No Strings Attached

Its cold outside, though sunny, and that's awesome. Sunny and cold is way better than wet, cloudy, with a 30% chance of gray-all-day.  Give me sunshine, Mr. Weatherman, and you can keep your job!

KNITTING
After posting all my needles on Ravelry, I discovered I had some cool little needles that I never use.  Needles that are great for socks, cause they're super small. Sizes are from 2 down to 000. That's small!

Ravelry online chart to keep track of knitting needles

And I've been playing with my yarn stash, trying to find inspiration. Time to put those needles to work, busting my ever aging stash of yarn.  

Size 2 Knitters Pride DPNs and some homespun Shetland wool

Home spun yarn with label courtesy of a brown paper bag!

 Casting on a couple of pairs of footie socks, using a couple of different patterns and a calculator to fill in the gaps.  (Why does knitting always involve math?) 
I believe this is 56 stitches, which is divisible by 8 and 4. Great numbers for sock knitting!

This project is getting around lately, mostly because it is so portable, and doable in the car.  I can't really knit while driving, but its a blast to knit as a passenger.  It makes the drive something to look forward to, and keeps me optimistic.  And it really serves the "Off the Grid" challenge for 2013.  Staying off my cell phone, and getting back to more organic things.  Even down to the label I swiped from a paper bag.

One thing that slows me down when I go to knit, is the time and effort it takes to wind a yarn hank into a center pull ball on the swift in the garage. So I took a whole bunch of hanks, wound them into balls and cut strips from brown paper bags to make labels. The yarn looks more inviting and the balls won't fall apart when I throw them into my knitting bag!

TENNESSEE WOOL COMPANY

PERSONAL
I took my project, plus one more, with me as we drove to my husband's friend's house yesterday.  It was a long drive (1 hour), and when we got there they sat me in the living room in front of the TV like a little kid  while they took care of some business.  For two hours!! I knitted and watched Katie Couric,then local news and then a German newscast on PBS (in English of course). You should see how far I got with this sock. So, so, so glad I grabbed my knitting. 
This was a real reward for having spent the morning shredding anything with numbers on it, from the file cabinet in my husband's office.  It was time to clean out, throw out and shred.  But with shredding, comes the inevitable shredder-stops-shredding moment.  Either its jammed or its overheated.  Usually the former, so I was quick to pull out the culprit; paper crammed in between the teeth of the shredder.
After a few times this did not seem to fix the problem anymore.  And since these office-y things usually have phone numbers labeled "Help line" on the bottom, I thought to myself, what could they possibly tell me to do? A reset button, maybe?  And sure enough, I found a little hole that didn't seem to have a screw in it, that looked like it might be the place where you could stick something skinny and reset the motor.  Nancy Drew, you taught me well!!  It worked!  One huge bag of shredded paper for man, one giant leap for this knitter/detective.

Spinderella

SPINNING
 This post is going to consist of spinning because that's what I've been up to. At the start of the year, I was trying to spin and ply some yarn completely on my Turkish spindle.

Turkish singles

This little skein is just a mix and match of odd balls of leftover roving, in multiple colors and types.  I was just wanting to spin without getting too involved.  Kind of like doodling with yarn.  The purple was from those mittens, the green was from the Color of Money skein, the blue is the angora below, and the yellow-gold  was from way back; featured in this post. 

plied purple and yellow

plied blue and green

I was also trying out ways to ply and combine colors randomly. These kind of look like the corrosion on a car battery terminal! Don't you think?  Weird how these things come to be.

Yarn spun and plied completely on my Turkish spindle

Another WIP is this super duper soft and squishy white angora and wool.  Spun and plied on my wheel with a large whorl.

And last but not least, the gun metal blue single, spun my new Bosworth Midi spindle, but plied on my Kromski Symphony wheel! 

One skein finished! Love this spindle

PERSONAL
Not too long ago I read on Twitter about a podcast episode that focused on the benefits of keeping a journal.  The speaker even listed 7 benefits that I link to here.  One of the things that struck me was the obvious part about clarifying and processing (the mental stuff). Of course (duh!) its so obvious because that's the point.
Keeping a journal is just that - writing down what happened, and how you or I feel about it.
Such a lost art, and I realized that even though I have a large cardboard box full of journals, I stopped journaling when I started blogging.  I think it kind of accomplishes the same benefit mentioned above, but with one major difference.  Writing in a journal is writing with no audience except yourself.  When you blog, you realize you may say things that offend (and so you don't), you may say things that offer too much information (and so you keep it to yourself), you may say things that are boring and once again, you stop right there.  What a nice memory I have of my younger years spent keeping a journal, and the fun I've had, reading over them, either mortified or cheered up when I considered the events in context and with hindsight.
I just may have to start journaling again......
Oh, and I know you've been dying to ask me about whether or not I'm keeping my nails painted. Well yes, I have, thank you very much!  But what color, you ask?  I'll never tell!

