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I think the likelihood that my boss comes to my blog is slim to nil, she's the director of a department in a world renowned company, I'm sure she has more important things to do, but better safe than sorry.
See her rather belated Christmas present after the bump
Continue reading "If you happen to be my boss, please go away" »
Here's a preview of the camisole (ok, it's more of a tank, but I think camisole sounds better) that I plan to pair with the cardigan.
There will be no ruffles here, just stockinette and crochet. I think the horizontal lines will play nicely against the sweeping hem of the cardigan and the clean look of the crochet will tone down the effect of the ruffle a bit. The nice thing is that this piece is comfortable and wearable enough to be layered with other pieces. The straps are wide enough to hide a bra strap and the fabric has stretch so it hugs the body without being too constricting.
Here's a detail shot of the neckline. It could do with a bit of blocking. It's just three rows of single crochet, the last row I decrease every 9th and 10th stitch, so that it will sit flat.
Obviously, I still have one arm and the hem left to do, but it’s been a very quick piece to pull together overall.
I'm almost always a guest, never a host. Our home is small and lacking in furniture and it's not just anyone I'd subject to a single small (very small) bathroom shared between three adults. But when Julia said she'd be in town for work, I vacuumed up the dog hair and gave the tub an extra scrub. We had us a guest in town!
Recently, Julia has decided to learn crochet in earnest and her enthusiasm is infectious. On a recommendation we found our way to a huge Japanese market replete with...wait for it...a Japanese BOOK STORE. Great googily moogily! Their selection of crochet books was small but packed full of goodness.
There may have also been some shopping at a couple LYSs and the opportunity to meet a really great blogger and designer. Have yarn, will craft, and there was no dearth of that. In the 3 days that Julia and I spent together, not a single solitary picture was taken until the third and final day. Luckily for you, it was the most photogenic day of the lot.
Early that day, we packed the car up for a trip to Horsetail falls. If you read my non-crafty posts, you may remember our last visit, not too long ago.
The day was perfect for hiking. It was a little cool, but not so much as to require substantial outerwear. The sun was out but shaded by some light and poofy clouds. Didn't we agree they were Stradivarius clouds or were they igneous, Julia?
Leo was doggy wrangler for the day. It's no small feat to keep two dogs from intertwining on leash especially when one of them is just a pup. They were each other's yin and yang. Panda would duck every time someone would try to pet her. She wanted nothing more than solitude from everyone she didn't know. Thea, on the other hand, wanted to jump all over every person and dog we passed (and there were many people celebrating Mother's day by hiking on these beautiful trails). Between these two extremes was our handsome hero, dragging one girl ahead and holding another back. Me thinks we have some more training to do.
On the drive home, I crocheted from my new Japanese crochet book. This little wonder is chock full of sweet motifs. While the book is all in Japanese, everything is charted which makes them delightful to use. The yarn? My lovely peachy Merino/viscose handspun, from Chameleon Colorworks. The viscose gives a subtle sheen and the brilliant dyeing gives depth to the simple colorway. When you see the yarn, it's clear the spinning is average, at best, but the fiber was so beautiful to start with that I can't help but be proud of the final product.
Blocked, the finished pieces look like snowflakes.
What am I going to do with them? Perhaps a doggy babushka.
Perhaps not.
I have more — what's the word — sane ideas. I don't have enough yardage to do a whole garment in this yarn (unless I want to go particularly scantily clad) but it could be paired with another handspun or store bought yarn in some creative way. All that is still in deliberation.
After our long hike and short ride home, I took a marathon nap and then arose with ample time to join Julia at Lake Park for a photo shoot. I'll leave those pictures for her to post. Instead, check out the fresh batch of ducky goodness from the same outing.
They can give me avian flu, any old day. I just want to scoop them up and snuggle them.
And now, Julia is back at home with all her fur balls. And all that's left is the now deflated air mattress where she was set up. Thea payed homage to Miss Tuna in Julia's absence. I think that's Thea's way of saying she was glad to meet her.
It was a great weekend and I hope there will be more like it soon. And someday, we'll own a house with more than one bathroom and a proper spare bedroom. I'm dreamin' big, baby.
Well, Lily is on temporary time out. I don't like the look of the raglan decreases. They just come in too far and it looks off. I need to rip back to the base of the armsceye and reconfigure for either a much less angled raglan or a set in sleeve....what to do, what to do.
In the mean time, the motifs have become a mindless delight.
Six lovely motifs, half of which were completed in the last 24 hours.
No dogs were embarrassed in the course of photographing these pictures.
Thea is making herself quite at home. She sat by our feet last night and made cuteness at us.
Wouldn't you pet that little head?
I've been posting a lot of dog photos lately, mostly because I can't post much else, but look. I have crafting!
