Wednesday Night Extended in Time, Space, and Scope

Knitting getaway side trip: who did I find?

Tina!

Wonderful to catch up and talk about old times. What a beautiful little corner of the world she calls home now! I knew that I’d take a road trip up here some day! I keep up with her through Facebook, but it doesn’t compare to a hug and a face-to-face catching up session….and look, aren’t we color-coordinated in our orange and blue!

We took the opportunity to visit Tina’s LYS, Warm ‘n Fuzzy in Cary, NC.

Cary NC LYS Warm ‘N Fuzzy

Ashworth Village Art Shops

Our lunching spot

This beautiful old church was across the street

Luscious fibrous finds

Clockwise, from top: the blue-green-yellow is 100% merino Tweed Dragon Fly from local Echo View Fiber Mill in Weaverville, NC….the peach-brown ball is Wolle’s Yarn Creations Color Changing Cotton in Copper 2 Colorway, from nearby Virginia….the next group is by Quince&Co. Owl in Papuan color way: American alpaca/American wool, Piper in Sweetwater and Caracara:Texas Merino/Texas mohair, and Kestrel: 100% organic linen in Rosehip color way…and the blue and white fingering Phydeaux Soie merino/silk in Blue Moon. Thank you to the young lady shopkeeper who was very knowledgeable about the local yarn scene!

The next day, this scene was pandemonium with the Food Truck Rodeo “Chatham Street Chowdown” going full-tilt.

Food Truck Rally

Mini-Donuts

La Farm Truck

Baguettaboutit

Chai Tacos

Sōl Tacos

Baton Rouge Cuisine

Gussy’s Greek

Stuft

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Halloween Eve at Knitting

Ethel started it off with a giant purple shamrock.

Oxalis regnellii

The cats were acting up, especially Pauly and Grayzie, who were making such pests of themselves I had to shut them away. Is there strange magic in the air?

Halloween has lasted for weeks, it seems, but I just now found the first magazine of Christmas Knitting projects that looked irresistible to me.

Special Christmas issue of Simply Knit

This has a separate booklet of awesome little projects that are perfect decorations and stocking-stuffers. The Alan Dart attraction in this is a unicorn with a little gnome at its side. Adorable! And the apparel! How does a girl’s A-line shift dress with an intarsia fox face sound to you? A lacy sweater dress in a vertical leafy chain pattern and the waistline panel in the same pattern, but horizontal. My words aren’t adequate but the photos are fabulous. We sighed at the lovely, warm knitted items that would certainly cause us Floridians to sweat our way through the holidays.

I finished my picot-edge shawl, the one that sort-of matches the purse that was a gift from my son and his fashion-astute wife. I think I might have included some light silver or gray in it, but it is what it is! The outer row turned out to be a worsted-weight 100% merino yarn, while the other stripes are from Berocco Captiva metallic (the gold and lavender), Berocco Fuji (the purple), and Maggi Knits Irish Linen MK (the orange).

Fall colors shawl and purse

Ethel’s finished white shawl

Ethel finished the white shawl, and it is beautiful and soft. Someone is going to love throwing that over her shoulders in a chilly room.

Lois started on her version of the shawl, making the neck a little wider than Ethel’s. You have to realize theirs is a very intuitive take on a pattern; practically improvising in process. They are good at just getting busy and ending up with a beautiful finished article as if by magic!

Lois’s version of the shawl

By the way, Lois is back on a hat again. I was tickled, thinking about the old song lyrics “OH, the cat came back, he couldn’t stay away, he was sitting on the porch on the very next day…” but with Lois, it’s “the HAT came back…”

Lois with new hat of sea-foam green yarn

I love the color of that light green yarn!

Trish with afghan

Trisha joined us and told some funny stories about her dad and his crocheted hats. He started crocheting when his old hat fell apart and he needed a new one but was too cheap wanted to make one that was more economical than the ones he saw in the store. And once he made the hat for himself, he made hats for EVERYONE else! They are trying to get him to face up to his hat-making addiction and move on to afghans or something, but he seems good with the hat thing right now.

