Finished objects so far this year

Wowzers! My last post put you right to sleep. Not a peep outta anyone. I guess no comments are better than some of the fur that's flying on some other blogs these days. I read this post a week or so ago and it truly spoke volumes to me about how I can lead a happier blog life. That's all I'm saying lest I too get flamed.

Anyhoo, for what its worth, here are a few of my 2007 goal related FO's that have popped off my needles in recent weeks.

Sheepy Zune Cozy

Specs...
Pattern: My own based on the measurements for my Zune (Microsoft version of iPod)
Yarn: Tweedy wool reclaimed from thrift store sweater and my own handspun Finnsheep
Needles: Size 3 Inox circulars







Notes:

This was great practice toward my goal of mastering stranded knitting this year. I also recycled some yarn, incorporated handspun yarn into the project and practiced pattern writing using a chart. Plus, I got to knit sheep with sheep. How kewl is that? If anyone is interested, I'm happy to post the pattern. Just drop me a line.

Chinese New Year Piggie/Boar

Specs...

Pattern: my own based on a Chinese New Year photo of ceramic boars
Fiber: Dave Simpson "Dharma" - silk/merino blend in pinks, peach and orange and a smidge of black merino for the eyes and detailing
Needles: Clover needle felting tool with fine (size 34 I think) felting needles
Finished size: 1 1/2" h x 1 1/2" w





Notes: I love how piggie turned out. And he's so tiny. Can't think of a good name for him though. This is the first time that I've needle felted with my Clover tool though I bought it over 6 months ago. It is a dream to use and makes quick work of needle felting projects. I still like using a single needle for the detail work, though.

The body is a a needle felted ball made with several layers of fiber. I then made two triangles for the ears and attached them to the head. Next, I affixed a small ball for the nose and felted it into place. Four pyramid shapes for the legs were felted and attached. The tail was a twisted piece of fiber that was knotted and attached. The nose, eyes and toes were added last. Took about an hour or so to leisurely finish while watching Pirates of the Carribean - Dead Man's Chest (I sure hope the final installment ties up all of the weird loose ends from this one) in January.

This project doesn't fall under any of my goals for 07. It was just simple fun!

Noni Patterns "Ruffs and Cuffs"

Specs...

Pattern: Noni Patterns (Formerly Noni Bags) Ruffs and Cuffs
Yarn: Cascade Pastaza
Needles: Size 10 Clover bamboo









Notes: The construction on this pattern is freaking sweet. Each flower is knit as a chain (see the photo above) and then stitched together. Then all of the flowers are lightly felted, assembled and a velvet backing is stitched on the inside of the collar. Add a magnetic snap and you're already to hit the town in your new accessory. I've worn this one quite a bit to keep my neck warm and gotten lots of great compliments. A truly fun pattern to knit and would make great gifts for the holidays next year (Its not to early to start planning now).

Got some fiber to flash you with in the next post. Hope to see some of you at RVS&K in Salem tonight!

2006 Reflections - Final installment

Sorry it has taken me two freakin' months to reflect on 2006. And many thanks for enduring my Asheville tome. It was a great trip. I highly recommend that you escape with friends whenever you can cause life is WAY too short. Also, a HUGE shout out to all of the visitors from Mason-Dixon knitting. Thanks for stopping by.

I spent my first glorious "penis-free" weekend with my spinning girls back in January. All I can say is that women. are. amazing. Don't let anyone tell you anything different. We are invincible, we are powerful, we are loving, we are vulnerable, we are creative and if you're not careful, we'll someday rule the world. I have to tell you that I came home on an estrogen and spinning high. I'm still in awe of how we found each other over two years ago. Either way, it doesn't matter HOW we found each other, just that we did. Thanks ladies for making my life so very rich!

While I was on this retreat, I finally finished spinning and plying my Dharma (don't you love the name? Of course the joke was where's Greg all weekend.) merino silk while on holiday from the "Things". I also plied a little ball of Finnsheep singles that had been languishing in the bottom of my spinning bag.


Dharma and "Greg" the mini skein of Finnsheep

I got some weird looks over how I ply my yarn. I spin until I nearly fill a bobbin. Then I wind off the singles onto a nostepine to make a flat center pull ball. I take the end from the center and the end from the outside and ply them together until all of the yarn is gone. I don't honestly know why I do it this way. I'm sure I saw it out on the internets somewhere a couple of years ago. There's an article that just went up in the Jan./Feb. newsletter at Fiber Femmes describing this technique complete with pictures. Do any of you spinners out there ply like this?

Okay now back to the final reflections installment.


