It was a really busy and productive week. I already wrote two posts about parts of it (finishing the dishtowels and the cause of bad, bad kitties), but here is the rest of the highlights of the week.
Sorry for the quality of the picture. It’s cloudy outside but you can still get an idea of the glorious color of these mitts. While I was weaving this week I wished I had light weight mitts that hugged my wrists and stayed put above my knuckles while I was working. Here they are! My project notes on Ravelry are here if you want to make a pair too. 🙂 I also made stitch markers from some of the glass beads that I bought at the Interweave Yarn Fest a couple of weeks ago.I also got the first of the Snowfling Mitts finished (well, except for the top of the thumb…) this week. These mitts also are lined so there is a lot to still knit, but I am happy with what I have so far. I love that Purple Dragon colorway!! Here are the project notes.On Wednesday I went to knitting and discovered that the store had gotten in a big shipment of Madelinetosh. My friends helped me a little too much as I hunted for yarn for a new shawl. I’m so happy with my “Waiting for Rain” shawl that I am going to make another in the grey, and the colored yarn was too nice to leave but is still waiting for its calling. That shawl pin goes with both colors. Maybe I can make the pink shawl have lacy ruffles that will stick out under the grey one so I can wear both shawls at once. I’m drowning in possibilities here, people!! Feel free to make suggestions for the pink ruffly shawl…Then my friends convinced me that I had to make an Exploration Station with these colors…and then I found this little plastic case to carry knitting essentials. It has all of these little compartments to carry stitch markers, cable needles, sewing needles, etc.and it all folds up into one tidy little package. Just amazing!! Just what I need. It was hard to buy only one of these…Yesterday was Earth Day, and I went to my grandson’s performance of Goin’ Buggy at his school. Isn’t he the cutest thing as a Red Ant?On the way home I stopped by the nursery and got these flowers to put out front (it was Earth Day!!) and bought a burrito bowl at Chipotle. While I was eating I noticed the picture on the bag. Say, what? Soldiers, helicopters, buckets of fish?? How unusual…Then I turned the bag. There is a story here for sure, I told myself. Yep. On the other side of the bag I found this story about a young child eating his last dinner before leaving a refuge camp for America. It just brought tears to my eyes. You can read the essay by Fue Xiong called Two Minutes About Sardines here.
What an end to the week. This refuge/immigrant story just meant so much to me. Over the years I have taught many refuges to this county, but during one of my last years in the classroom I taught all of the “sheltered” biology classes at my high school. “Sheltered” classes are for students who are acquiring English as a second language, and the students are all mixed together. They were from Somalia, Congo, Mali, China, Myanmar, Peru, Syria, Mexico, Viet Nam, you name it. They were all a little shell shocked, earnest, hard-working, respectful and determined to survive. They were caring and supportive. They learned English and biology from me, and I learned so much more from them. I still have some of their labs and writings. They all made me a better person and appreciative of how many things I have that would be easy to take for granted. Earth Day, indeed.
What a nice end to the week. A special morning with my grandson, a great lunch and some food for my soul at the same time.
I started knitting my new shawl over the weekend. The colors are really cool. Check this out:
This is the beginning of “Waiting for Rain” by Sylvia Bo Bilvia. That cool yarn is “Garden Party” colored Lydia Sock Yarn.
I grabbed the shot of the knitting just as the sun was getting ready to set, but you can see the great way the flecks of color are showing up in the white yarn. I just love it! I can’t wait to get to the part of the shawl where the lace inserts appear. There are short rows coming, too. Fun!
Today my wrists were sore when I woke up so I decided to take a break from the weaving and knitting today. I vacuumed. I did laundry. I cut out some fabrics to do some sewing later on this week. I also took out my new beads and decided that it was time to make some more stitch markers.
