CraftyGrrrl.ca

During the Great Stash Clean-Up of Ott12, I put all of my works in progress (WIPs) in a big bag with the plan being I was going to finally hack my way through the ones I still wanted or frog those that left me wanting.

After an afternoon spent in a mini frog fest, I got to work on Project: Get This Stuff Off The Needles! Everythign was going great, I completed a crochet project that had been taunting me for about 4 years, cast off my NaKniSweMo project, got a few other items ticked off the list but things went south when I turned my attention to Every Last Yard. I swear this project is becoming my Moby Dick (or some more relevant litterary reference)! It’s the lace patten, it’s taking me an inordinate amount of time to “get it”, which is nuts as it’s a simple 9 stitches repeated till the end of the row with a 4 row repeat and I keep messing it up!

The better part of January was spent knitting, ripping & repeating the first 4 rows of the lace on the body till it suddenly clicked and I was able to complete the body, then came the sleeve… Sleeves are the last part of a sweater I knit, it’s my home run and yet, it’s also where I often run out of steam and the sweater finds itself sidelined for something new and shiny. I was determined to not let that happen to ELY, it’s a great looking & fitting sweater, knit out of Indigodragonfly’s Merino Silk DK in the Edward Discovers Woodchippers Make Excellent Juicers colourway and yet, I’m being thwarted…I had to put the sweater in a time out as I was starting to have some pretty nasty revenge thoughts. If I kept at it, things were going to get ugly. I’m not providing a picture as I’m still a little too angry…

To console myself I took to my Ravelry queue in search of something, anything else that would not make me feel like a complete knitting moron. Pattern were found that I liked, swatches were knit and discarded when it was discovered the fabric wouldn’t suit the pattern, the drawing board was revisited often…when it dawned on me, what I REALLY want is a Sarah Lund sweater…I mean just look at them! They even have a fan website dedicated to them!

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, please don’t be too offended when I give you a withering Fan-Boi/Nerd look of condecension, I can’t help it if you choose to live your life under a rock…The new episodes of AbFab even make a reference to The Killing & Sarah Lund! Anyhoo, if you are clueless to the power of the Sarah Lund sweater, seriously go watch The Killing & The Killing II and for all that’s good in the world, please do not waste your precious life on that wretched American version, it simply leaves you wanting.

So, I love me this show and am in deep love with her jumpers ( I may have screamed when one of the sweaters sustains a non-fatal injury in an episode). What I love almost as much as the sweaters themselves is the story of the how that simple wardrobe decision has inundated a small Faroe knitting business with orders for a Sarah Lund sweater and increased the income of the cottage knitters (most of whom are women supplementing their family incomes, a historically familiar story n’est pas?) who work for Gudrun & Gudrun. The sweaters Sarah wears are so popular that when Series 3 was announced…the pattern for the red sweater was part of the release!

The stash has enough Cascade Eco for me to knit the red sweater and I could probably knit the other two sweaters if I were to pick up some of the natural cream Eco, but that might be a bit too nerdy…not that it would really stop me…I’ll give it a think while I knit my Series III sweater & practice Sarah’s brooding look of deep concentration…

January was pretty decent for tackling my Resolution list. The HUGE stash organization was a massive help in kick starting my creative juices and I spent the better part of the month going through my pile of works in progress (WIP) and taking stock of what I have on the needles and if I still want to complete that project. There was some frogging and there was some completion.

One of my oldest WIPs was the crochet Queen Anne’s Lace scarf.

According to my Ravelry queue, I started it back in 2008 from two skeins of Manos Silk blend. I had a little over one foot left to crochet when I put it down and in the intervening years completely forgot how to make the stitches! Frustrated with my inabilty to read my work, I booked a private crochet lesson with Megan of LettuceKnit; she had me sorted in about 15 minutes and also got me started on the Wingfeathers Shawl in Handmaiden Mini Maiden. It is my current travel project, it’s small, simple and if my hook falls out of the stitch while it’s in my bag, I only have to pick up one stitch. Unlike that time my needles slipped out of a shawl I was knitting, causing me to rip back to the stockinette portion to pick up my stitches.

The structure of crochet fabric has caught my fancy so consequently, I have found crochet projects finding their way onto my Ravelry queue. The Wool-Eater blanket is top-most in my mind as it will lend itself nicely to making a healthy dent in my sock yarn stash.

