#79 0f 365 - Hmmm, What About Today?

Anita and me knitting at the Lamb Shoppe of a Saturday. Today, I am wishing that the Lamb Shoppe were closer (it's in Denver) so I could knit there more often. However, I will get there the 3rd of April when I am dog-sitting once again in Broomfield. Until then I will be a knitting at the Kove, which is where I met Anita in the first place...



Today, I am yet again working on a 198 Yards of Heaven. Which is what I am likely working on in this picture as well. Erin and Rebecca kinda think I am mad for making so many of them. Since I have more than a few skeins of handspun which are for the most part 250 yards and under, it's a perfect fit. I find it to be a lovely little pattern and a great way to use those special yarns. I have spun a few of them myself or they have been spun by someone else and been gifted to me. I would do them honour by knitting them up and showing them off.

#34 of 365 - How I spent my Morning and Afternoon

First it was SnB at the Knitter's Kove. Val, Suzi, Deborah and others, sat, knitted and chatted. That's Deborah working away on the Lambspun cotton/wool in red and black shadow work for the Skull Illusion blanky she is making for her grandson and then that's Val after she finished buying some loverly Misti Alpaca yarn for a Fair Isle project she has in mind. I worked away on my Lacy Prairie Shawl in brown Fisherman's Wool. I also got another skein of the Andes in brown and amber to match the one that Erin had put in my Christmas Stocking. I also purchased the latest issue of Piecework's Historical Knitting. I always find something to love in this special issue.

Then after, it was watching Rebecca cake yarn with Erin and my winding station. She sure has got a lot of yarn! Like I should talk, LOL. THIS is the Rebecca of the reason I blog a photo a day...

If you don't know already, a winding station consists of a ball winder and a swift. With these two tools you can take a skein of yarn and turn it into a center pull cake of yarn that is so much easier to knit from. Many of you may remember sitting and holding a skein of yarn for your mother or your granny whilst she wound it into a ball to make knitting easier. This allows one person to do the job that normally takes two if you don't have the equipment. Erin and I have it for both general knitting usage and so that Erin can rewind her skeins after she dyes them.




The swift is the umbrella looking thing with the dark pink yarn on it and the ball winder is attached to the table in front of it. The cakes are the flat rounds of colour on the table in front of Rebecca.





Altho, this is not the best picture to see it in, I am wearing my Ishbel that I finished blocking yesterday. I think I am going to wear this little shawlette a lot as I LOVE IT! I knitted it from the Misty Moor colourway from Cherry Tree Hill. I pet it a lot as it's like "buttah". The photo below shows the lace pattern that edges it. Both the Ishbel and the Skull Illusion are from Ysolda Teague, that lovely Scottish knitwear designer we all love so well.

# 29 of 365 - Shawlettes, I Have Many

This is me at SnB at Knitter's Kove last year in my silly little green shawlette that I get SO many compliments on. I think the whole thing cost me about 6.00 to knit as the 3 skeins of the green wool/mohair blend were on clearance at Michael's aeons ago along with the fun fur and ladder yarn that I did the edge in. I own a number of these as they are handy as scarves in the winter as well as shoulder covering in chilly houses. One of them, I even spun the singles, plied the singles and knitted up the resulting yarn. About the only thing I didn't do was dye the yarn myself. Here's a picture of the beginning of the project and my yarn.



These are pictures of Deborah and Rebecca, my friends that I made at the SnB. Deborah was here this morning whilst biding time til she picked up her grandson. She was also wearing a very kewl knitted cowl, which I may have to knit too. The other picture is our Rebecca in one of her infamous Doofy Hats. She's the reason I post a picture a day, so you can blame her as it's all her fault.

Spoon Story & the Peonies About to Take Off

Here a link to the Spoon Story . It describes my experience better than I can. I still do what I can, when I can in spite of all. Thanks for the linky, Diana. She's also written about peonies today.

