Yarn Art

I was teaching at my LYS yesterday, and not surprisingly, during the course of the day, I picked up a few things here and there for some projects I have in mind, plus a skein of yarn for a prize drawing on the Yahoo group where I’ve been hosting the Concerto KAL. I had to laugh when I went to pay for my treasures. Totally by accident, the goodies I’d gathered for four different projects were perfectly coordinated!

It made me wonder if there was a good, creative way to use them all together in a project, then I remembered I’m giving the skein of alpaca away (It’s heading to Germany to an alpaca newbie!). I decided in the end that maybe the best way to use it all together was with to make some yarn art. Isn’t it pretty? And this way, Claudia gets her prize, my doll gets her outfit, my shawl still gets its special touch, and I’m still totally baffled as to what I’m ever going to do with those fantastic buttons.

Running Away From Home

(As always, please excuse these stupid out of focus pictures. I’ve still not managed to get my camera problems resolved – too much going on! Also, at least as of this moment, I’m finding the photos to be showing up somewhat sporadically. If you see a big blank spot with the word “Atlanta” and a number, it means a picture is supposed to be there. Try clicking on the title of this post. For some reason, I’m seeing different photos when I do that.)

So, last week, on rather short notice, I ran away from home. A friend wrote in the middle of June, asking if I’d like to go to Atlanta for the UFDC Convention. I had next to no money, but I couldn’t resist the draw of some time away from home, so as crazy as the idea was, I said yes. I knew I could scratch together enough for my flight and my share of the room (which wasn’t inexpensive!), but past that, I would have to depend on peanut butter crackers, potential birthday money, and whatever sales I could stimulate in the few weeks before the trip. Happily, I came up with enough that I could eat one cheap meal out each day and have something to spend in the sales rooms, and a last minute addition of another roommate made it even a bit better. Still, I have to say that it was really tough being in such a fantastic sea of awesome dolls and accessories with so very little money, and there were a couple of wonderful dolls I lost out on because they were just a little beyond what I had in my pocket. But I didn’t come home empty handed -  and now that it’s a week after the event, I don’t even mind having eaten so much peanut butter.

Hotels that look like this inside don’t come with cheap rooms…

View out our window – see the capitol building?

Martine and Hitty Darlene went along with me, so they did a bit of looking around for treasures. Hitty D. found little in her price range that she liked, but she was quite pleased with the pretzel, which reminded her very much of the huge German pretzels one can purchase at Englischer Gartens in Munich.

She really wished she had money to purchase the great bobbin lace pillow, but it was definitely out of her price range,

and the horse was fun to ride, but she couldn’t imagine paying $200 for it!

Martine, with some judicious bargaining and her sweet smile, brought home all sorts of goodies for her brothers and sisters, and a pair of Joyce Nicholsen’s espadrilles for herself. The little doll in the trunk is one of Alison Harwood’s fantastic creations. Jean-Paul apparently already ran off with his little wooden floor puzzle. Martine has promised to teach Gayelle to knit with the dress kit she bought for her. The purse is “so Malloree” that I chipped in a little bit of my money when Martine found herself a bit short at the end of the day.

We also picked out a few pieces of fabric.

And I bought a little something for my sewing room…

I really had a strong desire to bring home a new doll this year, but on my budget, the only things I was finding I could afford were the mundane – which I really don’t need. I’m definitely sufficiently stocked with those. If money were no object (That will be the day!), this is the one doll I’d have had to have owned. She wasn’t the most expensive doll there by a long shot, but she’s the one who stole my heart most completely.

This beautiful Kestner pink tint, covered wagon, china I thought was going to be mine. She wasn’t priced too badly, but still out of my range, but since it was the end of the last day of the show when I found her, I took the info and intended to contact the seller in a few weeks. However, I went back a half hour later and she was gone – sold. I embarrassed myself by crying. I’d so wanted her! However, she was $25 more than every penny I’d brought along, so…

I did find someone to come home with me, though, and she’s a pretty little gal who is unlike anyone else I have, so a nice addition to the family. And I could actually afford to adopt her, which was a big plus. She’s an ABG Dolly Madison china doll, from the early 1870’s, about 25″ tall. Clothes are not original, nor do they come remotely close to fitting her. In fact, they are so small that it’s going to be a trick getting the dress off of her. Her seller was a bit of a sourpuss, too, so she was more than happy to come home with me. I’m looking forward to having some time to dress her more appropriately, and I’m hoping I happen to have at least some underthings to fit her – though I’m not holding my breath on that count.

On Friday, we went to the Atlanta History Center. We saw some wonderful stuff there, but sadly weren’t allowed to bring any of it home in pictures, making it hard to retain what we saw and learned during our visit. These are two of the period homes which we toured – the Swan House and the Tulley Smith Plantation, two totally different types of homes, and each utterly charming in its own way.

