Category Archives: Knitting

Family, Knitting

Happy NEXT MONTH!

Posted on by Jean

The new year means a lot to a lot of people.  This year it means one thing to me.  January 1st means that I can officially say my man comes home NEXT MONTH!!!!  Gotta tell you, 2006 pretty much sucked for me.  Don’t get me wrong, good things happened and I’m grateful for them but I’m REALLY happy to say hello to 2007 and all the adventure it’s going to bring.  Dan coming home, moving back to the States (I’ll miss Europe, lived here most of my adult life, but I miss family more), settling in at West Point (please God, let us get housing) and let’s not forget… RHINEBECK!!! 

Let me tell you, that move is going to sneak up and bite me right in the arse.  I can’t believe the movers will be here in about four months.  Right now all my thought processes are just getting ready for Dan to come home.  There’s racks of beer to be bought, banners to be made, favorite meals to be planned out….  a house to clean so that he doesn’t think aliens moved in and took his wife.

It’s amazing.  My mood went from the  doldrums to ecstatic overnight.  I’ve been walking around the house all morning all happy and every now and then I yell, “NEXT MONTH!  IT’S OVER, BABY!” and the boys get this scared look on their faces like their mother just lost her mind (little do they know that happened years ago).  A few minutes ago Joseph said, “Mom, people are going to think we’re crazy.  Please stop that.”  Yeah…  what do you want to bet that by the end of the day he’s the one that’s going to be yelling it and I’m going to be the one asking him to stop.

The boys and I went out to the field next to our house last night.  We have an awesome view of the Marktplatz and church towers of our town.  You can see it here from pictures I took in February (when we had this white stuff called snow).  Fireworks over here is a whole different story than in the States.  You can buy them everywhere for a couple of weeks before New Year’s Eve.  And they set them off everywhere.  I picked up a few stray rockets from our backyard this morning.  I was hoping to capture the light of the church towers in the fireworks but I didn’t get it.  Not a strong enough zoom lens and too far from the action.

I really think that my lack of knitting over the last year can be blamed on depression.   I mean, I picked up knitting again (and reading… which I also haven’t been doing) just a couple of weeks ago.  Dan’s coming home soon.  Coinkidink?  I think not.  Here is the progress on said knitting:

Don’t you hate the way cotton looks all uneven until you block it?  And so much for better photography.  It’s a very grey day here in Germany due to rain… again… not.snow.  Rain, rain go away bring a blizzard any day!  Yeah.  The blizzard will happen the day Dan’s plane is supposed to arrive.  Wow.  How’s that for snarky?  Even though you can’t tell it from that last paragraph, I really am in a good mood.  🙂

Another project I worked on was embroidering polo shirts for Dan and his troops for Christmas gifts.  I ruined the first set of polo shirts and had to order more so they were late getting to them but they loved them.  They also had SA (Special Agent) and their name under the  badge:

Cooking, Knitting

See… I do remember how….

Posted on by Jean

Holy sheep wool, Francis!  I do remember how to knit!

I’m just about to the underarms using the Knitting Pure and Simple  V-neck Tunic pattern.  That’s Stahl Woolle’s Winter-Cotton in Brick.  I bought it from Elann in May of 2004.  Okay… so yea… it’s an easy peasy pattern, but at least the ol’ fingers are at it again. I gotta tell ya. It feels good.  Kind of like an old friend. 

I’ve also been baking up a storm for Christmas gifts.  Here’s one of the little baskets I put together (I also made various quick breads and piled it all on top of the wrapped package which is a Scrabble game):

I actually touched yarn yesterday!   Nope, alas, not for knitting.  I’m making gift baskets up as gifts with biscotti and Gingerbread Coffee Creamer.  It’s nummy.  See the yarn?  It’s Classic Elite leftover from Aggie’s sweater. Here’s the recipe:

2 cups Powdered Creamer
1/2 c. packed DARK Brown sugar
1 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cloves

Blend well, add to taste to Coffee or Hot Chocolate (NUM!)