Hot on the heels of completing the Queen Anne scarf, I hauled out another WIP. Last week I cast off Driven, my 2011 NaKniSewMo project.

Oh, how I love this sweater! My initial purpose in knitting it was to have a warm sweater to wear at work as it can get really cold on the front desk. We wear uniforms at work which have a jacket, but it’s made from poly-beast, which does nothing for keeping you warm, thankfully we are allowed to wear black sweaters or cardigans. I went to the stash for yarn, where I discovered, for some unknown reason, I didn’t have a sweater quantity of black yarn. Am still not quite sure how that happened, but it was quickly remedied by a November 1 panic striken run to The Purple Purl where I picked up some Diamond Luxury Collection Lima which worked a treat.

Continuing with my WIP submission mission, I decided it was time to come to terms with my “issues” with Every Last Yard.

Ravelry tells me that I cast on ELY on December 25, 2010 with the 2 skeins of IndigoDragonFly Merino Silk DK that Chris & the kids gave me for Christmas that year. I remember making excellent progress until I got to the lace portion, which is precicesly when my math skills decided to take a trip to Cuba! I knit, ripped & re-knit the same 2 inches of that ‘effing lace for a good few weeks before I tossed the sweater across the room with a cloud of very blue air trailing it. I picked it up earlier this month and yet again fought with that stupid lace section for about two weeks before my math skills returned from their extended vacation all bronzed and reeking of cigars & rum laced umbrella drinks. Turns out I kept forgetting the two stitches between the ribbed collar and the start of the lace pattern which would explain why I could never get that son of a motherless goat lace pattern to match up properly…a stiff drink and excessive use of stitch markers may or may not have followed this realization…

There were a few small/quick projects complete as well. The kids get a bit miffy if they see me knitting too many projects that are not for them, this is generally followed by demands for something handknit. Fortunately, they can be easily placated with smaller knitted items like the LyaLya Hoodie.

These hoodies take under a skein of Malabrigo to knit the adult size (reducing my collection of single balls of yarn by 2) and have the added advantage of negating the need for a scarf, something both my kids refuse to wear, but will bitch incessantly about the cold air going down their necks…

There were a few other WIPs that I finished, but forgot to photograph so they won’t get much of a mention here.

As productive as January was on the fiber front, I found myself floundering on two other resolutions: keeping ahead of the housework & getting back into the habit of meal planning. Heading into February, I’m going to use the How to Clean Your House in 20 Minutes a Day program and have complied a list of meals which will be printed out, cut into strips & tossed into a bowl for the kids to draw 4 each week (I choose 4 meals to compensate for left over meals). We’ll see how successful I was in adding these new routines to the household in 29 days…

My Gramma was a knitter, I say was because although she is still alive, she is unable to knit any more. She can still read a pattern or your knitting and tell you what it is you’re doing, but when she tries to do it herself somewhere between her eyes reading the pattern and her hands grasping the needles & yarn things get jumbled and frustration and confusion ensues.

Her preferrred sweater to knit for all her grandchildren and children were Icelandic style yoked sweaters, being of the practical sort, she always used Patons arcylic wool. In her mind she wasn’t going to put all that effort into making a sweater for it to end up ruined the first go round in the laundry! Also having lived through the Depression, she was very dollar conscious and Patons arcylic from either the Eatons or Simpsons department stores were good value for the yardage.

I still have three of the sweaters (and a few other items) she knit me over the years, my sherbet sweater from when I was 7 or 8, the purple shawl collar sweater knit while I was in high school and a brown knee length coat from my early 20s. Each of my children were gifted with one of her yoke sweaters. Liam was the last of the great grand children to get one, I’ve yet to let him wear it…I’m a bit protective of it.

Last April, my cousin Dionne gave birth to a lovely little girl who was named Mea, she is very darling and full of beans as all almost one years olds are. Her uncle (my cousin Sean) was studying abroad and tweeted one day that he was taking a side trip to Reykjavic before returning home. I jokingly replied somethign along the lines somethign about him bringing me back some yarn…he said “sure”. Once I got over the first bit of yarn hoarding glee, I suggeste if he got the yarn, I would knit a sweater like Granma knit each of us for him to give to Mea. A deal was struck. I received the yarn in the summer & got to work on it, then frogged it, then started again, then frogged it…this went on for a bit till November…then I panicked! I settled on Loki, decided to do it as a sweater,  just like Granma made and because I’m still paralyzed with fear by the idea of steeking (it’s one of my resolutions this year to get over that fear). I banged out the sweater in two weeks and was finally to deliver it to Sean to gift to Mea last week.