Ethel and alpaca hat for DIL

Ethel worked on a hat, too, to match a scarf she’d made for her DIL last year. She brought along her entrelac purse for BOB, who was thrilled. He’s recovering from his pancreatitis but having to take lots of medicine, which has resulted in my DH having a number of new fang-holes in his thumbs. Sigh. The cat came back.

wool-worshiping Bob

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Keep the [center-pull yarn] ball rolling at WNK

It was anniversary night, of a sort, at Wednesday Night Knitting. I looked back over the blog and found that we’ve been meeting [and I’ve been knitting and blogging about us] since February 2011. When I looked back over some of our projects in the past two years, I was really pleased with us! Happy blogiversary to us! This calls for a real celebration.

Last week, while Ethel’s family was visiting, she took her daughter-in-law to our LYS, Yarnworks, and asked her to pick out some yarn and a pattern that she would like Ethel to make for her. What a great idea!

Ethel’s daughter-in-law’s yarn pick

Ethel’s daughter-in-law’s pattern pick

Since the yarn for this project was held double, I saw that Ethel had wound the doubled strands ahead of time into a sort of coil, rather than a ball. She was worried that the halo of the fuzzy strands would make them stick together and tangle but it was all good.

And here’s the WIP:

Ethel’s alpaca hat, in progress

Very nice alpaca! Soft and fuzzy.
Ethel also took her to a bead store where they bought the components for some earrings, and made them. Nice way to get in the running for Best Mother-in-law Ever, Ethel!

Meanwhile, Lois says she wants to join Hat Knitters Anonymous to try and cut back a step at a time. She brought along some bright, springy pink yarn and the beginnings of a feather and fan stitch afghan. Great color and motif for ushering in spring, Valentine’s, possible new baby girl great-grandchild?

I did another version of the Beginner’s Socks pattern by Heather Storta that was furnished with Sock-it-to-Me 2013, the ravelry KAL group I’ve been following.

house socks in Ella Rae Amity Print

Now I’m working on the February pattern, the International Sock of Doom. They also have an additional February free pattern from Susie Q Knits for Valentine Worsted socks, with an adorable raised heart at the ankle. I’ve also started the Craftsy Mystery Knit-along, which turned out to be the Laera Shawl by Grace Akhrem. So far I’ve done a gauge swatch in prep for casting on —what? 361 teeny, tiny stitches!

Grayzie, ready to roll with the Schoppel Laceball 100

We are going to a chili cook off and talent show this weekend. Ethel is working on a rat to enter in the show.

the rat so far

She’s a Norwegian rat [like Ethel :)] and this will be her cute little costume, as planned by her maker.

Norwegian rat in folk dress, Ethel’s drawing

She’s using an Alan Dart pattern for the body and adding her own costume design! So much fun!

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The Knitting Kids are All Right

Ethel and Lois

Knitting was a little crazy this week, owing to the increased number of kids in the house. Ethel and Lois were the regular kids, and they started in on some work they’ve been discussing for a while. Ethel brought Lois a steamer-trunk’s worth of yarn skeins, so Lois can start making more chemo hats. It is a project close to Lois’ heart, considering she just recovered from surgery that could have revealed cancer as a root cause—but instead was found to be benign! We are grateful. And Lois is recuperating wonderfully!

collaborating on some crochet

The additional kids were paying a visit, and they wanted to knit! One of them, K, learned to knit and crochet a pretty solid chain stitch.

"K" and her chain stitch

She is going to make a hat for her new baby sister and her doll. We decided to take the very long chain and sew it into a round for the hat.

"K" knitting a doll scarf out of cotton yarn

The other one, “N,” couldn’t quite get the hang of this needlework, but had fun playing.

a girl and her doll

As the evening progressed, drama unfolded with one being scared by the other and her older brother in cahoots, which prompted a 15-minute crocodile-tear crying jag. Sigh.

