Crazy update with a finished object.

Don't get your hopes up, the Nightingale socks aren't finished. But the Old Man of Storr Shawlette is!


She has even been washed and blocked. It really turned out wonderfully and I can't wait for some crisp autumn days when I will want to wear it.

The center is a simple Garter stitch and then a very simple lace pattern on the edge. I chose to knit mine with two colors of yarn. The Broken Midnight yarn I dyed and the solid grey vintage sock yarn for the edging. It turned out so great. I absolutely love it!


The nightingale socks are coming along though. I am actually past the heel already.

I'm not sure about the yarn, I don't like the brown in the purple and it's too stripey but I'm living with it. A knitting friend told me not to frog so I'm going to at least finish the first sock. Then eventually I may need to knit this pattern with some other yarn.

Here's a close-up of the first bird on the foot. I know it looks a bit funny now but it should block out beautifully. I usually find that to be true with colorwork.

Well, back to knitting. We'll talk about my spinning adventures another day.

Some Progress

I've been knitting my little fingers to the bone and I actually seem to be making some progress. I started the Nightingale socks as planned on Sunday. Unfortunately, I had issues with it. I needed to increase the number of stitches in order to make my gauge (which I was happy with) fit around my foot/leg. I, without thinking, cast on the recommended number of stitches but in increasing to the number I needed, I ended up with a much longer toe than I liked. Then I made a mistake knitting the chart and when I corrected it, was unhappy with how I had loose little floats behind there. I decided to frog. It was painful, but it needed to be done.

I cast on again, this time with 25 stitches each for front and back rather than the recommended 19 and knit along. It's going well. There was a brief moment on Tuesday where I nearly ripped and restarted with different yarn because I'm not loving how much brown there is in the purple yarn but I persisted and I'm at the gusset increases for the heel now. Somehow this makes me feel like I'm almost halfway done with the first sock, even though the leg is much longer than the foot and I'm not even there yet. Let me have my sad little delusion okay.

I don't have a picture today because the weather is gray and drizzly so I can't seem to get nice light but I'll keep plugging away and maybe tomorrow we'll have a ray of sunshine perfect for taking pictures. A girl can dream can't she?

I'm also very excited to report that the Old Man of Storr shawl is officially off the needles. As a matter of fact, it's blocking right now. I'm very excited. It actually blocked out larger than I expected and it's about an inch narrower than my height. It's not super long but it looks great. I can't wait to unpin it and wear it everywhere.

Swatching for the Crazies

A few people in my local knitting group recently started talking about the Nightingale pattern. (I highly encourage you to look at that Ravelry pattern link before you read further.)

They even went so far as to plan a knit-along for it. I love the socks, I think they look amazing. I also think it's a sort of insane kind of crazy to undertake that project. Then I went looking for something in my sock yarn stash and found some yarn. Yarn that would be perfect for it.

Yes, that's right, I have joined the club crazy. Our knit-along is set to start on Sunday and we will have a gathering on Monday as our "official" kick-off since too many people have plans on Sunday. In order to be ready, I purchased the pattern, cleared off needles and today, I took these two yarns,

and I knit a swatch.

These are stranded colorwork socks with charts and so I think gauge is going to be really important. Otherwise I would take my normal just go for it and see what happens approach to my knitting.

I even knit the swatch in the round to make sure it was as accurate as possible. But, I need your help. I need to decide which color is the foreground and which is the background. In order to get a good picture of that, I knit a small portion of a chart on my swatch. One side with the white as the background (that's just part of a bird tail and some leaves, I couldn't bring myself to knit the whole bird)


One side with the Purple as the background.

I am planning to use magic loop for these to keep the sides together and hopefully make the colorwork easier. The pattern calls for size 2.50mm needles (sometimes called US Size 1.5) and I used my 2.5mm Addi Turbo needles to knit the swatch.

I think I already know what I like but I want more opinions. I won't be getting together with the knitting group until Monday and I want to start right away on Sunday (if possible) so I need to make a decision.

Note: this swatch is still wet from washing so the colors are a little more accurate in the ball but you can get a pretty good picture. I also won't know for sure about gauge until it's dry and I can measure it.

Here's where you come in. Leave me a comment. Tell me which you think is better, white background or purple background. I'm not going to tell you what I think until I get your opinion.

Tour de Fleece results and catchup

I'm so sorry to have gone so long without posting. I keep saying that I will post more often and then I never seem to do it. Well, this time, I'm going to stick to it. My new goal is at least once a week. Preferably twice. Even if I don't have anything new to show you, I need to get to posting more often.

