Summer Breezes make me feel fine.

This photo is how I broke my camera. 
Apparently pugs don't like to wear cowls!

 I am really going to try to be more regular with my posting. I don’t know why I wait and wait to post anymore half the time I have a blog post written and ready to go. Something happens to me when I sit down to my computer after work, ok what happens is Facebook. I spend way too much time on Facebook stalking my family and playing Café World. Ok I admit it so let’s just move on; unless of course you are on Facebook and play Café World then we need to talk about being neighbors!

This week I am still working my way through the FO pile. I was given a wonderful cowl pattern from Hanna over at Ever Green Knits. It is called the Manzanita Cowl. It has everything I love about knitting lace. The pattern is semi open and has bobbles how can you go wrong with that? You really can’t the pattern is well written and complex enough to be interesting. It fits well and has a nice slouch without being too floppy. I really like my cowls to be more like neck warmers and less like eighties cowl sweaters and hang over and down. I used Red Heart Eco-Ways in the Cinnabar color. I had two skeins left over from my Ditto. The cowl used less than a half of skein so you could get two out of one skein making it great for gift giving. The only thing I would change in the next one is that I would do the bobbles on both ends I just like the finished feeling of the end with the bobbles. Right now one end has a plain edge that rolls a little. I know why Hanna did that and it makes perfect sense but I get itchy when things don’t match.

I had this idea that Luna needed a mat to sleep on, she didn't!

Work continues on Citron. I just finished a section of the ruching that was over 600 stitches! Realistically I am not going to go much bigger on this one it is getting too boring. I will finish this band and go with only 7 bands and then the ruffle. I don’t have a time issue but I can only do so much lace weight purling and my wooden needles are starting to get dull and having trouble on some of the purl side rows. Yuck. I am also working on the body of my top down cardigan which is going fast on size 8 needles definitely perfect for movie watching knitting. I am searching for the perfect knitting project for my Red Heart Summer Swap partner. If she is
reading this I haven’t found the perfect pattern yet but I am having fun searching. I really need to do a stash inventory. I have been working almost exclusively from the stash and my little cheat sheet is out of date so I don’t know what I have in there anymore I doubt I have any sweater’s worth of yarn stashed away anymore but who knows what a little digging will uncover!

The cowl is lovely.  It is soft and squishy and very warm.

I found a great new podcast that I want to share. It is called The Savvy Girls and is by two sisters Melanie and Deborah. I love the repertoire these two sisters have with each other. The podcast is funny and intelligent. I recommend it. I was listening to one of the back episodes on the bus and I actually laughed out loud!

Links

Manzanita Cowl (rav link)

Savvy Girls

Facebook (friend me)

Tight as Owls

You can see how light and airy the shawl is.

 I read the title in my book today and thought it sounded funny, two soliders were on leave in France during WWI and they went out drinking and got “tight as owls” I think it is the best way to describe being drunk that I have heard in a long time.

I am not getting as tight as an owl because I am working on the additional rows of the Citron. I am on repeat six which has 294 stitches after the first increase row. I am still on my first ball of yarn. I was hoping to do seven repeats and a longer ruffles but I just might die of boredom before then. I also haven’t finished Luna’s kitty blanket and during a moment of weakness I cast on for a top down raglan using the yarn my mom brought me back from Ireland. I am still working on the yoke of that one but I have to strand two colors in a striping pattern to make sure I have enough yarn which makes things go slower since they are constantly getting tangled or attacked by rogue cats. I am so trying to be good and only use stash yarn but I have to say I am hitting rock bottom. I was actually thinking of what to make from a lone skein of homespun someone gave to me a few years ago.

I love the haze of the yarn and the subtle ruffling.

A while back I bought two bags of Lion Brand Midnight Mohair at the JC Penney outlet. Each bag had (4) balls of yarn in it. I love the color and thought it would be similar to the pink mohair blend I made my Shetland Triangle out of but it’s not. It is at two strand blend and not quite as soft as the pink stuff. So I was looking around for something to make with the yarn and found a pattern called the Storm Cloud Shawelette by Hanna Breetz from Ever Green Knits. She also designed the Manzanita cowl which I also knit recently.