The Future - 2007

I had an epiphany over the holidays. My dream of owning a retail knitting/spinning shop will need to be deferred at least for the next 10 years. I realized that I'd have to be "married" to a store and things like vacations, QT with The Things, visiting family and friends and carefree knitting and spinning would be practically non-existent. I'm not ready to have another "child" at this point in my life when my boys are still in their formative years. I'm a little sad but am glad to set that one free for now. Though, I won't make resolutions, some of my hard and fast fiber goals for the year are:


* Have fun with Fair Isle and stranded knitting - emphasis on FUN. I want to learn to steek, play with Kaffe Fassett motifs and become uber proficient at stranded projects. I've already got a couple off the needles. I'll show you more in another post.

* Dyeing to spin - Color is such an important part of my life. I'm constantly inspired by nature - the sky, the weather, animals - and would like to tap into those inspirations to paint more fiber and yarn. I truly want to move beyond the novice colorist stage this year.


* Spinning to knit - Most of the spinning I do is for pure pleasure and to learn about the process. I want to be a bit more purposeful in spinning fibers for specific projects. I have some silk, cashmere, Finnsheep and other lovelies that truly should be spun with a purpose.


* Get creative with my spinning - I'd love to spin some novelty yarns that include beads. I'd also like to spin textured yarns and combine unlikely fiber partners.

* Publish a few patterns - this prospect is scary but I'd like to publish a few patterns this year to see where it takes me. I need to accumulate a good list of intrepid and adventurous test knitters so this dream can be a reality.

* Master finishing work - I'm the first to admit that my finishing work leaves a lot to be desired. I hope to either take a couple of classes to over come my finishing fears or practice, practice, practice until I get it right. It also means forcing myself to select projects that require a lot of finishing. This is the goal I want to do the least and yet need to work on the most.

Two months into 2007 and I've worked on every single one of these goals - hot bad, eh? But I know the proof is in the pudding so I'll flash y'all with some pictures and more details very soon.

Asheville Yarn Crawl - The finale

Call it a fiber high or lack of judgement but we got greedy. We suddenly decided that we needed to hit ALL of the knitting shops in Asheville and the surrounding area. We spied one shop that wasn't in our list in some arts and craft directory and decided that we'd skoot over to visit since we had some extra time. This was the true dud of the trip - The Enchanted Forest (didn't even bother looking for a link because they don't deserve the patronage).

In our defense, there was a picture of luxury yarn in the ad. It encouraged us to come in and even promised 40% off all yarn. How could we resist? The first sign of trouble was that the navigation system took us to the wrong end of the road we needed to be on. Approximately 15 minutes out of our way. When we finally found the place, the sign read "Consignment Shop". Our spider senses told us to turn back but we'd already come so far. There on near-empty shelves, nestled between an old waffle maker and a wasp's nest, lay a few dozen orphan skeins. I wanted to save them from their fate. There were skeins of Fiesta, Needful, Lily Chin and Art Yarns that shouldn't have been subject to that suffering. But before I could rescue them, CM quickly ushered me out of the store. I don't think we spent more that 120 seconds in that shop. Talk about false advertising. Shame on you Enchanted Forest for not stating in your ad that it was a yarn clearance instead of a sale. We gave it a negative 5 our of 5 stars. It sucked big time.


By now it was 4pm and tick, tick, tick we had one shop left to visit - Yarn Paradise. Should we dare put all of our hopes and dreams in one basket? We'd purposely NOT gazed into the windows of the store so that we'd be surprised when we arrived. Our fingers and toes were crossed that we'd saved the best for last.

We almost trampled each other trying to get into the store. Not only was it growing colder as the sun began fade but we knew that we didn't have much time to shop. Once inside the doors, we knew that we'd reached yarn mecca. The store not only has a great selection of yarn, books, colors and customer service all under one roof. We marvelled at the fact that not only did they have great floor stock but they had plenty of backstock too. No problem finding enough yarn in a color you want for a large project here. Koigu and Claudia's Handpaint overflowed from several Lantern Book tiered baskets near the front of the store. Colinette and Noro dripped from the walls in the "fireplace room". We all immediately got ADD and wandered for a bit which I think made the staff suspicious because they followed us around for a while. This put me off at first but then again they might have a lot of theft so I tried to keep that in mind. After a while, they backed off unless we asked for help. My main goal besides buying fiber was to stock up on some yarns so that I could tackle some sort of fair isle or stranded project. I scored big time with some Koigu , Koigu mill ends (who knew there was such a thing) and some Debbie Bliss Silk. The others had bigger projects to buy for so we set to work on filling those needs.

Yarn Paradise is paradise!

