A Scarf, Pooh & LYS Love

I don't normally enjoy knitting a pattern more than once but I might for this one.

The pattern is called "Gathered Scarf" on Ravelry. There are several so here is the link; it's the one by Kelly Judson.

 It calls for dk weight; 30 stitches on size 5's. But I discovered some unusual yarn in my stash that I thought might be interesting - Berroco's Origami. It's very firm with sort of an exterior fiber encasing a cord of fibers, if that makes sense.

This is not necessarily yarn that you would want to snuggle into unless a miracle of softening comes when I block it. So I decided a longer, thinner scarf was better with a more open look to appreciate the variation in color.

I'm using 18 stitches on a 6 and I like it much better.

This is another great pattern for a beginner - the gathers are created by a full row of k2tog's and the wide part by a full row of kfb with stockinette inbetween.

I think this pattern would be great with a really interesting handspun yarn. I might just try that next.

If I did try it again, I'd surely head to our new LYS, Apples to Oranges.

We are so thankful in our town to have a lys. Last Spring, after doing everything possible to try to stay open, our really wonderful yarn shop in town closed. I felt connected to that store; it's where my children and I learned to knit and I was surprised how much it affected me when it closed.

There was a big round, red table in the window which was usually full of knitters. The owner, and several of those ladies, were adored by my little girls. I loved watching them sitting around the table mixed into the group of older ladies silent as a mouse; watching and listening to everything.

And then it closed. Sure, there are great yarn websites but that's not nearly the same. There's no community to that. So, we'd trek an hour away to Portland to shop for fiber. Thankfully, Apples to Oranges opened a few months later. I say it's a Portland quality shop in a small town full of beautiful yarn and an extensive offering of local, hand-dyed. 

I know all knitters agree that local yarn shops are little treasures. And they all seem to be struggling. On the other side, because they are small and quaint, they don't always have what you are looking for or enough skeins in a needed color. So here's my question?

What would happen if each week, I posted a link to a local yarn shop that also sells yarn through their website? You could do it too leaving the name & link in the comments.

Imagine what the positive financial impact that could be for an lys if they could infuse their sales with knitters from all over the country? 

Could we possibly positively impact those stores while finding new fiber treasures for ourselves? I think it's worth a try. It's been something I've been thinking about for a long time.


So, here it goes. I'll call it "LYS Love" and I'll start with mine - feel free to add yours in the comments but please be sure that they have online shopping capabilities through their website.


LYS LOVE - Apples to Oranges in Silverton, Oregon. http://www.applestooranges.net/

They have some gorgeous, local, hand-dyed yarn available through their website, as well as other great yarn.

As for reading, you can't ever go wrong with Winnie the Pooh. It was A.A. Milne's birthday a few weeks ago, so we pulled Winnie off the shelf. He was a favorite of mine as a child but I realized that my kids don't really know much about the series. I am happy they are enjoying it so much.

As for my reading, I had received a long awaited email that it was my turn for The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd reserved through the digital library loan. But when I logged on last night, I discovered that they had offered it to the next in queue because I didn't respond within 3 days. Ugh. It was a busy weekend and I thought I would be able to wait. Lesson learned. Just another reason why I like paper books the best ;)

I'm linking up with Ginny for the weekly Yarn Along at Small Things. Click on the link to see many more beautiful projects.

 

Another Hat & Another Newberry

I guess I'm in a rut, but it's a good one. Nothing wrong with a lot of sweet, knitted hats.

This is a pattern I saw on Ginny Sheller's yarn along two weeks ago. It is fun to knit and not difficult at all. In fact, making the butterflies every 10 rows is a good incentive to knit just one more row. 

The pattern is called : The Butterfly Hat on Ravelry. 

I used MadelineTosh's Molly Ringwold color way. So beautiful - truly a pretty pink; not saccharin at all. 

As for books, we're still sticking to our Newberry Award winners and have been surprised to love "The Family Under The Bridge." 

We live in a very small town but we've been spending a lot of time in Portland. Questions gave been arising about the people on the streets with signs asking for help. We are not the type of family to say "get a job!" More like the kind that is trying to help but how? 

A friend brought our attention to a wonderful project at the holidays. They made a great flyer showing a kit of essentials that could be made for $5 using items from a Dollar Store.

Here's the flyer:

On Christmas morning, a group of very generous people set up under a bridge and distributed the kits (35 of them, I believe) and hot breakfast burritos. It was wonderful to participate in this in our humble way of assembling & donating a few kits and we hope to do it again. 

So the book we are reading is "The Family Under The Bridge" by Natalie Savage Carlson published in 1958 and winner of the Newberry Award.

It's the story of an old, Parisian, homeless man, Armand, and a family of newly homeless children. It sounds awful writing that. But somehow, when reading, the focus is on all things positive such as the affection the old curudgeon is developing for the children and the lengths to which he goes to help them. 

