Catching up

Everything is ready to be taken to the fair tomorrow! I'm so excited. I hope I win a ribbon! The only thing missing from my pile of entries is the ogee tunic because all I have finished are the sleeves and this: It's coming out really well and I changed it from a tunic to more of a standard pullover with the addition of some waist shaping. A-lines just don't work for me. Here's a detail of the cabling. It's so pretty! (A while back Anna posted a comment asking about the gauge for the ogee tunic. I don't have her email address so here's the answer to the question she asked. The stated guage deson't seem to match up with the number of stitches you cast on and the measurements you're supposed to get. The math doesn't work out right, but everything turns out fine. The edges of the pieces have a small amount of ribbing, lace and cables, which apparently changes the gauge just enough that you end up with the right measurements even though it seems like you have a lot of extra stitches. So, my advice to Anna, and anyone else who is thinking of knitting this, is that as long as you get the same guage as stated, trust the pattern's stitch numbers and measurements. It works out. )

Backing up a little, here's a picture of me knitting the second sleeve in El Salvador. The cute yellow building is the hotel we stayed at in Apaneca, a little town in the mountains. Rocking chairs and hammocks- what more could a knitter want? Okay, maybe cooler weather so that I actually felt like knitting, but I didn't want to be picky.

Finally, here is a finished picture of the pillow I knitted for my friends that got married. I am still finishing the second, but the 1st one had a special assignment.
As part of the ceremony, they got lassoed together. As my friend Cindy said, "I't like a unity candle but we get lassoed together instead." Yep, those are exactly the same. Anyway, they needed a pretty pillow to kneel on so my gift was very fitting. You can just barely see the corner of my (their) pillow below.I had to fancy up the pillow a little for it's big day. I folded the flap inside and then safey pinned some ribbons to the inside so I could tie it closed. To make it look balanced, I tied some bows and pinned them to the other end as well, keeping the pillow case snug around the pillow. The happy couple loved it!
Last but not least, my secret pal deserves a huge thank-you shout out. I got this great package, along with a stitch pattern book that didn't make it into the photo. I got some soap (I love cute soaps!), pretty needles, felted tweed to make the knucks from the latest knitty, and some really pretty hand-dyed yarn that I've already started swatching.
Thank you, secret pal and good luck to all you knitters who entered things in your local fairs this summer!!

Picture Time

In no particular order, here are some pictures of El Salvador. I know you came here for knitting content but I don't have any pictures of knitting to show you right now. I do have pictures of knitting in El Salvador but those will have to wait for another day. I am making progress on my Ogee Tunic and even (with lots of wishful thinking) entered it in the fair. I really don't think It will be finished by then because I didn't take going on vacation into account when I planned out my state fiar knitting. I have other things to enter, though, don't you worry! As I said, I did knit in El Salvador, just not very much.

This was my 1st (and last) view of El Salvador as it's the view from the airport window. Getting off the plane, it was immediately apparent I wasn't in the US anymore! It was a great feeling. Mayan ruins near the location of my friend's wedding site. It's the rainy season so we were caught in a rainstorm there. The ruins in El Salvador aren't as big as those in Guatemala or Mexico and they're not completely excavated yet, but still interesting to visit. For me, the highlight was learning how they used to make indigo dye. The wedding was fun! That's my soleil tank top that I knitted and the skirt I made. I didn't set out to wear a totally handmade outfit. It just worked out that way.This is Apaneca, the highest town in El Salvador. We spent a few days there and it was really nice. It was cooler and less humid than the city, which was a nice break. If you look closely at the picture, the bright orange house on the left is where we stayed. The hills are covered with coffee trees as it's one of the coffee growing regions in the country. This is Moke and our guide from the hotel taking us on a hike through a coffee plantation and the surroinding beauty. We were on our way to see some old Mayan statues that are on the property. Everything was so green and pretty thanks to the rainy season. It was really fun and I will show what I've been knitting soon.

I wish I were still on vacation!

Well, I made it back from El Salvador and now am back at work. Work is definately not as fun as El Salvador! It was awesome to se my old friends and the wedding was fabulous. They loved the tree pillow and my pillowcase with the lace insert that I made for them even got a special place in the ceremony. More on that when I actually havesome pictures to show you.

