hello blog - look at these!

Look at these georgeous potholders I got in the mail from the potholder swap. I feel completely spoiled! What amazing little jewels!

From left to right: Ardian, Reve, Maritza, Dawn, and Erin

Thanks ladies! And a special shout out to Adrian and Maritza for putting this wonderful swap together.

new sweater pattern and some potholders!

Hi blog, it's been far too long since we've spent some time together. I've been working on sneaky projects and gifts that I couldn't show on your lovely page and then there were pesky things like work and gardening and traveling that seemed to get in the way. I'm a fickle girl sometimes and have been having more mini updates on Flickr - come on down sometime!

New pattern - Hosta Leaf Cardigan







Pattern: Hosta Leaf Cardigan available at Webs / ravelry link here
Yarn: Northfield by Valley Yarns - which is a lovely squishy silk, merino and alpaca blend and is crazy-soft.

In other news I've really been enjoying gardening this spring. Our new cottage comes with some small beds and borders for planting fun and our lovely landlords offered me some space in their giant kitchen garden. I've also had access to the greenhouse and the manure pile, so I've had a lot of fun starting plants from seeds. At this point I have lettuces, spinach, kale, chard, beets, carrots, radishes, and onions up by the cottage. Dill, sage, marjoram, savory, lemon basil, sweet basil, thai basil, thyme and oregano in the herb garden. And tomatoes, tomatillos, husk cherries, eggplant, fennel, and soybeans in the big garden. That doesn't include all sorts of flowers in borders and containers. It's not the best planned garden, think rambling cottage garden and you get the picture. Speaking of pictures - I need to take an updated photo today with all the greenery.



I also did a potholder swap and sent in my potholders last week. These were lots of fun to make and I got to sharpen up on my crochet skills.

Happy Memorial Day everyone! I hope you are all having the same lovely weather that we are.

aspen yoke pullover

I finally took some photos of the aspen yoke pullover by Meg Swansen I knit as a sample last fall for a class I'm teaching at Webs. This was a quick and fun sample to knit and now it's even more fun to teach. We are almost halfway through the class, and everyone is working on their sleeves. In a few weeks we will join all the pieces for the yoke and be on the home stretch!

Knit out of various colors of Lopi Lite for the yoke and Valley Yarns Berkshire for the body. Details on Ravelry.

Not too much else to report. I got the gardening bug and ordered a mess of seeds from Fedco Seeds. I got basil, Amish paste tomatoes, sunflowers, soybeans, spinach, lettuces, zinnias, snapdragons, and so on. Ambitious? Maybe. We"ll see how I do starting the seeds, and maybe plan b will be buying plants from the nursery.

I think spring finally showed up!

A couple of things clued me in to darling spring's arrival. I haven't been as cold as usual which is always nice. Then we noticed a few weeks ago that our maple trees were tapped! I've seen sugaring going on in the valley, but I've never lived right next to it. To my surprise, the sap is pretty abundant, if you are standing next to the buckets, you can hear the drip drip drip of the sap. The bucket fills up daily and a truck with a big plastic tank comes by to collect the sap. Hopefully we will score a little of the final product.



This bucket just got emptied. Elliott and I also went to the North Hadley Sugar Shack this morning for brunch. You can hang out in the sugaring room and be tortured by the delicious fragrance of maple syrup while you wait for your table. Honestly the best thing about this place is their bacon. I ordered an extra slice of bacon with my french toast.





I've got a couple of finished knits to show off:

Leyburn socks all done; nice and green for spring and st. patrick's day.
pattern: Leyburn socks by mintyfresh
yarn: Madelinetosh sock in the Jace colorway.
verdict: love the pattern and I love this sock yarn - put them together for sock heaven!



I finally finished my scarf!

Pattern: Lace Ribbon Scarf by Veronik Avery
Yarn: handspun merino tencel in the colorway "seascape" from the Sheep Shed @ Mountain View Farm. (4 oz.) I got the fiber at the Mass sheep and wool festival.

I’m really pleased with how this turned out. I had this pattern in mind when I spun the yarn and was excited to get something close to what I was imagining.

I'll leave you with one more bit of spring...

new pattern!

Here is my latest design for Webs: a tank top with a tiny honeycomb cable pattern. It's knit with Valley Yarns Longmeadow which is a nice cotton and microfiber blend. It was a nice challenge to sort out little details such as how the cable pattern transitions into the neckline. I also learned how to purl 2 tog with a left leaning slant. The colors are a bit out there - I was going to go with my usual teal and green combo, but I decided to branch out.

Web's pattern link

Ravelry link





Thanks for all of the lovely comments last week - I'm sorry I couldn't respond to them but it was another crazypants week at work. Thankfully things are settling down. For those who asked, here is the link for the mitten pattern on Ravelry. Here is the direct link as well. Enjoy!

projects update

Hey all! Hope you are enjoying this heat wave of almost 50 degrees here in New England or wherever you are. We are able to chip away at some of the many layers of ice and start to imagine times of going outside without being all bundled up...

But I digress. I have a pile of projects to show you, it's been so crazy workwise that I haven't had must time to blog. At any rate, here is what's been on the needles over here:







These lovely mittens were sent off to my mom for her birthday.
details:
Pattern: Norwegian snail mittens by Adrian Bizilia / Hello Yarn from the Knitters Book of Yarn by Clara Parks
Yarn: Tree Frog Alpaca Melange sport weight in colors 910, 921 and 909.
Lining yarn: Bristol yarn gallery Buckingham (alpaca/silk) fingering weight
Needles: 2.25mm (1's) and 2.00mm (0's)
Mods: I was getting a crazy row gauge on these so sadly I had to cut out some of the lovely spirals.





