On the Sticks, In the Sticks

What's New?

Here's what I've been working on lately:

First, is my Red Rock Road Socks. This is my own design. Not my first design, but the first that I've decided to have test knit and hope to make available for sale soon! This whole process has been really cool, I must say.

I love to learn new things, so it's been cool to get the pattern all together, create the chart, then find people to test it. I went looking around on Ravelry not only to look for testers for my own sock, but initially because I thought it would be really cool to actually test patterns for other people. I found Free Pattern Testers and  The Testing Pool.

A put my info and some pics out there and now have several people who were willing to test my pattern. I was a little nervous to put myself out there, but mostly it's been fun, and even a bit flattering :) It's definitely hard work too. But what's really neat is getting people's input and suggestions, because I've looked this pattern over a hundred times, so there are things that I miss when I'm checking it over. It's really nice to have fresh eyes looking it over and knitting it up. And one of the coolest things is to see "my socks" knit up in different colors!

Okay, I know I sound like a newbie, but I'm enjoying the ride!

 

I just recently got Cat Bordhi's latest book New Pathways for Sock Knitters from the library. I think I'm going to have to buy this one! It's awesome!

Here's the Little Sky Socks I knit for practice...
As you may be able to see, the sock on the right is a bit smaller than the one on the left. This is the magic of gauge...or something like that! Both socks were knit on the same size needles, but... on the first sock, on the left,  I was knitting looser and not paying so much attention to gauge. I think I also knit an extra set of increase rows in the front there. On the second sock I knit tighter and got gauge, and didn't so an extra set of increases. So, if I want to gift these, there's a third Little Sky Sock in my future!

And now, I'm working on Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks, also from Cat Bordhi, with the same kind of "sky architecture" for the arch increases. This is in Blue Moon Socks that Rock, colorway "Fire On the Mountain" on size US 2 and US 1's.

Announcing ...

Hi everyone,
I'd like to announce the opening of my own little Etsy shop. Come check out Mountain Knits at www.mountainknits.etsy.com.

Right now I have quite a few baby hats and some of the felted wool bowls that I've been having so much fun making. They're fun to knit, fun to felt, and I love the colors of the yarns. I'd love to have you stop by and see. Don't feel obligated to buy something...that's not why I'm giving you the head's up. But if you like what you see I'd just love if you would tell others about it. Thanks!

This bowl is the first one I've done using Cascade 220. The color is Burnt Orange. It's also the first wider, shallower bowl I've done. I really like how it came out. I also made a 4"x4" swatch and felted that at the same time...It was interesting to see how much more it shrank in height than width. Now I want to do a swatch in Lamb's Pride to see if the same sort of difference happens. I know that it will probably shrink more in height than width, but this was so dramatic to watch with the Cascade 220, I wonder if it will be such a dramatic difference with the Lamb's Pride. With the bowl, I was afraid it was going to shrink more in height before i got the width shrunk like I wanted it! But it worked out fine.

It's Spring!

Ah! Spring has finally come to our mountain! It's still early spring, mind you, but it's here. I can take a little more of the chilly weather knowing that we are definitely through the winter. The snow is finally gone from our yard. The snowdrops have come and almost gone (I was so ecstatic to see them peeking out form under the piles of snow!) and the crocuses are in full bloom.

When we bought this place almost three years ago, we inherited a huge, but overgrown red raspberry patch. What a treasure! The original owners planted it and from what I hear, they used to sell raspberries in the summer. But the people we bought the property from weren't into gardening, so it got a bit overgrown in the 8 years they were here. I've been wanting to reclaim the patch, so that we can actually walk through it and get to the back to harvest the berries we haven't been able to get to. So every chance I get, I've been down there clearing out the old canes and pruning back the new.

Morgan, my youngest, loves to come down and help. He doesn't do the raspberries - too prickery- but one day he was cutting back old stalks of Japanese knotweed  - a great job for a kid, because they're so easy to cut with a pair of clippers. The other night a big, old, rotten birch came crashing down at one end of the patch. While I was out there raspberrying on Sunday afternoon, he was carry pieces of broken birch away! He's great company and a great big help!

In knitting, I finally finished and forgot to post last Friday for

this sweater I've been making for Winter!
I was so excited to finish it. And the best compliment is how much she loves to wear it. She wore it to church on Easter Sunday, too.
It was made form a Sirdar pattern, using KnitPicks CotLin yarn in Desert Turquoise, size 4 and 6 US needles. It was an enjoyable pattern, well written, and not at all difficult. I loved learning how to do the Thumb Cast-on and how to make the loops at the bottom edges of the pieces - just a matter of casting on stitches, then casting off some and knitting some in the following row, then casting on more for the sweater in the third row.