Remember those motifs I crocheted? I have been playing around with how to use them. I knew I didn't have enough of the motif yarn to make a whole garment, but I realized that the September Glow Cotswold and Silk yarn I spun, would look nice with the muted peach color of the motifs.
I think I want to make this into a skirt. I have quite a bit more of the Cotswold, that I can spin. I've played around with knitting and crocheting the skirt portion. Right now, the motifs are joined in such a way that they make a natural chevron, which is great for this subtly variegated yarn. I tried crocheting the skirt, but I wanted it to be a little softer and drapier, so I switched to knit instead.
It's actually really hard for me to post a this point, because I'm not totally sure I love it and I might very well rip the whole darn thing out if I'm not satisfied with the results, still, so far, it looks good enough that I feel I can share.
And aren't I doing well, not a doggy in sight.
Urm, well, yes, Thea did sneak her paw into that shot. You can see her little goth pinkie nail. But we aren't looking at puppies in this post, we're looking at handspun yarn working up into a skirt.
*Sigh* I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. I mean, come on, that's funny, people. Even if you hate dogs. Plus, I think the color really brings out the pathetic expression plastered on Panda's face. Don't you agree?
I'm guessing it's the latter.
Over and over again, I obviously need to be reminded that Thea is not Panda and probably won't ever be. In my nearly 6 years with Panda, I can think of only a couple of items she has destroyed before she learned that she could only have things that had been explicitly given to her, everything else was off limits. Brilliant, I know. We were spoiled.
Thea, she is loving and sweet and cute in so very many ways. But there are times.
That was 3 weeks ago. Except for an odd incident when I found her giving a hex wrench a taste, she's been as close to angelic as she's capable of being. Then, on Monday, Leo and I came home from dinner to this...
Brace yourself.
The Inox needle and clover stitch markers are destroyed. She seemed to mainly be interested in those and not the skirt itself. There are only one or two breaks in the yarn and areas where she has pulled out short sections of rows, repeatedly, down several inches, but not across the whole round. It salvageable but it'll be some time before I'm back to where I was.
I think the hardest thing is that my momentum for this piece has been (hopefully temporarily) quashed. A few hundred stitches, worked in stockinette chevron does not for exciting knitting make.
But just when I think I might actually be able to hold a grudge, she goes and makes cute at me again.
The yarn was broken in two places and all the knitting had to be ripped, but the skirt has been revived and I've even knit a few rows.
And lest you all think I hold any sort of grudge towards Thea, fear not. I could never be mad at her for my own poor planning. I do, however, love to give you all a good laugh, and I suspect that you all find Panda's guilty conscience even more humorous than Thea's mischievousness. If we could harvest just their best traits, we'd have one perfectly balanced pup and enough left over parts for one entirely neurotic dog.
Leo and I have put this labor day weekend to good use, if I do say so myself. Since we are renting a house, it's always a struggle to decide how much time and money we should invest in beautification of our humble abode. It's a great little place, but after years of being rented, there's a lot that has gone neglected. This is not the loving little first home, it was originally built to be, but a way point in the lives of folks like Leo and me. Still, never one to shy away from a little hard work, Leo has decided we should get things tidied up, so on Saturday and Monday, we shoveled, we weeded, we hauled masses of toppled brick and we planted a little flower garden that we hope we'll stick around long enough to see bloom once, and only once, before buying our own home. But Sunday, we put aside our shovels and spades and seeds and bulbs and packed up our car for a trip to Manzanita Beach.
On the way, we listened to Harry Potter and I got in a little knitting.
We were expecting some serious crowds at the beach, and places like Cannon Beach and Hug Point, were, indeed, crowded, but Manzanita proved to be an ideal spot. While there were many people, we never felt crowded or cramped.
The girls had a wonderful time and Thea is really starting to come into her own. Slowly, Thea is building her recall and we are able to keep her off leash for longer without incident. She's still so filled with social excitement that I wouldn't trust her implicitly, the way I do Panda, but she's proving to be a wonderful little girl.
After a quick stop over at Blue Heron to pick up some provisions, we went back to Manzanita and set up camp. We are currently conducting reconnaissance in preparation for a bigger excursion with our friends; Erica and Larry and Jackie and her pup Tulip.
See more pictures over at Flickr.
You know how I said that spinning puts Thea to sleep? Well, that seemed as good an excuse as any to spend some quality time with El Matchador.
At first, I thought I'd just spin up enough of my Cotswold to have a skein ready when I run out on my skirt.
But once I plied the yarn and skeined it, I had, what appeared to be, a relatively small amount of fiber remaining, so I figured, what the heck, I'll spin up the rest.
