Knitwith Homespun

I have. But this post is about why. What gets us excited at the prospect of meeting someone famous. Do we think they will love us and be lifelong friends? What do we think is going to happen at this meeting? Do we even have a chance to talk? If so, what will we talk about? Do we have anything in common? If so, what? These are all things that went through my mind today.

Approximately 11:36am, my husband called and said I would never guess who just walked into his showroom and I might want to get in the car and come down right now. Well my immediate thought was, nah, probably not. I doubt there is anyone that I want to meet that badly. I was wrong. I put on makeup (quickly) and jumped in the car. I had my camera with me (just in case) and drove fast fast to the shop.

I didn’t see him immediately and Will said I just missed him! Damn it! I saw my husband. He was getting some t-shirts with the shop logo and diagrams of motorcycles on them and he said to me “come with me”. I went with him. We went outside and he introduced me to Ewan McGregor. Yes, that’s right baby! It was hard to see him through the foggy glow around his head. He was getting in his car and David gave him his shirts. We shook hands and he took off.

Did I meet a celebrity? Yessir I did. Does he even remember my name? I doubt it. Are we now lifelong friends? No. Has anything in my life changed for it? No. Has anything in his life changed? No. So, I ask you all, what’s the point? Why am I interested in meeting him? Cause it was fun. It was interesting. I can say I did it. That’s all there is to it. Thank you, Mr. McGregor and I look forward to the Long Way Under (or whatever is next).

70 words

Speedtest

I have a cold.  I haven’t been blogging.  I have sciatica.  But I never stopped knitting on Charlotte’s Web.  One month from when I started I am done and it’s blocking in the yard.  I must be silly to think I could block this in the house anywhere.  It’s gigantic!   I was inspired by the version made by Turtlegirl and wanted to try it.  I thought the size of it and the color variations she chose really made it look like a fun knit.  I had quite a few problems at first but I really had plenty of time to work them out.

Any of you mom’s out there might understand this, but I was so frustrated in the beginning while knitting this.  It reminded me of when Bella was a baby and I was exhausted but she wouldn’t nap or sleep.  Remember that feeling?  Nothing you can do but you know she NEEDS to sleep and so do you but neither is happening?  Well once I remember this, I would frog back without frustration or anger and just reknit.  It was completely worth it.  There was nothing I could do anyway so I might as well get it right, right?  Do you want a huge glaring error in your beautiful first shawl?  I sure don’t!  Once I stopped being upset and frustrated, it all went really well.  I knit like a fiend and I loved every minute of it.  I will do it again and I have some ideas for colors already in my head.  It’s just a matter of collecting them appropriately.

I really love how the colors look together.  My friends and family were all concerned with the pink and it’s stark nature next to the other colors.  I really liked that part of the color play.  I thought since the top had a stark contrast with the wasabi color that I should finish off in a similar contrast and stark nature.  I think it works.  I can’t wait to wear this somewhere.  I never realized before how perfect California is for shawls because the temperature always dips down when the sun goes down.

I don’t see any glaring errors yet.  I didn’t do the edging the way the pattern says but I did go pretty close.  My crocheting is very weak so I kinda faked it.  I like how it looks though and I won’t add fringe.  I used the same chart as Turtlegirl and the size is quite similar but I will measure and edit this post with the information.  I will post this Charlotte’s Web in my personal record books as a success and a blast!

Anyone who reads my blog knows I am now knitting Charlotte’s Web Shawl.  This is my first lace project and I am enjoying it so much.  I have had a few hiccups and frogged the whole thing once but I still love it.  I thought I would document my method for keeping the lace repeats straight without using stitch markers.  There are just too many repeats and I totally don’t want to mess with stinkin stitch markers all the way across 300 some stitches (about where I am now).  First, here is a photo of my entire progress so far.  I am about to start row 153 which is row 7 of the pattern.