I've also been working on some felted bowls. I found a pattern in One Skein by Leigh Radford and have had such fun knitting up these three bowls below. They only take about an hour to knit up. It's been really interesting to see the differences in felting each of them, both with time and texture.

The bowl on the right is the first bowl I did. It's knit in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in "Oregano". The bowl on the left is knit in Berroco's Peruvia yarn, a worsted weight, knit holding two strands together. All of these bowls were knit up on size 15 US dpn's.

 This third bowl is knit with two strands of Morehouse Merino variegated worsted weight I had in my stash. I love the colors! This bowl took wayyyy longer to felt than the other two, however. I did one other bowl, with Lion Wool Landscapes which also took a lot longer to felt.

With the knitted eggs I made last spring (free pattern from Julie at little cotton rabbits).

Hello there!

Well, hello there! It's been a while, eh?
We've been so busy with things lately, I've gotten quite sidetracked!
But in spite of all that I've definitely been getting a lot of knitting done...just no FO's to share yet.

It was my birthday Friday...

Morgan wanted to bring over the cake. He's was so cute!
I had made a Boston Creme Pie (yes, I made my own cake!). Of course,  there's pudding in the middle, and as he approached the landing zone in front of me, I looked and saw the top slowly starting to slide! Luckily he made it in time and I just discreetly pushed the top back into place. All was well. I managed to blow out all the candles (see evidence below) and the cake has now since been devoured in record time, along with the leftover pudding! Whew!

(in case you're wondering about the half-glazed cake...an adjustment for those in the family that don't like chocolate much...

        And preferred the idea of whipped cream instead!                   

                                                     

Happy Birthday to all my friends who have a birthday within days of mine (those I don't know, and the several whom I do!) It's really cool to know you all and share a February Piscean birthday with you!

Guerrilla Knitting and One More WIP

Yep. I found one more WIP lurking. Went to clean under my bed the other day and there it was! This is the Color on Color Scarf from Scarf Style. I love it and the colors. Unfortunately, it has suffered the fate of so many other WIPs. Something new and more exciting came along when I got to a tedious part...now it's in the lineup...bound to be finished someday...hopefully sooner rather than later!

This is one end of it...it'll keep going off to the left there. Ain't it purty?!

Speaking of purty, here's DD with a bracelet she just made from a jewelry kit she got from hubby's aunt for Christmas. We've been making lots of earrings, and a few bracelets. It's really fun, and not hard at all.

We've been hanging out a lot at home these past few weeks. Having the occasional playdates, trips to the library, little bit o' schooling stuff here and there (more about that some other time).

Today we're going to hang out with a whole bunch of our homeschooling friends from TALC (that's our homeschooling group...stands for The Alternative Learning Center. Our actual "classes" don't start up until the first week in Feb, but in the meantime lots of us wanted to get together to just hang out and play. We're bringing sleds and snow gear, some games, and some veggies. The veggies will go into the Stone Soup pot for lunch. Mmmm! Every Wed at TALC is Stone Soup Day. Everybody brings something to contribute to the pot. Someone starts up the pot when they get there and everyone helps chop and add stuff as they arrive. The smell of sauteeing onion, garlic and other veggies is so heady and delicious. Sometimes people bring bread. Today one of the mom's is going to bring sourdough starter to make bread and whoever wants can bring some starter home with them. Mmmm! Then at 12 o'clock Soup's On! and anyone that wants can share in the deliciousness!

I have a link for you too today. Have you heard of Guerilla Knitting? I had...maybe from Lime and Violet's Daily Chum or Interweave Knits magazine. Anyway, Lime and Violet say " Australian blogger Grrl + Dog has issued a challenge: create a work of guerilla fiber art by February 23rd! Check out this blog post for ideas and details." 

Go ahead, check it out...looks like fun to me! Just trying to spread the word...I think it would be really cool to see knit graffiti showing up all over the place. If you take the challenge, let me know...I'd love to hear about it!

The List

I found the list I made last November of all my WIPS. I was nicely surprised to find that in the meantime, I've frogged and finished a few things that had been on the list.

