Weekend in Redmond

The Friday Knitters spent the sunniest, hottest* weekend so far this year (May 4&5)

in a Pat Brunner class on Designing Knitwear to Fit Your Body (One Size Does Not Fit All.)

Lisa welcomed us to her Redmond home:

The view of the house and garage/shop/craft loft coming up from the pasture.

The Juliet balcony of the loft.

 

From the balcony overlooking the pasture.

 They have 16 chickens.

Two shy sheep,

and Wedding Cake,
a very friendly SallyBill** wether who loves cookies.

We spent quite a bit of time outside at the breaks and lunches.

Michale took advantage of Wedding Cakes' appetite 

for a close-up photo opportunity.

This is just a small part of the potluck as it was being set up ~ it was dee-licious!

 Trixie was riveted.

Henry was riveted.

Matilda: not just riveted.  She was fascinated by all the food.

Lisa has remodeled the upper floor of their garage 

for fiber related activities.

This is the classroom end,

and in this end there are 5 looms.

It was a wonderful weekend.  If we had to be inside for most of it, oh well! 
Spending time together, knitting and laughing: priceless.

*It was 87 on Sunday afternoon in Seattle.  It didn't get quite that hot in Redmond, maybe only 84.

**SallyBill: a flock of sheep from Island Fibers on Lopez, one of the San Juan Islands, started about 70 years ago by Sally Bill, blended to the originators' handspinning preferences.  Nobody knows quite what the mix is at this point, but the fleeces goes for about $16.00 a pound, unwashed, in a bag.  That must be a pretty good fleece.

Knitting Olympics and Ravelympics Gold (in handspun)

Out of 4oz of Crown Mt. Shetland Roving:

Peggy spun 200 yds of 2 ply for the 2010 Ravelympics.

She then knit up the Peter Seamans Scarf
from Myrna Stahman's Shawls & Scarves book
using handspun 5% chinchilla, and 95% wool.
The ‘chinchilla’ fiber is from Kate Painter
at Oregon Flock & Fiber Festival 2009

I used almost all of the 1080 yards of handspun Jacob/Angora for my second February Lady Sweater:

This year we're committed to knitting only with handspun so we're busy figuring out what to work on next. Swatching is a huge part of the process, more than usual although we always swatch a lot. We both finished our Olympic projects early and spent the rest of the time going through stash and swatching, pulling out patterns and comparing swatch results to potential projects. I do believe some designing will be involved...

Peggy's February Lady Sweater

It’s countdown to 2010 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremonies!

We're ready to knit and dreaming of 2010 Gold.

Just to show you what can be accomplished
we give you Peggy's 2008 Ravelympics Project
and the twists and turns of a very tough knitting venue.

Here's her story:

Aug 8/08 6:00 am PDT - cast on for the Ravelympics, even though I didn’t actually sign up to be a competitor until August 18th (sorry, my bad.) The February Lady Sweater was only one of two patterns that I could find which would use ALL of this particular handspun-twice dyed yarn without going over AND one of two patterns that I wanted to knit.

Aug 11/08 6:00 pm PDT - injury! OH NO. Infected index finger may slow knitting. Doctor visited for antibiotics. Note to self: wear gloves when gardening, especially if I have a cut on my finger which may pick up a puss-causing vile infectious bug.

Aug 15/08 7:15 am PDT - detected MISTAKE in lace pattern 4 inches back. Frogged back and reknit incorrect row. Lost 2 whole days re-knitting to where I was before frogging. SAD and DISAPPOINTED that GOLD may now be out of reach. sob.

Aug 18/08 6:55 pm PDT - Regrouped and picked up for the sleeves, using two 29” circulars to knit both at the same time. Wrapping my brain around right back and left front on one needle, and the right front and left back on the other and then knitting in the round – it will be a challenge on the commuter bus!


Aug 20/08 7:51 am PDT - posted the photo on Ravelry showing the finished body length, and 5 pattern repeats into the sleeves. How will this ever be finished by Sunday when I still have to go to work every day???

Aug 23/08 4:37 pm PDT - Knitting done, ends sewn in and into the tub of water for soaking before blocking! Yea!! Posted a pre-blocking photo at 5:25p.

Aug 24/08 11:15 am PDT - Buttons on. Finished photo posted to the Ravelympics page for the Sweater Sprint. (Many thanks to Ellen for helping with that.)

The Gold Medal was awarded by

The Head of The International Ravelympic Committee:

Adonis Dionysius Bobicus Maximus

"I was just so darned proud to compete for my craft."

...Peggy

***************

Friday Knitters

Being laid off has one benefit:

I got to knit with my Peeps on Friday morning.

This is a strange photo. Everything is blurred but the Peeps and I don't know how that happened but I rather like it. Here's my second try, and they still seem happy to see me!

After 19 months of full-time work at the University of Washington, the State of Washington budget cuts got me and I'm laid off, along with about 350 others on the Seattle campus. This is a miserable economy to job hunt in, as the last 5 months have proven, which is how long I've been actively looking for another job. I was told in May that October 1st was my last day as the 'Scheduling Assistant for the Dean' at the College of Education ~ that seemed like a good chunk of time to: 1) take classes in interviewing, CHECK, 2) tune up my resume, CHECK, 3) net-work with people about my situation, CHECK, 4) apply for jobs, CHECK, and 5) find employment....no check for that one. I am working in a temporary hourly situation on the Bothell campus until the woman I'm filling in for gets off jury duty. She has Fridays off, hence enabling me to join the Friday Knitters this morning. This was the highpoint of my last two weeks!

