Get the Scissors, I Didn’t Hear You…at Knitting

Knitting! The group was back at it and doing well.

Lois was back and worked on her purple shawl

Lois had a bad cold last time so we were happy to see her looking well.

Ethel had an idea for a group gift

Tricia and quilt top with crazy-pieced blocks

Tricia finished an amazing quilt top with crazy-pieced blocks and cosmic-themed fabrics. The colors and patterns she chose look fabulous together. Meanwhile, Trish knitted more of the afghan.

Tricia and afghan

Ethel’s watch with beaded band

The unfortunate thing about Ethel’s beautiful watch was that after she matched up the lovely copper bezel with the pretty, intricately beaded band, and put it all together so artfully, the watch stopped working, although it appeared to have a new battery. She could take back the non-working watch but…sigh…all that work would have to be redone.

Knitting seems to go with reading, and Ethel brought her recently finished book to share, but none of the rest of us wanted to commit to reading right now. It was a rather non-committal evening, all in all, and some of us were nodding in our chairs.

Ethel’s recent read

Doll sweater, almost finished

I am almost finished with my doll sweater, although I hit some serious snags. The directions called for adding a second ball of yarn at the neck edge. The idea was to do this: knit the one shoulder, then stop at the neck edge which was bound up in waste yarn, then knit the other shoulder starting with the new ball of yarn. So I had this one ball of yarn that I had laboriously wound on the nostepinde, and I could see the two yarn ends right there, like in this drawing.

sketch of my one yarn ball

[Oh BTW this sketch is my take on Day 6 of the Zero to Hero post-fest. It is supposed to be along the directive of “publish a post that has a new element.” I have Penultimate for iPad, a fun little app where I can create drawings and sketches and upload them as part of my photo library!]

So I figured I’d just use one ball and knit using the two ends instead of starting the separate new ball like the directions said. Bad idea: the both ends quickly got super tangled up and I was holding a disaster in my lap. Like going to sleep with bubble gum in your mouth and waking up with a wad of gum in your hair. You end up with no choice but to get the scissors.

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Curious and Amazing Little Beasties

A bit of excitement at Wednesday Night Knitting: the new school year has started for lots of kids we know and love, which means new knitting ideas are beginning to take root in our minds…here in Florida, however, we don’t look for fall weather for quite a few months yet.

Harry Potter knits

Mmmm, interesting things to perhaps try. Right now, I’m working on a scarf/shawl to match the purse. Easy: garter-stitch, something I can cope with in the evenings while winding down. And my newest read is Googling Your Family Tree by Dan Lynch. I’m not one of those who can knit and read at the same time, although with a garter-stitch project it seems reasonable that I could.

Ethel wore the sweater she got for her birthday.

hedgehog!

She decided to knit a hedgehog to go with her sweater.

pattern

hedgehog nose

Coincidentally, DH has a colleague who raises hedgehogs, the African Pygmy variety. He mentioned that he was looking for someone to help “socialize” some baby hedgehogs, a necessary step (he says) in preparing the little animals to go up for sale. DH wasn’t sure if we’d be a good candidate to help with hedgehog socialization, since we have the four highly opinionated, LARGE cats. Nevertheless, he’s been watching every available you-tube vid about hedgehogs. Curious and amazing little beasties, they are!

Meanwhile, Ethel’s been making lots of right-angle weave bracelets.

yellow

p

turquoise

blue butterfly

She has varied the sizes of the round beads, along with the number, size, arrangement and finish of the crystals. She especially likes the crystals from Fire Mountain, with the AB finish, which gives the facets of the crystals a rainbow-like glimmer. Beautiful!

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A Beautiful Crafting Night in the Neighborhood

July is  busy month! But we took some time out Wednesday Night to do some knitting!

Ethel was busy making right-angle weave beaded bracelets.

Ethel’s beaded bracelets

Meanwhile, she went to work on a hat that she’s had on her agenda for a while.

