February Goings On

Grrr, accidentally posted over an old post! Reposting to get it right.

February Check In

• On my needles: EC Skirt. An easy knit I can do without using my frontal lobe, so should go fairly quickly.
  
  
• On my spindle: Almost done with the final (third) play of coopsworth so I should be able to start plying soon. However, I also purchased a new spindle! Woot! It's a Maggie 0.8 oz (from the top of my head so don't quote me) hi top with a pretty curved top. I'm working on some Targhee on it. Pictures soon.
  
  
• On my nightstand: I've got scores of half finished books lying around but nothing has really grabbed me lately exceptThe Noble Eightfold Path by Bhikkhu Bodhi. I've read it before but its oh so intense and worth reading scores of times.
  
  
• Screentime: Connections a BBC series (10 episodes in 1978, and 30 more in the 90's) takes an "interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention and demonstrates how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events built off one another in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology". Only on episode two but so digging it. Geeking out big time!
  
  
• In my garden: I'm working on removing a few large roots from one of my beds and then lining it with gopher proofing. It makes me nervous to cut up the roots of the tree, but I think we'll be ok. I'm also resetting the raised bed and starting to dig a trench for my irrigation system (to run beneath the garden path). I've signed up at the Garden Registry, which is tracking edible/Victory gardens in the city. It looks like an interesting app, although I'm wishing it had social networking capabilities.
  
  
• In my studio: Nothing but a big ole mess :) My son really needs some more pants, so perhaps soon, I'll break down and clean up, get organized and sew.
  
  
• In the kitchen: Nothing but a clean kitchen :) Haven't been able to get out to farmer's market lately, since the household has been running on a p.m. schedule lately and I think most markets are winding down early afternoon.
  
  
• This and that: Nothing here.

Longies

I recently finished these infant longies (link is for Ravelry users only) (longies being wool pants that cover a cloth diaper) for a friend (who had this blessingway). Her son is still a bit too small to wear them so no "sportin" pictures yet. I love these. I hadn't meant to fall in love with them, but I did. I love the colors and and love the stripes and I did a wee bit of stranded work on them as well. The stripes and stranded work are more or less random (or random within a mental set of rules I made up, but then as I went down the legs I realized I was running out of green so started using more brown and blue. And if you look closely you'll see some snafus.). I wasn't sure how to handle the short rows with stripes, so I just included the short rows within one stripes. This pictures shows the back of the pants and how the two green fat green stripes on the butt get wider.

They are the picky pants pattern and I chose to use a seed stitch cuff, happy/dreamy sigh. I used Cascade Yarns Pastaza (50% llama, 50% wool) which was a joy to work with. The orangey/brown color is actually red and yellow fibers blended together so that from a distance it looks brown (see color 071 here). So subtle but made me happy while I was knitting it. Its a single ply so I hope it wears well enough and isn't too pilly.

New Year's Thoughts

I know. I'm so behind on this one. But Happy New Year and what are my resolutions for 2009? I'm not one for making resolutions. I used to make them because on some level they appealed to me (the list making aspect of my persona, I dare say), but they never lasted more than a week. And being a different person since becoming a mother, I still like the idea of them but changed a bit to fit with my change in personality. Some people talk about intentions and that's a bit more my speed. Not hard and fast rules, nobody gets beaten up with guilt when I'm less than perfect; lots of flexibility built in since things can change. More like an evaluation on perspective - what's important? what do I like doing? what can I realistically do? what do I want to do that I'm not doing much on now? So what things am I thinking about with regards to how to spend my hobby and spare time? Well let's see...

In general. I was involved in planning two blessingways that took place about a month apart. I really loved doing that. I loved the creative process around it and I loved making new traditions. I loved doing something special for people who are special to me. And when it was over, I loved not feeling like I had any more obligations. I realize now that since my son was born, I haven't taken on many "have-to's" or "need-to's", instead playing it slow. I really like this lifestyle. So whenever possible I would like to keep that openness. Already there are several opportunities that are popping up that I would love to take advantage of, but am hesitant to add more appointments to my calendar, so it will be a balancing act.

