Mushrooms and Pumpkins

Last Friday night my boyfriend held a gathering at our house. It was declared "Gamin' Night" and a few of his friends game over to play video games until the wee hours of the morning. There was hockey, football, and even some game with a microphone, guitars and drum pads. The old school Nintendo games were broken out on a smaller television. There was gamin' for all.

The menu consisted of pizza, beer, chips and dip, candy and a mushroom cake. Yes, a mushroom cake. I couldn't resist when my boyfriend asked me to make a cake in the shape of the 1-Up Mushroom from Mario Brothers. It was actually easier to make than I thought and I think he turned out pretty cute :) Of course, he was hacked to pieces by the time I woke up in the morning.

The next day I went to the monthly Marin Golden Threads meeting. We had a speaker from the Royal School of Needlework who was amazing. She brought many of her projects and explained how the program worked. There was also a gentleman with her who was at one time head of the education department in the Royal School of Needlework. He had the most exquisite piece of needlework I have seen in a while. It was a 3D knot garden with flowers and moving gates.

After the meeting, I met in friend in San Rafael at a glass pumpkin festival. It seemed like thousands of glass pumpkins of all shapes, sizes, and colors were on display and for purchase. They were beautifully laid out on the grass and I couldn't resist taking a picture.

Up next, hopefully a finished project!

Very First Handspun Yarn

This is it, my very first handspun yarn! I spent the better part of four hours this afternoon plying my singles into the yarn pictured here.
It seemed to take forever to get through it, just went on and on and my arms started getting tired by the end. But, I am very happy with the results.

I still have to wash the yarn and measure it's WPI (wraps per inch) to determine it's weight. I also want to look into getting a scale so that I can determine it's approximate yardage. I still have 2oz. left of this fiber to spin up and want to eventually use it to knit a scarf.

I bought this roving when I went to the Fiber Festival in Booneville. It's naturally colored Dark Blue Faced Leister from Tactile Fiber Arts and I love the natural gray color. I had heard that Blue Faced Leister was one of the easier fibers to spin and decided to start with it so that I wouldn't get too frustrated.

Since then, I keep looking at all the beautifully hand-dyed roving for sale online and can't wait to spin something up that has lots of colors. Now I know why people tend to collect more than one drop spindle, you can work on more than one spinning project at once :)

Rituals

Every other Sunday I pack up all my dirty laundry, my book, some magazines, and various knitting and/or crochet projects to head over to my parent's house for the day. I start my laundry and while the first load is washing, I see what my family is up to.

My Mom is usually in the kitchen cooking lunch for my brother and sister or getting a head start on the evening meal. My Step-Dad is either watching sports on the TV or playing games on his computer. If you wander down the hallway, you'll find my sister, still in her pajamas, reading a book in her room. If the weather is nice, my brother will be running around in the backyard trying to catch frogs that hide by the hot tub.

While it may seem like I'm an overgrown college kid bringing my laundry home for the weekend so that I don't have to wash it myself, I mostly come over to spend time with my family. I wander in and out of the garage washing, drying, and folding while I catch up with everyone. My mom and I will usually go shopping to get out of the house and spend some time together.

This past weekend, we ventured down to Baubles and Beads in San Rafael. Just this past year, she's really started to get into beading and has a growing bead collection at home. When we got back home, I started playing with her bead stash and had an idea to make a beaded lanyard for my keycard at work. I picked out some beads and away I went. My mom helped me put it all together and here is a picture of the finished product. I think it looks better than the plain ol' cloth ones! It worked great at work today too.

Casting On

Casting on is all I seem to be able to do lately. A co-worker told me that his wife was expecting and I cast-on for a baby blanket. I wanted a simple project to take with me to the knitting night at Llama Llama Knit so I cast-on for a scarf. What I should be doing is finishing my Mom's Christmas present and various other holiday projects I have going on.

The baby blanket I started is called the Round or Pinwheel Baby Blanket. I wanted something fairly simple but also interesting to look at. When I remembered that I had a couple of skeins of TLC Baby in my closet, I decided what the heck! The color is called naptime and is a mix of white and pastel yellow, blue, green and pink. I've really only worked on it a couple of nights, but I think it's looking pretty good. I'm not all that comfortable working with DPN's so I thought this would give me a good opportunity to practice. I want to learn how to make sock so I should get used to it :)

I have to confess that I've had my eye on the other new project I've started for a while. I love making scarves. They're quick, fun and it's great to wear different ones during the winter. When I saw My So Called Scarf, I knew I had to make it. I absolutely love the pattern and the color. I noticed the Manos del Uruguay yarn in the local knitting store and it was destiny. Instead of working the pattern with the wool it called for, I substituted the silk blend in the Wildflowers colorway. There's a long way to go on this one because I've only finished a couple of rows.