Since I seem to have Mondays and Wednesdays mostly free, my goal is to post on those two days. So, here I am on Monday trying to get you caught up on what's been going on for the last month.

Let's see. When last we left our intrepid knitter, she was working on the Tour de Fleece right? You might be asking, how did it go? Well, I think it was a smashing success. In the Tour de Fleece you set your own goals. My goal was to spin at least 2 four ounce braids of roving and navajo-ply it into sock yarn. I trained and on the first day of the tour, I got started. I really wanted to get a head start so that if life got busy later, I could slack a little and still be able to finish. I started with my Merino of the month club braid from Gritty Knits. I am not going to post pictures of it prespun because I have done that already and this post will be picture-heavy enough.

Here it is all finished. It turned out so beautiful and I ended up with about 600 yards which is really bordering on laceweight but I really want these gorgeous stripes in some socks.

Next, I chose to spin a braid of fiber a friend gave me. She runs the etsy shop Hand over the Wool and wanted me to try out some fiber she had dyed for the shop. I know she has more of this fiber but I don't see it posted yet so be looking for it.

Here it is unspun and finished.


and closeup. It really isn't colors I would normally choose but it turned out just beautiful and I ended up with about 49o yards of beautiful sock yarn. I'm very excited to find something to knit with this gorgeous stuff.

I actually finished this fiber with plenty of time to spare. I debated whether I thought I should start something else with only about 4 days left but I just couldn't sit there not spinning while the tour was still going on.

I chose a braid of BFL I purchased in a stash sale on Ravelry. She dyed it herself and it was such an interesting combination, I couldn't resist.

Here it is all spun up.

and a closeup with a quarter so you can see how it came out. I actually got less yardage with this one because I was working on my long draw technique since it had such an amazing long staple length. I managed to finish it on the last day of the tour at 2 a.m. It was very exciting to be able to finish so much more than I imagined. I was up with my local spinners because we had a fiber retreat for the end of the tour.
I ended up trading the violet and lime BFL to my friend with the etsy shop for a few things. Plus, my babysitting services meant, I came home with some beautiful things.

Here's my total haul from the fiber retreat. In the upper right is some Funky Carolina Merino Combed top that I won in our gift exchange along with a chocolate bar, some coffee and a gorgeous knitting bag that's acting as a purse right now. Below that is fiber from the friend's etsy shop. Superfine Merino and baby alpaca. So soft it feels like butter. Below that is the Superwash Merino and Bamboo fiber that I couldn't resist because the gorgeous pinks and browns were calling my name. On the left in the upper part is some that is from the friend's etsy shop as well. Some Merino and Silk in gorgeous blues and greens. I had to have it because it matches the other so well. A braid I bought from another person's destash of Gritty Knits merino of the month.

I did put a little something into the gift exchange myself. Some Superwash Merino and Nylon that I dyed with my broken black.

It turned out really well and I hope I get to see it spun up because it is so beautiful.

Other than all the spinning, which has been slowed down a lot since the tour, I have been doing a little knitting.
I've been working on my shawlette in the broken black and I actually got to add the grey border now. I strung it onto some dental floss at my parents to see how it was coming.


I'm so excited. I think it looks great.

I also managed to knit a secret pair of socks for a friend's birthday.

They're knit with Plymouth Yarn Happy Feet, one of my all time favorite sock yarns because it's so soft and holds up so nicely.

I used the pattern Lace and Cable socks from Wendy Knits book Socks from the Toe up.

Here's a closeup of the lace pattern.

I also managed to knit a little knitting bag to match my new knitting bag/purse from some handspun.

The yarn is from forest fiber works. Please go there and buy everything up. I went and looked and want it all now.

The colorway is Eco and I purchased it last November and spun it into a two-ply. I still have another skein so I'm hoping to knit it into something else to match my knitting bag/purse.

I used the pattern Humbug bag from 101 Designer One Skein Wonders. Although, I did use the Linen stitch for the body rather than the pattern it called for and I knit a band for the strap rather than ribbon like suggested. I didn't leave a hole for the yarn either and mine came out a bit smaller but I love it!

Romantic isn't always the best choice.

I have a bit of a confession. I love old movies and I love doing little things to help try to save the environment. In the last couple of years, I switched over to handkerchiefs rather than tissues. It may not be a BIG thing, but little things add up. Don't worry, I wash them in hot water with lots of soap, they're totally disinfected and I actually love using them. I also have this romantic old movie idea about them, that they should be pretty and frilly and wonderful. Of course they aren't. You can't find (at least not easily) hankies that are utilitarian and pretty. My solution of course is to Crochet or knit my own edges onto them. I have thought and thought about this, but never seemed ready to do anything about it until last night at Crochet Night.