Tons of great yarn

CM practicing her "mannequin pose" ala Fluffa in a Debbie Bliss cardigan

The staff and even their customers were too kind and very helpful. Thanks to their very nice store samples and swatches, we bought even more yarn than we'd planned. They have great selection of Louisa Harding, Ella Rae, Katia and Nashua yarns. And staples like Debbie Bliss, Noro, Cascade and Classic Elite. If we'd decided to stay until Monday, we could have gotten our Friday Night Knitting Club books signed by the author. Darn it. Talk about bad timing. Yarn Paradise scored a great big shiny 5 outta 5 stars! Worth every dime!

By now its almost 6 pm, its really cold and windy, our dogs were barking and hunger had set in. We decided to make reservations at another highly recommended restaurant - Zambra Tapas so that we'd have a snowball's chance of eating dinner at a decent hour. We couldn't get in until almost 8 pm so we decided to survey our haul and play with fiber for a while. SF is the fashion designer so she "laid out" all of our stuff on her bed for the photo shoot.

The whole kit and kaboodle

TE and S's Haul

IM and CM's Haul

Not bad, eh?

Zambra is everything that everyone said that it would be. The selection of tapas dishes was incredible. There was a three piece flamenco (?) band playing that was as flawless as a digital recording. We even ran into some friends from Roanoke. What a great way to cap the day and the weekend.

Of course we stayed up gabbing again and playing with all of our new fiber, yarn, pattern books and gadgets. We out lived the fire and reluctantly went to bed sometime around 2:30 am. Just one more row was heard more than once during the evening. After another one of Bruce's delicious breakfasts, we packed, knit until noon and then zipped by the Grove Park Inn just to see what all the buzz was about. This place is a behemoth. Just look at how small the cars are next to the building.

Grove Park Inn

And the view from the back of the property...

Breathtaking, no?

We finally couldn't put off the inevitable and headed back home to "reenter" the real world of kids, husbands, pets and housework. I spent the car trip deconstructing on of S's sweaters for TE in hopes that we can work up a pattern for it in the coming weeks. I've never done such a thing so we'll see how it turns out.

Don't you love the different buttons?

Now that I've done my little part for Asheville tourism, who wants to meet me there for SAFF in October? I'd love to see if we could rent the entire B&B and spin and knit all weekend. Come on, you know you wanna :)

Asheville Yarn Crawl - Day Two

Friday night we were reminded by the evening staff to get up in time to make Bruce's famous breakfast. Of course, we were all dragging butt. I'd stayed up reading the first couple of chapters of Friday Night Knitting Club and visions of fiber were dancing in all of our heads. There was lots of yummy, carb-filled goodness but for some reason all I can remember is the baked peach french toast and "smack yo-momma" blueberry muffins (they weren't named that but that's how good they were).

With a map of Asheville in hand, a list of our stops and comfy shoes on our feet, we braved the cold in search of fiber. First stop of the day, the Grove Arcade and Asheville NC Homecrafts (The Arcade in and of itself is a work of art. It was built by the same person who built the Grove Park Inn. This place has all sorts of great shops, food and fun. Add this to your must see list.).


The Grove Arcade

Asheville Homecrafts is a refreshingly unique store. Half is committed to finished handcrafted items - mostly fiber related - such as handspun/hand knit hats and scarves, dolls, baskets, quilts and clothing. The other half is chock full of yarn, a significant percentage of which is locally produced. An entire wall dangled with locally spun yarns of all fibers. Its such a rare treat to find a store so committed to prominently promoting regional talent. S was so smitten with the handspun that we revisited the store on Sunday. There were also some staples such as Brown Sheep, Debbie Bliss and Noro and hard to find yarns such as Tilli Tomas. There was only one person on duty so the personalized service was spotty but good when available. This shop ranks a strong 4 out of 5!


TE, CM and SF at Asheville Homecrafts

There are three, yes THREE, fiber related shops in downtown Asheville. We barely have three within a 50 mile radius in the Roanoke Valley so imagine our giddiness when we realized that we could walk to most of the shops on our list. I believe we might have skipped to our next stop (mostly because it was so damn cold) - Earthguild.

