Our State Fair

I'll take a little break from catch up posts to tell you about our visit to the Minnesota State Fair. We think it's the best state fair. Certainly it ranks right up there and it sure is fun. This year I entered 3 things in the competitions. Two pieces of tatting - I won a first for the wreath Christmas ornament in the upper right hand corner (picture taken through glass so it's not very clear) and a second for the earrings in the lower right. I also was brave and entered the very competitive knitting category. I knew that there were so many entries in knitting that my chances of winning anything were slim to none and indeed I didn't place, but I'll be interested to see what the judge says about it. I entered the Vine Flower Dress that I made for Abigail. I didn't even take a picture of it at the fair. It took me a long time to spot it and it wasn't displayed so you could see it very well - understandable when you saw how much knitting there was to display. The yarn that I used was hard to splice without it being obvious and I'm sure they'll note that. Here is Abigail wearing it. It turned out so cute - of course the model helps too!!


The fair is a good place to people watch. I spotted this young man - think he's a little bitter?


And of course there is the food. My daughter suggested we try the deep fried "gourmet" pickle chips. I'm glad I shared them with the Compadre. I'm sure that my arteries will thank me! This must have been the year to go to the fair (staycations and all that) because it was more crowded than I've ever seen it. When we went into the food building to get the pickle chips it was so full that we couldn't move. More than a little claustrophic! I wonder what the fire marshall would have said. I was glad to get out of that building.

We go to the fair every year. I don't always enter my things in it but it's always more fun when I can look for my entries and see them displayed.

Thanks Amy

I'm a lucky Mom. My daughter Amy knit an awesome shawl for me - it took her a year to do it! She told me that she wanted to knit something for me and I suggested a shawl. She thought it was a good idea since she didn't think that she'd ever wear one and she'd been wanting to make one. Heh. I gave her a pattern and yarn and she agreed. I did warn her that it was a hard pattern but she's never been one to back off from a challenge! She reminded me a few days ago on the phone that this was her first lace project!! She also admitted that she had a very hard time parting with it. I can see why, but I'm very glad she did!

So here I present - Sivia Harding's Shetland Garden Faroese Shawl, made by Amy. Wow! And Thanks.

A Pair of Hats

I've been into the quick gratification of hats lately. I have some long, long projects going too but every now and then it's nice to make something that works up fast. And once you complete a hat you don't have that pesky second one to make - or if you do it's just another hat of a different type. So here we have it. A pair of hats.

The first one I made is from another CiD Hanscom pattern. Do you remember Radar from MASH? Well here is a hat like he wore. Only prettier. I was glad that I worked on this one during open knitting at Double Ewe because I got the instructions for the brim exactly backwards in my thinking. I don't know what I was thinking, really. But one of the gals at knitting had knit it already and even had CiD's phone number on her cell phone. She got me straightened out in my thinking even before CiD called back and it was clear sailing from then on. I'm showing you the inside and outside of the brim in hopes that you won't think backwards like I did. The hat is cute and really probably looks better on a younger model but what can I say.... This Radar cap is made with Frog Tree Merino for the main color and Frog Tree Alpaca for the contrasting color. Both in worsted weight. Very soft and comfy.










The second hat I made for the Compadre. I looked at his dismal collection of hats and decided it was a case of the cobblers children - you know, they never had any shoes. The Compadre was wearing either a store bought acrylic hat - ugly as sin - or a red and yellow polar fleece hat that I had made as a gag when we had students at Iowa State. Embarrassing. I guess I didn't think to make him a hat because I was afraid that he would lose it. He does lose things, but he takes offense that I consider it a given that he'll lose this hat. We'll see, I'm just protecting myself from being too crabby if he does lose it. Kelly is calling a disposable hat. And by the way, I have enough yarn to make another one with the colors in the opposite order. And Compadre, that doesn't mean you should lose this one! I made the hat using the Seaman's hat pattern with Brown Sheep Nature Spun yarn left over from Felted Rudy. It was fast to knit and I had fun designing the stripes. I like that there is a purled turning row for the brim - it makes it look neat and tidy. By the way - he requested a plain hat - I couldn't stand it so I added the stripes.


Oh, and Miss T gave me permission to show this picture of the super secret test knitting project that I'm doing for her. It's one of the perils of test knitting - do over.






And just because I'm a Grandma.....Abigail feeding her baby. Notice, she is using the bottle upside down - she's never used a bottle and she drinks out of a cup now - so the baby is drinking out of a "cup" too.

That Hat

I've been knitting away here. It seems to be the craft of the month for me. But I signed up for a weaving class that starts next week and I'm hoping they get another student so that the class will happen. I've had my floor loom for many years now and it's time that I put it into use. It's been taking up space for long enough. I took a weaving class a long long time ago - maybe 20 years ago - and I can't remember much from it. Any way, if the class goes, then weaving will have to take over from knitting for a time because it's an intensive class.

I've started several projects and finished a hat. I'm teaching a class called "knit along with Ann" at Double Ewe and we're all making the Rambling Rows Afghan (ravelry link) a Cottage Creations pattern. I didn't look at the finished sizes before starting mine in the size large and so I'm going to end up with an afghan that will fit the top of our bed! My first clue should have been the large quantities of yarn required but I was on a mission to bust some stash and didn't think about it. I even had to buy more yarn than what I had because I'm making it in acrylic so it's washable and I just didn't have as much of it as I thought. I gave away a lot of it over the years. This one better get finished, otherwise I'll have actually added to the acrylic stash! I've also started a super secret project. It's something I'm test knitting and all I can tell you is that I'm really enjoying knitting it. And I'm making it blue.

But I can show you the hat that I made.


