Fiber Fool

Monday and Tuesday we had a nice break from the hot weather we’ve had recently so, yesterday I decided to bake Almond Rusks. It is a traditional Swedish recipe from the 125th anniversary cookbook of the church I grew up in. The result is very similar to a biscotti and the process is similar as well since they require a double baking.

Unlike some of the more recent baking adventures this went quite smoothly for me. Thank goodness!

It is very nearly official now, I am starting a podcast on all things Swedish. I got trained on the 8-track recorder last night and will sit down to start recording the episode this afternoon after I return from my no-class water aerobics (yep, the classes are on break this week, but the pool is open so I’m going to be good and go do the exercises myself). I suspect there will be some kinks to work out in the posting of the podcast files themselves and there is the time it will take for iTunes to pick me up, but the site is all together and ready at http://www.fikacast.com if you’d like to take a sneak peek.

I am afraid that all my messing around with getting that site going has messed with my wrist so I’m trying to spread out and limit my typing and it means no knitting too :-( I just hardly know what to do with myself when I shouldn’t type or knit or spin…

Though there are over 400 participants in the Summer 2006 Amazing Lace we are doing our best to profile each team’s members. Today, we have Arty McLace reporting from Colorado where he is interviewing team Fiber Fool. Arty…

Arty: Thank you. I am here in a piece of suburbia nestled against the northern Colorado foothills of the Rocky Mountains. In a well lit corner of a somewhat sparse yet cozy living room we have the captain of team Fiber Fool, Kristi Schueler, seated comfortably in a leather chair with ottoman warming up for some lace work with a bit of larger gauge knitting. She has within arms reach a beverage, a lap top with wireless networking and access to the Internet, a crochet hook, a small container filled with copious amounts of small baby rubber bands, a magazine, a stack of sticky notes, and a large green bag I can only guess houses her other two teammates.

Kristi, can you tell me a bit about your background and why you decided to sign-up your team for The Amazing Lace this year?

Kristi: Thank you Arty. Well, I have always enjoyed the beautiful shawls I’ve seen knit around blogland and always coveted one for myself. After a successful completion of the Seraphim Shawl, albeit in a heavier weight yarn, I felt I could successfully complete the challenges of The Amazing Lace.

Arty: What level of lace experience to you bring to team Fiber Fool?

Kristi: Well, I first knit lace in early 2005, completing a pair Spearfish socks that have a lace cuff and lace panel down the sides in March. I followed that closely by another pair of socks, this time even lacier as well as a tank top with some lace accents that has yet to be completed. I then took a break from lace, casting-on for a Leaf Lace shawl in early fall of 2005 but Leaf Lace and I decided on a trial separation after my whirlwind trip to Iowa in September without her and without detailed enough notes to team up again with ease. This prompted yet another break from lace until late March of 2006 when I began Seraphim. This was an easy lace shawl with a large section of stockinette stitch at the top and a relatively easy section of lace at the edges. It was also knit from a heavier gauge yarn. But it was a success. My first lace shawl success. I guess I was on a bit of a completion high when I signed up for the Amazing Lace, but I do not regret the decision. I’m excited to be a part of a such a large event in blogland.

Arty: It seems you do not bring a lot of experience to the team. What prompted you to enter the Amazing Lace?

Kristi: Well, you are correct that I do not bring an extensive amount of lace-specific experience to team Fiber Fool. I’m like a runner in her first marathon. Our team’s goal is to complete the Amazing Lace, not necessarily to win it. I feel I bring just enough experience to the team to make that possible. While my experience with lace may not be extensive and our history quite short, I feel I am an experienced enough knitter who has experienced and expert (if not a little crazy) lace knitters nearby who can provide accurate coaching and cheering when needed.

Arty: Can you introduce us to your other teammates, Kristi?

Kristi: After my successful partnership with Seraphim I decided to team up with another Miriam Felton pattern, Icarus from the Summer 2006 Interweave Knits (IK) magazine. It shares similar yet different elements with Seraphim, including a simplistic yet elegant top of stockinette stitch striped with yo, k1, yo groupings making its way towards another feather inspired lace motif at the bottom. I think it will be just the right challenge level for the transition to lace weight yarn. Also, there is an Icarus Knit-a-Long so that I can get some coaching and cheering from others who are also knitting the same pattern.

Arty: Which lace weight yarn did you choose to bring onto your team, Kristi?

Kristi: As luck would have it, Arty, I had added a skein of Fino by Alpaca with a Twist in the color Twilight to my stash over my birthday. It was a birthday gift from my mother. Though she couldn’t see, she helped me choose the color, a dusty blue color with just a touch green for some richness. While Icarus calls for the suri alpaca yarn from the same company, I think Fino will make a great substitute. Fino is an alpaca and silk yarn blended at 70% alpaca and 30% silk. I think this will likely lend my Icaraus similar properties of softness, shine, and drape as the suri alpaca in the original shawl. I have only just begun working with my team, but so far we all seem to be a good match for each other. There was a bit of a bump in the road when I couldn’t acquire the proper sized needles to join the team, but we brought on US4 Addi Turbos and the coaching staff are more than happy with the resulting fabric. I can be a slightly tight knitter, plus I am a larger woman so if I get a slightly larger shawl at the end it will be all right.

Arty: Thank you Kristi, Icarus, and Fino for allowing me to profile you for The Amazing Lace. I look forward to coming back to view your progress over the summer and I wish you the best of luck!

This is just a small sampling of things around the house that I interact with regularly that are green. As usual, if you click on the image it will take you to Flickr where you can go look at the individual pictures and find out more about the items in the photographs.

