That's a whopper.

What Burger King shows as their Whopper:

What it really looks like:

The Real Outside.

The Real Inside.

The Real Fries.

It doesn't matter. It's all good. It's the best burger.

Snow Day AGAIN

It started about 3pm yesterday ~ snow, in April. It usually doesn't snow much in Seattle, maybe once or twice a year, and then not much coverage. This snow season seems to never end. It started early and stayed way past it's welcome. Last Saturday it was 80 degrees in some areas around Puget Sound. Today, one week later, snow. A 50 degree drop? What the...?

By 6:30 pm

Poor spring flowers...

The Hood

The Garden the Next Morning

The tree outside the kitchen window.

That's a lot of snow. Too much. Go away now. Shoo.

Dye Day

We had another one this last Saturday with the Friday Knitters, plus a couple of Guest Knitters. Eight of us dyed quite a bit of fiber and yarn, some of it is shown below. The weather was cold but it didn't rain, what a bonus for Seattle Dyers in March especially since we were outside on EmBe's patio. We even got a little sun and some of us sat and knit in the patch of sunlight. Our potluck made for a much needed mid-day break, with an outrageous apple crisp for desert from Evanne and wonderful salads from everyone else. Yum.

After lunch Evanne started a big Indigo pot.

Her yarn was periwinkle.
Results of the first dip:

Spin it out.

Squeeze out more.

Evanne and Peggy swoosh it around
to get oxygen into it,
which makes it the true color.

Evanne adds a little of this or that
to make the Indigo more active.

Dipped a second time and squeezed,
jiggled to make it the real color,
slightly darker than the first dip.

Below, Peggy's Merino Top dyed
in the same pot of Indigo.
It's lighter on the inside and should
be a lovely variegated when spun.

Duranee's Lincoln roving from
the Indigo bath.

Reclaimed Lana D'Oro, from a
sweater I frogged.

Resting in the last bit of color
in the cochineal pot.

Rinsed once.

My 33% Merino, 66% Mohair,

handspun 2-ply.

Simmering in Mother MacKenzie's Miracle Dye ~

2 colors we mixed: aubergine and raspberry.

Slightly dry, showing better color.

Dry, it still seems to have that lovely shine.
El K's sprinkle method

with powdered dye.

Peeking under to see what's happening.

Finished and laid out to dry.

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...

Knitting Left to Right

Don't know about you, but we have a couple of crazy friends who knit left to right instead of right to left and they call it 'normal'. Well, we all know that 'normal' is a relative concept, but in this case they happen to be correct: knitting back the other way is a good way to avoid purling, turning after the short row wrap or knitting right to left, if you happen to be...well...normal. Ok, EmBe, this one's for you! Now, would you show us all how to do a cable that way? And how about knitting into the back of the stitch and purling and...

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.

Koigu Gloves

Working on the ring fingers.

Trying on to check fit.

Not so many ends to weave in...

Preblocking.

Just in time for the rest of Winter:

Knitter: Rebecca

Yarn and Needles: Koigu Sock yarn (KPPPM), 2 sks, #2.0 mm Inox 24" circulars, 2 of 'em.
Pattern: Finding a pattern was problematic. Have you ever noticed how chunky knit gloves look in the pattern photos? I wanted 'refined' gloves, densely knit at a fine gauge and that meant (to me) sock yarn and size 'tiny' needles. There were no patterns with this criteria in our shared library of knitting books, although I came closest with one from VK's little book on mittens and gloves. I just had to revise it from double-points to 2 circulars and I also included the beaded picot cuff, using 32 #8 seed beads per glove. The pattern had a goofy kitchenered end to each finger/thumb which, after working, looked (as I said) goofy, so I changed it to the less obtrusive "break yarn and with a chibi, run yarn through remaining stitches and pull tight; weave in ends." That worked nicely.
Project Notes: Began knitting December 16th, 2007 and finished January 27th, 2008. The Koigu was stash yarn and I used less than two balls, so if you have two balls (which we all know are not enough for socks with a long leg or foot) you can actually knit a pair of gloves with a fairly long arm. On the next pair I will go up one needle size for the fingers/thumb as they are just a tad too tight. The rest is perfect. My first gloves. I like them!

Blue Vest

Swatching with stash yarn.
The holes are yo/k2tog's which indicate
the needle size I used. I started on a US 5
and decided on the US 7.

10 stitch steek and decreasing for front V-neck.

10 stitch armhole steek and decreases.

The steeks after cutting,
picking up for the button band
and armhole trim and blocking.
Preblocking

Blocking

Buttons
FO

Knitter: Rebecca
Yarn and needles:The yarn is GGH Via Mala from my stash. This was a 4-ply chunky weight yarn calling for size US 10.5 needle. I separated it into 2-ply, which was simple to do as the singles weren't twisted (plied) ~ they were just 4 strands laying next to each other (see photo #3 for a peek at the ball) ~ but it was tedious and so handy to have knitting friends willing to help. I'm not fond of knitting with needles bigger than US 8 and I ended up with about 2,900 yards of yarn I can happily knit on a US 7. For this vest I used a #4.5 Addi Lace 32" circular for a gauge of 5 stitches to the inch. This revised vest pattern only took about 820 yards so I have plenty left for more projects. I can also separate the yarn again, into singles, and have some lovely lace weight for shawls.
Pattern: The Artisan Vest from Green Mountain Spinnery, tweaked. I changed the pattern to be knit in the round with steeks and it worked out well. I also changed the button band and the armhole trim from crocheted to seed stitch, so that they matched the border. I added back-neck shaping and short-row shoulder shaping for the three-needle bind-off.
Project notes: Began knitting on January 11th, 2008 and finished on January 27th. The steeks are knit in seed stitch, which lays so flat that I didn't have to deal with the fabric curling after it was sewn on the machine and then cut. I didn't even need to tack it down. Even though the pattern is a cardigan style and I did put button holes in the band, I ended up sewing the button band closed and so wear it as a pull-over. Next time I'll remember to save myself some time and leave out the button holes. The buttons have little thistles on them and came from my button box where they have languished for years. It's nice to finally use them. The difference in the blues is totally my camera, with and without flash, cloudy days vs bright sunshine, etc. The photo closest to actual yarn color is the close-up of the buttons.