Today is the first day of Christmas break for the boys.  Yeah!  I’ve been really busy at the school over the last couple of weeks running the book fair.  It was very successful and we earned $1000 for the school!  Yeah!!  Not bad for a small school.  I swore that was my last big volunteer gig… and then I said I wanted to do it again in April.  I’ll never learn.

Knitting

Made with Love

Posted on by Jean

One of the best things about knitting is getting to make a gift from the heart.  Knitters seem to be very giving people.   You’d have to be blind not to see that with all the charity knitting being done in blogland.  Personally, I don’t think there’s anything nicer than giving something that you made with your own hands.  It shows that you took the time to really care about someone else.

I finished the chemo turban last night.  I have to say…  I like the way it turned out.  It’s very forgiving in way of fit because of the stretch not only in the ribbing, but the yarn.  I hope I get a photo of the recipient in it.

In case you missed it, here are the particulars:

Pattern:  Elann Chemo Turban

Yarn: Elann Esprit in Mauve (very lavender for being “mauve”)

Knitting, Sewing

K4, P4 for 40″

Posted on by Jean

What’s better than a little mindless knitting?  A little mindless knitting for a good cause.   Elann’s free pattern for a Chemo Turban.  There’s a civilain family that goes to church with us.   The woman that runs our Playhouse theater moved here years ago.  You may remember Daniel and Joe being in The Pied Piper last year. She was awesome with them.  She met her husband here and had her kids here.  Her parents moved here a few years ago and her mother became the boys’ school nurse.  Her sister, only 40-years old, was diagnosed with breast cancer this summer.  They did a double mastectomy and last Friday she started chemo.  I’m using Elann’s oh-so-soft Esprit leftover from my Hopeful.  I didn’t realize it until just now that it’s kind of serendipity.   Proceeds from the Hopeful pattern went towards breast cancer research.   Here it is so far.  I have about another ten inches to go:

I went with a friend to a German thrift store today.  What fun.  Look what I found!

That, my friends, is a handknit lace table runner.  The cost? About $7.  It’s gorgeous.

I finished another baby gift.  A dog quilt for a baby boy….

Family, Knitting

And They Said It Wouldn’t Last

Posted on by Jean

Today Dan and I spend another anniversary apart.  It’s our 14th.  He asked me to marry him only a week after dating and I said yes.  This is the first photo ever taken of us together.  We were engaged for about a week and had gone up to my visit my family in NH and my Aunt took this snapshot.  We were in an Army school together at Ft. Devens (closed now, but it was about an hour west of Boston).  We got married by a JP in Annapolis, Md. almost exactly two months after we met with just a couple of witnesses.  We just knew.   Everyone else thought we were nuts (except our families – they seemed to know it would work).  Like a lot of military couples we had two weddings.  The JP one was to get the paperwork rolling so we could be stationed together (I was at NSA in Maryland and he was in San Antonio).   It only took the Army about two months to get the paperwork through and I moved to San Antonio on Thanksgiving weekend.  The picture below left is us after the JP marriage on the courthouse steps and the one below right is a photo from the big church wedding that we had for family almost a year later at the Ft. Sam Houston chapel in San Antonio.  No laughing at the poodle-do please.   Even Oprah had bad do’s and she had someone doing her hair.

I think I picked the right guy.  Even from Afghanistan, he has managed to do well in the gift department:

The Celtic Knot arrived for my birthday back in May and the Midnight Sky one arrived yesterday.  They’re getting to know him very well at Golding Fiber Tools!  Let me tell you… these babies spin FOREVER!  Beautiful to look at and so nice to work with.  The fiber is some that I hand dyed last year.

Last but not least, I have done some knitting during my hiatus.   A bunch of us on the Elann chat site had a knit-a-long for the Bed and Breakfast sweater from 2003 Winter issue of Interweave.  I have most of the back done and most of the front.  I cheated and just did the rib pattern on the back.  It wasn’t laziness … I swear…. it wasn’t…. it was simply a matter of comfort.   I thought it’d be weird on my back with those cables.  You  call it a weak excuse but I call it practicality.  The color is a darker green.  Not so grey as it came out in the photo.

