Strings & Yarn

I’m still alive out here, just a very bad blogger.  Actually my excuse is a good one, I’ve been busy with teaching!

If you are a regular reader, you may know that I’ve decided to take a break from grad school and do some more violin teaching.  I spent a few weeks in December panicking about how I would manage, but then the calls started rolling in.  Of course, all the calls don’t end up being students with lessons, but I’ve had enough inquiries to keep me busy.  I now have 15 students, two classes at The Shedd, and two classes at the Village School.  The Village school also includes organizing their violin music program.

I have had plenty of time for knitting and spinning, and have kept the projects flying on the needles.  I got an amazing box from Tammy, my KMKS partner.  I’ll post pictures soon.  I liked the yarn and pattern so much that I immediately cast on and now I’m close to finishing.

I finished some socks for Anthony. We have a great deal worked out. He gets the yarn, I knit the socks.

He picked this yarn out while we were in San Diego. I was a little worried about knitting with brown yarn. I’ve gotten so used to having interesting color changes and brown isn’t my favorite. Since the pattern was interesting and quick (Father and Son Sock in IK Fall 2006) the yarn in turn became interesting as well. I love the sweet little cable down the side, and they look great on him.

I’ve already started a new pair of socks. I dived into the Potatomus pattern and I’m using the Lisa Souza Yarn I got from Cara. It’s the skein all the way over to the right. I’m not very fond of yellow, so the yarn got thrown into the dye pot where it turned a beautiful green. This yarn is great! So squishy and fun.

As I was knitting yesterday, Kim and I started talking about chart reading. It got me curious about how you read charts. Do you look it over and put it away relying on memory, or do you check each row as you go?

I heard about this from Cara’s blog, but if you want to get in on it too, go over to Kate’s and check it out.  It had been a long time since I knit for charity.  Actually, I’ve never knit for charity, I’ve only crocheted for charity, and it used to be the only thing I really did.  I used to crochet hats and scarves to sell for our Relay for Life team.   I decided it was time to  do something good for the soul.

I made both of those last night.  (Sorry for the blurry pic, the light just wouldn’t work with me today.)  Since I’m a childhood cancer survivor myself, this is a particularly important cause to me.  The left hat is Lion Brand Homespun and the right one is Bernat Eye Lash that my dear friend Roma gave me.  I remember a time when Homespun was the Bee’s Knees of yarn for me.  How times have changed….  It is incredibly soft, and I really enjoyed knitting these up.  Hopefully I get another done tonight.

I’m also donating a hand dyed skein to the prizes.  Kate is compiling knitted goodies to hand out to the hat knitters.  The hats take a little over an hour and are well worth it.  If you live in Eugene, I’d even be willing to ship them for you.  So go check it out.

Last Wednesday I decided it was time to stop my our local fiber/dye shop Dyelots.  If you live in Eugene, or come to Eugene often, and haven’t been here, you must go!  It’s very inspiring, full of great colors and great people.  It’s only open on Wednesday and Saturday, but well worth it.

Anyway, I did intend to get something for myself.  I especially wanted something special that I hadn’t tried spinning with yet.  Maybe a few ounces of wool and silk, alpaca or camel.  It just depended on what she had in stock.

It turned out that she had a few things on sale.  I didn’t get all the details, something about a friend getting rid of some stuff.  I’m always looking for a good deal, so I took the opportunity to get a few new spinning supplies.

I’ve already spun a bobbin of this and I’m close to finishing the second one.  This is a Corriadale wool that is mostly natural brown with streeks of green, pink and yellow.  I got this 8 ounces for $8!  What a steal.  It is however the stickiest wool I’ve ever spun.  It has a lot of lanolin, but I’m sure that’ll take care of itself when it gets washed.  It’s also not very soft, but I’m sure I’ll find a good use for it.

I’m going to use this as my first project spectrum assignment.  It’s blue, grey and white wool/silk blend.  I got 19 ounces for $19!  Another steal.  I’m not sure what I’ll be doing with this yet, but I think this may end up being an Anthony project.  I’m not sure what the percentages of fiber are, there was no lable, but this is very soft.  I can’t wait to start spinning it, but I have to finish a few things before it can be put onto the bobbins.

Dye Lots
1465 W 11th AVE
541-485-1880

I finally did it.  I’ve been meaning to use Freecycle for awhile (we have a ton of crap around the house, some of it from working on the house, some of it from things that were left by the previous owners) but for some reason could not ever find the motivation to do it.  Taylor had told me about it months ago and I’m glad she did.  It was super easy, and we ended getting rid of some cat food which will hopefully go to a better home where it will get used (Jasmine’s a very picky eater you know).

Freecycle is an online community (Eugene’s is pretty big) that helps prevent random stuff from filling up the landfills.  How often have you thought “I wish I didn’t have to throw this away, someone could probably use it, but I can’t.”  That would be a perfect Freecycle item.  It works a lot like a Classified but everything is free.  The networks are set up by community, so find the Freecycle in you community.

