Tag: knitwerks

Fiber Festival – in person

by T, posted in knitting, Spinning

I went to my first fiber festival, my first in person fiber festival, in at least ten years. It’s been a long, long ten years and so many priorities came before spinning, knitting and my own fun. I used to love the Florida Fiber Ins in Orlando but everything was above my price range and I felt completely out of place when in attendance. That’s pre-pandemic, pre-kids, pre-Masters degree, pre-CPA. . . Last year, in the depths of my grief and anxiety, I went head first back into crafts and stumbled upon virtual fiber festivals. It may have even been about this time, but I’m not sure which ones I attended via Facebook. What I remember is bidding on Dunn Spunn’s fiber batts in a frenzy, not knowing what was going on. What I learned from that experience is that even though these batts are indeed gorgeous, I don’t like spinning from art batts. Sorry!

I got out of the house early on Saturday morning and drove up to the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival in Berryville, VA. I stopped at Sheetz for coffee and a breakfast burrito and it was yummy. I definitely recommend it, especially if you are hungry as it’s pretty big.

First of all, I got there early so I got to walk around listening to the vendor’s talk and without the crowds. There were definitely a good bit of people in attendance later. I went through my first walk through, once again, not really knowing what was going on. That is a common theme in my life. I can find out more through other people’s reactions and conversations than I can research before hand. Through three walk throughs of the grounds and some strong will power on my part, I left with a grey gotland fleece, two bags of wool and hand plucked angora roving, one black cat knits hank of fingering weight sock yarn, some sweater stitch markers with instructions, 3 stickers and a shawl/hair pin that is currently holding up my bun. I desperately wanted a monster coffee mug but couldn’t fork over the $39 even if it was well deserved for the craftsmanship. I watched spinning on my dream wheel – a Monarch from Spinolution and watched weaving handspun on a barn loom. I was looking for a few more fiber processing tools but didn’t find the right one at the right price. Also, there were tons of carded batts and braided carded fiber, but I didn’t see anything really in the way of combed fibers. I like to spin worsted and I wish there were more of those combed braids available. I love the stained glass merino from spotted circus, which I ordered at some virtual fiber festival last year. I just wish I had spun it using chained ply instead of regular plying. I muddied the colors that way.

I cannot wait for my next fiber festival but I’ll have to take some time as it seems everything keeps going up in price. I still love it!

Barn Loom
Sheep Driving
My goodies

Catching Up

by T, posted in knitting, Spinning, stitch, Thoughts

It’s happening again. I’m falling into that void where depression meets crafts. Normal people get depression, stay in bed for days with no motivation. Not me. I turn my grief, my anxiety, my huge amount of anger and drive it into a need to create. I have a Facebook feed filled with my creations. The worst part was after Christmas my arm hurt so badly (tennis elbow = knitting elbow?) that I couldn’t knit for about six months. I’d try only to be unable to flex my wrist or twist for days.

What have I been doing since my December knitting madness?


January & February were devoted to skiing. You can’t think while you are skiing. It’s waiting, waiting, waiting, followed by an intense one to five minutes and back up again. I put my audiobook on and let it rip.

May be an image of one or more people, outerwear, people skiing and snow

March was just intense. I received some devastating news. I attempted to backpack my way out of the anger and grief. Then my body said, you haven’t been doing this for a year, WTH! Then I flipped to planning my garden and starting seedlings. I finished my cross stitch cross from last year. I also, painfully, finished my kids green sweaters.

May be an image of nature, sky and tree

April was when I really did a lot of work in the garden, doubling it’s size. Plus we got back into camping and I pulled out the spinning wheel again.

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May and June were gardening, camping, backpacking, vacation and so much more. I started to realize I was overscheduling myself and coming off the worst of the March shock.

May be an image of outdoors
May be an image of one or more people and outdoors
Hallockville Fiber Festival – First in person (for me) event since March 2020
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May be an image of Tracy Jn and sitting

July and August were overscheduled again, but well worth it. The garden was abundant and we have jars of tomato sauce for the winter. I finished my rainbow blanket from knit picks and started a sweater but more importantly, picked up spinning again.