Dan’s uncle was released from the hospital today for three months of rest at home!  Yeah!  Thank you for all your well wishes and prayers.

Knitting, Shetland, Spinning

Woolen Souvenirs

Posted on by Jean

Wendy (Catknits) asked about yarn purchases in Shetland.  I know I was just talking about how I had way too much stash but I went to Shetland and you know what that means, right?  No one would really expect me to go to *Shetland* and not buy wool or yarn, right?  Seriously.  That would just be cruel.  Forget that I still have loads of yarn left from our first trip there in ’97.

At the shop in the Jamieson’s Mill, I couldn’t resist this tam.  I’ll never wear it (I look like a dork in hats – especially tams) but I loved the colors and just couldn’t leave it.  It’s machine knit but it was less than $20.  Here are shots of the front, back and up close and personal:

We went to the Isleburgh Community Center where they have an exhibit each Summer.  It’s so much fun to watch the ladies knit.  You have never seen fingers fly so fast.  Intricate lace or fair isle patterns…. their fingers are a blur.

I bought these handknit fingerless gloves for a mere $9.

I bought a kit for the Firs and Flakes Shawl and a kit for Dan, the Noss Jumper in blues.  We saw a sample knit up and it’s gorgeous.  Back at the B&B the next day I got to talking about knitting with another woman staying there.  She informed me that I could buy a fleece at J&S also!!  Back we went the next day.  I picked out a gorgeous gray one.  When she totaled it up at four pounds (about $8) you know what happened next.  Even Dan said, “Go get another one!”  Told you.  He’s a good man.  Here’s the gray one washed:

And the white one unwashed:

It’s in the washer right now, soaking.  I had to skirt this one a bit more.  Pretty gross on the back end.  I had thought that I would process these completely by hand, but they’re pretty full of dirt and grass.  I think I’ll just wait until we get to NY and take them to get processed.   I have two others that I had no business buying this past spring that are still in the boxes they came in.  How long can I leave them like that?  Can it wait until next summer when we get back to the States?  I should just bite the bullet and scour them.  They’re both covered fleeces so it wouldn’t take much to clean them.  But I digress….

Then at Jamieson’s shop on Commercial street I bought some beautiful denim colored yarn for another shawl.  It’s bluer than in the photo.  What’s with blues and purples anyway?  They never come out in pictures quite right. Anyway, it’s way thicker than what I needed (insert hand backwards on forhead and martyr voice)…but I’ll make it work.  I thought the yarn in the kit for the shawl was thicker and it was back at the B&B but who cares, right?  It’s wool so it’s all good.

Family, Knitting, Shetland, Travel

All About Fair Isle

Posted on by Jean

How long do you think I can milk these photos for? lol

Obviously, the highlight of our Shetland trip was our visit to Fair Isle.  I knew the plane would be small, but holy cow!  Where’s it’s mother?  When you have to flip the seat up, like getting into the back of a car… well…. I’m just sayin’… it was small.

I could reach out and tap the pilot, John (who was very friendly…  very young, but friendly), on the shoulder… and I was in the 2nd seat. I was just glad Joe didn’t keep asking, “Are we there yet?” like he usually does.  It would have caused John great angst and we couldn’t have that.  To tell you the truth, we didn’t talk much because you couldn’t hear over the engine anyway.  For the first time in my life I was nervous in a plane.  I love to fly.  In real planes.

I forgot all about it the second we landed though.  As I was getting off the plane a woman approached me, “Jean?” I assumed it was Florrie, the woman we were renting a car from (the island is small and walk-able but with two kids and unpredictable weather we wanted to be sure to see the whole island and have shelter from rain).  Nope.  It was a Kathy Coull whom I’d met online through the group that I went to Mull with a couple of years ago.  I hadn’t emailed with her in months.  She handed me a map of the island (don’t laugh – it actually came in handy for the two roads) and invited us to lunch!  She’d spoken with Liz Lovick (one of the Mull group) in Orkney the day before and Liz had reminded her that we were coming in.  I was very pleasantly surprised.  She put out a very nice spread of breads, cheeses and tomato soup which was perfect for a misty, windy day.  If you get the chance to go to Fair Isle, she does run the only B&B on the island so if you google her name and Fair Isle you can contact her.  She’d just moved into the house she’s in now from another one on the island.  There were a couple of nice young men staying at her B&B who had lunch with us.  They were doing research on the social aspects of living in such a small community.  I’d love to read the paper when it’s finished. The boys fell in love with Kathy’s dog.  Another picture I forgot to take.  I need to send her a thank you gift for her kindness.