The result is a skein that is 297 yards long and a second skein that is 217 yards long. Added to the 225 yards I already have, I have a total of [insert calculator here] 739 yards. That should be plenty to finish the piece.
Thea helped me with the photoshoot. It's nice that we can have both an out of focus AND poorly lit image. She's really an artiste.
I'm not going to do another whole round up of the yarn, since I've already done one here and it's the same, only different, or whatever. I will say that I continue to really enjoy spinning this yarn. It is well prepared, with only a little bit of vegetable matter and the colors are gorgeous.
In my next post, I start doing the spinning equivalent to making a gauge swatch. Good girl, Marnie, here's a cookie.
Quick question, would anyone out there be interested in some very basic tips for using Photoshop to adjust color and exposure in an image? I'm no expert and I sort of wonder if anyone who can afford Photoshop, already knows it well enough, not to need any help, but if folks are interested, I'd be happy to do a tutorial. Just leave a comment with your thoughts.
It seemed about time to move the skirt to some waste yarn and see how it's coming along. I have mixed feelings
Things I don't like:
I'll probably finish the piece, just to see how it comes out, but I'm starting to think there may have been a better project for these yarns.
On the plus side, I should have 300 or more yards of the main yarn leftover when I'm done. What will I do with it? I dunno. I'll have it nonetheless.
I've been spinning bits of the Corriedale, here and there. It's been quite relaxing and mindless.
I'm annoyed, though, with my Woolee Winder. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it really upsets my sense of balance that it doesn't load the yarn evenly. Some of it appears to be that the whorls from Schacht aren't perfectly machined. There's an ever so slight gap, but I'm realizing that it's not enough to account for the severity of the imbalance.
Has anyone else who has a Woolee Winder seen this and if so, is there a way to fix it?
Oh and Thea had her stitches taken out and has been taking full advantage of the ensuing belly rubs.
A little while back, I posted this picture and lamented that my WooLee Winder wasn't filling evenly.
It's going to take some fine tuning, but I'm definitely seeing improvement.
The skirt is progressing. After taking this photo, I threw in a lifeline and am now deciding how I want to work the chevrons into flat stitches. The key is not only making smooth transition from the zigzag to flat, but also adjusting the gauge which changes from 8 stitches per inch in chevron to 6 stitches per inch flat.
And look, my garden gave me another bloom. I am pleased.
I don't know how obvious it is to you, but I think we have two different varieties of Cosmos here. The smaller flower actually has slightly different shaped petals than the bigger one. I may be totally wrong but since we dumped several different mixes of seeds here, I think it's possible.
And finally, I'll be posting an interview with Donna Druchanus at the end of the month. I'm day 23 of her blog tour. I'm about halfway through the book now and gathering my questions.
I've worked with Donna before and am really looking forward to the interview. Expect lots of questions about the book and her travels and maybe some little tangents into her other interests. I just hope that I'm able to come up with questions she hasn't already answered a million times.
Boy do I love life lines. I've used this one a couple times, but by Jove, I think I've got it. Some of the mishaps may have been caused by watching an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Man, that show is funny, and distracting.
Here's a closeup of the lifeline, subsequent filler stitches and Thea's paw.
Here's a view of the whole skirt so far. There's only one spot in the house that gets much natural light and it's where Thea and Panda's bed resides. They seem to find it curious that the spot also becomes my photo studio, some days.
Tomorrow, I fly down to the greater San Fransisco area for a quick meet up with the owner of Stitch Diva Studios. We're finishing up another project together. That's all I can tell you for now, but I hope there'll be a sneak preview up in the near future.
It was rainy most of this morning so I thought I'd only have crappy indoor shots to show you.
Or pictures of the piece being blocked
A closeup of the waistband facing might be interesting
But we got a bit of sun and I was able to take some better shots.
With a little help from my friends
I am so pleased to present my newest pattern, Giselle, which will be available exclusively through Stitch Diva Studios.
The pattern is currently in the tech editing stage, in Donna Druchunas' capable hands. After that, it goes to layout and then the pattern will be available for order.
Jennifer asked me to model the garment so I met with her, near her home and we shot over two days. I have the first day's shoot up at my Flickr account. I'll have the second day's shoot, shortly in the same location. Check out a couple of the outtakes at the end of the set.
The garment is modeled in three variations; an all knit version (orange), a knit and crochet version (red and silver-mo betta pictures to come) and a cropped version in knit and crochet (to come, in brown and teal.) However, the knitter can work any of the styles in a single color or in two colors and may work knit or crochet trim in any combination.
This design is based on a piece I've called, The Wedding Cardi, which I knit for myself back in 2005, for a friend's wedding.
