collaborator

Crafty Girl came to me and said, Look mom, what I did! Do you want to take some pictures?

She had cut the tops off some fresh strawberries, and arranged everything on a cutting board like this:



How could I resist?

Guess what came next?

Thanks ever so much to the local farmer who grew the berries. We enjoyed them tremendously.

progress report

My cat Emma is making sure the stash is being guarded. I appreciate her concern.



Here are the finished socks that were a graduation gift. For size 10 men's,
3 skeins (or about 350 yards) sportweight sock yarn, size 3 needles, 56 stitches. No particular printed pattern was used, but any basic sock pattern will do.

Yesterday, my daughter and I were invited over to my friend Anna's house; us moms are good friends, our girls are good friends, and Anna is a fabulous knitter, --- what could be better? I brought my (borrowed) spinning wheel and got some spinning done. I am sorry I can't for the life of me remember what kind of wool it is. All I know it is not Jacob wool, rather someone carded some white and brown fleece together.

The commissioned lace shawl is making progress too. I keep plugging away at it.

I am done with 6 out of the 8 suggested pattern repeats, but something tells me that even when it's blocked it will never be big enough to fit around a real person. I have already decided to do at least 10 repeats, if not more. Thanks to the yarn goddesses who are providing me with the yarn, yardage is not an issue. I think I will be fine with 2 hanks of "Marshmallow".

The fir cone lace pattern is supereasy as far as lace patterns go. I am loving this!

Thank you so much to everyone that responded to my last post! I love seeing where everyone is from.

Jody and Amanda, I'll post the pattern for the teacher's shawl soon. I'll have to actually write it down....so often, I take a basic pattern and then I gauge by how much yarn I have or the look of the yarn, what I want to do with it. While I have an idea in mind, I hardly ever plan these things ahead of time, most things "grow" out of my needles...

twothousand!!

I just checked and found out that the counter went over the 2000 mark!!
Thank you for coming to visit my blog. I appreciate it a lot.

I know I have people from Ireland, Spain, Germany, Israel, as well as all over the US looking at "knitting &".

Why don't you leave me a note and let me know where you are all from?

Have a great weekend, everyone.

solstice knitting

This week marks the end of the school year for us, and since my daughter is finishing 4th grade with a beloved teacher, I decided to make a shawl as a year-end gift.


This teacher is a vibrant and spirited woman, and when I asked my daughter in a moment of doubt if the colors in the shawl are too bright, she said, "Are you kidding? They are just right for her." So I went ahead with it, and of course there was some last minute knitting involved, on the longest day of the year yesterday....and blocking overnight....and I ran into the back yarn in pajamas this morning to get these pictures done before we packed up the shawl.



The yarn is a hand dyed worsted weight from New Zealand, one hank of about 475 yards made this shawl on size 9 needles. I have made this shawl at least a dozen times with several variations. Garter stitch gives it bounce and heft, but I've made in stockinette stitch too, with color and yarn changes throughout.

We're having a little ice cream party in the yard this afternoon at 3:30, so if you are in the neighborhood, stop in! I'll be the one finishing up a pair socks for a graduation gift...

Happy Birthday, sis!

Today is my sister's birthday! Happy Birthday, Doris! Alles Gute zum Geburtstag. Of course I called her earlier, she was enjoying her traditional strawberry cake (oh the advantages of having a birthday in June!). The whole family was gathered including our parents and her in-laws, her husband and her two sons. It's times like these I get very homesick and wish I could be there with them....

Here are some flowers for you, Doris. I know you like flowers, and pictures, too. :)


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Yesterday, I finally finished this little sweater. I had started it in January, and it was about time I finished it and added it to all the other ones our charity knitting group made. These will go to Guideposts.
The pattern I used is from Cabin Fever, the yarn is Encore worsted.

Also this week I am working on these socks. They are a graduation present for a young man who will be going to Cornell University in the fall and who is an extraordinary percussionist. As it turns out, he plays and practices in stocking feet a lot, running and gliding from one intrument to another....so making him socks was kind of the obvious choice, don't you think?