Pink Socks

Pink socks with beads and a picot cuff ~ how much cuter does it get? Wear these with girly-girl shoes, or different girly-girl shoes, a glittery bracelett and maybe a poodle skirt..

Project notes:

Yarn: Zitron Trekking Sport XXL
Needles: Knitpicks 48" circulars, size 2.25
051009 Started my new socks with sale sock yarn. Love sale sock yarn! It's the usual pattern: 72 stitches, picot cuff w/ #8 seed beads, clear pink ones this time. So cute! This is a new method for me, working both socks at once on one 48" circular from Knit Picks ~ it's my new favorite way to knit socks and my new favorite sock needles!

The heel flap is worked in Eye of the Partridge, which is a first for me but I thought the delicate girlie-girl pink needed a little dressing up from my regular 'sturdy' heel ~ it's not a wear-spot for me anyway. Knitting Eye of the Partridge in pattern does take paying attention to though. I always extend the *slip one, knit one* from the heel to under the heel because that IS my wear-spot.

080409 Finished during the Bluebird Reunion at La Push, WA. We will do an entry on that weekend shortly. These socks are so darn cute!

Limbo Gloves

Project notes:

Yarn: Schoeller+Stahl Limbo Superwash, sport weight, 2 skeins, 275 yards total
Needle size: us #3
Pattern: from a class I took at Weaving Works where the instructions are basic and gauge is everything.
Beads: from stash

It was a very fun project and a great use of the Limbo yarn, which had perked in my stash since the mid 90's. And why not put the beaded picot cuff on gloves as well as socks?

I did some wrist shaping:
decreasing two stitches per round 4 times,
3 knit rounds between decreases.

All that's left is the weaving in of ends.

Ok, ends all woven in. Tried on and photos taken.
Shared with friends who also tried them on.
Multiple friends.
Multiple try-on times.

What’s wrong with this picture?

A dropped stitch on the right glove just below the index finger.
ack.

I am NOT frogging to catch up that stitch. I will stop the run with a little strand of yarn and weave in the two ends. feh. Almost perfect gloves. But it’s all good. In 50 years or so no one will remember, right?

Swallowtail Shawl with Kauni

*Some of our new posts will be projects finished over the past year.
We'll play catch-up while we put up the new stuff as well.

Peggy's project notes:

Aug 31/08 - I love the Swallowtail using variegated or space-dyed yarn, so I thought I’d try Kauni yarn. This Kauni is mostly bluey tourquoisey teal – very subtle color changes. I washed, dried and rearranged the colors with all the lightest together, medium together and dark teal together.

Sept 18/08 - Knitting done, ends sewn in, blocking in progress.

Sept 19/08 - blocking all done.
The size with extra repeats of the two ‘nupps’ charts is
29” deep by 57” wide.

Cables and Checks Vests

Three of them.

Ruby
Classic Elite Provence
knit by Rebecca

Topaz
Classic Elite Provence
Knit by Peggy

Emerald
ONline Clip
Knit by Peggy

Pattern designed by Janet Charbonnier and may still be available at Acorn Street Yarn Shop in Seattle. We knit the Ruby and Topaz vests in the last decade of the last century; Peggy finished the Emerald version in May 2008. This is a timeless vest and a very fun knit.

Pin is designed by Wilma Hoffman. Wilma is a genius at putting together odd and ends of Bakelite and creating beautiful pins and other jewelry.

Rosy Fingered Dawn

Knitter: Rebecca
Pattern/Fiber: Rosie Fingered Dawn, a shawl kit from Blackberry Ridge; their lace weight wool in six colors.
Details: Knitting began 03-17-2001 and ended 05-06-2001 ~ it was my first massive lace project, inspired by Evelyn Clark who had just knit one for herself and of course I had to do it, too. This shawl was a challenge for me and if I knew then what I now know about lace knitting then I would have gone up a needle size or two for the lace edging. In fact, if I ever run out of things to knit, I may just rip out the current edging and knit on a new one, sideways, so it will stretch better in the blocking.

Blackberry Ridge lace weight wool is a treat to knit with and Hazel Carter writes a classic pattern. The resulting shawl is cozy and warm.

The shawl pin is the design of Beth Richman, who sells her lovely enamel work at street fairs here in the Northwest (Upper Left Coast) and at LaTienda.

Lana D'oro Redo

The Original Sweater:
Mid-1990's Tunic with open work, boat neck,
crochet picot cuff and collar trim.

Taking it apart.

All the pieces.

What the undone yarn looked like.

Yarn after the first soak and dry.

Yarn after the second soak and dry.

Project: Take apart a sweater that I never wear, rehank the yarn, wash it and waa-la! I recovered about 1200 yards of a 50/50 wool alpaca from Cascade Yarns called Lana D'Oro. This is straight enough to knit with as is or maybe I'll dye it and then knit it. We do have a dye day coming up in March...

Two Leaf Lace Shawls

Today we have some vintage knitting, 'cause sometimes we just run out of current knitting to show you. We'll be doing Vintage occasionally because the original concept for our blog was to have a place to archive our knitting and spinning. Common sense demands that we pull out old projects, take photos and post details so that we can go back through the archives someday and claim to remember knitting that.

By Peggy, in her handspun Corriedale from Grafton Fibers

By Rebecca, in her handspun merino from Ashland Bay

Pattern: Leaf Lace Shawl by Evelyn A. Clark from Fiber Trends.
We knit these back in 'o6 with some of our first handspun. I can clearly see some serious over-twist and over-plying in my purple yarn while Peggy's is superior in every way ~ she's a natural talent at spinning.