The move into the new house took 4 days of solid, dirty, heavy, achy, seemingly endless work, but, compared to years where the weather has been in the triple digits and we've had flights of stairs to scale, this move was relatively easy. I'm not saying I want to have to lug a washer and dryer again, but it could definitely have been worse.
And really, when you are moving into your first home, everything is rosy colored and splendid.
I've taken this week off and am making slow progress getting things up from the garage and into their respective rooms, and when Leo gets home, he gets decidedly handy. There has been sawing and drilling and some hammering as needed.
Now that we are officially house-poor, it seemed only appropriate to make a big hearty batch of beef-lentil stew to keep our energy up and our food costs in order.
And when we aren't eating, we're taking in the lovely views from our various decks.
But my favorite view, today, is my new craft room. What a luxury!
1. Enter the room, 2. The big stuff, 3. Yarn closet, 4. Shelves, 5. Closeup of pictures, 6. Buckets and books, 7. Dogs for scale, 8. Crochet corset
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
Ok, that last picture isn't in my craft room, but it is a closeup of a piece I just finished crocheting.
Click on any of the text links to embiggen the little thumbnails.
To all of you who sent me congrats, thank you so much. Life is a little crazy right now, but I read and love each and every comment. Please don't take it personally if I haven't had a chance to reply.
Yesterday was one of those days; those days that ensure I won't be a dog horder in the near future. Rainy weather and long working hours have left me making excuses not to walk Darwin as much as I should. When you have a young herding dog and you decide to skimp on walks and training you might as well batten down the hatches and prepare for the storm because you are about to see what 25 lbs of super smart and endlessly energetic has in store for you.
Being cute is a survival mechanism
It was a rough day but today is already better, we've left our minor setbacks behind us and braved the downpours for a a nice long and positive walk. A little perspective (and a good nap) is usually all I need to get past a particularly bad day. I mean really, look at this lot.
Cute, non? Cute, oui!
In the same way, our other stresses in life can seem overwhelming. With one of us out of work for nearly a year now and the economy showing few signs of life, it's easy to get caught up in the uncertainty and doubt and fear. We could let the setbacks and rejections cripple us but we try to keep perspective. We have our bad days and sleepless nights but we try to remember that we have so much even if it feels like we are teetering on the edge. When I heard a friend and her son had lost their partner and father, respectively, my heart just broke. It's one of those moments where the only thing I can think to do is hug everyone in the house and tell them how important they are to me. The dogs mostly just wag and hope for a cookie. That's good enough for me.
I know that nothing can ever bring back this wonderful man my friend and her son lost and no small gesture can change that pain left behind, but perhaps it was as therapeutic for me as anything, to make them each a small gift with empathy for their terrible situation. I guess, on some level, I feel like the time I spent on each was time I was reminded to value the people I do have in my life; forget my petty concerns and endeavor to be as honest and caring as I can while time still allows me to do so.
Handspun Grafton Batt crocheted side to side. Trimmed in knitted handspun optim
And maybe, if you'll indulge me a bit longer, you can find someone you love, human, dog, cat or other, and let them know you love them for no reason at all except that you do, even if they drive you up the walls sometimes or always leave a mess. Chances are, they overlook a few of your shortcomings as well and love you equally.
Monster crocheted with DK weigh merino, with knit socks and scarf worked in sock yarn
I think the likelihood that my boss comes to my blog is slim to nil, she's the director of a department in a world renowned company, I'm sure she has more important things to do, but better safe than sorry.
See her rather belated Christmas present after the bump
Continue reading "If you happen to be my boss, please go away" »
Here's a preview of the camisole (ok, it's more of a tank, but I think camisole sounds better) that I plan to pair with the cardigan.
There will be no ruffles here, just stockinette and crochet. I think the horizontal lines will play nicely against the sweeping hem of the cardigan and the clean look of the crochet will tone down the effect of the ruffle a bit. The nice thing is that this piece is comfortable and wearable enough to be layered with other pieces. The straps are wide enough to hide a bra strap and the fabric has stretch so it hugs the body without being too constricting.
Here's a detail shot of the neckline. It could do with a bit of blocking. It's just three rows of single crochet, the last row I decrease every 9th and 10th stitch, so that it will sit flat.
Obviously, I still have one arm and the hem left to do, but it’s been a very quick piece to pull together overall.
Well, Lily is on temporary time out. I don't like the look of the raglan decreases. They just come in too far and it looks off. I need to rip back to the base of the armsceye and reconfigure for either a much less angled raglan or a set in sleeve....what to do, what to do.
In the mean time, the motifs have become a mindless delight.
Six lovely motifs, half of which were completed in the last 24 hours.
No dogs were embarrassed in the course of photographing these pictures.
Thea is making herself quite at home. She sat by our feet last night and made cuteness at us.
Wouldn't you pet that little head?