Ethel made progress on the Zimmerman baby jacket, but she wasn’t completely thrilled by the shape. We liked it.

the baby jacket, almost finished

My cable headband in time for St Patrick's Day

I finished the cable headband I’d been working on, and I love the way it turned out. I found it on page 47 of One Skein Wonders, and used alpaca Love yarn.

Here’s a link for a great new knitting blog, Knitting Without a Net, with a free pattern for a knitted pig. This blog is wonderful for beginner knitters, because the information is very direct and straightforward. The first you-tube video I saw on this blog shows someone who knits just like I do!

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Watch out, they have needles!

Wednesday Night Knitting started off slow. Again, I had nothing to show for the week, since my project kept coming out WRONG and I had to rip it, rip it, rip it. But when the knitters came over, things began to get better and better, and by the end of the night I was floating on a cloud of knitting confidence and hope! Ethel brought me a “hostess gift” of 2 skeins of Maylla Peruvian yarn in alpaca, wool, and bamboo blend. “Not my colors,” she said, “but they are yours!” Hmm, remember those Color Me Beautiful parties people used to have where you draped the silver or gold scarf across your shoulders to see if you were a “warm” or “cold” color personality? And then you were one of the 4 color seasons and yep, I was dubbed Autumn. The yarn label says maylla is a Quechan word meaning wonder, abundance. I found this site with some lovely, artisan apparel Peruvian fashions for spring to ponder, check it out! Oops, I digress!

progress on my cable headband

Ethel also brought along some double-pointed needles in a size 4 and some other knitting paraphernalia she’d scored at Tuesday Morning. Treats for the taking, thank you! Then Lois showed up with some chocolate! My mood was improving all around. Lois showed a hairpin lace doily that possibly her mom had made.

Hairpin lace and chocolate from Lois

Tina came with a loom project; we were happy to spend what few Wednesdays we may have left to associate with her before she moves to North Carolina. Her husband was chosen as president of a small college there, a great career move for him! And it’s exciting to talk about how when she gets to her new home, she will only have to travel a few hours north to get to DC, a few hours south to get back to FL! And the beaches! And the mountains! Tina, you will have to round up some knitters in NC and start a new group.

Lois is making fine progress on her fingerless gloves!

Lois' gloves

We were also thrilled to see on Facebook that one of her Fair Isle hats was in England this week for spring break, on top of Lori’s pretty head!

Ethel worked on another poncho

Ethel and poncho #2

after having sought collaboration with the staff at Yarnworks to find a match for the alpaca she started out with. An excellent match, don’t you think? We believe that in time, whenever one looks up “poncho” on a Google search, up will come an image of Ethel pulling a face.

Tiffany also made fine progress on a soft yellow blanket, finishing a border and starting on a lacy pattern within the border.

Tiffany and blanket so far

Sure, the blanket is an appropriate size NOW, but what about when the babies are born? They are growing exponentially, let’s hope the blanket(s) keep pace…

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Lizardy Lace, Bobbles & Bits

Don’t tell me it is November 17th already! So close to Christmas, and here we are, calmly knitting. I would like to have the reputation of being calm, but that’s not who I am. Really, I’m a fearful, quaking mess who’s about to screw up the holidays! Aaaargh!

My feeble attempt, after Ethel's save

I started this little scarf from Designer One Skein Wonders and Ethel helped me with the dividing for the loop, so you can anchor the scarf and keep it from blowing away. BTW it was about 89 degrees out yesterday… I didn’t knit much the past week, what with 11/11/11 so overshadowing all my attempts at being normal and random. But the other members were fairly busy:

Tina and Cloth

Tina came back (finally!) with just a little cough. And doggone it, I forgot to get with her on the loom hats! Next time! She had a new flyer with patterns for knitted wash cloths with bobbly images and borders. We talked about the wash cloth being the greatest project, bringing such a sense of satisfaction when it’s quickly done.

Ethel and Lizard Stitch Cloth

Ethel had two wash cloths started, in the undulating Lizard Ridge stitch from Knitty. The one that she started in the lavender-scented Sugar & Cream, she had to stop because the scent was getting to her!

