Gone to the Fair

Today was a totally fun day. The boy and I dropped the girl off at school and we went to run errands, including a trip the the Farmers Market, where we got some incredible strawberries from my favorite vendor and even some peaches. Then we hung out and picked up A after she's had her nap (the reason she went to school was so that she'd get a nap) to go to the County Fair.

We got there and A and Z each made one of these:

Very cool. They had set out some sheered wool and paper and glue and crayons.

We looked at a calf that was born yesterday...we looked at hobbies...and then we went in search of ...





yep. I entered several pieces in the knitting category.

I can honestly say in all the years I've gone to the fair, I've never stepped into this building. It was a little frustrating running around looking at every single display to see if it's one of mine. I had Z looking too. But he was trying to look for my name, and that's difficult in that huge place.





After much running around, I found all my items, and guess what?! I ribboned.



My goldlack shawl won 2nd place. woo hoo.

AND
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Blue ribbon for Hanalore.

Double woo hoo.

Blood Sweat and Tears for Birch Catkins

I finished my first #100 thread 0000/000 needle project. The knitting wasn't that difficult once I got into it. The trick? Don't switch back and forth between projects. My fingers got used to the thin thread pretty quickly, and it's not like cobweb yarn, that snaps when you look at it. This stuff is pretty tough stuff. But ultra thin thread with similar needles work your hands pretty hard.



So, the trials and tribulations of the Birch doily:

Snippet I:

I had set down the project right after I had first switched over from dpns to circs, and my lovely two year old darling little A (aka Creature), came running over saying 'momma, momma, yarn...' while pointing at her legs. Well, there was nothing there, so I shrugged and she sang me a song.

Anyway, I go back to pick up the knitting, and it's not there. I looked around and found it on the floor with the thread in a jumble. Aha. She had been playing w/ my knitting and the thread got tangled around her legs. (Yes, she had dragged it almost into another room).

Anywhoo. the point to this story? Severalfold.

One. I would switch over to circs as soon as possible. Had I left my 0000 metal dpns on there, the blog entry would be vastly different, and shorter.

Two. Listen to your child, really listen. They're not talking silliness. I promise to be a better mom and listen.

Three. That Cordonnet thread is amazing. That stuff is tough. I'm impressed.

Snippet II:

This form of charting greatly annoys me. Mostly because they use the same symbol for k2tog as Burda does for k2 into 1. That is a pain. And this pattern isn't bundled so you have to read all the way across the chart. Priscilla graciously recharted the pattern and it was awesome. But since the official start date wasn't until this weekend -- it being the 'summer' kal and all, I forged ahead. Anyway, I found a couple of errors/ommissions and since everyone isn't as far ahead as myself, well...anyway, there's a couple of move markers that aren't documented and there's a head scratcher (for me) that I had to knit by pure blind faith -- and given the chart errors, I still did that. There's a bit that might look wonky, but oh well.


Snippet III:

Oh my goodness was it hot this weekend. Whew. It was so hot we all hung out in our basement (it's a high basement Vickie) and I knitted on this doily while the kids played. The only thing is I have got to go find my little string holder because my ball of thread kept rolling around. Good thing it's thread, I'm sure it's going to get a tad less dingy when I actually wash it before blocking.


Snippet IV:

Total rookie manuver (or how I had to rewash and soak the doily). I pinned out the doily with the initial 16 pins, then was going through and pinning the other loops when I realized that mine's not circular. So, made a makeshift compass and drew some circles, then was pinning again. After half of it is done, I'm realizing that the doily is drying out --it's been warm here. I can get it done. Hurry Hurry. Sure.

Well, I went and poked myself w/ a straight pin, but still, plodded ahead. Yep, got a drop of blood on the edge. Shoot. Off came all the pins and back in cold water it goes. (See that little discoloration? yep, blood).


I've invested in the stainless steel pins, but sometimes, they bend. And I'm finding that I don't have that many left. I started pinning them 2 together to save pins -- man, I'm lazy. Note to self: go check out th pins that Lacis carries.

edited to add:


Snippet V :

As I was posting this doily to my projects page on Ravelry, I noticed that others listed the pattern as personal, and not Herbert Niebling...I did what a good volunteer editor does, I added the pattern and posted a quick message to the board asking folks to link to this pattern instead of 'personal'.