Knitting. I have a few project on the immediate horizon, mainly gifts and requests people have made. Someone in my family wants a knitted item? Hell yeah, I'm there! Beyond that, I don't have any goals, like learn to knit intarsia, for example. However, I do have some thoughts on what I should be doing with my knitting time. I think I will be more productive if I stick to simple and portable projects. I got hung up on a few projects because I wasn't in love with them or they weren't practical with the realities of chasing a little boy wherever he wanted to go. So no stranded knitting (too many balls of yarn to tote around and get tangled) even though I loved how my last project turned out. And definitely no lace since its so hard to concentrate on - well very little lace and I'll have to think hard and long about that because some of my hand spun is calling out to be knitted in lace, so if I do knit lace it will be after hours knitting. Smaller to medium projects in patterns I can keep in my head are good (say k2, p2). Things that come in two's aren't ideal since I tend to lose speed but in general things that come in twos are smaller so I'll have to balance those two ideas. So baby things, toddler clothes, scarves, cowls, hats, and in twos, gloves, socks and fingerless mitts.

Spinning. I love spinning. I really do. I want a wheel and hand carders and other toys and fun stuff. But I honestly don't have the time and if I got a wheel I could only use it after hours when little fingers didn't want to play with it and I just don't have the time for special projects when my son is sleeping. Spindle spinning makes so much more sense, since I can spin in the living room, playroom, garden or bathroom. So no gadgets this year, I'm thinking. And while I'm at it no classes either, since I'll just end up buying gadgets or fiber if I take a class. Meeting up with other spinners may fit in there some where since it takes little time and it might help my spindle spinning. Getting more spindles is definitely in order, since I'm learning to spin finer and dropping my 2.2 oz spindle a lot in the process, which I believe means I'm spinning too fine for it. Plus most spindles are dirt cheap compared to a new wheel.

I have approximately 52 oz of fiber in my stash (and I've spun only about 7 oz on top of that EVER so yes, I'm still very much a novice). AND I signed up for the Wooly Wonders fiber club at A Verb For Keeping Warm, which will bring me an addition 4 oz of wool fiber every month. I would like to stay on top of my stash so spinning 2 oz a week seems like a reasonable way to do this. It remains to be seen if this is feasible considering how much time I'm putting into it. Perhaps budgeting for 1 oz a week with the expectation that my stash won't grow by much is more in line with reality.

Reading & screen time. I have no particular thoughts on intention or objectives with regard to reading or screen time but figured I would follow my status reports format and include it here. Reading and gaming interests wax and wane. I would like to work on archiving my blogs into a print on demand service like blurb. So I guess I can add that to my wish list. And what's on my reading list reflects what my current interests are, mostly since I'm not a big fiction reader.

Sewing. I have several projects I would like to work in with sewing. Some pants for my son and placemats and napkins for the kitchen. Perhaps some cushions and pillows for the house. But sewing is a tough one since in general it requires my complete attention and that's being heavily rationed lately. But I haven't felt a strong urge to embroider like I did last year. I suspect the time to reward ratio isn't good for me.

Cooking. So I've been reading Local Flavors by Deborah Madison and that has me all fired up on local food again or perhaps I should say more. I would like to try to shop at farmer's markets and give up grocery store produce as much as possible, including our delivery box which is somewhat local. I'm interested in learning what is truly seasonal and fresh from the field vs. taken from cold storage and learning more about who is farming my food. So, one, I want to try to visit all the farmer's markets in the city. I've already been to the Tuesday morning Ferry Building Market (I know, I know so behind the curve on this! but I'm learning!) and Heart of the City Wednesday market. Its nice to get outside and shop in the middle of winter - true its been sunny on the days I shopped, but hey, I'm trying! Two, I also want to try new and perhaps exotic to me produce. I bought a bunch of nettles earlier this week. I think Buddha's Hand might be up next. Three, I'm on a "storing food from when its at its peak" kick. In other words, putting food by - canning, freezing, drying, pickling, etc. So I'm reading quite a bit about it now, but trying to imagine how this will be implemented. It only makes sense to store foods that we'll actually eat. So on the canning front that pretty much means tomato and tomato products (tomato sauce, salsa?, chopped tomatoes). Canned fruits and vegetables don't have any appeal to me, nor does sugar loaded jams. And we don't have much room in the freezer. I could probably elucidate this idea a bit more.