Fun with my granddaughter who really wants me to paint her nails, I just know!

Snow White

Hello February!  I can't believe another month has come and gone.  That's supposed to be a good sign, when time flies, you know.  I suppose its true that I'm enjoying the new year so far.
We had some light snow this week and in the south, it warrants a school closing so that kids have a chance to enjoy it outright during the day.  Kids in the north (of the U.S.) have lots of opportunities to play in the snow, sometimes more than they care to have.  But in the south, where I live, its pretty special and folks love to take advantage of even an inch or two, by making snowmen, snow balls and the occasional snow angel. 

SPINNING
I took advantage of the snow this week to spin a great new wool blend I made on my Fricke Petite drum carder.  Its about 30% angora and 60% lambs wool.  Light and fluffy like the snow!

I also used my spinning wheel to wind a bobbin of this Gunmetal Blue angora/wool blend from my new spindle. 

My husband called this "Gunmetal Blue"

 The spindle had become heavy with the weight of the cop of yarn, and the thread kept breaking, so I knew it was time to move it off the spindle.  I only own three bobbins, so I will need to ply it or something soon!

KNITTING
I absolutely LOVE this throw!  I love the colors, I love the size of the needle with the various yarns, and I love that its still really portable in this basket.  Perfect for knitting in the bedroom or living room while watching a TV show.

Makes me dream of the beach!

SEWING
I registered for the free sewing machine attachment class on Craftsy today.  Here is my first attempt at free hand machine embroidery.

Free hand embroidery foot - learning curve!

 One of the best tips I've heard, is from a user who recommended a home made option for lowering the feed dogs on the machine: tape a business card over them.  Wow.  What a great idea.  I can't lower my feed dogs and I don't own the attachment that covers them.  Someone online said they don't like to use that attachment anyway, and that the business card trick works just as well, if not better. 

KNITTING IN HD

KNITTING
The last few days it feels like I've been knitting in HD.  This is basically just a scrap blanket, but the colors are really holding my interest, and there's a lot of time in between changing yarns, so that I'm not aggravated with tying and cutting thread.  (That's a pain in the rear, to me!)

If this goes well, I'll probably do another one to get rid of use up a lot of my odd balls of yarn.

Colors from a beach vacation

SPINNING
I spent some quality time in the garage, since the weather warmed up this week.  I was able to card some fleece for later use, and blend some of the new angora with this lovely white wool.  Very soft for spinning!

French Angora/Wool blend

I also washed a small batch of greasy fleece, because when I went to card it, it felt like a fry-cook had used it to clean the griddle! Dawn dish liquid to the rescue - works great on greasy fleece, that's for sure.  I don't like gummy yarn,  ain't nobody got time for that! 

 READING
 I'm a third of the way through "Wild" on audio.  Good story, although not what I'd imagined it would be like.

However, it has served to whet my appetite for hiking!  Next sunny day we have, I think I'll be headed to Cheekwood for the day!
I also joined a small group Bible study this week and there will be a bit of reading and homework with that, so it may cut in to my other reading for a while.

PERSONAL

Handsome birthday boy and his lovely wife at Antique Archaeology

Tomorrow is my son's 26th birthday - and what a great son he is!

baby on the doorstep - playing for tips

We all went to the American Picker's store in Nashville and then to a local taco place to celebrate, followed by a trip to the mall. Lots of fun, but we were all pooped when it was over with.

Shopping at Green Hills Mall, Nashville

More or Less

KNITTING
While this blog should essentially be about knitting, I am after all, the boss of me (and my blog) and can write about whatever I want to.  I can even end sentences with prepositions, and use commas, whenever I want to.  But eventually the subject should return to knitting, and so, here finally is a post with some serious knitting content.

My yarn stash is divided into 4 color sections, plus a gray basket and a natural white basket.  The color bins are blue/aquas, greens/yellows, peach/melons, and pinks/reds .