May be an image of indoor
May be an image of tomato and outdoors
May be an image of tomato and indoor
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May be an image of fruit, tomato and indoor
May be an image of indoor

I’ll post about my spinning and dying and sudden returning intense interest in all things fiber in the next post!

Simple Cupcake Baby Blanket

by T, posted in knitting, pattern, Uncategorized

cast on 146

rows1: k1p1

row2: p1k1

repeat rows 1 & 2

Row 10: K1P1K1P1K1 K5, P2K5* repeat til 5 stitches remain K1P1K1P1K1

Row 11: K1P1K1P1K1 P5, K2P2* repeat til 5 stitches remain K1P1K1P1K1

Repeat Rows 10 & 11

Row 16: K1P1K1P1K1 K till five stitches remain, K1P1K1P1K1

Repeat Rows 10-16 for x inches

Repeat rows 1&2 for 10 rows.

Bind Off

 

 

Mommy Needs A Time Out

by T, posted in knitting, personal

2019 was supposed to be the year of me. After getting my master’s degree, CPA, fostering and adopting three kids, one special needs and two with medical challenges, I was ready to focus on me. I have gained 60 lbs in two years and have had some weird ailments pop up. Hives that don’t sway. Jaw infections. Cold after cold after cold. It turns out I have masses on my ovaries and am going in this week for some major surgery. I’ll be out of work for 3-8 weeks and already stocked up on my stash. I’m thinking a sock yarn blanket!

This sucks.

I hope the doctor is better at sewing than I am!

Knit Socks- a basic pattern/recipe

by T, posted in knitting, pattern

I’m back into knitting socks big time and giving them as presents. I can whip up a pair in a few days (or a trip from Florida to New York.) I don’t make them fancy and I’m back to the point where I don’t need instructions.

A simple pair of toe up socks is more like a recipe than a pattern. It’s easily modified to go bigger, smaller or adjust to yarn weight.

For my latest socks, I’m using sock weight yarn on size two circular needles.

Using magic loop, cast on twenty stitches (10 each needle). Knit first row. Next row knit 1 make 1 knit to last two stitches on first needle make 1 knit 1. Repeat on second needle. So you’ve added four stitches. Knit the next row. Repeat this until you have 22-26 stitches on each needle or 48-52 stitches total. Continue knit to the ankle bone or about 7 inches for a woman’s size 8.5 foot.

Start heel

Slip 1 knit

Slip 1 purl

Continue for half the number of stitches on food. (22-26 rows)

Start short rows

Row1: Knit half the rows stitches (11/13) knit 2 together, k1, turn

Row2: slip one, purl 2, purl 2 together, k1, turn

When you’ve knit all the stitches, pick up the heel rows (slipped stitches) usually 11-13 stitches on each side of the heel.

Ankle:

Row1: knit

Row 2: knit 1, knit 2 together, knit to end of other side of heel, slip 2, knit together, knit rest or row

Repeat these two until you are back to 48-52 stitches (fewer of you have skinny ankles)

From here you can add ribbing, create a short ankle socks or add more design.

I’m trying to write this on my phone, so I’ll update it later.

It’s worked for the last six pairs of socks and I’ve added a different design feature into each, including ribbing and seed stitch.

Knitpicks Wool of the Andes superwash and the next blanket

by T, posted in knitting, Uncategorized

In case you haven’t figured it out, I spend quite a bit of time knitting blankets. Big blankets, small blankets, they are familiar and useful here in South Florida. I want to knit my kids things and they’d fry in wool sweaters.

I knit the last few blankets in inexpensive acrylic yarn and I’m not happy with the quality or the outcome. My cables in the pink blanket look terrible.

I purchased 11 skeins of Knitpicks wool of the Andes superwash – which will be not even close to enough yarn 😭. Nobody tell the husband what that actually costs. I usually use a seed stitch or blocks but I really like this pattern on Ravelry for the Maxi Cosi Blanket. It’s a simple pattern which I find easier with big blankets.