Since then, I have received 3 emails (one from each aunt & one from Dionne) complimenting me on the sweater and also expressing how happy they were to see that one of the family members was keeping Granma’s tradition alive. That last bit kinda got to me as I realized just how much Granma’s knitting meant to some of us and how many of my memories with my Granma are tied to her knitting and how she accidentally created a knitting tradition in our family. To see that so many of the extended family appreciated and recognized Granma’s hard work (and by extension mine) to keep her family warm & clothed has been exceptionally cool (sorry, can’t think of a better word) and my To Knit for List may have grown! I’ve decided to make it a habit of knitting every new baby to enter the family a yoked sweater like Granma knit for each of us in the hopes of seeing her accidental tradition carried forward.

It all started the other day with a moth sighting. After squishing the little bastard and the panic had subsided I devised a plan to reorganize the stash and moth proof it in the process. This could turn into a rather embarassing “Oh looky how disorganized she is!” post and I’m thrilled to provide the schadenfreude for those of you who feel the need. I take pride in my flaws, screw-ups and embarrasements now (it was a very different story 10 years ago) as they all eventually become a learning lesson.

Things got rolling yesterday as the counter productive side kicks were back at school & I was able to lay in some supplies:

The Irish Spring soap may confuse some of you, it’s the moth deterrent. For some reason, moths hate it! I think it was Our Denny who explained her old spinning teacher would bundle raw fleeces with a bar and never had a moth issue ever.  It’s probably due to the strong scent, so I figure if you don’t like Irish Spring soap, any strong smelling soap would work just as well.

Now to the horrow show (those amongst you with delicate sensibilities may want to go here till it’s over). Here is the before shot of my craft space, I would like for it to one day finally be a studio space I can actually work in & not die from a fiberlanche! Today is that day!

I had been quite good for some time after I first set this space up in keeping it orderly, but along the way, it became a dumping ground to hide stuff/clutter when last minute guests were popping over & Oz (our cat) REALLY likes yarn and would often dig through bags & bins in an attempt to steal my yarn. We regularly come home to balls that have been unraveled through out the house. While I was sorting through the bags he tried to run off with some yarn.

First task was to locate the floor, since Chris and I share the space for our respective hobbies/therapies it just wasn’t cool that my stuff was taking over. I brought all the crap on the floor of the craft space to the living room and got down to business. Every thing was sorted, photographed (discovered last night I missed a few so will back track to get them) then entered in my Ravelry stash page. I have a whole new respect for archivists etc! After that was done, project quantities were put into their own smaller zippy bag which were placed into one of the large ziploc storage bags which were labeled: WIPS, Sweater Quantities, Shawl Amounts, Socks, Weaving, Spinning, Kits & Single Skeins. Each storage bag got a bar of Irish Spring tossed in to repel the moths.

As I came across WIPS (works in progress) I decided if I wanted to keep it or frog it, only a few were frogged, the rest were put in the bag to come back to at a later date.

Only a single braid of SweetGeorgia BFL fiber had been sacrificed to the dreaded Moth Gods!

By mid afternoon, I had run out of the smaller zippy bags and the camera battery needed charging so progress stopped for the day. I’ll be resuming later today after I procure more zippy bags… TO BE CONTINUED…

Because I have spent nearly my entire working life in the service industry I have very different (often negative) associations with almost every holiday on the calendar. There is nothing like seeing people come to near fisty-cuffs over the last baguette at the bakery or witnessing families who have clearly spent way too much time together freak the hell out on the poor holiday hire who has very politely informed them that their level of membership does not allow 15 guests and it also expired 3 years ago. The stuff I’ve seen is enough to make me weep for “society” and to seriously consider relocating to a very remote cabin in a very remote part of the world with a very large dog, an even bigger gun, my books, loom, spinning wheel, yarn…you get the picture.