And our trip through town netted me one of my favorite styles of city pix.

And in addition to the touring and shopping, there was all sorts of great fun, meeting a number of people I’d only known online until now, room parties, aching feet, and the pride of conquering the public transit system in Atlanta… All in all a very nice week!

It Doesn’t Seem Quite Fair

I’m still here, believe it or not. The irony of things is that the more I have to post, the less time I have to do so. If I’m quiet here, you can pretty much figure I’m up to my neck, and that’s definitely the case right now. Knitting has been busy, but the Mistake Fairy has been making life pretty miserable, allowing me far less progress than the hours knitting would lead one to expect. I have just received pattern and yarn for a test knit, so some projects will be going on hold, or at least moved down a rung, until I complete that project, which I have to say is very exciting to me. I’ve also been scheduled as the speaker for the Dayton Knitting Guild meetings in March – which both excites and terrifies me! Lots more knitting excitement, too, but I will leave that to another post.

Sewing room is progressing slowly, but steadily. I’m putting things in their homes or the sale pile, with a fairly comprehensive sorting as I go. It feels time consuming to me to be doing the slow part of the project mixed in with the faster things, but I think it’s smart for me and the way my brain works. They say that 80% of  a job takes 20% of the time and the other 20% takes 80% of the time on a project. I’m not good at getting back to an interrupted project, so what happens most often for me is that the 80% gets done, then something comes up to sidetrack me, and I never get back to that 20%. Of course, do that often enough and the balance tips – i.e. there is a house full of 20%ers. I’ve been very diligent since the first of the year to work in there at least 15 minutes per day, often more, and it is paying off nicely. There are places I just don’t have enough room to store all that I own, so I’ve gone through needlework books and patterns yet again, a second cull, and will be trying to decide where and how to list what I have available to sell – when I have time, that is. This has been tough for me, as I really think I have good taste. I didn’t plan on getting rid of what I sorted out the last time, let alone going through yet again. However, the book shelves are wood, not rubber, and there’s a limit as to what fits!

I’m looking forward to a visit from my daughter in Honduras and my own trip to visit a friend in Pennsylvania, both planned to happen in the next 6 weeks. With the continued clean up, an online class, an awful lot more email that normal, the Bleuette Stash Swap, which I host each year, and my knitting, it’s really been busy here!

Thought you might enjoy a few pix of our ice and snow storm from last week. I was surprised to get good photos. My camera is sick, and it only focuses when it’s in the mood. Happily enough, it apparently decided these were worthy of the effort.The one above is by far  my favorite, but I’m fairly pleased with all three shots.

Contrary to Appearances…

I’m still alive and kicking, and I do know how to count. What I don’t know yet is how to totally control all those lovely little things that just “happen” in life, nor have I entirely conquered the skill of estimating precisely how long certain chores will take. To those last two matters, I owe my very extended 3 week break. (And Joy, when you said 3 weeks was a long time, you didn’t know the half of it!)

So, here I am finally – and at least partially. I have about ten dozen things I’d love to share, but I figured I’d be better off to try to put up a short post – then do the same thing again – regularly. ;o) So, with that thought in mind…

The internet fast was spawned not by any grand personal challenge, but rather by reality. There wasn’t a full internet connection where I was. It was somewhat spur of the moment – at least based on what it was and how much prep time it required – but I ended up with tickets for an out of country experience. My daughter, who lives in Honduras, was getting a hankering to see her mother, so she started pesting (her word for the activity)  me to visit again, asking me to come over Thanksgiving and hopefully early enough to go with her when she renewed her visa. It took me a good while to actually say “yes,” though I knew from the start that I wasn’t going to say “no.” So, November 10 found me heading to a hotel near the airport to get a few hours sleep before my early morning flight.

I can’t begin to go into details. First of all, I’m sure most of you would be bored beyond tears if I launched into a narrative of my trip. There is a rather fat album of currently uncaptioned pictures and videos now residing at the MyPhotoAlbum link in the sidebar. Captions coming eventually – I hope! A capsule summary would be that my daughter lives at a children’s home in the mountainous region of Honduras, and she works there as a full-time cook. This results in me helping get more people fed more meals in 2 weeks than I do the entire rest of the year here at home. This year, potatoes seemed to be my thing, and by the time I came home, I’d peeled and cut up a good 100 pounds of the things. I still can’t look at a french fry without wincing!

Perhaps the true highlight for me in the kitchen was learning how to make cheese. It was SO good! I can’t wait to do it here at home, and I’ve laid in the basic supplies already.

Other daily life activities include selling milk, cheese, eggs, banana bread, menudos, and other assorted items out the kitchen window to the local people, generally mangling the Spanish language in the process, but loving every moment of the interaction.

I always look forward to going to market with her, as well as having a shopping in town day. This year it was rainy and muddy. I came home covered in mud from my waist down, thinking the situation quite far removed from running into Kroger’s for the week’s produce!

