a ball of cylinders

i love this ball.

knitted from 6 stockinette strips and woven together. knitters might note that stockinette curls on itself; this pattern takes advantage of that, and the strips effectively become squishy cylinders. the length is short enough so that when carefully woven together, the volume created by the curl creates the substance of the ball. no stuffing required.

so the ball is infinitely squishable and (theoretically) can always spring back to its original shape. it's a perfect little knitted gift to make for a toddler boy, which is a hard demographic to knit for. and it took just a couple of days of easy knitting.


a couple of months ago i went to a wedding on the east coast and had a too-brief visit with my college roommate. this ball was a present for her 2 year old son.

pattern: Braided Ball
yarn: Caron Simply Soft Brites

sunrise, sunset

a little something i made a month or so ago for the lovely lady who regularly watches boo. this scarf is for her young son.

pattern: staggered rib scarf
yarn: kertzer tweed montage, new to my lys. this is a lovely bulky weight yarn with long color repeats and nice gradations in between.

here's a picture that she took of her her daughter in the hat/scarf that i made for her a couple of months ago.

happy green ... volcano?

last weekend boo was So excited about this "science experiment" with daddy. they made a "volcano" out of flour/salt/water, put an empty yogurt smoothie bottle in the middle with baking soda + a few drops of dish detergent + food coloring, and then poured in the vinegar. he wasn't sure what would happen the first time and refused to stand any closer than 10 feet away. after discovering there was no kaboom like the real thing, he mixed a bunch of different colors for the lava himself. overall, a great way to blow off a little steam. :)

socks for ME

pattern: baby cable socks, another pattern from charlene schurch's sensational knitted socks
yarn: heritage paints sock yarn by cascade
for: me!

successfully used yet another yarn purchased at stitches midwest 2010 (the goal is to use all most half? of the yarn i bought last year before i buy more at the next one)
got this yarn from the WEBS booth, i believe, but last week i believe i saw this same line now at my LYS. huzzah!

made the heel a little bit more narrow on one of the socks because i apparently have a narrow heel. who knew. self-knowledge through knitting.

warm weather and warm ears

warming up! family walk/bike around the block, on repeat. he's finally pedalling! it only took 4 years.


finished these ear warmers to fit around boo's bike helmet just as they were heading out the door. they work great!
pattern: bike ear warmers
yarn: cascade 220, leftover from the tractor boots

i've done bike ear warmers before - knit for my dad for christmas 2008 with this pattern out of some alpaca that was spun in charlottesville. my dad rides his bike to work even in the middle of nebraska winters, so he says they have been really useful. the ones i did for boo are a bit different in that they're not only smaller, but they also are attached by a ribbed band at the top to make them less likely to fall down, because there's not as much of a brim to hold them up.

party in a sock

i totally did not correctly imagine the color of the socks that were created from this skein. first, i bought it from a yarn store that was not lit by natural light, so i thought these were dark reds instead of hot pinks. second, who could predict this progression of color!

yarn: online supersock emotion II - color (how's that for a yarn name!)
pattern: elongated corded rib from charlene church's "sensational knitted socks"

love this book. i even got the spine sliced off and had it spiral bound. the charts that correlate men's/women's/children's shoe sizes with the lengths of all parts of the foot are particularly useful. this has been a great introduction to making socks.

happy birthday, katherine :)

tractor boots

finally finished these a couple of months ago! pattern and all supplies given to me in a lovely kit from my lovely sister-in-law for my birthday last summer.

pattern: Tractor Boots by Pick Up Sticks
yarn: small balls of alpaca (for the windshield/lining) and wool from Pick Up Sticks
+ a large hank of red Cascade 220
size: age 5-6 (just in case). a bit big now but i would be so sad if he could only wear them the one half-season.

here's a picture of them before felting. i should have put them on adam's feet for size comparison. these were really huge. the wheels looked like, well, nipples, but in a feat of geometry i do not comprehend, they flattened out while shrinking in the felting process.

things you can do while mommy is on the phone

unpack as much as possible from your art supplies box ...

keeping the kids of the area warm

the set i made for ms. pinkness around the corner was such a hit, the nanny that we share wanted a set for her 8 year old :) a bonus: even with such yummy colors, it's all superwash!

