Month: December 2008

- saffronknits 3 Comments

more ornaments and fiddlehead progress

I made a few more ornaments and I thought you might like to see them.

Lucy Neatby Celestial Merino Dream Mottled Solids in the Skye colorway. I made two of these. (One is mine!)

The above colorway with Jawoll Superwash Sport in Navy. This one is MINE too!

Jawoll Superwash Sport in Red. Not mine! :)

Lorna’s Laces Shepard Sock – Flamingo Stripe. Made for someone who loves pink.

I know someone who is a Patriots fan and I used my new-found fair isle skills to make this one for her: (All yarn used is Jawoll Superwash Sport)

And here is my progress on the Fiddlehead Mittens: (Am using Cascade 220 for the outer mittens)

Best Wishes to you for the Holiday and the New Year!

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labor of love and lots of cables

On the day that I took my spinning lesson, I sat with a knitting group while waiting for my class to begin and woman was knitting a sweater out of alapca and she let a few of us touch it.

Oh. My. Gawd! I was not expecting such softness. I wanted more of that softness.

So what did I do the next weekend (November 29th)? I bought some alapaca yarn, an alpaca/silk blend to be exact – Plymouth Earth Mainland in #4 colorway.

That same day I used it to start the Gretel hat.

I’d been admiring it for a while so I just took the plunge and started it knitting. I learned the long tail tubular cast-on from a video on the designer’s website and after that I was off and running. I knit fast and furious on this hat. It has been great knit therapy when the stress and/or melancholy of the holiday season get to me.

This hat is definitely a labor of love. I love the yarn. I love the pattern. I love the person for whom this hat is for.

- saffronknits 1 Comment

A day at the yarn store – Part I

On November 15th, I spent the day at my local yarn store. It was a wonderful day … and it started with a spinning lesson.

Yup! A spinning lesson – the very first time I spun on a spinning wheel. My lesson was at 9:00 – 10:00 am. and I loved it. The spinning wheel I learned on was an Ashford Traveller, which is what the yarn store sells.

And plain and simple, I loved it! (the spinning not the wheel) Turns out I’ve been doing a good job at drafting and I was pleased to find that out. The biggest problem I had was getting the wheel the spin in the right direction. I also made a bunch of beginner mistakes … such as the single getting too thin and breaking and I had to use the orifice hook to pull it through … the wheel began to spin the wrong way and the single got tangle and I had to untangle it.

Another cool part of the lesson was the fiber I’d brought to spin. I had believed it to be a dye experiment gone wrong. But I’d also read in one of my books that sometimes an ‘ugly’ roving/top can make pretty yarn, so that was the fiber I chose just to see. Although it had been ‘top’ when I dyed it, it more felt like roving when I spun it. (Later, when some ladies saw it, it got some Ooohs & Aahhs. That definitely was a good feeling.) It was also fun when, at moments, my teacher got distracted by how the fiber was spinning up.

One thing surprised me about spinning on a spinning. The one thing I was concerned about was that if I fell in love with spinning on a spinning wheel, it would take away from my love of spinning on spindle and I was pleased to discover that was not the case. If I am ever able to afford a spinning wheel, it will be like a totally separate kind of enjoyment than that of spinning on a spindle and I love the thought of that.

Now let me tell you about the fiber I spun. It was some Romney fiber that I dyed but never was really happy about it. It was a kinda of an experiment to see what would happen but I guess I had some expectations and didn’t like the way it came out and I actually thought it was kinda ugly. But I’d read recently that an ‘ugly’ roving or top could become lovely yarn.

Here is the hand-dyed fiber that I spun: (this actually got Oo’s & Aah’s from some ladies at the yarn store :D )

The energized singles that I spun in my spinning wheel lesson:

Cool, yes? :D

- saffronknits 4 Comments

“There’s a fire in my oven” or why I don’t like November

This post has nothing to do with knitting or spinning. And yet it is proof why I placed a moratorium on November. If something is going to go wrong, it can and will happen in November.

Picture it – two days before Thanksgiving. A friend and I were cooking Cheesecake (for the first time), trying to get it out of the way of other dishes we were going to cook for Thanksgiving. Everything was going well. We did the graham cracker crust. That looked great. We did the cream cheese filling … and put it in the oven for the specified time at about 350°F.

The next step has an additional topping using sour cream. We mixed that up while the first part was in the oven then we took out the cheesecake and put it to cool for the 15 minutes specified by the recipe and I turned up the oven (to 475°F).

Fifteen minutes later, I opened the oven greeted my flames at the bottom of my stove. Actual FLAMES! :-o I closed the stove as if some part of my brain thought if I closed it, I really hadn’t seen it… and almost in the same moment, common sense kicked in and I threw baking soda on it and the flames went out.

Turns out my spring form pan was leaking and it dripped to the bottom of the oven. …and this is the kind of thing that happened to me all of November, hence the moratorium. (The cheesecake didn’t quite gel the way it was supposed to but it sure tasted good… :) and I will laugh about it… one day. ;) )

But amidst everything I bought some yarn, did lots of knitting and even a little spinning happened last month. I’ve been taking pictures and I can’t wait to share it all with you so please stay tuned!! :)

Happy December! :D

ttfn!

p.s. All my posts from October have disappeared for some reason so if you are wondering where those are, they are in the ether. I manage to get into Google cache and salvage them but it’ll take time for me to re-post them.