We’ve staged a girls’ party both times I’ve gone down, this year making it a tea party, which was very well received. Worshipping in the church and local homes as part of a congregation well mixed with Americans and Hondurans is always a memorable experience – as well as one that I find painful to not be able to share in photos.

And, of course, never is life boring when you are living with 26 children aged 2 weeks to 15. I hope that my photos and videos will have accurately captured some of the joy of being there.

This year, we had several special activities planned. One day we took Marissa’s two special charges and drove to Pulhapanzak, an impressive waterfall. Despite the mist and drizzle in the air, we had a wonderful day, and we all arrived home tired and muddy, but very happy.

Thanksgiving was another special event, and it probably deserves its own blog entry. It was a definitely memorable day! And the last, and certainly not the least, of these activities was the overland trip the two of us made to Belize – a definite step of faith for me, as Marissa had never done this without a travel companion experienced in this sort of journey. We had a wonderful and restful time away, and she said it was her best trip out of country since she went down there.

I was certainly pleased!

Sadly enough, I had to pack my bags and come home the day after Thanksgiving. What teary farewells, especially when the school girls came to give me hugs before running off to classes! It was more difficult for me to leave this time than before, having had yet more time to love them in person.

After a somewhat rocky trip home, I found myself looking at nearly three weeks of undone work, a massive pile of mail, over 2000 emails, suitcases to unpack and air, and the reality of Christmas being imminent – with no shopping whatsoever having been accomplished. Figuring that wasn’t enough of a challenge, I promptly got sick! I’ve finally gotten past that, unpacked the bags, got reaquainted with my knitting, started the shopping, and learned not to look too closely at the total number of emails still unread…

More soon!

Sky Drama on the Needles

I’m laughing as I write that title. Sounds like a wild and crazy adventure, doesn’t it? Actually, it is, in a way, but… well… Let me start at the beginning.

As promised last week, I’m finally sharing more about another of my mystery shawl projects. It was a “life happens” sort of week, so yes, I’m behind. Anyway, this is the Fall Mystery Shawl being presented on the Icelandic Shawl Group on Yahoo. The clues are being pulled at the end of each week, so it’s too late to get in on the KAL portion, but if you are interested, the pattern will be available from Wendy McDonnell after the KAL is completed. This is the shawl that belongs to this swatch:

I’m knitting with some absolutely mouth-wateringly wonderful, laceweight yarn from Lisa Souza in the Sky Drama colorway. It’s the first of her yarn I’ve ever seen, and all I can say is that I’m incredibly glad I risked buying it. It’s extremely soft and wonderful to handle, and the colors have a wonderful richness without being too bold. I’m just not sure how to describe it, but the thought that keeps coming to me is that it just feels alive. The beads are Transparent Rainbow Clear Dyna-Mites in size 8/0 from Fire Mountain Gems. Beads are notoriously difficult to photograph, so you will just have to trust me that in person they add a pleasant, but not overwhelming, bit of sparkle to the shawl. I’m really pleased with my bead choice, and the holes seem to be consistently large enough for me to put them on with a size 13 crochet hook.

Now, I said I love Lisa’s yarn, and it’s a good thing, as I had a mile and a half of it to wind into a ball. (Any idea how long that takes?) It’s all – gloriously enough – presented as a single skein, and I now have an amazing yarn cake, especially considering I wound it on a standard sized ball winder. I was really holding my breath toward the end and fighting the urge to tighten my winding tension from the time I was about halfway through the skein, but I managed to behave myself, and was paid off with it working out – barely! I have to add that I’d been in fear of what sort of tangly mess I’d have with well over 2000 yards of laceweight being hand-dyed and skeined, but I was amazed to find not a single challenge in the winding – one of the best skeins I’ve ever handled. Get the idea I adore Lisa’s stuff? True confessions… I love it so much that I actually did a yarn ball photo shoot!

Don’t you just love the way the yarn wound into plaid? For the curious, these are all straight out of the camera. The last two are forced out of focus by putting the camera too close to the yarn. I’d never done that before, but I’m thrilled with the results. A fantasy would be to figure out how to make the last two photos – well actually all four – into scrapbook paper, though first I need a way to print 12″ paper… There should be someone out there that does that as a service – custom prints scrapbook paper from client’s own photos. Hmmm…

So anyway, the first clue for this shawl came out on October 3. I have to say that it totally confused me at first reading, as it’s not being presented in a traditional fashion. Once I finally figured out what was supposed to be going on in the first clue, I graphed it, and from there I was fine. The designer’s concept is to encourage the knitter to set up the basic outline of the shawl from her instructions, then work through it by reading the knitting. My brain just isn’t the most comfortable working that way, and since I knit for relaxation and enjoyment, I was much happier once I put the pattern into a format that works with my thought processes more happily. It was just too much for me to think about to have to watch each individual element as I worked along the row, taking the appropriate next step, especially when I was distracted by stopping to add beads. Once I had a graph made, I had smooth and happy sailing.

