The feats and foibles of a fiber fanatic.
2/13/2006
When I was home I did give the slippers to my sister, the hat to grandpa, and the scarf to grandma. All were met with much appreciation and admiration (as they deserved). I have had a few people ask what I ended up doing with the hat dilemma. Well, I pull out the corrugated rib section and just did the i-cord bind off. It looked great. I think the hat is perhaps a little big, but grandpa loves it and couldn’t stop talking about how warm it was.
Unfortunately, whenever we visited with Grandma and Grandpa B it was sort of impromptu and I didn’t have my camera with. I’ve asked my sister to take some modeled shots of the items for me but it could be some time before I get those photos as she currently isn’t on the Internet at her new apartment yet. In fact, knowing her, it could have to wait until my next trip back to MN, LOL!
The day after they had recieved their items grandma couldn’t stop talking about my knitting. It made me blush with pride. She kept saying she never knit anything as fancy as me, LOL! She also kept saying, “Imagine what I would have made if I knew Kristi when I knit!” I love that she can appreciate my efforts and be proud of the results. One day we met them for lunch at a hotel restaurant that had free wi-fi so I could help my mom research some accessibile cell phones options for the visually impaired so I showed grandma my knitting blog and the gallery of hand spun yarns and she was very excited and impressed.
While home Mom and I also tried to go to a yarn/fiber shop in a small town near the farm. There had been a write up in the Willmar Tribune several months ago about this shop but she hadn’t been able to find a phone number for us to find out their hours. So, we drove over there and it ended up they weren’t open at all in the four days I was home. Mom said there was an evening knitting gathering which didn’t match up with the hours on the door to the shop, but with no business phone listing we couldn’t find out if it was a night I was there. But, I’ll definitely have to make the next trip land so that I can visit them. It was called Homespun Studio and it is in Lake Lillian, MN. Their hours as posted on the door are Wednesday - Friday 10am - 4pm and Saturday 9am - noon. It is easy to find as Lake Lillian basically has one street and it is kind of on the north end of the “business district” on the west side of the street. If anyone out there (I know I have some MN readers) have been there I’d be interested in what the shop is like. I decided in such a small town that it would be better to not raise suspicions and window shop, LOL!
Tonight is SnB night! Wheee! I’m gonna need it, I can tell. I heard last week was more like the former gatherings before we doubled our numbers after the new year. I suspect though that it was a fluke because I wasn’t there, LOL! We’ll have to see. As much as I love meeting new knitters and such there has been that missing element of *really* knowing the people there and being able to tease and joke and bitch without second guessing the wiseness of letting something blurt out of your mouth. Most of the newer people seem to be a good fit with the rest of us crazy, liberal, scientific bunch.
P.S. I know this is a monumentally boring post today since there are no pictures. I promise there will be pictures tomorrow! You can hold me to that too!
12/13/2005
Pattern: Alberta Scarf from Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves
Designer: Myrna Stahman
Yarn: Fiesta Heaven in Adirondack, 1 skein
Needles: US 7 Addi Natura’s
# of Pattern Repeats: 3 wide plus 6 sts wide borders and 7.75 repeats lengthwise plus 8 row border
Dimension: 49.5″ X 8″ pre-blocking, 55″ X 12″ post-blocking
I don’t know why I ended up with 7.75 pattern repeats on the first lace panel, but that’s what it was when I went to match the second one. Go figure. But, I don’t think I had enough leftover yarn to have finished that quarter of a repeat on both ends anyway, so it was good luck! I have maybe 3 yards remaining from one skein.
Overall, I like the idea of seaman scarves. They do lay quite nicely. However, with a yarn that gets blocked severely, most of those scarf patterns were much too wide, IMHO. The finished dimension on these is 22 X 12 inches for each lace panel and 11 inches for the ribbed section. It will definitely cover well, but I don’t think it will double as a nice fashion accessory, as it covers all of my ample sized body. It will no doubt be plenty warm though. I could reduce the width a bit by decreasing those borders, I think I could easily cut them in half which would reduce the width by about an inch or so. The yarn also pooled quite unusually in little dashes of color making it appear somewhat stripey. It isn’t quite my taste, but I love the color combination and it will look lovely on Grandma’s complexion and she’ll be bowled over with the lace work I’m sure. I know it’ll be well loved and probably shown off to the ladies are the hairdresser’s and at church.
Snow saved the day with the blocking as she let me steal her blocking wires on Sunday afternoon. It went quite slick to block this scarf with those and our steamer. It was really odd to watch the yarn swell and relax when the hot steam hit it. It cause little undulations. I thought about taking video, but ultimately decided it was so subtle it probably wouldn’t come across at web resolution.
I’ll leave you with a closer look at the lace pattern…
I started Grandpa’s hat last night, but more on that later in the week…
11/30/2005
Grandma’s Alberta Seaman Scarf has grown by leaps and bounds since you last saw it. Of course that was roughly six weeks ago. I confess that it didn’t really get any attention until last Wednesday. I had gotten distracted by the mittens and holiday prep and illness etc. But at SnB on Monday night I pulled out the provisional cast on with some tediousness and started the ribbed section. The provisional cast on would not unzip with the mohair so I had to pick out each stitch indivdually. But it was easy and realatively painless while a few of us bitched about current events in our lives and caught up with all the events of the holiday weekend.
