Knitting Iris

Winter White Week :: Monday

Just getting a jumpstart on Shari's Winter White Week.  Let her know by Tuesday if you'd like to join in.  This isn't the mountain where we spent the weekend skiing and snowboarding.  It's out back on the north side of our house, this evening, just before dusk.  The camera is too cumbersome to take with us up onto the mountain.  Hoping soon to have a smaller camera that can be slipped into a coat pocket and brought along skiing.  The views from the top into Glacier Nat'l Park are unreal and, even on foggy days, there is an almost magical quality to being up there.

Quite seriously, getting out skiing again, after so many years away from it, is going to SAVE MY SANITY this winter.

Some friends offered their garage apartment for us to stay in so we could spend the night Saturday and ski Sunday, too, without having to make the hour plus drive back and forth from home on icy roads.  The two days couldn't have been more different:

Saturday: relatively warm, around 32 degrees F, fogged in heavily and snowing most of the day.  Ski lessons for the boys.  Time for C and I to ski/board both together and also with friends.  Later, appetizers and dinner out with friends, followed by...get this...12 hours of sleep for me.  Dreamy.

Sunday: COLD!  3 degrees F at the base of the mountain with gusts that put the windchill factor well below zero.  All but the lowest lifts on the mountain were closed due to high winds, low temperatures, and the too heavy risk of frostbite.  Late in the morning, as we drove up to the mountain, a constant trail of cars were piling back down away from the ski hill.  Still, there was plenty of skiing to be had in chilly, short bursts on the lower, easy runs with the boys, interspersed with breaks in the ski lodge to warm up, sipping hot cocoa.  No crowds, no lines, and we even managed to sna the coveted seats for lounging by the fire in the lodge on big, overstuffed leather couches. 

This morning, back home:  negative 13 degrees F.  Spent the day feeding wood into the stove.  Getting to R's piano lesson was contingent upon the car starting in temps like this.  It did, and afterwards, we scored a really nice pair of ski pants that'll fit him next year at the thrift store for $3.

This evening: clouding over and warming up to a balmy 15 degrees F.

Mushrooms, baked and felted.

I couldn't leave that last blah post at the top of the page for the entire weekend while we're off skiing. 

Instead, some Sculpey trees and mushrooms made and baked a week or so ago by the boys and myself, and some of Grace's Myriads of Mushrooms knit and felted during the past week.  I may mess around with the stems a little more, stuffing and closing them off at the bottom as the pattern suggests, before sewing them the caps and stems together.  I ended up cutting the bottom off of one that turned out too tall. 

The picture is a bit foggy from the condensation that formed on the lens after leaving the camera out in the cold car overnight and trying to take pictures immediately after bringing it back inside. 

E, preparing to shoot them down, I think, with some Lego parts, here, while waiting for R to finish his schoolwork so they can play together again.  Unfortunately, he has learned that dreaded word: boring.  Until recently, we've managed to keep it completely out of our vocabulary.  Somehow, after so many years, it snuck it's way in.  Argh.  I suppose, on the other hand, that it's not a bad thing to have the words to express how your feeling, right?

There.  A clearer one. 

Taking stock: sock yarn stash

New sock yarn.  Not quite sure why, when there is so much waiting in the wings already.  That middle ball, #4832, is the culprit, and of course you can't order just one ball.  That would be silly, right?   I bypassed this yarn several times when seeing it in person, each time thinking, "Mabye later."  Then, suddenly, it was gone and you couldn't find it anywhere, except for one place, and still I didn't get around to ordering it for at least another six months, hoping that, in the mean time, it would quit calling my name and sell out.  Of course, then, the day after the order is placed, what happens?  I click on over to Jane's site, and there they are, already knit up and entitled the Marmalade Socks.  How many of the same sock yarns have we knit up, I wonder? (Although I first saw these knit up here by Julia).

Below, less than thrilling shots of the rest of the sock yarn stash (minus all the in progress or frogged socks of a couple of posts ago, and all the solids on hand for making matching or contrasting heels and toes). 

First, the ones gifted to me, the kinds I wouldn't typically splurge on myself and am almost too afraid to cast on for fear of messing them up or something (notes here on Flickr, when time permits):

Next, the purchased or dyed by me (and not-yet-knit up) sock yarn from the last few years:

Pretty boring stuff, I know.  Just a little low on energy and trying to hang in there as best as possible through these dreary winter days.  Plenty more random things to blog about, if only it didn't seem insurmountably impossible to do so at the moment.  Each day, right now, seems both unbearably long and yet still far too short to accomplish much of anything.

