All Hallow's Eve

The frost is on the pumpkin this All Hallow's Eve. And on the decorative corn. And on the Spruce mittens inspired by Elizabeth Zimmermann's Knitting Around "Mittful of Mittens" chapter.

The mittens were knit in Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Superwash (gospel green, which looks like teal) and Lion Brand Alpaka (natural and light brown) on Susan Bates aluminum size 8 dpn's.

They were great fun to knit; and, as always in my projects, I had a learning curve. I had never knit a pair of mittens before! The stranded work was fun and the afterthought thumb idea is ingenious!

It's Here!

What have we here?



Look what came in yesterday's mail! Meg Swansen's and Joyce Williams' Armenian Knitting! At Meg's Knitting Camps the last three years we've seen garments from the book and were treated to two patterns to try the technique. You can see a start on the cat pattern. And, yes, the picture is on purpose fuzzy....

The book is beautifully photographed as only Meg can do. And the technique is so curious since as knitters working stranded knitting we purposely try not to have the blips show;but, in this technique, the color blips are an essential element!

And I 'hear tell' that the Knitting Around DVD came in early and will be shipping out ASAP!

Frosted Monday

Yes, the frost came last night as it stayed at 30 degrees for hours and hours. At 10:47 it's 37 degrees and still frosty in shaded areas. The frost is just now burning off the roof tops, looking like smoke. Here, it's fog rising off the garage roof.

Look what's available today! The secular Christmas stamps are knitted images this year!

Knitting over the weekend a little on the mitten and some on the sock, but nothing finished.

Sunday before first frost...maybe

It's to be 28 tonight so first frost is imminent. Pretty well stripped garden this afternoon, just in case.

This morning it was totally clear and 40 but by 12:30 it'd really clouded up and, then by 2, I had a chance to shoot more yarn stash pics for my Ravelry account. Sheba the miniature schnauzer, who needs another haircut, was helping me...

Saturday Sky

Saturday windy, between-storms sky toward the northwest and the northeast.

Beside the fact that we got a few minutes of sunshine and 30 mph winds this morning, I took a grocery sack of yarn outside to photograph for ravelry.

Yes, just too much fun.

From the beginning to Yarn Elf

On the left is my very first knitting! And to the right, meet Yarn Elf!

I'd learned to crochet potholders from my mother when I was three. My Great Aunt Maude taught me to filet crochet when I was five. But no one in the family was admitting to knitting. (Much later I realized my baby booties from my Aunt Elsa, the master embroiderer, were knit.)

In junior high in the 60's tennis sweaters became very popular, but they couldn't be bought here. They had to be hand knit. Mom said that I could knit my own, but we had to take lessons.

Mom had a friend who agreed to teach both of us to knit. But, I couldn't start out with a sweater. Joyce had me start out with squares. In Red Heart wool. On straight needles. She showed me how to hold them, got me going, then went to help Mom...and I changed how I was holding the straights and never have gone back to the "proper" American way. (Ends up, I hold my straights Shetland/Scandinavian style...must be genetic!)

I just couldn't bear to knit an afghan in blocks all the same color or all the same pattern. So I got coordinating earthtones and a learn-to-knit booklet and knit. And knit. And knit. Seemingly forever. But I finished it! I even did all the seaming and crocheted the edging. That Red Heart wool definitely wears like iron...but doesn't pill or rust!

The tennis sweater never did come to fruition. My next project was designing a jumper with buttons on the shoulders for my Barbie doll. Maybe that'll be next Friday's photo!

Mom started in on a stockinette coat in blocks, but it remained a UFO.

I do want to share a pic of my Yarn Elf I mentioned earlier. Thanks to LH for the picture. He's looking elf-like here as, unbeknownst to me, the yarn he's holding is some that he's about to ship to me. I had the picture six days before the yarn!

Mr. Postman

AH, yes, Mr. Postman was very good yesterday to bring these two packages to fill up the mailbox! I love packages!

On the left is from my ex-LYS who has proclaimed himself "Yarn Elf". It's difficult to say World Wide Hobbies in Willcox, AZ is my Local Yarn Store since I moved 2100 miles away! But Kevin knows my colors are earthtones and naturals and blue/greens, so has shared a skein of forest green Misti Alpaca (100% baby alpaca) and a skein of Skacel Merino Lace, really the same color. He sent along a "Knitscene" magazine for ideas...