You could be looking at pictures right now but Blogger is being stupid.

I saw Mayan ruins, cool birds, and lots of tropical flowers. I hiked through a coffee plantation, ate lots of pupusas (kind of like tamales but better), got caught in a rainstorm, stayed in a hotel in the highest town in the country, ate breakfast for only $1, rode buses with crazy drivers, saw only 2 other Americans (other than my friends who also came for the wedding) the entire time, drank soda out of a bag, learned that my Spanish is not as good as it used to be, got stuck in the biggest market in San Salvador between 2 buses that didn't move for the longest time, knitted while at a bus stop at what felt like the middle of nowhere, met lots of nice El Salvadorans and generally had a great time!

And now, for your knitting content, here are my answers to the latest batch of secret pal questions:

1. What is your favorite season of the year and why?
I love the fall. I love the leaves changing colors and the (usually) slow transition from flip flops and tank tops to long sleeved shirts and then sweaters and jackets.

2. Summer is hot. What do you knit in the summer?
Usually I knit tank tops and lacey things. This summer I'm knitting a wool sweater, though. Hopefully I'll have it done in time to enter in the fair although time is starting to run out.

3. If money was no object.....what would you buy at the LYS?
Everything. To narrow it down, I'd have to say everthing that's soft. No scratchy wool for me. I love merino and angora and alpaca. Mmmm . . . soft . . .

4. What are some activities that have become family traditions for your family?
Mike and I love to go camping and every year my extended family and friends have a reunion camping at Fallen Leaf Lake near Lake Tahoe. We try to go every year and it's a lot of fun. We coulnd't go this year because of our trip to El Salvador.

5. What is the weather right now?
It's cool and cloudy in the mornings but sunny in the afternoons. It's pretty nice. We missed the crazy hot heat wave that happened while we were in El Salvador and I'm so thankful for that! I do like the summer but I'm definately more of a cool weather girl.

knitting + sewing =

This!!I finally finished sewing the pillow I made for Cindy and Camilo. I made the knitted part a slipcover so it can be taken off and washed as needed. It's not a "standard" size so I couldn't use a pillow form. I had to sew a pillow and then stuff it so it was a little more work than I had originally planned on but I'm happy I did it that way. Here's the back.My camera can't take a close up of the fabric without it being blurry, which is too bad. It's really pretty up close and actually has a fair amount of blue in it. It took just under 2 skeins of knitpicks merino style in the color frost and comes out to be about 13 x 17 inches.

It's going to be really hard to part with this pillow. I want to keep it! Cindy will love it, though, and I even found a great quote about love and trees (I can't remember it right now) that I'm going to write on the back.

Also for their wedding gift, I'm knitting some pretty heart lace using Mandarin Petit cotton. It's so soft! Lastnight I told Mike he had to feel it. He did to humor me and I could tell he wasn't excited to touch my yarn but then he exlaimed, "Wow, that is really soft!" I'm going to sew it onto some pillowcases like the ones in Weekend Knitting. I don't know if I'll have these done by their wedding since it's just over a week away! I can't believe we leave for El Salvador on Tuesday! I'm so excited but I have lots of packing and trip planning to do before then.

I don't think I'll be needing these inEl Salvador. I finished them because I went camping in the mountains last weekend and I needed some warm clothes. I finished the second one while I was sitting by the campfire just as the last of the light was leaving the sky. It was perfect timing and as soon as it got chilly that 1st night, I got to wear them!
It's a great pattern. I totally recommend it! You can find it for free here. The only modification I made was to extend the cable pattern all the way to the top instead of ending with a few rows of plain ribbing. I used Lamb's Pride worsted and used less than 1 skein!

Do you notice the green in the picture? That's my new backyard!! It no longer looks like this. Our baby grass grew up and it's a real lawn now!

Lasly, I'll leave you with a pretty purple picture. This is lettuce that I got from the farm last week. It's the prettiest lettuce ever and it tased really good too.