I'm almost always a guest, never a host. Our home is small and lacking in furniture and it's not just anyone I'd subject to a single small (very small) bathroom shared between three adults. But when Julia said she'd be in town for work, I vacuumed up the dog hair and gave the tub an extra scrub. We had us a guest in town!
Recently, Julia has decided to learn crochet in earnest and her enthusiasm is infectious. On a recommendation we found our way to a huge Japanese market replete with...wait for it...a Japanese BOOK STORE. Great googily moogily! Their selection of crochet books was small but packed full of goodness.
There may have also been some shopping at a couple LYSs and the opportunity to meet a really great blogger and designer. Have yarn, will craft, and there was no dearth of that. In the 3 days that Julia and I spent together, not a single solitary picture was taken until the third and final day. Luckily for you, it was the most photogenic day of the lot.
Early that day, we packed the car up for a trip to Horsetail falls. If you read my non-crafty posts, you may remember our last visit, not too long ago.
The day was perfect for hiking. It was a little cool, but not so much as to require substantial outerwear. The sun was out but shaded by some light and poofy clouds. Didn't we agree they were Stradivarius clouds or were they igneous, Julia?
Leo was doggy wrangler for the day. It's no small feat to keep two dogs from intertwining on leash especially when one of them is just a pup. They were each other's yin and yang. Panda would duck every time someone would try to pet her. She wanted nothing more than solitude from everyone she didn't know. Thea, on the other hand, wanted to jump all over every person and dog we passed (and there were many people celebrating Mother's day by hiking on these beautiful trails). Between these two extremes was our handsome hero, dragging one girl ahead and holding another back. Me thinks we have some more training to do.
On the drive home, I crocheted from my new Japanese crochet book. This little wonder is chock full of sweet motifs. While the book is all in Japanese, everything is charted which makes them delightful to use. The yarn? My lovely peachy Merino/viscose handspun, from Chameleon Colorworks. The viscose gives a subtle sheen and the brilliant dyeing gives depth to the simple colorway. When you see the yarn, it's clear the spinning is average, at best, but the fiber was so beautiful to start with that I can't help but be proud of the final product.
Blocked, the finished pieces look like snowflakes.
What am I going to do with them? Perhaps a doggy babushka.
Perhaps not.
I have more — what's the word — sane ideas. I don't have enough yardage to do a whole garment in this yarn (unless I want to go particularly scantily clad) but it could be paired with another handspun or store bought yarn in some creative way. All that is still in deliberation.
After our long hike and short ride home, I took a marathon nap and then arose with ample time to join Julia at Lake Park for a photo shoot. I'll leave those pictures for her to post. Instead, check out the fresh batch of ducky goodness from the same outing.
They can give me avian flu, any old day. I just want to scoop them up and snuggle them.
And now, Julia is back at home with all her fur balls. And all that's left is the now deflated air mattress where she was set up. Thea payed homage to Miss Tuna in Julia's absence. I think that's Thea's way of saying she was glad to meet her.
It was a great weekend and I hope there will be more like it soon. And someday, we'll own a house with more than one bathroom and a proper spare bedroom. I'm dreamin' big, baby.
I'm guessing it's the latter.
Over and over again, I obviously need to be reminded that Thea is not Panda and probably won't ever be. In my nearly 6 years with Panda, I can think of only a couple of items she has destroyed before she learned that she could only have things that had been explicitly given to her, everything else was off limits. Brilliant, I know. We were spoiled.
Thea, she is loving and sweet and cute in so very many ways. But there are times.
That was 3 weeks ago. Except for an odd incident when I found her giving a hex wrench a taste, she's been as close to angelic as she's capable of being. Then, on Monday, Leo and I came home from dinner to this...
Brace yourself.
The Inox needle and clover stitch markers are destroyed. She seemed to mainly be interested in those and not the skirt itself. There are only one or two breaks in the yarn and areas where she has pulled out short sections of rows, repeatedly, down several inches, but not across the whole round. It salvageable but it'll be some time before I'm back to where I was.
I think the hardest thing is that my momentum for this piece has been (hopefully temporarily) quashed. A few hundred stitches, worked in stockinette chevron does not for exciting knitting make.
But just when I think I might actually be able to hold a grudge, she goes and makes cute at me again.
I've been posting a lot of dog photos lately, mostly because I can't post much else, but look. I have crafting!
Remember those motifs I crocheted? I have been playing around with how to use them. I knew I didn't have enough of the motif yarn to make a whole garment, but I realized that the September Glow Cotswold and Silk yarn I spun, would look nice with the muted peach color of the motifs.
