Wool Piggery, Portuguese Knitting, and A Container Garden

So last weekend was the All Missouri Spin-In in Chillicothe, it was a lot of fun. I was able to see other spinners! But, it was wet and rainy and I didn't get my spinning wheel out, so I just watched others spin. I also watched a fashion show, and did a lot of shopping. I also took a class on Portuguese knitting. I got a bunch of wool, four batts (one is already spun up, and I'm spinning the second one) and four braids, and I am going to spin three of them together into a three ply, so I'm hoping that the colors will play well with each other for that.

I am spinning the pink and purple batt as we speak, and here is a shot of the bobbin that I'm working on. I'm thinking that I'm going to ply it with a sparkly metallic thread and that will give it another dimension of interest rather than just a flat yarn. It's spinning up thick and thin, so it would be really irregular if I just plied it back on itself.

And then I took a class on Portuguese knitting. It's where you have the yarn tensioned either around your neck or through a pin that you clip on your shoulder. I liked working with the pin better than having it looped around my neck. I am working on making a Reike hat, or something close to it. I didn't look up the pattern and just cast on using my normal number of stitches, I think it was around 90, on size US8 needles. I am knitting up the first batt that I spun up. It was an art batt that had yellow, red and grey in it, and then had little bits of yarn dispersed throughout, so there will be texture to the finished product. I am liking how it is knitting up so far. It is hanging on a mixed media canvas that I made on a Girl's Night Out craft night through my church. It was pretty neat.

Up close, and far away, you can't tell any difference between Portuguese knitting and my regular knitting. I think that it is just an interesting skill to add to my repertoire.

And finally there is my container garden, that it fully established. Many of the plants have been replanted, and most of them have transferred well. I think that they are all happy, and that they are all going to be able to make it. I hope that they are happy outside. There were a few leaves that were turning brown and crinkly around the edges, so I'm hoping that they will be happier outside. I haven't worried about insects or disease a whole lot since they have been inside up until now.

I'm still working on socks using the small circular, and am on the toe of the first sock of a second pair. And then I am also working on the Curl that I was working on, and it is coming along. That and I've started a hat that I am hoping to wear during the summer, so I'm not doing any colorwork on it, and just letting the colors in the yarn sing out.

Shop Update!

First off I finished a project that has been on the needles for about three months now, I have been working on it, instead of my hats, but have finally finished! It's a cowl that was done in fingering weight yarn, a JaWoll Color ball and then Cascade Heritage Sock yarn in a chocolate brown color. The two colors played really well together, and I'm very happy with the end result. After I did all that knitting I sat in the LYS and kitchener stitched the two ends together to end up with a nearly seamless finished object. So now I have a cowl to keep my neck warm in the winter, and it will be nice and toasty by the time fall arrives in a few months. And now I can work on hats again!

And then I have a shop update of nearly all the hats that I had been working on and finishing at lightning speed at the beginning of the year. They are all up and posted and are ready to be snatched up by anyone that can give them a loving home!

I'm really proudest of the monogrammed "A" hat and the four color work hats to the left, I think they all turned out the best. So now it is just a question of what else I will create to get up in my shop, and what other ideas are floating around in my head thus far!

Mostly Finished.....

So this week I tried, I really, really tried to get done these hot pink socks that I am making because of an idea that I had to make the prize for the King's cake this year to be a knitted something. So really, it has just been a little over a month or so since that event, so that's not too bad of a turn around on a size 11 men's pair of socks. (!!!!!!). But it feels like I should have been done sooner, so here are the socks, and they are just not quite done. I need to do just a few more rows of ribbing at the top cuff and then bind off and weave in ends, and so that should be pretty smooth sailing. I used Knit Picks Stroll Brights, in their hot pink that was new and was on sale (?) (I may be lying about this, but I think it was on sale when I got it. It wasn't that pricey anyways, but yeah). And I am working them on my size 1 US needles that are the Addi Turbo Sock Rockets with the 42" cable. They are just a vanilla sock recipe that I use for just about everything, although I may be changing my recipe- more on that later. With 2x2 ribbing along the top of the sock the entire way and then the cuff after the heel is 2x2 ribbing all the way around for around 4" or so and then 10 rows of 1x1 ribbing. Hopefully that all made sense.

Then I finished two polar fleece blankets that I am going to donate to the Project Night Night here in Kansas City, which is a charity that puts together a tote bag with a blanket, a stuffed animal and a bedtime story and gives them to the children in KC that are homeless. My young adult group at church is donating 15 bags and asked me to get/make the blankets for them. So I decided to do the polar fleece kind, since they are quick to make and I can get 15 done by the end of May, so two down, thirteen to go.

