about than last year. For instance, instead of putting strawberries in starter pots inside, I put them outside right away. Anthony and I cleared out a bed of iris bulbs mid February and I planted the strawberries in their place. A much better use for the soil if you ask me.

The strawberries are thriving well, sending out new leaves, and I’ve even found a few buds. They live right under our bedroom window, which I try to look out at them and check on their progress often. Can you tell that I’m excited about our first harvest? The strawberries are tristar ever-bearing strawberries. They should produce a heavy crop in spring and then continue slowly over the summer. They should also last for many years to come, and produce new plants to replace the old.

Since today was a nice enough day to get outside and work in the yard we also did quite a bit of digging.

I leave all plant destruction to Anthony. So while I was planting our seed starts for the summer (tomatoes, cauliflower, okra, peppers, artichokes, and several herbs) Anthony worked away at clearing out beds. We have slowly been working on turning our yard into our vision instead of that of the previous owner. The back bed is destined to become home to plants I can use as natural dyes and some herbs. The dark bed received new seeds today including sugar snap peas, mesclun, kolrabi, golden beets and bok choy. That was my only vegetable bed last year, but this year we should be making at least one more.

Plus, some of the perennials from last year are starting to show.

Asparagus peeking out to say hello.

The Madder plant is also showing new growth.

Newly transplanted Rosemary that I started from seed last year.

Obviously we have some big plans for the yard this year. As I start planning out where I want things to go and what I want to include, I try to keep my garden theme in mind; The Imagination Garden. Most of all I want our yard to be somewhere I can go to retreat from the world, to divine inspiration and to help us lead more sustainable lives. Now for the hard part, waiting for everything to grow! Do you have any garden plans for this year?