Yarn Bombing at Home

We had our living room floor done last week.

Six years ago we bought this brand new house, carpet in the living room was default. Trinket and Bucky were nine and ten, so we decided to keep the carpet for the old joints. In the past year we occasionally talked about a new floor "after", and now we finally have it. It's so nice not having to live with that dirty carpet any more!

Now with hardwood under our feet, 17 feet ceiling above our heads, our voices start to echo, much like frogs living in a damp well. Ok, maybe not that pathetic (frogs, pathetic? never mind), but you get the gist. So I came up a brilliant idea to add some texture to the living room with the hope that the wool padding would absorb some of the excess sound waves. Actually I was inspired by some talks on Ravelry about Yarn Bombing in San Francisco and Berkeley.

If you are not familiar with the concept of Yarn Bombing, I'm sure you've heard of graffiti, so just imagine a brave fiber artist spreading her knitted fabric on public properties, in very bright colors, usually at night, ducking around the cops. That's what I did, but instead of sharing my artistic work with the general public, I turned some swatches into stair railing covers. For now they are all wool pieces, a few of them were dyed with Koolaid and felted. One piece had some cables, but of course I manage to sew it onto a red pole and it just pretty much disappears into the background. Kinda defeats the "bombing" concept.

Give me another ten years, I'm sure I'll have the living room covered.

Parker Cardigan Progress, Mystery KAL

The latest and greatest with Parker Cardigan. Back is done, and got couple of inches on one of the fronts.

Most knitters I know usually have multiple projects on the needles, but I'm stubborn and I'm a monogamous girl, I always have only one main project at a time. There are small, plain, carry around things I do, but big projects, always one at a time. This one project may take a few months, and when it ends, it's like saying goodbye to an old friend, or a special child, or a limb. Then I get into the planning mode for the Next Big Thing. I start flipping through all of my books and magazines, digging up yarn from each box, running random searches on Ravelry, asking silly questions on Ravelry and Facebook -- I'm lost, can you help me? I'd go crazy for a cute pattern, but can't find the right yarn for it (because I don't have enough yarn, duh); or I'd be determined to use the long discontinued Passport Yarn that I bought from Michael's years ago, but of course I wouldn't be able to find a pattern I like.

Lately I've been wondering about life after Parker. I have a bunch of very pretty sock yarns that I didn't want to use in Que Sera Sera, because they are too pretty to be a blanket. They, or maybe just one of them, wants to become a nice little shawl for the cool nights in the summer.

But of course I can't find a good pattern for it.

So when my friend Jocelyn posted on South Bay Knitters Yahoo group that there is an interesting Mystery Knit Along coming up with designer Laura Nelkin, to make a small shawl that uses 400 yards of fingering weight (sock) yarn, my ears went straight up. Since it's a mystery, all I can show you is the yarn I'm using. This is Watercolors Sock Yarn hand dyed by my friend Karin, aka Periwinkle Sheep. Aren't they pretty? I think the green one will be a perfect spring shawl.

Don't forget to visit Andrea and my other fiber friends at Fiber Arts Friday on Wisdom Begins in Wonder.

Parker Cardigan Progress

Pattern: Parker Cardigan by Deborah Newton, IK Spring 2009 
Yarn: Garnstudio Drops Alpaca
Needles: US Size 4
Previous entries: planning
Notes: I'm not too crazy about this pattern. The stitch patterns are not charted, it's hard to judge how the ribs are supposed to be stacked, especially when there are increases and decreases. But the lace bud pattern on the bottom is very cute. I made that part too long (guess I really like the stitch pattern!), but too lazy to rip it out, it'll just look different from the pattern.

The buttons I ordered from Black Water Abbey Yarns came in the other day, and the Marilyn pattern. The buttons are so cute, it's fun just looking at them.

My friend Carol wrote up a very nice report of our annual knitting retreat, with lots of pictures. Check it out! And don't forget to visit Andrea's Fiber Arts Friday main page.