Also, below is a sampling of things I’ve made in the past that are green. This is definitely not a complete grouping, it is just the items that were already residing in my Flickr account. Again, if you click on the image you can then go look at the individual photos and find out more about them.

First up, Scout put out another call for knitting spots. Well, I moved mine yesterday… Not permanently mind you, but I spun up 2 ounces of my Northern Lights BFL roving yesterday while sitting under our plum trees in the back. It was nice and breezy and mostly shaded (though my chest which is now a tomato doesn’t quite agree with that). I’m a bit ashamed to show you what I could see from my set-up, but our yard is a work in progress. We got a terrible yard when we bought it. We signed our contract four months before we closed and in that time the people we bought it from stopped watering, mowing, cleaning the house, etc. And, they amused their children while packing by giving them crayons and pencils to color on the walls (all of them) and then strategically placed boxes over them for our final walk through…. Oooo, I got off on a tangent there didn’t I? Ah, my spinning and knitting space from yesterday…

Well, there has been no significant weight loss in the past two weeks and I’m afraid my walking of Emma has dwindled as it has gotten warmer and the pollen counts have been rising. But I’ve maintained which is okay.

I have noticed more toning though. This past weekend I realized that I once again have biceps. I don’t know that I can express how happy this makes me. I grew up on a farm. It was good to be strong and not have any troubles moving around 40-lb feed bags and 70-lb bales of hay. Not that I did it very often, but it was good to be independent when it came to heavy things. I wouldn’t be stupid and go out and lift heavy things for no reason now, as I still have some back/neck issues. But, it has been at least a few months since I had a real bad bout of muscle spasms. And, ultimately that is my real goal and any benefit of weight loss is a plus.

My eating hasn’t been as good as it could have been, but it hasn’t been terrible. My biggest struggle is lunches. It’s so much easier to go through a drive through after water aerobics. I can do pretty good if I got to Wendy’s. If I get their grilled chicken sandwhich with a fruitcup, water, and a junior frosty it is only 11 gm of fat, leaving me 29 gm of fat to spare for the rest of the day. I do like my miso soup and edamame and that is very healthy, but I do need to mix it up or I’ll get sick of it fast. What are you favorite healthier lunches that are quick and easy for one??

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There hasn’t been any progress on Icarus since 5/16 or so. I was too busy trying to get those citrus hats completed for the baby shower this week as the shower was only announced about ten days before it happened. I also got sucked into the lure of my recieved dye-o-rama yarn and have cast on a sock - not the brightest idea considering the Trek-a-Long begins soon, but oh well, you go where your muse takes you, right? I’m dedicated to Icarus and she’ll be completed by summer’s end I’m sure.
Well, that is about all that is worthy of update.

I’ll have the Amazing Lace intro and an update on my Dye-o-Rama dyeing early next week. I’ll also have another Spectrum Sunday. Though I may opt to take Monday off. We’ll have to see. I find it hard to get things done when DH is around and under foot…

I hope those of you in the US enjoy the long weekend and the marker of the summer vacation season. Be safe!

Darn, I wish it were Friday today… My allergies are still kind of kicking my butt, but I’m on meds now. I need to watch it as she also prescribed some steroids to get it under control and she said if after a few days I wasn’t doing a bit better I should get that Rx filled and go through that first to jump start getting stuff under control.

Anyway, the good stuff… Yesterday we had a very lovely baby shower for S from my water aerobics class. It was a salad potluck at the home of our instructor. The food was amazing. I think my favorites were T’s German potato salad and D’s tabouleh. My Mexican two bean salad was a huge hit and I came home with an empty bowl. There was even German chocolate cake and ice cream to wash down all the salads. I just took a tiny sliver as I’m not a huge coconut fan, but it was quite good.

S was told by her doctor that he would be surprised if she made it through the weekend. Here is a photo of the 16-mo soon to be big brother checking out the citrus hats I knit for the twins. He didn’t get left out though. I brought him a small stuffed lion that was incredibly cute. He gave it a bit hug and put it back in the bag, LOL! Poor S is going to have three in diapers for a while - yikes! The twins were a big surprise as I guess they had had fertility issues with R. The twins are girls, but they are waiting to share the names until they are born. S calls into the pool every day we have water aerobics to let us know that she hasn’t had them yet.

Here is a slightly better look at them. I’m afraid I didn’t have time to show them off real well as I was running late getting out of the house and diagonally across town for the shower so the photos were taken in a bit of a rush.

I had lost my notes on the shaping at the top as they were on my hard drive that crash back in March. I knit the lime first and that doesn’t have much of a nub on the top, but then I held it next to a lime we had and it was about right for limes it seemed. I think the lemon shaping is cuter though.

Pattern: My Own
Yarn: Bernat Cottontots, small amounts of Sugar & Cream for the stem and leaves
Needles: US 5s and US3s, sets of 5 DPNs
Gauge: ~5 sts/in
Size: 15-inch Circumference
Recipient: S’s soon to be here twins

I have been told that there will be a modeled shot to share later, but I won’t count on it as I’m sure she’ll be much too busy for a while. Plus, I knit them a little on the large size so they can wear them when the weather gets colder. But, should I at some point get a photo of the twins wearing the hats I will surely share it with you all.

I was a bit surprised at how quickly I was able to turn these out. I thought it would take me longer since they are cotton, but it seems all the MDK warshrags had trained me for marathon, race-to-the-finish cotton knitting. Thanks Ann and Kay!