Knit-a-rama Oasis

Wednesday Night Knitting was a fun oasis in the middle of a strenuous week!
Tina came with marvelous treasures: shea butter and olive oil homemade felted soap-and-washcloth-in-one! She had Pumpkin Pie and Rosemary Mint flavors. Check out the Verdae website that was referenced on the tags. The felted covering was really more like wrapped roving rather than a knitted, then felted, cloth.

Felted soaps

Tina also brought some great project ideas: a sushi scarf from Rostitchery and a pattern for a cabled hat on the Knifty Knitter loom (I recently bought a set of them at a great bargain price, thanks to Ethel’s coupon boost!) Thank you! Tina started on a new baby hat, with the small round knifty knitter, using a worsted weight in pure white for the ribbed brim and then adding some pink eyelash yarn for the top.

loomed baby hat, Tina adding the pink eyelash yarn for the top

Tina also brought to our attention a new quilting shop in the Oaks Mall that is worth checking out!

The loomed and felted trivet

She brought the finished product of her loomed I-cord hot pad. It felted very tightly but maintained the stitch patterns more than the needle-knitted I-cord trivet she did previously (see pics of both the trivets in-process in prior blog posts here).

Trish and acrylic wash cloth

Trisha brought a dish/wash cloth she’s been working on in a green variegated acrylic yarn. It’s got a garter stitch border and a ribbed pattern of seed stitch with a stockinette stripe. Beautiful!

Ethel and future sweater in process

Ethel began working on a boy’s sweater with some beautiful bulky yarn from Tuesday Morning. When she saw what a mess I had made with the linen/cotton hank I’d gotten from there, she abandoned the sweater and took over my “OCD Work” and by the end of the evening, presented me with this beautiful ball.

the linen/cotton blend, all sorted thanks to Ethel

Lois with white shell pattern

Lois decided she was tired of working on hats for the moment, and got started on a beautiful white shell. However, by the end of the session, she was back to working on a hat. She is the hatmaker!
Debbie didn’t want me to take a picture of the sock she was working on–IN REVERSE! And Beth didn’t knit, but told us some great aviation stories and about some of the many places she’s been jetting around to lately.

Chamomile Sugar 'N Cream cloth

I finished the dish cloth I’d been working on, in Chamomile-scented Sugar “N Cream cotton. I really liked the smell of it, but I got distracted crocheting the ends, as you can see by the protruding edge! I got a chance to run to the Yarn Basket in Winter Haven, and got some more of the Rozetti Cocoon to finish my scarf.

Rozetti Cocoon Multi scarf in progress

Pink Camo purse body

I worked on the Pink Camo (a Hobby Lobby yarn) purse body–a soft, fluffy mohair-like but acrylic yarn, purse body–what a joy of mindless stockinette that goes fast in size 19 needles. Next time—report on the FL Fiber In!

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Fiber Divas Mixing it Up

Luckily, we fiber divas are easily amused: just give us something long and string-y and we will have absorbing work to do for hours at a time! Ethel came, very patched up and stoked up with a new old project to work on, the Amber hat from her Louisa Harding book.

A restored-in-process and smiling Ethel

Amber hat in-progress, in baby alpaca

Amber pattern from Louisa Harding book

She also brought treasures in her bottomless, funky Trader Joe bag!

Knitting 'zines from Ethel

Ethel's stash runneth over

Yummy treats!

Tina also brought goodies for our review.

Tina's treasures: Loom Knitting books!

I had also gone somewhere and snagged a little round loom on sale:

little round loom

Tina says you can find lots of free projects to do on the looms at the Knifty Knitter (Provocraft) website. She is working on a “manly” wash cloth–that is, one with masculine-type colors like black, to go with someone’s beautiful glossy countertops in a new kitchen.

Tina's cloth in progress

I also got on a dish/facecloth phase last week. Reason one: I found a paper book at JoAnn’s by Leisure Arts, 99 Knit Stitches. Loving it, I started with the first one, Bee Stitch.

Crocheted and Bee Stitch cloths

Reason two: I found, also at JoAnn’s, another Leisure Arts leaflet Wash ‘N Wipe, with about 16 patterns for crocheted wash cloths. Reason three: I found, also at JoAnn’s, the pseudo-magazine for Liondesign 2010-2011 (sorry Ethel, this is what I erroneously told you was the Vogue Sewing pattern mag), which had an article about mixing yarns together for interesting effects; “Mixin’ It Up”. For the bee stitch cloth, I mixed Lily Sugar ‘N Cream Naturals all cotton Sonoma print with a strand of Elsebeth Lavold’s Hempathy, 34% hemp, 41% cotton and 25% modal. This is some of what Wikipedia has to say about modal:

Modal is a cellulose fiber made by spinning reconstituted cellulose from beech trees. It is about 50% more hygroscopic (water-absorbent) per unit volume than cotton. It takes dye like cotton, and is color-fast when washed in warm water. Modal is essentially a variety of rayon.[1]

The stripey crocheted cloth is from Sugar ‘N Cream all cotton, as is this other crocheted one I am working on:

cotton crocheted cloth

Thanks to Ethel’s help casting on the big bobbles, I worked on a scarf? Collar? Wallet? We’ll have to see what the skein produces. The real name of the yarn is Rozetti Cocoon Multi.

Rozetti Cocooning

Lois worked on a another hat, while trying out the bee stitch in the round.

Lois working bee-round

Great to have a friend around for winding!

And, as Ethel realized her baby alpaca ball was all knit up, she and Lois wound another from a soft luscious hank.
I think we will definitely be going to Orlando for the Florida Fiber In next weekend, so check with us if you want to go with us or meet us there! Be forewarned: the theme for this year is England, and some of the participants are going to be wearing Wow! hats.

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