Letters, nothing but letters

Slow blog week.

I have nothing to show you but a few more letters on my letter sampler.

Yes, a less than impressive week at Chez Yarn Diet.  Well, from a sharing perspective anyway.  I did an awful lot of "behind the scenes" work which sometimes feels like it is more time consuming than the knitting.

Lots of planning and charting, and playing with embedding text fonts into pdf files so that they can be uploaded to print on demand sites.  (I have six or seven patterns I am just dying to cast on, but startitis is a disease for which finishitupus is the only cure, so before I fall too far down the starting things rabbit hole I should finish a few things up. Luckily for a couple of the projects I have to wait for the yarn to arrive.  Who me fall off the stash down program?  Just a little bit, I saw this gradient set at Colourmart and was inspired by a picture that I saw, and I really hope it works out the way I plan.  Somehow a cone of this might have jumped in my cart too!.....)

I did a little swatching and playing with beads and nupps.

Look really closely and you can see beads

A little editing for another designer.

Errands.  Lots of errands this week.

What didn't I do?

Knit anything blog-able. 

Get the photo shoots for the next two patterns done.  (We won't mention cleaning my house!  But I did turn out a bunch of cupboards and drawers because.....)



Has anyone seen any of the US Size 3 needles that I own?

Anyone?

~M

I Bet You Thought....

With the holiday on Monday, I bet that you thought you were going to see pictures of a finished sweater, or sampler today or maybe a photo of our annual doughnut making results.  But, alas you would be sadly mistaken.

It seems to be the year of things wearing out around Chez Yarn Diet...the pump on the dishwasher, numerous pairs of socks that TOB has worn through and the heating element in my deep fryer.  Not that the heating element deciding that it wouldn't work is an insurmountable problem, before the world of self contained, programmable deep fryers I had an old fashioned one that you pour oil in, heat and pray it is the right temperature and that it doesn't boil over and set fire to your kitchen when you dump a load of wet potato slices in it!*  Actually, I still have it...

But, it is July in Ohio and the last thing I wanted to do was stand over a big pan of hot oil. 

So what did we do instead?

We stood over a hot pan of boiling fruit and sugar!

We stood in front of a hot oven watching home-made giant pretzels bake. (TOB referred to them as salt buns because they rose to the point that they lost their pretzel shape and looked something closer to cinnamon buns when they were done.)

We made hummus....and tabbouleh....and deviled eggs...

In short we trashed the kitchen.

I get to trash it again, my jelly didn't set, so even though red currants should have enough pectin in them to not need any more, I will be dumping all 7 pints of the first batch back into a pan and watching it bubble away while the jars sterilize in the new dishwasher.  (See, you knew that it wasn't just that I was tired of hand washing dishes!  I had to get a new one to sterilize jars for jams, jellies and whatever else we decide to put up this year.)  I think however, the half of the bushes we didn't pick can just be for the birds. I still have some jars of last years jelly in the basement!

Which is why I have no knitting progress to show you!

About the only progress I made was swatching and frogging...the same 100 yards or so of yarn over and over again trying to get a lace pattern just right!

~M

*I actually did that once, so I am extra careful now.  And yes, now that you ask, there are two fire extinguishers rated for oil fires in easy reach of my stove!

(Late) B-Day Goodies and Knitting

I have this friend that kind of fell under the spell of my knitting during my lunch break and started knitting too a few years ago.  I introduced her to some "budget" yarn sites, and some not so budget yarn sites. I even led the way to my all time favorite designer's knit alongs.

She still isn't very confident in things like fixing her work, where I am fearless and will just rip things off the needles (without a lifeline) and pick up where they were last right, or pull just a few stitches off and drop them back to where things went wrong and fix them.  On those rare occasions that she doesn't just frog back to the beginning, I have been known to pick up her stitches for her when she drops them.

Not that there are not things I have not been brave enough to try yet...steeking comes to mind, really I should give it a go!  (Ok but maybe not on a blanket or sweater for my first attempt!)

But, I digress.

The rule here is, if you are not a knitter and you give me yarn you get it back as a finished object the next time a gift giving opportunity presents itself.  But, if you are a knitter all bets are off and I keep the finished object and love it even more because you, a knitter, gave me the most precious thing ever...a new project!

Hmm...my friend figured out a new thing now that I am designing and publishing...give a gal some yarn and get a finished pattern out of it!

I asked for hints about what she would like to knit with hers, and got the same kind of response that I get from my kids when I ask what they want for their upcoming birthday, that random noise that is translated to "I don't know".

The yarn isn't telling any secrets either, I keep hearing little whispers of "I could be..." and "I could be..." but no "I want to be."

Oh, you want to know what yarn I am talking about?