First, pick a pattern for an edging that you like.
Then, crochet a sample.

Hmm, very pretty but it is worked back and forth and doesn't have corner directions.

Take a lot of notes and come up with a plan for a corner.

Then, if you think it will work, crochet a corner.

So far so good. That's an almost perfect right angle. Now measure the hanky, plan the number of stitches and start right?

It looks beautiful but it's taking forever. Remind me why I wanted to do this again.

And We're Off

Saturday was the official Kick-off of the Tour de France and therefore also the kick-off of the Tour de Fleece. It's very exciting. My goals are to spin 2 braids of fiber (4 oz. each) to be navajo-plied into sock yarn.

I haven't actually chosen the second but here is a sneak peek of the first and how it's going.

This is my Gritty Knits Merino Braid of the Month from May of this year. Isn't it great? I love getting fiber every month and this club is great because you pay monthly so it doesn't come all at once.

I have been planning to N-ply it to keep the beautiful colors together and it's going to be sock yarn so I wanted some great stripes so I stripped it the full length of the braid.

And, on Saturday, I started spinning. So far, I've spun almost 2 oz. of the first braid.

Here are some gorgeous singles

I'm glad that I'm "ahead" right now because if I lose momentum as time goes on, I can hopefully still finish. So far, things are looking GREAT.

In other news, I feel like I won the lottery because I have been chosen as the chart test-knitter for one of Susan Pandorf's amazing patterns. I'm knitting the Bombadil hat (it's in her series based on the Lord of the Rings and it's based on a character that was left out of the movies named Tom Bombadil.)

It's several rows of colorwork followed by one color twisted stitches. It's beautiful so far, even though I'm knitting it out of other colors besides those that are recommended and the pattern is beautifully written (charted).

In Training

As promised, here is the project I'm knitting with the sock yarn I dyed. I still can't believe the amazing colors I got using only black food coloring. This doesn't look like anything at all right now, but I can assure you, it's going to be a beautiful little shawlette when it's finished. First, I'm adding an edging though. You'll have to wait for that.


In other news, I've been in training recently for the Tour de Fleece which starts today. To "train" as it were, I've been spinning some beautiful 50/50 Wool/Soysilk. I, of course, forgot to take pictures of it pre-spinning because I was so excited when I received it, that I started spinning within 48 hours. But, here's the singles on the bobbin.

I wasn't exactly sure what I was hoping for with this fiber but I am wanting to spin a single and navajo-ply it for socks in the Tour de Fleece so I was trying to spin this nice and fine.

I succeeded in spinning it pretty fine and decided to navajo-ply it.

Here it is, as it's being plied. I was unsure about how it was turning out. Sure, there were some nice fine places and most of it was turning out about sock-weight I thought, but I wasn't sure.

Then I wound it off the bobbin. Onto the Niddy Noddy.

Wow, it looks even better here doesn't it? Well, as a part of winding it off, I count the approximate yardage.

Wondering what I ended up with? I was too.

Here I present, a beautiful skein of Tempted Yarns Persuasion. 50/50 Wool/Soysilk. 440 yards!

That's right, I did it! 440 yards in 4 oz. that's sock-weight baby! Excuse me while I happy dance now.

More on the Tour de Fleece Later.

Last Day of the Month

I keep promising pictures of what I'm knitting and I keep falling short. The good news is: I have finished the sock samples for our local crafts store and have turned them in. That means that I can actually knit what I want, when I want now. I'm so excited I hardly know what to do with myself.

Of course, today I realized it was the last day of the month and that at the end of next month I have a baby shower for my sister-in-law. I'd better get working on her baby gift. So, until I get sick of it, that's what will be on my radar for now. All it looks like so far is a big pink mass of yarn but as soon as I make any headway whatsoever, I'll post some pictures so you can see what it looks like.

Patience my Lovelies

I was planning to post again this week with pictures of what I'm knitting with the beautiful yarn I dyed with the black food coloring.

Unfortunately, planning for the step-sister's baby shower and critter-sitting have taken precedence. So, all my lovely readers, you will have to wait until I return from yet another busy weekend. I hope you can contain your excitement.