pattern: inca snowflake from itty bitty hats. modified so that a big bobble doesn't get shaped on top - decreased every 5 rows evenly.
yarn: dream in color classy
accent/pompom: jill eaten minnow


the scarf was a little short (ran out of yarn) - good thing she's still little :)
woven with warp floats on my rigid heddle.

buffalo yarn

my brother's in india right now on a business trip, so in hopes of his safe and healthy return i post my christmas gift to him, which i'm sure he didn't take with him.

yarn: buffalo gold - yarn spun from the downy undercoat of a buffalo!
accents of jasper merino
plain weave, woven on the rigid heddle

i soaked it in conditioner a couple of times because the buffalo wasn't quite as soft as i was hoping it would be. but it's still perfect for cold days, i think.

hats off to a good recovery

a friend's mom has been battling pancreatic cancer for several months and earlier this week had a whipple - one of the more extensive surgeries out there, with removal of several abdominal organs. i heard today she is doing great and starting to walk around! margins and lymph nodes were clear too! so happy about that.

a couple of weeks ago i made her a couple of new hats. hopefully they fit better than the last ones i made her.


yarn: simply soft
pattern: odessa
the original pattern called for beads but i left them off to keep it simple and non-scratchy.
it's a very popular pattern on ravelry - over 3000 folks have done it!


yarn: dark horse fantasy acrylic/nylon blend
pattern: Rib-a-roni Hat

i like these a lot. i think i'm going to make some for me too :)

pinkness

what fun it is to work in pink! i made this hat/scarf/mitten set last month for a 4 year old neighbor who is cuteness incarnate. boo plays with her and her brother every monday while i work at clinic.


yarn: claudia handpainted yarn fingering, doubled for hat & mittens
trim: classic elite yarns, jill eaton merino (superwash!)
accent: filatura di crosa, baby pom pom
hat pattern: inca snowflake, itty bitty hats
mitten pattern: basic pattern for children's mittens by elizabeth durand
scarf pattern: woven on a rigid heddle loom, balanced weave
heddle size 10. after washing: 6.75"x54" + 4" fringe + 4" fringe

i went to a couple of yarns stores and bought all the pink/brown that i thought would match her coat and let the little one choose. she has good taste - she chose the highest quality/most expensive yarn :)

her mom liked one of the other yarns, so i wove this scarf for her with a warp-float pattern, because i didn't have the pompom yarn to accent, and because i think the yarn floats make the scarf softer.

even the dog is falling asleep

dixie, modelling her christmas present - a collar made from a scrap of velour i got as a remnant at joann's.


faintly evident on the far right is the green twill on which i've embroidered her name and my cell #.
i'm a particular fan of the reflective buckle.

gotta love a dog with bling :) goes nicely with her ever-accelerating grizzle, i think.

happy new year

4 years old
finally wearing the "wonderful wallaby" sweater
that i made him 1-2 years ago
bengali yarn

happy halloween!

good thing i took pictures earlier this month, because this little polar bear has had a fever and didn't want to go trick or treating this year. :(

the hat is somewhat improvised out of a bulky trendsetter yarn that i found at stitches. it's loosely based on this bear hat pattern i found on ravelry, which was made from a much bulkier yarn. i had to knit several more rows in places and i totally improvised the ears with a crochet hook. the outfit is made from white fleece - very simple, which was good considering my skill level at sewing. first time i've ever done sleeves! the trick or treat bag and the paw pads were made out of felt.

here are some pumpkins we made last weekend when my nephew was here for a sleepover. first carved pumpkins for both of them! the bumpy pumpkin in the back looks super cool but was a royal pain to cut because it was much denser/harder than a normal pumpkin.

knock me over with a feather - boo actually walked in the school "parade" and consented to take a picture with them! (the official school picture day last week was a fiasco - he insisted "NO PICTURES!" and would not even be in the class picture, much less his individual photos.)

shall i lend you a hand

an idea taken from one of those free parents' magazines. originally they called for jelly beans, but it turns out that a big bag of jelly beans is rather spendy. so here are latex gloves filled with gummy bears and dot candies, with a bouncy ball eyeball thrown in for extra effect. these hang from our outside lights and birch trees.