So here's my updated list:

1.Sweater for Winter in Desert Turquoise CotLin (KnitPicks)
2. Tomten Sweater for Morgan   
3. Child's Socks for me in Purple Panda Wool (pattern from Knitting Vintage Socks)
4.Diagonal Lap Throw from Morehouse Merino   
5.Socks for me in Sockotta
6.Lizard Ridge Blanket

I have to tell you this is the shortest WIP list I have ever had. Thank God for FROGGING! (and finishing!)

1.

Sweater for Winter in Desert Turqouise Cot-Lin from Knit Picks. Back and both fronts are done. I've started a sleeve.

2.  

Tomten Jacket (from Knitting Without Tears)

This blue is actually a bit deeper, more of a "blueberry" blue. This is the body and beginning of the hood, at the top there.

3. 

The camera doesn't do justice to the beautiful color and texture of this Panda Wool.

4.  

Morehouse Merino Diagonal Throw...this is about halfway done. It's going to take a little more investment in yarn to finish, but I love the colors...several different multicolor skeins, switching randomly every couple of rows.

5. 

This is the first sock, and I actually finished this one and cast on #2 a couple days ago.

6.  

Lizard Ridge Blanket pieces (4 down, 20 to go) This is a when the mood strikes and I have the time project.No deadlines. Love it though! Love those NORO colours!

Finishing Friday

Thanks to majorknitter Jen for the new Finishing Friday and Frogging Friday buttons and for the new Finish or Frog It group over at Ravelry.

I went through my stash and old WIPS like I said, and wrote a list of what I want to finish.
Yesterday I finished this swatch for the Walker Treasury Project. If you haven't read about this yet, you should go check it out. You can sign up to knit a swatch or swatches from any of the Walker Treasury books, take a photo of it, then post it to the Project. There are some beautiful swatches already done. Since the patterns were originally done mostly in black and white photos, it's wonderful to see them in color. It really brings out some of the finer details of the patterns to see them in color.

This was kind of a WIP that I hadn't yet started, but had a deadline for. When you sign up to knit a specific swatch, you get three months to do it and post it. I signed up in November to knit the Scroll Pattern from the first treasury of patterns, and Jan 12 would have been my three months. I had kept putting it off, not because i didn't want to do it, but I was trying to keep my focus on some of the other WIPS I have going before starting something else. Finally the other day I started on it and had it done the next day.

This was a fun one to knit up.
I knit it in some Debbie Bliss Cashmerino DK that I had, on #6US needles (4mm)
The pattern is made up of 10 stitches plus 2.
This swatch has three repeats across, and two 18-row repeats vertically.

The full moon is shining on a beautiful winter wonderland tonight. We had three fresh inches of fluffy snow fall on top of all that icy, rainy mix on Wednesday. I hear we may get another 7-10" tomorrow. It truly is wintertime in the northeast.

Things I love...fluffy snow and my 4 wheel drive!

Happy New Year!

It's a bitter cold, but beautifully sunny, snowy morning here!
Happy New Year everyone! I hope this year brings you life full of blessings, love and lots of the things you love to do the most!

I was reading Clara Parkes article on Slow Stashing in Knitter's Review and decided to post my knitting resolutions on the KR Forum. Now, mind you, I don't usually make resolutions anymore...especially not the lose weight, exercise more kind. But, these are things I already had in mind, so I figured I'd share them with you...

1) Earlier in 2008 I destashed and frogged my way through my yarn and UFO's. Inspired by Clara's article on Slow Stashing, I'm going to go through it again. I know there are some more recently acquired yarns I can let go of.

2) In November I made a list of UFO's I want to finish. Right now I'm working on finishing three of them. I really don't want to start working on anything else until I've finished these. After that, I hope to be working on at least one UFO even while working on new projects.

3)I feel so inspired by all the gift knitting I've seen in people's blogs. I want to knit gifties throughout the year so I'm not stuck in December with great ideas for next Christmas and nothing on hand to give!

4)I want to knit myself more socks.

5) I want to purchase yarn this year when I'm ready to do a specific project. I have so many wonderful patterns that I want to knit, so except for the occasional, irresistible skein of sock yarn, I hope to buy for the project at hand.

6)I have some neat ideas for sweater and sock patterns. I want to work on making some of these reality this year. This is a new area for me.

And 7) I love learning new stuff, so this doesn't even need to be a resolution really. I want to learn more new techniques this year!

Merry Christmas to All!

I meant to have a post up for Christmas wishing you all a very Merry one, but things got pretty busy around here.

One scary thing that happened Christmas Eve morning was that my sister got in a bad accident -slipped on ice, lost control of her car, and hit another vehicle - an oil truck. She is so very lucky to be alive, and we are so very grateful she is, and so grateful to the truck driver, who took evasive action and lessened the impact for my sister. The newspaper has called him a hero, and I wholeheartedly agree.