Fair Isle Hats Finale

Catching up on my finished knitting from before Stitches.

Top: Boxes
Bottom left: Purple Temple
Bottom right: Red Crown

These hats are loosely based on a Paton's fair isle tam pattern. I increased significant number of stitches to make the crown bigger, and recalculated the decreases on top. All were using leftover Classic Wool from my Great American Aran Afghan, with one strand of variegated yarn as main color and one strand of solid yarn as contrast. Interesting thing to point out, Boxes and Red Crown shared the same variegated yarn, but by using a different solid yarn, the color palette turned out completely differently. Towards the center of Red Crown I ran out of the red contrasting color, so you can see how the variegated yarn looks by itself (click on the picture to see a larger version).

A few more pictures from different views.

Something extra from Rascal never hurts. I made this mobius toy from a knitted strip, felted, and sewed the sides together, tied a knot, then sewed the ends together. He loves to stick his nose in the loops.



Don't forget to visit other Fiber Arts Friday blogs, all listed on Wisdom Begins in Wonder, where Andrea hosts the alpaca yarn feast.

Rascal the Littlest Lumberjack

Rascal had some fun in the backyard going after a gopher. One night Bill took the pup outside for the last potty break and caught him half way down the gopher hole, with just the butt sticking out. When the gopher wasn't around, Rascal went after the roots and branches for entertainment, and we saw the results in days.

There used to be trees here.

There used to be bushes here and we had to replace them after Rascal uprooted them.

There used to be bushes here too.

Rascal waiting for his punishment.

On a positive note, we don't have a gopher problem any more. Apparently Rascal took care of all their food source, or in his view, he scared them out of town. Good boy, Rascal !

Don't forget the read Henry's puppy update from couple of weeks ago. They are best of friends, but Henry claims to have nothing to do with the lumbering.

Stitches West 2011 Review

First of all, a rare snow scene, only on top of the mountains, but it's real snow! (Ok, come back when you are done laughing.)

Previous years' Stitches reviews: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.

This year I spent every minute in the market, no classes, no other events, just the market; and every minute the market was open, I was there! 

Thursday night's preview was fun, but way too short. On Friday and Saturday I worked with Judy in the Black Abbey Water Yarns booth, fending off the crowds, and shopping with my yarn credit, to my heart's content. When there was a bit down time on Saturday afternoon, I tried on a few samples, and really liked couple of them. Working in a booth meant I could play with the yarn (think about all the different colors went through my hands), read the patterns, and get to know every button intimately.  It was sooo much fun dragging the bags home on Saturday evening! Another benefit for working in the booth,  by the time I was done with practically two whole days of shopping, I got some of my shopping bugs out of the system, I was a less dangerous shopper on the rest of the market.

On Saturday, I wore my Pagode, and this lady walked into the booth in the same sweater, just a different colorway. Of course we had to take a picture together. 

The rest of the pictures are all taken on Sunday, not in any particular order.

Green Mountain Spinnery from Vermont is trying out Stitches West for the first time. I hope they liked it and come back next year. Their yarns and patterns are lovely. Very nice display in the booth too.

Spinning wheels at Carolina Homespun's booth.

Some have their priorities set.

Sanguine Gryphon from Maryland is also a first timer, and had the most unique booth arrangement.

I even joined a Ravelry meet up for a few minutes and sneaked in a picture with Jesse. Her baby is due on June 4, maybe he'll be late and land on my birthday (12th).

Remember the pictures I posted last week, the booth with all those colorful sweaters? They have Kauni, the fine wool from Denmark with super long and unique color changes. One of these had to come home with me, if not one of the $350 kits.

This is the year I really fell in love with buttons. This booth had some antique ivory and bone buttons from China, very tempting.

These are so pretty, like candies.

Annual obligatory picture of WEBS taking their booth apart. In less than 15 minutes they boxed up almost all the yarn, these are work horses.

