Look how pretty

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Sometimes it’s fun and educational to follow a knitting pattern as written.  I rarely do and end up with a variety of results.  Not so with my most recent hand knit projects.  The patterns are from Brooklyn Tweed kids and are beautiful and a fun knit.

The first is a young girl’s sweater, Petal.  It all began when a niece requested another sweater for her daughter, in white please. Well she also has a son, and a sister with two boys. You see how it goes.  One white sweater became four.  I had fun planning the projects.  

Here’s Petal.

  
Look at those details. Not your average circular yoke cardigan. I have a cone of lovely sock yarn from Webs I’ve been using for all sorts of projects and it really softens after washing.

The next is Wyatt.  I liked the Henley style and stitch pattern.  I happened to have some yarn recycled from a girl’s dress made of cotton, cashmere and angora that is machine washable. It knit up beautifully and I have some left over for a soft hat.

   
 
Now for the older boys.  I wanted to knit sweaters on my two knitting machines. One can handle worsted and bulky weight yarn.  I found a nice raglan sweater on the Webs’ sight and converted it to work flat.  I liked the bold stripe and, since the boys are big Islanders fans, I incorporated their team colors.  It worked out beautifully.  What a way to sail through all that stockinette. The pattern is Jonathan.

  
Finally, I wanted to do some stranded color work on my knitting machine that works with fingering weight yarn.  I saw another pattern I liked in Brooklyn Tweed called Carson, which appealed to me because of the way the colorwork was used in the hem and sleeves.  But it was too small and a little tricky to convert.  I decided to make my life simple and knit a modified drop shoulder sweater with a V-neck.  Then I found a stranded pattern I liked in the book, Traditional Knitting by Michael Peirson, and made a punchcard to work with my Passap Dm80. I kept the neck detail from Carson, which rolls a little.

 
The first two sweaters took two months.  The last two, four days!  
Now I can finally get back to working on Tim’s quilt for the log cabin. 

Take a hike

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Tim nearly dragged me out of the house today to take a hike. I’ve been down with a cold and my exercise plan has gone to pot – for now at least. 

All’s good though. I finished last minute Christmas gifts and shipped a wedding gift. It’s a tartan throw I wove. The plaid was from a wedding dress from 1766 in Scotland. 

   
   

 I’m pleased with it. I hope the bride to be is too. 

We snowshoed next door and saw evidence of a piliated woodpecker

   
 Beavers

  
Some little critters that live in a hole in the snow

And people who build rock cairns

  

Except for a small meltdown by me, a good time was had by all (Tim).
  
  

Put it in writing

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The holidays are behind us.  The stockings, which were hung with care, are back in storage.

  
Attention turns to the New Year and our resolutions. Here’s mine.  In 2016 any additions to my wardrobe will be made by me.  That is not to say I will only wear handmade clothing but I have to make everything I would normally buy.  

Needless to say, I shopped at Victoria’s Secret and the Gap on December 30.

First on my list is a few silk camisoles.  Perhaps pajama pants from handwoven fabric.  My homemade bathing suit (sewn, not knit) is holding up just fine. I’m flush in hats, gloves, and slippers. I may need a wool coat. We’ll see what the New Year brings.

Feeling blue

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It was time to pull out the dye pots and Greener Shades dyes.  Before Thanksgiving, my first attempt at dyeing my own self-striping sock yarn was a smashing success, almost. The dyeing process and results were great. I just couldn’t get to the yarn. 

How could that be? Well it’s a mildly involved process. In order to make two balls of identical yarn, to knit a pair of matching socks, first I knit two strands of white yarn together into a large rectangle. I knit it with very large stitches so the dye can easily penetrate the yarn.

  
The process is made easier because I knit the rectangle on a knitting machine but that’s a whole ‘nother story. Then I “paint” the rectangles with dye. In this case I painted half of each with black and the rest with varying shades of blue and green and maybe a little purple, my favorite color way these days. 

  
Then I let them dry during our beautiful fall weather.  Next step is to unravel the rectangle into two balls of yarn. That’s where I had a big fail the first time and kept trying to unravel from what turned out to be the wrong edge. Who knew?  It would unravel most of the way but get caught on the end stitches. I wasted so much yarn, I only had enough to make the cutest pair of tiny socks for little Otis. Now I know. 

  
We’ll see how these knit up big people socks.

   
In the meantime, I’m proud of my latest weaving endeavor. 

  
My floor loom is presently occupied by a small blanket in progress.  It’s inspired from a plaid from the 1700’s found on a wedding dress.  Despite careful planning, I ran out of weft yarn and am waiting for it to arrive so I can proceed with holiday weaving. In the meantime…gotta keep weaving. 

Oh shoot

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Days are short. The sun set at 4:16 today. Somehow my mind turns to gardening. Not in a big way, mind you. 

The author of Year Round Indoor Gardening discussed his book on NPR a few weeks ago. What a concept!  Fresh greens all year. Shoots  grown in soil indoors.