Maybe I don't need to be prodded in the idea department since they're dancing like sugarplums in my head.... maybe the alpaca could be a dickey that would be so cuddly on February days...mmmmm. Maybe the Merino Lace could be the Fibertrends sheep shawl I'd purchased the pattern for so long ago. mmmm. ...just thinkin'....

The picture on the right is the Socks That Rock club packet. The pattern is by the Yarn Harlot, Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, and looks terrific. I'd taken one look at the yarn color and I'd been disgusted. Purple. Then I picked up the pattern later and saw Stephanie said the yarn was black (Well, it is called 'Lenore', based upon the Poe poem...). I looked at my skein again in two different lights. Mine's purple with a little black and a little red-purple (see above). Love the little spiders that came with!

I did send off an email to Blue Moon Fiber Arts last night and Tina responded this morning, saying the purple-eggplant was only where the colors converged. There was an awfully lot of converging on my skein. Sigh. I LOVE STR and the people who work at and are Blue Moon Fiber Arts. Great, caring people. But I intensely dislike purple. Not their fault.

I've really tried to overcome this dislike for me and purple. I've even included purple in my June fair isle vest I'm working on designing because of the phlox that were blooming (more on that in more posts). I know there are those who luv, luv, luv purple. And they look good in it. And I love them for their passion. I think purple sends me right into the Addams family.... Give me Orange! Give me Yellow! Give me Browns! Give me Teal! Give me Blues! ...just don't give me poiple (sp on poipose!) or pink!

Great news from the website of Schoolhouse Press www.schoolhousepress.com -- the Armenian Knitting book is being shipped....AND...Meg is doing a KAL on designing and knitting a Christmas stocking!!! Now, how cool is that? Love it!

Lucy Sox

Meet Lucy STR colorway socks in the Broadripple pattern.

Lucy is Wendy Johnson's Ragdoll kitty and the Blue Moon Fiber Arts ladies developed a colorway in Lucy's honor.

The Broadripple pattern is one that Rob from Threadbear developed at the Broadripple Festival in Indianapolis and was published on Knitty.

This summer the first Lucy sock was one I'd started for take-along knitting on the Wisconsin knitting retreat trek and I finished both of them in September! August, September and October have been good finishing months this year!

Growing up, my first pet that was entirely "mine" was my first Siamese cat named Ming Toy. I was two. So, thought that Lucy was entirely appropriate. Plus, my mother had made the Siamese on plastic canvas in the background of the picture that has a brick in the bottom to be used as a doorstop.

It is very, very grey today and dark no matter whether inside or outside, so will have to tease here... the mail brought packages. One is yummy from my self-proclaimed Yarn Elf and the other is the STR package. Sigh. Basically purple again. Sigh. (I do NOT like purple.)

(And, I have links in this post, but I don't think they're coming through...)

Rainy Days and Tuesdays...

Oh, OK, so the song is "Rainy Days and Mondays";but, it was a beautiful day yesterday and raining today!

Today I'm sharing the pin cushion and pillowtop (now a pillow!) I made this past year from Liz Lovick's online gansey workshop last Fall.

Liz created a wonderful course that included history, technique, designs, how to design a gansey, lots of pictures and pictures of her own work. She included several projects for learning the technique, two of which were the pin cushion and the pillowtop.

The pin cushion I made first and I am totally amazed that I use it constantly! I have never hardly ever used a pin cushion before this! I use it for my yarn needles and doublepounts that are on time out!

Pillowtop was on time out for months while bigger knitting projects were created or brought to FO status. Finally, September 30th it was finished!

Monday, Monday

It's current project time! Taken yesterday, this is Trekking XXL. Sock #1 is being knit on zero-sized dpn's for ribbing and 1 1/2's for leg in stockinette. I'm getting 12 rows to the inch! Yikes!

I just love how the jeweltone nasturtiums have bloomed this year. They were a very good choice for some of the flowers around the pond. Also in the sock pic is an African daisy. I do like them, too, even though they don't spread. Unfortunately, there is some yard creature that likes to eat them for late night snack. Maybe the crazy bunnies who like to nest under the cinnamon ferns and then lose their young to Tawny's snacking forays.... That's him up there --- innocent looking handsome fella, is he not?

Last night late I got my invitation to www.ravelry.com and am 'fibernating'. Now, if I can just get my portrait pic up....