Earthguild is located on Haywood Street in the Woolworth Walk across the street from Chocolate Fetish. In just the past few months, I've had severe allergic reactions to chocolate that's been processed on the same equipment with tree nuts so I was warned by the staff not to indulge. But others in our group said something about the chocolate being orgasmic. Sucks having allergies. Back to Earthguild. The store is huge. It truly covers a wide swath hobby and craft supplies from leather tooling to weaving to spinning to dyeing and everything in between. I ended up buying a pound and a half of medium grade "wool" (they had no idea what breed it was) with the intention of spinning some yarn as a gift for S. However, she wasn't "feelin" the fiber and honestly had a hard time envisioning what it might look like spun up so I gave up on trying to sell her on it and decided to use it to experiment with dyes when I got home. As far as yarns, they too had a large selection of Brown Sheep (too much Brown Sheep in one town if you ask me), Christopher Sheep Farm yarns and the Louet Gems line (I bought some white to dye with especially since I LURV Koigu) but nothing really stood out. There weren't many spinning or needle felting supplies in stock so I wasn't able to shop for most of the things on my list - boo hoo :( Now I have to issue a small disclaimer: I set my sights very high for this shop because I came to load up on fiber not yarn. Plus, I've had over two years to stock up on basic spinning stuff. I need much more specialized fibers and gadgets. I believe that the store doesn't have enough depth in a particular craft to truly meet the broader needs of the crafter but has more than enough to allow people to dabble very nicely. The customer service was at both ends of the spectrum and depended heavily on the staff tending to you. This shop gets a 3 out of 5.

Wanna see the funniest part of our Earthguild trip? An old (like 1990s) Vogue knitting book. We were so distracted by the models that we couldn't focus on the patterns.


Stop laughing. I'm related to Eddie Munster and can't help it if I have thick eyebrows


It's like she wants us to see that she shaved her pits


Huh? What? Can't hear you because of these giant starfish on my ears.

What were we thinking in the 80's? Okay enough kidding around. Feeling a bit let down, we headed to Chocolate Fetish first (good to drown your sorrows in chocolate) and then to Purls Yarn Emporium (Someone in Asheville please get these people a decent website. It does NOT do the store justice). When we walked through the door, a light shown down. For me, I was in heaven. The yarns are arranged by color that makes for a striking presentation.

Look at all of that red, orange and yellow!

Now I know some of you hate your yarn arranged this way but we were working on color palette projects so this set up was perfect. For whatever reason, we could focus better and a S & C actually camped out on the floor by the "greens" at one point to put together an array of yarns for a throw. There was an entire table full of cashmere, silk and blends of both (I just wanted to roll on it) from Art Yarns and Fiesta. Another entire table with some uber cool handspun yarns by local artist Urban GypZ.

CM and TE in full color palette project mode @ Purls

Great buttons, a case full of antique knitting supplies and good selection of books. Their choice of staff for the store that day left a lot to be desired. The guy on duty seemed to be bored out of his mind and somewhat annoyed that we were there. Interesting considering how much money was spent by our group alone not to mention the other customers. Go figure. This store was the first to get 5 stars even with the lukewarm reception. I didn't buy a thing mostly because I had a hard time breathing once some of the yarn winding started. For some odd reason, I've recently become allergic to baby alpaca. Its so bad that I can't breathe and after about 20 minutes at Purls, I had to leave the store to get some fresh air. Bummer.

Ladden with heavy bags, we headed started back to the car but got sidetracked by growling stomachs and decided to stop and eat lunch. S quickly spied Early Girl Eatery and we popped in, not knowing that this was one of the best places in Asheville to eat lunch.

Most everything on their menu is organic or healthy or vegan which was what we needed after the Southern style breakfast we'd consumed. We got back to the car just in time to find a ticket on the window. We'd forgotten to feed the meter! Fear not, good karma intervened and it was only a warning. No tickie today! However that's where the luck ended. We were about to find the dud of the day.

This post is already getting too long so against my better judgement, I'm gonna post the rest tomorrow.

Asheville Yarn Crawl - Day One

Photo by Susan Stanton

(Long post and plenty o' pictures ahead...)

Yes, I know its not Monday (several of you have already called me on the carpet for not blogging about my trip on Monday). This crazy little thing called work keeps getting in the way. Perhaps I'll hit the VA lottery tonight - its over $130 MILLION! In the meantime, I have to pay the bills and blogging's not doing the trick just yet.

So four knitters decided back in Nov. that we needed a retreat, a penis free knitting retreat to be exact. We scoped out the possibilities and Asheville won out. It was only a little over 4 hours away, had multitudes of quaint B&B's, excellent food and most important - a high concentration of yarn shops. I must confess that this is the second penis free fiber retreat I've been on since the beginning of the year. I'll back track and tell you about the first one another day (Just wanted the F5 to know that I didn't forget).

Our three day trip began last Friday (hurray for the three day weekend). We stopped first at Circle of Friends Yarn Shop, a cute shop nestled in the very small downtown of Elkins. The shop had a great array of yarns including Debbie Bliss, Brown Sheep, Malabrigo, Noro, and Araucania. The staff was very attentive and friendly. While nothing appealed to me in particular (I was more in the mood for fiber than yarn), the others found quite a bit that they liked. We gave this shop 3.5 stars out of 5! A great find.

