This week, I’m doing a “blog challenge”. Everyday, Eskimimimakes has a different topic for anyone who’s decided to participate. Each day’s entries will share a common tag, which will allow you to Google for other entries from that day. Who knows what kinds of great blogs you might discover? So welcome, and enjoy!
For the past few years, I’ve tried to knit most – if not all – of the gifts I give for Christmas. The first year I did “Christmas Knitting,” I only made one scarf, and it was really no big deal. I started in October-ish, and had it finished with plenty of time to spare.
Ever since then, my start date has been creeping ever closer to spring. I’m fortunate to live in a part of the country that doesn’t get really unbearably hot until late July, and the heat really only lasts until the end of August.
Most of the year for me, therefore, is knitting season.
I tend to make sweaters in January and February (because I’m cold, and could use another sweater). March through June are for scarves and socks. July and August are when I pull out the lace weight and try to concentrate on a shawl. Then I get my Christmas names (we have a pretty big family, so this is the most efficient way to conduct the holidays), and I’m off to the races.
I’ve toyed with several knitting strategies in an effort to finish everything before December 1st (because much of it needs to be mailed back home). It would make sense to start with the big items so I’d have plenty of time to finish them, then work down in magnitude from there. But it’s still pretty muggy when I start, and lugging around a woolen sweater is simply not appealing.
I thought about doing the mittens and socks first – I can usually finish a pair of either in about two weeks – then move on to the more challenging items at the end. But the last time I tried this I got over-confident, thought I had more than enough time to finish my gifts, and knit on things I’d seen on Ravelry, just to satisfy my curiosity about whether or not I had the skills necessary to execute them properly.
Today’s challenge topic is to write about our knitting (or crocheting) hero.
Wow. This is hard. There are so many.
Like my Grandma Rosie. She helped me learn to crochet, and let me have free reign over her yarn scraps. She still has a little green basket I made, filled with tiny “fruit” (actually little tiny balls of yellow, orange and red yarn).
And my mom. After many attempts at trying to teach me to knit in person, she finally succeeded when, four years ago, boredom and a craft store converged one evening and I (in California) called her (in Wisconsin) to ask her to try one more time. It stuck. I knit about 6 swatches that night, then finally went online to figure out how to bind off. I’ve been knitting almost daily ever since.
And the YarnHarlot, whose site I discovered soon after I learned to knit. I went all the way back to the very first post in her blog and read the whole thing. She and her friend Denny got me interested in spinning, and when I went to Sock Summit last summer, I gave her an orifice hook and a card, thanking her for inspiring me to learn to spin (actually, I handed it to someone behind the desk and asked him to give it to her, then I practically ran back to the other side of the Convention Center. She actually chased me down and gave me a hug!). I’ve read so much of her material I feel like I know her, and I’m a little sad when she doesn’t post for a day or two because I miss her.
And Cathy from the California Angora Rabbit Society, who invited me to her home to learn to spin, even though she’d never met me. Once I was there she gave me fiber to play with, and let me use one of her beautiful spindles and, eventually, one of her Louet wheels.
But I think my greatest knitting heroes live right here in my house.
My husband, Alex, who:
and my children (Jojo, Sami, Max and Penny), who:
So thank you all for helping me to knit (and spin). Your generosity and encouragement and patience are really, really appreciated.
*****
View posts for today’s topic from other bloggers
This entry for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week (KCBW) has been rolling around in my head since Eskimimimakes published the topic list on April 2. I’ve written many drafts, but none of them seemed right. I don’t do a lot of color, personally. I like denims and my Converse (black, of course), and plain t-shirts, and when pressed to dress like a grown-up, I tend to choose black.
But as I scrolled through my Ravelry projects, I realized I do enjoy knitting in colors. I tried to come up with a color I’d never used, but I don’t have one. Red? Got it.
Uncle Glenn's red scarf
Aunt Mary's red mittens
Orange? Oh yeah. Lots of orange.
My orange socks
Jojo's orange shawl
My orange sweater
And yellow.
Alex's yellow afghan
Teresa's yellow socks
And green.
Sami's green sweater
Aunt Ruth's green shawlette
And blue.
Nathaniel's blue socks
Lisa's blue mittens
And purple.
Bibi's purple scarf
Stacey's purple socks
And pink.
