Tango lessons from Ralph
Learned crossado and ocho
Dancing with my love!
P.S. Grandma went home yesterday. She poisoned herself by mixing Robitussen and Musenix D. Her 91 year old body just couldn’t handle mixing such strong cough medicine. . take care when medicating your colds and coughs!
Grandma had a cold
Overdosed on cold syrup
Now she’s really sick
No knitting today
Hammering, sawing, and dust
Basement construction
I am proud to note
A new knitter on the block
Niece Ellie knows how!
About a year ago I got a very long text message from my 14 year old niece, Ellie, asking me how to cast off her scarf. I laughed out loud at the prospect of “texting” back the instructions. Like most of my generation, I’m more comfortable and efficient with a phone conversation than hunting and pecking a text message on a phone. The letters on the phone are so small I can barely make them out!
Ellie taught herself to knit. . . back and forth for a very long time. . . but didn’t know how to stop. I helped.
Also, I just happened to draw her name for our Christmas exchange. Voila! I had the perfect gift! Knitting lessons!
Being a young city hipster, what do you suppose she wanted to knit for her first project? Wrist warmers, very long wrist warmers. Great! We knit a swatch, on which she purled for the first time. (a good knitter knows ribbing is required on wrist warmers) We measured her stitches and rows and decided how many stitches to cast on. Then I taught her to knit on two circulars. “Okay,” I said, “Call me when you want to start the thumb.”
She was on holiday vacation from school and had nothing but time. . . one week later she was ready to start the thumb gusset.
Now she knows how to increase (at least one way to increase). She knit the gusset during that night’s lesson and we put the thumb stitches on a piece of scrap yarn. “Okay,” I said, “Call me when you are done ribbing above the thumb”.
Well, back in school, she doesn’t have as much free time. It took three weeks to knit the 1 1/2 inches of 2/2 rib for the palm. Last night we knit the thumb. Unfortunately that was all we had time for, since her homework was calling. “What kind of homework” I asked. “Math, Biology, English, and History”, was the response. Oh how happy I am NOT to be in school and have nothing but time (ha ha) for knitting!
The results of Ellie’s knitting:
And a fuzzy picture of her gusset! (I can knit. . . but digital cameras tend to get the better of me. Sorry about the image quality)
Ellie, welcome to the fold!
Shawn
I’ve finally finished the pattern for my Knotty Totes! It is available on my etsy store
I knit three of them, using different colors of Geneva, Euroflax linen, and 100% cotton fabric. They worked up really fast.
I keep one in may car and whenever I run into a store for an item or two, I have my non-plastic, non -paper tote.
Good for me, good for the earth!
Happy Knitting,
Shawn
My friend Ellen needed a new pair of mittens. . . really, I do too. . . but these fit her better than me.
I used my Garter Stitch Mitten pattern and knit these up in a few short hours.
The yarn is from Dream In Color in color Strange Harvest. I purchased the yarn a few weeks ago at Needleworks Unlimited in South Minneapolis. I might add it was a harrowing experience. . . not in the yarn store, that was heavenly, walking around looking at, feeling, and smelling yarn. . . but when I left.
I drive a big old van that has absolutely traction. Also, I’ve taken the seats out to give me room for hauling stuff, which makes the van weight lighter than normal. Can you tell where this is going? I got stuck. It was a warmer day. . . about 10 degress F. . . and there were “lovely” ruts on the parking side of the road. I could not move. I tried rocking back and forth and still I had no forward momentum. The tires spun and spun. They finally hit pavement, but that only meant the tires were buried in 6 inches of muck and ice. I was late for a lunch date and not sure what to do. Luckily, two painters came out of a near by restaurant, (I could tell they were painters by their clothes). Aha, strong men.
They were kind enough to give me a push, but they got a snowy, mushy, shower. Many many thanks to them for their good deed for the day!
Anyway, here is a picture of Ellen in her mitts. . . and an appropriate pose for these mitts!
I need some help deciding which one is better. . . or shall I keep them both?
I knit these socks using the feather and fan pattern with a 4 stitch cable in between. The fun part is that I moved the pattern around.
I was thinking of writing up a pattern for this and couldn’t decide how to place the patterns. . . so I made two socks slightly different.
Each sock has 3 feather lace patterns and 3 4-st cable patterns.
One sock has the feather lace going down the center of the front with cables at the sides. This puts two feather patterns in the back with the cable in the center of the back. On this sock I ran this center cable down the entire heel.
The other sock has the cable running down the center of the front with two feather patterns down the side. This puts two cable patterns on each side of a centered feather lace down the back of the sock. I ran these cables along the side down into the heel too.
The placement of the designs also gave the top of each sock a different scallop. . . I still can’t decide which I like better. I think I like the one with the feather lace down the center front and the cable running down the center back and down into the heel.
Let me know which one you like better!
Happy knitting,
Shawn
A friend of mine has done some amazing needlefelted designs on my felted hats. Just wanted to share them with you!
Of course I must remind you that I sell these hats on my etsy site!
I was lucky enough to make some new friends in December! We had a needlefelting party and in addition to good snacks and conversation we created some stunning hats.
Using Geneva worsted weight linen and 1″ wide cotton fabric strips. These are soooo fun to knit.
To check the pattern I had my two moms each knit one. . .they knit theirs using Plymouth cotton instead of linen and they turned out beautiful as well. (and were about 1/4 the cost)
It is a bit tricky learning to knit with the strips but once you get used to it you can just zip along. I tried 1/2 inch strips (because the fabric folds and you end up knitting 1/2 inch wide strips anyway) but the 1 inch wide strips work best. . .the 1/2 inch strips just roll up and look really messy.
The strap is knit in only the fabric, keeping all the knots on one side (I left them on the purl side, hanging out).
It does take a bit of sewing skill to attach them to the tote. . . but if I can do it, anyone can!
Happy knitting
Shawn