The loot:

Do these remind you of certain someone who's rather fond of footwear?

The buttons I brought home, more on order from Black Water Abbey Yarns.

The yarns (clockwise from top left corner):
- Kauni in red and black, 150g ball
- Cashmerino, 93% merino, 7% cashmere, in Irrestringibile (it must mean lime green in some language), 10 in the box
- Textiles A Mano Wuxi, 50% silk, 50% wool, in a different shade of lime green
- Black Water Abbey Yarns sports weight in Moss, 4 skeins for Sprossling
- Colinette DK, two skeins laying across, in dark purple
- Black Water Abbey Yarns sports weight in Wood Violet, 6 skeins for Squirrel Monkey
- Black Water Abbey Yarns worsted weight in Wine, 7 skeins for Marilyn, a Beth Brown-Reinsel design, named after Marilyn King, the owner of Black Water Abbey Yarns

Till next year.

Stitches West 2011 Market Preview

Previous years' entries: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010.

Thursday night is student market preview. Since I signed up to work for Black Water Abbey Yarns booth this year, I have a vendor badge and can come and go all weekend. I stopped by the booth to meet Judy, but the rest of the time she allowed me to roam around.

Last year's "the beautiful booth" Isager is back, make a mental note to visit them again.

I don't remember the name of this booth, but most definitely will be visiting them again.

Ali MacGraw will be there on Saturday.

And then there are people don't even bother the show up.

And some unwilling shopper.

I wore my Spencer Day and ran into Melissa Leapman. She recognized it instantly and really liked seeing her creation on me.

Full report next week.

Handsome Puppy

It's been a busy week and I'm recovering from a nasty flu that Henry brought home, so I'm going to be lazy and make this one post serve both Dogs on Thursday and Fiber Arts Friday. Rascal and his sweater are cute enough to hold people's attention for two days.

Project: Rascal's I'm-a-handsome-puppy Cable Sweater
Pattern: Very loosely based on a basic dog sweater pattern found online many years ago when I made Trinket's T-shirt (sweater for Trinket post surgery), but I changed the shaping and added the cables. The neck is knitted in the round, body is knitted in two pieces, until they are long enough to cover the dog. (And on Rascal, the back takes a looooong time!)
Yarn: Paton's Classic Wool
Needle: US size 8
Cost: less than $5
Notes: Rascal is a trooper for clothing-tolerance, so mom hopes there will be many cute outfits to come.

New Project Plan -- Parker Cardigan

I'm joining a Fiber Arts Friday blog on Wisdom Begins In Wonder to give myself more excuse/motivation to blog about my knitting.

Since I finished Spencer Day (sweater) and Que Sera Sera (sock yarn shawl) in December I've been working on a few small projects, hats, doggie sweaters, etc. About time to plan for the next big thing.

I bought this yarn in July 2008 when a bunch of knitting friends went on a yarn crawl in the north bay. Sadly the store Marin Fiber Arts is now out of business. In real life the yarn is a lot more purple than it shows in the picture. I have over 1500 yards here, plenty enough for a cute top, and I'm considering Parker Cardigan from IK Spring 2009. Swatching starts tonight!

Rascal's Army of Lawyers

Rascal is a sweet little dog and he needs humans to stick up for him. We are constantly hearing conversations like this:

Mom: "Oh no, Rascal had an accident!"
Dad: "Darn, I should have taken him out sooner."

Henry:"Rascal stole my shoe."
Mom:"You should put them away in the closet."

Rascal whines in the car. After much consideration, Henry drew the conclusion that for the little pup car rides meant his family surrendering him to strangers, of course he's not pleased with it.

Apparently this doesn't stop in our house. The other day I posted this video in the Chihuahua group on Ravelry. More than one person agreed that Rascal was framed, someone put the shoe in his bed. True story was I was sitting at the table and the Rascal stole the shoe. I should have kept the shoe on my foot, I know.