 The Lemonade Shop, Mighty Sock in Rainbows and Clouds.  Take a look around her etsy site, I really like Bad Day and Stormy Day too! (Of course that could just be because I am in a mood* and the names appeal to me...on second thought, not true, I really do like the colors and it has nothing to do with the mood!)  If you hear the yarn saying what it would like to be, leave me a comment.  I can't possibly knit all the ideas I have had from the one skein!

In other knitting news...

Yes I know you didn't get a newsletter, if you were signed up for it!  After sending out two pattern release announcements I decided that I didn't want to overload you email with yet another thing from me this month. Our regular routine will be back in place for July.

Testing call went out for another pattern on Ravelry this week. If you are part of Ravelry and signed in the link will take you right to it, if you are not signed up...just do it already!  The site is free and a glorious time sink resource for knitting patterns; along with knitting friends, along with techniques and help.

I made some (slight) progress on my test knit for another Colourmart Lover's knitter, referred to as a  Colourmartian.

(And btw, Richard, I really should unsubscribe from your emails you are tempting me beyond belief with all the  yarn you are stocking this month!  Especially this one, I can knit with a 2/60 how much harder will a 2/70 be?)**







Speaking of knitting with a 2/60 here is more (slight) progress on knitting projects!

I still think that I am crazy.  What is even crazier is I am trying to chart out lower case letters too for the border.  It might never happen, because I have to keep changing the stitch counts as letters don't work with what I had used before...shoulda started with a hard one instead of "a".

It is a holiday weekend here, so I am hoping to actually get some knitting time in on Monday. The weekend was  pretty much a knitting bust (see above comment about mood!) 

Happy Belated Canada Day to my Canadian friends, and Happy July 4th to my American friends.

~M

*I had a forced Windows 10 upgrade and Windows 10 isn't playing nicely with me right now.  All my charts are falling off their grids when I save them.  The silly computer will randomly save things to places they shouldn't be and to make matters worse there is no "recent places" and for some reason this particular computer is configured to save everything to a teeny, tiny segment of a giant hard drive!

**Seriously, look at some of those colors and the price!  But...the last thing this stash downing gal needs is 1800 more yards of anything! Not to mention that I  spent my yarn money on a new dishwasher.

WIP Wednesday - Or What I Do for Fun?

After a serious knitting jag of knitting, writing, rewriting, charting, charting again, editing and sending for testing of my own patterns it really was time to knit someone elses for a while. *

Another person's entry into the Colourmart Spring Contest was ready for test knitters, so I volunteered to do that, even though I really should be working on the Dragon for TDQ's friend's birthday.  Reading through the pattern instantly had me back in my "testers" frame of mind and I happily swatched and then cast on.

Wanna see?

I know it doesn't look like it yet, but that is the starts of a top down collared cardigan.  A little bit of lace, a little bit of cables...you know,

all the things I love!

But.....

I have had a "bee in my bonnet" for some time and it was an itch that had to be scratched, so I am not being monogamous on the test knit at all.

Over the years, as people, namely young women, have learned to sew and embroider, to hone their skills and perhaps even to show them off, they have worked on samplers.  Some are pretty amazing, with delicate pictures, symbols and most importantly alphabets and dates on them. The older ones are crafted on homespun warp and weft, from home woven even count fabrics, and over the years have faded and muted in color.

Go into any craft store and you can buy kits or charts to make your own, with catchy phrases in them..or not.. which ever you prefer.  And I will admit, that hanging in the stairwell to our basement is one that I cross-stitched in 1986, I think from a Better Homes and Garden pattern.  It is the Floral Alphabet, for anyone who cares.

So think of this, a thirty year old project, nicely protected behind glass and framed for all to see...but what do we as knitters have to show after thirty years?  At least in my house the socks, sweaters, scarves and mitts will have all have long since worn away.  I have  a couple of the pieces I knit as a teen**, mostly cotton blend tops, that still fit and get worn on occasion, but nothing that will last centuries like those old samplers did.

I have been determined that I will knit a sampler and mount and frame it as carefully as I have those cross-stitch patterns that still are on my walls.  But I could never quite pull it together.

But, now I might have....



Just to prove I am out of my freaking mind, that is knit on size 000 needles out of a 2/60 yarn that has been sitting in my stash for far too long.  On good days I can almost feel the yarn in my fingers, but to be honest it is something I have to look at to knit. (Yeah there is a reason I have been working mainly in fingering weight yarn, that I can still feel!)

I still need to work out a border and I did not create the lace letters charts.....but imagine if you will a blanket or a shawl with all your favorite quotes on it.

So putting on the tester hat, where you have to look at everything in a way that leads to the most misunderstanding and idiocy***, and/or working in a thread that probably is designed to be carried along with another thread to make something approaching a normal weight of yarn is what I do for "fun".

~M
*It won't last long, I already swatched another concept piece, but it really is restful to knit something I am not charting or doing the math on!