One thing that did happen in the graphing is that there was a set of increases that wasn’t working right straight off the pattern. I couldn’t figure out how to graph what was really intended, so I ended up creating (unventing?) my own special centered increase. I rather like the way it turned out, and so far it’s working well through the first two clues, so I’m hopeful it will continue to look good. I might have to incorporate it in something else one of these days. You can see it between the two diamond panels here in my photo of the first week’s work.

Since I took that picture, the second clue has come out. I’d moved the point of the diamond over by one space to center it when I originally knit this first section, but didn’t like that blunt end much. Once I read week two, which says to work as many rows as the knitter likes in the given pattern, I decided it wouldn’t be a problem to have an extra row on clue one, so went back and redid them to look like this. I’m much happier now. I really wish I’d paid better attention to how the beads were fitting into the design, though. I’d like them a little higher – but that’s probably somewhat of a hyper-detail that’s not really necessary…

Because this pattern is written in a way totally different than I think, I’m finding it to be the most difficult shawl I’ve worked to date. The actual knitting is easy enough – though picky because of the beads. My problem lies in being a mathematical/logical thinker. Once I get it all down on paper, and I can see what I’m doing, I’m fine. I am rather enjoying the challenge of decoding the concept into a pattern I can work happily. I’ve graphed, but not worked, Clue 2, and I’m already curious to see where this will be going next. Hopefully, pix of the second clue will be here in the next few days, so stay tuned!

I do so like Lisa Souza’s yarn… sigh… )

Sweet & Sour

I don’ t have time to write more than a brief entry right now, but I had to put something up! I’ve been working at the somewhat gruesome task of saving all the photo stories I entrusted to Epson over the last few years. If you don’t know, they are closing their album site at the end of the month, and bless their hearts anyway, they chose not to set up a deal with anyone else to transfer the pictures. This means that I’m having to save each photo back to my computer after enlarging it on Epson’s site, then upload it to my new site – which is actually plural, as I’m trying to avoid the headache of having to deal with this sort of situation again, at least any time in the very near future. Of course, both new sites have totally different formats, not only from each other, but also from Epson. Once I get the photos where I want them, then I have to copy the captions over. They are posted at both sites, and I’m also emailing them to two different web hosted email accounts. I just really don’t want to lose this stuff, but the price I’m paying is hours of time and the risk of going totally loony before I’m finished. I do think I’m getting over the learning curve, so the process is speeding up. However, I’d much rather be knitting than redoing a task that was a pleasure to do spread out over several years, and a nightmare to rush through.

So anyway, in the midst of this irritating task today, I got a phone call that gave me enough adrenalin to transfer another entire album. My offer to teach beginner’s knitting classes has been accepted! I was almost afraid to hope, but now I can start making firm plans – and in fact, must make them quickly so I can quote a price on class kits. I’m so full of ideas that it will be difficult to narrow them down to a perfect 4 week course, but since I have to be employed in a somewhat brainless task, thanks to Epson, I’m sure it won’t take me too many days.

I’m so excited… I just can’t hide it… Yippee!!!

Fiber Art

I guess I about overdosed on fiber this week. Thursday was good for another high with the arrival of a Knit Picks order and a package of hand dyed roving. Maybe it was just the yarn fumes, but before I knew it, I’d grabbed my camera and was acting somewhat like a new grandma!

Anything you see in that photo that looks remotely like another new pair of socks to make is purely a figment of your imagination.

(May I uncross my fingers now?)

This stuff is so yummy I had to take a portrait. It’s their Essential You-know-what Yarn in the Meteor Twist colorway, which they’ve just discontinued. Glad I got some. It’s going to make a great pair of s***s, and there will probably be some left over for doll clothes.

And this is Alpaca Cloud, which is laceweight baby alpaca – illegally soft and destined to become a shawl or some such thing. I love the moss color with all the subtle shadings.

Yes, I know this is out of focus. I just love all the color, so I took a picture of that instead of the yarn that provided it. These are the discontinued colors in Palette. I’m a little shocked to see what they axed, and will be watching for the new releases with concern. How could they dump plain red?

In addition to my Knit Picks yarns and needles, there was the most marvelous package of merino from Freckle Face Fibers (on Etsy). This was aptly named “Renaissance” and the color combination is just unreal. Since I couldn’t just sit down and spin it, but couldn’t stop looking at it either, I did some “fiber art.” I’ve narrowed it down to six pix, but can’t begin to choose a favorite.

Hovering over the photos will give you a picture number. Feel free to leave your vote in the comments. I’m saving this beauty until I feel very confident spinning!