These divisions have worked well with the number of skeins in each category, but they also served to inspire my new project.  Looking through them reminded me of the Ab Fab throw kits from a few years ago.  They run about $200 and they seem to basically be done in the Feather and Fan pattern.

Colinette Ab Fab Throw - $190

So I dumped the blue/aqua bin onto my work table and started picking yarns that I liked.  I came up with these colors, and added white and  purple; seven colors in all.

Feather and Fan Scrap Project

Cast on 144, knit two rows, row 3 is k2togs and yarn overs, and row 4 is knit.  Size 10 1/2 Inox needle.

I did decide to use stitch markers to keep me on track, but I paid no attention to them in the second round.  Why, you ask?  Because I'm the boss of me and I work for an idiot.  Why pay attention to the stitch markers?  When I got to the end of the row, it was clear that I should have paid attention to the markers.  Then I had to UN-KNIT the entire row of 144 stitches!   Why start off on the wrong foot, when I could correct the mistake without a lot of hassle?  So I did.  Good for me!

PERSONAL
While I am a "clogs" kind of girl, life threw me a curve ball recently.  I asked my DH to take my squeaky clogs to the shoe repair store at the mall, and he promptly told my DH that the shoes couldn't be repaired and that I should just chuck them; break down and buy some real shoes, lady! (Okay, maybe he didn't say exactly that, but I bet he was thinking it. I sure was.)
So I got some inexpensive suede boots while shopping with my daughter around Christmas time.  Today will be the perfect day to wear them, as we are experiencing the dead of winter, I mentioned earlier.  I wore my Jacob scarf to the grocery store yesterday, and my old faithful red gloves, knit many years ago, but still going strong!   Its good to have a chance to wear all these warm knitted creations when its so cold and wet outside!

SPINNING
The beautiful ecru roving is finished!  Time to move on, if that closet full of wool is going to get spun up this year.

Ecru Mohair

 
READING
I have ditched the idea of reading first lady biographies this year.  They are fluff, as far as I'm concerned, and not worth my time.  Where are all the real, meaty bios of women leaders??
So instead, the first biography of the year is Wild by Cheryl Strayed, audio version from Audible. While I'm  a little suspect about some of the stories in her book, she does have a disclaimer at the beginning.  Good thing, 'cause if I didn't know better, I'd say her creative license has expired.

Not for the faint of heart (or lung)

Recently I cleaned out a lovely wooden box that held my late mother in law's sewing notions.  There were some great multi generational buttons like these. Pretty cool.

I also cleaned up some odd bits of trim and zippers that my mom gave me, probably from her mom.  A large piece of trim was wrapped around this; a reminder of a day when smoking was cool.

cigarette ad on the back of a matchbook

Mad Men Burn Test?

I finally got to the bottom of my sewing desk to reacquaint myself with my sewing machine - old but very functional.

Sometimes its nice to remind ourselves of the things we cherish, by way of a little cleaning and tender loving care (TLC).

I have some friends that are also special to me, that I don't see often, but they're still special to me.  I got to see one of them for lunch on Monday, which was also my birthday.  She gave me this lovely Calla Lily plant!

KNITTING
I have not done any knitting since my last post and am feeling ambiguous about my next project. Elizabeth Zimmerman, patron saint of knitting, pray for me!  

SPINNING
All I can say about my new spindles is HOLY MOLY.  They are the bomb!
 (Its like when you got your new notebook and pens/pencils for school.  You were quickly becoming a published author in your own mind, but all you could come up with was a really cool way to write your name.)

This is my cashmere on the new Bosworth mini.  Just lovely.

And this is the Shetland/Angora blend I got a few weeks ago, spun on the Bosworth midi.

READING
I've been reading The Secret Keeper by Kate Morton and while I've not gotten very far, I love the way it makes me feel when I'm reading it.  Very much a back-in-time kind of thing.

PERSONAL
I mentioned that my birthday was Monday.  I don't mind getting older.  I really mean that; life just gets better and better.  I have so much to be thankful for, especially at this stage of life.
Here are some mustache pics from our get-together Sunday.  I was sick so we just ordered pizza and watched football. Why not?

my daughter & her husband - both spies

my granddaughter - being vetted to serve as the next UN Ambassador

my son and his wife - both opera stars from Italy

I forgot to shave!

Charlotte and her grandpa watching football - she loves it!