I think I want to make this into a skirt. I have quite a bit more of the Cotswold, that I can spin. I've played around with knitting and crocheting the skirt portion. Right now, the motifs are joined in such a way that they make a natural chevron, which is great for this subtly variegated yarn. I tried crocheting the skirt, but I wanted it to be a little softer and drapier, so I switched to knit instead.
It's actually really hard for me to post a this point, because I'm not totally sure I love it and I might very well rip the whole darn thing out if I'm not satisfied with the results, still, so far, it looks good enough that I feel I can share.
And aren't I doing well, not a doggy in sight.
Urm, well, yes, Thea did sneak her paw into that shot. You can see her little goth pinkie nail. But we aren't looking at puppies in this post, we're looking at handspun yarn working up into a skirt.
*Sigh* I'm sorry. I couldn't help myself. I mean, come on, that's funny, people. Even if you hate dogs. Plus, I think the color really brings out the pathetic expression plastered on Panda's face. Don't you agree?
The yarn was broken in two places and all the knitting had to be ripped, but the skirt has been revived and I've even knit a few rows.
And lest you all think I hold any sort of grudge towards Thea, fear not. I could never be mad at her for my own poor planning. I do, however, love to give you all a good laugh, and I suspect that you all find Panda's guilty conscience even more humorous than Thea's mischievousness. If we could harvest just their best traits, we'd have one perfectly balanced pup and enough left over parts for one entirely neurotic dog.
Leo and I have put this labor day weekend to good use, if I do say so myself. Since we are renting a house, it's always a struggle to decide how much time and money we should invest in beautification of our humble abode. It's a great little place, but after years of being rented, there's a lot that has gone neglected. This is not the loving little first home, it was originally built to be, but a way point in the lives of folks like Leo and me. Still, never one to shy away from a little hard work, Leo has decided we should get things tidied up, so on Saturday and Monday, we shoveled, we weeded, we hauled masses of toppled brick and we planted a little flower garden that we hope we'll stick around long enough to see bloom once, and only once, before buying our own home. But Sunday, we put aside our shovels and spades and seeds and bulbs and packed up our car for a trip to Manzanita Beach.
On the way, we listened to Harry Potter and I got in a little knitting.
We were expecting some serious crowds at the beach, and places like Cannon Beach and Hug Point, were, indeed, crowded, but Manzanita proved to be an ideal spot. While there were many people, we never felt crowded or cramped.
The girls had a wonderful time and Thea is really starting to come into her own. Slowly, Thea is building her recall and we are able to keep her off leash for longer without incident. She's still so filled with social excitement that I wouldn't trust her implicitly, the way I do Panda, but she's proving to be a wonderful little girl.
After a quick stop over at Blue Heron to pick up some provisions, we went back to Manzanita and set up camp. We are currently conducting reconnaissance in preparation for a bigger excursion with our friends; Erica and Larry and Jackie and her pup Tulip.
See more pictures over at Flickr.
You know how I said that spinning puts Thea to sleep? Well, that seemed as good an excuse as any to spend some quality time with El Matchador.
At first, I thought I'd just spin up enough of my Cotswold to have a skein ready when I run out on my skirt.
But once I plied the yarn and skeined it, I had, what appeared to be, a relatively small amount of fiber remaining, so I figured, what the heck, I'll spin up the rest.
The result is a skein that is 297 yards long and a second skein that is 217 yards long. Added to the 225 yards I already have, I have a total of [insert calculator here] 739 yards. That should be plenty to finish the piece.
Thea helped me with the photoshoot. It's nice that we can have both an out of focus AND poorly lit image. She's really an artiste.
I'm not going to do another whole round up of the yarn, since I've already done one here and it's the same, only different, or whatever. I will say that I continue to really enjoy spinning this yarn. It is well prepared, with only a little bit of vegetable matter and the colors are gorgeous.
In my next post, I start doing the spinning equivalent to making a gauge swatch. Good girl, Marnie, here's a cookie.
Quick question, would anyone out there be interested in some very basic tips for using Photoshop to adjust color and exposure in an image? I'm no expert and I sort of wonder if anyone who can afford Photoshop, already knows it well enough, not to need any help, but if folks are interested, I'd be happy to do a tutorial. Just leave a comment with your thoughts.
It seemed about time to move the skirt to some waste yarn and see how it's coming along. I have mixed feelings
Things I don't like:
I'll probably finish the piece, just to see how it comes out, but I'm starting to think there may have been a better project for these yarns.
On the plus side, I should have 300 or more yards of the main yarn leftover when I'm done. What will I do with it? I dunno. I'll have it nonetheless.
I've been spinning bits of the Corriedale, here and there. It's been quite relaxing and mindless.
I'm annoyed, though, with my Woolee Winder. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it really upsets my sense of balance that it doesn't load the yarn evenly. Some of it appears to be that the whorls from Schacht aren't perfectly machined. There's an ever so slight gap, but I'm realizing that it's not enough to account for the severity of the imbalance.