I have roughly another inch or so to go on the ribbing. It was suggested that you knit the ribbed section to be 70% of the circumference of the wearer’s neck, but I have no clue what g’ma’s neck measurement is. She is somewhat short and relatively petite these days so I’m thinking the smallest of the range given (10 - 12 inches) will be appropriate. It doesn’t fit me well at 10 inches, but I’m a sizeable woman (though another 5 pounds lighter despite the holiday and a two week hiatus from water aerobics).
I’m still not positive how happy I am with the yarn. I *love* the color combination, but it seems awful stripey. Though a few said how much they liked it on Monday night. Since it’s a scarf and the same number of stitches across over the whole length I guess it isn’t the worst thing to appear a bit stripey because it’s the same over the whole thing. But, I’ll reserve final judgement until after blocking.
In the meantime, here is a close up shot of the pattern semi-blocked with the aid of my feet while I took the pic…
11/28/2005
No, the northern Colorado front range did not get snow as forecasted. But, I got to spend time with Snow TWICE in one weekend!
First, she heard that it was just DH & I for Thanksgiving so she invited us to join her band of merry makers on Thursday. And, a wonderful day it was. I had a big dinner planned and most of the groceries purchased to make a special meal for DH & I already, but since DH is vegetarian I don’t usually get the oportunity to have turkey - let alone pie (and 3 kinds at that from a legendary local bakery which most people just cannot compete with) and fart loaf!
Following for the food fest (I was actually pretty proud of myself for not overindulging much and staying comfortable full) G planned an outing for the late show of Pride & Prejudice. It’s no BBC mini-series, but was it was pretty good (there will be a more thorough review at some point this week at Culture Catalog - probably later today).
Then, on Saturday I cooked our delayed feast and invited SIL3 over as we discovered on Thursday that the remaining siblings were scattered throughout the state on Thursday and we had assumed she had gone to celebrate with her boyfriend, but had not. DH was not feeling well (we think he *might* have given himself food poisoning trying a bit of his homemade cheese from a batch that wasn’t cook quite properly - don’t worry he’s kept careful track of these things and won’t be giving out wheels from questionable batches). I think he’d learned that if it doesn’t smell like the type of cheese you made it probably isn’t a good thing to try a bite. So, I got to scratch one dish of the day’s meal and made a feast for SIL3 & myself. It was great and I sent some leftovers home with her so I’m not eating only thanksgiving leftovers this week. I have plenty but will be able to mix them up with other things.
Following that massive cooking and cleaning frenzy I went to Snow’s house again for knitting and conversation. We were of the delusion that we could watch a movie, but it just wasn’t happening. We’re all too talkative, LOL! I also discovered that g’ma’s mohair lace seaman’s scarf is not a good visiting project. I kind of already knew this, but I made such amazing progress on it on Wednesday night at DH’s write-in that I thought it would be okay. However, in the two hours or so I was at Snow’s I only got 1.5 pattern repeats and the seed stitch edging and BO done. I’m going to try real hard to not cast on for the second mitten until I at least have this gift off of the needles.
It is SnB tonight and I’m looking forward to hearing of everyone’s holiday adventures over the weekend. Two of the gals were on rather lengthy road trips for the holiday and I’m sure they will have stories to tell. I will pull out the provisional cast-on for g’ma’s scarf and start the ribbing sometime today and I’m sure I’ll be able to handle doing the ribbing while visiting and listening to tales.
I have no pics for you and I’m sorry. However, yesterday was spent cleaning and decorating. I’m still not done. I’m doing it in stages, but now I have to alternate cleaning and decorating with baking, for I have a holiday knitting tea to put on Saturday afternoon! I’m not usually much of a baker. I prefer cooking to baking and DH is the opposite so that usually works out well. However, I’ve planned the menu for the tea to give me an opportunity to par take in recipes that are special to me at the holiday time and we haven’t really done that before, despite my not spending the holiday with my family since 1999. Not to mention DH is involved with the last days of NANOWRIMO and trying to complete his novel, but his being sick this weekend has put him quite behind. So, it’s up to me and I’ll be able to do it just fine, I just don’t enjoy baking as much as cooking.
I hope all those who celebrated this weekend had a wonderful time!
10/12/2005
I gave a shot at making a mohair scarf for my grandmother late last winter with some Fiesta yarn. It has gorgous colors. However, the combination of stitch pattern and needle size I had chose (and probably inexperience with unblocked and blocked lace differences) made me frog it. Well, over the weekend I started a new one…
It’s the Alberta Seaman Scarf from Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves, which is really a fern lace pattern on both ends and a ribber section around the neck area so it lays nicely. At SnB (yes, I did get to go thanks to wonderfully caring friends) on Monday Amanda suggested I use short rows instead because then it lays against the back, but I just can’t wrap my head around the short rows in the pattern… I suppose I could make the center part seed stitch like the borders of the bottom sections are and short row that… Though what is clearest in my mind is then knitting that center section from the bottom up to the neck… I really must learn more about short rows so I can figure them out for myself. While I can do them to turn a heel or make arrangements for my ample chest, it is one spatial thing I often can’t visualize.
Anyway, this is only about 8.5 inches of what should be around 20-24 inches so I’ve got a little more time to contemplate that option…
It does feel stripey to me, but I’ve found that often once blocked the varigated lace can look much better. So, I’m just going with the flow and if it is stripey, it’s stripey! I’m sure grandma won’t care. She’ll be showing it off at church and the hair dresser’s and going on about what a creative and talented granddaughter I am. (Kind of like how I had to send her THREE of my wedding invites because she carried it around in her purse to show everyone and they kept getting ratty looking and that won’t do for bragging about grandchildren, LOL!)