Ethel & hat

It’s a bit difficult to be thinking of fall and winter accessories for the relatives “up Nawth” when it’s been at least 90 degrees here in the swamp day after day.  But that’s our lifestyle! Now I am almost finished with the Silk Garden socks  (the alternate project for March, on ravelry‘s Sock It To Me 2013 forum). What a slacker I am! There must be an entry in the DSM 5 describing my personality as it pertains to knitting…

Noro Silk Garden socks

However, I guess I’m not the only one who is a bit behind on the sock-making arena: here it is already July 10th and no one on Sock-It-To-Me has put up a sock pattern for July yet. In fact, no one has heard from the forum moderators for a month, one post says.

Some of the forum posts indicate that the knitters, left to their own devices, it seems, are planning to use the time to catch up. I believe I’ll need more than a month to catch up. Plus, I got stung on the right elbow by a wasp night before last. It doesn’t stop me from knitting, but it’s another excuse that looks serious.

DH did not use my Knitting Time as an excuse to slack off, he was out in the shop with a bud, doing some woodturning and pondering work on a new Craftsman-style dining room trestle table. Here is buddy Adam with his turned project–pretty good for a beginner! After DH attended the AAW Symposium and saw the convention center dominated by gray- and bald-heads, and watched the youth participants take to the lathes like ducks to water, he is committed to sharing this craft with younger generations.

another friendly neighborhood woodturner

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Knitting Jewelry!

I’ve just come back from another fun class at Yarnworks, our LYS, Knitting Beaded Bracelets. The class was taught by Carol, who works at Yarnworks and also goes to one of the same yoga classes I go to. We also had a Joyce and a Myra and a Stephanie and another Jenny, a great group. Each of the participants had great creative ideas, most of which I plan to steal, I mean, explore!

the pre-reqs

When I signed up for the class, I was given the manual, Beaded Bracelets to Knit by Leslieanne Beller and advised to bring along a clasp, about 35 beads, and a set of size 2 US needles. The thread was provided to us; we used various beautiful metallic Gold Rush cross stitch and needlepoint threads.

We used the design on pages 24 & 25 of the pattern book. One would imagine that each bracelet would be pretty similar, but that wasn’t the case at all! Some brought large round glass beads and spacers, one participant brought beautiful curly shells and pink pearls, some had neon day-glo beads, one black and white, one pink and green round beads with white triangle-shaped beads and pink iridescent thread. The thread color and weight made a big difference in the finished look. Silver, gold, copper, royal blue metallic, very fine silk, all the threads were beautiful and gave the look of finely crafted metal! I am sorry I didn’t get pics of the other bracelets: I got flustered and had to frog and start over.

When I was almost finished with a strand, I noticed that the clasp I brought was pretty ginormous in relation to it. One of the group members, Myra, suggested that I make two strands of beads, so that’s what I did. Thanks, Myra! [Everyone agreed she’s a creative genius, a born designer!]

clasp-side view

strand-side view

It was an excellent and quick project, I had a great time and learned something that I realize I’ll do again and again, and probably never get tired of doing!

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Viking Knitting and other spin-offs

At WNK, we had a very small group this week. Too much partying this week? Ahhh! Ethel and I went over some possible spin-off activities. Our art course has thus far has included sketching and painting a still life with acrylics. Now we are semi-committed to do at least a sketch a day for the next month.

Sketch

pencil & pastel sketch of the tree down the street

Another art niche Ethel wants to get into is jewelry making, at which she is already very experienced. I want to say yes to it, but I am already involved in many things. Still, the allure is very strong…oooh, sparkly, shiny things, presh—-shhhhious….

Needless (and I mean needle-less) to say, I didn’t do much knitting this week. I made another attempt at my previous project and still ended up with the wrong number of stitches, so “rip, rip!” I watched Ethel do her new technique, sometimes called “Viking Knitting”–here’s a link with a tutorial, from abigailscraftshowto.

Ethel's Oslo stitch cuff, so far

finished and beaded Oslo-stitch bracelet

So, this is how Ethel combines love of knitting and love of jewelry! Gorgeous, fun to do, and something new!

Oops, I almost forgot to report the actions of Deb and her achievement day girls: they “heart attacked” our cars Tuesday Night for Valentine’s Day, and left us each a heart-shaped craft basket of goodies!

Deb's girls' Valentines Day treat packets

Each woven paper heart basket had a ribbon for hanging, and was stuffed with cinnamon red hots, hearts and a little candy bar! Sweet!

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