Silken Smoke Cowl in Peruvian Baby Cashemere from Elann. I cast this on as soon as I saw it the other day. Quick and satisfying knit. I only used two balls of the Baby Cashmere. It’s about 8″ long. Could probably have used one more ball, but I’m good with this size.
I just signed up for a Spinning/Dyeing class with Barbara Parry of Foxfire at Webs. I had no idea Webs was less than three hours from me. I’m really looking forward to the class. I bought a drumcarder almost three years ago (I can’t believe it’s been that long). And I think it’s been almost three years since it’s been out of the box. I actually met Otto Strauch at Rhinebeck. I was a little embarrassed to tell him I hadn’t used it in years and thought maybe it’s time to pull it back out of the box. I’m hoping this class will get me motivated to use it.
Now I’ll fill you in on all the changes that are about to take place for us. We’re moving back to Texas in June . Thank God in Heaven, we are moving. West Point is a beautiful place, I love being near my family in New Hampshire, the schools are awesome and my neighbors are great. But I really… no… really, REALLY… hate the house we’re in. They are demolishing these houses starting next year. They really are that bad.
I think it has a lot to do with my creativity and organization being snuffed out over the last year. I fully believe that if you love where you live you are a much happier person. I’m definitely not happy here. I can’t get organized and that drives me nuts. I get overwhelmed and completely shut down.
I’ll miss Fall and I’ll miss being so close to New Hampshire but that’s what they make airplanes for.
We’ll be four hours from most of Dan’s side of the family in Laredo and four hours from his sister in Kingwood. Texas A&M is the halfway point between us and his sister. Dan’s family has a suite at Kyle Field so we’ll be there for a lot of games. Dan flew down for the Army/Aggie game last month but before that we haven’t been to a game since Daniel was a baby. The boys can’t wait. Especially Joe, who started playing football for the Army Junior Black Knights this year. When I was pregnant with him and we found out he was a boy Dan used to tell people that it was one more chance that he’d be called “Dad” by a Dallas Cowboys Quarterback. Dan finally got his football player. Funny that it’s the smallest of our boys that decided they wanted to play football. He may be little, but he’s got heart for the game. Here he is putting the stop on Mini Sink Valley (it was pouring that day):
So that’s the scoop of what’s been going on around here.
When we moved here we had to go out and rent a 10×10 climate controlled storage room. I’m ashamed to admit that a good half of that room (as well as the 4th bedroom here in the house) is taken up by my craft supplies. And yet I felt the need this Summer to try out things I’d wanted to for a long time.
For Mother’s Day I asked for this (minus the reciprocating saw):
I’d been wanting to do woodworking for years. Dan was rewarded on Father’s Day with a Red Cedar Adirondack Chair that I built with my own two little hands using Easy-to-Build Adirondack Furniture: Storey’s Country Wisdom Bulletin.
I built this little bench for the endless footwear that ends up by our door (my own design):
And this simple oak spice rank for all my Penzey’s spices (now I need more… darn it):
Another craft I’ve wanted to try my hand at is Stained Glass. Here are a couple of my first projects:
a hummingbird for an Elann friend
a chickadee for me.
I felt a little guilty bragging about my class with Charlene Schurch and no more gusset holes and not explaining the technique. Truth is, I had no idea how to explain it in words. Charlene’s book, Sensational Knitted Socks, does a great job of that already. This video might help but you really need to get her book.
With the help of a little birdie (thank you Jennifer – Major Knitter), Charlene gave me permission to do a little video of the technique. Now… Steven Spielberg I am not but here you go (I have no idea why the first couple of seconds of the video are moving at warp speed). It helps to watch it at full screen:
It’s been a few months since I took the class so I might not do it exactly the way I learned that day but the outcome is the same and that’s what’s important.
A little side note on the ssk…. instead of slip as if to knit, slip as if to knit; I slip as if to knit, slip as if to purl and then knit the two together. I just like the way it lies a little better. You can see it at the end of the video when I show the finished gusset.
