Knitwith Homespun

You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch. I bought this romney from Amy at Spunky Eclectic last year in November (I think).  It was the colorway of the month sale.  I spun it up to knit some Christmas presents with it.  I think they would make some wonderful presents.  I was thinking of making felted clogs for two of my nephews with this but I need to spin up the other eight ounces for one pair.  The spun yarn (took 8 ounces) is 2 ply and approximately worsted weight.  However, this is only enough for one slipper.  I don’t think I want to make one pair of slippers with 16 ounces of fiber.  Perhaps I will make some nice hats or mittens.  Mittens ought to look pretty nice with this fiber.  Does anyone have any suggestions?  I really am open but I don’t want to buy yarn or fiber for these presents.

I competed yesterday in an Iron Chef competition with my friend of 20 some years, Jacqui.  We were told on Friday what the secret ingredient would be.  It was bacon.  Bummer huh?  I ran around Friday and Saturday morning getting all my ingredients and special items and we started cooking on Saturday at 2.  We got 4 hours to cook and flipped a coin to plate.  I lost the flip and Jacqui picked to serve second to our four judges.

I served my first plate at 6:30 (we started late and one of the judges was late).  I served eggs benedict minis on homemade biscuit with chives, pork roll, quail egg, and hollandaise sauce with lime.  One bite really but a hit. Second was my other starter of a quesadilla.  It had bacon, apples, cilantro, and aged sharp cheddar on a flour tortilla.  I had intended to serve a  pear, blue cheese, and bacon quesadilla along side this one but I ran out of time.  There was a homemade salsa with heirloom tomatoes and three chilis with the quesadilla.  Third plate was bacon, apple, and onion stuffed pork tenderloin atop mashed potatoes (with bacon grease), and served along side haricovert sauted in bacon grease (supposed to be served with toasted pine nuts but I forgot them).  Final plate for me was chocolate covered bacon with vanilla ice cream.

Jacqui served her first plate all wrapped up.  Wrapped plate with wrapped goodies.  Bacon wrapped shrimp, bacon wrapped scallop, and prosciutto wrapped asparagas with various sauces.  Second plate was called blue something or other which was bacon wrapped chicken breast stuffed with blue cheese served along side a grilled romaine heart with blue cheese balsamic dressing.  Third plate for Jacqui was a bacon cheddar meatloaf in a 50s burger joint basket with bacon grease fried potatoes and a chocolate shake (that she bought at Wendy’s).  Fourth was a chocolate covered bacon ice cream bowl with pralines and cream ice cream.

The judges took quite a bit of time to decide and add up the scores.  I won by 2 points!  It was very tight and I’m glad I went first.  Jacqui’s plates were much more creative in her use of a theme but I think mine were prettier.  They liked my chocolate covered bacon better but her ice cream better.  Both our ice creams were store bought so that didn’t matter so much.  It was a LOT of work but it was super fun and we all had a really wonderful time.  Next time I will be a judge cause I can’t cook like that all the time and plate quickly and make it look good.  Oh yeah, I had my camera with me but didn’t even have time to take one picture before I served.

I’m too tired to talk about it but I have a lot to talk about.  I didn’t quite make half the month but I sure tried.  Talk to y’all Sunday probably.  Night!

I decided to take my sciatica by the horns. I am not going to sit idly by and let this happen so today we went for a hike so I could get some exercise, get in better shape, and strengthen my back and legs. Boy did I! We went for 2.6 miles straight up. Along the trail, we saw a family of seven deer (or a herd or whatever you call it). We continued to see them throughout our hike and that was truly awesome. I didn’t have my camera so I have no evidence but it was beautiful. I have been on this trail a million times and never saw any deer there. Perhaps the trick is to go at dusk. We usually go in the morning but we got there today at 3:30.

After we were down the hill and on our way back to the car, we saw a coyote in real life! We lucked out there too, because a jogger came up just behind us at that every moment and he had a huge dog with him. That dog took off like a shot after the coyote and scared it away. It did scare Bella a bit though but it was only temporary.

The sunset was stunning, the moonrise was right after that and it had a beautiful halo around it. It really was a beautiful walk and well worth the pain! It was significantly jarring to my back coming down the hill from the top but I don’t think it will be lasting.

