Tilted Duster progress

The Tilted Duster is coming along nicely--but I've hit a snag--I've got to do some sewing to move on. I can't believe how many years it has been since I've made a sweater that needed sewing!!

Dyeing instead of Letterboxing

The plans for Sunday were to meet up with a bunch of people and go letterboxing. It was a glorious day here in New England, so of course the boy woke up with a fever--sigh.
So instead I spent the day dyeing.
This is some yarn I dyed for a swap. I started with this:


I learned that Louet Gems fingering weight Merino is WAY overspun, and when it hits the water it twists up on itself.


But I think the color (Kool Aid) turned out nice.


I also did some color correction on the yarn I tried to dye green a few weeks ago--it is now greener. Unfortunately, by the end of it all, I was so tired I tossed it on a delicate laundry bag and tried spinning it out in the washer. Well, guess what, Knit Picks Peruvian Highland Bulky felts very very easily. Another 2 minutes and it would have been unusable. As it stands, I was able to rip it apart and ball it all up, but I think this wool is destined for felted projects--maybe some kiddie felted slippers or the Lucy Bag. I didn't take any pictures though--will try to do that.

Dream catcher

This post is not about knitting, but there was some crochet cotton involved and certainly plenty of crafting.

For quite a while my son has been asking me for a dream catcher. He doesn't seem to have many bad dreams, but he seems to think he does. And I'm not quite sure where he learned about dream catchers.

I went looking around. What I found was not to my liking; too gussied up, too much stuff, too sparkly or just not my thing. So I decided to try to make one--that way too I could customized it, my son's favorite color is green. I found only one good site with info on how to make one. There might be more out there, but once I found this one I knew I had hit the jackpot.

I found this site with good information:

http://www.native-languages.org/dreamcatchers.htm

which led to this site, with directions:

http://www.nativetech.org/dreamcat/dreminst.html

I needed some dried grape vine and some feathers. I found the feathers at AC Moore--but no grapevine. I found the grapevine at Michael's. I used a mini grapevine wreath--the kind you take home to decorate yourself, and soaked it and untwisted it. I can probably make several dreamcatchers from this $0.59 wreath. I bought a smaller one because you really need rather thin grapevine--dream catchers should not be bigger than an adult hand (who knew). Oh, and I also bought some nice beads, since I thought the seeds beads I had might be too small. So for approximately $5 I bought enough materials to make a whole bunch of dream catchers--though so far I've only made one.

Here is what it looks like.

It is currently hanging above my son's bed--I hope it is doing its job.

ps I just noticed the bird poop next to my front door--sorry about that, guess I need to do some cleaning up. Can you tell from our door knocker that we have a lot of birds around.

A good laugh

OK, this is not about knitting--but a blog that I wanted to share, in case you don't already know about it. I've been following it for the past year or so, sporadically--but more frequently in the past month. If you haven't yet heard of it, go to
http://cakewrecks.blogspot.com/
Most days there are posting of wrecks, but one day a week she posts the opposite of wrecks, and those are pretty cool too, though not as funny.

I started the Tilted Duster the other night. So far so good. I have completed the back and the right front. I hope to finish the left front tonight, leaving the arms for the weekend.

February Lady Complete

I'm on a role with the sweaters here. This was a particularly fast one--I got to wear it over the weekend and I'm wearing it again today.

February Lady Sweater by pamela wynne
Needle US 7 / 4.5 mm
Yarn Valley Yarns Longmeadow 4.8 skeins

This sweater was a lot of fun to make. It was one of those patterns where I just wanted to complete one more row--keeping me up past my bedtime. For some reason I thought this yarn was machine washable--but it is not. No matter, it blocked really well (I have very little experience blocking a cotton blend), and it is just the right amount of negative ease.

My only complaint is the slight bulging under the arms. I do plan to make a winter version of this sweater and I will need to think about how to fix that.

This was another bargain sweater. I bought 7 skeins of this yarn during the recent Webs anniversary sale--grand total, just over $17 dollars. So this sweater cost me approximately $12. I think I have enough yarn left over to make my niece a matching February baby (or in this case February Toddler).

I've already started swatching for another sweater--this one for the winter. I've had the Tilted Duster in my queue since it was published in 2007. Getting gauge is proving to be tricky, but I think I've gotten close enough, and should be able to start tonight.

February Lady, in June

After finishing my Deep Breath sweater (still haven't had the right weather to wear it) I promptly started a February Lady sweater. I'm using a lighter weight yarn than the pattern calls for. Some friends have done it this way, so I thought I would give it a shot. Here is my progress so far:

I'm really in a groove with this sweater. The lace is a 4 row repeat. Two of the rows are essentially just purl--those are kind of neutral to me. One row I really like to do (row 3 for those who care) and I'm not loving row 1. But over all this works out for me. I get through row 1 because it annoys me and I want to get it over with. Then I relax with a purl row. Then I am rewarded by row 3! Then another purl row, and I'm ready to deal with the annoyance of row 1 again. It really does keep things moving.

Contrast this with the Spring Forward socks, where I'm essentially neutral about all the rows. It makes me just not care. And since I'm not loving the way the way the color is working out on these socks I think I'm working towards frogging them, something I hate to do, but will ultimately free up the yarn for something that I will have fun with.

I don't know if I have posted pictures of the socks before--they are knit with a merino/tencel blend from Ellen's half pint farm, purchased at the NH Sheep and Wool festival last year. I put them down ages ago and I just haven't wanted to pick them up again. I'm at the gusset of the first sock--but these pictures were taken before I got to the heel. See how there are dark splotches of color (pooling). Every time I see them, they look dirty to me--add that to the fact that I don't enjoy knitting the pattern--well you see where this is going.

Meanwhile, even though I think we have had a grand total of 6 hours of sun in the past 2 weeks, I still have a few flowers popping up.

The day lilies started opening yesterday.

And my nepal cinquefoil is not dead after all!

Knitters against MS

I just want to give Claudia a bit of advertising here. If you don't know about Claudia and the MS ride she does every year, you should go check it out. For the past several years she has worn the number 1 bib--being the top fundraiser for the event!

By donating to her team you are also in the running for tons of knitting goodness donated by knitters, spinners, dyers, and designers that support her. Last year I was lucky enough to win a prize (skein of Socks that Rock) donated by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee.

So if you have a minute run over to her blog and check it out. If the cause does not entice you to give, maybe the yarn will! I will admit it again--my neighbor also does the ride--but I always give Claudia a bit more--he's just not dangling yarn in front of my eyes.