Has anyone else who has a Woolee Winder seen this and if so, is there a way to fix it?
Oh and Thea had her stitches taken out and has been taking full advantage of the ensuing belly rubs.
Boy do I love life lines. I've used this one a couple times, but by Jove, I think I've got it. Some of the mishaps may have been caused by watching an episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Man, that show is funny, and distracting.
Here's a closeup of the lifeline, subsequent filler stitches and Thea's paw.
Here's a view of the whole skirt so far. There's only one spot in the house that gets much natural light and it's where Thea and Panda's bed resides. They seem to find it curious that the spot also becomes my photo studio, some days.
Tomorrow, I fly down to the greater San Fransisco area for a quick meet up with the owner of Stitch Diva Studios. We're finishing up another project together. That's all I can tell you for now, but I hope there'll be a sneak preview up in the near future.
A little while back, I posted this picture and lamented that my WooLee Winder wasn't filling evenly.
It's going to take some fine tuning, but I'm definitely seeing improvement.
The skirt is progressing. After taking this photo, I threw in a lifeline and am now deciding how I want to work the chevrons into flat stitches. The key is not only making smooth transition from the zigzag to flat, but also adjusting the gauge which changes from 8 stitches per inch in chevron to 6 stitches per inch flat.
And look, my garden gave me another bloom. I am pleased.
I don't know how obvious it is to you, but I think we have two different varieties of Cosmos here. The smaller flower actually has slightly different shaped petals than the bigger one. I may be totally wrong but since we dumped several different mixes of seeds here, I think it's possible.
And finally, I'll be posting an interview with Donna Druchanus at the end of the month. I'm day 23 of her blog tour. I'm about halfway through the book now and gathering my questions.
I've worked with Donna before and am really looking forward to the interview. Expect lots of questions about the book and her travels and maybe some little tangents into her other interests. I just hope that I'm able to come up with questions she hasn't already answered a million times.
It was rainy most of this morning so I thought I'd only have crappy indoor shots to show you.
Or pictures of the piece being blocked
A closeup of the waistband facing might be interesting
But we got a bit of sun and I was able to take some better shots.
With a little help from my friends
I am so pleased to present my newest pattern, Giselle, which will be available exclusively through Stitch Diva Studios.
The pattern is currently in the tech editing stage, in Donna Druchunas' capable hands. After that, it goes to layout and then the pattern will be available for order.
Jennifer asked me to model the garment so I met with her, near her home and we shot over two days. I have the first day's shoot up at my Flickr account. I'll have the second day's shoot, shortly in the same location. Check out a couple of the outtakes at the end of the set.
The garment is modeled in three variations; an all knit version (orange), a knit and crochet version (red and silver-mo betta pictures to come) and a cropped version in knit and crochet (to come, in brown and teal.) However, the knitter can work any of the styles in a single color or in two colors and may work knit or crochet trim in any combination.
This design is based on a piece I've called, The Wedding Cardi, which I knit for myself back in 2005, for a friend's wedding.
The move into the new house took 4 days of solid, dirty, heavy, achy, seemingly endless work, but, compared to years where the weather has been in the triple digits and we've had flights of stairs to scale, this move was relatively easy. I'm not saying I want to have to lug a washer and dryer again, but it could definitely have been worse.
And really, when you are moving into your first home, everything is rosy colored and splendid.
I've taken this week off and am making slow progress getting things up from the garage and into their respective rooms, and when Leo gets home, he gets decidedly handy. There has been sawing and drilling and some hammering as needed.
Now that we are officially house-poor, it seemed only appropriate to make a big hearty batch of beef-lentil stew to keep our energy up and our food costs in order.
And when we aren't eating, we're taking in the lovely views from our various decks.
But my favorite view, today, is my new craft room. What a luxury!
1. Enter the room, 2. The big stuff, 3. Yarn closet, 4. Shelves, 5. Closeup of pictures, 6. Buckets and books, 7. Dogs for scale, 8. Crochet corset
Created with fd's Flickr Toys
Ok, that last picture isn't in my craft room, but it is a closeup of a piece I just finished crocheting.
Click on any of the text links to embiggen the little thumbnails.
To all of you who sent me congrats, thank you so much. Life is a little crazy right now, but I read and love each and every comment. Please don't take it personally if I haven't had a chance to reply.
Yesterday was one of those days; those days that ensure I won't be a dog horder in the near future. Rainy weather and long working hours have left me making excuses not to walk Darwin as much as I should. When you have a young herding dog and you decide to skimp on walks and training you might as well batten down the hatches and prepare for the storm because you are about to see what 25 lbs of super smart and endlessly energetic has in store for you.
