The Finished Project Parade

I have finally put up a lot of my FO's on Ravelery which means that I have finally taken pictures of everything. Here are some of the projects that have been keeping me busy the last couple of months.

Baby Blanket Tulip Style

Yarn: Lion Brand Nature's Choice Organic Cotton
1 skein of pink, cream and green. 2 skeins of the brown
Needle: #10
Cast-on 100 stitches.
Blanket measures about 32x32

I love this yarn. It is really soft and has a lovely weight to it. This pattern was inspired by the Tulip Baby Sweater. You do a seed stitch pattern on the row that you add the new color and that makes the "eyelet" effect. I think EraLunaris came up with the idea.
Simply Lovely!

Veyla Gloves

Pattern: Yoslda's Veyla
Yarn: Knitpicks Gloss 1 skein (had a good amount left over)
Needle: #3

I loved making these gloves. The lace is a simple 23 stitch pattern (except for evil row 4). The pick up edge for the hand is done with the wrong side facing and the slip stitches form a wonderful edge. The thumb is shaped with yarn overs, genius. Every little detail is just beautiful. I hope I have time to knit another pair of these for myself. Yes, these are mine!

Beaumont Tam

Pattern: Jared Flood's Beaumont Tam
Yarn: Classic Elite Fresco in Cool Raspberry and Graystone
Needle: #4 and #8

I love this yarn. It has some angora which makes that wonderful halo that looks so good in color work. I never noticed the angora when I was knitting it. It wasn't on my cloths or in my nose. The finished hat is so soft and lushes.

The hat pattern was a fun knit. Easy to understand. I enlarged the charts so I could see what I was doing. Have I told you how much I love color?

Damson

Pattern: Ysolda's Damson
Yarn: Malabrigo Sock Yarn
Needle: #6

I have knitted several of Ysolda's patterns and have enjoyed them all. This one is no exception. Super simple, lot's of garter stitch, yarn overs and K2tog. Talk about something you don't have to think about yet the results are wonderful.

Malabrigo, need I say anything more. A simply beautiful pattern + luxury yarn = my definition of heaven.

Most of these project where either for classes or for christmas. I am starting to think about classes for the winter and what I want to knit. The goal is to make them one and the same. I find that the project I love to knit are the classes that end up with most of the buzz.

What are you looking forward to knitting after the holidays?

2008 in Pictures

January ~ Finally the whole family was able to be together after the holidays.

February ~ We lost a long time member of our family. We miss Callie a lot.

March ~ There was much knitting going on during the last few months. Baby sweaters, hats, purses, socks. February and March where the very productive months.

April ~ 5 1/2 weeks of jury duty began on April 7. I spent most of my lunches at the wonderful fountain at the LA courthouse crocheting and listening to a book on my ipod. Crochet kept me sane during this never ending stint.

May ~ As soon as court duty was over I was blessed with being able to watch Miss Claire 4 days a week. She has been such a joy and has brought back the magic that only little ones can bring into our house.

June ~ Josh is home for the summer and Wesley and his girlfriend came down for a visit. The house is full once again!

July ~ Was a wonderful summer month with lots of time for reading, knitting, and enjoying the perfect weather before August comes.

August ~ The olympics and ravelympics. Need I say more.

September ~ Claire is sitting up now. Playing on her own. August was a rather mild month. I know that meant we would be in for it in September.

October ~ I visited my mom and sister in Eden Utah. My first time there during fall. It was beautiful and a great visit.

November ~ Fall seems to not want to come to So Cal. Scott and I spent Thanksgiving in San Diego. It was a beautiful weekend. Scott grew up here so we visited many of his favorite places around La Jolla and Coronado.

December ~ December was all about getting gifts made and mailed in time. Success!! Once again only one of the boys was home for the holidays. It really makes for a quiet time. So we are taking Josh with us to San Francisco mid January to visit Wesley and take one more road trip with the whole family to Utah!! I thought family road trips where done. But we have squeezed one more in. The best present ever!!

No Posting but a lot of Knitting

When does a knitting teacher get to knit her own projects?
Maybe never.
I have been knitting up samples for the april classes at Unraveled. It has actually been a lot of fun because they are relatively easy knits so the instant gratification comes into play to keep me happy.
Two of the new classes for me are Baby Hats and Booties

and Beginning sock class using a child size sock to learn from.

I have one more class to get samples made up for, a spa set for mother's day. And then it will be time to think about next month.

Along the teaching thread, I am not sure why we have not been taking pictures of our classes and what the students make in them. There have been so many great things made and fun times to be had. So I have started doing that. This was a beret class from last month. Everyone finished their project. Yeah!!!

I will be adding an FO page to the stores website for our customers. If you have anything you have finished bring it in so we can take a pic and but it up on the website!
Gotta love knitting for work. Doesn't get better then that?

Speaking of getting better. Hubby and I went down to San Deigo last weekend. Of course I had to go to a couple of yarn stores.
First I went to Knitting by the Beach. It was a great little store. With lots of good yarn. But the best was the owners own designes, she is really good. She has made up a lot of garments using Habu yarns. Just beautiful. Well worth the trip in if you are in the area.