Baby sweater gift for a good friend.
pattern: February baby sweater from the knitter's almanac - Elizabeth Zimmermann
yarn: handspun superwash corriedale from Spunky Eclectic in the orchard colorway and Dream in Color classy (for where I ran out of handspun)
Mods: I did stockinette stitch instead of the lace and added a purl row with eyelet yarnovers where I had to transition to the dream in color classy. Embroidered label for extra cuteness.



I am so sad to say that I cannot find my stranded mittens so I am knitting myself a replacement pair out of leftover fingering weight wool. This is a modified version of the Votteoppskrift mitten pattern (free on Ravelry)



Knitting a lace ribbon scarf from Knitty out of some handspun merino/tencel singles. I am really pleased with the results and hopefully when I'm done it will be spring and I can wear it.



And last but not least, I decided to stop treating all Hello Yarn fiber as super precious and had a lot of fun spinning singles from the latest fiber club installment. Destined to become a 2-ply worsted weight yarn next time I have a date with the spinning wheel.

That's all for now kids! I've got a crazypants work week coming up so it may be a bit quiet over here, but more to come soon. Stay warm!

25 random things

There's a meme working it's way through facebook that I thought I would cross post on my blog. Essentially you list 25 random things about yourself in an effort to entertain your peeps. I'd love to read your list, so if you're interested, consider yourself tagged! More knitting to come soon - I've got some good FO's for you all and a new pattern at Webs.

1. I love black licorice. The stronger the better. Not that namby pamby stuff that has no flavor but the stuff from Germany or Holland that is somewhat salty and sweet goodness.

2. I won't sleep in a bed with the top sheet tucked in, it makes my feet feel trapped. I rarely wear socks to bed unless I'm really really cold.

3. I always wanted to be a graphic designer, I just didn't know it was called that. I remember looking at my cereal box when I was little and thinking "I could make it look better than that!". My parents made me take tennis lessons which I hated, and the only way the teacher was able to make me practice was to give me one of his tennis balls that had a Merril Lynch logo on it. I thought that logo was beautiful.

4. When I was wee I had white blond hair, which gradually darkened and after college has turned into a medium shade of brown. I still think of myself as being blond and get confused when people refer to me as having brown hair.

5. I got my first car in college, a red Dodge Shadow, a boxy granny car that I lovingly called "the shadow". When I lived in Philadelphia, the shadow was broken into 4 times and one time there was a homeless woman taking a nap in the back seat.

6. My grandma was the most excellent person and I miss her a great deal (she passed away in 2002). When I was little she taught me how to play poker - we played for pennies and she wouldn't let me win. She would also entertain me when no one was looking by pulling off her wig and taking out her dentures - she was hilarious.

7. I love reading in bed and could easily spend all day in bed with snacks and a good book.

8. Eight is my favorite number, probably because I was born on the 8th. It's also symmetrical and a pretty shape. (see #3) When I was 8 I thought that would be the best year ever, but luckily I've had some other good years after that one.

9. I'm a big fan of parrots, I think that have great personalities and a good sense of humor. I have a connection with them that I don't really have for dogs or cats. I got Syd the cockatiel in 1994 and we've had a pretty good time ever since. My favorite time with him is in the late afternoons, when he will sit on my shoulder and sit contentedly with his beak touching my nose. He must think I have a really large beak...

10. The only time I ever shoplifted is when I was about 5 and I went shopping with the parents for my dad to get a suit for work. It took forever, so I got bored and was exploring the store. I found a label on one of the suits that was so beautiful I took it (see #3), and my mom found out and make me return it to the store - oh the embarrassment.

11. Most of my comfort foods are beige expect for chocolate pudding.

12. I have to admit that the original recording of the Girl from Ipanema might really be my favorite song.

13. I sometimes feel like English is not really my first language. I can have a hard time writing (things like this) and I feel like I am stringing beads on a thread. I'm not sure what my first language really is.

14. I adore salt and most things salted or salty flavored (see #1)

15. I have a really good intitutive sense of color and I love to pick out color combinations.

16. When I was little I would go to the hardware store with my dad and I loved the area with the paint chips. I couldn't believe they would give away free color! I always took a pile home and they lived in a shoebox.

17. I really like summer and warm weather best. Give me heat and humidity any day.

18. That seems strange considering how much I like to knit.

19. The summer after college I considered joining the circus as they had an ad in the paper. I wasn't qualified for too many other jobs.

20. Sometimes I flirt with the idea of taking up the accordion. I'm not sure I want to invest the time though.

21. Sushi used to scare me but now I love it. I spent a lot of my grad school stipend on sushi.

22. I am of 100% Polish descent, but I have more of an Italian stomach.

23. One of my favorite letters is lowercase "g" (see #3)

24. When it snowed a lot when I was little I would draw a giant compass in our backyard. I always assumed that North was at the back of the yard, but really our yard faced to the west. My mom was worried I would confuse low flying pilots.

25. One of my first words was "doya" Which I would chant over and over like a mantra while riding my rocking horse.