I love the yarn I found, which unfortunately will no longer be available in the US. It is a Swedish yarn distributed by Idena. It seems much much softer than other similar self-striping yarns. This is a sport weight, and I am using size 3 needles. Since the socks need to fit a size 10 men's, the choice of a bigger yarn than usual will help me get them done in time.

To get a break from all that plain stockinette stitch, I decided this morning to start this shawl from the book Wrap Style. An Evelyn Clark pattern called Shetland Triangle (how's that for self-explanatory?). The stitch is a pretty simple fir cone lace,

and it will work up fairly quickly in this sportweight alpaca/merino yarn from Decadent Fibers.

Please note my new needles!!! I love the new addi lace needles. All I can say is, What took them so long?? How did we ever live without these??

The sharp tip makes all the typical lace knitting maneuvers soooo much easier. I would even contemplate these for other knitting projects.

This shawl is a commission, but I know that I will have to make myself one, too, one of these days....

told you!

One door closes, another opens. Well, one door opened today, it was the mail man dropping two packages on my front porch.

I got an official rejection letter from Eunny Jang, the new editor of Interweave Press.
Please understand I am not being sarcastic. In fact, I would like everyone to know that in all my dealings with Interweave Press, everyone has always been very courteous and professional. When I had my shop, they were a great press to deal with. Great books and magazines, along with great service.

The rejection package I received today contained my two submissions, all materials I had sent to them, and a very nice letter encouraging me to try again in the future.

At the same time, I received a package of complimentary yarn from Lorna's Laces, for a submission for a book by Donna Druchunas. Now I get to wind some Swirl yarn, and start swatching...

What are you all working on?

a rose is a rose is a rose

I am doing some un-bloggable knitting these days. Meaning, certain submission guidelines do not permit me to talk about what I am doing. Once I have been rejected, I'll be able to write about it. :)

Photography to the rescue! The roses are blooming in my yard, and here's a glimpse of some of them.

there's a lesson here

Ok I just have to tell you real quick what happened last night. Friend and I went to Saratoga Springs to see a bunch of poets. There's a sign-up sheet at the door, for the open mic portion, and somewhere in the middle of the line-up you get to hear a whole half hour of the featured poet. Caffe Lena is a legendary spot, it has great vibes, and Carol Graser is a great host/poet of the event.

I didn't bring any knitting because I thought I'd be good and I thought Yes I can sit there and actually Not Knit for 2 hours. It's poetry, I might take some notes along the way, and I didn't want to make the poets think I wasn't listening. Besides whoever heard of anybody knitting at a poetry event?

There were about 23 poets in all, quite the list, and as varied as the day is long. I had no trouble whatsoever listening, without my knitting in hand.

The featured reader appeared somewhere in the middle, and I shall not mention her name lest there be any repercussions, after all she is published several times in real volumes with ISBNs on them and all that. She has won awards (though I don't know which, they didn't say). Excitement and expectation grew.

I didn't bring any knitting, and I was OK with it.

The first poem skillfully talked about a certain type of pasta and stood for entangled lovers. No I am not doing this justice here at all because it really was a good poem. The whole thing was read in a type of sing song which matched the cadence of the poem beautifully, it sounded like an Italian folk ballad and was quite charming.

I was OK without my knitting.

The next poem --- oh I forget the title; it doesn't matter. ALL the poems were good. Very well crafted. I was going to lead up to it slowly for you to appreciate the small sense of torture, but I just have to come right out and tell you that ALL the poems were recited in the Italian folk ballad style. Really quite maddening, because none of them were Italian folk ballads.

And I didn't bring my knitting.

I was a bit chilly and draped my jacket around the front of me, which allowed me to wring my hands unbeknownst to others. I couldn't stop thinking about the sock I wasn't knitting at that moment. The drapes which darkend the windows where mauve colored in alternating shiny/matte stripes, and they made me think of knitting patterns. The bit of brick wall off to the side reminded me of knitting patterns. The sing song continued, there was almost no way to listen past it. Metaphors got lost in it, the ear just couldn't get to them.