Gardening. The weather has been gorgeous here and I'm fired up again about vegetable gardening after reading Local Flavors and any time I read anything by Pollan. So what's it going to take to make a productive garden? I think infrastructure will be the watchword for 2009. 2007 was about dreaming and removing the old pond. 2008 was making the beds and learning about pest management. That make improvements based on what learned in 2009 - lining beds with wire to help gopher proof (mostly done), low fencing to keep marauding toddlers and dogs out of the beds (purchased but not installed), and installing drip irrigation (big project with many trips to the store, I'm guessing). And if I have time, planting all of the raised beds with edibles, fill in central beds with edibles and organics, plant my lemon tree and look into limes, pineapple guavas, and other fruit trees. And if I'm still needing things to do, look at redoing my perimeter beds and starting on a compost pile. Although as important as that compost pile is it will take a bit of thought because it really is a compost system (how to gather scraps, how to turn the pile, etc.). So might be a 2010 intention.

Mindfulness - This is my big intention for the year. I was feeling a bit sorry for myself last month about my lack of crafting and I started thinking about 2009... What do I want 2009 to look like? And I realized that what's most important to me is my meditation practice of which I've been very sporadic this past year. I've never really gotten it firmly established and when it comes time at the end of the day, when I'm waiting for that opening to sit, I'm too tired and haven't found the initiative to make the time. But I know that this is what's important to me. I've signed up for a class(? for lack of a better word) to help me get going. Its a bit scary since some of the meetings are long (like 8 hours) and I haven't been away from my son like that before. But it seems like a good kind of scary. Honestly, I think the hardest part will be making time to sit.

So there it is! 2009 all laid out.

Have I mentioned how much I love planning even when moving at a snail's pace? Just keep plunking away at it, brings a smile to my face.
It sounds almost pathetic really to think about it - spinning only 1 oz a week?? But in a really weird way it makes me happy. I have so little free time and I'm still able to blog and take photos, sew and read, cook and garden, knit and spin! Such a lucky woman! I'm looking forward to reading this post in a year and see how much (or little) I've done and whether my thoughts on the subject have changed. How fun!

Status report

• On my needles: Longies. Still. Yes, taking a back seat to spinning. Apparently this isn't uncommon in new spinners.
  
  
• On my spindle: Working on my third spinning project. A natural colored coopsworth wool in brown. finished one single and I'm going to try to do two more to make a three ply.
  
  
• On my nightstand: Color in Spinning, Hold Onto Your Kids
  
  
• Screentime: Kung Fu Panda got some serious play when my son was sick and I didn't immediately get totally sick of it. Probably my favorite Dreamworks movie to date; they aren't batting very well in my park.
  
  
• In my garden: Nothin! Well nothing that I'm involved in. I'm sure it keeps doing what nature intended for it to do.
  
  
• In my studio: I recently made a little bag for the bleggingway. I love simple little pretty sewing projects.
  
  
  
  
• In the kitchen: Made some plain ordinary choco chip cookies recently, didn't even use whole grains, but nothing to blog about (oops, too late)
  
  
• This and that: For the blessingway, a friend and I made these paraffin luminaries in blue and white. That was fun.
  

Things To Keep Me Busy

Knitting Urge

I've knit very very little since the end of August. Like maybe 200 stitches. Because I've been focusing my hobby time on sewing. And I'm making progress on that front. But I find myself missing knitting. The more I do it, the more I realize its so incredibly relaxing. Sorta like yoga. The repetition. The rhythm. The way you don't have to think about it and can let your mind wander or instead be calm and mindful.

