Quick, to the fair!

This year getting ready for the Altamont Fair was more stressful than ever before. I had work to do on all of my entries after the deadline and before the drop-off and with one last minute item swap, I made it. But I didn't get good before pictures of all of my items - in fact, some of them aren't even DONE in these. Next year, will be the year that I plan better, and this time I mean it.

Morticia in laceweight merino, with two colors of beads. 

The Sea Speaks to Me in my own laceweight handspun

Blue/purple 2-ply handspun 80% blue-faced leicester 20% silk 

Labyrinthine socks, with their ridiculous (and awesome) 5-color scalloped cast on

Laminaria in laceweight alpaca

Three Sisters Scarf #2 in a self-striping sock yarn. I actually knitted on this last year at the Altamont Fair as part of  a knitting demonstration. The scarf turned out rather long!

I am especially curious to see how the judging comes out on the first two, because they were in a category competing against each other.

So we'll see how it comes out this year. They are using a judging rubric that we get back for the first time so I'm looking forward to more feedback!

I did finish Mario, by the way

Here's Mario.




Here he is on his first outing to Starbucks to visit my knitting group.



And here he is being opened by my 7 year old son - this was his birthday gift, and I made the squares in front of him but did all the seaming and finishing while he was at school. So the blanket was a huge surprise.



He was a little lukewarm at first, because he thought I was giving him a learn-to-knit kit. Oh, honey.... this is crochet. Totally different. He does love and appreciate it, now.

This blanket is one of nine items I entered into the fair this year. I'm curious to find out if the blanket will be up on the wall or skirting a Christmas tree off in the corner, but I won't find out until Saturday (unless my incessant scouring of media for pictures yields a spoiler). Winning ribbons would be great of course, but I'm hoping for some feedback on my handspun yarn. Well, that and of course beginning my quest for world domination at the spinning bee on Saturday.

Monday Mario, Again

Spring Break is over and the birthday is fast approaching, so it's time to get down to business on this blanket. I took Mario to knit night last week for about 3 hours of work in the privacy of a busy coffee shop because he hadn't been out of the back of my closet in a week and I was getting twitchy.

Friday, before:

Friday, after: 

I wasn't there by myself at a huge table, I just avoided people in the first pic and we were all packing to go at closing time for the second. Really.

Today Spike went back to school and so after a celebratory really-big-cup-of-coffee I got to work.


Here goes nothing... a better view of today's start (I did a few squares on the remaining sleeve Friday night very late when Spike was thoroughly asleep).

And then this is how far I got before I had to roll it up and hide it again this afternoon:

That little foot belongs to Zee, Spike's 4 year old brother. This secret is safe with him! (He has a tendency to stick a foot into my photos though and I'm only just realizing it. I wonder why he does that?!?)

It feels like I'm getting somewhere on this guy now, and it really looks like Mario! I'll get a few hours to work on him tomorrow too but Wednesday-Friday this week I'll be reorganizing the yarn stash and using my kid-free hours to have yarn all over the house. Spike is a sound sleeper so maybe I can squeeze in some late night work!

Monday Mario

Mario actually didn't get that far today - after I took this picture I got the rest of the (Mario's) left foot pieces partially attached.



I'm really enjoying seeing Mario come together, but I think I usually do other non-crafting things when the kids are at school because I'm not spending nearly as much school-time on this as I thought I would. Time to reevaluate what I do in the mornings!

The thing that makes it all worth it

The Wonderful Wallaby is a great pattern, don't get me wrong, But there is only so much stockinette a person can handle before they go a little mad, and somewhere in the sleeves I just didn't want to go on anymore.

But I powered through, and here we are - a kid very happy to be wearing a sweater his mom made for him.







He picked out the colors and watched it come together, so he has some idea of the work involved. And now he can match his little brother!



I made the child's size 10 for my 6-almost-7 year old, and it used 804 yards of Encore Worsted (a washable acrylic/wool blend).

WIP Wednesday April 2, 2014

This is my big secret project.

It's secret in that everybody knows about it except for my six year old, Spike. But what is it you ask? As far as he knows, just a pile of squares.

But when Spike is at school, I get to work.





And today began here:



It's going to be the Granny Square Mario Bedspread, sized down a touch (by making 3-round grannies) and with the updated colors of blue overalls and red shirt. I'm whipstitching the squares together with their own color yarn (and still making the dark brown ones... but I can do that in the evenings). What you see here is most of some overalls and Mario's left shoulder.

Today during school Mario got a hand! But just before the bus gets here I have to roll it up and shove it into a bag, so I'll have to take a before picture tomorrow.

WIP Wednesday, March 5, 2014

The sleeves are on! Wonderful Wallaby is coming along. I'm into the raglan decreases now but my will to go on is waning fast.



The other thing I'm working on is still my ongoing blanket sampler. This has moved so slowly as to look like it's not moving at all over the past few years, but I've picked it up a few times lately.



These are the top two rows all finished.



Back to the Wallaby!

These are the sleeves that never end...