Here is a photo to show the row numbers.  The pattern is repeated twice before anything changes.  The triangles of stockinette are shown pretty clearly in the chart so I won’t explain those. I am hoping that as I explain, you can understand what I mean. First, as I have blogged or plurked this shawl, I have jinxed myself every time. I am hoping to break that habit here and now. The first row of the pattern has the fewest yarn overs. There are just two yarn overs which makes this row the least repetitive. However, it can be easy to remember what you are doing. Every time you do a regular knit stitch here, you will be making a stockinette row. You will be able to tell when you are knitting if you are knitting into a yarn over or a stockinette stitch. If your knit (as opposed to a slip-knit-pass or knit-two-together) stitch is into a yarn over, you have done something wrong. Once you are finished with the lace repeat, you will knit three stitches and then start the next lace repeat. These three stitches are a YO, stockinette, YO in that order. If you don’t come across them this way, you have done something wrong. It should be easy to go back and figure out your error if you follow this pattern.

I haven’t counted my stitches since row 138 and I am about to start row 153.  I am confident I don’t need to count but I sure needed to do it up until this time.  Here is what I learned about that.  If you have two many stitches, you probably forgot to pass one of your stitches over your knitted stitch.  If you have two few stitches, but your stitches worked out the way they were supposed to in the row (i.e. you finished with your proper number of stockinette for the edge triangles) then you probably missed a yarn over.  You should be able to look at your stitches and easily know where a yarn over belongs but is missing.  If all else fails, go back to your lifeline rows and start again.

The eight stitch lace repeat can be found between the stockinette rows shown here by the red lines.  If you lay the shawl down, you can easily see these raised rows in your shawl.  This is where I ran into a problem that I blogged about earlier. This little tip can also help you figure out where you are in your repeats.

All even numbered rows are purling back over the entire length of the shawl so I won’t talk about those rows. Row 3 of the lace is kinda fun. The knit stitches are the same as the first row. By that I mean that they should all remain stockinette and not be done into a YO. Between each of the stitch repeats is a yarn over so it’s quite repetitive and should be mindless. This can also help you when you are checking your work. Remember the stitches look like a single stitch, a slip-knit-pass, (I call this a double because it looks like two stitches knit together), a slip-k2tog-pass (triple), K2tog (double), and then a single again because you are at the end and have your stockinette row. So it goes, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1 like that. If you are trying to find an error, you may miss your stockinette which is easy to spot. A mistake I made a lot was to skip the slip-knit-pass and go right to the slip-k2tog-pass so I could spot that too.

The 5th and 7th rows are the same and my favorite.  Very simply it is slip-k2tog-pass, yo, K1 until the last stockinette triangle.  Super easy to knit and to check because it is very symetrical.  The K1 is like the previous rows and continues a stockinette stitch.  Sometimes it’s not a row all the way up from the center, but it’s not a yarn over either.  Easy to check and see an error.

Well I hope this has been helpful to anyone who is interested.  It took me quite a while to see these patterns and repeats myself and I hope it can be helpful and understood by someone else.  Otherwise I will just refer back to it when I knit my next Charlotte’s Web (and I will knit another).  I am very excited to finish this and I am super obsessed!

This is an excellent example of this phrase. Here I am knitting away on my Charlotte’s web and really enjoying the repetitiveness of this pattern.  I am well into the second color and about to go full time to the third color.  That would happen at row 107.  I starting knitting that row.  I get to the center of the shawl and it doesn’t work.  I frog back to the beginning of the row and start again.  No go.  I look very carefully at each of the stitches and try to see where my error is.  I have been doing this all along and sometimes I can see my error in the stitches.  I am looking closely at the knitting and watching each stitch to see where I have gone wrong.  No luck.  So I frog way back to my lifeline at row 102.  I knit the next row (103) and purl back.  I have the wrong stitch count.  There should be 211 stitches and I have 212.  Please also note that this count took about an hour with two kids around.  Frogging back to the lifeline again.  Knit the pattern and purl.  212.  WTF?  I frog back to the lifeline and 207 stitches (the correct count).  I don’t understand.  So I am very obsessed with correcting this and knitting my huge ass off and I can’t figure out what’s wrong.  I take the shawl to bed to look and examine and figure it out.  I lay it out on the bed and look at it.  The picture above shows what I saw.