I’ve been meaning to read these books for a long time now and I finally gotten the chance and time. Actually the thing that got me reading them was my own writing. I recently had an idea on a book idea, but was afraid that it may be too similar to these books to be worth anything. It involves orphans and probably will take place in a world similar, but not exactly like ours. It will be a little more mystical, mysterious, and weird. As I read through though, these are not how I want my book to end up (especially since I will be gearing mine to an older or adult audience) but are also pleasurable to read. I have been able to get through each one in a few hours tops. If you are looking for an entertaining, no brainier, very very quick read, this is the way to go. Plus, as a teacher, I’ve got to stay hip to what’s going on in the kid world.

Link: Lemony Snicket at Amazon

I’ve figured out the knitting chart thing, and thought you may like it too.  I found this wonderful article on Knitty (I can’t begin to tell you how many articles I’ve used there) and it was very helpful.  The article “Charts are your friends” goes over not only the basics of reading, but different ways to write them.  Since I wanted to do the charts on the computer, I got the font to type them, learned how to install fonts, and proceeded to easily make the cable chart for the top of my mittens.

It worked well, and I think it’s pretty easy to read.  It’s a large chart, but once understood, it’s not too hard.  I’d still be glad to hear how you all make charts, and feel free to ask any questions about how I did mine.  Hopefully a new pattern will be available soon.

It has been a long time! I think this has been the longest I’ve gone without blogging since I started in August of ‘05, and it feels weird. Be warned this post is going to be long and full of pictures.

Things have been going really well here. First, I was swept up by the holidays. I struggled a little with jumping straight from the school to the craziness of completing knitting and baking, delivering gifts and enjoying festivities. I was able to hang out with friends some and really began feeling the many parts of my creative side firing off now that they were free from school. I tried to avoid worrying about how to obtain students, and decided that once I got back from Colorado I would work on that.

Oh yeah, I went to Colorado! Colorado Springs to be exact. I can’t believe we made it there (with the blizzard and all) but we did. We were originally supposed to fly out on December 20th, but that was the day of the blizzard, so our flight got canceled. We went through many hours of standing in line, but it was worth it because we were able to fly out on the 23rd, just in time for Christmas. We barely made it back (due to the second large storm they got) but came back just in time for our most recent home improvement.
Seeing my family was great, rushed, but wonderful. I knitted lots of stuff for Christmas. Anthony and my Dad got matching hats. Amy (my sister) and Mom got fetching gloves made out of Rowan tapestry. Anthony and my mom share Christmas Eve as their birthday, so my mom got a sweater (my second one) for her birthday and Anthony got some pj pants (sewn, not knitted). I also never sent my sister her birthday gift (November 1st) so I brought her some of my hand dyed yarn. Of course, since we didn’t have a camera, and our trip was so rushed, I didn’t get pictures of anything. But hopefully they will be kind enough to send a few pics so I can share.

Top of Pikes Peak on December 26th, 2006.  Dad and Anthony are wearing their hats.

I also made Anthony a tool belt and it turned out great. We have our camera back so here are a few of the things we have been working on.

Before we left we were able to install our new window.  It is so much bigger than the old one.  Imagine cutting the bottom half of that window away and that was what was there.  This is so much better. Again, I didn’t do any of the brute work, but we did have several friends over to help and I made soup to appease the hungry men.

Our newest and best improvement has been the pellet stove. See the hearth? I tiled that! We have an edge to give it a more finished look, but have been to busy enjoying the warmth to bother with finishing it off.

I finally figured out how to use selective focus and control the digital camera manually, which is what I prefer doing. I have an SLR film camera, that I use for special occasions. I missed the control I had with that, but knew that the digital was capable of more. Hopefully the pictures here will become better and better quality.

This is a snowman my grammie sent me for the holidays. He was my test subject.

Aren’t they pretty? I’m very proud of these. The yarn is some of my handspun. I modeled them after some mittens that a friend of mine had purchased in Ireland, but added a cable that is a little more modern looking. I plan on writing these out as a pattern, but I’m having a difficult time figuring out how to write out the charts for this. Especially the cable symbols. If you have any suggestions, I’d love to hear it. I’ve heard of using Excel but how do you get the cable symbols on the chart? I’m going to try to work it out soon.

(Click for larger)

This is some handspun that I finished up. It is the November color from the Spunky Eclectic club. I couldn’t decide if liked it for awhile, but I think I do. This wool blend is fuzzier than what I’m used to, but I really enjoyed spinning it. Plus, I spun it up in one day (the weekend after we got back from Colorado. Can you tell I missed my wheel?) including the plying. I have no idea what I’ll do with it yet, but I’m sure it will reveal itself as time goes.

This is my progress picture. It’s the Coral Crossing from the Fall IK ‘06. It should really be called “The Ring” sweater, because I’ve primarily knit it while watching not only Wagner’s “Ring Cycle”, but The Lord of the Rings Extended Edition. We still need to watch the “Return of the King” (plus miscellaneous extras) so I’m sure I’ll have the front done soon.

That’s all I’ve got for now. This may also be one of my longest posts I’ve ever done. Of course I’ve been working on other things, and now that I have the camera back I have all sorts of FO’s to share and add to my 2006 FO page. So far this year has proven to be very exciting, full of change, and a better balance to life.