My blue color way called Glacier Bay reminded me of cloudy skies so I cast on. The Shawelette is pretty neat. It is a half circle with a drop garter stitch pattern. It works up super fast and looks amazing. It really showcases the yarn. The only problem and it is solely mine own is that I didn’t have quite enough yarn. I was so sure I had enough to cast off on my ruffle but I didn’t. I was too lazy to rip back and put hundreds of stitches back on to cast off that I started to scavenge every scrap of yarn I had to cast off. I wove in all the ends and clip the yarn. I split it in half and put it together but no luck I still needed yarn for about four more inches of binding. I checked my entire stash, all my scraps and tried to find something that matched no luck. I finally found blue colored mohair that matched sort of and used that for the last few inches. It doesn’t match exactly but I don’t mind. I love the way this shawl wraps around and stay put and the ruffle is super girly. I still have one more bag of the yarn and so I can make a second if want to.

A healthy sized half circle shawl.

Reading will be pretty slow for the next few months. I am working on John Dos Passo’s U.S.A which is a trilogy. I reserved it for the summer but found it so interesting I started reading it early. I am also still working on Nostromo by Joseph Conrad and Appointment in Samarra by John O’Hara. I have been working on a project list for the summer. I want to get in some sewing time and I have about 30 squares sewn that I want to put together to make a few sit upons for the summer. We go to festivals and spend time in the park and having small pads for sitting on is so much easier than big blankets.

We are getting ready for Nate’s graduation and party and I am starting to realize that sending a kid off to college is a full time endeavor. We have forms to fill out, physicals, tests, shopping lists, and driving lessons to keep him busy for the next three months. The boss has been teaching Luna to fetch a piece of crumpled up paper. She thinks it a ball. Luke my 4 year old nephew says that Luna is a “dog with cat parts”. Hilarious!

Links
Storm Cloud Shawelette by Hanna (Ever Green Knits) This pattern is free and awesome!

Back from the windy city

Kitty likes knitting!

Wow it has been a long time! I can barely remember what I have been up to since the last post. I promised myself I would post more but things get away from me so fast. I did spend a week in Chicago for a library conference which was amazing. Chicago is a beautiful city, amazing buildings and great food. We spent a day sight seeing around downtown and at the Art Institute. I saw one of my favorite painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper. His style is so delicate. You cannot see a single brushstroke on the surface of the painting but it has such a depth of color. I saw it across the room and it took my breath away.

The cables have strong definition

This post is supposed to highlight my Valkyrie Vest. I knit this for the Ravelympics as part of Team Redheart. Those crafters are great. They are funny, supportive and so loyal to RH. No yarn snobs in that group. I have to say that the RH group is my favorite Ravelry group. They make everyone feel welcome.

The vest is made from the staple RHSS. I used 2 skeins in Real Teal to knit up the 36 bust size. The pattern is from Interweave and I believe a free download. The vest in knit in two pieces. The cables start at the bottom and spread across the back and front splitting into a v neck. I love the way the cables move across the vest and it knits up so fast since you are always eager to do one row of cabling to see it move across. The pattern charts are easy to follow but this is not a beginner pattern at all. Fit wise I like it. It was written as a plus size pattern and has a nice rounded shaped that doesn’t make me feel like a sausage in it like other vests do. I plan on wearing it with short sleeves or a tank. I am pretty happy with the way this one turned out. It makes me want to tackle a cabled cardigan. I keep mulling it over but I want to do a cardigan for Nate before he heads off to school.

In progress shot.  I love the back center cable.

Right now I am working on the front bands of my top down raglan I had to stop carrying it around in my backpack it is just too big. I love the fit of it and want to finish it so it can become my at work summer sweater for the air conditioning. I am also zipping along with the Citron. The only bad thing about it is that it gets bigger after each section so progress slows as you work but I love the ruching and the yarn is very nice. I am finally using the Knitpicks Shadow in Redwood I bought when I finished my undergrad degree in 2006. It took me so long to figure out what to make out of it!

Quickly, quickly. I finished reading Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellows (very funny and sad), Kim by Rudyard Kipling and  A Passage to India by E.M. Forster.  This one was so good but the ending got pretty weird with the whole religious episode but it was well written not my favorite Forster but well worth the read.  I am working on the U.S.A. trilogy by John Dos Passo  and Nostromo by Joseph Conrad.

I just emptied the litter box get cleaning human.

 Luna is doing well we are still getting used to each other. She is a digger and will empty out her litter box if she gets mad. We are trying to figure out a solution to that since she refused to go inside anything so we can’t get her a box with a lid. Right now we have the tallest dishpan we can find that she still get into but she just sees it as a challenge! Cats are sooooo different than dogs! It is a good thing she is so cute!