I love this little photo from the war.  It’s was meant to show how the soldiers built relationships with the islanders.  Sappy, but cute.  For such a tiny place, it actually saw a bit of action.  The South Lighthouse was actually bombed a couple of times in WWII. You can read about it here.

What I can’t seem to get my head around is that this teensy little speck in the sea is known the world over for it’s knitting of all things.  It’s incredible.  They have a little museum that was open during the afternoon we were there.  If you click on the thumbnail of the knitting display, you’ll get a bigger view.

If you look up in the right-hand corner of the museum photo and squint really hard, you can see a long knitted sampler.  I’m a dork.  I forgot to take a picture of it.  I didn’t even get it in the video.  But you can stop squinting.  I tried cropping down to it from the museum picture for you:

You can also see part of a sign off of one of the older Good Shepherds. That’s the boat that brings mail and supplies to the island from Shetland.  We thought about going this way instead of the plane but we heard it’s a very rough ride and it’s longer.  We didn’t have the time this trip.  I’d like to try it next time though and actually stay on Fair Isle for at least a week.

Here are more croppings from that museum photo:

I forgot one of the sheep pictures in the last post.  We always try to hit Science Centers in cities we visit because the boys love them.  This special sheep was at the Science Center in Aberdeen.  You push a button and watch as the sheep eats some hay and then it either poops or pees.   Sometimes you get lucky and it does both! 🙂  You could hear people yell, “Jackpot!” when that happened.  Okay.  I’m lying.  Would have been funny though.

Family, Knitting, Shetland, Travel, Weaving

Wooly Paradise

Posted on by Jean

One of my favorite things from both of our trips to Shetland was the Jamieson’s Spinning Mill in Sandness on the West side of the main island.  You can just walk around and watch the tons and tons of wool become yarn,

sweaters:

and woven fabric:

I love how cleverly they can weave several different color ways on one warp.  This is only three of the several color ways of scarves that were on this particular loom.  They just slightly felt the fabric and then cut along the yellow lines in strips and then cut the strips into scarves.  Amazing how the weft works through all the warp colors.  They had bolts of warps ready to go onto the looms.  I was sad that the weaver(s) weren’t there when we visited.  I did get to watch the women doing the joining on the knitwear though.  Very cool.

The staff are very kind and don’t seem to mind visitors.  Even small, curious boys who make the knitting machines stop by accident.  :-O 

When we went there in ’97 Daniel was only three but he loved it and cried when it was time to go.  On this visit we gave the boys their choice of where to go on the last day.  Even though we’d spent about three hours at the mill the day before, that’s where they chose to go back to.  The staff greeted us with smiles and ran the boys around showing them different things that we’d missed… somehow… the day before.

Well, tonight’s the big night.   First school night of the year.  Good thing next weekend is already a long one.   I think we’ll need it.  Both boys are really excited.  I’m actually not ready yet.  The last month has been a blur so it kind of snuck up on me.   

Family, Knitting

And the Basket Goes To….

Posted on by Jean

The winner of the drawing for the Preemie Project basket goes to…. drumroll please…. Li from Life’s a Stitch!  Congrats Li.  E me your address and I’ll get the basket off to you.

Thanks to everyone for participating and keep those little knitties going to Laura (Knits for Sanity).  It’s a great cause.

It was a long week here.  I caught some nasty stomach bug that’s going around our community and was down for the count Monday.   It came on strong and fast, but it was over pretty quick too.   I was pretty much back to normal by Tuesday afternoon.  Did some volunteering at the school and just kept busy in general.