Cable-y goodness

Thanks for the nice comments about Phoebe. I realize I didn't actually put in the link to the picture of her fur that I spun. If you still want to see my sorry attempt at spinning angora, it's here.

My good friend is getting married this month. I've been planning on knitting her something and at the beginning of the week I started to panic that the wedding is only in 3 weeks and I have nothing. I had just finished the sleeve to my ogee tunic so it was a good time to take a detour and turn my knitting attention to something else.

Cindy loves nature and so I got the idea of knitting a pillow with a pattern of intertwining trees. None of the existing patterns were exactly what I wanted so I read this article 3 or 4 times and then set out to design my tree pattern and chart it out.

After two nights of Mike getting tired of papers spread out all over the couch and me too involved to talk to him, I ended up with a crazy chart that looks like this.I thought of knitting a practice version out of some crappy yarn but then realized that if this didn't work, I didn't have the patience to redo it. And, if it did work, I didn't want to have to knit it again.

So, I dove right in with some Knitpicks merino style in frost and this is how it turned out. I actually knit it in only 3 days! I surprised myself.I used size 4 needles so it's a fairly tight fabric- good for a pillow. I got some great fabric to make the back with. It kind looks like tree roots so it's very fitting and it even has the same blue color in it! It's much cuter than the picture shows. (This photo shows the color of the yarn better then the previous. Neither is quite accurate, though. It's a little more turquoise than this picture)Now I just need it to finish blocking and I can sew it up!

The prettiest bunny ever

Phoebe, my pretty princess of a bunny died on Sunday night. She was lethargic and not breathing well so we rushed her to Dove Lewis- the emergency clinic I was hoping I'd never have to take a pet to. After several hours we cried and decided to euthanize her and then cried some more. It was really sad but best for her.

She's a german angora and I have tons of her fur safely stored away that I've been wanting to spin. You can see my first attemps at spinning her fur here. I though I had lots of time to learn and lots of angora fiber to proctice with since she kept growing more. Now that I don't have her anymore I don't want to waste all her fur learning to spin it.

Is there anyone out there that can spin angora and would do that for me? For a price, of course. I just want some mittens with a Phoebe cuff or maybe a little mini-Phoebe to snuggle up with.

Summer = Fair Time

The state fair is coming and I am so excited. I was practically raised at fairs. My mom is, and my grandma was, a fair judge. They judge baked goods, jams, jellies, sewing, crafts, you name it, they can stick a ribbon (or not) on it. Some of my earliest memories are of hanging out watching the fair get all set up while my mom and grandma fed me bits of cookies they were judging. They say that when I was a baby they used to stick me in the closet at one particular fair to take naps.

When I was older, I was in 4-H and I had animals so I practically lived at our county fair. I accumulated boxes full of ribbons and my grandpa and uncle were embarassed every year when I made them drive me to the fair to pick up the boxes full of stuff that I had entered.

This is a long intro to explain to you how excited I was to see that Larissa started a State-Fair-Along! I entered some things in the Oregon State Fair for the 1st time last summer (I am not a native Oregonian) and was excited to win a blue ribbon for some cookies but was disappointed at the lack of competition in many of the categories, including knitting. So was Larissa. There are so many crafty people that aren't entering things in their fairs! So fellow Americans, knit, sew, bake, make something to enter in your local fair this has started a summer. It will be fun!

I just made this skirt but it is not fair quality. It's summertime-fun-in-the-sun quality and that's all I was going for. Please forgive the wrinkles, the white fabric is linen and I have been wearing it all evening. I used some of the fabric previously seen here.
So, what will I be knitting for the state fair? After much deliberation, I have decided on this:It's the ogee tunic from Knitting Nature. I'm using Knitpicks merino style in tide pool and I am already almost done with the 1st sleeve! Pretty exciting, huh? What could be more exciting than a partially finished sleeve? A package from my secret pal! I was so excited to get this in the mail! It's 2 skeins of knitpicks laceweight merino and a pattern for a shawl. The blue yarn is Cascade Pastaza-wool and llama! I've been fondling this yarn for a while now and have been wanting some. How did you know, secret pal? The colors of both are gorgeous- just what I'd choose for myself. I also got some great chocolate and fabulous stitch markers so I don't have to use those cheap plastic rings anymore. Thank you, thank you!