You can see in this picture as well what I am referring to. If you look at the stitches moving along the centers of the pattern.  There is a row going from the flat edge to each of the triangle edges of stockinette that should go all the way from edge to edge.  As you can see in this picture, it’s not doing that.  There is a clear distinction of where that stockinette row stops.  Lucky for me, I have a lifeline right at that spot.  So, looking so closely at the stitches wouldn’t let me see where I had a problem.  Backing up and looking at the entire shawl is where the correction can be seen.  It’s a very powerful lesson and not so entirely painful.  I am glad I have my lifelines.  I am glad I labeled them with the row numbers.  I am sad I have to frog back 13 rows of a very fun shawl to knit.  However, two lifelines at a time really saved my life this time.  Thank you thank you thank you!

Here is the sad sad picture to display how far back I have to frog. The frogging will be easy, but it will hurt. Can I get back to where I was, row 107, quickly? I sure hope so. Will it correct my problems? I hope so. I’ll keep you posted.

I am obsessed! Honestly this is making me crazy. First, this is really fun to knit. It’s easy to remember the patterns and the chart that Chrisi left for me to use makes everything easier. I keep the printed chart that Cristi left on her blog for the size and the chart for the pattern with me. That’s all I look at. I have put the book away! The only problem I have is sometimes my stitch count is off and I have to frog back a row or two. I have made that easier on myself by inserting these strings with the row numbers on them. I figured this out the hard way. I had inserted the string at row 24 first and then I got to the second set of two rows of color 2 and lost track of my place in the pattern. I couldn’t get the stitch count to match up properly so I had to frog back. Well I had gotten all cocky and removed the string a few rows back and had nothing to mark my spots. In a pattern like this, I couldn’t just remove the needle stitch by stitch because of all the yarn overs and k2tog and skp stitches. It was far too confusing. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. This is why I now have two strings. I remove the oldest one first and replace it in the newest complete row that I know is correct. I will always have two except when I am placing a new one. I have used it twice already and it has made my life SO much easier.

Next, I was worried about my color choices. I tend to opt toward the unconventional color matches. I was a bit worried after I got home and looked at my colors. I thought maybe they didn’t really all work together but I really am liking how these two colors are playing together right now. The next color I will add is purple and that should work fine. I’ll keep y’all posted on my progress.

Thanks for reading and have a great rest of your weekend!

Well I don’t know what you did, but I know what I did.  I was so busy yesterday for a day off.  We went swimming, I knit a bunch on my Charlotte’s web, I started a new project, and I went to a movie!

First, Christine, my niece, came over for the day.  Her parents and brother had orientation at Cal Poly Pomona for the entire day.  This is what gave me the day off.  I didn’t have to entertain my daughter at all cause she had a cousin to play with.  Sometime in the morning, my sister-in-law called (a different one than Christine’s mom) and she offered for us to come over and hang by the pool.  Great idea!  Cathy was set to babysit Bella when David and I went to a movie later in the evening so I packed up some clothes and stuff just in case Bella stayed there for the day (just in case :D)  I took Charlotte’s web with me and worked on it at the pool while the girls were swimming.

The movie we went to was called Long Way Down.  This is a sequel to the TV show, Long Way Round wherein Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman rode BMW motorcycles from London through Europe and China the long way around to New York City.  That was a fabulous show.  Long Way Down is the same crew and cast going from John O’Groats, Scotland down to Capetown, South Africa.  The movie is a condensed version of the TV show that began airing last night on Fox Reality Network for 10 weeks.  Please tune in cause it’s an awesome show.  David is the general manager for a BMW motorcycle dealership and the dealership sponsored the movie at the local Stadium 25 theater and bought 100 tickets to the show.  They gave away tickets to anyone who made a donation to the Pediatric Brain Tumor foundation.

The entire shop went to the movie and unfortunately for us, it was month end for David and he couldn’t leave the shop until the month was closed out in the computer.  We didn’t get to go to dinner with everyone but we did make it to the movie on time.  It was a great great show.  They completely condensed the show into a 2 hour movie.  There are a lot of placs they visited but the funniest thing was when Ewan and Charley went to the set of Star Wars in Africa (I forget the country) but there are posters of the later movies with Ewan on them.  Noone recognized him while he was there.  Hysterical!  I can’t wait to watch the entire series on Fox.