Somewhere on one of the (too) many blogs that I read, and I don't remember where so I can't give props, someone mentioned that Debbie Bliss has a knitting mag out now. I found the premier issue (Fall/Winter) when I was at Jo Anne's picking up some plaid flannel for a sewing project. I've purchased an Interweave magazine once and was pretty disappointed (lots of boring sweaters) so I wasn't sure whether I should spend the $7.95 for it. I'm glad I did! It has lots of things that I'm excited about. Now mind you my knitting queue is full all the way through January, but I can dream can't I? Here's what caught my eye.

Finished Sweater

It's done! My very first sweater. It turned out great. Very big, but I was sorta anticipating that. I had no idea how long it would take me and was afraid if it ran small the size 2 wouldn't fit him. This is the next size up - a four and seems to be true to size so he might be able to wear it in 12 months or so. I was a little afraid that the sleeves wouldn't fit right, but I think I was able to ease it ok and it doesn't seem to look too bad. I used a machine to attach the snap tape and that was a bit difficult so my stitches aren't very straight. So don't look too closely there. Also, the yarn is the kind of cotton that is grown naturally in different colors so no dying it. However, there was some variability on either different batches of the yarn (dye lots if you will) so that one of the sleeves looks beiger next to the greenish body of the sweater. Oh well, I don't think its terribly noticeable. I don't know if I'll do cotton again. I figured I would use cotton so I could machine wash it, but after spending all this time on it, I'll probably hand wash it anyways. And the cotton is so heavy and tends to sag. We'll see how this one wears as well. But overall I'm ready to cast on the next sweater, but will probably wait until after the holidays before I tackle anything.

FO!

When I got to the point in knitting my sweater where I needed to do the finishing work like blocking and seaming but I still wanted to keep knitting and purling, I cast on this pattern called Scaruffle. I messed up on it big time somehow. Its knit tightly on small needles and then you knit through the front and back of every stitch to double the number of stitches to make the ruffle and then switch to larger needles to make it fluffy. Then you do short rows to make the nice beveled edges. Somehow when I was doing kfb I got turned around. So half of the scarf that wasn't done doing kfb has no ruffle and half that was kfb twice has way too much ruffle. Its in kidsilk haze, which was lovely to knit on the large needles and torture on the small needles but impossible to frog. So its going to remain a very lopsided Scaruffle. I think I'll toss it into the little guys dress up box. I know 18 months is still a little young for a dress up box, but you gotta start on it sometime.

Baby Booties

I'm still working on my first sweater. Its coming along, but slowed down by sickness and a baby that isn't inclined to go to bed early. However, I have a friend that's 36 weeks pregnant and we had a tea in her honor earlier this week. So I quickly whipped up a pair of baby booties. It's my first attempt at them and they are easy and quite satisfying to pull off. The pattern is a freebie: Perfect Baby Booties (sorry Ravelry link - you've signed up already, no?). It was an interesting knit, since I was in a hurry and couldn't really figure out how they were constructed in my quick read through. So I just cast on and started knitting. They are knit in the flat with the seam going down the back of the sock and through most of the sole. There is shaping in the toe of the sole and then short rows on the instep/stockinette portion. I used Rowan Cotton Wool a 50/50 blend of cotton and merino wool. Apparently mixing animal and plant fibers is not all that common, but in theory its supposed to give you the best of both worlds - the warmth and resilience of wool and softness and washability of cotton. Fun and I'm sure I'll be trying some more booties (you know who you are!).