I've been getting a lot of use out of it with our waaaay below zero temperatures this week. The yarn is Ivy and it's alpaca and merino so the hat is very warm and it has just a little bit of glitter. Kelly designed it and the pattern is free at the shop or online. It's the kind of hat that stays on your head but doesn't mash your hair down. Perfect. And it was fun to knit besides.

The Third Knit of Christmas

Well, Christmas is long past now and so I need to get busy and show you the rest of the knitting I did. This project was requested many months ago and in fact I originally intended to give it to Peter for his birthday last fall. That didn’t happen and so it moved to urgent Christmas knitting since a winter ski hat needs to be used for the ski season! Peter chose the colors and the pattern and so he knew about the project but didn’t see the finished result until Christmas – that was why I didn’t want to blog about it. I knew that Peter reads this blog.

This was my first successful project with stranded knitting. The St. Moritz Hat made with Brown Sheep Nature Spun sport weight yarn. The hat is made from a Dale of Norway pattern and let’s just say that there are not a lot of words to explain what to do (it is in English though). I think that the main reason that I procrastinated so much was that I was intimidated by the idea of doing colorwork. I shouldn’t have been. I had a lot of fun knitting this hat and learning the new technique of two handed color work knitting. I used the video at Philosopher’s wool to learn the technique and the gracious help of Mary (knittingchemist on ravelry). I did catch the floats every other stitch on most rows – exept for the pesky 3 color row – so that there aren’t many long floats to catch on things. Once I got the method down I had lots of fun – but I noticed that my tension is a little wonky in places. I got better as I went and the wonky tension did even out with blocking. I hope you don’t mind Peter that you basically got a beginner project with this hat! My sister reports that he is enjoying wearing it on their ski vacation.

I’m looking forward to making more projects that involve stranded knitting. Maybe not a sweater quite yet but mittens are looking good.

The Second Knit of Christmas

This is the second Tulip sweater that I’ve made and I’m sure it’s not the last. I love this pattern as do many, many, others. Ravelry has 678 listed and it’s in 584 queues. And that’s only the ones listed on ravelry. I enjoyed knitting it both times because of the ever changing colors and its amazing cuteness. It’s also very easy to knit which is a big plus. I’m not against knitting challenging things but I love mindless knitting too. I bought a kit for this one at Yarnover – the big knitting extravaganza that the Minnesota Knitting Guild puts on every spring. The kit came from a yarn shop that I’ve never been to – The Coldwater Collaborative in Excelsior MN. So I used the yarn that the pattern called for in this one – Dream in Color Classy. The yarn comes in huge hanks and the pattern uses many colors so it would be very expensive to make this sweater if it wasn’t for the availability of a kit. My previous one was made with a substitute yarn but still – I had to buy 8 skeins and didn’t use all of any of them so it would be an expensive sweater too. But I will use the rest of those 8 skeins and reverse the order of the colors and make another tulip. Hmmm, maybe with a purchase of one more skein I could make the next size (size 2) for Abigail. I told you I like making this sweater. This one is size 12-18 months and I made one small modification. I used the rest of the blue yarn to add length to the sleeve – the instructions said to just continue on in the purple. I thought that would look strange. I wish that the kit had had more blue because I would have added length to the body of it with blue if I had had some. When I make the size 2 I’ll definitely be adding length in the body.

We took pictures of Abigail wearing this sweater at the last minute before they left for the airport. She was distracted and not very cooperative. I was feeding her cheerios one at a time to keep her happy. What is it about little ones and cheerios? Abigail sure loves them.

The First Knit of Christmas

I sort of put my finishing resolution on hold during the holiday knitting frenzy. It was funny, Miss T asked me if I had any knitting I was doing for Christmas and at the time I said oh, not much, just a hat. That was fatal. I then proceeded to decide to start several more gifts. But I have to say that I did finish all the knitted gifts. The last time I said that I had finished all my gifts the Compadre took issue with me. He did get an IOU for a bathrobe that I’ll sew for him. But hey, that’s not knitting, it’s sewing. So I’m OK. Well, I’m always OK but you know….

So the first thing I did was to re-appropriate the multi directional scarf into a gift. My sister had asked me to make it for her way last February I think and I decided to give it to her for Christmas even though technically we don’t exchange gifts. We do occasionally and this was one. So there.

As I said earlier this was a really fun scarf pattern to knit. And it went fast because there was always another interesting color to start and another triangle to finish and then start and…. The pattern I used wasn’t really the multi directional scarf pattern – I had gotten a free pattern at Amy’s yarn store (no she doesn’t own it, she just spends a lot of time there, just like I do at Double Ewe) but that pattern is so similar to the multi directional scarf that the only difference I could see is that it uses the knit 2 tog decrease instead of SSK. My sister liked it and so I proved that I do sometimes come through on promises to make something. Now I just have oh, about 4 more promises to come through on. You’d think that with all my copious time now that I’m retired and don’t have anything to do that I would get these things done. Hmm, I’ll try harder this year – how’s that for a resolution.

So, I’m going to drag out this Christmas knitting reveal over several posts because then of course I’ll have more to post about. And as far as the finishing of UFO’s I don’t know where I stand. I think I’ll re-resolve to finish as many unfinished items this year as I can. I don’t know if it’s realistic to finish two before starting one. My list contains many very large projects and I’m a short project kind of person. Maybe that’s a clue as to why there are so many unfinished things hanging out around here. So I think that in order for me to stay on task I’ll need to intersperse the large project finishing with some short project success. How’s that for rationalization!

So today my list includes starting that bathrobe that I promised the Compadre I’d make for him. And I’ve got a hat I want to start and a scarf and I want to start to sew some napkins and a cool tatted snowflake I want to make….. What! You don’t believe I’ll ever tackle anything on the UFO list – just you watch. I will – someday.