Well, I get back from picking up the kids only to find much badness. I am no longer a member of the Yahoo group. The group got Ravelry-ized, and I think my putting up this doily was the last straw. It is very sad. They have the right to decide who's in and who's out. I did really appreciate all the information and the lovely folks on that board and how helpful everyone was. I do wish everyone there the best.

In the following picture, in the middle, you see that wonky arch, yep that one, right in the middle. Yes. That's row 91.






Started: June 10, 2008
Finished: June 23, 2008
thread: Cordonnet #100 in white
needles: 0000 dpns, 000 32" circs
modifications: I added 2 extra rows to the edging. Oh, I changed how the doily started too. Using #100 thread, I thought it was too much of a PITA to do the 1->5->10 in 7 rounds.
It blocked out at 23 inches in diameter.

Niebling Summer KAL update

Well, the official start isn't until this weekend, but I am working away at mine. While I was taking a progress shot (I don't usually do this too much for a doily), I realized how thin my thread was, so I thought I'd take a pic for posterity.


This is left to right: #10 thread, #20 thread, and what I'm working with right now, #100 thread.

This is a needle comparison:
Top down: US8, US1, US000, US0000, US6X0


As for the update on the KAL, here it is:


oh, also, guess what I finally ordered....



Thanks for the present! This is a gift from my MIL. Love it!

Happy Father's Day!

To all the fathers out there, have a great one!

Niebling Summer KAL

This summer's KAL is this doily.

I decided I'd try to knit this with the smallest thread I can find. I went to Lacis (again) and talked w/ Erin, the manager. She pointed out the Cordonnet #100 and I also got 0000 metal dpn needles (1.25mm). I figured these should work.

Wish me luck, y'all.

As for other projects, I'm still working on Filigree. It's a bit stalled because I'm trying to decide how to extend the size. I think I'll do a row of leaves (like the edging), and then do another row of flowers ala goldmohn, or just another ring of leaves.

I've also fallen in love with the alternate form of Peacock shawl (Fiddlesticks) that is done in a rectangular stole shape. It looks easy peasy to go from triangle to rectangle.

I'm presently trying to decide among:
1) black bamboo laceweight
2) blue green cashmere laceweight
3) vivid blue tencel
4) basil zephyr

decisions...decisions...

Oh, I need a cardigan or two. I'm working on a black cardi (boring stockinette) based loosely on cropped cardi from Knitty, except mine will not be cropped, nor will it be that low cut. I'm also trying to decide what to use for the adult EZ Feb sweater. I figured I've made 3 children one's, I should make one for me.

Napperon Carre

Isn't Napperon Carre just a beautiful name? yep, it means 'square mat'.



Anyway, this was an interesting knit. The flowers are all crossed stitches, and then you crochet bind off and then pick up stitches (makes that cool loop) and continue. I did end up modifying it a tad. Bind off is at round 113, but I went up to 115 (keeping in hex-mesh and edging pattern). Then for the crochet bind off, I knit together 4 loops at hex mesh, 3 at the triangular points, 5-5-5-5, 4-5-4, 5-5-5-5. Crochet 14 instead of 20 chain (too loopy).



Yes, there was binding. I wish I remembered that when I looked at the picture, it looked like it binds right at the start of the flowers. I wish I had remembered that. It would have been easy to put in another hex mesh there. Drats.



Started May 30, 2008

Finished June 7, 2008

Cebelia #20

1.5 balls

US1 Addi Turbo Lace

Dragone comes alive

Finally got around to finding the perfect eye for the Dragone, it's a swarovski crystal.



It's attached with 30 gauge wire.

Adventures

On Monday, I went over to the other side of the Bay and purchased this cool swift from a fellow Raveler. This is a Squirrel cage swift. The ball winder I've owned. I'm just super glad the winder now has a place to live.

I needed another swift, even though I already have my wonderful amazing Goko swift. The only design flaw with goko is that it doesn't expand wide enough to handle larger skeins. Isn't it a beaut?



I thought since I was in San Mateo, it would be a good time to visit a Nine Rubies, a yarn store located in the Downtown area.

The folks there were very nice and the yarns were lovely. Unfortunately, they didn't have that much lace, but I did go home with my Mmmmalabrigo laceweight in apple green (okay, this was the only color they had.

Okay, this apple green is not a good color for me, but isn't it lovely? And I'm sure I know someone that would like this color...