Food & Cotton

Previously on this blog, I mentioned that I'm in love with my new cookbook - King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. I've made another item from it - Cherry & Chocolate Chip Scones. I know, what's with the fruit & chocolate chip kick? The whole grain in this one is barley flour, 2 to 1 with all-purpose white. They came out very wet - like wetter than cookie wet but drier than a cake. So I made them dropped scones even though they were supposed to be shaped into a circle than cut into wedges. I can't figure out what I did wrong. It called for either 2.5 cups of whole wheat or 2 cups of barley; I went barley and apparently that made all the difference. Perhaps my barley isn't whole grain and that makes it wetter? Or perhaps I fluffed up the barley too much before measuring it? One of the techniques the book recommends is weighing all ingredients. The next time I try these or any recipe from the book, I might do that instead of going by volume. The seemed to bake up fine. They taste awesome and I'm trying to hold myself back from polishing them off. The cherries just aren't doing it for me, however. They are pretty anemic. They are dried Bing and I think I was expecting the tart dried sour cherries. So I'll make a note to tried to find those next time.

Also check out the plate in the picture. Mr. Thystle has given the go ahead to get some salad plates like the one pictured above. So I'm gonna pick up a half a dozen in turquoise and half a dozen in red. Apparently, I'm still stuck on this color combo. Should look nice with our cobalt blue dinner plates we already have. But salad plates seem to be much more our speed for smaller meals (or making dinner seem bigger since it takes up more of the plate) or a sandwich or anything more than our 5 inch saucer plates hold.

Here's how the cotton sweater is coming along. This was the back about 75% of the way done. Currently, I'm actually done with the back and about 75% of the way done with one of the front panels, but just getting around to getting photos off the camera. I'm on a knitting high after taking 4 months to finish those darn socks and I'm scouring Ravelry, finding all sorts of things I want to try. My queue is about 20 projects long right now. Hrmm, interesting... I've also made 20 things in my knitting career as well. But what's so great about a sweater is that once you do a sweater you can do ANYTHING. I'm serious. Knit a cozy for the Golden Gate Bridge? No problem! But this - a Scaruffle - is the next item on my list. Got the needles. Got the yarn. Just gotta finish the sweater first.

On the gardening front - my final two potato seeds are sprouting. I thinned out my first round of radishes even though their roots are just barely starting to swell. They were shading out the carrots underneath. If you'll recall, I sowed them at the same time with the idea being that you harvest the quick producing radishes just when you should start thinning the slow sprouting carrots. But these are some seriously slow radishes and I don't really like radishes but I do like carrots. So I'm playing favorites with my veggies.

A bit of this 'n that

So something is eating my beans! I have a few more beans coming up from the second sowing that I did but they first set of true leaves are either missing or seriously stunted on the beans. I've read that slugs can do a number on them so that might be the case but I haven't seen any other signs of slugs and I have my copper tape up but perhaps they've breached my defenses already. On a positive note everything from the second sowing is up except my potatoes! Even the cilantro which for some odd reason takes longer to germinate than my carrots do. Hmmmm.

I have another almost finished knitted project. They are super cute slippers for my little H (15 months old now). They are basically socks without a bottom of the foot that are sewn to a fleece lined suede bottom. I used some yarn I had leftover from a poncho I made. Chunky weight so went very fast. The yarn is self striping with large stripes so the slippers don't exactly match. But I had some reservations about the slippers and as a result didn't want to a) buy a whole ball of new yarn when I had a plenty big stash that needed paring down and b) didn't want to waste my stash by going through the self striping yarn to find the right starting color for the second slipper and just started where I left off. The reservations I had about the slippers were that they were going to be too small or rather too small very shortly (partly why I tried to hurry up and knit them) and also that H wouldn't wear them. I've tried the one slipper on a couple of times now and each time he pops it off quickly. I still need to sew the second one on but what with my reservations and my new temptation (see below) I'm in danger of not finishing it. Ack! Must stay on target...

What is really got me going right now is that I've cast on my first sweater! It's for H and is a snap tape cardigan by Mac & Me. Its in an organic cotton that's super soft. My previous encounters with cotton left me longing for my nice resilient wool, but I couldn't imagine making a toddler a wool sweater when I have to do the laundry. Of course, now that I've started I can't imagine not washing the sweater by hand no matter what its made out of, but at least with cotton I feel like I can keep a few of my options open. Its going smoothly so far and the advice I've heard about doing sweaters for the first time (besides test gauge swatch - check) is that you just break it down into pieces. So I've done the ribbed waist portion of the back and have moved on to the stockinette portion of the back before I need to start doing some shaping for the arms. And really that's going to be the most monotonous part, I believe. In other words the largest chunk of stockinette without anything special to do. It's so much fun I wanna wrap up this blogging nonsense so I can get back to it.