A pink shawl that isn't done, and doesn't belong to anyone except the knitting gods
A pink hat for a baby
Aunt Letty's pink mittens
And white.
Jojo's white kilt hose
Sharon's white scarf
And do you know what? I loved making all of these things. And I think I was able to use colors that I wouldn’t usually choose for myself because 99% of the things I knit are for other people, and the people I get to knit for are fun and adventurous.
*****
When I learned to spin from Cathy at the California Angora Rabbit Society up in Mira Loma several years ago, she first introduced me to a drop spindle. Oh my goodness, that was hard! I made a few yards of really uneven, really ugly yarn, then practically begged her to let me try one of her wheels. It was while using her Louet S10 that I fell in love with spinning. Almost immediately upon returning home, I ordered my own Louet wheel (a different model), and the rest is history. I never felt the need to try spindle spinning again, as it seemed awkward and slow and, well, I wasn’t good at it. So why bother?
Last summer at Sock Summit I happened by the Jenkins Woodworking booth, and saw their beautiful Turkish Spindles. Knowing how much I didn’t enjoy using a drop spindle, I walked on past. But the next day, I spent a little more time at the booth, asking questions and getting a demonstration. I walked away again, but the seed had been sown. I wanted one, even though I wasn’t sure it would ever be anything more than a decoration on my shelf.
The next time I was in the marketplace, I made a beeline over to Jenkins and bought a little Lark, then I stopped in at a booth where they sold fiber and picked up a small bag so I could try it out. I had zero success. Zero. My fiber drifted apart as I was trying to spin the spindle because I wasn’t putting enough twist in, then I put too much twist in and the fiber snapped. The spindle was returned to it’s bag, and I moved on, regretting having purchased such an expensive decoration.
***
While Sami and Jojo were on spring break a few weeks ago, Sami decided she wanted to learn to spin and asked me to help her make a drop spindle. We went to the Rockler Woodworking store and picked up a bag of four wooden toy car wheels and a dowel, and I grabbed a bag of cup hooks from Home Depot, and we got to work. The dowel was cut into thirds, then the dowels and the insides of the wheels were sanded so the wheels could be slid onto the dowels. Finally, we screwed the cup hooks into one end of each of the dowels and Violla! Three drop spindles for less than $10 (total, not each). They aren’t elegant or fancy, but they work.
The top-whorl spindle that Sami made
A little chunk of yarn that I made with the spindle.
The only problem then was that she needed someone to show her how to spin on a drop spindle, and I was the only available resource (it was kinda late at night). I grabbed some fiber and showed her the basics, all the while excusing my lack of skill and experience. The funny thing was, I actually got it. I was able to set the spindle in motion then draft carefully, putting an appropriate amount of spin into my single. I was getting a bit excited, so when she went up to her room to practice, I went to my room and got out my Lark.
I worked for about 30 minutes, and was able to produce enough fingering-ish weight yarn to knit a tiny swatch.
My tiny swatch
I finally understood, and the motions quickly became automatic. Since that evening I’ve been spinning. A lot.
Action shot of the Lark
I’m working on the “Spring Folly” wool I bought from Wool Therapy using my Turkish Spindle. It’s coming out very fine, which is exciting. I watched a video last night about how to wind on to a Turkish spindle, and my efficiency improved immensely.
Spring Folly and the Lark
Winding on is a bit of an art form, but like so many other things once learned it becomes second nature.
And I’m making steady progress on my “One Fish, Two Fish” wool (also from Wool Therapy) by working on it for a while every night. I still have over half of the second braid to spin, then the plying, but I hope to have it finished next week.
One down...
...one to go
ps… If you’re interested in learning about spinning using a drop spindle, Interweave is having a sale until Tuesday, April 24th, and the “Respect the Spindle” digital video is available for download for only $7.98. This isn’t a physical DVD, but is delivered straight to your computer (instant gratification, no shipping costs). I bought this a few days ago, and really liked the way she explained how spindles work and how to use them.
Directions for making your own drop spindle can be found here.
And if your LYS doesn’t carry spinning supplies (and if you don’t mind waiting a few days) you can get roving from KnitPicks.
…a post, that is. A really good, long post. That I was nearly finished with.
But then, with a careless swipe of my fingertips across my mouse, I went back several pages thru my browser history, and lost the whole thing.
And now, it’s late. And I’m sleepy.
