Spring Seedling 春苗

Last year Ally sent me this nice skein of her hand spun, corriedale plied with kid mohair and silk, that I blogged about here. Now it's a scarf.

Project:  Spring Seedling 春苗

Pattern:  Seedling Wrap by Tonia Barry (free Ravelry download)

Yarn:  Ally's handspun

Needles: Size 11

Cast on: March 19, 2012 

Cast off: March 24, 2012

Cost: None!

Previous entries: here

Notes: Had couple of false starts so I can make the stitch pattern into the right proportion for a scarf. The total knitting time was less than five hours. Love the finished scarf!

I'm posing, mom.

You mean like this?

Or like this.

I'm outta here!

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment! 

Mock Cables Finale

Project:  Mock Cables 真淑女
Pattern:  High-Low Peplum Pullover by Sandy Cushman,  Interweave Knits, Spring 2001 
Yarn:  Karabella Majestic 
Yardage:   1240 yards in stash (could have used a few more yards on the neckline)
Needles: Size 7
Cast on: January 26, 2012 
Cast off: March 18, 2012
Cost: estimate $40. The yarn was on sale at Stitches. I don't remember buying it, but I wouldn't have paid more.
Previous entries: here, here, and here
Notes: The neckline came out much lower than I planned as I was running out of yarn, I think it looks fine. I still want to add something in the center diamonds, but it's a pretty busy all over pattern, adding more to it might just be too much. I wore it Thursday evening to a concert at our local high school (Henry's music instructor plays in the band), and it was quite warm and comfortable, and pretty too, so I should leave good enough alone.

Love me some spring colors

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment! 

Neckline

Mock Cables, front, back, sleeves all done, picked up stitches for the neckline. The pattern calls for a cute mock turtle neck, which I love, and the stitch patten goes up the center front and back. It's going to look so cute and sweet when it's done.

Over the years I've knitted sweaters with all kinds of necklines.

Crew neck, simple, classy, boring. 

Turtle neck, extra knitting to keep you warm!

Deep V, sassy, stylish

Sweetheart neckline, gotta have the body to carry it

Mandarin collar, beautiful, elegant, practical. Love, love, love it!

Polo style, too many little pieces, not worth the time.

And then some of us don't have much of a neck to speak of.

Do you have a favorite neckline? and why do you like it?

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment! 

Mock Cables Progress

Project:  Mock Cables 真淑女
Pattern:  High-Low Peplum Pullover by Sandy Cushman,  Interweave Knits, Spring 2001 
Yarn:  Karabella Majestic 
Yardage:   1240 yards in stash 
Needles: Size 7
Cast on: January 26, 2012 
Notes: This is coming along nicely. The pattern makes you do bobbles in the middle of those diamonds in the center front and back, but I'm not a bobble kind of knitter. Will be looking for interesting things to fill the diamonds.

Question: I have a stash of costume jewelry that I don't wear any more, and I want to take them apart and make some stitch markers. If you have made stitch markers, can you tell me what basic tools I need to start? I have seem jewelry pliers at Michael's, and we have a small wire cutter. I need jump rings, and some sort of wires, right?

A stretch a day, keep the doctor away.

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment!

Stitches West 2012

Previous reviews: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011

This year I worked in the market part of Friday and Saturday, for the wonderful Laurel and John from Handknitting.com, and shopped the rest of the time. Here is a small sample of what I saw.

Crochet this scarf with Trendsetter Bodega, took only couple of hours.
Modeled by fellow day laborer,  Prabha. After I finished my shift and left the booth,
Prabha's aunt bought the scarf!

First time to see yarn with Russian lable

A knitted man sitting in Lion Brand's booth

Yarn tasting station in the lobby. Can you believe they CUT qiviut and suri alpaca and cashmere??

The Oriental Jacket in Koigu booth. I have the Koigu book, but this
colorway is so much more handsome.

Learning to knit with size 50 needles in The Bag Smith booth, also learned
Tunisian crochet with super sized hooks.

My collection from the yarn tasting station went into this magic ball.

Glass buttons (aren't they pretty?), shell buttons, mixed beads.