Finally, I've got another exciting diversion. I purchased a baking book that I'm so in love with at the moment. King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking. Its a basic how to make everything book - from breakfast stuff (oatmeal, granola, pancakes) to yeast breads, sourdough, cakes, quick breads, flat breads, cookies and pies. This is an area where I feel like I have a lot to learn about the chemistry of cooking and this book seems to deliver all that but all of the recipes include whole grains from spelt and barley to oat and wheat. But they claim to try to not sacrifice taste. So not every recipe includes 100% whole grains if it messes with the functioning or taste of the food. Gonna be making a shopping list when I head to the grocery store to get me some fancy flours!

However, I've only made one recipe so far and considering I've only had the book for a little over 24 hours that is actually saying something about how excited I am about it. Its a Banana Chocolate Chip Cookie Bar. I know. A little deja vu. Results: yummy will probably make again. Called for spelt but I only had whole wheat so used that. Called for letting it rest over night but we're in a hurry around here so ate it all crumbly from the pan. I was aware that it was whole wheat but not distracted by it. So success in my book. Yummy!

Finally, if you follow the current events in the side bar, I mentioned that Tortilla Soup was on my radar. We tried it. H is making a mess of it here. Not bad, but honestly, I think I'm not a soup person because I got more excited about the idea of it than my execution of it.

Cables and Socks

Photo by Mr. Thystle with Thystle's Camera. Model = Thystle

I've had socks on my knitting needles since February. I signed up for a sock class way back then with the goal of knitting a pair for my sister's birthday in March (along with this apron). I got the first sock done probably in late April/early May and then immediately cast on the second one since I've heard of the second sock curse and slowly bit-by-bit my made way through the sock. I got waylaid by gaming for a bit but then a friend talked me into doing a project with her so we went to the yarn store to shop. She then decided she had too much on her plate (smart woman that she is) and I decided that I really needed my plate to spill over onto the floor so added two new projects to my queue. But the store visit was what motivated me to get these socks done, since apparently a birthday deadline isn't enough. I'm very happy with my first pair of socks. I used two circulars. Its a self striping superwash wool blend which I think makes a lot of sense for socks, but isn't exactly candy for the hands. I'll probably use two circulars again even though I'm not crazy about pulling the needles through and they have an annoying habit of the stitches getting stuck at the joints. However, with double-pointeds I tend to drop stitches way too frequently.

Once I finished that I had to fly through the next item I had in my queue to get to the the new projects I was inspired to start from our visit to the yarn shop. I had purchased the yummy alpaca/wool yarn during my sock class with the intention of making a hat for myself as well as learn how to do cables. Easy-peasy! Its probably my fastest hat to date (6 hours? 8 hours?) and I've been wearing it around the house constantly in the last 48 hours. Its way too cold in San Francisco right now. Cables are a cinch. I like how they decrease in size for this pattern, making them look like unicorns horns. I also like doing a hat with chunky yarn.

Next up, slippers and a sweater for my little boy.

Administrative

No cool finished works to share or even new photos of WIPs. Just wanted to point out that I am trying to keep the sidebars updated.

First up added a badge for Ravelry which connects to my Ravelry account which I've been amiss in keeping updated. But if you have an account you can see some of my older work.

I've been adding books that I read or am in the process of reading or that I want to read to my Goodreads account. The sidebar just shows books I've read. However, since I have about 100 books (ok, ok, more like 6) I'm reading at any one time and of those I might finish half, it doesn't always get updated that often. And I can't go to the library until I finish some of those. Yes, I'm mostly into non-fiction. For some reason, I feel like that makes me a boring person.