I took a time out today. In taking the pictures at the park yesterday, I had to lay down on my tummy on a hill with my back super arched to get the shot of my sister’s family jumping in mid air. I love the end result but the pain it caused me in my back and my sciatica is ongoing. You see sometimes I pretend it doesn’t hurt but it really hurts a lot!

My nephew, the one in the shots, saw the yarn for my niece’s beanie yesterday and said he wants that color for his beanie. Of course, I was out of the fiber I had since I spun up every last little hair of it for the 92 yards I have. In thinking back, I bought the fiber from a wonderful man who gave me my first spinning lesson at a place called Denwar Craft Studio. His name is Joe and I looked up the number on the internet (he doesn’t have a web site) and gave him a call. He is semi-retired but still sells stuff by appointment only. I made an appointment and went and got more purple fiber. He is truly the nicest man and it was a joy to go in there. He has so many looms and spinning wheels in his shop and he and my husband talked a bit about the building. I think he is about 90 or so. If he isn’t, I apologize but holy cow what a guy! So, I am set now. $1.70 per ounce and we were out of there. I wish I needed something else from him but I will be back to his shop.

I am nearly done with my niece’s beanie and I think I am going to make it with my 92 yards, but, if I don’t, I can just spin up some more. Awesome, huh?

Do you think they read my blog? I tend to think not, but I’ll find out soon enough. I don’t think they do.

We had so much fun today. We had planned to take pictures for our Christmas cards today and the weather was absolutely perfect. Mid 60s and beautifully sunny and warm. I like this one a lot because it’s the one I had in mind when we left but there are so many nice ones. My sister and her kids joined us because it was my sister’s birthday today and we all spent the day together. I hope you all don’t mind looking at this because I know none of you are actually on my Christmas card list.

I just realized I almost forgot to blog again today. Here’s the poop: I finished the next triangle for my baby blanket today and it’s too big again! What the Hell? I am going to read the pattern carefully again and try to figure out why I keep screwing these up. I can’t believe it’s true but it is. I don’t get it! Very irritating.

I am attempting to use my stash and fiber completely without buying stuff for Christmas.  I have had so many requests for things from nieces and nephews and in laws all over that I think I can totally pull this off.  One niece asked for a purple beanie.  I found this fiber, 4 ounces, in my stash and spun it up last night in one fell swoop.  It’s 92 yards of a perfect worsted weight.  I tried not to spin it my usual DK finished ply and it worked really well.  I had never attempted to spin something a little heavier before and I like how this turned out.  I hope there is enough for a beanie.  Most of the patterns I have found call for 100 yards or so so I might be able to make it.  If not, I will add some other white for the end band or something.

A couple of weeks ago was picture day for Bella at school. We got up early and had a shower and blew her hair dry and straightened it.  She wore her favorite dress that made her look like a teacher, she said.  I wanted to take a bunch of pictures at home before she left for school but given her uncooperative nature whenever my camera comes out, this is all I got.  I do love this one most though.  It’s very animated and very her.  I love how the colors turned out and how blue her eyes look.  Below are the other shots that are semi OK.  The focus and colors aren’t the best but I still love her so I thought I would share them.

Ok, so if I blog twice today, does that count?  I forgot to post yesterday but the deal is 30 posts in 30 days, right?

I really don’t have anything to say. Politics? Off limits. Bella story? Nothing interesting. Pet stories? Really nothing interesting although I started to write one, realized it was dull as glass, deleted it. what do you people want form me?

I haven’t knit socks in quite a long time.  I could probably look on Ravelry to see how long it’s been but I don’t think that’s really an important part of this story.  The pattern I chose for my Christmas Knitting Socks is Dove Socks (Ravelry link).  The pattern calls for a specific toe and cast on for these toe-up socks.  I had done research and a lot of test knitting for toe-up socks and landed on a figure 8 cast on way back when I was obsessed with knitting toe up socks.  This was the toe that I wanted to use so I will modify the pattern to accomodate this change. However, if you don’t knit socks for a while, you forget how to do things.  My beautiful figure 8 toe-up cast on and rounded toe that results ended up looking a little triangular.  However, it just took me a few moments to get it back to the beautiful rounded toe that I know and love.  Can you tell which is which?