After sprinkling a tablespoon of seeds on soil, The first 4 days you basically do nothing while the seedlings develop roots. 
Then you move them to a window that merely sees daylight and you end up with a salad a week from when you started. 

  
Here’s my sunflower, buckwheat, peas, and radish salad. And that’s just the half of it. 

As they say, Winter is Coming

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We had our first snow flurries this weekend. We’ve (mostly Tim) tucked in the house and winterized the tools and watch the sun set at 4:30. 

The mountains had some brief beautiful fall colors.  

   
I forgot to take pictures though.  The deer and turkey were plentiful before hunting season. Now I have to remember to grab an orange vest before I run and their numbers have dwindled. 

  
We picked the perfect day to explore the old fort at Crown Point. 

   
    
  
But a new kitten and knitting and weaving projects occupy most of my time. And sometimes it becomes a tangled mess. 

  

  

Just like world affairs.

 

Holy mackerel, look what I found

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I looked up from the newspaper this morning and saw this beautiful rainbow.  A double rainbow tried to emerge but this one one arced from peak to peak. I went up the hill to the cabin to look for the pot of gold but only found two mice. 

We are lucky to be home during the peak leaf colors for a change.  Last week we hiked a new trail up to a fire tower which provided 360 degree views of striking colors. Somehow I forgot my camera.

  
  

 I finished a bunch of hunting hats just in time.

  
The orange one is hand knit. The three deer hats were made on a Passap knitting machine.  Learning to use the knitting machine has sapped days of my time, to the point where I had to vow to exercise before I got caught up in it.  And sometimes it works like a charm.  Unfortunately, a few are too small and they’re not really appropriate for a child’s head so if you know of small headed adults, let me know.

The orange seemed appropriate for hunting season because the cable pattern is antlers.  The pattern is free on Ravelry called Antler Hat, worked up with worsted yarn, makes a quick knit.

Lots of projects under way. A homespun quilt, 8-shaft woven scarf, cobweb lace shawl, child’s sweater. I bounce around the house like a pinball.  Stay tuned. 

Island hopping

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We had a chance this fall to return to two lighthouses we tended in the past. First we headed off to Bakers a Island in Salem, MA.  We knew it when.  Now the grounds are cleared, the lighthouse is freshly painted,  both keepers’ houses have been renovated and the public can once again visit the island thanks to Essex National Heritage Trust, the National Park Service and volunteer caretakers.

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Next we headed north to Seguin Island, Maine.  We arrived as the summer caretakers departed and the foghorn was mistakenly blowing.  We settled in and hiked the trails with good friends. After dinner, as we got ready to play a rousing game of Trivial Pursuit,  we lost all power to the island.  The light went out! And the backup lights didn’t come on.

After checking out the boathouse at the bottom of the hill, the whistle house at the top of the hill and all their circuit breakers,  we made calls to find out which power company supplied the island and contacted them. In minutes, coincidentally (?), the power returned.  You can imagine the phone call.  We don’t know our zip code, account number or name.   They were impressed we were calling from a lighthouse though.

But the light never came back on.  So we contacted the Coast Guard, who maintains the light, left a message and went to bed.  This morning, while volunteers arrived in pea soup fog to tackle several projects, the Coast Guard walked us through some troubleshooting to no avail. They stopped by  for a visit today and got things working again. Now we can rest easy and enjoy the sunset.

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Aclimitizing

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It was harder for me to settle back into my “old” life than it was to leave it for several months (except for being apart from loved ones). Schedules demand our time, utilities can’t get it right – we still don’t have functioning internet. It was better when we were 60 miles offshore and expected less.

But here we are. I got socked with some viral syndrome for ten days upon our return. So much for being cooped up on three planes, with hundreds of other passengers, for more than 28 hours. At least my 21 day incubation period has passed without anything serious.

And now – I’m back!

My peonies waited to bloom until I got home and the garden needed lots of trimming. It was strange to see how well the lilacs bloomed by the number of withered blossoms.

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I finally found most of my fiber stash, which was hastily, but neatly, put away before we left. I was eager to make a holder for the Majacraft wool combs I had acquired in a yard sale but was reluctant to use freehand. These babies aren’t for the feint hearted and I’m certain my tetanus vaccine is up to date.

Yesterday was the day. I remembered seeing a clever holder for Valkyrie combs at my dear friend’s studio in Lachlan but couldn’t picture the design, other than remembering it was elegant.

A brief google search resulted in some photos and here’s my version from materials on hand. It needs a little tweaking but works just fine and combed alpaca is luscious and spins like buttah.

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Three pins secure the comb on a board which can be clamped to a table. I embellished by including a holder for the diz and crochet hook used to pull the fiber into a long thin fluff of fiber.

It soothed me to comb and spin some of a beautiful alpaca fleece. Once I have enough, I’ll venture into dyeing with Greener Shades dye

Tim’s having his own fun. He really enjoys playing piano and brought a full size keyboard to Deal Island. When we got home, he learned a friend was selling his beautiful Steinway grand piano. Now it’s Tim’s. I got to watch its move via the cellar stairs into the basement. It fit, and now sounds and looks – grand!

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