Some people had to suddenly get up and use the bathroom, Friend across the table gave in to yawning fits. I picked away at imaginary hang nails under my jacket.

She did eventually finish, and I even considered buying that volume of poems, just to be able to read the work over and really see the words. But I know that that voice would come through every time I looked at those poems....which is really too bad. Poet Falls Victim To Own Voice.

And I SWEAR I will never travel without sock knitting in my purse ever again.

look/see/hear

What a week it was.

One week ago, Yarn Harlot. You know all about that.

While I am showing you some pictures I took in Northampton, I have to tell you what else I was able to do last week.



Thursday, Tall Son and I went to see Itzhak Perlman play at the Albany Symphony. We had gotten the tickets the day after Christmas; son's birthday was in April. This was his present. He plays the violin. The concert blew him away. There's very little that can blow a 17 year old away, but this did the trick. Mind you I enjoyed the concert tremendously. Dear husband had gotten us excellent seats. But what I enjoyed equally as much was the fact that that teenager sat motionless the whole time and could barely speak when it was all over.

Friday night, dear husband and I went to an art opening. We don't get to go to these things very much, but this time I really needed to go -- a good knitterly friend was branching out in a most amazing way. I want to encourage all you locals to come and see what is going on here.

Sunday was the last concert of the Empire State Youth Orchestra's 2006/07 season. Tall Son is a member. They played at the Fisher Center at Bard College and it was a most enjoyable event. What am I even saying. Those kids blew me away!

Tonight I am going to a poetry open mic in Saratoga Springs with a friend. It's the one hosted by Carol Graser, and yes I will be reading a couple of my own poems.

Now I want you all to know that this is NOT what my life usually looks like. For example, I just took a loaf of banana bread out of the oven. I am sure there's a bathroom that needs cleaning. I did get ahead of the laundry yesterday. I go to work, and see my psychotherapist like everyone else.

I am currently struggling with a new design where the yarn has a mind of its own so much that I had to walk away and make the above mentioned banana bread....

But. What I am trying to say is go out there every once in a while and go see someone's art, hear their music, listen to their poems. With all the loud, senseless noise everywhere it's so good to hear music well played, to see art that stays with you for days, and listen to some wordcraft.

Now back to that yarn that has a mind of its own...

friends

Don't be shocked, but that's me in that picture, on the right in the turquoise T-shirt. It was blazin' hot and I don't know how Diane was wearing a Morehouse Merino scarf and still look so cool.

Next up is Margo Lynn, someone I met through the cyber family. We met in person once before, at Rhinebeck, and this time we said, "Maybe we'll run into each other in Northampton, we'll see how thick the crowd is." She sat exactly 2 seats away from me.
Margo Lynn is a most prolific Knitter for Others. I don't think there's a single charity she hasn't knitted for!

This snapshot is of a lovely young woman, Jessica, who I met the day of the talk. She is handing out buttons for her website ravelry.com which will go live soon. It's one of the greatest ideas ever. You have to trust me on this one.

The guy in the picture is Diane's husband who just started to knit!

And this is Allison, who decided to be especially charming that night at Webs. She's a killer sock yarn dyer (with friend Melanie!). They own dyenamicsyarn.com

Below are Laurie and Kay, owners of Sliver Moon Farm, both killer yarn dyers. I mentioned them in my previous post about Cummington/MA s&w). Laurie handspindles wherever she goes. Kay is always doing 10 things at once, ya can't keep up with her.

The hats below are for people I will never meet, but I hope they bring some comfort eventually. I donated 12 hats that night at WEBS. I took these sketchy pictures in the store. I didn't want to make a spectacle of myself by climbing on a chair to get a birdseye view, so here they are.

Last but not least I want to draw your attention to the new list of links--I edited a few big names outta there....I figured us little guys could use a hand in getting a little more famouser and noticed than some of the big names who get a bazillion hits a day anyway. You know, the ones whose webpage comes up when you even look at your computer screen.

So there they are, a couple of new ones, and if I left somebody out, let me know.

Diane, as soon as I find the card you gave me, I'll add you! Promise.

Happy Browsing!