Next stop, Much Ado About Knitting in Lewisburg. While there was more selection than we have at our LYS (which isn't saying much), twasn't much to get excited about. A butt load of various and sundry novelty yarns. I did get to smell the Skacel aromatherapy yarns Meditation and Bravura. And it was nice to fondle Dale Yarns and flip through Phildar patterns. Was it worth the detour? Nope. A very disappointing 1.5 out of 5 stars.

With time ticking and no more shops to visit along the way, we decided to make a beeline for our lodging - Cedar Crest Victorian Inn B&B.



Cedar Crest B&B

How can you not love a place that greets you with the photo at the very top of this post? This is the cover of the Feb. 07 issue of the Laurel of Asheville Visitors Magazine. Take a closer look at the white specks in the left corner. Yep, those are sheep (sorry I couldn't enlarge the photo so you could see a close up shot of the sheepies). I LOVE this photo! It's by photographer Susan Stanton and is available as a greeting card in addition to prints. Visit her website - http://stantonphoto.com/ for more information.

Anyhoo, back to Cedar Crest. Built in 1891, this Victorian mansion is run by Rita and Bruce Wightman - the most incredible hosts I've encountered in many years. There was always something yummy in the parlour and the main house is as beautiful as a museum. We reserved the entire guest cottage for our stay so our late night gabbing wouldn't disturb anyone.



Cedar Crest Guest Cottage

We arrived both hungry and eager to play with fiber so we quickly unpacked, sat and knit for a while and made dinner reservations at the Corner Kitchen.

Corner Kitchen

Don't let the name fool you. Corner Kitchen is far from "home cookin". They call it "comfortable Caromerican cuisine" and it did NOT disappoint. Located in the historic Biltmore Village, the added bonus of dining at Corner Kitchen is that its a stones throw from what would be our final destination of the weekend, Yarn Paradise (more about that in a minute).

Peeps, it was C.O.L.D. Friday night. We headed directly back to our cottage to find that the fire had been "set" for us - all we had to do was light it. This is a shot of the sitting room between


Cedar Crest Guest Cottage sitting room


our rooms. By the time we had our jammies on, it was roaring hot. S, being the sweetheart that she is, gifted us with a copy of Friday Night Knitting Club





to celebrate our retreat. I can't believe that I missed hearing about this book. I'm only a couple of chapters in but its still got my attention.


Late night knitting and spinning next to the fire

Sometime well after 1 am and after the fire had dimmed to a glowing whisper, we turned in. There was much yarn and fiber to be had on Saturday and we planned to hit the shops promptly at 10 am, when they opened.

Next post - more eating, lots of shopping and one real dud

Trinity - the log cabin triangle

Trinity - the log cabin triangle as a throw


Trinity - the log cabin triangle

Some of you who visit my blog vs. a feed, may have seen this triangular fun pop up in my flickr photo set in the left column earlier this year. Inspired by all of the Mason-Dixon Log Cabin squares I saw last spring, I decided to try my hand at developing a log cabin triangle. I finished the larger triangle/shawl in early summer o6, just in time not get to use it very much. With the colder weather of late January and early February, it has gotten lots of use by family and friends alike. For whatever reason, I've had pattern publishing anxiety - one of the things I hope to get past this year - and didn't have the confidence to publish it until now. If you choose to knit one (or several) triangles, please let me know of any edits that you might suggest and I'll share them on my blog. Or better yet, join the Trinity Flickr Group and discuss the pattern and post pictures of your creations there.

So consider Trinity an early Valentine's Day present. I hope that you enjoy the pattern and I look forward to seeing triangular spawn on the internets.


Trinity - the log cabin triangle worn as a shawl

Trinity

Trinity is the close relative of the basic Log Cabin square. It is constructed of a base triangle and trapezoid shaped strips. Make multitudes of triangles and stitch together in ways only limited by your imagination. A giant single triangle is suitable for a small throw, shoulder wrap or baby blanket. Felt smaller ones and make potholders. Get wild and knit several smaller triangles - and perhaps (((gasp))) even log cabin squares - together. Geometry and knitting are a match made in heaven!

Materials:
* Odd balls of yarn (for the sample, I used worsted weight natural fiber yarns)
* Appropriate size needles depending on what is recommended for the weight of the yarn(s) you plan to use (for both of the samples, I used Size US 10.5 Denise Needles)
* Tapestry needle
* Tape measure
* Crochet hook (optional)

Gauge: will vary based on yarn and needles used

Notes:

* When using acrylic and fiber blend yarns, keep in mind that they will block differently than natural fibers. It is also worth noting that some natural fibers block differently than others. Be sure to test fibers to see if they bleed especially if you plan to use many different colors in one project.