I spent a lovely day today. Knit club with Sheila and Shirley and the rest of the ladies. We did not have a "real" meeting as all the officers were elsewhere.


Some of the Knit club members..















Here's the Hairpin Lace Afghan.

We primarily did show and tell. Shirley showed us how to do hairpin lace. I haven't seen hairpin done in years, but apparently it is making a comeback like all the forms of needlecraft.

Progress on Fawkes Socks.




Then I paid forward a million gajillion mercies and kindnesses by giving Sheila a ride to the hospital to get blood work done.

After that, I drop Sheila back to home and went onto my LYS, Knitter's Kove and walked into CHAOS. They are re-arranging the whole store! Most of the stock was in BIG plastic sacks. I wanted some Brown Sheep Bulky, not on the shelves yet. Yikes, wonder what bag it's in, should I come back later? Saw a label for Bulky Brown Sheep peeking out of a bag and dug in and believe it or no, found the yarn I was looking for. WOOT! Hit the register and was out of there as there was too much chaos...

Off to the church to water the garden. Sun behind the clouds so it was not too hot. Communed with the birds bathing in the bath, looked at the robin's nest in the tree by the door. WRESTLED with the mighty black and green hose... Someone needs to learn how to coil a hose away, the nozzle was on the bottom of the coils (5, maybe 6 hoses strung together), what's up with that? Since the peonies are about to go full force in bloom, I couldn't stay upset for long. It smelled like Heaven and I was happy to just BE.

Of course, watering and the St. Francis Fountain burbling tend to trigger a certain response, so I was off to the Parish Office to use the Ladies. Marti, the Parish Secretary pointed me the way. I had never been in McWilliam House where the offices are, before. It's a Victorian and the wood work in the dining room is amazing!. I will get pictures of it at a later date. Father John, who retired on Sunday was there as well as a number of other members of the Parish. What a joy to see the church and it's grounds coming alive again. I even got the gift of hearing our magnificent organ being played as someone was there practicing on it.


This is one of the clematis vines tucked at the back of the bed. I took the picture through the lovely wrought iron fence topped with fleur-de-lis.










I don't ever recall seeing irises with these light green and white leaves before but they are a interesting addition to the shades of green in the garden. I want to find out more about them.

World Wide Knit In Public Day

Just a reminder, World Wide Knit in Public Days are, for this year only, June 13th and 14th and June 20th and 21st. Here's the link to : World Wide Knit In Public Day .

There are a number of events in Colorado Springs and surrounding areas to share the day with other fiber fanatics. I know that Joanna from Needleworks in Old Colorado City is sponsoring a knit in in the park. Here's the link to them: Needleworks. You might also check with Mary and the ladies at Knitter's Kove too.


My daughter and I will be knitting at a Sky Sox double header baseball game on Saturday. Here's the link to the Sky Sox. We will likely be knitting at the Colorado Renaissance Festival the weekend after as well.



So, all you sticks and strings fanatics, get out there and knit on either Saturday or Sunday for the next two weekends.

Ash Wednesday - Grace and St .Stephen's Episcopal Church Trial Update

I went to knit this morning at Knitter's Kove. We swapped war stories on our medical issues and shared our latest knit and quilt projects. I traded for yet another Size 2 Brittany DPN, cuz I snapped 2 over the weekend. BTW: I've got Dragonflies on the needles again, in a Cherry Tree Hill yarn, Colourway Blues and Greens.

We congratulated Barb (DragonFlyKnitter) on her engagement, way to go, Barb and congratulations again.

I then went to the Noon Service at our exile home, 1st Christian Church for The Imposition of Ashes and then out to lunch after, with my friend Sue for Chinese at Hunan Gardens (Thanks, Rebecca for introducing me to this restaurant).