Luna needs her beauty sleep.

Valkeryie Vest (rav link) It is a free pattern from Knitting Daily but you need to register

Citron from Knitty

Nate’s sweater? Smokin' by Jared Flood.

Nighthawks

And the winner is...

Close up!

 Oh wow it seems like I fell off the face of the earth. I am so sorry I said I would post the winner of the Stitch Nation booklet on the 9th but I totally flaked out. I have been spending the last few months waffling between anxiety and hysteria about Nate getting ready for college but enough about that I am sure we will all hear much more about that in the coming months. Let’s get to the good stuff. The winner of the booklet is Mercy or midwifemom on Ravelry she was the 8 poster. Enjoy the booklet I think you will.

Nate has been accepted into and has accepted the offer he got from Arcadia University. It seems like such a good fit. It is close to home but far enough away for him. It has a great English and Film Studies program and it is a gorgeous campus. We went to visit for a family day on Saturday and everyone liked it. Jazzy was stoked about the possibility of living in a castle. I am just happy that he is going to have a great college experience. He will be living in the dorms, staying on campus and traveling abroad. I already decided I wanted to knit him a sweater for school!

One done with no thumb.

On the knitting front I have been in a slight funk. I have a backlog of smallish projects to talk about but haven’t had the mojo to get started on a big project. I did start a short sleeved top down raglan for the summer months. I also am planning on doing Citron for my conference knitting. I am off to a library conference on Saturday I get to spend a week in Chicago so that should be pretty cool.

These mittens were knit way back in January using all the wool yarn scraps I had on hand. I made them for Nate well because he asked and I was anxious about the college applications. The pattern is from one of my favorite knitting books Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski. They are the Mitones Ivenos pattern. I think they turned out pretty nice and he seems to like them. He needed them with all the snow we had this winter. The gray is Wool Ease and the other colors are a mix of Cascade 220 and the new Stitch Nation yarn I had around. I always take it as a good sign when his friends say they want a pair too. Of course Nate will not let me make them for them since he wants to be the only one with them.

I have been reading like crazy. I finished Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, Native Son by Richard Wright, and Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. Right now I am working on Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellows, A Passage to India by E. M. Forster and Kim by Rudyard Kipling. The last two are both about England and India so they complement each other in a weird way. So far I have 47 out of 100 books read. Boy I have been busy.

Luna is doing great she is fitting right in and has stolen the boss’ heart away. They are so cute together snuggling on the floor watching the Phillies. That man is a soft touch but don’t let him hear that! We also have a new cat cousin in the family. My sister has a new cat named Freddy who was adopted from the shelter two weeks ago. Welcome to the family Freddy. He is too sexy for his collar for sure!

All done just in time for the snow.

Wish me luck at the conference last year we went to CA and they had an earthquake! The boss tells me it is not tornado season.

Mittens from Ivo (rav link)

Citron (rav link) from Knitty

Top down Raglan from Lion Brand

Yarn on the run

Today I started a pretty crazy knitting in public event on my regular morning bus. I was knitting along on a hat on the bus when this woman that I see everyday starts yelling and laughing hysterically. I turn off my mp3 player and try to figure out why she is gesturing frantically to me. Apparently my small golf ball sized ball of yarn that I thought was in my bag had popped out and rolled to the front of the bus. It had gotten tangled all over the place and was twisted around a sleeping mans leg! She was trying to catch the yarn ball but the yarn was so slippery and the bus was moving. A couple of people helped me chase down the ball and wind it back up we all laughed. I told the woman I would give her the hat when I finished it! I guess a lot of people will be hearing a story about a crazy lady on the bus lost her ball of yarn!

January was NaKniMitMo10 or National Knit Mittens Month 2010 since I love to knit mittens I decided I would participate again. Last year I busted out four pairs of mittens for the event. This year I did two. I did the Latvian Inspired Mittens and the flip tops for Jazzy that I wrote about earlier. I decided that I wanted to make my sister a pair of color work mittens for her birthday which is in late January. She tries to make me give her my Lapland mittens and I always say no. So I found this great pattern on free Ravelry and dug out some RHSS from the stash in some girl colors. I wanted to make sure the mittens were machine washable and didn’t itch! The pattern is pretty straight forward and it looks beautiful. I chose purples and gray for the mittens. So I went like gang busters on the first and then was easily distracted on the second. I let it languish until the very end of the month. I knit like crazy wove in all the ends and left the thumbs until the last Saturday of the month. I had to measure my sister’s thumbs. In the past my mittens had thumbs that were too small and it really hinders movement. Well long story short she loves the mittens. She wears them when she drives which is weird but she hates cold hands. They washed up nice and soft and haven’t fallen apart I guess that is a win - win in my book!