* You can use any weight of yarn for the body of the throw. However, I recommend using a sturdy yarn for the base triangle.

* Using needles a size or two larger than the recommended needle for the weight of the yarn, will give your project a slightly airy look. If you choose to mix weights of yarn, experiment with doubling the yarn and/or knitting fewer or more rows to achieve the desired width in strip for each section.

* You can preserve your sanity by weaving the loose ends of the yarn in on each row as you’re knitting vs. weaving in five thousand ends when you’re finished.

* You can leave the sts “live” after finishing each row (in lieu of binding off) by using a circular needle the circumference of the triangle or by slipping the live sts onto a piece of yarn. I used my Denise needles and changed the cords as the circumference expanded. If you plan to make a giant triangle, it would be worth it to invest in a 60” cord (for the Denises or 60” circular needle). However, binding off does tend to provide some structure for each side of the triangle, especially if you are using lighter weight yarns. If possible swatch using each technique before you invest too much time in a larger project.

* If you choose to BO each strip, its important to BO loosely.

Directions:

Small Base Triangle

Row 1: CO 12 sts
Row 2: K
Row 3: K2tog, K to last 2 sts, K2tog
Rows 4 – 5: K
Repeat rows 3 – 5 until 2 sts remain. K2tog and BO.

Large Base Triangle

Row 1: CO 16 sts
Row 2: K
Row 3: K2tog, K to last 2 sts, K2tog
Rows 4 – 5: K
Repeat rows 3 – 5 until 2 sts remain. K2tog and BO.

(follow directions below for both sizes of base triangles. The directions for the larger triangle are in parentheses.)

Side One of Triangle

Row 1 – (With new yarn) At base of triangle, pick up 13 (17) sts.
Row 2 – Kf&b 1st st, k to last st, kf&b
Row 3 – K
Repeat rows 2 and 3, inc. 1st and last stitch on every other row until strip is desired width. (For the sample, there were 3 garter st ridges after binding off.) Bind off. If you choose to keep the sts live, make sure that working needle is on the left side of your knitting. You will be rotating the triangle to the left to pick up sts on the 2nd side of the triangle.

Side Two of Triangle

Row 1 - (with new yarn) Begin picking up sts for side two beginning with sides of the strip you just knit. Pick up sts between the garter sts ridges totaling the same as what you picked up on side one (the base of the triangle).
Row 2 – Kf&b 1st st, k to last st, kf&b
Row 3 – K
Repeat rows 2 and 3, inc. 1st and last stitch on every other row until strip is desired width. Bind off. If you choose to keep the sts live, make sure that working needle is on the left side of your knitting. You will be rotating the triangle to the left to pick up sts on the 3rd side of the triangle.

Side Three of Triangle

Row 1 – (with new yarn) Begin picking up sts for side three beginning with sides of the second strip you just knit, the third side of the triangle, and the sides of the first strip you knit. This side will be slightly longer than the other two sides.
Row 2 – Kf&b 1st st, k to last st, kf&b
Row 3 – K

Repeat rows 2 and 3, inc. 1st and last stitch on every other row until strip is desired width.. Bind off. If you choose to keep the sts live, make sure that working needle is on the left side of your knitting. You will be rotating the triangle to the left to pick up sts on the 1st side of the triangle.

Continue with directions for side three of triangle for all sides until triangle is the desired size (if you are using circulars, you will be picking up the sts from the sides of the strips on either side and will be knitting the sts from the needle on the sts in the center). Use a crochet hook, three needle bind off or tapestry needle to connect/sew the triangles together.

If knitting one large triangle, use a decorative yarn and crochet or knit a chain of stitches around the entire project to finish the edges. Experiment with a picot trim, tassels or other decorative edging for even more fun. Enjoy!


All contents are copyright Tanya Brooks 2007. This pattern is for personal use only and may not be used commercially, distributed or copied whole or in part without express written permission from Tanya Brooks.

Yarn Crawl

I'm heading to a B&B in Asheville, NC for a yarn/fiber crawl/knitting retreat this weekend. A full report on Monday complete with pictures. Stay warm!

Switching from Better Batter to plain ole Vanilla

Alright ya'll,

After much gnashing of teeth, many cuss words and a crash course in editing source code, I have made the new Blogger and its crappy template my beoatch - Who's.YO.Daddy?!? Say it, Say it. For those of you who read my blog through Bloglines or another feeder, please pop on over to the blog and give me your honest opinion. And feel free to bust my cojones and let me know if some stuff isn't working right, point out dead links, laugh at my lack of XTML savvy or let me know if the new design is too vanilla. And if anyone would like to design me a snazzy new template in return for some handspun yarn, I'd be happy to work out a trade. To be honest, I had gotten some comments that the old blog (RIP) was too dark and hard to read so I hope that this is a welcome change. Fear not, dear readers. I'm not a plain vanilla kinda girl so you will see me spice up la casita de Muse very soon. I'm still getting comfy with XTML and hope to add tweaks here and there as time permits. In the meantime, enjoy the divine Ms. Z (Zira the monkey that is) as she frolicks in the snow.