Being cute is a survival mechanism
It was a rough day but today is already better, we've left our minor setbacks behind us and braved the downpours for a a nice long and positive walk. A little perspective (and a good nap) is usually all I need to get past a particularly bad day. I mean really, look at this lot.
Cute, non? Cute, oui!
In the same way, our other stresses in life can seem overwhelming. With one of us out of work for nearly a year now and the economy showing few signs of life, it's easy to get caught up in the uncertainty and doubt and fear. We could let the setbacks and rejections cripple us but we try to keep perspective. We have our bad days and sleepless nights but we try to remember that we have so much even if it feels like we are teetering on the edge. When I heard a friend and her son had lost their partner and father, respectively, my heart just broke. It's one of those moments where the only thing I can think to do is hug everyone in the house and tell them how important they are to me. The dogs mostly just wag and hope for a cookie. That's good enough for me.
I know that nothing can ever bring back this wonderful man my friend and her son lost and no small gesture can change that pain left behind, but perhaps it was as therapeutic for me as anything, to make them each a small gift with empathy for their terrible situation. I guess, on some level, I feel like the time I spent on each was time I was reminded to value the people I do have in my life; forget my petty concerns and endeavor to be as honest and caring as I can while time still allows me to do so.
Handspun Grafton Batt crocheted side to side. Trimmed in knitted handspun optim
And maybe, if you'll indulge me a bit longer, you can find someone you love, human, dog, cat or other, and let them know you love them for no reason at all except that you do, even if they drive you up the walls sometimes or always leave a mess. Chances are, they overlook a few of your shortcomings as well and love you equally.
Monster crocheted with DK weigh merino, with knit socks and scarf worked in sock yarn
Check out the racing stripe
I'm excited to announce that my first serious self published crochet pattern is available now. Aasha starts with a long chain from which the border is worked and then the main pattern is worked into the same foundation chain, up to the neck, decreasing periodically to form the half circle shape.
The pattern has both charted and written out instructions. The charts are available both as a complete stand alone chart and broken out row by row with the previous rows faded and the rows yet to come, hidden from view, so you can see exactly what needs to be worked without any clutter. I hope people will find this format easy to use and make the pattern more accessible to people who are nervous about taking on a crochet project.
To find out more about the pattern, check out my pattern page, or head on over to Ravelry.
It's worth mentioning that I fell in love with this deep lavander-gray colorway from Madeline Tosh, when I saw it, but it wasn't until I saw the name for it, Composition Book Gray, that it ended up in my shopping basked. How great is that name? This piece would work up well in almost any nearly solid color. Since the motifs are so big, I think they look best when the color contrasts against what's underneath. My fish-belly white skin was happy to oblige, there.
For those of you who are just here for the pooch content, here's a little photo bombing from the beasties. So helpful!
I am not clever enough to come up with that headline, on my own. It's on a magnet I have stuck to the side of my desk. I can't remember who gave it to me because I'm pretty much the worst, but if you want your own, you can get it here.
This year marks a decade of designing, for me, and in that time, I've created nearly one hundred patterns, and only three of them are exclusively crochet. They all predate my efforts to standardize and make my patterns professional so I'm not going to give myself much credit for those.
But here's the thing, I love crocheting, always have. Up until about a decade ago, I never really knit more than swatches. I still have a few of the afghans I made, back when I worked during the summer in my college's computer lab. I could crank out a twin size blanket in a couple weeks, with all my free time. The only limitation was how many balls of Red Heart Super Saver I could afford. This was back when you either used AOL or had some sort of unix based interface to check your email, so the computer labs were primarily for typing and printing reports. I had a lot of free time.
Anyway, this is my long and rambling way to say that I have finally gotten around to designing a crochet pattern and it's with the tech editor now, so I hope to be able to release it in the next few weeks, presuming the pattern isn't a hot mess. This photo is pretty much useless. The lighting is too harsh, and it's too busy to see anything but I kind of dig the butt shadow of the lace border and Thea's adorable monkey face, so I cropped in on that for your sneak peek.
Not sure how many of you crochet, and of those who do, I'm not sure how many of you like shawls, but if you happen to fall into both of those categories, hopefully you'll like this pattern. It was a nice change of pace to work in crochet. It has its own challenges (and boy does it eat yarn) but, then again, I've always loved crafting for the challenges. And if you don't crochet, and/or hate shawls, hopefully you at least enjoy the doggy portion of today's post.
I'll be interested to see how well a crochet shawl does. I've heard it said that there are more crocheters than knitters but that the former are less likely to buy patterns than the latter. If you have some insight, either way, I would love to get your thoughts in the comments. I'll definitely design more if the demand is there.
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