Then later in the week, I went to Lacis. As the whole Niebling loving community now knows, they are publishing Lyra. Yay.

Weave That.

A bit ago, I tried out the Weave It loom at the Color Fiber Festival, and somehow, I ended up with not one but several Weave It looms, and a Love&Money loom set too! And somehow, the hotpad loom, another little loom (which isn's supposed to be great, but whatever.

Here's my little collection of Weave it looms (plus that little loom that's not a Weave It loom.)


How'd that happen?

they're housed in my Powepuff girl metal box. See how the needles are held on by a magnet that's stuck on the box? (saw that's what GirlontheRocks did).

Anyway, I've now tried a couple of squares and made a couple of birdies with them. My goal is to actually make something that folks don't think...'uhmmm. They're squares'--or in this case, squares folded in half.



What shall I make next? I don't know...

Slaying the Dragon

I'm done I'm done I'm done.

Blocked yesterday. Here it is.



It's massive. It's huge. I wish I had used a smaller needle.


okay, I'm off to the bead store to find a bead for the eye.

Lyra Sister finished

I thought I'd do a semi-quickie Niebling. Funny, it only ends up being 30ish rows less than Lyra. But this turned out much smaller than I thought (at 65cm squared). I've really admired it since I saw it a while ago, mostly because I like squares a bit more than circles.

This is 418/23 from the Burda Lace Special. It's apparently also known as Hannelore (don't ask me why, I don't know...never saw this name to this pattern except on Ravelry). It was a little knit in that it took me a little over a week, but it wasn't as fun as I was hoping b'cause of the the ground stitches. Ends up this is the same background as Dragone and crossed stitches to boot(which I will show you later once I've got it blocked). So, while instead knitting the edging of Dragone, I knit this up.

Specs:

Started May 15 2008
Completed May 24 2008

thread used: Cebelia #20 in white (1.4 balls)

needle size: USo (2mm) dpn and circs

Modifications: none. Oh, wait, I'm fibbing. I did sort of have to mess with the final bind off a little. I'm not sure if I actually changed the grouping of the loops or not, but the way I did it worked out. (I did a 4-3-5-3-4, unless there was a leaf coming up, then it was 4-3-5-3-3 grouping. And at the corner, I did the 4-3-5-3-4--4 at the corner). heck, if you are knitting this ditty and are confused, email me and I'll draw it out.

I love how the flower is crossed stitches. So very Niebling.

Swirl Twirl

This was a easy knit (once I got over the simple math since I wanted to make a few changes).



2 is the number of balls of Jojoland Harmony yarn I purchased from Stitches West

3 is the size needles I used

21 is the number of days it took for me to make this

80 is the grams of Jojoland yarn used (1.4 balls)

65 is the number of spirals I made

67 is the number of pins I used to block this sucker

1920 is the number of stitches picked up

2760 is the number of stitches I cast on



130 is the number of ends I wove in.

But here it is....



whew. Worth it? I think so...

Happy Birthday, my sweet baby girl!

Why was I not at Maker Faire this weekend? Well, I have a birthday party this weekend for my wonderful little Creature A.

This year, we decided on cupcake cake and a party at the park. And we opted to supplement the store cake w/ home-made minicupcakes. I saw these on this site and had to try them. They are so cute!

Okay, ...I've made flourless chocolate cake from scratch, cookies, cream puffs, English toffee, tortes, tarts, cakes, etc...but I've never made cupcakes!

So, first attempt. Utter failure. I read that you're to fill the cup anywhere from 1/2 to 2/3 full. Yep, I opted for the 2/3 full. Oh, what a mess. (nothing to see here...please keep moving...)

Try II. Went to get more of the mini-nut holders and big box M store did not have any! Did find them finally and made these.

Note how I went the other way this time and filled everything only to half. And the white cake shrank! Ah, well. Trusty intarweb told me that I can add more frosting to compensate. Aha.

Here's what they look like after frosting.

We got a store cupcake cake (only served 14) and you guessed it, only the adults ate the itty bitty cakes. The kids all went for the big giant cupcakes. Anyway, the party was loads of fun, for everyone but you guessed it, little Miss Creature. She didn't feel good in the morning, and napped (very unlike her) in the morning. She was a bit clingy but we put it down to party stress...nope. As we were loading stuff up to go home, yep, there was erpage.