So thank you, Charlene Schurch! I said it before and I’ll say it again, if you have the opportunity to take her class, don’t hesitate. It was really great. Not only is she FULL of knitterly info and advice, she’s really down-to-earth, fun and PATIENT! 🙂
Daniel, Lucky and I got home from Columbus last night. Bottom line, Lucky is deaf for life sadly.
Jeremy came and stayed with us from Ball State so that was a great save to the trip. We spent all day Tuesday at COSI while Lucky was at the OSU Vet Hospital:
It was a great way to spend the day if you’re ever in Columbus.
Back in early May I went to West Port, Ct to meet up with Jennifer (Major Knitter) for a class with Charlene Schurch.
Here’s a great shot of Jennifer in her beautiful shawl.
I went thinking I’d just have fun because, after all, I’d been knitting socks so long, what could I possibly learn. I even have a few of her books that I’ve knit socks from, so for sure she wasn’t going to teach *me* anything new. Ha. Shows what I know which isn’t near as much as I thought. lol. It was not only great fun but Charlene was a FABuoulous teacher and I learned a ton. No more holes in my gussets!
There were many great socks to be seen:
Thanks for all the kind words regarding my grandmother. She really was a great woman and well loved in her community. We shared the love of knitting. She was my inspiration for learning to knit in the first place. My very first large project was this sweater for her in 1989. It’s from Simplicity Knitting, Winter 1988. It’s #24 and just called Icelandic Cardigan.
About five years ago we visited my grandparents when we lived at Ft. Campbell, KY. I’d shown my grandmother a pair of socks I’d been working on. A few months later she told me on the phone that after seeing me enjoy it so much, she’d like to try knitting again. She’d given it up years before due to severe arthritis in her hands. It was about six months before Christmas and she wanted to surprise my grandfather with a pair of socks. We were talking on the phone and she asked me about how I’d done the kitchener stitch. As we were on the phone she took notes. She mentioned the socks now and then over time and she showed them to me when we visited in February, frustrated because she couldn’t keep focused on them. I wanted to help her finish them but I didn’t want to offend her and make her feel like she couldn’t do it. She was still aware enough that her forgetfulness was very frustrating for her. Between the arthritis and the Alzheimer’s, knitting was very difficult for her.
After she passed away I asked my grandfather if I could look for the socks so I could finish them. He knew exactly where they were and led me to the little basket on their desk with a finished sock, an unfinished sock, the pattern book she’d used for years and years and a little surprise…. paper clipped to the pattern book were the notes she’d taken while on the phone with me five or so years ago. What a gift!
I finished the sock that she’d left on the needles and gave them to my grandfather for Father’s Day. He was very moved. I’ve knit him many socks over the years, including a pair of alpaca ones that he had put away to be buried in. You may remember me telling you that he loves my handknit socks so much that he puts duct tape on the soles of them as soon as he gets them so they’ll last longer. lol. These simple acrylic socks have replaced those alpaca ones and I couldn’t be more pleased. The sweetest thing about it all… look to the right. See the yarn wrapped around something? Can you make out what it is? Take a closer look:
My thrifty Scot grandmother had the yarn wrapped around a plastic knife. lol. And there it will stay forever.
So much has been going on since my last post a million years ago…. I don’t really know where to begin so I’ll begin where we left off. The winds of change are still blowing and we still don’t know where they’re blowing us. I’m really surprised at how calm I am about not knowing where we’ll be in life and in location less than a year from now. I just have this feeling that everything will be okay and definitely better than it is right now.
Dan put in his retirement paperwork a few weeks ago but they’re trying to talk him out of it. In the beginning he would have dropped the paperwork if they’d told him for sure that we could go to Ft. Hood, TX but they may have waited too long. “Penciling” us in just doesn’t cut it after five deployments and 20 years.