(note to self for next year: do not use gummy bears if a warm october expected, because they will melt in the direct sun.)

the project forecast

i intermittently listen to the cast on podcast for a bit of knitting commentary, and in one of the last episodes i learned about a fun way to summarize all the projects that you're working on. she talked about a report that's sort of like a crop report or a traffic report, that summarizes all the ocean weather conditions for ships at sea. basically it's a lot of technical jargon full of data for those who know the jargon, but baffling for anyone else. it keeps it brief so that those who might not care about it aren't subjected to an overly lengthy discourse.

so here is my "project report."

polar bear costume, mittens finished today, about to hot glue on felt pads. pattern for fleece shirt and pants snipped but not yet assembled; wary, as my cutting is not precise. lace ribbon shawl in dreamy red yarn with a silver strand. purple leaf socks for friend, why did i choose the hardest pattern of the book. montego bay scarf / headband tie with dark rainbow poems sock yarn. swallowtail shawl with lovely dark blue-teal-brown handdyed cashmere that was a gift. fleece blankets to edge, one for a friend's baby, one for christmas, and others for project linus. on the loom: color sampler, perhaps dish towel someday. would like to start habu/alpaca silk scarf and christmas scarves soon - bison, alpaca, silk and tencel represented.

LYS wisconsin

in madison my cousin-in-law (is that a term?) took me to what was almost the perfect yarn shop: Lakeside Fibers. the yarn bins spill out into the coffee shop next door, and the coffee shop opens to a lovely little patio that looks out onto the lake. down below the patio there is a little playground. downstairs there are even some dusty cones of weaving yarn, which the knitting staff upstairs didn't really know much about. there was a beautiful scandinavian weaving magazine i thought briefly about getting; quite briefly, however, as it was in swedish. (i think. not real familiar with the differences between the scandinavian tongues.)

and the other day i was in milwaukee so i stopped by loop yarn. where lakeside was cozy cottage-like with a granola feel, loop was modern and just a bit edgy. it was easier to browse - more clean light and the room might have been smaller but the selection was better and a bit more higher end. i could not resist the habu in the clearance section. i have been obsessed with habu since seeing it at Stitches Midwest and even though i haven't yet knit or woven with it, it comes in such cute little balls and is so different from the usual stuff i just have to pick it up. so i got some blue sky alpaca silk in blues and greys to coordinate with some habu cork chenille.

could they be any cuter together

a few weeks ago we visited DH's cousin and family in madison again. kudos to them for being such gracious hosts, even though his wife is working a million hours a day on her doctoral thesis - which she defends later this month. good luck!!

they tailgate in style. 8am and we were almost the last in the parking lot. we're not talking plain old hotdogs. bacon wrapped shrimp, bacon wrapped mushrooms, homemade burgers, and we brought a grilled peach bruschetta that we served with some toasted mini-bagels.

then the boys headed to the game to see the badgers crush poor wofford, and the girls & kids went to the beach. i think we got the better end of the bargain.


i'm going to be a fast runner just like my mommy!

meanwhile, the boys took the kids to the playgrounds in their area. madison really is quite lovely. they have playgrounds in such idyllic settings as this one.

boo had a stunningly good time with his cousin. they are so cute together.


i do believe this is the first time he has held a girl's hand.

we are all going to be so sad when they move to oregon in a couple of months!

woven in

i've got a lot of pictures to upload from the last couple of weeks - grandparents visit, tailgating in madison, more japanese screens, and a ton of food pictures from charlie trotter's - but i'm sleepy so the fast and easy post tonight will be on weaving.

here is my first wool scarf. not bad, eh?
warp: alpaca spun near charlottesville, va. used some to make a scarf and bike helmet ear warmers for my dad last christmas, and used the leftovers here. still a lot leftover.
weft: noro silk garden, 3 skeins.


i tried doing a headband with mini mochi but the threads of the warp kept breaking! then i went to Stitches and saw a scarf at the Yarn Barn woven with exactly this yarn. they were puzzled (and not very helpful) when i asked what my problem could be. i think it's because the yarn is not tightly plied. and using a size 10 heddle rather than the 12, and not trying lace patterns, might help with reducing the friction on the warp.

so i finally decided to cut it off - a decision more painful than undoing knitting, because once something is warped and threaded, you can't really reuse the yarn very easily. you now have a ton of yarn pieces that are about 3-5' in length. but loom wasn't creating anything while i was putting it off, and it's nice to be back in business.

now i'm back to trying dishcloths again. the previous ones i made shrunk a full 2" in the wash. a 6" dishcloth is a bit frustrating to use. fun colors! i love how the yellow really brightens it up. i thought it was going to be too much but i rather like it.