For those who suggested that I switch to Haloscan to make commenting easier, I'm going to hold off for a bit and see if this Blogger upgrade helps. After reading the forums for Haloscan and Blogger, it looks like there's a tendency for people to lose all of their comments when they switch to Haloscan commenting. I'm a serious comment Ho so I'd be really sad if I lost all of your comments from the last several years. If you're still encounter commenting problems, please email me (indigomuseatverizondotnet) and let me know what kind of commenting problems you're having so that I can put the screws to Blogger to get it fixed. I love hearing from all of you and it truly pisses me off that some of you have given up on commenting because its so difficult to do so.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to read about my fiber exploits. I love being a part of this wonderful fiberlicious worldwide family. I promise to have a regular blog post tomorrow!

Be forewarned - I'm trying to upgrade to the new Blogger

I haven't posted in some time because I'm trying to figure out what to do about upgrading my template for the new blogger. I'm not sure that it will work or what I'll lose in the process. So if things look wonky or outta whack, its me scrambling to fix la casita de Muse. If all goes well, I'll have a couple of new posts today.

PLEASE bear with me before you decide that you've had it with trying to comment or view my blog and unsubscribe. I would rather not change my blog address because its such a huge hassle for readers to keep up with the changes. Thanks and please know that I appreciate each and every one of you for sticking with me :)

2006 Reflections on Fiber - Part One

2006 Fiber Reflections - Part One

05-06 was the first year I taught knitting classes. Through teaching, I learned (and embraced) that I'm a combination knitter. After almost 20 years of knitting, I finally figured this out. While I'm not changing my style for anyone, it does present some challenges when I teach. I've had many wonderful students and I enjoy teaching but it has curtailed my class offerings for the last few months because I try NOT to knit combination style when teaching my classes. So I'm always stuggling to recall what the "regular" way to knit is which makes me always second guess my abilities. I know, I have issues. Nuff said.




Happy knitting student with looooong scarf

I wrote several patterns in 06' which will hopefully springboard me into other areas in 07 (more on this in Part Two). The only ones that have made it on my blog so far are the Felted Fortune Cookie and the Chaqueta patterns. I get more hits on the fortune cookie pattern daily than I do anything else. I'm still stunned. I'm going to freshen up the pattern and add some nuances for this year's Chinese new year and Valentine's Day. Keep your eyes peeled for that very soon.

My spinning wasn't nearly as plentiful as I would have liked but then again I've struggled with knee problems since May so most spinning has been on hold. My major goal for 06 was to spin with a knitting project in mind. I finally achieved this in June by spinning some awesome Blue Moon Fiber merino/tencel that I picked up at MS&W in May. Now I'm still a STR virgin so I can't compare the colors or feel of the fiber to the yarn. But what I can say is that if you're a spinner, this stuff is an absolute dream to work with. It's only available through The Fold and mostly at shows and festivals. At MS&W this year, while y'all are fighting for the STR, I'll be the one in the corner hoarding the beautiful colorways of merino/tencel. Mwah hahahaha!

Anyhoo, this fiber and yarn...



became this




The front of the P90-Modular tank top by Iris Schreier of Artyarns fame. I've actually misplaced it (I'm freaked out that I can't find it) somewhere in the yarn room but I promise to add a completed picture of it to Flickr whenever it comes back from vacation. It was so much fun to watch this project come together. I plan to do more spinning for knitting this year if my knees stay healthy.

I finally made it to a couple of fiber festivals - Sedalia in April and Maryland Sheep and Wool in May. Fried twinkie took an entire year off my life - fer shure! I finally painted my knitting ashram and laid claim to it over the summer of 06. Its the perfect place to escape with my fiber babies even if I don't get in there that often. After cleaning this room out, I committed myself to knitting through as much of my stash as possible. There's way too much yarn and fiber in there and now everyone knows just how much there is - Yikes! I'm proud to say that I've done quite well. Most of my yarn and fiber purchases in 06 were with gift money from my parents and I exercised considerable restraint at MS&W even though I was seriously tempted. That doesn't mean that I didn't find time to visit some LYS while traveling around VA. Ewe Knit Kits, The Yarn Lounge, Knitting Sisters and The Needle Lady (a new find for me in Charlottesville) found particular favor with me this year.

