Pretty Things for a Pretty Day

It is a beautiful day here.  It’s a good day to look at some pretty things and be thankful.

1.  We finally have a peony that is blooming.

Poor little plant.  We moved it (and its sibling) a few years ago from the back yard to the front yard and it has never been the same.   This is the first year since we moved it that it has budded (there are 2!).  Sadly, the other one has not returned, but I am thankful for this one pretty flower.

2.  Paper flowers from the boys make me smile.  These are better than a bouquet of fresh ones, any day.

3.  Finally, I am getting the hang of this edging for a shawl.

I know, it doesn’t look like much, but believe me, this is great progress.  The first few inches took me hours and I thought I was going to go cross-eyed!  I have 45 out of 71 repeats done and it feels like I’m almost at the finish line.  I am looking forward to getting to the body of the shawl.

4.  Pretty yarn for a new sweater project is waiting for me to find some needles (and uninterrupted time) and cast on.

I think my knitting projects list is about to get longer.

The Year of Completion

Without really intending to, I seem to have made it a point to finish a lot of works in progress so far this year.  When the year started, I had about 15 (maybe more!) unfinished knitting projects.  Somehow, I have not been super inspired to start a lot of new projects (just a few), so I have been working quite a bit on ones that have been lurking around.  As a result, my works in progress knitting list has been whittled down to 7 or 8 or 10 (depending on how you count, of course).  This is a very low number of works in progress for me and it feels a little strange.

My latest finished project is one I started way back in April of last year. Here it is unblocked.

This is the Wakame Tunic.  I used a pure silk yarn that I found when the husband and I went to New York City a couple of years ago.  The yarn itself was a little funny to work with.  It came on a cone and I’m not even really sure if it has a name.  It might have been something leftover from a manufacturing place…I don’t know.

In any case, this was an interesting garment to knit.  First, you knit a long rectangle for the bottom and graft the ends to make a tube.  Then, you pick up stitches from the sides of the tube and knit the body in the round up to armholes.  Once you divide the front from the back, you cast on stitches on both sides for the sleeves so that you are basically knitting the top of the tunic from cuff to cuff.  This resulted in a crazy large number of stitches.  One row took me over 15 minutes  to do, but at least when I was done, I didn’t have any more pieces to knit.

Honestly, I wasn’t sure if I was going to like this thing when I was done.  I don’t think I have ever worn a tunic or even tried one on in my whole life.  I wondered while I was knitting it, what possessed me to Knit a tunic?  Well, I did think it was pretty in the picture and I guess I hoped that I would look ok in a tunic.  What do you think?

I like it.  I’m not sure where I’ll wear it  and with what, but I am pretty sure yoga pants would not be complimentary.  What ideas do you have?

Close Encounters of the Sheepy Kind

I am really a fortunate knitter.  I live very close to one of the best fiber festivals in the country and I get to go (almost) every year and not have to spend any money on a hotel room.  This means more money for yarn.  Yay!  For me, The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival is almost (if not more) anticipated than Christmas.  Where else can you look at, touch, and buy thousands of different kinds of yarn or fiber related supplies?

The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival has been getting busier and bigger.  In the last few years, they have been opening up more vendor space in outside fields and there were definitely more food vendors there this year as well.  My friend and I got there early to do our food shopping.  They have great sheep’s milk cheeses, goat cheeses, fresh lamb, and local honey.  After we had that all secured in our coolers, we got down to our serious shopping.

This next photo is one I took just before lunch.  You can see that the midway is just packed with people.  We were so busy with our shopping that this is really the only picture I took the whole morning.

Later, after our lovely picnic lunch by the car, we went to hear Sue Blacker from Blacker Yarns in the UK give a talk about the value of breed specific yarns.  This was truly a treat and I learned a lot about the yarn and wool industry.  I left that talk convinced of two things: we pay really very little for our yarn and we need to support the preservation of our sheep breeds (i.e. buy more yarn!).  She said that they are considering ways to make the UK yarn that they produce more readily available in the US.  I am looking forward to that!  In the meantime, you’ll just have to order online from here, which I plan to do as soon as I can save some more yarn money.  While I wait, I can play with this lovely ball of yarn.

Sue was kind enough to bring samples of all different kinds of yarn that they stock.  I sure wish I could have gotten a picture of all the yarn piled on the table, but I was too busy squeezing yarn!  We each got to take home a ball–yay!  I chose this nice gray Gotland Yarn, a breed I hadn’t heard of yet.  My friend got a ball of North Ronaldsay, a sheep breed whose main diet is seaweed, imagine that!

After the talk, we did a bit more shopping and, thankfully, it had really cooled down and it was a lot less crowded as well.  Before we left, though, we had to go visit all the sheep.  We saw all kinds and I even got another skein of Gotland yarn from a farm in Pennsylvania.

There were cute little lambs.

(I know this is not the greatest picture, but isn’t he cute anyway?)  And we also had great fun with some particularly outgoing sheep.

The sheep was licking my arm!  The sheep were really very sweet and we had some very nice conversations with both farmers and vendors.  And, of course, I got some yarn!

If you live close by, I highly recommend you make the trip to the festival.  It’s free and it’s fun.  They have lots of vendors and other activities that kids and those who do not knit or spin would enjoy.  It was a wonderful day and I am already looking forward to the next one, but first, I have a little bit of knitting to do!

5 Reasons to Love a Rainy Spring Day

I love rain.  Actually, I love all kinds of weather, stormy and pleasant.  But, in the spring, I especially love rain.  Here are some reasons why.

1.  A chance to play new games

2.  A new knitting project

3.  Broth that will be soup simmering away on the stove all day

4.  The Lily of the Valley are blooming

5.  Most of all, the rain brings freedom from allergies so we can run free.

What do you love to do on rainy spring days?

My Head is Not this Big

I finally finished my first BNK project, just in time for the third pattern release this week.  I worked the pattern as written for the large size  because I have a big head.  Yes, I do.  I measured my head and it is larger than 21 inches.  I will not tell you how much larger because that is my personal business, much like waist sizes or bra sizes or weight.  But I will tell you this.

My head is not as big as this hat.

It fits my head just fine around the brim, but there’s just way to much above it.  See, here it is on my oldest.  His head is not as big as mine, but even so, you can tell that there is just way more hat there than there should be on top of a head.  It just kind of hangs there.

It is really warm and has provided much entertainment for the whole family, especially when the husband took to playing with it.  I wanted to include photos of this here to show you, but I was deterred by his evil eye.  In fact, every time I tried to take a photo, the husband threw the hat down.  You will just have to imagine for yourself the husband wearing this hat in the style of  a sheik in the desert.  Trust me, it was hilarious.

It does have a really nice star pattern on the top that I really like and the hat was easy to make. I should have had a clue that it would be too big, since it seemed to take me forever to finish it. But, sometimes, when I am knitting a pattern, I kind of check my brain out and just follow it without thinking about whether it will fit.  Sometimes, I get lucky, other times, not so much.

So, what to do?  Rip it back?  Tuck it in the bottom of a drawer?  Use it as party entertainment?  Or give it away?  Do any of you want this hat?  If you do, you can have it.  Really, seriously.  I will send it to you.  In return, I only ask that you send me a photo of you wearing it.  Yeah, I didn’t think so.

p.s.  Just to be clear, I am not criticizing the pattern or the designer.  I love the hat and it was a great pattern, easy to follow.  It just doesn’t fit me, so it was really my fault for picking the wrong size to make.

p.p.s.  I am not ripping out this hat.  I have enough yarn to make another one, so I am serious.  If one of you wants it, you can have it and you won’t even have to pay for shipping.