I do have sad news to share. A part of my heart was taken on May 22nd. I got a call from my cousin that my Grandmother had suffered a heart attack and and it didn’t look good. We were on the road within an hour and made record time to NH. Though she never regained consciousness, her heart stopped two hours after we arrived in Wolfboro so I was able to hold her hand and tell her I love her and how very much I’d miss her. I had just called her the day before to let her know we’d be coming up the first weekend in June to help my uncle paint my grandfather’s workshop. She was very upbeat and I’m so glad that I’d called her. At least she didn’t have to suffer the Alzheimer’s. She was in the early stages and it was already very frustrating for her. My grandfather is heartbroken. They loved each other since they were six years old. I’m grateful that Dan took the job at West Point so I could be so close to my family and spend some time with her. We had a private funeral for her on my little acre on top of the mountain. She had eight children, 25 grandchildren and 14 great-grandchildren and every single one of us felt her love and were devastated when she passed away. I still can’t get my head around the fact that I can’t just pick up the phone and call her anymore.
I came into this world wearing layette sets that Gram knit for me. She was buried in the Field of Flowers Shawl I knit for her a few years ago. It made me feel good to know that she’d have that wrapped around her to keep her wrapped in the love I felt for her. I miss her so much.
To end on a good note, I have news about Lucky. He may get his hearing back! While visiting Kim of Woolen Rabbit a couple of months ago, she mentioned PSOM might be the cause of his deafness (he’s not completely deaf, he can hear very loud sounds and Aggie barking). When I got home and googled it, I was amazed to find out that the vet at OSU doing a study on PSOM was the very vet that did Lucky’s BAER hearing test when he was in foster care last year! I emailed her and after doing several other Cavaliers, she thinks this might be Lucky’s problem after all. Her initial reaction last year (just a couple of weeks into the study) was that it was nerve damage. Daniel, Lucky and I will hit the road next week to Ohio. Keep your fingers crossed that his surgery is successful!
54. That’s how many rows I was into Lilly. Oh. And let me not forget to mention that I was knitting her in one piece to the underarms. So multiply that x 3. At… oh…. about row 25 or so I was thinking that I didn’t like the way the side shaping was looking and that maybe I should just go ahead and rip it back out before I got too far. Naaahhh… it’ll be fine. I convinced myself of this with every right side row. You can see on the 2nd, 6th and 8th column that I’d messed up too. And I just now spotted one on the 4th column from the right. Dropping stitches down to fix an error in this pattern is near impossible. Obviously I wasn’t successful and by row 54 I knew I wasn’t going to be happy with the finished cardigan so…..
Frog City. I hooked it up to the ball winder and cranked away.
I cast back on but I’m going to do it in pieces so the shaping won’t be so noticeable. I’m already on row 59 of the back and it’s looks SO much better. The pattern is almost mindless now but it’s an awful lot like ribbing with a backwards yarn over stuck in there now and then. I’m really glad that I went ahead and ripped it back. This Jaeger Roma that I bought from Elann back in November is beautiful stuff. Soft and easy to knit.
In my last post I had a little verse from a song from what I thought was a popular line dance. I was surprised at how many people didn’t catch the verse that I wrote. I found this video of people doing it at a wedding (of course the clap your hands line isn’t until the very end of the video):
Kinda like the Chicken Song. Dumb but fun.
Poor Aggie. I’d made some banana bran muffins (I’d share the recipe but they were horrible) on Saturday in our quest to lose weight. Dan had one the other day and decided that the foil liner was the perfect accessory for Aggie. Poor dog. She wasn’t amused.
Everybody Clap ya hands
Clap, clap, clap, clap your hands
Clap, clap, clap, clap your hands
Le Clapotis… she isa vera fun knit.
I wore it out to the bus stop this morning and I came back in looking like I’d wrestled with an Angora goat. The mohair is shedding like crazy. Anyone have any tips on that?
Have you seen Professor Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture?! People like this amaze me. Where do they get their strength? If you haven’t seen it, it’s very inspirational.
Another place that I find inspiration from is Tracy at Wool Windings. She posted about a little box she knit and felted from the Mason Dixon Knitting book. I cast on right away. Here’s my before and after:
We were pounded with snow last Friday so it was a pretty lazy weekend. I finished the Clapotis just haven’t gotten a picture of it yet.