Finally a finished picture! (and the letter M)

It's done and it fits!! I love my corset pullover. If you like it too, the pattern is free! That makes it even better in my mind.

Yarn: Knitpicks shine sport in hydrangea. The pattern called for a worsted weight yarn so this involved a LOT of math to adjust the pattern. I love the result. If anyone is interested in the pattern using a sport weight yarn, I can hook you up.
Needles: Size 6 denise interchangeables.
Ch-ch-changes: Besides the extreme change in gauge, not too much. I made it about an inch longer (as I do nearly everything). I also omitted the cinch straps on the sides and the sleeves. I didn't wan tto make the top any "fussier" than it already is and I also just wanted to be finished. The top is pretty and doesn't need anything else. I love the lace edgings and its femininity.

Speaking of femininity, I mentioned last time that I have a solution for my too-big, super-feminine "modern bustier." I haven't yet fixed it, though. I need a little distance from it right now. I'm mad at it for being too big but it'll eventually show up fixed.

I have a backlog of pictures to share with you so my letter M is going to be a couple of things- Monolith and Mt. St. Helens. In the last week, I've been to both of these famous Pacific Northwest landmarks. Last weekend my mom came up from California and we had a girl's weekend at the beach and went here.It's Haystack Rock, the 3rd largest Monolith in the world. A monolith is a feature that is made up of a single stone or rock (what's the difference?) and this one is 235 feet tall! It's in Cannon Beach, Oregon. Supposedly, puffins live on it but I didn't see any. My mom and I had a great weekend and it was so pretty at the beach! Today, Mike and I went to Mt. St. Helens - the volcano that erupted in 1980. It used to be pointy on the top but that blew off in 1980 and covered the area in massive amounts of ash. This web site has some cool pictures of it erupting.

Today we went to the Ape Cave Lava Tubes. It's a giant underground tunnel that was created by a lava flow when the volcano erupted somewhere around 2000 years ago. It was so cool! We climbed over huge boulder piles, navigated out way around puddles and had to wear sweatshirts and long pants even though it was 80 degrees today (it was cool 42 degrees in the cave). All of this in total darkness. Well, we had headlamps and a mag light but it was still dark! When we turned of our lights, I couldn't even see my hand when it was inches form my face. It was cool. Here are the best pictures we managed to take. I have a new knitting project but I think I've posted enough pictures for today and there's really not much to show yet, anyway.

Yeah summer!

Happy summer solstice, everyone! My summer started out gloriously sunny and not too hot. A perfect day except that I was at work. At least I get to work outside. When I woke up this morning, my plan was to come home from work and put on my corset pullover and take some pictures out in the sunshine. (In my mind, my days don't really start until I come home from work. It's sad, really.)

It would have been perfect.The 1st day of summer was just so pretty that it made me think of strawberries and how I had to have some. So after work I bought pesticide-free strawberries from the farmer that grew them! and that had just been picked this afternoon! They are the best strawberries I have ever had and I don't say that lightly.

So, instead of modeling my corset pullover for you, I made strawberry-mint jam with mint from my garden. It's delicious. I wish I could share it with everyone.


Meanwhile, I am busy planning my next project. I'll just say that it involves the state fair and something from this beautiful book and I'm looking forward to knitting it. Details coming soon.Something else I'm excited about is my LAWN!! This is my "L" for the abc-along. For the last few months, my lawn has looked like this. Then it was seeded and mulched and for a while it looked like the back yard was a stable with all the straw. But now, after countless hours of hard work, baby grass is starting to grow through the straw mulch. I WILL have a lawn before the summer is over! Can you tell I'm excited? Croquet, here I come.

The sweater reincarnated

This post is going to be mostly pictures and few words because it's late and I'm tired.