**Oh my, that means those pieces are over 30 years old..when did I get that old?

***Not that knitters are idiots, but, well sometimes there is clear and there is clear!

Through the Mist - New Pattern

Do you remember the second shawl from the Colourmart Spring Contest?  (She is at the bottom of that page.)  Well the testers knit her up in no time, and then she sat around for a minute or three waiting for final edits.  Then she sat around for a minute or three while another pattern took center stage.

On Friday, it was finally her turn and Through the Mist was published on Ravelry.

As is usual with my life, I then sat down to tell the universe, or at least the internet, about the pattern and got distracted by something else and never actual got around to telling anyone, other than a brief post on Facebook, that she was live!

If you subscribe to the newsletter, in the morning you will get a coupon code for a discount!

But, back to telling you (late) about the pattern!

From the pattern:

In late spring and early summer, occasionally there are mornings in Central Ohio that are special. A touch of mist curls around the trees and plants that grow in the fields near where I live and everything has a slightly surreal quality about it. I know that within a few short hours the sun will burn that mist away and add heat to the day, but I need a little something around my shoulders when I go out early. This top down triangle shawl fills that need. A relaxed knit for the knitter who is comfortable working from charts, in a light to heavy fingering yarn, this shoulder shawl knits up very quickly.
Materials:
Cashmere/Merino 2/10NM Fingering Weight, 95 % Merino/5% Cashmere, 894 yards to 150 grams. 540 yards used for sample.
Size 4 (3.5mm) 40 inch circular needle or needle size required to obtain gauge.
Stitch Markers, smooth yarn for provisional cast on, and a large eyed tapestry needle for weaving in ends.
Lace motifs are presented in charted form only.

And now, "the rest of the story"...*

Having just got off a chart heavy pattern and being a little "socked out", I needed something that I could knit while watching movies with the kids.  Something that didn't have me too tied to a chart, or beads that  I could run through return rows on, but still feel like I was knitting something more than a garter stitch throw blanket.  (Yes, log cabin blanket, I still haven't forgotten you. We love how warm and snuggly you are when it is winter, but it is summer now!)

Using stitch markers that I have a love/hate relationship with, to center a lace motif and then as a counting aid so that I wasn't having to keep track of rows, made this a great movie watching project.

And those misty mornings?  If I leave the house early enough we are still getting them, we certainly were when I was knitting Through the Mist, and better yet, I have found she is perfect to throw in the car for when I am shopping or going somewhere air conditioned.

~M

* Wasn't there a radio show that was the catch line for?

So much for Stash Downing!

Earlier this year I made a commitment to myself to work through some of the yarn that has been sitting in my stash for far too long.  Not because I feel having a healthy stash of things to pick from when the notion takes you to cast on for something at 3am and all the local yarn stores are closed, is a bad thing.  Not because I felt guilty about the ( take a deep breath!) over 200 miles of yarn I have.  Just because the yarns in my stash are (for the most part) pretty nice things and deserved something better than being stored in ziploc bags inside of plastic drawer units!  And maybe a little bit because I wanted to make some room for newer things. (But only maybe!)

How's that going for me, you might ask.

Uh.....Did you know there was a fiber fair in Ohio this weekend?  Did you know it was only a 30 minute drive away from me, and anything less than two hours doesn't even count as a road trip, only as running errands?

When I was getting ready to go I asked the minions (read as children) if any of them wanted to go with me.  TDQ was up for it, TFB was more interested in whatever it was he was drawing at that moment, but it was TOB who shocked me.  (Remember he's the knitter.)

me:  Do you want to go to a fiber fair with me?
TOB - What will be there?
me: Well, yarn!
TOB - Hmmm, no I think I have enough yarn right now.

After I picked myself up off the floor (seeing as he has his own stash and added to it when we went to Wool Gathering last year) I told him that those are words spoken by NO KNITTER EVER.*

But, anyway...TDQ and I met up with a friend of mine, her two kids and her poor childminding husband and went and looked at yarn and roving and shawl pins, stitch markers and knitting needles. (I determined I had more needles in my needle stash than one vendor had on display!)  We had a good time looking at things and pondering if we could recreate some fabulous gradient yarns - which for me is not likely to happen any time soon, but I have this friend in Chicago that could probably do it for me if I sent her a picture of what I was aiming for.  :)

The best part though was getting to stand and chat with Natasha of Unplanned Peacock Studio's.  I had really been hoping that some of those special yarns were already dyed and ready to go, so that I could start knitting the pattern I designed to go with them, but alas, traveling to do fiber fairs had cut into her dyeing time and they aren't (quite) ready yet.  To console my sorrow at not being able to cast on for those (yes, those!  The pattern will have at least 4 variations in it and I keep thinking of more ways to work that theme.) I might have had some of those little people who were with me and my friend help me pick out some "sorrow abating" yarn.