Finally, I have a list going of what's happening hobby-wise, whether its knitting, sewing, gardening, reading, cooking, digital projects, or screen time entertainment (tv and video games). This gets updated more frequently and the items on it may not be worthy of a blog posting, so this is a way of me sharing what's going on without having to come up with a post about how I'm starting to watch Season 2 of Heroes. Now that I think about it, I think part of the lack of blog entries is that I'm starting lots of things but not finishing many things. So perhaps in another few weeks I'll have a plethora of entries? Or perhaps, I'll just drop it and start the next thing that catches my fancy.

The only thing I seem to do more than starting something, is making mental lists of things I want to make or do or try. Perhaps if there was a slick way for me to make a TODO Queue. For knitting it would be a sweater for H, a cap for me, a scarf, something cool with the unprocessed wool J got me. For sewing it would be bean bags, and try some clothes for me and some shorties for H, and some totebags for the library. For reading see my list. For screen time, it would be WOW with my level 29 pally or some BGS with my level 39 priest. For digital projects, it would H's baby book. For cooking, nothing on my radar. Gardening would be to get my raised beds in and pick out something to plant in the next couple of weeks before I completely miss the April/May planting window here. I also have this bizarre urge to do some garden illustration and rendering with watercolors. Why?! Sigh, so much to do, so little time...

Finished Objects!

Yea! I have some finished objects to share. It seems like I've been so busy working on getting stuff done or planning birthday parties or sleeping (got some teething going on here and before that it was colds) or avoiding the chaos that comes from construction and home improvement projects that nothing has gotten finished in ages. But here I have two things to share.

First up and hat knitted for my mom, modeled by me and photographed by my brother-in-law. Its just a plain stockinette pattern, but it was the first time I started from the top and worked down. Not my favorite method I think, since its a bit tight until you get all your increases in. But the yarn was fantastic - Noro something or another - I know, not terribly helpful. It was mostly wool with some nylon and angora mixed in, in a beautiful self-striping colorway with lavenders, pinks, olive and ever greens a little grey and white. It's a variable weight single-ply. So much fun to knit with, but I unfortunately probably used too small of needles for the yarn and so its very tightly knit. Should function fine but took a little of the fun out of knitting it up, especially when the yarn was so lovely to work with. It makes me really want to have a hat of my own. I'll probably work on that after I finish the top secret project that's currently on my needles, which means I'll have a new hat just in time for summer.

Second up, is a sewing project - a birthday banner for my son's first year birthday, inspired by Soulemama's work. The fabric is a thrift shop freebie (yes, they actually gave me a bunch o' bags of fabric) and a donation of quilt squares from my mother-in-law that were just perfect for making the letters. As I was pulling it together, not really sure just what exactly I was doing, since I still consider myself a novice seamstress, I had lots of "no, this is total crap" moments but I kept plugging away. I was afraid it was gonna turn out like the valentine - where I do lots of prep but not so much in the finished product category. BUT I think it turned out pretty darn nice. I hope it becomes a family tradition around here.

Sweaters To Yarn

I've fallen in love with reclaiming yarn.

I love thrift store shopping for good wool (or cotton or linen or cashmere). And then unraveling (or raveling) the yarn then measuring it by winding it around a handy device my father made for me (a piece of wood with two dowels stuck in it a yard apart). Then washing it it to remove the somebody else's house smell. And winding it into a ball by hand (I don't own a swift or ball winder at the moment - so big! where to put it?). However, I have yet to knit anything with it! Arrrg! So I'm holding off on the other sweaters I have until I get my stash more organized. However, I've keep finding nice cashmere sweaters that are too fine for unraveling, so I think I'll try to sew some longies with those! What I don't like - the little fuzzies that get everywere as I deconstruct the sweater.

Here's a GAP knitted mini-skirt in a natural colored lamb's wool.

And here's the finished balls of yarn - approximately 600 yards of sport weight (I'm guessing - I haven't mastered the art of telling the weight of the yarn yet). What to make with it, what to make....