These are currently my favorite little stitch markers. They are simple, light weight and perfect for projects using fine yarn like socks and fingerless mitts. The largest bead is a 6mm Swarovski cubic crystal bead. I picked it up at a local store and have never seen them again.A couple of weeks ago I decided to just order some more cubic beads from Amazon.com so I could make new stitch markers. It took almost three weeks for them to arrive. Oh. Who knew they would be shipped from Hong Kong?!Here’s what was in the envelope. Two of these bead sets came. Sweet! Eight new stitch markers waiting to be made!I cleaned out my beading supplies a few weeks ago. Here’s the little drawer that I keep everything in. I need to use the needle nose pliers and the wire cutters to make the markers along with the beads and wire.I made little piles on the table of the bead colors thought I might use along with 2″ headpins and small stainless steel split rings. The rings that I used have an inner diameter of .25″.After playing around a little I finally settled on a combination of beads that I liked. I threaded them onto the headpins with the largest bead at the bottom. This was just personal taste: I could have also put small beads below the largest bead.Using my little jewelry pliers to anchor the wire I made a 90 degree bend in the headpin wire with my fingers about 1/4 inch above the beads, and then…I wrapped the wire around the headpin a couple of times using my fingers to wrap the wire while holding the loop at the top with the pliers. Easy-peasy!I cut the excess wire off after finishing the wrap. This is the only dicey part of the entire operation: you should wear safety glasses when you do this because the wire can fly across the table when you cut it. I try to hold the end of the wire when I make the cut, but you never know. Safety first! I even put the cats outside while I was working.All that was left to do was to thread the marker onto a split ring and they were done. Ta-da! I now have cute markers to use while knitting my “Waiting for Rain” shawl.
Won’t these look cute on my lace shawl?
Can’t wait to get back to knitting. My wrists are feeling better already. Maybe tomorrow. 🙂
This is so annoying: here we are at the end of another week and I have NO finished objects to show off. How can this be? The house is littered with projects that I have started or are planning to start soon… I tell myself that I’m just organizing and it will all come together soon. There’s no reason why I can’t have more than one knitting project cast on, right? As long as I’m in single digits I don’t have a problem! Seriously, that is a true statement: ask any knitter. I am reading books like crazy. Lots is going on, but I’m struggling to put together one theme that would be suitable for a blog post.
So, why don’t I just show you my week? Really, it will be fun. Here are all the moments of the week that prompted me to pull out the camera.
I found a tempting pattern for fingerless mitts with a hidden pocket (for hand warmers!!!) on Ravelry called Dueling Gradients. This Kauni yarn that I’ve been itching to try out should work great. The two balls actually have the same colors in them; the way the ball is wound affects the appearance. Sunday I cast on and started playing with the yarns and the pattern.Monday I wound off the warp for the dishtowels that I want to weave. Ugh. It is done.Tuesday I taught a Project Learning Tree workshop for teachers in the local school district. I had to sand down this 2 foot wide tree cookie for the teachers to use in one of their activities. Yikes. That was a lot more work than I expected, but look at those tree rings! This tree was 24 years old when it was cut down.Wednesday I headed to a hospital up north for pulmonary function testing. It’s official now; I don’t breathe as well now as I did a year ago. It’s almost a relief to get closer to the diagnosis: I really am out of breath (and not just out of shape!) On the way out of the hospital I bought this great figurine in the gift shop.and of course I visited another yarn shop. This time I went to Mew Mew’s Yarn Shop, and here is Mew Mew herself. How fun is that! She woke up from her nap while I was there and demanded attention. Mew Mew (and some new fabulous yarn) was just what I needed.Thursday I spent the afternoon getting the warp onto the loom with some cat assistance. This is called warping because you descend into a time warp that sucks dry the entire afternoon and leaves you blinking and tied in knots before it is over. Tedious and stressful at the same time. Cat assistance is not appreciated! How sad for MacKenzie.Today I finished warping the loom and then made these wickedly awesome stitch markers from some beads I bought at last year’s Interweave Yarn Fest. Wait! I did manage to finish something this week. The stitch markers are actual FOs!!
This evening I finished a fingerless (production knitting) mitt that I started last week and cast on another pair of socks. I now have four knitting projects in progress and a warped loom that I can start weaving on next week. Whew! There’s a lot going on.
Stay tuned for next week. I’m sure I’ll have something done by then. 🙂
Yarn, Books & Roses 