While at the movie, I wanted to knit cause I thought that would be a great idea.  Well, I couldn’t take Charlotte’s web cause that would be crazy in the movie theater.  I started a new multi-directional scarf and it worked very well for the theater and here’s what I got done.  Thanks Adrian, for dying the lovely yarn I am using for this scarf in this beautiful colorway.  When I was taking this picture, the scarf was on the counter with a mango and I thought the colors were exactly matched.  See?

I read a blog regularly by Cristi. I was recently inspired by a project she recently completed called Charlotte’s Web. Please drop over and see her piece of art.  It is absolutely stunning.  Cristi is always friendly and accomodating when you send her an e-mail or ask her a question and she informed me via a response to my comment that I could knit this pattern!  What?  No way!  It’s a simple pattern repeat, she tells me and I could easily do it.

Needless to say, I popped on over to Ravelry and looked up the pattern and sure enough, I have the book already!  Oh my, that’s not good!  Next step is to look in my stash to see if there is any yarn there that can be useful.  I can’t really find anything that I like in there (big surprise) so off to Velona I go.  I took Sandi, Christine, and Brittany with me (all non-knitters) for moral support.  As non-knitters, they really got into the selection process with me.  This is why I love them!  We spent about an hour there and selected several different options.  The pattern calls for 5 different colorways of a varigated yarn.  Clearly, what Cristi did was stunning and inspiring.  I went a different way with my selections and I am second guessing my choices.  Please help me to decide.

I bought these colorways:

After I arrived home I pulled out some of the colorways I was looking at before I left and we like this set as well:

I think I am liking the bluer set better but the pink really adds some dimension to everything.  I don’t want to drop the yellow as it pulls that color out of the two at the bottom.  Any ideas?  Thanks for your help!

So far no reported injuries or major damage. That said, I love earthquakes. As natural disasters go, I prefer them to anything else. Hurricanes are very long and drawn out things and take days of anxiety and anticipation. No thanks! I lived through a tiny tornado in my hometown once and it scared the living crap out of me. It was loud and scary and who knew what could happen. No thanks!

For me, earthquakes are fun. I live in a stable one story house made of stucco and slab foundation. This is an excellent earthquake house. I wasn’t home today though. I was at my friend’s house getting Bella’s hair cut. We were outside at the time and on the patio. First, it was like a truck going by but we didn’t see any truck. It started rolling and rocking a bit for about 10 seconds. Then it felt like someone picked up the porch and dropped it down hard. I got bounced out of my chair. There was quite a bit of hard shaking after that for about 30 seconds more for a total of about 45 seconds. There is a lot of anxiety there at this point and we got out from under the porch and into the open air. I think that is an automatic response. All kids were fine and no damage was seen immediately. It took a good 15 minutes for my anxiety and hand shaking to subside. The worst kind of earthquake, though, is the kind that wakes you from a dead sleep. Those are horrible and not fun. Generally, by the time you figure out what is going on, it’s almost over and usually the damage in my area is minimum. By no means do I minimize the damage and horror that others go through in earthquakes because I understand that. What I mean to say is that I prefer this type of natural disaster if I get to pick what kind to fall victim to.

There you have it! My account of this earthquake. I think that either it will be upgraded or they will find something like two earthquakes or something. Thanks for your attention and letting me get that out. To find out what is happening here, check this link.