You may remember this sweater from a while back. The sweather that I loved for many years that finally got too many holes to wear. Well, I have transformed it into this!I felted it, embroidered it with spiderweb designs and added a lining and handles. The handles are just plastic tubing from Home Depot with some orange Lamb's Pride threaded through it. I love bags.
That's armwarmer #2 in the bag. The lining is a fun comic book print. I sewed 2 pockets to the inside and I matched the fabric exactly! I was quite impressed with myself. You can barely see them in the picture. One pocket is the lady and the other is the beach scene.I finished my corset pullover! It just needs a light blocking and then you'll get a modeled pic and all the details. It fits nicely and I'm really happy with it, which is exactly what I needed after the modern bustier disaster. Sorry I never posted a photo of that, by the way. Blogger freaked out on me and then my mom came to visit (so fun!!) and then I figured out how to fix it. Details to come.

In honor of Project Spectrum, here is a beautiful rainbow of flowers. Pioneer Square was all decked out in flowers in honor of the Rose Festival last weekend. Here's an ariel view and a picture of me and my hot, tired pup.
I love Portland. I also love knitting again, now that I am reminded that I can do something right!

I hope your week is off to a great start, fabulous blog readers.

I finished it. Kind of.

Aaaahhhh! This is why it was better to have my bustier unfinished in my knitting basket. It is too big!! I measured and it seemed fine but when I sewed on the fabric and laced it up it's too big.

Just when I think maybe it's not that big and I can live with it and wear it, I move a certain way and the back of the top sags unflatteringly. I took a picture to prove that it's too big and I'm not just being everly critical but Blogger isn't letting me upload pictures right now.

I'll try to figure it out in the next few days because I really want this top to work! I love the yarn and the pattern is really pretty.

I have some ideas of how to fix it but I'm not too thrilled with any of them. I thought of sewing the knitted fabric closer to the grommets inthe back but even that won't tighten it up enough. I'd have to lose the lace-up back altogether and I don't want to do that. I also could fold the the knitted fabric and sew some darts into the back but I'm not sure how that would look. I'll try to figure it out in the next few days.

Any suggestions? I'm open to anything as long as I end up with a pretty tank top that fits!

Fear of finishing be gone!

It is becoming apparent that I have a problem. A serious problem finishing my projects. I finished knitting this lovely tank top ages ago but only 1/2 the fabric is sewed on.

I try to make myself feel better by saying that I knit 2 mother's day scarves and 2 silly apple cozies in the meantime, proving I can finish things. But there's really no excuse. I've had plenty of time. The sunny weather has again turned rainy and grey so I couldn't even wear it if it were done, I tell myself. Again, not a worthy excuse. I could have finished it before the weather turned bad again.

I'm afraid of screwing it up in the final moments. It's knitted beautifully, the grommets are perfectly aligned but I'm afraid my sewing will mess it up. I need to get over this. Tonight, people, I will finish the stupidly named but very pretty Modern Bustier.

Ah but the finishing will not end there. I have finished knitting all the pieces of the corset pullover. Here is the 2nd sleeve. It will not sit in my basket for weeks. It doesn't matter that I have other projects I want to work on or that I enjoy knitting more than finishing. I will finish this in a timely manner.

I must admit, though, that once I finished this sleeve, I started something else. I have a good reason. Really, I do. Mike and I took the MAX downtown on Thursday night and the thought of sitting on the train with nothing to knit was terrible so I knitted this: It is much more suited to Portland's current weather than a summery cotton shirt. Sad but true. I finished it last night but I will not start the other until I finish seaming my other things.

We took MAX to the Rose Festival Waterfront Village. A fancy name for a carnival and we went because it was the 1st night so it was free. It was grey and rainy (no surprise) but still fun! We rode the ferris wheel. I hadn't ridden one in years so it was really fun!This is the carnival as seen from the ferris wheel. It's blurry because the ferris wheel was moving.

The carnival didn't have tickets for the rides, they had a credit card thing that you add money to and gets scanned at every ride! Everything is getting so modern. I liked tickets better. One benefit (maybe) is that the ferris wheel lady forgot to scan our card so we got to go on another ride for free! We picked a spinning ride and this is Mike, mid-spin.
On a completely unrelated note, I greatly enjoy seeing other blogger's lovely pictures of their cats. You probably are aware that I have a dog, but I like cats too and even have 2 of them. but they are greatly under-represented on my blog.

