Think first

I just blew it on the start of a sweater. Got my three inches of ribbing, then read, "switch to larger needles...." Whoops. Forgot to use the smaller needles in the first place. I just pulled the needles out.

I think the knit us a bit too loose, so I'm going to redo it on smaller needles, but make a bigger size.

Food

I've spent a lot of time this week preserving food from my in-law's garden, as they had to leave town. I've bottled beans, frozen beans, tried dilly beans for the first time,made apricot fruit leather, and bottled tomatoes. My pears and apples are coming up soon!

Valerie is awesome

Well, Valerie can help with just about everything. She helped me figure out how to spin my short little Bison down fibers (very small drafting triangle), and turned me on to blogging with my phone. AND, while I was seeking her help, she helped someone else with her knowledge of print color, graphic design, and teenage psyche. Pretty good, eh?

Spun Yarn

I finally have my own spinning wheel, and I love it!! I entered some yarn in the county fair and got a blue ribbon, but I have a better picture of the yarn that I spun up to make another Monmouth Cap. I love handspun. What can I say more?

Pirate Hats!

No, not that kind of pirate hat.

I've been knitting for re-enactors. Here is "Mad Pete" in a monmouth cap I knit:

Here is "Cross" in a thrummed cap I madly finished for him. Mine's the one on the right.

I'm loving making these hats as authentically as possible in wool, color, and construction. What fun!

Dyeing to Knit

I have all of these fun pictures of my knitting. I've just looked back at my last posts from over two years ago, and there are so many unfinished projects that I've now finished, and new ones that came and went. I don't have much that's interesting to say, so I'll just post a few pictures. This is yarn I dyed at the recent knitting retreat at my local yarn shop. It was so much fun! I always wanted to dye, but I had no idea how much. I have so many things in my head now that I want to try!

These are "subliminal socks". First, we were to write messages on the sock blanks that had meaning to us or to the person for whom we would knit the socks.

Then we unravelled the yarn into hanks.

Finally, we knit the yarn up into beautiful (or crazy!) socks!

I'm back!

It's been three months since my last post. How does so much time go by so quickly? But in the interim of no knitting and no blogging, I turned a big belly into a beautiful baby boy! Yeah!


So I don't know what to call all of my children on this blog. Everyone seems to have great nicknames to protect their children's identities. Valerie's Post explored her take on the phenomenon, and I've been deciding what to call my kids besides, "the three-year-old" or "my oldest". How do you approach this if it doesn't come naturally?


My knitting has suffered from never having two hands free, as has my typing! However, I have completed my first felting project! I got to turn this...



...into this!


It's so cool to actually experience the before and after.




I used my three-year-old (what will I call her?) as a model for scale.
The pattern is the Squatty Sidekick from Knitting Daily. Now my 9-year-old wants one too.