On the Sticks, In the Sticks

Beekeeper's Quilt

Okay, now I know some of you are going to call me certifiable. I've gone completely over the edge. (At least I'm in good company! There are at least 3,487 of us doing this project.)

So what is it that bit me with the crazy bug? The Beekeeper's Quilt from Tiny Owl Knits!

I came across this pattern last year when it first came out. It was so gorgeous I thought "Oooh,I want to make that!" Then I looked closer and thought, " No way! Too many little puffs to knit. And THEN you have to see them all together! " Nope, not for me. I like my projects short and sweet ...that's why I like socks. Skinny yarn and tiny needles don't bother me. There's always some little change to keep me entertained in sock making.

Then yesterday I was poking around Ravelry and came across the pattern again. I couldn't help myself; I started checking it out again. I started reading things like, make the little "puffs" one at at time, in your "in-between" times, carry it with you. I read how she had set a goal for herself of doing her quilt over the coarse of a year... a piece a day.

That floated around in my brain all afternoon while I was at work. And it kind of s juggled itself neatly into this new philosophy I seem to be growing into recently which has me taking on bigger projects. I think it's the influence of working at the yarn shop. There, people are always coming in for yarn, patterns, help with sweaters they're working on.ate this winter I found myself looking at more and more sweater patterns that I liked. Gradually I found my mind changing from protests of "I just don't have time...or patience... or the perseverence to take on a big project!" to really opening to the possibilities. It's been YEARS since I last knit my self a sweater. But there are so many that I found myself wanting to knit , that a few weeks ago I cast on for this gorgeous Vitamin D Sweater. My new philosophy is that I'll work on it a little at a time. If I keep at it, a little bit every day (8 rounds equals an inch, you know! I can do 8 rounds toda!) or every other day, or whatever...if I just keep at it, I'm going to have this gorgeous sweater I love!

So...last night after work, I bit the bullet and bought the pattern. I had to find out how to make them... These little hexagonal pieces. I cast on after the boys went to bed, and stayed up till I finished one. They are absolutely quick, easy and fun! And I was up again this morning starting a second one...briefly interrupting myself to report my own craziness here! Happy knitting everyone...I'm off to finish another puff before our household gets going for the day...vacation week, everyone's sleeping in!

I Bought Myself a Foot on EBay

A foot display that is!

I've been wanting to get a foot mannequin for a while now, so that I can display my sock designs and take photos to include in my patterns.

So finally the other day I went looking around. I was disappointed by how few choices I found out there. Most places were selling the same clear plastic upside-down foot mannequin. I wanted one that is flesh colored and could stand up, right side up.

I found what I wanted on EBay and within a few days it arrived. I had a carload of kids with me, when I pulled up to the mailbox and saw the box. "Oh, I wonder if this is my foot!"

You should have heard the kids...."Your foot?!"

"Yeah, I ordered myself a new foot in the mail!"

I had their full attention as tore open the box and ripped open the packaging. Sure enough, it was my new foot. I think a few of the kids were relieved to see this come out of the package...

 

 

 

I'm so psyched to finally have this...the only bummer is that this foot is 8 inches long and mine is almost 10. So the socks I make for myself are just a little long for Footsie here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is my Herringbone Gansey Sock...a free pattern download on Ravelry.

New Designs

I've recently finished two new sock designs...

The first is Twisted Ribs Socks, knit it Louet Gems fine/sportweight yarn, color "Cherry Red" on size 2US circulars. I love how this came out, just like I pictured it. It's funny how designs happen. The idea for this sock actually started out as part of another sock design I was thinking of. The design on the front here was to be the back of another sock. It seemed too busy, though, when I worked up a swatch, and a friend suggested I had two sock ideas there. She was right. The "other" sock idea is still waiting to be worked up.

And this little lovely is a Gansey Sock I've just finished. It's knit up in Patons Kroy Sock, color "Flax", on size 1US circs. I hadn't knit with this before and it was a pleasure to work with , not splitty at all, it's got a woolly feel to it, but not itchy/scratchy next to the skin.

This too had more design on it on paper, but when I got to the bottom of the herringbone panel, I knew the rest of the sock just wanted to be plain. I love working with details and contrast in my knitting - twisted stitches, cables, knit/purl combos - anything with contrast definitions, twists and turns - Mmmmmm!

 

 

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).

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!

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!

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!

So good to be home!

Along with so many thousands of other people, we were without power for the better part of the past week from the ice storm that came barreling through New England last Thursday/Friday. We have electric heat, no woodstove yet, so there was no staying in our house for long. My Mom lives about 45 minutes from here and had not lost power at all, so stayed with her until Wednesday when the power came back on.

We had such a great time! We all camped out upstairs in what used to be my younger sisters' room. We ate dinners together, hung out in the evening, and went out during the day to do our usual activities. My youngest sister even came over and spent two nights there. Slumber party at Mom's!

I know I haven't been online much lately, but I've been knitting like crazy. Here's just one of the things I've finished in the last several weeks...

Hubby is modeling his Antifreeze Hat. I started this for him towards the end of last winter, but ran out of yarn on the last few rows...and by that point it was almost spring. So finally, as the weather started turning colder again this fall, I ordered another ball of KnitPicks Swish in Black and finished it off.

Now it's just in time for the BIG snowfall that's supposed to start this morning...and he can't get the snowblower started! Well, it'll be good for when we're shoveling the driveway, too!

And a picture from the ice storm.
This big branch that landed on the wires going to our house landed perpendicular to the house, but around midnight when it fell, it had me out of bed in a heartbeat, because as it was coming down it actually sounded like it was falling toward the house and just brushing up against it...next to my bedroom window! Ack!

Many, many thanks go out to all the town, tree, and power company folks who worked so hard to get everything resotred again!