And then I am still working on a Curl from the book Curls by Hunter Hammersen, and it is going great! I am trying to do about one repeat on it a night or so. And so it is slowly growing. I am thinking about overdying the finished product with purple, so that I will like the coloring better, because right now it is just not doing it for me. I liked the lilac color, and thought that there would be more of that, I guess it's really more of a pink than lilac per se, but close enough. Only when it is knit up there is a whole lot more blues and greens and browns to it than I was expecting when I looked at the skein, so I was going to fix the discrepancy and just overdye all of it to a color I would like more.

And finally I finished a pair of vanilla socks for myself! I got an 8" circular from Addi Turbo and they are US Size 2, so they are larger, and I can start from the cuff down and make a sock that is only 64-60 stitches around and it fits my feet amazingly! I didn't even use any 2x2 ribbing along the top or anything, it is all just negative ease from having fewer stitches around. I don't know why this should be such a huge revelation to me. It should be pretty obvious that if you knit something with negative ease then it won't need ribbing to stay on your foot, but I am apparently a slow learner. Also featured in this photo are my spinach plants which are growing wildly away, and if they will just get a little bit bigger than I will be able to pick them and make a delicious salad or omelette or whole host of other things.

I cast on another pair of socks using the same super small circular, and they will be done shortly-ish, hopefully. I also now have an instagram account, and am @spinningknitting1 on there. I am also on twitter and I am @spinknitting1 on there. So check it out!

Spring is Springing!

Sorry for such a long hiatus, but I have been knitting, just so you know. Where I am, spring is springing. I don't know if it has completely sprung yet, but it is definitely getting there. I have finished several projects, and have started a garden out on the solarium so that the baby plants can grow before it is totally warm/hot outside. I planted oregano and cilantro in a strawberry planter.

Then I planted some broccoli and Asian peas in a disassembled three tier planter, and they are sitting on the ground.

And finally, from top left, there is asparagus, onions, and green beans. Then on the bottom left, or front left there is zucchini, sweet peppers, and spinach.

I'm so excited to have fresh veggies to eat this summer. I know that my garden is small, but I am really only feeding me, so I didn't want to have just a ton of food for it to go bad. So that's my garden. Anticipate garden updates as well as knitting updates in the future! 

I finished a preemie blanket for the Children's Mercy Hospital, where the preemie babies are generally taken care of here in Kansas City. So making blankets for sick babies will definitely be a thing for me in the future. I like them, since they are small enough to knit and not get bored or frustrated with, and I can try out different stitch patterns on them. I have plans for others in my head. This one is the kind of basket weave pattern with the slipped stitches that they do on washcloths a lot. I'm not sure who "they" are, but I think you know what I mean. The yarn was worsted weight Caron Simply Soft in lavender, and a Red Heart Super Saver Multi-Color. I knit it on US Size 7 needles, and it knit up in about 4 days of working off and on. I took it up to the LYS, which is the drop-off point, and they said that it needed to be blocked just a bit, so I will be blocking it and then turning it back in. 

Then I made a blanket for the Make-A-Blanket Day Project Linus competition. At the last Make-A-Blanket Day six months ago they gave the knitters and crocheters a skein of Red Heart Super Saver in Cherry Red and told us to make a blanket with it, so this is just from stash donations that I have, and it is based on the quilt block of Dutchman's Puzzle. It is all ready to go and be entered into the competition this Saturday. I'm really excited to go and see everybody and make another blanket!

And then I have three shawl/scarf type items done. These are all going to my mom, well, at least the first two are. I think that the last one may go into the shop, which I need to do another update, but I have been thinking, that most of my items are for fall/winter, so I might wait until it is closer to that season until I post other things. The first one is a Nairi by Amanda Muscha. It was made from Malabrigo Rios, but I am unsure of the colorway, since it was from stash. The pattern calls for fingering weight, but I did it with the worsted weight on a US Size 9 needle. The ladies at the LYS thought that I am a tight knitter and I should have used an even larger needle, but I like how it turned out. I liked the pattern and I thought that it knit up well. 

And then I finished a Curl from the book Curls by Hunter Hammersen. This one is the Gridelin. And I made it out of fingering weight yarn, named Army Girl by Pagewood Farms. I've shown this one as it was in progress, but it was a blast to work on, and I've started another pattern from the same book. 

And finally I used the picot edge from the Nairi and just improvised a triangle scarf, with a skein of worsted weight wool that I dyed myself. I really like how it turned out. I'm not sure if I'm going to give this one to my mom, or if I'm going to post it to the shop. 

In final news, I have an Instagram account! I'm spinningknitting1 on there too! So follow me, and I'll try to do mostly daily updates of my knitting on there.