The No Knitting Challenge

I am about to go on vacation. I am taking two weeks off from teaching knitting and one week off from taking care of Miss Claire and am going to Utah for a few days to visit Mom.

Before that time comes I have decided to try and take two weeks off from actually knitting.

Why would I do such a thing?

Part of it is the heat, but mostly, I need a break before I have to get fall classes figured out and knit up the samples for the classes. Just thinking about it makes me want to go and hide.

So I thought that" Not knitting" and taking a break from all things fiber for a couple of weeks would rejuvenate me.

Progress Report:

~I am doing pretty good not trolling around too much on Ravelry.

~I am enjoying the new magazines as they land in my mailbox but not researching them or looking for yarns that I would like to knit my favs in.

~I have not been on Webs (and they have a sale going on) and have clicked off all emails that have to do with yarn.

Sounds like I am doing well, right? HaHa

~I am knitting a sock.

Not being able to survive "No Knitting" made me realize that I have never gone any length of time without creating something with my hands. Before knitting there was beading, before beading there was quilting, before quilting there was cross stitch and before cross stitch there was knitting. I have to be creating something regularly. I have creating fiber kinds of things or creating music since around 6th grade. That would be forever!

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What's on My Needles

I have started knitting up the class samples for the classes I am teaching this summer. There are some great projects in my future.

First up is the beautiful Shawl that was on the cover of the spring Vogue Knitting Magazine. Chris M. had to make this and drummed a class full of people so I would offer it as a class. She is really good ay rallying people.

Yup, that "Egg Create" looking thing is lace. It is funny how lace knits up all crumpled like.

The orange edge is a crocheted provisional cast on. I did it like this instead of the way the pattern calls for. It is much easier to take out and your don't have to pick up stitches in the back of 100 or so crochet bumps. That is really tedious. It is there for adding on the boarder that goes around the shawl. I am going to that different then the pattern says too. Hey, that is way my students pay the big bucks to take a class. To see how many times I am going to do it different then the pattern does. Hopefully my changes makes things easier.

How does one make the green crumples look like beautiful lace you ask? Buy blocking the "heck" out of it. You soak it and then when you pin it down you stretch within an inch of its life. I love blocking lace. It is almost magic to see the pattern actually appear.

Next on my needles? A Lace Bag made with chunky yarn! That should be a lot of fun and fast.

Dream Knitting

My taste in knitting changes a lot once the days get longer and warmer. I think many of us feel that change especially here in So Cal where the weather can be warm for half of the year.

Since I have just spent the last couple of weeks getting things off my needles I feel I can indulge myself in some "Dream Knitting".

Dream knitting : The gigantic queue of ideas that one creates with a real since that one could actually complete all the projects in such a queue within a proportionately small amount of time.

Shhh...... I am dreaming........

Yarn Dreaming:

It starts with a list of wonderful new summer yarns that I need to get my hands on and then find something wonderful to knit with them. Some of my favorite summer yarns right now are linked below. But there are soooooo many to chose from you could knit all summer and not have time to knit with all that is available.

Tahki Yarns Replay 100% recycled cotton

Tahki Yarns Good Earth Cotton 100% organic cotton in natural cotton colors

Rowan Purelife Revive 36% Recylced Silk/ 36% Recycled Cotton/ 28% Recycled Viscose in a tweed!

Misti Alpaca Tonos Pima Silk 83% Peruvian Pima Cotton and 17% silk. Hhand dyed in tonal colors. Love this!

Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy 40% Hemp/40% Cotton/20% Modal

Rowan Lenpur linen 75% Vi Lenpur/25% Linen What is Lenpur?????

Kolláge Yarns Milky Whey 50% Milk/50% Soy Great Colors

The Dream Continues: Summer Tops

Berroco's Peltigera, I saw someone wearing this at Stitches and man was it cute!

Inamorata Little lace top from Knitty.com

ButterCup (rav) This is done with the Hempathy listed above. There is also one done with the Rowen Lenpur linen

Petrie I love the shape of this shell

The Lace Dream:
Anything Lace is another great choice for the summer. The best thing about lace is you can use just about any yarn you want and come up with something wonderful.