So here are some photos of the lovely wool I’m spinning.
Beautifully dyed wool from Wool Therapy, in colorway "One fish, Two fish"
Pre-drafted a bit...aren't the colors amazing!?
After spinning for less than an hour, this is what I had. Check out the wonderful color variation!
I bought this from Wool Therapy, and I managed to get two braids (a total of 9.2 oz). I’m so very excited to see what this yarn will look like when I’m done!
Good night…I’ll get some more stuff posted tomorrow.
Ok, so now that you’ve seen pictures of a cute baby, I can fill you in on what’s been happening while I’ve been… well… Honestly, I’ve just been slacking off. I thought about sitting down and writing a post about a million times over the past two weeks. But a combination of daylight savings time having an unusually profound affect on my ability to get up in the mornings, and run-of-the mill, work related stress have made it difficult to write. Instead, I’ve been knitting and goofing off, occasionally cleaning my house and doing laundry, and basically just avoiding my blog.
But now I’m back, with less laundry, a neater house, and a sock to show off to you.
The first sock hanging out in the front shrubbery.
This is the Brussels Lace Sock from “Around the World in Knitted Socks” by Stephanie van der Linden, knit with size 0 needles and Knitpicks Gloss fingering weight yarn (undyed).
This lace pattern reminds me of little flower buds.
Both the heel and toe of this sock use methods that I’ve never tried before, but I enjoyed both. Especially when I got to the last row of the toe, and there was no grafting involved!
I really liked the way Ms. van der Linden wrote the directions for the hemmed cuff.
I’m not sure if you can tell or not, but the cuff of this sock is hemmed. I’ve made this type of cuff before, and I frequently end up with a stitch or two at the end that don’t get included in the hem because I missed a stitch somewhere else. But this pattern uses a provisional cast on so that, when it comes time to knit the hem row, you “free” one cast on stitch at a time. It’s a slow process, but fully worth it.
For the first sock this new way worked perfectly.
The second sock is being difficult, though. I’m trying to figure out what went wrong, but it appears that I knit two of the cast on stitches together way back at the beginning of the round. Yesterday afternoon I started backing the stitches out and arranging them so my next attempt should go more quickly, but now I’m wondering if I’d be better off just starting over from scratch.
Being a mom is a lot of work. Not bad work, just a great deal of it. And being a brand-new mom for the very first time is even more…work. I’m happy to say that my lovely sister-in-law, Cristina, has taken to her new job (as Matthew’s mom) like a duck to water. She has even managed to find time to photograph her handsome son wearing his Hickory-Dickory-Dot sweater.
Matthew, doing his serious pose. Can you see the mouse?
He even likes the mouse that goes with the sweater (the mouse normally lives in the pocket). See?
This is his version of the Mary Tyler Moore move at the end of the opening credits...
I’ve made him a little ear-flap hat to go with his sweater, but I keep forgetting to put it in my bag so I can drop it off at their house.
Matthew's Hat
This little hat is the only thing I’ve ever knit, start to finish, in a single day. I like the way the decreases on the crown swirl up, and I just couldn’t resist adding a little i-cord loop to top it off. The color in this photo is WAY off. The green is the same as his sweater, not this weird grayish color. But anyway, you get the idea, right? Right?
I’m going to assume you said yes.
The trouble is that the Hickory Dickory Dot sweater that I made for Matthew has two small issues. Two little problems that are quite simple to correct, but that require me to un-seam one side of the sweater and one side of the pocket so it won’t look like I hired drug addled monkeys to do the sewing up for me.
Can you spot the problems?
So what did I do instead of fixing this poor little sweater?
I started this:
A big cable-y sweater
And all was going well with my big cable-y sweater (which is Gwendolyn by Fiona Ellis) until this afternoon when I noticed I’d crossed the center little cable the wrong way 10 rows back. I still didn’t want to address the little green sweater’s issues, so I fixed the center cable (this photo is post-fix). But then…
Well, then I laid my knitting out to admire all of my lovely cables, and saw that I’d mis-crossed the big cables as well, both on the same row. I could just back out those eight stitches to where I made my mistake, but I’m not sure I can do it without distorting the rows that follow the error. So I find myself in a bit of a quandary.
I have to decide which errors I want to fix least, and just get on with it.
Or, I suppose, I could just go knit something else!
