Christmas Knitting wrapup

The holidays are almost over (we're just waiting 'til midnight so we can go to bed :). And I finished the major knitting projects of my first Christmas as a knitter! So without further ado...

Carl's hat - has already been posted a couple of times, but here's one more action shot, at the Oregon coast on Christmas eve:

Dad's scarf - I haven't blogged this one before - but I got the yarn in Japan, not knowing what I'd do with it. I never did manage to post part II of my Japan trip travelogue (and wow, that was > 5 months ago now!), but I visited a wonderful "natural dying" yarn store called Mother Earth, which was actually rather near the vendor's factory in Yamanashi. It was pretty funny, having my rather proper male sales engineer (who knew nothing about knitting) translate yarn labels - I really do need to finish blogging it. Anyway, eventually (actually, in Arizona in October)the yarn decided to be a scarf, in a simple lace rib stitch. I held two strands together throughout - always a medium brown, alternating a light tan and dark brown held with it. Hopefully the ribby-ness makes it warmish, although even doubled the yarn was rather thin.
Oh, by the way, if anyone reading this can send me a pic of the scarf stitching closeup, I'd appreciate it - forgot to take one...

Mom's bag - (Ravelry project link) - this is the big, modular project that I couldn't post about since she reads my blog. Many many shells! Pretty easy knit (especially since you don't need to weave in the gazillion ends that well, since it is felted), though a tad tedious. It was odd to be knitting a felted item on only size 8 needles (to keep the stitch pattern visible, I presume), but it worked out fine. Note the blue and gray color scheme, of course (Mom is a huge Civil War buff).

final pose:

Closer up views of it post felting (including one with it next to a felted bowl she made me for Christmas!). I love the bottom of the bag, where the shells come together - so symmetrical!









(did I mention I was running around the house, back and forth to the laundry room, felting it on 12/23 while everyone watched football? And that it blocked (on a bucket balanced on a table lamp on a garbage can!) and mostly dried through Christmas eve night? And it was still a wee bit damp when opened Christmas morning. Talk about last minute finishing!)

Here it is after finishing, but before felting.





Finally, a couple of pics of it under construction. It took basically a little over a month all told, though I wasn't working as hard on it as I could have. I might be tempted to make one for myself after I've had time to knock out a few smaller things :). I like the one one the right, since Mom made me those mitts almost exactly a year ago, right before I started knitting.









and finally, a picture from our impromptu day trip to the coast on Christmas eve. May you have a peaceful and/or exciting New Year!

Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf - finished (last month...)

I figure I have enough things to post about to try to do at least 3 posts this week, so I'll continue to clear up the blogging of my recent knitting.

I blogged here about (among other things) the Noro Silk Garden Multidirectional Diagonal Scarf I was making for a charity auction at work. Well I finished it on time, have pictures, and and proud to say that it made more money than the yarn cost, which has to be at least the minimum goal. Not too much more, mind you - big moneywinners in that auction seem to be apple picking with G***** M****, a former CEO and major name in the field (how many people have a "law" named after them?); as well as the ubiquitous "front row parking spot for a year" which seems to go for several hundred dollars at many campuses but isn't offered at mine (we're too practical at my campus...)

Anyway... here are a couple of pictures!

Note the lovely afghan on which this is modeling... a Mom special of course (the largest thing I've knit so far would be my felted bag...)


As for the picture.. ignore the odd fuzziness of the model, aka me... it was raining out and hard to get the lighting conditions right. I ended up tweaking the contrast a bit to make the scarf colors look more true-to-life, which ended up making me look a bit paler-than-life

All in all - a fairly quick, easy knit, definitely recommended if you have a self-striping or variegated yarn with fairly long color changes. The Silk Garden did end up coming out softer in the wash, though the mohair still had a bit of itch to it. And all the hay washed out :)

Flock and Fiber!

Well, after a rather icky day Saturday (broke my laptop; things fell apart at work and I had to go in twice; many pages during the day and overnight), Sunday was rather better. I made good progress on my diagonal silk garden scarf (almost half done!) - though in fairness, I had brought it in to work when I went in the second time Satruday and did a few rows during some dead time (at my desk! Yarn not allowed in the fab!). Here it is modeling in far and near view. I am loving the colors - from pastel to intense, this yarn has it all, mostly in blues and purples with some greens and golds thrown in. It also has really uneven plying, bits of hay and thread, and some knots for joins. All of which I had read in others' blogs... but I think it will be worth it in the end.

Sunday afternoon I dragged Andy not-too-unwillingly to the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival, which was about 25 miles away in the rural area outlying Portland to the south. It was really nice - kind of a cross between a huge yarn and roving bazaar and a county fair. I got to pet a camel! We said hello to many llamas, alpacas, goats, and sheep. We saw lots of spinning, and I fondled lots of yarn and petted lots of roving, and did some stash-increasing. Almost everything has a purpose, either a project in mind or as a gift, so I don't feel so bad. I am not sure what to do with the 100 yards of bamboo that was on sale for $4, though! (I thought about a preemie hat for the 20 hats project, but it's not machine-dryable :( ).


Here are a few quick pics and yarn pr0n for my loyal readers...


Hello, llama!


Mother-daughter alpacas. Nice haircut, mom!

The real reason goats have horns (maybe he's allergic to wool? heh, heh, heh)




Pair of antique spinning wheels for sale. From Germany and Maine!





Amazing colors of roving - I think that's what it called, anyway the really soft fluffy stuff that isn't quite yarn yet. This was just one of many, many vendors, but I didn't take any other vendor pics - I was too busy inspecting the goods!


Prize-winning hand-spun skeins. It was fun to read some of the judges' comments, especially comparing the "novice" and "expert" categories.


Career opportunity?







And finally... stash enhancement /yarn pr0n :)
















Some good sturdy Idaho wool in significant colors, Socks that Rock (Oregon local, of course!), some nature cotton that was only $4/skein (I'm thinking dishcloths), and the aforementioned Madil Eden bamboo. And yep, that's some Oregon coast handmade soap for my swap pal. The nice older lady who makes the soap was a bit bemused by the idea of strangers on the internet sending each other dishcloths and soap, but she was happy to give me tips on what my partner might like.

That's all for now - I still need to blog Japan and SF, argh! Too much to do! But now I'm going to finish watching Monday night football and work on the silk scarf :)

Hello, sticky world!

It's bedtime, so of course I'm posting a brief note. Let's see, can I display a picture? My first finished object knitwise was a garter stitch scarf, of course, at the end of January 2007. (And of course, blogger won't rotate this, and Andy's homebuilt image management system won't either, so I'm stuck with sideways-Andy modeling. Or maybe it's the amazing gravity-defying husband (and scarf)!)

And, our first geocache find, back in 2001, was White Sand Beach, near Monterey, CA, where we had gone for an Andy's birthday / Thanksgiving getaway. The cache is long since gone, of course (though amazingly our 3rd cache find, at the Berkeley Marina, is still in existence), but I remember leaving Andy in the car with a sore back and making my way into the scrubby bushes by the beach to find treasure!

(gah, geocaching won't show archived caches, and won't show much cache data at all unless you're logged in. Sorry to the non-cachers out there (it's free to sign up with geocaching.com...)!!)