Reboot

I have returned... full-speed, to knitting and spinning.  The change in temperature could be a factor, but it started when it was still warm.  Now of course I am sorry I haven't finished all those cardis, because even here in south Texas it has gotten cool

Blog as log

I am going back to my original idea of this blog as a log of my creative project.  It is also a way of organizing all of that as well.  So I am putting myself on a blogging schedule, and a blogging format with subject headings (spinning, knitting, art).  New posts will go up each weekend.

Knitting

Top priority:  A friend of mine suddenly has a new baby.  It was not sudden for her, but I learned about it suddenly.  So  I found a top down raglan baby cardigan with a hood.   This has been a very efficient pattern.  I downloaded the pattern from Patternfish.  I found machine washable yarn (the gorgeous Dream in Color Classy) in my stash.  The first day I knit down from the neck past the armholes.  The second day I finished the body.  The third day a sleeve was finished.  The fourth day the second sleeve was finished.  This weekend I will pick up stitches at the neckband and knit the hood. ( Voila! Hood almost completed.)  A baby sweater that will need buttons and a button band.  I cannot let that stop me.  This baby is growing rapidly in Buffalo NY.

This color is actually Deep Sea Flower, from Dream in Color, a gorgeous color that my camera refuses to capture correctly.  Here is a professional picture of it on the right.

 

This project helped me rediscover my love of knitting sweaters from the top down.  All in one piece with no seaming is good.  Top down is even better.  Unfortunately most top-down sweaters have raglan sleeves, which is not a good look for me.  But not all of them, and I am collecting how-tos and patterns for top-down set-in sleeves.  One new pattern (for which I have already purchased yarn) is Quercus, in the first fall Knitty online magazine. (First fall always sounds like the hobbits' first breakfast.)  This sweater is knit from the neck down, and the stitches for the sleeves are picked up and knit down as well.  I do have to figure out how to modify the front, since I want to add a way to close this cardi with something other than a shawl pin, and I think lengthen the sleeves.

Other knitting: The knitted kimono jacket. I put this project away last spring when I had already finished the back and both fronts.  My goal is to finish this as soon as I get baby Laura's sweater done.

Spinning

I was suddenly thinking about spinning again, so finally, 3 and a half years after moving to San Antonio, I sat down at my Columbine spinning wheel and went back to spinning this fiber.  Now I can't stop.  I have filled a bobbin and started on a second.   The fiber, bought years ago from the Copper Moose, is a combed wool top with bits of different colored thread in it.  Here it is before it is spun,   and in a spun single.  My final goal is a two-ply yarn. 

 

 

 

Still unable to stop thinking about spinning, I sat down with the lovely spindle I bought last year at the Kid n Ewe festival in Boerne TX, and some gorgeous merino top, and began spinning that as well.  Just in time for this year's Kid n Ewe festival to be held in two weeks.

Art

I am taking another beginning drawing class at the Southwest School of Art.  This is the third time, so at some point I am going to have to decide to move on to another course.  Most of the other courses in the drawing/painting tracks move on to other media, like pastels or painting, so I might move on too.  I am finally seeing a change in my drawing but of course the most important part of developing that change is also the most difficult -- drawing a lot, every day.

Weaving

I have a design for a tapestry that I did as a collage.  It involves a lot of sky, and that is tricky, since you have to decide what is going to make up that sky, in terms of color and weaving techniques.  The first idea I had is based on circles but circles in tapestry are very very difficult.  So I may have to come up with another idea.  And "sample" it -- weave a little bit of it to test the technique and the colors before actually trying to use it on the tapestry itself.  More to come.

Comments

[Martha H]

Welcome back! Your plans look good, with a nice mixture of projects so you won't get bored with any one of them. I, too, tried to get organized with my projects recently, but then I went to a fiber festival in Virginia, and then Rhinebeck. Now I have to spend time knitting and spinning; not buying.
See you in Dallas?

[Roberta]

Definitely, let's meet up in Dallas! Glad you will be there.

[Randi]

Ooooh, Quercus is pretty! And Deep Sea Flower is really hard to photograph. I made some socks out of that a few years ago and the pictures aren't nearly as pretty as the yarn itself.

[Jim Held]

Nice to have you back where you belong.

But where are the pictures of the kitties?