Of all the questionable behaviour and annoying habits/traditions of the Holiday Season, the one I do try to hold to is the New Years Resolution. Perhaps it’s a bit of residual who knows what from my years as an active pagan (I lapsed into a comfortable solitary practice years ago when the kids arrived as getting out with a newborn is like mounting an expidition to Mt. Everest) but there is something very nearly electric and palpable about a new year! I get the same excitement and anticipation at the beginning of a new school year. It’s the combination of a fresh, new start and the heady scent of possibility that I look forward to.

My first resolution is always: Start as you mean to go on! This can be harder to keep than you think! After that my resolutions vary depending on what I want to accomplish and improve over the year.

For 2012 I’m going to look inward (in a sense) and return to some old practices that served us well but fell to the way side. Two of my resolutions that I’m most excited for are my decision to improve my textile/craft skills either by challenging them or taking a course and to fill the holes on The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred list.

The VGT Omnivore’s Hundred:

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth £60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

It shall be fun to complete the list and I have a very dear friend who will probably quite willingly assist me with #37, #45 & #73…

Wish you all a very happy & safe New Year and hope that you too were able to start as you mean to go on.

One would think that after almost 10 years of knitting, I would have by now have a general idea of how long it would take me to knit anything. I have learned, yet again, that my grasp of this subtle dark art is so very messed up! In my defence, my last two projects were completed in record time which just skews the numbers six ways from Sunday!

I knit my Rhinebeck Sweater in about 20 days, it would have been done sooner but there were a few days in there when it was impossible to get any knitting done!

Pattern: Idlewood

Yarn: Cascade Eco

This puppy is super warm! At a later date I’m going to reknit the sleeves to be full length.

The second project to screw with my stats was a shawl I started in the car on the way home from Rhinebeck, it was completed in about 2 weeks.

Pattern: Hera Mountain Ridge Shawl

Yarn: Miss Baba Northumbrian Aran (2 sks Shrimp Bush, 1 sks Fox on the Run)

With two projects in a row being completed with such speed, one could understand how I honestly thought I could knit a fingering weight hat with enough time for it to arrive at it’s destination while also working on a NaKniSweMo project. As of this post the hat is just past the 4” 2×2 ribbing and I’m starting to work on the 9”of body, it’s now going to be a christmas gift…And my sweater…well judge for yourself:

I am creeping up to where I will split the arms from the body…I would definitly be way further along had I not misread the pattern at least three times which required a complete rip & re-knit. Any sane person would have gone in search of a different pattern long before the third re-knit, I took it as a slight to my honour/pride/whatever you want to call it and am now determined ot make this sweater my bitch! Once I get past the arms I am hoping things will just zip along and I’ll finish by months end at which point I will post for the position of Cabana Boy for my Houseboat on De Nile…

Saturday morning saw the lot of us up and at’em. After some breakie,an incident with the coffee geysering out of the bodum to scorch me and a subsequent shower we were off…

(Robin on the left, Tonya on the right & I’m the shadow in the middle)

There was a 2 mile long queue to get into the fair grounds. If you look closely at the photo from the previous post, you can just see the line of cars to the right of the intersection way off in the distance…That line of cars was moving surprisingly fast and we were on the fair grounds far sooner than I expected. Parking located, weekend passes purchased, we scatered like buck shot into the barns & stalls! I will make another post about the shopping so this does not become a mammoth post! Suffice it to day trying to do Rhinebeck in one day is overwhelming, I strongly suggest purchasing the weekend pass so you don’t feel like you are under the gun and can wander aimlessely.

         
         After about 5 hours of wandering, we were ready to head back to the house for a bit of a rest before dinner, we made a quick stop at the grocery store to pick up provisions.

We were greeted to a nice roaring fire that Robin & Audrey had started as they arrived back at Casa Del Rhinebeck before us.