As for the nut holder cups? Went to MickyD's today and they had literally stacks of them...darn, I wish I had known, wouldn't have needed to traipse all over town looking for these suckers. Could have just used the Double Arches ketchup cups.

Okay, back to knitting.

Update on KAL and Happy Happy Happy

Just a quick update on the KAL fiasco, as flutter says, yes, that's the designer. But I did get a chuckle from someone else's post (which will likely get deleted on the board), turns out her other job is...as a psychic. The poster made a snark about how if she was good at her job, she should have foreseen this (almost made me spray my monitor with my Diet Coke). hee. I thought it was funny.

eta: Thanks for all the comments!


Anyway, onward to fun stuff. Saturday, I and the girl went up to Color: A festival of fiber. I wish I had signed up for the spinning class before hand, since the classes were full when we got there, but I did manage to check out Girl On the Rock's tutorial about weaving using a mini-loom. What fun (except when A thought it would be funny to run away from mom on several occasions - sigh). In between the chasing, I did manage to make this cell phone doohicky.

So very cool. I now must go find this loom. They're right now going for ~$30-60 a pop. I'm thinking more in the $15 range...I'd make one, but it would be nice to have one in front of me to check it out first.

And they had amazing lovely roving. It's really too bad I can't spin (yet). So I didn't buy any roving. I looked and petted and even allowed A to pet (after I checked that she had clean fingers of course). I also arranged to meet up with the lovely marlowec from Ravelry who yay, gave me some lovely sock yarn. And she was super nice and gave A pineapple.

But after a bit, A was losing it (no nap) and we had to leave. Actually, I don't think we could have done the spinning class. All that whirling and twirling would have sent little A into uber-creature mode. It was a small gathering, but very cool. I hope they do it again (and often).

Then on Sunday, I went to the local library to meet up w/ Ravelry folks. And what was a special treat was that a lace knitting friend who dropped off family at the airport was able to come by and knit with us.

So, pretty productive weekend of fiber. I am now working on the 4 out of 5 rows on the swirly stole (I of course modified the pattern and it's a few less circles/row. I really like it since it's portable and super easy pattern to remember (ask me again when I'm weaving in bazillion ends).

rolling eyes at KAL

I like knitalongs...I might not knit along, I might not even contribute to the chatter, but I like them. I marvel at the folks that have the tenacity to set them up, and I hope that they like doing these since they get 100's and even 1000's of folks knitting something the designer dreamed up. I mean seriously, a bunch of folks waiting with bated breath for Friday to roll around so that they can get a new clue and then blindly knit the clue...such power...

However, there is one knitalong that I joined which did something I really didn't like. The designer claimed that due to the amount of time involved in doing this KAL, that she needed to now charge a fee for the clues to the pattern. Now, it's not the $ that bothers me, there are knitalongs that require a fee, and I'm all for that--if you think you can make money from it, sure, go ahead. I'm just not comfortable with her explanations...she says that there were too many people asking questions about her clue and that folks were emailing her nonstop, she had to take a break from the 2nd clue. Okay, taking time away from the family, I get that. But then she turned around and is now charging for the clues...that just doesn't jive with me. Is getting money going to allow her to spend more time with her family? uhmmm...no. Well, at least now she can say that she's getting something for missing out on personal time. whatever.

But here's the kicker. Here's why I don't think I'll purchase this pattern. She also has a group on Ravelry and folks were posting their disappointments about what they perceived as 'bait & switch' tactics. And true, it was a free KAL, and you get what you pay for, so stop your whinging. But here's the reason I won't be purchasing her pattern... She went and deleted the comments that she didn't like!

Wow. I've not seen that before. This is along the lines of Magknits and the way they closed up shop. Her attitude is that this was 'her house, and she can do as she pleases'. Okay, that's a paraphrase, but the thing about 'her house' is in her note she sent out.

Now, I'm a moderator for a yahoo group, and I have deleted posts, but I will email the poster to let them know why I deleted their post (usually, it's for silly things like that they put too much personal information in a post that goes out to a huge group, or that they're chatting on the board and that's not kosher--yeah, we're strict). But I don't delete because I don't agree with them (and we get some bulldog-types that just...won't...let...a...subject...go. big rolling eyes)

Anyway, my post didn't get deleted (yet), but posts above and below mine were decimated. Ughh...bad taste in mouth, bad taste...