The non-smelly Lizard Ridge

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Poncho

This photo shows her progress on the brown poncho since last week. She also progressed to doing flower embroidery on the Amber hat.

New book of ideas

And she brought a new book of ideas for us to look at! No shortage of reading material about knitting and crochet! If you like to keep up with what’s happening in the Knitting World, one source I like is the Knitting Daily Week in Review at knittingdaily.com. Another great source is Sarah White of About.com Knitting. I tend to focus on one or two interesting points in their weekly compendiums of relevant stitching articles.

Tiffany and her afghan progress

So excited that Tiffany came again to knitting! As you know, she is the original Dishcloth Maven! She’s been working on the afghan that has blocks of many different stitches, a great project to experiment with and learn more. And, I’m excited that her husband is wanting to do some woodworking, which is also my DH’s favorite pastime, when he has any time, so maybe we’ll get to see more of them!

Lois planning an upcoming project

Lois finished the turquoise fingerless gloves and mailed them off to the lucky recipient, her sister. Lois found lots to consider in Ethel’s book The Natural Knitter by Barbara Albright. Soon we’ll get to have a look at the carders Ethel ordered for processing some lovely alpaca! My DH is still holding out hope that we can card our cats’ fur and use it for something productive to offset the amazing amount of work and money we spend on them!

Cats will embellish your guitar case with a fur lining, cheap!

Debbie came with a skein of Patons Lace and a pattern pamphlet, to make a lacy shawl.

pic from Deb's Patons pattern book

She started out, loving the soft mohair component of the yarn. The lacy pattern was coming along well until about the 19th row, when the instructions, which had gotten very lengthy, no longer seemed as compatible with the conversation.

Deb's Patons shawl

Frogged again!

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Spinning, Looming, Knitting Night Out with a Swiftness

Wednesday knitters have spent the past few days anticipating this meeting, as we summed up our trip to the 2011 Florida Fiber In, and looked over our new toys! Ethel brought her drop spindle with a lot of purple wool to spin into yarn.

Alpaca and drop spindle

She spun a few yards of yarn and made a little knitted swatch.

The product of Ethel's spinning and knitting

Ethel's swag bag from the Fiber In

Ethel showed us the many bags of fiber and yarn she got at the fiber convention: sparkly angelina fibers, luscious purple alpaca wool, a deep grape-wine colored yarn, lots of packages of roving, some already ID’d as doll hair.

Lois brought the pattern for the fingerless mitts she’d bought at the Fiber In, and got to work on the project.

fingerless mitts

Fingerless mitts are the snizzle right now; Ethel had a pattern for a pair with fancy picot edges and sewn-on beads. Beautiful! But I believe every little girl on my list (and big girls too, no doubt!) would love a pair of fingerless mitts for winter in Florida.

Tina was back into looming another very impressive hat.

Tina and loom

Tina’s quick and delightful loom projects have inspired us all. Debbie and Beth came bearing looms, as well. And by the time the evening was over, Beth had made a lot of progress on her orange and blue leggings.

Beth looming

Debbie progressed to the heel on her sock (go ahead and applaud!)

Deb and long-awaited sock

Debbie showed us a book of marvelous loom projects, including a wavy shrug pattern. Deb must have been inspired by all the looming going on, too, because she had a brand new pack of three looms with her.

Ethel tried to convince me to make this jacket:

jacket patterns

And she found this pattern for another version of the fish hat.

fish hat

But I lapsed into crocheting, something I can do mindlessly. I wish I was more like Martha in Knitting [a novel Ethel loaned me], who can read and knit at the same time!

Crocheted cloth, with black Sugar N Cream cotton & Linen blend

And, I almost forgot the SWIFT! While I was at the Fiber In, my handy DH created this beautiful tool to help me rewind yarn from a hank to a neat little ball, ready for knitting. I absolutely put it to work the first day, and it is wonderful!

Skip's hand-crafted yarn swift

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A stitchin’ good time again

We knitted at my house again after a long (for me) hiatus!

