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!