I had 55 rows of 251 stitches done on this sweater.  I was almost done with the second full skein of yarn.  I knew the error was there in the cable.  I knew it didn’t look good and I didn’t like it.  I kept going anyway.  What the hell?  What was I thinking?  Seriously?  Did I think I could live with this?   If you look to the center of the image, you can see what I am talking about.  I had put down this knitting for a while and was working on my multi-directional scarf and other projects.  When I picked it back up, apparently, I couldn’t get where I was and rather than look at the cable, I randomly picked a spot in the pattern and knit that.  Dumbass!  It is soooooo messed up.  So when I get t o the top of the cable and make another error, I am upset.  Why is it that this one error at the top is bothering me so much?  This is the problem that I can’t live with?  I can live with the most messed up cable at the center but the one little one at the top is the one that throws me over the edge?  Is this at all right?  No! If you click on the image and go to my Flickr page, you can see the note where the miniscule problem I am speaking of is located.  So my mom is coming over this weekend and I think, I could ask her what she thinks and this is what I do.  My mom says correctly that it will bug the crap out of me the entire time.  I have a lot of work into this sweater and it just wouldn’t be right and that’s all I will see when I look at it.  So what is the bonus that comes out of this?  My mom is now knitting this sweater!  My mom is a knitter and she hasn’t knit in probably 3 years.  She sees this pattern and loves it (rightly so if I may say) and asks me to copy it for her so she can knit it.  She has some yarn already that would be perfect!  I bought her some Knit Pick Options a couple of years ago for her birthday and I don’t think she has even opened them and now she is knitting my sweater!  MY SWEATER!  People who know me know the problems here.

I don’t get along well with my mother but she gave me my creative juice.  I know this is a fact.  I am very very very competitive.  Everyone who knows me knows that now I have to beat my mom!  I have to finish first.  This is a good thing because I won’t put the stinkin thing down and lose my spot in the cable, right?  I hope so.   I am now 13 rows of 251 stitches in.  Well I am going to my mom’s tomorrow for dinner with my sisters for my littlest sister’s birthday.  I will get to see where she is in her sweater then (if she has even started).  My mom is a fast and excellent knitter and is very very very experienced and good at aran and cables.  She has many sweaters under her belt and this is my first one.  My bonus is I have been knitting more lately.  She had to call me and ask about the yarn weight.  Small victory!  I’ll keep you posted.

In the summer, I find it hard to give my daughter plenty to do.  She gets bored and wants people to come play and wants me to play and wants things to do.  I have a varied background in crafts and things as you might imagine.  So while I was sewing some things last week, Bella found some clay in my notions box and took it out.  She asked if she could play with it.  Of course you can, I told her.  She made a couple of simple smiley faces.  They were lovely.  I remembered seeing that you could bake them to make them semi-ceramic and thought I would do that.  I baked them at 250 degrees for a couple of hours.  This discolored them a bit.  She spent some more time working with the clay and made a few other really lovely things.  Two snowmen and a cute little cat.  I was going to take a picture of them but thought, no, I can do that after I am done baking them.  I seemed to remember the package directions for baking the clay to be something like 350 degrees so that is what I baked the snowmen and the cat at.

Well, there was a foul smell coming from the oven.  Huh, that didn’t happen last week.  I wonder what’s going on.  I looked in the oven and saw this:

If you click on this image, you can see in the melted mess, the faces of these sad little crafts.  It makes me laugh every time I see this on the counter.  Bella too!  She tried to be mad at me for ruining her crafts but it just is too funny.

Besides not finishing my vacation blogging?  I am knitting, spinning, sewing, and finishing.

Knitting my multi-directional scarf.  Note to self; don’t knit a scarf with sock yarn.

Spinning 3 ounces of merino/tussah silk that Bella begged me to spin for her and please also knit a beanie with it when you are done.  So, yes, it’s done.  I started it in Eugene during BSG in my worsted vs. woolen class and finished it just yesterday.  I will Andean ply it tomorrow and then find a pattern for her beanie.  I think it should be a tight band with a wider head like a beret.  I’m sure she has other ideas.  I’ll keep you updated.

Sewing…..longer story.  During camp this week, Bella left her bathing suit at the aquatics center and they couldn’t find it when we called. I went to Costco and got  her another for today’s outing to the water park.  While there, she caught the crotch of her brand new bathing suit on some slide and it ripped a huge whole.  Luckily, it was in the seam and I was able to make the repair.  I have told her that this is the last bathing suit I am buying for her this year.