So far it’s easy and looks great.

https://www.knitpicks.com

https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/maxi-cosi-blanket

6 Months Later

by T, posted in Uncategorized

So, it has been about six months since I posted, probably a little more. This last year has been one of the most stressful of my life. I survived and came out the other side. Yay. I must be very busy knitting and spinning, right? Nope. I have been going nonstop for the last month and I’m wondering why. I’m taking advanced accounting classes, tutoring, exercising (because these past six stressful months have added at least fifteen pounds to my belly) and trying to cook dinner a few times a week.

In the past six months, I have:

bought a loom and learned to weave

bought a dehydrator so I can make my own fruit rollups

shuffled yarn so many times I can’t even count

convinced the cats to stop stealing my yarn   never mind, the cat is playing with my yarn right now

applied to the master’s program for accounting and taxation

decided to do a PhD program in Accounting if anyone will accept me

 

Obviously, life is busy and that doesn’t include the crazy activities that I won’t post publicly. From now on, I will try to post every Monday. These posts may be knitting or yarn related or they may involve cooking, baking, dehydrating, general crafts or chasing cats around the apartment (changed my mind, no cat posts allowed on knitwerks).

For this week, here is a picture of my very old tia rigged heddle loom that works like a charm and has made me want a room sized loom as soon as I win the lottery.

 

Dye Job Part 2

by T, posted in knitting, Spinning

I have to apologize for not being attentive in my blogging. I have been overwhelmed by work/classes and housely duties that I’ve ignored for too long. I did have some more fun this weekend with food dye.

1- On my needles: 1 entrelac baby blanket still in progress. This will last the rest of my life 2- Mulberry Hat from Modern Top Down Knitting which is coming out too big and has been put down till I have the brain power to figure out where I went wrong.

2- On my wheel, brown alpaca from Nancy in our spinning group. I want to make a four ply yarn for a jacket/sweater with three parts wool one part alpaca. Florida is one of the few places where “You know, Alpaca is really warm. . .” could be a bad thing.

3- Out of my dye pot. Okay, this was never actually in a dye pot. I used the Knitty instructions with the Cold Pour Method. I thought this came out wonderful. I even created a giant niddy noddy with pvc to skein it up. I put an old plastic Christmas tablecloth on the kitchen table before I started. I wasn’t sure how messy this would get. I did put paper towels under the different colored sections to prevent mixing. As you can see from the pictures below, I wound up with blue hands and there is a green fingerprint in a yellow section of yarn. All in all, I think it was great. I’m sending this off to Mom so I won’t have finished project pictures unless she provides them.

Spin, Dye, Knit

by T, posted in knitting, Spinning

My Ashland Bay Blue Face Leicester Top BFL Undyed Spinning Fiber arrived from Paradise Fibers and I had one goal for this weekend. As I mentioned last week, I’ve been keenly interested in Navajo plying. I sat down Friday night, finished a bobbin of one ply yarn for the above wool. It was so easy to work with. I’m actually having to overtwist it so it doesn’t unravel on me. Then I took it off and started navajo plying. I have a few issues with this technique. 1- Starting it is difficult. I kept loosing it when trying to get it to take on the bobbin. Finally I made a knot onto the starter yarn. 2- I’m getting a lumpy yarn. I think when I’m plying, I’m loosening the fibers and creating bumps. 3-Breaking. As I was plying, it kept breaking. The finished yarn came out unbalanced and different widths but I decided to dye it anyway.

 

This is my first time dyeing. I used the instructions on the knitty page. http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/FEATdyeyourown.html

I read this over and over and over. First I soaked the yarn overnight in 1/3 cup of vinegar. Then, I woke up early and put the yarn in the crock pot with 1/2 cup of vinegar and just enough water to cover the yarn. I wish I had put less water in. After a little over an hour, I mixed my dyes with hot water and began covering the yarn. I was really going for a blue and orange yarn with spots of green, but the colors muddled a bit. This is really a clean process though. I had no spills or stains. I added more dye, not liking that the colors were so light. I believe this is why I got the muddled colors. By the end, there was too much water in the crock pot.