My children, ages 5-10, love it and beg me to read more. It's set in Paris, a long time ago, so maybe that helps it be a bit more surreal and not scary or maybe it's the excellent writing. 

Either way, it's giving them a chance to ask questions and discuss a subject that I previously never quite got very far with. 

I would recommend both the hat and the book. 

This post is part if Ginny Sheller's Yarn Along. Click the link to see more great knitted projects and book recommendations.

One More Hat

It's only taken me until January but I've finally managed to knit a hat for everyone.

This is the Harmony Cloche; a pattern by Heidi May on Ravelry. I knit it using SimpliWorsted by HiKoo. Here's the link to Ravelry. http://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/harmony-cloche

The pattern is fun with an asymmetrical brim knit using short rows and then a chunky, bubbly lace pattern throughout. It has an interesting "M3" and lots of K5tog so nothing challenging but fun to knit. Don't look too closely. I made plenty of mistakes on the lace and found myself getting into more trouble trying to unknit all the lace rather than just keep going. 

I always tell my kids that's how they know it was knit with love by me; the mistakes ;)

As for reading, I wanted to share a book we just finished reading aloud as a family. 

It's Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson. 

If you have children who love animals, especially woodland ones, I recommend this book. It's a wonderful story of the woodland animals on a piece of land as they anticipate the new owners of the house. It's really fun for the kids to see the events through the animals perspectives. And it has a great, feel good ending. The language is old fashioned at times as it was published in the 30's but I think that's great for the kids' vocabulary. We almost gave up after the first chapter - it was getting tiresome to continually stop and explain. But the characters are so wonderful that soon the kids were much better at (or willing to) understanding a word's meaning through context because they didn't want to interrupt the story either. 

It's also a Newberry Award winner. We have been using the Newberry Awards to pick books this year for read alouds and haven't been disappointed yet. Everyone from my 5 - 10 year old enjoyed the book, and so did I. 

This post is part of Ginny Sheller's yarn along. Click on the link to see many more beautiful knitting projects and reading recommendations.

One Scarf, Two Vibrant Colorways

Have you ever had a knitting pattern that for whatever reason, you just can't get right? That was how this pattern started out in July. But I had seen a friend wearing one and it was really stunning. I loved the texture of it. It also seemed to be a great opportunity to use extremely colorful yarn with quick color changes. That's something I would not normally use, so why not?

I cast on in July.

I ripped it out many times. I just couldn't get the pattern down. So frustrating. So, it was sentenced to the "didn't work out like I planned trunk."

And then this fall, when thinking about gifts, I found the forgotten start and decided to give it another try.

Not sure why but this time, I memorized the pattern quickly and it became the perfect busy work while listening to a daughter read to me, waiting at an appointment or just to fit in a quick 2 minutes of knitting here and there.

The pattern is "Favorite Scarf Ever" on Ravelry. 

The pattern calls for dividing the yarn in two balls, knitting 2 sides and seaming together. I started out with this intention and soon decided that I would rather make one long scarf. The wrong side didn't seem so awful to me.

Both yarns were purchased at my lovely lys, Apples to Oranges. 

The first is Misti Alpaca Hand Paint Sock Yarn in color # 17 - it's got moss greens, bright violet blues, light periwinkle and violet purples. Here's a link to my project page.

The second is a local hand-dyed yarn that I can not recommend enough. Her colorways offer incredible color combinations that you don't often see. This one jumped out at me. It's by Blissful Knits & Dyeworks (available on Etsy). The yarn is called Inspire -it's sock weight and the color is called "Full Bloom." 

This yarn contrasts rich chocolate brown with bright fucshia, aqua, lime and tangerine.

In a million years, I don't know why I love this so, but I do. Of course, it must be a gift because I'm not sure what I would wear it with. Here's a link to my Ravelry project page. 

I can't remember another pattern that I've knit one after another. But it was really fun to see how they differ just based on the yarn. I'm not quite finished with the 2nd but I would be interested to do a 3rd in a solid, tonal hand-dyed yarn. Maybe I'll wait a bit though.

This post is part of Ginny Sheller's Yarn Along. Click on the link to see other beautiful knitting projects. 

Squishy Yarn Into Warm Hats

Why haven't I knit more hats? I had forgotten how quick and satisfying they are to knit. I think a couple of "gauge disaster" hats a few winters ago, when double points were challenging for  me as a new knitter, soured me to the projects, but I finally have had some success.

Husband's Hat

When a skein of MadelineTosh came up on Jimmy Bean's Wool Watcher at 40% off, I ordered without giving it too much thought. The color was called Terrarium. In the skein, I wasn't very excited. It was very dark and murky. I tossed it into the stash and thought I'd use it for a hat for my husband at some point.