Thank goodness Ethel straightened me out with Maelo’s cashmere sweater, or it might have been Baby Bigfoot’s sweater, with foot-long arms! She quickly took out the extraneous 30-odd rows and got me back on the right track.

All that work...sigh...

gator scarf

I finished the gator scarf (now that it’s almost summer) –but it’s been a little chilly at night so I may have a reason to wear it before football season…nah. Husband likes it, though :).

Ethel's rat

Ethel’s rat is the most adorable thing ever! We heard some good stories about the real rat, too. Next, she wants to make a brown and white rat with this alpaca yarn:

do you see a potential rat in this?

Beth and Lisa with little princess

Beth came by for a minute and gave a verbal progress report on her dishcloth. Lisa continued to work on a hat in the round. Lois also worked on a hat in the round. We decided we like Ethel’s hat from the Louisa Harding book for an upcoming project for all of us.

Lois and Ethel

Lisa brought a chocolate pound cake made lighter with yogurt (mmmm!) and I made some rolls from a Lion House mix I won in a contest on the Relief Society Sisters blog.

Treats

ReliefSocietySisters blog prize!

I was so excited to get an email saying I was the winner of their awesome prize! It’s a very cool tote bag from Deseret Books, with 3 Lion House mixes. Especially memorable since I visited Salt Lake City and saw the real Lion House over near Temple Square. Thank you so much for offering wonderful giveaways, it is fun to read about and belong to your website followers, RSSblog.com.

Plymouth Flower yarn from Ethel

Ethel reported on her treasure from the Yarnworks yard sale in April, and she gifted me with 2 balls of this beautiful Plymouth Flower motif yarn; I can’t wait to find a suitable pattern to make something from it!

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Knitting delicious and no calories

Wednesday Night Knitting was a treat!

Ethel made some knitted cupcakes to show, with different “toppings”–irresistible.

Tina with loom

Looks scrumptious! the colored flecks are ribbon pieces woven in the yarn.

Yummy good! No calorie cupcakes

Tina is making a woollen panel on her long loom, with a plan to felt it and make a purse. Here’s a pic of one of her recent experiments in felting knitted wool (see the pink piece below). This was knit using 2 strands and she washed it 3 times.  “I feel like it’s a little too felted,” she said. “Maybe the next one I’ll only wash  twice instead.” The felted piece is about 1/2 inch thick, won’t unravel, and can be cut into shapes for appliques.

Tina's felted wool

Ethel's dreamy hank of alpaca

Ethel showed us the worsted weight alpaca yarn she just bought through the mail from Dream Chaser Farm Alpacas in Foxboro, Wisconsin. The wool came from Mia, and had an interesting feel and smell to it.  We’ve strayed from the days when people would go to the animal to get wool to use.  “Black sheep, black sheep, have you any wool?” And then the sheep would answer, “Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full,” and furthermore the sheep had a say as to who the wool was for.

Here's Tricia working on the slippers

Lois' new Fair Isle project, a hat with hearts

Tricia brought her new light heathery green yarn to work on the slippers she started and to get Ethel’s help with. Lois is working on a beautiful new hat with a heart pattern (see pic).
I finished a purple alpaca and acrylic hat from Luxury One Skein Wonders by Judith Durant, and needed Ethel’s help on another hat which began slipping away into nothingness once I transferred it from the circular needles to the dpn’s. She got it all straightened out. It will have an I-cord so I surveyed Ethel as she demonstrated that skill for me. It’s so great to have a group!

I-cord tutorial from Ethel

Alpaca hat

Just an interesting side story related obscurely to knitting:

Sunday my family was watching the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on TV, when a member of the Seventy, Lynn G. Robbins, spoke. Wikipedia reports that Robbins is co-founder of Franklin Institute, which later became Franklin Covey.  And he is the great-great-great grandson of George Reynolds, an early pioneer who was tried and convicted of bigamy and  sent to prison in Nebraska, where he was appointed bookkeeper of the Knitting Department during the 25 days he served in that prison.
Try googling “knitting in prison” for some interesting reading about our favorite hobby!

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