The blue and the purples on the right hand side are lace weights, both with a little bit of sparkle to them that doesn't show well in pictures.  The others are fingering weight.

We have, from left to right :

The fingerings:

Kinky Sock in Dragon (oooh, I love those colors!)
Twisty Sock in Berry Pie (guess which purple loving gal picked that out!)
Twinkle Twist in Amethyst (just a hint of sparkle, I think that will grow up to be a scarf thing - highly technical term that!)
Kinky Sock in Pink Floyd (a special colorway but we will talk about that later!)
The Laces:

Twinkle Lace in Bunting  (my friend's son picked that one and suggested a theme for what I should knit with it)
Twinkle Lace in Amethyst (a study in how different materials take up dye differently)

I also picked up a skein of Blue Heron Yarns Rayon Metallic.  I am not usually big on knitting with rayon, but this felt nice in my hands and oh that colorway spoke up, loudly, that she wanted to come home with me!

She hasn't said what she wants to be yet, just that she wanted to be with me!

How was your weekend?

~M

*When we got home, TOB explained that he was a knitter, just that knitting hadn't quite taken over his entire life yet!

Keep your Fingers off the Scale!

I have a friend in Chicago who dyes some of the most amazing yarns, for her personal use, using food colors.  For ages now she has been telling me that she could teach me how to do it, and that I could call her if I ran into problems and she would talk me through the process as I was doing it.

She mentioned on a Ravelry forum that she really wished she had an Addi Express Knitting Machine for knitting blanks, as one of the longer parts of her process was creating the blanks to dye, but the machine is a pretty penny and not in her budget for a while.  It isn't in mine either, but I suggested that if we looked in Thrift Stores maybe we could find a child's version, something like this one, and even if it didn't work perfectly, maybe it would be good enough for now.  She agreed it would be worth looking at, and if the price was right maybe even trying it.  She also offered to pay me in either money or custom dye jobs (custom dyes jobs for the win!!!!) if I managed to find one, but that she had been looking on places like Craigs List and E-bay and not finding anything that was being sold for less than retail.  We bemoaned the lot of people trying to find a bargain in this day of everyone looking to make a profit for a few minutes but she left that challenge on the table.

What is it my kids say...Challenge Accepted!*

TDQ likes to go to Thrift Stores, so the next time we were out and about I started looking through the toy section and would you believe that in the second thrift store we went to, there was this:

But it didn't have a price on it!  Setting myself a limit on how much I was willing to pay, I went to the front of the store and asked how much it was.  The clerk had to call the "pricing manager" over to take a look, who gave it a cursory examination and quoted me....ready for it?.......90 cents!

Now 90 cents might sound like a lot for a broken toy that probably should have been tossed in the trash rather than donated to the charity that supplies that thrift store, but it was only slightly broken.  (There should be a tension loop attached just under the purple thread guide. But, for 90 cents I was willing to try seeing if it was still workable without the tension loop and home it came with me.) 

Google is my best friend!  From doing several different internet searches I pretty much discovered that the tension loop on that model was deemed "useless" and "not effective" by people who had tried using the machine, so I looked for alternatives, like tensioning the yarn over my thumb, a paper clip, the guide from my ball winder and finally two binder clips.  The binder clips were the most effective, so having now destroyed a ball of yarn trying to figure out how to use the machine, I grabbed a new skein and wound it so that it would pull easily and started again.

One sticky needle that I had to pay attention to and once there was a decent amount of knitting done the twist it puts on the blank make the machine drop stitches if you don't unwind it...but....I got a blank! 







Yes, it is ugly, yes I should have been more careful about catching when the machine was just carrying the last row of stitches with this rows stitches but....

Then I did this......














Which turned into this.......




And I picked up my knitting needles and plotted and planned. I weighed my yarn and cast on for a small infinity loop to test out a stitch pattern.

I weighed my yarn a lot during that knit, planning on using every inch I could.

And I muffed it!

Somewhere I must have had my finger still on the scale because I came so close to finishing, but didn't quite make it!

Of course, in the meantime I packaged up that knitting machine and sent it on it's way to it's new home, so if I want to knit another blank I will have to do it by hand. Tell me, if you came that close to finishing a project with a yarn you (most likely) couldn't duplicate, what would you do?


*I have been in a "genie mood" this past week, wanting to grant wishes. (Only good wishes though and only good granting, even if according to myths a genie will always "lawyer" your wish into being something you didn't really want!) None of them have been big wishes, for instance, another Raveler wished that someone would knit her "squishy handmade socks" as working on small diameter knits hurts her hands and they should have shown up in her mailbox today! But wishes granted, none the less.

So here is my challenge to you....In a world that has gone crazy, is filled with violence and anger, hatred and totally lacking in love, can you find someone who has a small wish you can grant?

~M