The Sweater Men Want?

It looks like someone else in the family's been reading his share of Jan Brett. 

The other day, when I was reading Knitting Daily's post entitled "Survey Results:  The Sweater Men Want", C mentioned seeing the perfect sweater in one of the boys' books he'd read to E the other night at bedtime.  Upstairs he went to E's room, returning with The Three Snow Bears.

With the backlog of stashed yarn and unfinished knitting already on hand, it's unlikely this is going to happen anytime soon, but it sure will be added to the endless list of possibilities.  It could be pretty fun to design and make.  It'd make an awesome sweater for snowboarding (which is what he's doing today, playing hookie, something he should do more often seeing as he's his own boss.) 

Taking stock: socks in progress (and no longer so).

An inventory of sock wips:

Clessidra:  I fell crazy in love with this pattern the first time I ever saw it (while browsing in an internet cafe in Panama last spring).  Soon thereafter, the yarn was ordered, KnitPicks Gloss in Cocoa, was cast on, and knit, knit, knit.  Not sure when, but interest was lost and it seemed like they weren't going to stay up properly on my leg, not to mention that they just didn't seem like they were going to be terribly flattering on my legs, seeing as how I inherited my dad's calves. 

Clessidra, I tried to talk myself into continuing on with you after seeing your cabley patterns in an old-growth cedar forest last summer:

No need to try and talk me out of ripping, as it's already done:

Goodbye, fair Clessidra.  Time to drop myself from the knitalong.  Progress made was one full skein of  the four purchased.    Now, what to do with 4 skeins of lovely brown fingering weight merino/silk?  Thinking of combining it somehow with this natural alpaca of similar weight for another pair of socks.  Or, rather, maybe a shawl? A scarf? A fitted, long-underwear type top (although not Thermal)? 

My mom's friend, Doris' socks.  Regia 4-ply Stretch.  A short sock with a long story behind it, to be shared some other time, probably when the pair is complete.

Left: Sweatermaker Yarn sock needs a mate.  Pink & Green Red Herring sock, too.  Not sure about the fate of these two either.

It's been nearly a month since there's been a pair of socks ACTIVELY on the needles and the feelings of sock withdrawals are fading.  With an ever growing sock yarn stash and more on it's way, it's kind of scary, these intervals where the sock knitting pull is so weak.  The problem seems to be more the daunting task of figuring for whom to knit socks next, and pairing that person with the most perfect colorway for them from the stash.  No worries, the addis and dpns are calling my name so it's unlikely this slump will last much longer.

Taking stock: sweaters in progress

Time to inventory the WIPs, oldest to newest:

Ariann.  Plymouth Galway Highland Heather yarn.  Might take a few minutes to figure out where I was on this.  The body is just sitting on a Denise Interchangeable cord so fortunately there are needles still attached to the sleeve or it might have required a little guessing and sleuthing to figure put what size needles I'd used and whether I was making the full length or 3/4 length sleeves.  I think I'll rather like this one once it finished.  Crossing my fingers that there will be enough yarn. 

Picovoli.  Dale Svale yarn in a nice, silvery grey.  I think this was turning out a little small.  I must have intended to make this to be worn over another shirt in the spring, fall, and winter.  It's always too hot to wear knitted tops in the summer and I really don't like knitting cotton, even a nice one like this.  Probably will be ripped.

Road To Golden.  Mostly Plymouth Galway Highland Heather with some thrifted vintage mustard color worsted weight that was overdyed with purple KoolAid to tone down the color.  This was intended to possibly be a ski sweater this season and should have been finished by now.  It was going full steam ahead in November, and then the holidays set in, I guess.  Will get back to this very soon.

Yankee Knitter Roll Raglan, for E.  Patons Classic Wool.  Started just last week, and modified to knit in the round for easy, endless stockinette stitch that can be worked on in the wee, dark hours in the car on the way to the ski mountain on Saturday mornings.   A quick and easy classic.  This will be the fifth one that I've knit.  Another for R will follow.

Next up:  Socks in progress.

   

Two Birds in the Hand are better than...?

Bird In Hand Mittens.  Pattern here.  And since I know you'll ask, a close up of the birds:

The embroidery.  took a couple of tries each, and then since it was well after midnight by that time, they were plenty fine enough.