The loot, clock wise from upper left corner:

- 5 balls Supreme Possum Merino 4 ply, possum/merino/silk (blue)
- Neighborhood Fiber Pagoda Lace, silk/cashmere (yarn is more green in real life than in the picture)
- box of mixed wool fiber for needle felting
- (on top of the fiber) glass buttons, shell buttons, mixed beads
- 2 skeins Newton’s Yarn Country Cashmere Merino (bright green)
- Green Mountain Spinnery Simply Fine, fingering weight kid mohair/wool (undyed)
- Leilani Arts silk ribbon (crazy colors)
- 2 skeins RedFish Dyeworks 20/2 silk (purple)
- (big bag under the other yarns) 10 balls Valley Yarns Northampton, 100% wool (blue)

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment!

Ants in My Stitches

Stitches West is here! By the time most of you read this post, I will be happily soaking in the fiber artfullness in the market. This year I will be working at the HandKnitting.com booth on Friday and Saturday, and doing a little shopping the rest of the time.

Since I can't focus on my own projects, I will leave you with some fibery pictures to enjoy. I like collecting odds and ends pictures, and recently Pinterest has become the greatest outlet to deposit these seemingly random goodness. Pinterest is massive, beautiful, collective, and extremely addictive. If you are a pinner, look me up, I'm Bitsnpieces1. 

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment!

New Project: Mock Cables 真淑女

Project:  Mock Cables 真淑女
Pattern:  High-Low Peplum Pullover by Sandy Cushman,  Interweave Knits, Spring 2001 
Yarn:  Karabella Majestic 
Yardage:   1240 yards in stash 
Needles: Size 7
Cast on: January 26, 2012 
Notes:  The mock cables are created by well placed decreases and matching yarn overs. The stitch pattern is very simple. I'm skipping the bobbles in the pattern, will find something interesting to fill the spots. The Chinese name means "real (gentle) lady" -- mock cable, real lady, another word play.

In unrelated news, my son, the euphonium player in last week's post, became a fresh teenager on Wednesday. For those been there done that, I will probably need all the warning, suggestions, hand-holding I can get. 

Happy Fiber Arts Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog and leave me a comment!

The Gloved One 白手套

Henry plays euphonium. His right hand rubs on the metal finish and it gives him a rash. Instead of having the instrument refinished which costs a fortune, Mom gave him a simple solution.

In action

Project: The Gloved One 白手套

Pattern: loosely based on Rib-and-Cable Mitts by Marji LaFreniere, Interweave Knits Spring 2006

Yarn: DK weight mercerized cotton from stash, unknown brand

Yardage:  about 100 yards

Needles: Size 5

Finished Size: Henry size

Cost: $0

Cast on: February 5, 2012

Cast off: February 7, 2012

Can you find the doglet?

No matter how big he think he is, that's still a little child's hand.

Rascal says Hi :-)

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment! 

Lace and More Lace

Last weekend we did some used bookstore hopping and I ended up with some very good books. I especially like Country Weekend Knits, even tho the Aran patterns are not charted. The designs all look very classy, and I will just have to figure out how to knit from the written stitch patterns.

By popular demand, here is the 14 feet scarf on human model. Doesn't look that long, does it? I have been wearing it doubled up and it goes very well under a jacket.

Next up, a sweater! I bought this pack of pink yarn a few years ago at Stitches, Webs booth I believe. Lately it keeps popping up, so it will become a very lady-like lacy sweater. The pattern is called High-Low Peplum Pullover.

Speaking of Stitches, anyone reading my blog will be there?

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment! 

Autumn Branches Finale

Project: Autumn Branches 秋树

Pattern: Branching Out by Susan Lawrence, free download on Ravelry

Yarn: Pajolo Alpacas Lace Weight

Yardage:  2.1oz, 200 yards

Needles: Size 8

Finished Size: 14 feet long !!

Cost: $12.60

Cast on: December 18, 2011

Cast off: January 25, 2012

Previous entries: here and here

Notes: Never under estimate a small ball of lace yarn unless you want a super long scarf. The yarn was lovely and the pattern was complex, it was a joy to work on it, but I sure am glad it's finally over and I can move on to another sweater.

Happy Friday! Join the party on Andrea's blog, Tami's blog, and leave me a comment!