There are so many choices out there it is really hard to choose just one.

Art Lace Bag scroll down. This uses bulky yarn!

Vogue Knitting Cover Lace Wrap.
There are several people wanting to make this one. You could join us!! Actually there are a lot of really nice projects in the current issue of Vogue Knitting.

Summit from the new Knitty.

Citron Not really lace but such a nice useful project for the summer. Out of bamboo??

Emily Dickinson with beads. Beads added to any lace is a beautiful thing!!

Crochet Dreaming:

My fancy often turns to crochet this time of year. Small projects for the home. They are fast and portable. The beach is always calling and crocheting with cotton is the perfect beach project. Here are a few fun projects that might be seen on my hooks soon.

Wavelength (rav)

Trinity Lace Shrug (rav)

Disc-Disc (rav) hotpads

Tiny Pin Cushion

I might start a motif blanket. I have wanted to do that for a couple of years.

Garnet Hill Inspried (rav)

Sock Dreams:

They are the perfect summer knit and your toes will thank you come next winter.

Nebula

Toe-Up Bayerische

Drops 100-20 socks

Get Rid of Terrible Sock Yarn. How cool are these!

Skew

Shhhhhhh......

I hear you mumbling about how I will never get this all done.

Shhhhhh.......

I am still enjoying all the possibilities and the options. This might be one of my favorite parts of knitting.
Dreaming it all up and changing my mind constantly about what yarns I want to use for which pattern.

Shhhh..... I won't tell anyone.....

What are your Knitting Dreams???

Stitches West 2010

Stitches West was mind boggling and inspiring. From the opening presentation to my last purchase of Malabrio Lace, it was just what I needed. I realized, believe it or not, that I have been yarn deprived since Unraveled closed. I loved ordering yarn, opening the new boxes of yarn and most of all stocking the yarns on the shelves. Tactel and color therapy and I got payed for it!!

Thursday's Opening Presentation was with Jane Slicer Smith (Swing Swagger Drape) and Anna Walden of Twisted Sisters.

I was very taken with Jane's talk and her patterns. She uses a lot of color, love that, and the drape and fit of her sweaters is very impressive. The photographer for XRX was wearing her sweaters throughout the weekend and they all where wonderful. My favorites are:

Greta Swagger was my favorite. The shape of this cardigan and perfectly placed cables is just beautiful.

Jane was wearing this one done in different shades of green and longer. Beautiful!!

Metro A-Line. I saw a couple of people wearing this one and it looked really good on everyone.

Anna taked mostly about her garments. Her things are not my taste but her construction is very ingenious. I wish she had talked about dying fibers and colors since that is what I really know her for.

Thank goodness the Market opened Thursday evening for those registered for classes. This was about the only time you could walk around and see everything without the crowds.

My goal was to find MadalineTosh yarn and Qiviuet. I was sucessful and glad I made MadalineTosh first on this list for it flew off the shelves. My first color choice was already picked over but I got a sweaters worth of Duchess, black and purple. Beautiful!!

And 2 skeins of the Moss.

My second stop was for Qiviut. This is like gold. One tiny little skein of about 200 yards can run $70+. It is the soft undercoat of the MuskOx. There is not that much undercoat (see the link) and they collect what falls off. But it is the softest yarn ever. They have some of the skeins mixed with silk and/or merino. The blends lower the price point a lot and it is still really soft. I got one skien of the Royal blend

and one of the softest Suri Merino I have ever felt. These yarns made the cashmere feel course.

The classes I signed up for where all about shapping without really seeing the shaping. Especially around armholes and necklines. No more "stair step" shaping around here! They where very good and I learned a lot of little tricks that will make me look really good as a teacher. After all, that was the whole reason for trekking up here in the first place.

And you thought it was the yarn!

Here are some of my other aquisitions:

Malabrigo Lace to make a really cool scarf pattern that is due in the mail any day now.