I should have done this sooner for that I extend my apologies. Here is the link to the Diocese of Colorado website with the news items relating to the current case here in El Paso County.
http://www.coloradodiocese.org/06_newsandevents/mediainfo.html

After lunch, I then went down to the courthouse for the afternoon testimony in our trial. They had recalled the witness from Friday, sigh. Woo-hoo, he only used the word context twice today. Thanks the Gods, as I was ready to scream on Friday from hearing it SO often.

I did get to meet the attorney for our side, Mr. Martin Nussman, very nice gentleman and he does not an easy job ahead. He asked me if you had to knit to be an Episcopalian, to which I replied, no, but right now it helps as it does soothe our frazzled nerves and helps us to concentrate on the testimony. There are anywhere from 3-7 knitters clicking away during testimony. There does not appear to be any knitters for the other side...

I also got to meet the Canonical Lawyer (whose name is escaping me at the moment) for the Diocese of Colorado as well... I would venture to guess that his job is extremely interesting. He is also friends with my old parish priest, The Rt. Rev. Alan Scarfe, formerly from Eagle Rock, CA who is now the Bishop of Iowa.

Fern Clog Socks - Creative Every Day

I finished the Fern Clog Socks yesterday, which I started while watching the testimony in court on Friday. Obviously, a fast knit. Erin will take a pix of them later today and I will post them later this evening. They knitted up very nicely and I am very please with them. I got the pattern from Ravelry, of course. I did make a change to them in that I didn't like the published decrease on the left side of the pattern and did a different one that satisfied my sense of symmetry better.

For my Creative Every Day Challenge, I cast on a new pair of Dragonfly socks for me and dyed some cotton fiber with tea.

I dyed the cotton yarn (bought on sale at Knitter's Kove, woot) that was too bright for what it's intended use is with tea. I have been saving teabags for about 2 weeks and had quite the bowl full. The yarn is going to be for a sock project I am doing for Erin as she has not learned to knit socks yet. She is violently susceptible to wool itchies, so I make her socks in cotton, bamboo or some other non-wool fiber.

These socks are a special project that I am not talking about until they are done as we haven't seen/found a pattern for them and maybe will want to publish it ourselves after it's all said and done. Stay tuned for the progress on them.

Dragonfly KAL and Read Along

I cast on the Dragonfly Socks for the Ravelry Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon Read Along and Dragonfly Sock Knit Along. Here is the cuff of the first one.

Of course I never do things exactly to the pattern, as I only did two rows of the 2x2 rib at the top of the sock. I wanted the scallop effect of the yarn overs and K2togs to be apparent at the top. These are going really fast, by the way, even if I am using a sock weight super wash yarn from Cascade. I got the yarn at Shuttles in Boulder about a year ago and I am knitting them on Size 4 DPNs.

Edited later in the Day:

So have you ever had one of those moments when it all comes together and you think to yourself, DOH? Well, I had one of them today. I have been unhappy with my left side decreases on the gussets of socks since I learned how to turn a heel last winter. I missed the lesson on decreasing, apparently. As I have said, above I am making these Dragonfly Socks which required both a right and left leaning decrease in the pattern on the leg of the sock and down the foot. To make the left leaning decrease, you slip a stitch knitwise onto your right needle, then knit the next stitch and leave it on the right needle and then bring the slipped stitch back over the stitch you just knitted (right leaning is Knit Two Stitches Together or K2tog). Pretty simple, right? Well, it dawned on me TODAY, that I could decrease for the gusset with Slip, Knit, Pass Slip Stitch Over and it would lay beautifully and match the decreases on the right side gusset and it does. DOH!

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I am also knitting a drawstring bag out of some Lamb's Spun in the same colours, that I bought at Knitter's Kove here in Colorado Springs to go with these socks. It will be knitted then felted into the shape of a thistle. I have posted a picture of the green blob to start. I am knitting it on size 15 needles and it's getting BIG. As you may be aware, tho, felted knitting shrinks about 30% in length and about 10% in width, so it's going to seem monsterously big until it's shrunk.