In other news I am still working through my Modern Library 100 Best Book list. Since last check in I finished I, Claudius by Robert Graves, To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, and the Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennett. I am working on Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad. I have to say the To the Lighthouse was wonderful and Mrs. Ramsay is a knitter. In the story she spends a summer at the seashore working on a brown sock. Much of the story develops around the act of her knitting. It was fascinating to see how knitting was used to convey the mood of Mrs. Ramsay and how her husband sees her. I would love to find an audio book of this title to listen to while I knit.

At last count I have six projects that I have yet to blog about. I will get to those in the coming weeks. Right now I am working on a hat from the new Stitch Nation Booklet and thinking about an afghan for Nate to take away to college. Oh wait if he ever finds out which college he is going to. You rush and rush to get everything ready and then you wait! I bought two new color work books. The New Stranded Colorwork by Mary Scot Huff and Color by Kristen by Kristen Nicholsas both of which are drool worthy. I want to make the Southwest-Style Sleeved Wrap from Kristen Knits and the Being Koi vest from Huff’s book. Maybe when I am the empty nester my sister keeps telling me I will be soon!

My mother finished an amazing crocheted fisherman inspired afghan for a fundraiser. It is amazing. I am awed by how fast she can crochet. She mixes and matches the stitches in panels so each blanket is unique and she always does them in the creamy aran color. I have to jump on the band wagon and say I did the fringing. She hates fringe but people love it. She sold raffles for the blanket and made over 150.00 for her charity. Mom, please make me an afghan and don’t tell me to bid on the next one or make my own!

Links:

Latvian Insprired Mittens by Jennifer Little (rav link) Free pattern

Color by Kristen by Kristen Nicholas

The New Stranded Colorwork by Mary Scott Huff

Alpaca Love - A review

The third and final skein of yarn I received in my press kit is Alpaca Love. This yarn is a worsted weight yarn that is comprised of 80% wool and 20% alpaca. It is a plied yarn that comes in 131 yard center pull machine wound skeins. It comes in eight pretty nice colors I like the Espresso brown and the Peacock Feather teal colors. My sample was the green color Fern. The website says that the yarn adds a “touch of luxury” to any project. I decided to test out this yarn by creating a one skein project. I decided that I wanted to try to make a pair of socks. The yardage is a little small to make a full size adult pair of socks so I went with a child’s size hoping to make a pair of inside or house socks. I know that my niece likes to wear socks to bed and around the house because of the hardwood floors are cold in the mornings.

So I wound the skein in advance and despite a small yarn barf it was very consistent with no knots, joins, slubs, or fuzz balls. I used the 5 Stitch per Inch Socks by Ann Budd from Getting Started Knitting Socks by Ann Budd to knit the socks on size 7 bamboo dpns. The knitting went very quickly and I was happy with the way the ribbing and stockinette came out. Both were smooth and consistent which is nice, the ribbing has a nice stretch but sprang back to without stretching. The socks had very little fuzz and the yarn was pretty soft. It is not as soft as the bamboo but not as stiff as full wool.

When my socks were done I washed them. I didn’t see any dye in the water but I did notice a wet dog smell from the socks which were gone when the socks dried. It wasn’t overwhelming but it was there. The socks seemed to take a long time to dry which I am not sure whether this was the yarn or the weather but it wasn’t a major issue. I gave Jazzy the socks to try on after I washed them so that I could take a picture of them. She liked the way they felt she said that was soft and smooth but she thought the color was for boys! I don’t know how well alpaca kid’s socks will wear but they sure looked and felt pretty good. I could see this yarn being used for winter outer wear such as warm snuggly cowl and slouchy berets. Just like Bamboo Ewe and Full O’ Sheep Alpaca Love a nice yarn at a good price in great modern colors. I have to say my favorite of the three was the Full O’ Sheep. I would love to make a Fair Isle yoke sweater out of it. (Hey Coats kick me the yarn.)

