silk comfort

I made this for my friend in Houston, so I chose a fiber that was 100% silk by Araucania (Chaiten) - it's sort of a matte nubby finish, which is really nice and drapes really well.  I used the Lace Ribbon pattern that I love - so easy to memorize, easy to execute (once you get the hang of it), and looks complicated.  I made it a bit wider than the pattern so that she could use it as a shawl in the air-conditioned buildings that she works in.

It was originally intended as a prayer shawl of sorts - something to give her a modicum of comfort in the aftermath of her mother's recent death - but turned out to be a congratulations-on-your-engagement gift :)

In stitches

School has started!  I feel a collective sigh go through the neighborhood as all the area stay-at-home moms get a breather :)  So it is time to restart this blog - so much fiber to catch up on!

A couple of weeks ago we basked in Stitches Midwest.  Pat and I took a class on lining a knitted item - more on that in the next post.

Lots of color in the market.  This is the Derecho shawl, a pattern sold out everywhere we looked:

The other pattern of choice was Color Affection, an easy-looking yet breathtaking pattern that melds 3 skeins of contrasting sock yarn.  Many booths had various combinations put together for you, making the possibilities reachable.  Pat got one that was a dark red, beige, and I think gray - it's going to be stunning!  I think I want to do one too, but I'm going to cull from my stash because I really have more sock yarn than I know what to do with.

One thing I searched for was a bulky jewel-tone blue variegated yarn for a friend, for whom I offered to make the scarf of her yarn and pattern choice.  I tried to find it at a small purveyor, to no avail.  But I found it at WEBS - it's Berroco!  And yes, the color really is this electric.

I also got some black yarn to make this hat, which a friend saw on Pinterest and asked me to make.  Black, yech!  At least it's a crochet pattern.

In that same issue of Vogue Crochet, I saw this pattern for a lace pullover.    Intriguing.  I got some charcoal-y madeleinetosh yarn from WEBS to attempt it.

Craftsy.com was also advertising by giving away a free class.  Looks intriguing - take online classes in sewing, fiber arts, and cooking.  Probably exactly up my alley!

Every year at Stitches I try on this jacket and look at it longingly.  It's a kit, and every year they never have my colors (the sample is in these lovely jewel tones and the kits always seem to be pastel, like in the photo in the link), so I'm able to easily walk away.  But this year they had it in the most gorgeous deep blues and browns.  It was tough to walk away from it. Finally I decided that I would never have a chance to wear it - I'm just not a fancy kind of person, and if I'm going to get fancy, I'll wear something fancier than a jacket I knit myself.  And with my luck, I'd snag it on something anyway.

Anyways, I've got something else to obsess about and save my pocketbook for ... I want a knitting machine!  Something to help me with the miles of stockinette that these Habu patterns call for.  I was intrigued by the machine knitting booth - so easy! - and I'm going to check out a dealer (the only one within several hours of me) in a couple of weeks.  I had to make an appointment because it's an hour's drive and she works out of her home.

The Pink Kitchen Quilt

Lovely orangey-pinks with a green backing.

This is the second quilt I started—and I just finished it this week! It had some problems and I put it in “time out” for many years. My inspiration was my grandmother’s kitchen (Pepto-Bismol pink!) and I’m happy to say that my sister is giving it a home. (Pink, even with an orange tint, is not my color.)

The entire top.

This is a trip-around-the-world quilt, with a sort of Irish chain layout. Lovely, easy to do as long as you get the fabrics right. It is small; only 40 inches per side. Just enough for decoration.

Basic quilting.

I finished it just in time for her birthday, but I’ll have to sew the label on when I visit later this month!

you knitted what?

My best friend's mom recently passed away.  It's not much, but maybe my friend will feel a little love from me when she takes out a kleenex.  

Pattern:  Zakka tissue cozy

Yarn:  Noro Aurora, a little bit leftover from another project

(I love this yarn and am sad it's discontinued)

(if you ever see me contemplating a toilet paper cozy, you may need to stage an intervention)

Shadow Weave Samples

My small weaving group did a weave-along, and we chose an 8-shaft shadow-weave gamp. In addition to the towel (or table runner), we each wove samples to swap. Here are my samples:

Shadow weave samples to swap

A gamp is a weaving term that means a piece of cloth with a pattern or set of colors in the warp (the length of the cloth) and a pattern or set of colors in the weft (the width of the cloth) such that the final cloth has a series of squares where the different patterns or colors intersect. It's a fun way to see how colors and/or patterns interact.

Shadow weave on the loom (looking sideways)

This gamp was modified from Handwoven Magazine (Jan/Feb 2004). It is shadow weave, which requires alternating dark and light colors (my dark was always black). Each warp stripe has a different threading to make a different pattern, and each weft stripe has the corresponding treadling.

Our samples were full width but had only four rectangular repeats; enough to show the pattern but quick to weave. Each sample took about 35 minutes for me to weave.

I cut off the samples and will tie on the remaining warp to make a table runner. It's neat to see the different patterns; some are pretty, and some are pretty ugly!

Eating a rainbow

Remember that Whole Living magazine that you got for me, Win?  I LOVE it.  In one of the last issues they had a colorful article about "eating the rainbow" - pictures of foods from all over the color spectrum.  So I made a couple, and they were Amazing.  

This one is just pineapple, mango, thinly sliced Meyer Lemon (which you don't eat, as I discovered), and toasted unsweetened coconut.  A perfect dessert - recipe here, in case you don't believe how simple it is.  

This is a "black stir fry" with kale, red cabbage, tofu, and eggplant.  Kale!  And it tastes great!  There was a squeeze of lime which I think made it phenomenal and changed the way I look at stir fry.  Here is the recipe:  Whole Living site    

the end justifies the ends

check out this stunning lap afghan that Pat  just finished!  it's been two years in the making ... but done just in time for her granddaughter's graduation.  

for this project, she learned how to weave in ends as she knit.  can you imagine all the ends she would otherwise have had to weave in at the end?