Anglo Autumn 74 degree Sunday

We are blessed to have such a glorious late October day.

Lilac leaves

Oh, yes, it's Saturday of Rhinebeck but I'm not there. The thermometer reads 60 yet the wind is blowing after the storm fronts passed through so it feels cold outside.
The 20 foot tall lilacs on the North are rustling against windows. They're just getting tingled with dull maroon. Not as pretty as they are in the Spring when they're brimming with lavender blooms.
I finally finished my Lilac Leaf socks that I'd started as one of my take-along projects for Meg's Knitting Camp this past summer. The leg pattern is called Lilac Leaves from Jeanie Townsend. STR sock yarn "Monsoon" from one of this year's club offerings knit on 0 dpn's make them what they are.
I'm not all that fond of the color of this yarn. I'm really not a purple person. So many of the STR Socks That Rock Club offerings have purple in them that I really don't think I'll join again next year. Plus...my project wish list is more along the lines of handspun and alpaca and ... and... and...

76 Mittens

Since I've been teasing about the mittens, it must be time for a mitten picture.

These are (mostly) Elizabeth Zimmermann mittens from Knitting Around. The icord start is a teal Wool Ease 56 rowlet i-cord. The patterning is Alpaka (spelled correctly!) which is a wool, alpaca, acrylic mix yarn. (The teal came from a swap last year and the Alpaka from a gracious Enabler -- Hi, Kevin!) It's very soft and fun to knit. Yesterday morning as the storm front was coming in, I was able to get the last bit of sunshine and borrow the neighbor's tree to photograph EZ's spruce pattern on the top of the mitten.

I know, I need more practice on making perfect mittens... and I have joined the Selbuvotter KAL, hosted by Terri Shea who's researched the mittens and published a wonderful little book. It is available from her and from many other shops. My collection of Scandinavian knitting materials grows....

Before I forget

What we have here is my "dressing" Apache Mimbres vest sans buttons, original work from Meg Swansen. It is particularly sweet to me in the woven tale of its conception. The basic story has been told on Linda's blog http://knitaddict.pahdoco.com. It is worked in quebecoise yarn from http://www.schoolhousepress.com and is originally published in the Interweave Press (soon to be out of print) book, Meg Swansen's Knitting, available from Schoolhouse Press. Although my "Apache Mimbres" was started in March of 2006 and finished September 16, 2007, there were many projects which intervened. WIP's have be abounding. Since Camp, though, almost everything has been a WIP (or the 1st of a pair) to be finished.

Sigh....just 1238 invites before me to Ravelry. No, I just don't see me photographing each and every skein of yarn. There's waayyy too much handspun lurking about. (Maybe I shouldn't photograph it at all or Dolores and Harry will be arriving from Chicago to roll around in its lusciousness!) To the right is my handspun 'Petroglyph' yarn I handspun last month from some of Lisa Souza's http://lisaknit.com handpainted merino roving. The backdrop in the picture is some golden rod mixed in with some of the Rose of Sharon bushes.



Didn't work on the Trekking sock last night, but did knit on the mitten (yes, I will post pics...) from EZ's Knitting Around. That is my very favorite EZ book. I can hardly wait till the DVD arrives in November (hopefully)! And Meg and Joyce Williams' Armenian Knitting should be arriving shortly. Oh boy, oh boy!

Move On Over

Overseer Nikki is guarding the FO gansey beginning this tome!

I had been wanting to knit a gansey when Liz Lovick taught a gansey course online through a knitting list. And then I went back through my many magazines to find this one by Priscilla Gibson Roberts in an early Knitter's Magazine. I ordered the red Wendy Guernsey yarn and took off.... but the several other projects rose like cream to the top of the knitting queue. Gansey didn't become a FO until after Meg's Knitting Retreat 2.75 this year. (See www.schoolhousepress.com for camp details)

OK, so you-all keep asking me when I am going to have a blog. Please note that this was created in 2005! By accident! In 2005 I didn't have a digital camera. Well, my DH gave me a digital camera for Christmas in 2005 but I still hadn't posted. Oh, yes, I posted on Zimmermania and on Knit Addict (Hey, Linda!) and lots upon lots of blog comments.

Just never jumped in here.

Long ago when I first started identifying myself, I used 'fibernation' and talked about 'fibernating'. So, a logical progression has been to name this blog 'Fibernating'.

And many more details to come.