The only thing I would have to say about the yarn line is that it annoys me that it is only available at Joann’s which is not technically a yarn or even a craft store. I would have liked to seen this yarn at some other places such as craft stores or the major online yarn stores. I think it should be more widely available. Next time I check in with Stitch Nation I want to take a look at the pattern support.

Links

Stitch Nation Yarns

 5 Stitch Socks (rav link)

With scarves of red tied around their throats

Wow time flies. I can’t believe that the Ravelypics has been going on for 10 days. It seems like everyone else in my team (Team Redheart) is banging out projects left and right but not me. I am making progress every day but I think I should have started with a smaller project first. On Saturday I finished the back of my vest and started the front which I hope to have done by Sunday. That should give me time to finish it before the closing ceremonies. To distract you from my lack of knitting progress let’s talk about something I finished! Here she is my favorite winter scarf to date Saroyan.


I love the show Bones. It is my favorite of the fake science slash crime solving shows. I think I like it because I worked in a natural history museum and the fake Jeffersonian reminds me of that. Of course we didn’t have a hunky FBI agent or high tech forensic tools. I even belong to the Bones Group on Ravelry. In December I found out that you can get great patterns that Liz Abinante designed based on the characters on Bones. I fell in love with the Saroyan Shawl and decided that I would use the gifted Manos Clasica in Poppy that I got a few months ago. The pattern is named after the director of the lab, a strong, independent, intelligent woman how could you go wrong?

I had two skeins in a great tonal cherry red color so I decided that I would make do with that alone. The pattern is very well written, free and lovely and is easily modified to fit the yardage you have. It forms a curved almost like a parenthesis shape with a garter stitch border on one edge and leaf edge on the other side. It is knit in one piece including the borders. I knit one skein and then started my decreases ending with a full 18 leaves.

The yarn is hand spun and dyed. It has thick and thin areas and light tonal changes in the dyeing. It is quite lovely and washed up soft. Some of the thin areas made me nervous the yarn goes from worsted to DK in a few inches. I was worried about the integrity of the knitting but only time will tell how it will last. I didn’t hate this yarn but since it is out of my price range I won’t pine for it. I do love the color and it looks wonderful peeking out of my black pea coat on a cold winter morning. It reminds me of the Fleet Foxes song White Winter Hymnal which mentions a red scarf. I ended up with a tiny ball of yarn left over which I saved for some purpose in the future.

What else is popping? I finished I, Claudius by Robert Graves which I loved. It is a Roman soap opera, juicy and exciting. I also finished The Old Wives Tale by Arnold Bennett. It is the story of two sisters in England in the late 1800’s one stays home and runs the family business the other runs away to Paris very entertaining. I started To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf and Lord Jim by Joseph Conrad.

We are all finished the college applications and the financial aid forms now we wait! I don’t mind the wait since it makes it seem like things aren’t going to change fast and furious over the next few months. I did decide that I want to make him a buffalo plaid throw for his dorm room when we find out what school he will end up at. I found a Better Homes and Gardens Afghan Book from the 80’s at the thrift shop with a cool pattern in it. Plaid is so popular with suburban fops and dudes!

Up next I decide to make some Alpaca kids socks. Yeah it sounds like such a good idea.

Links

Manos

Saroyan (rav link) free pattern

Fleet foxes

Bones

Bamboo Ewe - A Review

In my press kit I got a skein of Bamboo Ewe in a lovely dusty teal color called mermaid. The color reminds me of the 1940’s. The yarn itself is 55% viscose from Bamboo and 45% wool. It comes in a 177 yard skein which is enough for a one skein project. Right now it has 10 colors including a nice gray. I decided to try it out by making a cowl. It was billed as being soft enough to wear next to the skin. I was envisioning a floppy soft cowl that would be beautiful peeking out of a winter coat without being itchy on the chin and neck. I started by winding up my skein. I hand wind my yarn before I start I don’t have a ball winder. So I start by pulling out the inner end and tug, out comes a small yarn barf, nothing major they happen all the time in machine skeins. The yarn is very soft and the barf just fell apart with no knots. The rest of the yarn wound beautifully with no knots, joins or slubs. I love the consistency of machine spun yarns! So I cast on for the Candle Flame Cowl (a great free pattern from Ralry) on my 16 inch interchangeable Boyle aluminum tips in a size 7. The yarn flowed smoothly and was not splitty. The pattern does give the yarn a workout and I was concerned that it would look over worked but it did not. The bamboo gives it a nice sheen which is nice because it adds a dimension to the texture of the candle flames. The entire cowl took most of the skein. I could have done an additional repeat but I didn’t want the cowl to be too tall. I did the garter border instead of the tubular cast as a personal preference I am still a novice at the tubular cast on and it still looks homemade to me!