Purchases were shown off, dinner reservations were made at Luna 61 and I introduced the beauty of Hendrick’s Gin. As it got close to the time of our reservation, we trundled off on foot to Fab Yarns which was conviently located across the road-ish from the restaurant! It’s a lovely little shop with lovely owners who carry Indigodragonfly and a pink leopard print fun fur carpet bag that may have had me squealing with glee….but I put it down and bought a skein of yarn instead…

Dinner was great, company was beyond wonderful and we found a local hard cider that made us all swoon, and it wasn’t because most of us had a few G&Ts on board and were possibly high on yarn fumes…

Back at the house after dinner we restoked the fire and compared notes on the day. Sunday was a bit of wash, rinse repeat of Saturday but sadly Robin & Audrey left us to return to Pennsylvania and work on Monday morning. Tonya, Emily and I enjoyed some Republican pizza & beer (unsure of the beer’s political alignment) for dinner and spent the rest of the night knitting in front of the fire.

Monday, we packed up, sorted out our travel knitting, made a pit stop in Woodstock for tie dyed shirts & found some amazing sandwiches at a cheese shop and a few bits of yarn bombing, then headed for home.

We are already planning for next year…

I discovered this weekend that it is REALLY IMPORTANT for me to get away for a little while. I need to go someplace where I’m not Mummy or Wife, my responsibilities are few and I can use the bathroom knowing that I won’t have someone banging on the door just as my butt hits the seat…

That place is here:

This wonderful little house in Tivoli, New York became my therapist this past weekend. I hadn’t realized just how badly I needed a weekend away with a band of Righteous Chicks for some fun and fiber frolicking until I got up this morning with a case of abundant patience when the Get Your Ass to School routine started to go off the rails.

The tale of my mental salvation goes a little something like this:

Friday morning, Emily, Tonya & I packed up Emily’s little Matrix (the nerd/geek level of this weekend was getting up to Con porportions and it was all good!), queued up Shatner’s new album on the Iphone and were off to the Hudson Valley for Rhinebeck Sheep and Wool! I would have taken a photo of the look on the border guards face when we told him where we were going and why, but seeing as non of us wanted a body caviety search, I restrained myself.

After nine hours of driving through what we came to call the Apocalypse we arrived safely at that little house pictured above, an added bonus was I had finished my Rhinebeck sweater by the time we passed Albany! Sadly, I don’t think any of us thought to get a photo of me wearing said sweater at Rhinebeck, so you will just have to take my word for it!

Robin & Audrey were already at the house waiting for us. After a quick pee break and unloading of the Matrix, the lot of us headed to Santa Fe for yummy dins. The Fish Tacos (hehehehe) were quite good, but I would have liked more salsa, but I’m a condiment junkie that way…back at the house we made plans for the next day then headed to bed after a 10pm trek to locate some breakfast stuffs for the next day.

There was an incident with the coffee the following morning that I will not be discussing other than to say: medium grind coffee + Bodum = ouchy me.

The next morning found us here:

That’s us, in the car, stopped, waiting to get to the Dutchess County Fair grounds that were 2 miles away! Eventually we did get there…

What happened next will have to wait till the next post because I have a Birthday Boy in the house who has requested tostadas & a chocolate mousse cake for dinner.

At some point in the wee hours of this morning, you officially turned seven years old…

Holy Freaking Crap! You’re SEVEN! And are turning into quite the little person! You have a great artistic flair and are regularly entertaining us by choreographing dances to your favourite songs. Soon we will need to buy a second fridge to showcase your drawings.

Your personality has really come into to it’s own. You have announced you will only ever wear skirts & dresses because that is all Denny wears and you want to be like her, I am pleased by this choice of role model as Denny is quite the kick ass chick! Your little observations on how the world works and opinions about situations are both mind boggling and comforting such as your recent comment about never having a DJ boyfriend because they are crazy for the girls and that is just not okay! I do hope you remember that when you get older…

Happy Seventh Birthday Mz. Abigail

Today is your fourth birthday.

I should have taken your super speedy arrival as a sign of what we were in for…your possession of a strong James personality became evident quite early on.

As badly sometimes want to stop your growing up, I am loving watching the seeds of the man you will become being planted. You have your grandfather’s love of all things mechanical as well as his habit of throwing an offending item in frustration then asking someone to pick it up for you. I get a kick out of your insisting on picking out a bouquet for me at the flower shop, this bodes well for your future partners. You are developing a love and appreciation of hand knits, in a few years, as promised I will send you to Denny for a knitting lesson just as I did with your sister.

Tonight, there will be Batman cake, your favourite meal (noodles with red sauce and LOTS of cheese) and we will celebrate your fourth year. Happy Birthday my love.