Let me just leave you with this:

Last week, a tornado ripped through the town of Wadena, MN. It was believed to be an F4. The landscape of the town is completely changed. I have family there and luckily they are all ok and do not have damage to their homes. The problem is that all their school buses and the high school were destroyed and the school is too old to be repaired. Hence, they are trying to find a way to get help. I don't know if it will work or not, but there's a possibility that if you are on Facebook and you post a comment here:
Facebook link
Then they may be able to get help for their school. Its not a sure thing but any little thing helps. If you are on Facebook and/or are so inclined, please go and comment.

Thank you.

Tuesdays really are for Crocheting

Here I am following up with my goal to post more often.

Today's Tuesday and those of you who have been following for awhile know that Tuesdays are for Crocheting because I moderate an Open Crochet Night at our local crafts store.

So, here it is, a crochet project. This is a baby blanket for my Step-sister who is due very, very soon.

I am gifting it to her on Friday at her baby shower and I'm pretty sure there's no way she will see it here on my blog so I'm not worried.

The yarn is some Bernat Softee chunky that I had in the stash and its just a simple design that I made up. There's a Double crocheted center in white, then I went round and round the edge with double crochet in the blue variegated. I did one round of white to add interest.

I seriously wondered about using this acrylic yarn for a baby gift, however, the blanket isn't very big, it's more like something to throw over a car seat as the weather gets cool or to be drug around the house as he learns to walk so it wouldn't be something used for sleeping. I am also proud that I stash-busted to make this lovely little blanket. It took me less than 2 full crochet nights, so less than 6 hours to make this lovely gift and less than 4 balls of yarn.
I think the bulkiness of the yarn and the fact that it's acrylic and therefore less likely to be ruined by the stepsister who I am not sure has a healthy understanding of caring for handmade items will make this a wonderful gift for the new little nephew that should be here in a few short weeks.

There's just something about Fridays

I keep trying to post more often, I make this plan and then get busy and don't seem to have the time but then Friday comes around and I feel bad and here I am posting the only time this week, again.
It's definitely for a good cause though. I mentioned last week that I hadn't been knitting nearly as much as I've been spinning. That is so true.
Here we have the results of my recent spinning.

On the left you will find the pound of roving that was dyed at Shepherd's Harvest by me, in the dyeing class.

They sure turned out nice didn't they? Let's have a close-up shall we?


All 5 skeins were navajo-plied to keep the colors together and I think they turned out really nicely, although they are different weights, too much time between spinning means inconsistency.

On the right, you will find a little skein, this wee little thing may not look like much but it's a lovely Merino/Alpaca blend that a friend gave me a little sample of and I spindle spun it. I actually came out with over a hundred yards of a lovely two-ply. Again, let's take a closer look.

Its somewhere between a light fingering weight and a heavy lace-weight. I love it. I can't wait to find something beautiful to knit with it. As a matter of fact, I'm thinking about this, although the yardage may be somewhat light for that. We'll see.

I'm off to see my parents again for a few days so my spindle's packed in my bag because, well, I am training for the Tour de Fleece and I am trying to spin every day.

Although, I did dye up some very nice yarn.

It's a lovely skein dyed with black food coloring that broke in all the right ways and it is currently on some needles and I am dying to knit more with it.

Secrets though, I'll have to wait to tell you what I'm knitting and keep you in suspense.

Wrapped up in Love

I've been so crazy busy lately, I've barely even thought about posting anything but that doesn't mean that knitting (and spinning for that matter) have not occurred.
Actually, I've been doing quite a bit of Knitting and Crocheting.

Case in point: The Red yarn thing.

Some people correctly guessed what it was. It is a Clapotis.

I used the yarn dyed by my friend for her Etsy shop. It is dangerous to be friends with her because she has this yarn and fiber lying around her house and I see it and I want to take it all home. Sometimes I can resist, sometimes not.

I knit this gorgeous thing with less than two skeins of sock weight yarn and it is PLENTY long. I can wrap it around my neck twice and the ends are very long. It was knit on size 5 needles so its not quite as wide as the pattern calls for but I think it works just fine for a wrap too. I love it. I rarely take it off now that its done and I'm taking a short break from this gorgeous red yarn to knit something else.

Um, I tried dyeing some yarn using black food coloring (with the hope that I could get something to maybe sell) and loved it so much, I may have kept it and cast it on. We'll have to talk about that another day.

Two Rows

Things have been absolutely crazy around here lately, to the tune of the fact that I haven't really even thought about posting. I want to, I need the outlet if nothing else but I've been too busy to do it.

So, instead, I'll bring to you all up-to-date on my most recent adventure. Its not knitting related except that I was on the way to knit night.