I finished the baby sweater that was giving me hell a challenge and it’s ready for it’s little recipient who’s due at the end of this month.  I will never do another textured knit back and forth again unless the back side is just knit or purl.  Whew.  I think I got into the rhythm of it just as I was finishing the 2nd sleeve.

Here’s a little sky shot for Sandy (Sandy’s Knitting).   Dan sent it all the way from Afghanistan.  Okay… so it came by email but still… pretty, no?

Family, Knitting

We Interrupt This Blog Break…

Posted on by Jean

We interrupt this blog break with some actual knitting content.  I know.  You’re shocked. 

Note the title of the book:

Baby Knits For Beginners  Key word: “beginners” 

See the simple little diamond knit/purl pattern?  Okay.  I’ve knit several projects from this book with success and I consider myself a fairly accomplished knitter.  I’ve been knitting for 20 years (since my first birthday).  If this book is for beginners, why then, am I having such a *((*&&%#$*#* time with this little bitty baby sweater?!  I’ll tell you why.  It’s because it’s knit flat.  I am an Elizabeth Zimmermann baby… okay not really, I wish though, but you know what I mean….  I’m all about knitting in the round.  I usually even change patterns just so that I can knit them in the round.  But I looked at this tiny thing and thought, “Heh.  No problem. Simple little knit/purl texture.”  Yeah.  Right.  You can’t tell where the heck you are when you’re on the back without constantly flipping to the front and thinking opposite (I have a hard enough time with regular thinking).  And then I got to the armholes.  Threw me WAY out of whack.

So I was supposed to have this finished for a baby shower this afternoon.   I thought I could finish it during the shower and be all smooth and hold it up at the end of the shower with a big ‘ol, “Voilà!”  Not. I have had to rip out, frog, what have you, more times than I’m willing to admit.  I could have knit three sweaters of this size in the round in this amount of time.  If I ever finish it, I’ll post a picture.  Oh, c’mon… have a little faith.   You know I’ll finish it.  The baby is due in a month.  I have PLENTY of time!

Okay…. another thing plaguing me this week (besides the obvious absence of my husband)….  I’m missing my Preemie Projects and my beloved ebony double-points. They were my favorites. Seriously, it’s driving me nuts.  I woke up at 4am on Friday morning because I’ve been looking for them all week. I could swear I put them in a bag to take on the road somewhere so I could knit while Dan drove but I can’t find them anywhere.  I’ve had those beautiful needles for probably six years. I’m half expecting hoping Dan to say he found it in his stuff in Afghanistan. 

It’s been a weird week getting used to Dan not being around.  PMS isn’t helping the situation, that’s for sure.  Here’s the first photo he sent me.  We’re calling it “Change of Command – CID style”.  It’s taken in front of their office/living quarters door.

We can’t do web cams like we thought.  Their system down there is so bogged down that it’s taking several hours for our emails to reach each other. They aren’t allowed to use web cams because it just makes it worse. I can’t complain.  He’s able to call home every day.  A lot of guys can’t do that.

Daniel has been really trying hard to be helpful and behaving.   Joseph has been… well… Joseph.  lol.  It’s our fault.  We spoiled him rotten and now I’m paying for it.  Being a single parent sucks.  My hats off to those of you that can survive it better than I.  Even Aggie isn’t behaving.  I don’t know if she’s just going through her adolesence or if she misses Dan or what the deal is but she’s had accident after accident in the house.  Right by the back door and right after I’ve let her out.  She’s driving me crazy with it.  I’ve tried everything.  Even starting over with the crate.  She insists on going on the remnant by the door instead of barking to go out.  She did better when she was two months old than now at five months.  All she has to do is look at me with that, “Whaat?”  look and she’s forgiven.

I’m really looking forward to Summer.  I think a lot of moms dread it.  I’m looking forward to being able to just kick back and relax with the boys and do our own thing for a while.  It was a busy week volunteering at the school and I have a busy time with Confirmation and 1st Communion coming up at the church.  I also need to start planning the Teacher Appreciation dinner for my volunteers.  Good that it’ll all make time go fast, not so good that it’s all stressing me out.

I’d really like to thank you for the emails and comments of support.  I’m trying to get through all of them to reply personally so please bear with me.