I think that this designer should have thought about what a KAL would entail and talked w/ other designers first about how to run one successfully.

Later, I'll talk about my lovely weekend which started out with a trip to Color: A Fiber Festival today and will hopefully end with meeting up w/ Rav folks at the local library.

And I'll post a picture or two.

Update on the ever growing bunch of lace...

Dragone update:



yes, I'm almost done with the head...and I'm dragging on my dragone...

I also finally looked at the swirl shawl pattern by Jojoland and cast on one component to figure out if I'm willing to knit 80something of these...


Why yes, you cut the yarn so there will be over 160 ends to weave in. The one nice thing is that you pick up the edges so there's no seaming...This is supposed to be done in fingering yarn, but I like the Jojoland Harmony, so that's what I'm using. It's looking a bit flimsy to me (this is US3, of course) so I think I'll increase the size of each of these...I'm looking at Spiral Octagon Shawl from IK as a guide...I need ONE project where it'll be easy to follow once I start and I was really hoping this was it.

Back to tinking and knitting...

Filigree progress

I know I should be working on Dragone, but why when I've got extra lovely Colourmart silk/cashmere in Sangria whispering to me. Saying CAST ON FOR SOMETHING! oh, I guess it's shouting...not whispering. I decided that this gorgeous red cone of delight has to become a Niebling. (It's actually much darker red than pictured--note to self: work on taking better picture).


I was going to make Lyra, but fleegle has such a beautiful red version of it that I decided on Filigree. 'Filigree' is 554/33 aka Burda Special E554 pattern #33 aka Anna 0896/21 (Aug 1996 pattern #21). There might be other names too, but I don't know. Lacefreak is working on this shawl, and her's is in a sweet pink. She calls it Poppy, and I think it's a lovely name. It is related to Goldmohn (Burda #198), I believe that has more chrysanthemum-oaky jagged leaves in the center. And Goldmohn is a monstrocity at 311 rounds while this is a sweet 176 rounds.

Anyway, I had Colourmart double the cobweb weight yarn and am using a US3 needle. I'm finding that for laceweight, that's my standby. I started this project April 5, 2008. Here's the progress picture:



I think it really does need another tier of something...I think I'll do the leaves as is, fill in the in between leaves with hex, and then do a round of flowers or edging to finish it off.

Arnika

I had to put dragone in time out while I figure out if I skipped another stitch--I've already ripped 20 rows of it becuz I can't count.

Anyway, I was itching to for a Niebling fix, and I saw this little sweet doily and said, I'll do that one.

Isn't a nice sweet easy pattern?

A little bit about Arnica--it's a flowering plant that belongs in the sunflower family. Common name is wolf bane. It's used as a tincture for bruises and swelling. Not to be taken internally since it is poisonous. Has also been used as homeopathic medicine. (pic from Wikipedia)


All I can say is that I'm learning more about plants by knitting Niebling patterns than I had ever learned in college.

Anyway, back to the 'easy' pattern. It ended up not being that easy. It's actually quite challenging. There's an error at round 39 where there's an extra stitch unless you knit 3 together instead of 2 (like the pattern says). But the challenging parts?

Petals. Pretty petals. These consist of crossed stitches (that would be mini-cables for you all non-Niebling knitters).

And round 69? You bind off 12 stitches then pick them back up at row 70. How cool is that?! Oh, many thanks to yosemite55 ,Julimond &halfmaennchen from Ravelry for their help in decyphering German. I had babel fished it, but wasn't too sure.

So, here's my finished Arnika:

specs:
start date: March 28, 2008
finish date: March 30, 2008
thread: Cebelia #30
amt used: less than .5 ball
needles: US0 dpns and 0 Hiya Hiya needles

Oh, I should mention this is what I brought to knit on during the Ravelry meetup at the local library. By then, I was just knitting hex mesh, so it was pretty simple. The only modification I made was that I bumped up to US1 needles for the knit edge and then I actually knit 3X into each hex mesh so that I wouldn't get binding.

Back to trying to figure out Dragone...

Happy Easter!

Presenting Miss Dangly

I had everything done but her eyes and thanks to everyone who commented, I went with the eyes close together.

I also made her a little crown and a little tulle skirt. I hope M likes her.



And yes, she is doing the splits.