So I washed the cowl up and I did notice some dye in the bathwater not at a lot and it rinsed clear after a second rinse so I didn’t need to break out the vinegar. Also no wet dog smell. I did a light block no pinning and set it out to dry. It was raining when I blocked it so it took a little longer to dry. When it dried it was even softer with a slight bloom of the wool giving it a very mild halo. I have to say that I like this yarn, I liked knitting with it, and it washed up well. The colors are nice some are muted others bright. I offered the cowl to a co-worker. I told her to take it and try it with her coat, if it wasn’t soft enough around her neck to put it back on the file cabinet in my office and not to feel bad about it. I was testing the yarn and would not take it personally. So it has been a week and I haven’t seen the cowl yet! I love the stitch pattern. In the pattern she mentions as shawl. I loved the oval shapes in my Shetland Triangle and in this cowl so I may look for that. Overall a good quality workhorse yarn that doesn’t price people out of the market for Bamboo. I have one more yarn from the kit the Alpaca Love which I will write more about soon.

Links

Bamboo Ewe - Stitch Nation Yarn

Candle Flame Cowl - Rav link Free pattern
Candle Flame Shawl Rav Link Free pattern

Flip it!

 So I was working on Amelia’s fingerless mitts a few Saturdays past at my moms. Saturday is laundry day. I take my laundry over to moms and spend the day with my sister, her two kids, my parents and Nate. Jazzy was trying on Amelia’s mitts and she said she wanted a pair. My sister said she was too young to have fingerless mitts outside; Amelia was older and wanted the mitts for fashion. I told Jazzy I would make her some mitts when she was older. During lunch we were looking through the 101 Designer One Skein Wonders book I was using and Jazzy said she found something she wanted me to knit her and her mom would like it too. She wanted a pair of convertible mittens that way she could have the fingerless mitts and the mittens she needed to wear during recess. Since it is Naknmimo and I was competing I decided I would make her the mittens.

I used Bernat’s Softee Baby in a pastel variegated. I had a skein left over from when I did the Girlfriend shrug a few years ago. The yarn is a DK weight acrylic you get 333 yards per skein which can make two pairs of mittens easily. It is pretty soft and machine washable which is good for things that you knit for littler kids. They knit up pretty dense on a size three but not too bulky. The pattern is pretty fussy when you get to the point where you start to add the flip top. It seemed to work better when I held the stitches on yarn and instead of a stitch holder. I liked the fact that the flap is knit on not sewn on it makes it sturdier and warmer. The fingers are one opening with a full thumb which makes it easy for kids to put on themselves. I used some flexible rubber type buttons that had penguins on them. The penguin was wearing a hat, scarf and mittens which was endlessly funny to Jazzy. The flexibleness makes them easy for little fingers to manipulate. She is able to flip and button them herself while on. I think if I make them again I would consider using magnetic snaps that would be the easiest and you wouldn’t have a look on the top when the mitten is closed. If you have a mitten sucker like Nate was it could get pretty gross!

Overall a quick knit that resulted in a pair of mittens that made a little girl feel more like a big girl without resulting in cold fingers!

In other news I finished Under the Volcano By Malcom Lowry. It was 11 on the list. I started I, Claudius by Robert Graves this weekend and am enjoying it so far. Under the Volcano was tense and emotionally draining it is very dramatic but worth the read.

Links

Flip top mittens (rav link)

Full O' Sheep Review

So when I got my press kit I decided that instead of swatching up the samples and evaluating them I decided that I would do a small single skein project for each yarn and then give my impressions of the yarns. Please note that I am not a reviewer by nature. I hate to influence people either way, I totally believe in free will and making decisions for one’s self. With that in mind here is a brief summary of my experiences working with Full O’ Sheep from the Stitch Nation Collection by Debbie Stoller.