I am knitting some socks for my nephew for Christmas.  Now this is a slippery slope because I have 10 neices and nephews here locally and I try to not commit to Christmas gifts for each of them because I just can’t afford it!  However, this nephew has been nagging (as they all have) for a pair of socks.  Others are asking for hats, slippers, bags, mittens etc.  I have so much yarn in my stash, I think I can get my Christmas stuff done without spending any money.  This is my goal.

In my stash, I found a bunch of Knit Picks sock yarn that I liked.  I had bought them on clearance (I think) and they were really cheap.  However, I didn’t buy enough.  So I have enough to knit one sock in each color.  Great!  If anyone out there has Knit Picks Felici in Aurora, Hummingbird, or Atmosphere, and you would prefer some money instead, please let me know.

So I decided to use some Colinette Jitterbug.  I have two skeins in Jewel so it won’t be missed that much.  I do love the colors.  I searched throughout Ravelry and queued up some nice patterns but nothing really struck me for a 25 year old silly man/boy.  I started then looking through my books and found what I think might be the perfect pattern.  From New Pathways for Sock Knitters: Book One.  They aren’t particularly girly or particularly manly but they are interesting and look simple enough to knock out a bunch of pairs for Christmas.

Ok, so cast on is complete, increases are working.  I will keep you all posted.

First, let’s see what happened while I was spinning the 100% alpaca portion of this yarn. This was very frustrating to spin because these little bits of vegetation were everywhere in the sliver. I spun 8 ounces of sliver here and this picture shows just the last little bit. it was probably about 2 ounces or less that I spun in one fell swoop. I wanted to show how really annoying this was to spin.

The irritation also continued, as you might imagine, during the plying.  I spun up 8 ounces of 80/20 silk and alpaca that I got from Paradise Fibers a couple of years ago.  The I got this 100% brown alpaca last year in Idaho at a truck stop.  That’s what you get for buying fiber at a truck stop.  Let that be a lesson to you!  Other than the vegetation, it was very easy to spin.  I never spun such a huge project before and I have probably 2-3 ounces of the pure brown left.  I will andean ply that later after my baby blanket is done.  Then I can use it to accent whatever it is that I knit with this brown and white yarn.

I am really very proud of this yarn and super pleased with it’s texture and sheen.  The silk (which is the white) gives the yarn such a beautiful shine I am thrilled with.  It makes it all look so rich and luxurious.  I struggled with the flash to get accurate color in these photos but the warmer brown is the most accurate color for this yarn.  I can’t wait to knit this up.  It’s so so so super soft and shiney.  I am thrilled!

Here are the images of the fiber I used to spin and ply this yarn.

I was going to deny the existence of National Blog Posting Month.  Last year I attempted but failed miserably.  I was going to completely ignore it this year but Angela wouldn’t let me.  And then Jerry wouldn’t let me.  I know more blogs I read are also posting but I can’t remember at this point.  These two lovely people are local, at least for a couple more weeks, right Angela?  Anyway, I am going to try.

I spent today knitting some on my triangles for my baby blanket from Knit Simple Fall 2008 Magazine.  The pattern requires you to make six triangles “of the same size” and stitch them together to make a circle.  Well I am 5 triangles in and started on the last one last night.  I laid out the triangles to see how well the colors go together and what do you know?  I screwed up!

These don’t quite appear to be the same size. The tips are lined up properly, as shown in this other photo.  So, I will rip out the two extra large triangles and reknit.  It only takes a couple of days per traingle so it’s not time consuming, just irritating.  As it turns out, these two oversized ones were the first two I knitted.

On the photography front, here is my first official portrait.  As you can see, I have plenty of time to get the blanket completed.  This is my dearest friend Victoria.  This is also her first and only baby, Savanah Rose (I hope).  I will be this child’s Godmother.  Victoria is Isabella’s Godmother.  She says this baby is her Godsister.  I am not sure there is such a thing but she says there is.  Who am I to argue?