Finishing….My niece, Christine asked me to knit her a bag.  It is over there on the right of my sidebar called Birthday Bag.  It has been there waiting to be finished for almost a year.  I know this because it’s almost her birthday AGAIN and it’s still not done.  She has been patient and I should have finished it long ago.  It’s done Christine!  I’m sorry it’s late!  I hope you like it!

The reason it sat around for so long is because I was stumped for the handles.  I bought some leather straps but they just didn’t fit with the style of this bag.  I toyed with the idea of some ribbon weaved into the top of the bag and gathering the top.  This is what I went with and took Christine yesterday to get some ribbon to use.  We chose three colors that match the bag and I started to weave them through.  She was very clear that she wanted a clasp or closure at the center so I put in a magnet closure that I had in my knitting bag.  I covered the metal of the closure with the white buttons on the outside.  I may put bows at the edges of the straps like I have shown in the bow photo but I’m not sure she will like it.  She is turning 14 and she chose the yarn from my stash and told me what shape she wanted.  I hope it is what she expected.  Here are the shots that show the detail.  The dowel is at the bottom of the bag to give it support if she put someting heavier in there.

Ok, I debated whether or not to blog this but here goes.  Last night after I finished dinner, Bella asked me to come play Mario Pary 8 on Wii with her.  She still had her dinner on the table and I let her play still sometimes while eating (especially in the summer).  I had made a very simple dinner; seared chicken breast, whole grain pasta with parmesan, mixed vegetables including carrots, corn, and asparagas.

I was playing my turn on the Wii and I told her to finish her dinner.  And she told me, “just one more bite Mom.  I’m gonna conquer my fears”.  I looked over to see what the heck she was talking about and she had a forkful of asparagas.  There had to be about 5 small pieces on that fork at one time.  She ate it.  What a good girl.  I totally love her enthusiasm sometimes.

Ok, that’s it.  Sorry for bragging.

One thing I forgot to mention about the Black Sheep Gathering is the basket I bought.  I got it from this lady and I use it a lot.  I carry some of my projects around and even my toiletries when I was going from my trailer to my sister’s house and all.

Saturday morning I was looking forward to most of all.  I have not taken an official spinning class until this day.  I am almost completely self taught with books and videos on Youtube.  I was thrilled to learn how to officially spin on my own wheel from someone who knew what they were doing.  The class was taught by Judie Overbeek. She was very knowledgable and friendly.  She allowed us to spin in our own style and taught us to refine it in a more proper way.  It was awesome!

Here is Judie teaching us the worsted method of spinning.  For those that aren’t aware (and I wasn’t before this), worsted produces a smoother, tighter, heavier yarn.  Woolen takes the fiber and allows more air and fluff to come into the finished yarn.  Woolen is also known as the long draw method.  It requires a lighter mindset, I think. I had a really hard time with the woolen method.  I have been spinning worsted for the entire time I have been spinning and it’s very controlled and anal.  That’s me!  This is also called the inch worm technique or short draw.  I find the woolen method to produce a nicer yarn for sweaters and scarves but I don’t think I will be able to do it.  I am going to try and keep the practice going.

Also interesting is that the plying of woolens and worsteds is different.  When plying a worsted yarn, it balances very well (when done properly).  When plying the woolens, most of the energy in a worsted single is available in the plied yarn.  This was super interesting and kinda fun I thought.  Such completely opposite results in each of the same action.  The picture here to the right is the plied woolen.  If you click on this photo, it should enlarge to a nice big size.  Note that the plied yarn looks very much like a single.  This is how this yarn should look as it’s plied.  Judie told us that a lot of your lumps and bumps created in your long draw spinning will come out in the plying.  I was not able to successfully spin anything with this method but I am going to try to at least finish 4 ounces by the end of the year.

Having spun worsted for so long, I really have a hard time with the long draw method.  It seems like there is no control and the resulting yarn is uneven.  If anyone out there is a woolen spinner, please enlighten me cause I just don’t get it.  Do you enjoy spinning with both techniques?  Do you easily switch back and forth?  Please let me know!

More to come on my vacation.  Summer is harder blogging time as I have a 7 year old weight on my ankle all day every day annoying the living crap out of me.  Motherhood is such a joy.