I dipped my toe into the waters of fiber dyeing and am pleased to add "novice colorist" to my repertoire. I participated in my first and probably last craft show. I'm definitely not cut out for production knitting. Did my first test knitting for the Men Who Knit & the Dogs Who Love Them Book. I've done some other test knits but can't blog about the patterns yet until they're released.
I realized too in 06 that I'm not much of a joiner these days so you won't find me too terribly often involved in KALs, challenges or olympiads though I will try harder to promote the projects and activities and enable others. I've got a muse in my head who has been SCREAMING at me for almost 7 months so I don't need the other distractions. I've got tons of pattern ideas waiting for me to breathe life into them and some that I just need to let go and publish. More on that in part two of fiber reflections and a free pattern too!

2006 Reflections on Family

Family

With the exception of my brother's Army reserve unit being activated and him being sent (thankfully) to Mississippi instead of Iraq in February, the Muse family has been very blessed. We've gotten to see him and my nephew twice since he left and I feel so lucky for that smidgin' of time.

The entire Muse family - Christmas 06

My lil bro and my nephew - Sept. 06

We have our health (Except for me and some nagging knee problems. Its a bitch getting old.) and everyone made it through the year on the plus side. The Things are doing great in school, Thing 1 is dating - yikes!, King Thing's job has brought new exciting adventures , I got to keep my grant funded job for another year, Mom and Dad celebrated almost 40 years of marriage and my Gma turned a very vibrant 86.

Princess Mavis the wonder Corgi had a near death experience (phew) and emergency surgery in the spring but is actually better than ever now and just celebrated her 14th birthday on Dec. 22nd.

Please don't take my picture. The camera, it steals my soul.

The Muse family made its first international excursion in 06, travelling to Costa Rica (with our West Coast/East Coast friends) in August.

Full moon over Fiesta Premiere in Guanacaste, Costa Rica

Sunset over Fiesta Premiere in Guanacaste, Costa Rica

King Thing chillin' in San Jose, Costa Rica

Lots o' drinking, relaxing and living the Pura Vida

Alfajores, Tapitas, Cafe Britt, cocobolo, banana paper and other goodies from CR

Nothing here but smiles, smiles, smiles...

Me and King Thing headed to a formal for the first time in many years

Next post - Fiber Reflections

Happy New Year, Y'all!

I can't believe that 2006 is gone already. I can honestly say that it was the best year in over a decade at la casita de Muse. I'm sad to see it go but very anxious to see what 07 will bring. In true Dick Clark fashion, I found myself reliving some of the events and knits that shaped my life last year. This week brings together the past, the present and the future for IndigoMuse. Today, I start with my friends.

Friends

Jan 06 brought our best buds from college from the West Coast back to the East Coast after a 13 year separation. I can honestly say, this has truly been the highlight of my year. We're like peanut butter and jelly, cookies and milk, knitting needles and yarn. Those 13 years apart royally sucked. But we're seriously making up for lost time. We rang in 06 and 07 with them, spent two weeks vacationing together this summer and have spent at least one weekend each month eating, drinking and laughing together. Life is way too short not to spend it with good friends.



The Muse Family and friends at Montana de Fuego, Costa Rica - Summer 06


Speaking of friends, I can't say enough about how important it is to me to have good fiber friends and fiends in my life. And while I don't have pictures of all of you to share here, you know who you are (especially my Fab Five peeps).






EiKnits, IndigoMuse, Pixiestikz and KeowdieKnits Maryland Sheep and Wool 06




You understand my "addiction" and most certainly enable it. Oh, how so many of you near and far enable me :) And fibery goodness has this magical way of weaving the best friendships I've ever experienced in my life.





IM, Zira and Pixiestikz MS&W 06




On a sad note, a number of my "real" and virtual friends experienced personal loss this year. Boogie, Lolly, Jen and La, and blogless JD are just a few who are top of mind but I know there are many others I'm forgetting. Please know that even though we may never meet, you and your families continue to be a part of my thoughts and prayers. And a few blog buds disappeared from Bloglandia. Anyone know what happened to Froggy Knits or Fiberphile? These two very talented ladies had more skill in their little pinkie than I'll ever have in my entire body. I truly miss their talent and their knits but most of all, I wonder if they're okay.


And yes, I was MIA for the better part of the year and for that, I apologize. That's not what friends do and it wasn't fair to just stop blogging altogether. I promise to at least check in every so often because if you're like me, you worry about people when they just up and disappear.


Thank you dear friends for enriching my life, helping me stay sane when I feel like I'm drowning in a sea of testosterone and always "helping" me understand that I need to buy more yarn, fiber and related items. Thanks to you, every year is a good year!