I'm making a size 10 children's Wonderful Wallaby for Spike. He saw the one I made for Zee and asked for one, but with a red torso (he said torso) and sleeves, orange pocket, and blue hood. So of course I promised to make it happen!

But, this Wonderful Wallaby isn't feeling quite so wonderful right now in sleeve purgatory.



Here's a pic of the body.... I mean torso:



I'm making measurable progress, but I still have about three inches to go on these sleeves. Slowly. Surely. Just keep knitting!

Yarn Bowl

I started some mitts yesterday, one from each end of the yarn cake. My new yarn bowl from my friend Kim of Clearwater Handcrafts is perfect for this, because I ran the center strand out of the cutout and the outside strand can unwind in the bowl. 

I wasn't sure how a yarn bowl would work for me before, so now I know at least one way that it's quite helpful keeping things straight!

WIP Wednesday on a Thursday, October 17, 2013

Let's do this thing!

I started a spinning project. It's kind of an experiment because I'm using the stopwatch on my phone to time how long it takes me to spin.... oooooooo.

It came home in this crowd, from the Southern Adirondack Fiber Festival in 2011 (click through for notes).



As an aside, I've lately had an interest in looking at my pictures from fiber festivals and thinking about what I've actually used from each photo. In this one, I've spun up the fiber ball on the top right, dyed one of the ones that is white, and I've used the brownish-pinkish laceweight from Llady Llama at the bottom right. I also use the little needles for a million things. Not bad overall, but I feel like I should be more productive.

So my fiber - Wheel Candy from Bittersweet Woolery, merino dyed in a color called Bubble Gum Vampire, looked like this.



I'm 11 hours and 11 minutes in for spinning time so far.



I have about two and a half of these guys to go.




Now as to why my camera is taking pictures that look like they came from a cell phone in 2004, I don't know.

Paper Moon - these socks are still coming along. I'm into the gusset increases, which makes a cool little reverse stockinette triangle on the side of the heel area.



Morticia - I put this down in the middle of a row. Why did I think that was a good idea??



Maluka - Coming along, of course...



Pink stripey socks - I picked these up to take along to the open house at my younger son's preschool. You can't beat a couple hours of presentations in a school gym for getting a sock from most of a toe to most of a foot without looking at it! It keeps me from getting restless so I can actually still pay attention, and I get lots of knitting done. Awesome.




I have some finished objects to talk about later this week! Otherwise known as... tomorrow?

WIP Wednesday, October 9, 2013

It's October! WIP Wednesday is where I take photos of everything I've worked on in the past week, and right now there are a lot of things going!

=== This post contains spoilers for the Morticia mystery knit-a-long.===

Zee's Wallaby - I'm in the hood now and it's mindless stockinette, which means I can work on it while reading or otherwise very engaged. Then I just have to attach the underarms and weave in the ends.




Chewy - He's looking good!! He just needs his satchel and bandolier and he's done. This is the kind of project that looks really bizarre until it's almost done and then it looks like what it's supposed to....




Vlad - I've finished the fifth repeat of the chart. I'm planning on doing eleven repeats to make a nice, big shawl for BrittneyK.




Paper Moon - These are my bus stop project right now, since the pattern is really easy to memorize through the foot! It's slow going though, since I save it for special occasions.




Morticia - The mystery knit-a-long! I love how it's coming out so far. Mystery knits are a risk, and this one was a paid pattern too so I hesitated. In the end I went for it and so far I'm very glad I did!

The beads are two different colors. In my photo, the silver-lined beads show up as white spots.



Maluka - I'm trying out this yarn for The Periwinkle Sheep. It's a fingering weight single yarn and it's 100% very smooshy merino. So far, I LOVE it.



Weaving - Yeah, same pic as the other day, but I started this project last Thursday so the whole thing so far has been made in the past week.



So that's what we're looking at today. I worked on a traveling scarf and will have that out in the mail as soon as I find the packing tape.

Let's Play Catchup, Shall We?

It's been nearly a year since I posted. What have I been up to in that time?

I finished that big red sweater I last posted about. It won a second place ribbon in the fair (the ribbon is out of the frame - all the ribbons you can see are for other items!) .



The Evenstar got blocked (twice, actually) and ended up taking Reserve Champion Wool Product, and earned me the Knitting with Distinction award. I was so excited!




I think the fair is going to need its own post, because there was so much going on there!


Last May I went to Maryland Sheep &Wool for the first time. It was quite the show - lots of people, lots of fiber and lots of friends!



And I wore this on Sunday, because Trish said she'd make it in 3 days if someone would actually wear it. Who am I to hold her back?

Hmmm... let's see.... I got a loom from a moving sale a few weeks ago, and I've just started a project. I'm Youtube-taught and it's actually making fabric so I think that's a win. 

Last November I finished a bunch of stuff at once, so I took a group photo. I actually used the timer and took this one myself.

Got some kits from Knit Picks for Christmas.




More beautiful yarn club yarn from Alina Shea Creations.




Finished bigger projects..




Did some spinning.....



And dyeing....



Made some socks....



And lots of things.




I had a wonderful fiber-filled year!