Yarn:  Cascade 220 Wool 9404 and Cascade 220 Heathers 8012, purchased on sale for, I think, only $4.50 a skein.  Needles:  Size 1 aluminum dpns.  I can't imagine making these on bigger needles as I think they'd turn out huge.  These are JUST RIGHT, approximately 8.25 inches around and 11.25 inches top to bottom at a gauge of: 28 stitches x 30 rows.

I like the original red and white version of these but white clothing of any sort just isn't practical in my world so, oatmeal it was instead (heavily influenced by Adrian's off-the-hook mittens here).   I didn't expect these to turn out as long as they did, coming nearly half way up to my elbows.  The pictures on the pattern didn't give me that impression, but see how nicely they fit inside my new, beefy waterproof mitten shells:

The yarn may have been a bargain at $9.00 but mittens for skiing are generally one thing I don't skimp on unless I can find what I'm looking for second hand.  Warm hands = happy me.  Cold hands = no fun.  I lent my similar, 12-13 year old Gore-Tex ones to someone last year and she lost them.  Grrr.  I liked my old ones better than these and they were still in great shape.  Oh well.  Get over it.

Despite how much I like these, how gorgeous this pattern is, how dense and warm they are, how perfectly they fit inside my mitten shells,  they're going to a friend.  She received, for Christmas, a black Anthropologie coat with 3/4 sleeves and beautiful swirly red and white embroidery.  I mentioned to her that she could use a pair of mittens like the ones I've been knitting lately to go with it and she asked, "You mean the ones with the birds on them!?"  I certainly didn't hear her argue with me.  So, they'll be off to her. 
All those curly, twining branches are lovely but they really aren't very "me".  The birds on the thumbs are ingenious, of course, but this, for some reason, is the part of these mittens that really  "sing out" for me (pun unintentional):

I'd still consider making a pair for me with a darker shade in place of the red and with some of the modifications that Alice made to hers here.

Next up in the mitten category:  Thrummed Mittens, I think.  Now those ought to be warm enough, no?  And fun enough, like these ones.  Pattern here.  Adrian's thrumming tutorial here.

Treasure trove

Finally getting around to blogging about this stack of sweaters I came across in C's mom's basement laundry room when we were back in St. Louis in October.  They couldn't go undocumented even if I didn't get the best pictures of them.  I had thought they were sweaters C and his brother and sister might have worn when they were young but, it turns out, they were C's mom's when she was a young child.  (GB, you wouldn't have any pictures of yourself in them, would you?) 

A treasure trove of patterns here.  Click for closer look.

The top one is Swedish, I believe, it's tag reading "Bindslöjden LAHOLM Handarbete".  The other red and white one had no tag but is likely Norwegian, I'd guess, and machine knit.  The white and navy one is Norwegian, tagged "HANDMADE IN NORWAY WILLIAM SCHMIDT Co OSLO".   Apparently they've been in business since 1853 and still have a store in Oslo.

Pure Fun.

Friday night: trying on ski and snow boarding gear, making last minute binding and helmet adjustments, packing lunches, making sure everyone's gear is laid out in piles for a smooth departure, dark and early the following morning.

Oh, my.  How I'd forgotten just how good it is to be on a mountain, skis on my feet! One of the purest forms of fun imaginable.

Two days later: still feeling it, with each and every move.  Ouch!  (Spent yesterday afternoon soaking it away in a friend's hot tub.) 

It's going to be a good winter, in so many ways.

Fridays

The view from where I sit, noon to five.  The gallery space that C and a partner remodelled and opened this past summer, starting with featuring their work only and then gradually expanding to include other local artists.  It's nice to see the the work of talented people coming out of the woodwork, out where it can be seen, appreciated, and *hopefully* purchased, rather than "hidden" away in their homes. 

The Friday shift has been mine the past couple of months.  Honestly, it isn't terribly busy most days that I'm there.  I'm usually without the boys although sometimes they come for at least part of the time and do their schoolwork and maybe watch a movie on the laptop.  There is no internet access.   There is little sweeping and dusting to do.  There is time to knit, listen to music, catch up on paperwork, read (typically on different homeschooling theories, The Unschooling Handbook, here.  Other days The Well Trained Mind and A Charlotte Mason Companion), browse magazines, visit with friends who stop by.  A nice break, in a clean, calm, and beautiful environment.