First the basics: Full O’ Sheep is 100% Peruvian Wool. It is a single ply and comes in 3.5oz – 100g. – 155yd per skein priced at around 5.00 or less per skein. This makes it cheaper than what I though of as the closest I could compare it to Lamb’s Pride worsted. It comes in a traditional center pull skein. RHSS lovers know what I mean. I always wind my yarn into balls no matter where it comes from, that’s just how I roll, I hate yarn barfs when I am in the middle of a project. So on winding it I noticed a few things. Since it is one ply it has a nice soft twist and is super uniform. No thick and thin parts that you find with something like Manos. You can tell that this is a machine yarn and not handspun. It is mid grade wool soft and has a soft sheen. It wound up with no snags, blobs or knots. It did have two small fuzz balls during winding nothing major. The colors are super intense and saturated, very modern. I got a great purple color called Passionfruit which was a strong bold magenta color. The color range is nice I liked the blues especially the Mediterranean and the Aquamarine. I noticed that they didn’t have a gray but that is not a major issue for me. I liked the soft sheen and the very low fuzz factor.

So I decided to make the Green Wristlets from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders for my tweenie niece who loves the 80’s. These mitts and the color of the yarn gave me an 80’s vibe. I knit them on size 7 bamboo DPNs. The yarn was good, no snagging or splitting. I saw great stitch definition and a smooth flat look to the stockinette. Both mitts were done in few days. I washed and blocked them and pinned them out on Sunday. I noticed that they did not have a wet dog smell after they were wet which is nice! I have a smallish size ball left over I could make a third mitt but definitely not two pairs from the skein. I would say a full pair of mittens per skein or a cabled hat which is nice. They blocked up nice and soft with no wooly smell and not a lot of growth. The ridges in the wrist did loosen up and lay flat when they were washed but not significant growth. I don’t know how long it would stretch in a sweater but for small thing it is seems perfect. So in my opinion it is a nice wool workhorse yarn at a good price. I think it is great that you can get a great wool yarn at a good price. I would knit more with wool if I could afford it, right now I buy what I can afford and this line has the potential to bring natural fibers to more people.

So I never got a  snap of Amelia wearing her mitts she took them right home and wore them to school on 80's day.  I guess that is good sign if a tweenie actually goes out side in public wearing something you made.

Backward revolved the luminous wheel

The first FO of the New Year is here! It is Nimbus a free pattern from Berroco.com. I love the free sweaters they do and of course they have one of my favorite designers on staff, Norah Gaughn. This pattern was so fast to knit. I actually started it on the first day of my Christmas vacation and finished it on New Years Eve. It languished until Sunday when I finally went out and bought a button for it. I made it from Bernat Soft Boucle in the gray color way I used two and half skeins of the yarn so I have a skein and half left over for something else. This yarn seems to grow in the skein; according to the yardage on the pattern I should have needed four skeins but whatever. I still love it the fuzziness does obscure the stitch definition some but it is a great swingy warm sweater. I wore it to work today and am very happy with it. My New Years Resolution for knitting was to wear what I make in public, I am working on it.

My knitting resolutions:

Wear what I make or find homes for them
 Use up projects worth of yarn I have in the stash
 Make my Fair Isle sweater
 My crochet resolution:
 Make a crochet quilt

Other knitting news include a pair of fingerless mitts, a new deluxe scarf and some flip top mittens for Jazzy all coming soon.

Team Redheart is ramping up! As you can see from the photo the team is red hot. Brad from the group whipped up a pillow in response to a thread about having a k or c AL! We have over 30 team members at this point and have some awesome prizes donated by Coats and Clark for people competing in the Ravelympics on Team Redheart. One of the team members is working on a cool ravatar for the group and everyone seems excited. This is the first time I organized anything on Ravelry and I have to say I really am having fun with it. I am meeting some great knitters and crocheters and I feel like we are forming a great community. It looks to be an exciting competition. I have decided to do the Valkeryie Vest by Lisa Shroyer in a great teal color for the competition. I bought the yarn on Saturday and printed out the pattern so I am set.

On the Modern Library 100 list front I started out the New Year by finishing up An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser and The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. So far I have finished 34 books on the list. Right now I am reading Under the Volcano by Malcolm Lowry and listening to The Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. Both seem interesting at this point and completely different but both filled with beautiful and sad imagery. I find the research about the books and the authors to be just as much fun as reading the books but that may be the librarian in me coming out. The title of this post is a quote from Under the Volcano.

Next week more on Stitch Nation and another FO!

Link List

Nimbus (rav link)

Fingerless mitts (rav link) from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders

Saroyan (rav link)

Flip top mitts (rav link) from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders

Crochet quilt patterns all the patterns are free!

Team Redheart

Modern Library top 100 list