Then I went to The Black Sheep in Encinities. It was a great store. With so much yarn. I mean it is as big as Unraveled and filled to the gills with lots of things. They use a lot of ribbon yarns in their class projects so they had a wall of yarn from colnette, fiesta, great adirondack and some prisim. Now I am not one to use a lot of these yarns, but the wall was a spectacular sight full of amazing color. I did find something to come home with though.

First some lace weight Alpaca, just because it is so pretty. Misti Alpaca and Alpaca with a Twist which is Alpaca and silk. Be still my little heart. Now I know I won't be knitting on this any time soon. So it will live in the treasured basket in my living room where I can see it everyday.
Bet you can't guess what my favorite colors are?

And some Lousia Harding Cinnabar for the great bag on the front of Knitting Little Luxuries

I can still plan and dream about my own knitting projects.

I Must Knit Faster

I have come to the conclusion that I have to learn to knit faster. There are just too many things to knit and not enough time. I know that that is the way all knitters feel. But really, have you looked at my queue on Ravelry or my list of favorites? I want to do them all and I am having a really hard time making choices.

I was going to knit for myself this year. What happened? I have been doing class knis for Unraveled and that always takes more time then I think it will and I have some good classes coming out of them. So I really can't complain about that.

My great joy is the new baby in my life. One of my dearest friends just had her first baby. she is an older mom which means I get to play with a very small baby. That has to be one of the greatest joys in life. And of course the second greatest joy is knitting for a baby, the third greatest joy is that she is a girl! Having boys of my own and nephews this is so much fun!!

Right now on the needles I have a pair of socks, presto chango #2, Cocoon Lace Scarf, Montego Bay, Celtic Tote, Mom's golf club covers, a hibernating felted stash tote, and my "larger then life" bag that needs lining and finishing.

The solution? Knit faster so I can enjoy knitting all the things I want to knit. I am going to try and do combination knitting. I hate the continental purl. But after watching Mary knit today, I think that maybe combination is the answer.

But of course I am deluding myself. No matter how fast I knit there will always be more to knit. So really I need to knit, enjoy every stitch, and enjoy all the ideas and inspiration that is out there in Ravelry land. Because after all, isn't knitting supposed to be relaxing?
Didn't KnitDad just have the same post?

One Day Beret by Kirsten Kapur, free online pattern

Raisin Beret by Raven Jakubowski

Quantt by Star Athena

Boho Beret by Shannita Williams-Alleyne is a free ravelry download

Baby Sweater on Two Needles (February) by Elizabeth Zimmermann

2007 FO's and Simplify 2008

Here are my knits for the year. I think there are a few things that I didn't get pictures of and are gone off to their new owners. But all in all this is it. Much of my time and energy has gone towards knitting for the store and classes. This year we are revamping classes and such at the store, more drop-in kinds of things, so the prep time should go down.

I want to knit much more for myself and family this year. Even though all the things I knit for the store are my idea, I still knit with "what would be good for the store in mind". So this year it is going to be what is good for the me and the family first and then add store things.

I hope I can actually pull that off. It sounds like a good goal.

A P.S. to this post. I don't do resolutions. I am not disciplined enough for them. But an overall goal or theme for the year usually helps me in all areas. After thinking about my knitting above I realized that I really do have a theme running already this year. Simplify. What does that mean? With everything I am doing I want to simplify my life. Consume less, be deliberate in my choices, eat simple foods, fresh foods, make small changes over the year that add up to big changes as time goes on. Simply and consistently keep life simple. This easily fits with being pickier about what I am knitting and why I am knitting it.

FO Wednesday on Tuesday

I have been a busy christmas elf the last couple of weeks. I am going for fast, fun and easy projects this year and actually knitting for more people then I ever have before. I have made lots of presents for everyone over the years and I have been picky aboout who gets my knitting. But I have to say that I am having a blast knitting small things, even more multiples of the same thing, and being done in a few hours. Can you say "instant gratification" !

Here is what I have so far. I am about half done and still have a few weeks to go. Yeah!!

I have made 4 pairs of fetching.

All of the fetchings are being paired up with either the Dream Swatch Head Warp from knit and tonic,

or the Calorimetry from knitty.

I still have three pairs of Dashings and I am half way done with my second Montego Bay Scarf. I really love this colorway. I am not sure this one will make it out of thes house.

This is the one I have already finished. Both are done out of seasilk from handmaiden.

Merry Ho Ho Ho!!

I Feel the Need....

I Feel the Need For Color. Not just the easy kind where the yarn does all the work for you. I have had enough of that lately (see the BSJ below).
Not the kind where you just switch between two yarns every two rows, ie: chevron scarf,

mistake ribs scarves,

self fridging shawls .

No I am in the need of real color done by switching the yarn stitch by stitch......yes that is right, I am going to the "Fair Island" of Fairisle knitting and I am going to tackel the "Composed Mitts" in the current Fall 2007 IK magazine. I have been itching to do fairisle for a while now and so there is no time like the present.

I am going to be using Berroco Ultra Alpaca light in 5 colors. Not sure I will stick with these colors but I will start with them.

On the finishing front, Here is BSJ #4. I think this is the wild and crazy one.

No, but wait, I still have a BSJ on my needles all in white.
Someone save me from myself. Or I know who can help.......
just send Bunny Killa after me?

Color on my terms, here I come!!