My Knitted Life

Lately it seems like I have been (even more) obsessed with my yarn and needles.  It's like if I am not working, I am knitting.  Maybe it's because I need a bit of control in my life.  Things always seem out of control lately, but when I pick up my needles, all of my control comes back. Do you ever experience that?

I started this hat a few weeks back with the intent of using a woven motif (here) for the body portion.  The yarn had other ideas and I changed it to a slipped stitch checkerboard.  The yarn is a couple of 150yd mill end skeins from a local alpaca ranch, and the hat ended up a bit tight.  It's still warm and still fits, but I would definitely add about ten stitches next time.

Pouting because it's tight :( 

Oddly enough, those skeins lasted through the whole thing and I even had extra! Enough to cast on a pair of mitts.  The first mitt is already done and I know I will have more than enough to make it's mate.

Because my life revolves around all things knitted, I finished another knitted landscape. This one is only 9x6 - I'm enjoying this size!  My current theme within the landscapes is "Lollipops and Gumdrops".  The idea came to me randomly one night and I am running with it.  I am hoping to do lots of Lollipop Trees and floating "Gumdrops" (Knitted balls). I have a show in September and I want this to be the show title. 

If you've read any of my previous posts you may remember that I am involved with a local poetry group.  While I am not nearly as impressive as many of the others, I am excited to say that I finally got up on stage and read FROM MEMORY. And the poem? It's about knitting! haha! Even my poetry life has yarn in it!

Listen here if you don't mind a crappy recording!

Weekly Inspirations:

Knitting: One of the ladies in my knit group mentioned she likes to get on the top 20 trending for Ravelry, which tends to include a lot of patterns that are limited time on sale. What a genius idea!
Art: You should see what Scotty Gorham is doing! He was in the last group for the residency I did last year.  He just finished installing one of the largest neon installations in the country!
Food:  I made this coconut curry yesterday and it was fantastic.  Although I overcooked the vegetables, it turned out super delicious!
Life: A friend recommended the book "A Creative Habit" by Twyla Tharp.I'm two chapters in and already seeing some major inspiration. 

Yup, that's my life.  How is your's these days? 

~Lisa

amen...

A Warm Wool Winter

Winter vacation is always a great time for getting some serious knitting done, and this year was no exception. I still have a week left of break, and it will be spent finishing a painting, working at the pre-school and hopefully some more knitting time!

Winter vacation was barely winter this year. The weather has been in the 40's and 50's the whole time and we have only had one fluke snow storm here in Kansas. The combination of the warm weather and the excessive fiber art that was going on in my house leads me to call this a very Warm Wool Winter.

The first thing I decided to conquer with my newly found free time was this amazing pair of socks.

Knitted using magic loop, one at a time, and Zitron Trekking 6ply (one of my new favorite sock yarns, yet very hard to find). The pattern is Soft Waves from the book Toe-up Two at a Time Socks, which I used to teach my self the toe up technique, something I had never tried before. I think it was a complete success!

While I was knitting on the socks, I was also finishing up my purple wool that I started way back this summer. I managed to finish this by the end of week one, and got it plyed and set on Christmas Day.

As a knitter, I couldn't just let the yarn sit in a plastic bag in my drawer. So I decided that there was actually enough to make something with and found the perfect pattern: Diagonal ribbed cowl. Knit on size 8 fixed circs, I had this thing done in less than 3 days.

Finishing this led me to need a new project to work on and so I decided to spin up the amazing 100% alpaca roving I purchased back in October. It was so soft, but really hard to draft because of this. The end result is something I am really proud of and one of the better yarns I ever spun.

The original roving was black, tan and white striped, so I didn't want to lose that pretty design in the final product and therefor I didn't pull apart pieces the way I usually do, and in turn I didn't produce as much yarn. I did produce enough to finish a hat though! The had is very soft and I absolutely love it! It's a little big, which means I should have cast on a few less stitches, but when you have thick and thin yarn (like all my handspun tends to be) it's hard to figure out the gauge, let alone knit a gauge swatch. That's one of my goals, to one day be able to figure out the gauge and 'weight' of the yarn that I have spun.

In between the cowl and the hat I was able to work on my Effortless Cardigan and it is slowly coming together. It still has quite a bit to go though.

With one week left, I plan to work on my ever growing collection of Relay for Life Dishcloths; hopefully I'll get 2 or 3 more done, so I can have a decent amount to sell this spring at farmer's market.

I hope all my readers are enjoying any time off and are keeping to any New Years resolutions. Until next time,

~Lisa

Holiday Knitting: Quick and Simple.

So as of 5pm tomorrow I will officially be done with the fall semester. Man it has been torture! But on a happy note I have also managed to finish a couple of holiday knitting projects. Unlike last year, no IOU yarn balls will be under the tree! Finished projects will instead take their place. However, my parents have basically said don't get them anything, which is fine by me because I'm a broke college kid anyways AND I never finished my mom's IOU socks from last year (in my defense I got one done, decided I hated the yarn and just never did the other).

So this year I decided to do a bit of something unexpected. Unexpected as in neither my brother or sister will be expecting what I made them. My sister is getting a winter headband made of 100% baby alpaca. If she doesn't like it, than I may just keep it, because I absolutely love how it turned out and how warm it is.



The headband in question is Bamboozled and I recommend it to anyone who wants a winter headband that is different from those basic ones with the flowers.

As for my brother, he is getting a bulky scarf. Being a freshman in college, I know that he could probably use something for those walks back in forth. I know he's a guy, but I have seen guys wear scarves. I actually gave a wool one to a friend of mine who swore he would never use it and the very first cold day we had got a text message with a very big thank you. So whoever says scarves are not for guys is completely wrong. Of course part of my reasoning is that I had 2 of the 3 skeins I used for this scarf already in my stash; I got them last year, intending to make hats for presents and never did, so they became the red and blue stripes of this scarf instead. It also gave me a chance to experiment with long circulars and lengthwise scarves, something I've wanted to do for awhile now.



I probably should wait to talk about these until after their given, but it's not like they read this blog and I'm bored and haven't updated for awhile. I hope all is well with the world and everyone has a great holiday!

~Lisa