Our group meets every month on the same date, regardless of what day of the week it is so that it alternates every month. Then, those who can't make it on a certain day of the week for whatever reason, have the opportunity to make it to other days. It seems to work well. Anyway, our date is the 19th so a couple of weeks ago, I was on my way to Knit night. I have to travel about 30 miles to Knit night and I travel down a major highway to get there. I was on my way when I noticed, near a bridge over some water that an animal had been hit on the side of the road. I realized it must be a duck when I noticed a little group of ducklings waddling around alone on the side of the road, obviously upset and trying to figure out what to do.

What could I do? I turned around, went back and picked up the 5 little birds. What did I have in my car to put them in? This sounds awful.

Only a large stock pot that I had purchased to use as a dye pot. So, there they were, little birds in a big pot. Several of them tried to jump out but luckily the sides were JUST high enough that they couldn't. You can sort of see one of them in there.

So now I had stopped and picked up these birds but what on earth was I supposed to do with them? I obviously had no way to rehabilitate them and they were not meant to be pets. I drove into town to meet up with my other knitters and we talked about it. We looked up numbers and I called all over. We tried to give them water, they tried to swim in it and ended up spilling it all over.

I tried to call the DNR but they were closed as it was after 5:00. (I find this somewhat ridiculous. There are animals to be helped more than just 8-5!)
Finally, finally, I got the number of a lady in our area who takes in animals and rehabilitates them. I drove them out to her house and dropped them off.

She obviously knew all about what to do and even knew that these were Mergansers not ordinary Mallard Ducks.

My car ride home seemed oddly quiet but somehow I felt like I had earned my keep on this earth for a day. For about an hour and a half there, I had 5 birds. They sure were sweet too but I'm so glad they have a chance to be the wild birds they were born to be.

That is the reason I was only able to knit 2 rows on my scarf at Knit Night. Well worth it I'd say.

The Harvest

Here in Minnesota there's a big fiber festival that you frequently hear about called Shepherd's Harvest. As I've only been spinning for a little over a year (wow, it seems like so much longer) and only really into the internet knitting community for a couple of years, I finally got to go this year for the first time. My fibery friend from here in town and I decided to take a dyeing class. Dyeing roving. It was great. As a part of the fees to take the class, you get to not only learn our wonderful teacher's techniques but you also get to take home a full pound of roving. Separated into two braids. As such, you can choose which dye bath to place those two roving into. I chose two different ones and ended up with:

and

Awesome aren't they? I may have started spinning the bottom one already. (Can you believe that pink is supposed to be maroon?! I laugh in its general direction.)
Also, as the weather here has been pretty rainy and drizzly for awhile and by awhile I mean "Please kill me". I apologize for the awful pictures I have of everything I brought home.

Of course there are also vendor booths and various other amazing things to look at and do. We saw the sheep dog show. Then we watched them shear sheep for awhile, we got to see live sheep of various breeds which was very interesting. Let me just say, they look very little like the wool you will get from them.

I was recommended to go with a "shopping list" as there is so much to look at, if you don't have SOME idea of what you would like to purchase, it can be overwhelming. I didn't have an official list, but I did have some ideas of what I would like to come away with.
1) One or more fibers I hadn't tried to sample.
2) A Turkish drop spindle for travel and general spinning for fun/in small quantities.
3) I wanted to look for the Cloudlover booth because everyone at my spinning guild had been talking about their amazing rovings.

I think I did pretty well. Here are my purchases.

At the top, you can sort of see the amazing Cloudlover roving I picked up. Its deep rich purples on Merino/Silk. AMAZING!
On the left is a large zippy bag of Merino Roving. 10 oz. Plain colored so I could dye it or just spin it plain. I already played with the next item my turkish drop spindle with some of this roving. I wanted to try out the spindle to see how it worked on the way home. Luckily, I wasn't the driver.
Next to the drop spindle is a small bag of tussah silk fiber to spin. 2 oz. Its very pretty but also dyeable if I would like. Then next to that is a bag of Ingeo or corn fiber. At the very bottom is a beautiful little wooden needle case.

Overall I had a great time. Its so weird to go and see that every booth is fiber and knitting and spinning supplies and beautiful. Usually if you go to an event there's a few things you want and so many booths you just pass by. Here, I almost wanted to walk into every booth and buy something from everyone.

I will definitely be attending again next year. Now that I know more what to expect, I also think that it will be much less overwhelming. It was difficult to make some decisions about what to purchase and what to pass over.