So, my sister is alive, and recovering in the hospital. I went down on Christmas Day with my mom and Tom to see her. It was so good to see her and know she'll be okay, and I know it made her day to have us come.

In spite of this, I was able to have a really good Christmas with my family. At times I was pretty distracted calling other family members and the hospital trying to find out what was going on. And I at other times I was able to just be in the moment, enjoy the preparations, and enjoy the excitement on Christmas morning.

The kids and I went to church Christmas Eve for a really nice service, while Daddy fit in his last minute stealth shopping!

After everyone was finally able to fall asleep (I think it must have been around 10:45!) I snoozed for a bit. I think Santa must have come around midnight or so (hehe!) and I was awakened around 3am by my husband saying, "What are you guys doing?" I guess he woke up, heard something, and went out to find the kids in the livingroom sitting in a circle near the tree, just taking in the scene. We coaxed them back to bed. (I don't actually get up - just coaxed in my best sleepy, gentle voice) My daughter claimed she'd been trying to fall asleep for an hour, but couldn't :) But they finally feel back to sleep and stayed that way till 7:30...when they present opening commenced.

I love all the excited oooo's and ohhhhh's and "this is just what I wanted!". Makes it all worthwhile just to see their delight!

So, we've been up to our ears in Lego building, coloring, playing board games and video games, and Webkinz. As well as sledding and skating! It's been great fun and very relaxing.

I hope you all have had a wonderful Christmas too. I'm feeling so inspired by all the gifties I see that you all have made. I'm feeling very inspired to start my giftmaking early this year!

Wasn't able to get many good pictures of the unwrapping. This was the best one. The camera was left in the car and was too cold for taking good pictures. But you can get the idea - kids up to their ankles in paper and gifties. Yay!

Knit a little, shovel a lot!

Wouldn't you know... 4 days to Christmas and now I'm coming up with all these great little things I want to knit for everybody! I can think of several people I'd love to make Snowflake Star ornaments for, including our neighbors and Billy's aunt Eileen. Now, I could probably manage that...but then there's the fun fur scarf and this cute little bag my daughter would probably love, and the balaclavas for the kids (they've been sharing Dad's...see previous post for a pic).

Now the balaclavas I can make anytime, starting now...especially if the snow keeps up like this! We got ten inches Friday. It was flurrying all day yesterday, but it didn't amount to much more...maybe another inch or two...hard to tell. The kids were out in it at least four times yesterday. They'd go out for an hour, come in for a while, then go back out again...the last time being in the dark, by the light of the front and back porch spotlights.

Today we're expecting another storm that will give us maybe another 10 inches when all is said and done. Don't get me wrong...I absolutely love snow, and I actually love shoveling snow too ( I know, call me crazy!) But...hubby has not been able to get the snowblower going yet. Yep...I was out there Friday evening a couple times shoveling, just to keep up with the snow. And our driveway is maybe 100 ft or so long. So, while I loved every bit of the shoveling I did Friday night and yesterday, I'm just not sure how much I'm going to love a repeat of same today :) We'll see! Hopefully hubby will have better luck today getting that thing roaring to life!

In the meantime, I'm sitting in the warm cozy house (still feeling so grateful for power and heat!) knitting away.

These are some cute mini stockings I made from leftover sock yarn. They're all about 2 1/2 to 3 inches tall.

And this is one of about half a dozen or so baby hats I made to sell at our church. We have a table at the back where people can sell things they've made. We sell them and donate a portion of the money to the church. It's a nice way to support the church and each other and it's wonderful to see people's various talents. Who knew?

I just finished reading two good knitting books. Well, fiction books with knitting characters in them (don't you love how knitting is spreading to the world of novels too?!) ...the first was The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. Can't recommend it highly enough. It's about a woman who loses her young daughter to a severe form of meningitis. It's about her grieving process and coming back to herself after such a heartbreaking loss. In the process she learns to knit, joins a knitting circle, and you get to meet all these wonderful other women from the knitting circle and hear their own stories of healing too. They all have had their own tragedies and their own healing and triumphs. And even though it's about a grieving process it's definitely not all sad...it's healing and triumphant too.  The other one I just finished last night is Casting Spells by Barbara Bretton. That was a fun, magickal romance.

 

The kids were burying each other in the snow last night. Kind of like being buried in the sand at the beach...only colder!