As for the knitting I should be working on, I'm almost halfway done with my Mom's Christmas present. For the time being, I'm going to keep that one a secret just in case she starts reading the blog.

Alive and Kicking

Just like this sheep! I took this picture at the California Wool and Fiber Festival two weekends ago in Boonville. I've been interested in learning how to spin and this seemed like a perfect opportunity. I signed up for a beginning spinning on a drop spindle class with Nancy Finn from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks and loved it. I've kept up the spinning at home since the class and I think I'm getting better. At least what I'm making is looking more like yarn and less like lumps :)

Throughout the festival, I saw many sheep being sheered as well as some very fluffy angora rabbits. I bought some fiber from Tactile Fiber Arts so that I could practice my spinning and looked at all of the other wonderful things. I must admit that the thought of buying a raw fleece and turning it into yarn is a bit daunting at this point. I think I'll stick with my little fluff balls of fiber for now.

I was also out of town this past weekend. My boyfriend and I decided to go camping in Truckee. We packed up all the food and equipment and headed up there Thursday afternoon. It was beautiful, although a little chilly at night (about 3o degrees Fahrenheit). We toasted marshmallows, made s'mores and cooked hot dogs on a stick. I also knit by the biggest campfire I've seen in a long time :) Which reminds me, does anyone know how to get that campfire smell out of yarn?















On the knitting front, I also finished my Silk Shrug. Yeah, happy dance!! It took a while, but I knew I would get there eventually. I've already been eying other sweater patterns I can make next. This was the first time I've really had to seam anything and it took a while before I got the hang of it. I'm much better at mattress stitch than I am at the other types of finishing I tried. I still have to weave in a few ends and block it, but I think it looks pretty good. I can't wait to wear it this winter :) I love the color.

The Beginning .....

Last Friday night I officially started the Secret of the Stole III. The designer of the pattern is DK, the Nautical Knitter. The group is now closed, but if you like what you see, the pattern will be available for purchase once the KAL (knit-a-long) is complete. Every Friday for nine weeks there is a new "hint" released. The first "hint" was 64 rows long but so far I have only finished up to row 40. I guess I'm one of the slower ones since "hint" 2 was released yesterday and some knitters have already finished through row 134!










The first mistake I made was on row 27 and of course the last lifeline I put in was at row 20. So, I ripped out those seven rows. I started again the next night and worked my way back up to the same spot. Of course, I made another mistake on Row 27 and had to rip everything back for the second time. I'm not too worried about being behind. This is my first lace project and I just want my stole to come out looking good. Besides, this means that other people will find any mistakes in the pattern before I get there :)

I'm still plugging away at my Silk Shrug. I know it seems like I've been working on this forever, but I only have about two inches of the fringe left before it's done. I should get lots of knitting/stitching things done over the Labor Day weekend since I'll be at the race track for the Spec Miata Festival. I know my primary duty is pit crew, but I can usually squeeze in a couple of hours here and there!

Secret of the Stole III

I'm probably in way over my head, but I have gone ahead and signed up for the Secret of the Stole III KAL by DK the Nautical Knitter. This project is a mystery so I'm not sure what the final design will look like until the final "clue" is released in about nine weeks. I'm sure I can find someone who will love it if it's not my style.

Here are just a few reasons why I'm crazy:

A) I've never knit lace before
B) I've never used laceweight yarn before
C) This is NOT a small project that will merely get my feet wet
D) I already have too many projects on the needles
E) I have at least two projects that I need to finish before Christmas that I haven't really started yet

Despite all these reasons, I've managed to complete the gauge swatch with only a little bit of trouble. I had to rip back once near the end because I forgot a yarn-over. I had thought I was doing so good and then I realized my count was off by one stitch!

I'm using Malabrigo Lace in pink frost. I don't see this color on their website so I'm not sure if it's still being made or if it's discontinued. I have three skeins of this yarn that I got at the Needlecraft Cottage in San Diego when I was on vacation two months ago. Being a fan of both needlework and knitting/crocheting, I have to say that it's one of the best shops I've ever been in because it has both :)


I took a close up of the swatch so that you can see the two different colors of beads that I've been trying to decide between, the light amethyst with rainbow finish or crystal silver lined. I actually think they both look pretty good with the yarn. The amethyst beads are a nice complementary color that give a subtle effect while the crystal beads give it a little more bling bling. I've opted for the amethyst since I'm not much of a bling bling girl. I think they'll give me all the sparkle I need.

The first "clue" for the mystery came out today and I think I'll cast-on tomorrow. My chances of making mistakes increase exponentially after 11PM. Goodnight everyone!