I sure was wrong! When knit up, flecks of pale robin's egg blue emerged and the color kind of came alive. It is just gorgeous. The yarn itself is so squishy and warm that I am wishing I hadn't used it for myself. I chose a basic hat pattern with allover ribbing to ensure a good fit to safeguard against my problem with gauge in the past. The pattern is Sandoval Hat - a free pattern found on Ravelry.

Daughter's Hat

My daughter chose this yarn at a trunk show at our lys, Apples to Oranges, in Silverton, Oregon. It's Depoe Bay worsted weight yarn in the color Gun Smoke by Alexandra's Crafts. Alexandra's Crafts is a local hand-dyer. This is the first time I worked with her yarn and it's another "squishy" one. It was really nice on my hands while knitting. Here's a link to her website. http://alexandrascrafts.com/ 

The pattern is the Lilian Beret on Ravelry. I ended up having to frog the first attempt; it just came out ridiculously slouchy - like an exaggerated french chef's hat. So the second attempt, I still used the adult size cast on, but went down a needle size. This seemed to do the trick perfectly. The hat is slouchy, but not too slouchy and my girl loves it. I need to put a large flower on the band. The pattern calls for a large felt flower permanently affixed. I think it might be fun (& more practical) to put on a button and then knit several flowers for her to choose from. We'll see....

Only 2 more hats to knit before winter's over and the whole family will be done! Casting on.

Happy New Year!

This post is part of Ginny Sheller's yarn along. Here's the link to see all the other beautiful projects or to post your own. 

Should Be Knitting Gifts

It's late November and I should be knitting gifts but I found several skeins of this yarn in my stash and got sidetracked. This is the start of the Spritely Cape for children on Ravelry. I've knit it once before in MadelineTosh Magnolia Leaf. 

This yarn is entirely different - Simplicity by HiKoo . It's a blend of merino superwash, acrylic & nylon, which is a combination I would normally avoid as I usually avoid acrylic at all costs. However, I must have ordered it from a Jimmy Beans Wool wool watcher special and not realized what I was getting. But the hand of it is actually very soft and I am sure it will hold up to frequent washing better than a treasured skein of MadelineTosh.

The color is as teal blue as can be. My daughter's favorite color. The lace pattern is showing up so much more with this solid color and blend of fibers. The lace on the MadelineTosh version was much more hidden but it really didn't matter, as the color was a showstopper on that one.

The pattern would be a great one for a starting lace knitter. It's only 4 rows of lace and you get plenty of opportunities to repeat it and practice it, depending on the size you knit.

11/27/2013

I've added a few more repeats to the project. I only have 3 more to go and then it's on to the hood. I love the way it's coming out but I really am getting a bit bored of the repeat and am anxious to get to a few important holiday knitted gifts. Hopefully, it will be finished this weekend!

Update -12/11/13

I finished! Well, almost. In my attempt to make the hood smaller per the request of  my daughter, I managed to make it so small that it doesn't fit. After the holidays, I will rip it out back to the shoulders and redo the hood. For that reason, I also haven't blocked it or woven in the ends. I just wanted to show how sweet it turned out. Sorry about the photo quality. It is freezing here and so a quick snapshot in the kitchen was the best I could get. But it gives you the idea.

I really love the pattern of this lace. It is such a sweet knit for a little girl. My others have already put in their orders for their capes which is the true test as to whether or not it is loved.

This post is part of Ginny Sheller's Wednesday Knit along. Click on the link to see what are on other knitters' needles or get instructions to share your own project. www.gsheller.com.

Knitting Gifts: Cowls & Fingerless Mitts...yum!

Only other knitters would understand how much I adore hand-dyed yarn. But, it's spendy. In an effort to make the holidays more heartfelt and less commercial, my hope is to give knitted gifts. And to make it more affordable, I'm hoping to use stash yarn.

Cascade 128
Perhaps it was a blanket or pillows, but for some reason, I purchased 6 or 8 skeins of Cascade 128 a few years ago and guess what, it's still in the skein, in my stash. The Gap-Tastic Cowl has been in my queue for some time, so I thought why not.

Cascade 128 in seed stitch is so soft and smooshy; no need to use expensive hand-dyed. I cast on the other night and the picture shows my progress. This yarn is the Cascade 128 Superwash in color #1910. If you click on the link of the yarn name, you'll be taken to the new, sweet LYS, Apples to Oranges, in my little town in Oregon. It's a great shop to support in person or by shopping on-line. (They are building their webstore. So, if you don't see what you want, you might soon or you could call).

The combination of this pattern and yarn is wonderful. I can see myself making many more and many happy friends this holiday season... ok, let's face it, maybe Valentine's Day ;)
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I finished the project later that day. It's just as soft & beautiful as I expecteed.

This is my contribution to Ginny Sheller's Yarn Along at www.gsheller.com. She has a wonderful blog recording the life of a homeschooling family. Click on this link to see what others are knitting this week or to submit your own picture.