I used tongs to pull the yarn out and hung it first on my kitchen faucet over the sink. Once it cooled off, I rinsed it, and hung it outside to dry. I was a little impatient. I didn’t even wait for it to dry 100% before winding it on the homemade nostepinne. Okay, it was a size 15 straight needle. I think I did a great job for the first time using a nostepinne (Knitting needle!)

So below is half of the final product. The colors weren’t what I was trying for, but all in all, I think it worked out very well.

2011-02 Baby Headband with Pom-Pom

by T, posted in knitting, pattern

This is really just a larger version of the other baby headband that I posted with a pom-pom on top instead of flowers. This is worked with Caron Simply Soft Acrylic Yarn on size 5 needles.

Gauge: 5 stitches = 1 inch 12 rows = 1 inch

Cast on 10 stitches

Row 1: Knit

Row 2: Purl

Row 3: K1 P8 K1

Row 4: P1 K8 P1
Continue this pattern for about 12 inches (Newborn) 13 inches (0-6 months) 14 inches (6-12 months) 15 inches for (12-18 months), and 16 inches (18-24 months). Bind off. Seam together.

Take 2 different colors yarn and create a pom pom.
Pom Pom instructions:
Cut two circles from cardboard. Hold together. Wrap yarn around (inside and outside of ring). Then cut inbetween the two pieces of cardboard. Tie around center, securing the small pieces of yarn together. Attach to headband.

Entrelac

by T, posted in knitting

I usually wouldn’t advise anyone to take on more than one project at a time. In my experience, neither project winds up being finished and both are frogged or left in the pile of things to rip out years later. However, I’ve decided to keep a traveling project – a pair of to-be-felted slippers and a home project – the entrelac baby blanket. One is easy and the other will take this side of forever to complete. I accept this with open arms.

I decided to learn entrelac around 12 am of last Sunday night/Monday morning after finding myself wide awake. It had nothing to do with the double cappuccino drink I had at six that evening, I swear. It was just a fluke. First I searched Intralac and nothing came up. I did another search and stumbled upon a page that had the technique spelled just as wrong as I did. I kept looking around and finally snuck into my bedroom to pull out some yarn and needles without waking up the husband. Eventually I gave up in hopes of sleeping, which was fitful at best.

The next day I woke up, studied a bit, ignored the messy house that is calling for me to clean it and focused on what was really important – learning entrelac! With the assistance of the entire internet, I believe I have it down. If you’ve seen Eunny Jang on youtube then you’ve tried this to. I love her, but she really needs to slow down. I was looking for Entrelac for dummies tutorial. The about.com version was good for starting but didn’t help me in learning the side triangles. The most comprehensive website that I found was wolf and turtle.net. Please see link below. I’ve been doing some of the increases and decreases a little differently but this website gives the greatest understanding of what is involved in Entrelac. Basically you are knitting squares in two different directions and it gives this great texture but is also annoying because you only knit one block at a time going back and forth and back and forth until you want to scream. It’s a likeable torture!

http://wolfandturtle.net/Dye/index.php/Yarnpath/comments/all_aboard_the_entrelac_express/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tcLxMt9GehM

http://knitting.about.com/od/knittingskills/ss/entrelac-base.htm

2010-11 Cabled Fingerless Gloves

by T, posted in pattern

2010-11 Cabled Fingerless Gloves

Another pattern completed. These are my favorite things to make. I work in cold offices and tend to have frozen fingers that have to keep typing away, so I’ve made a few pair of these and decided to write down the pattern. I’ve attached the downloadable pdf document but would appreciate a donation either through Ravelry or Etsy. The gloves are made out of Caron Simply Soft yarn but would work with any worsted weight yarn. My hands are on the smaller size and these are knit with size 5 needles. They do stretch. If your hands are on the larger size, please use size 6 needles.

2010-11 Cabled Fingerless Gloves