Redfish is an amazing hand dyer. She has about 50 shades of the rainbow. Her booth was a wonder of color. She also had socks knitted from her lace weight bamboo yarn. The most delicate socks ever knitted on "000" (yes there are needles that small). I bought some for those socks, now I just have to unearth my "000" needles.

Feltz Inc had wonderful felted kits. Her bags a really well done. I got this kit for this wavy felted bag. It was so cool. She includes all the hardware and sewing directions for the lining which I really appreciate.

Next up was the Habu Booth. It was great to see all of these yarns and lots of samples knit up in it. This is a Japanese company based in New York. Their yarns are constructed of many very interesting things such as paper and stainless steal along with the usual fiber suspect blended in amazing ways.

They had the Aeolian Shawl from Knitty.com knit in bamboo lace.

It was so stunning I had to get some.

Just for fun. The felted flowers are part of the roving.
Scarf? Little bag??

Ruffling yarn (trendsetter Cha Cha) along with Merino 8

for another cute little scarf only in black and gray. The ruffles made with the cha cha yarn is really cute by itself too.

Last but not least there was a presentation by Anna Ziboorg. She is a retired MIT professor that now lives in the Mountains, on a vineyard, by herself and knits. Has she found heaven??

Her book "Magnificent Mittens" has been updated with socks. She figured out how to turn the same mitten patterns into socks. The one problem with stranded knitting is it doesn't stretch very well and makes it hard to get the socks over your heel. Replacing the sole with regular stockinet was the answer and she found a very elegant way to add the sole and heel to the stranded piece. She was just a delight and I am really glad I got to meet her.

So you guessed it. I have to try that too.

Now the only question is.....

How long is it going to take me to knit up my stash from Stitches 2010??
Any one care to place a wager?

What to Knit

I have been knitting a lot for the store and class samples over the last few months. I am trying to figure out what I really want to be knitting now. I am looking at a sweater for my mom for christmas. It will be fun since I am starting it so early and there is no pressure. But it is more obligation knitting.

I am not even sure what I really want to be knitting.

But while I am trying to figure that out here are some of my FO's.

Flower Hat Pattern in Itty-Bitty Hat book
yarn- rowan hand knit cotton for the hat and Tahki cotton classic for the flowers.

I followed the pattern straight out of the book. I did stitch the flower together on the sides once I had them sewn onto the hat. It seemed to help them lay better. I also did not go all the way around the back for the smallest hat. I felt that the babies would not like laying on the flowers. For the toddler size I would do the flowers all the way around.

Crochet Hat
I used RYC cashsoft which is just wonderful to work with.

This is a felted stash bag I put together with a lot of leftover yarns. Super simple and fun. I lined the bags and put a cardboard bottom on it so it is really sturdy. I used leather handles from Trendsetter that just clip on the bag. I love the handles, there is no sewing and they are really sturdy.

This is a great little crochet bag. I made it with Rowan Tapastry yarn. I don't like the handle too much. I will change it next time.

Last but not least I finished a pair of socks for myself!!
Pattern: From Sensational Socks the slip-stitch rib pattern
Yarn: Socks that Rock Fairground color
Needles: 2 circulars #2
Modifications: None.

So what is next??

No Camera = Boring Post

My camera broke over the weekend. Sand or something got into it and it won't open. It is in the camera hospital.

But what is a post without pics??

BORING!!

So here is some eye candy that isn't mine.

Knitwise
Scroll down to find this Great Beaded Knitted bag and her free pattern.

Matilda Jane
Too Cute, Especially the guy at the bottom!

Knit Art Studio
Just Over the Top

I did finally take the shrug out of it's "Time Out" status and finished it. It still gave me some lip.

But I Prevailed!

I will block it this weekend. Maybe the camera will come home from the hospital and I can take some pictures.

Next up?

Annie Modesitt's "Twisted Float Shrug" found in the Fall 2005 Vogue Knitting Magazine.
My other sister's birthday is next week so I have to get hopping on this Christmas present. Good News! It's half done.

I am still not behind!