Because of this my letter K for the abc-along is for KITTIES! Before you get too excited, my pictures are boring because my cats are not nearly as interesting as yours seem to be. They sleep all the time. When not sleeping, they are outside far away from the camera.

This is Gatsby.I found him on Craigs List and after a rocky start he's a happy member of our household. He was freaked out by the dog even though the dog didn't bother him and then he ran away and we didn't see him for almost 2 weeks and I felt really, really horrible for losing him. Then he appeared on our front steps and wanted to come back in. During his adventure he must have decided that the dog is better than whatever he encountered while he was gone. His favorite thing is to get petted. Mike says he's pushy and needy while I just think he's lovey and snuggly.

This is Ramona. The pest. She is the prettier of the 2 and she has extra toes on all her feet. I got her before Mike and I got married and while he did help pick her out, she lived with me. After we got married, Ramona decided Mike is a million times better than me. She's a traitor. She lets Mike do whatever he wants to her but if I just walk by her the wrong way, she hisses and attacks me. Sometimes I think Mike loves her more than me. The only time Ramona ever wants to sit on my lap is when I'm knitting and I don't want her on my lap. I'm convinced she does it just to spite me.

I don't want to leave you with Grumpy Ramona so here is something more cheery. These pretty cotton prints were on sale the other day. Check back for some sewing projects in the future!

Apple Cozy Pattern

Okay y'all. The Knitorama pattern sucked so much that I totally changed it when I knit my apple cozies. There's been some interest so I'll share it with you. Materials: I used size 8 dpns and Lion brand woolease. Guage doesn’t really matter, you just want it to fit an apple. If you get to the end of the increase section and it doesn’t seem big enough, add a few more increase rows and the same number of decrease rows to compensate. This will make your cozy both wider and taller to better hold those gigantic apples you can buy at the supermarket. This will also work if your yarn is thinner than worsted weight. Don’t forget, though, that the finished product will stretch!

CO 12 stitches and divide evenly on 4 dpns. Join for knitting in the round.
Row 1: knit across
Row 2: make 1 (m1) stitch at beginning of each needle – 16 st
Row 3: on each needle knit to 1 stitch before end, m1 – 20st
Rows 4-13: Repeat rows 2 & 3 five more times – 60 st

(This explanation might help you visualize the pattern. Each dpn holds the stitches for 1 side of the apple cozy plus 1 stitch to simulate a seam between each side. So after casting on, 2 stitches on each needle are the beginnings of one side and the 3rd stitch is the “seam” stitch. On the first increase row, you increase at the beginning of each of the four sides. On the next row, you increase at the end of each side, then knit the “seam” stitch. By doing this, you create evenly rounded sides and, therefore, an evenly rounded apple cozy. If you use fewer dpns or magic loop, just place markers between the stitches for each side and follow the instructions.)

Rows 14-15: knit across
Beginning with the next row, begin knitting back and forth, not in the round! (you could switch to a straight needle but I found it easiest to stick with the dpns)
Row 16: On each needle, purl the first stitch (this is your “seam” stitch), purl 2 together (p2tog), purl to end – 56 st
Row 17: slip, slip, knit (ssk) 1st 2 stitches on each needle, knit to end – 52 st
Rows 18-25: repeat rows 16 & 17 four more times – 20 stitches (5 on each needle)
Row 26: on each needle, purl 1, p2tog twice. On last dpn, CO 8 stitches.
BO all stitches.

Finishing: With scrap yarn, sew end of 8 cast on-bound off stitches to the edge of the cozy, making a loop.

Bobble button and leaf: I knitted these as written in the book, Knitorama, so I won’t post the patterns. It’s really easy, though. For the bobble, CO a few stitches, increase a few more, decrease and cast off. Then roll or fold up the tiny knitted piece you just made and sew it across from the loop you just made. Viola- a button!
The leaf is knitted the same way only bigger. CO a few stitches, increase a few more, knit several rows even, decrease down to 1 stitch to make a nice, pointy tip and bind off. Sew it on wherever you would like to embellish the apple.