Episodes
Tuesday Jan 30, 2018
Episode 31 - Vogue and KAL
Tuesday Jan 30, 2018
Tuesday Jan 30, 2018
Episode 31
KAL, Wips, Out and About, Knitting Fail, Spinning On the Run
KAL – Thank you very much to those of you who participated! Our group may be small, but as Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.”
- Knitting Travels – a copy of the Reflections of the Sun hat designed and donated by Leah Bothe
- Java Jennie - Any 1 single pattern of your choice from the JavaPurl Designs Ravelry storedonated by CC Almon
- DMBrown – Gradient kit of your choice from Birdie’s Knits
- LeahBothe – Any 1 single pattern of your choice from the Knit/Wit Designs Ravelry Store donated by Sarah Jordan
Should we do this again? What time of year?
Wips
Frosted by Paper Daisy Creations, finished the colorwork yoke on the way to/from Vogue (you get a lot done with 4 hours each way on a train), body nearly done – on the bottom ribbing.
Star Wars sweater for Thing 1 - Using Nordic Yoke Pullover, a free pattern from Patons, as the base and altering the charts to have Star Wars characters/spaceships/icons. I separated for the sleeves and am working on the stockinette body
Vanilla sock in Berroco Comfort Sock in Bali colorway. Still chugging along at this 2+ year old WIP, it’s my car knitting.
Dahlia pattern by Brenda York from Berroco – working on this in Juniper Moon Farm’s Neve in a variety of colorways. Turquoise main body, with a mint green for the flower vines and yellow and burgundy
Emerald Deep shawl – this shawl is a charity knit for AGC Scholarships, a group that raises money for families dealing with infertility or who are trying to adopt. Worked in Ito Yarn’s Kinu, 100% silk. Kinu has a colorway, Aqua, which is almost the exact color of AGC’s logo so it was too perfect not to use. The shawl will be auctioned off at AGC’s annual gala to raise money. If you or someone you love would like to learn more about AGC, visit agcscholarships.org
Use Your Stash Shawl
Oh my gooness you guys! Can’t thank you enough for your reaction to the Use Your Stash Shawl! Hot RIght Now on Ravelry??!!? Wow, thank you so much.
Out and About – Vogue Knitting Live! NYC!
I had a blast at Vogue. It’s very different than other knitting events I’ve been to, and it was soooooo much fun. I basically went for the day. I took the late train down Thursday after my husband got out of work and got to NYC around 11pm and checked into my hotel. I should have stayed onsite, I forgot just how bad the hotel I stayed at was. Remember in NYC, you get what you paid for. My room was literally 85 degrees. But it was clean, the shower worked, and the door locked.
I woke up early to the sounds of NYC, had breakfast at the hotel, checked out and dropped my rollerboard at the back drop at my hotel and walked up to the Marriot Marquis. Since I signed up early, registration took about 2 minutes and I was off to class. I took the designer intensive with Josh Bennett. He’s designed sweaters for Tommy Hilfiger, Bergdorf and is currently designing hand-knit sweaters for Marvel – they were gorgeous, by the way. I’ll admit the class wasn’t what I expected but ironically it was exactly what I needed. We spent the day designing a line of patterns and presenting them. Having hours to just brainstorm, then talking with Josh one-on-one for a few minutes about my patterns was completely worth it. Then off to the market for 90 minutes before running to catch the late train home.
Now that I’ve been there once, I know how I would change my plans in the future - next time I will be staying on site and spending 2 nights (or more) so I can get at least a moderate amount of sleep.
Knitting Fail
Not a fail in the traditional sense, but definitely a minor fail for the Emerald Deep shawl for AGC Scholarships. I thought the gala was in May and I was planning on designing a shawl and giving profits to AGC – until on Martin Luther King Jr Day I learned that the gala was in March. DOh! So, I chose the Emerald Deep by Romi Hill since I’ve worked it before and I know it would work well in the chosen yarn.
Spinning
I finished the second single I mentioned last episode and plied them together – I needed to find a better way to ply. Since I only had one spindle, I used a ball winder to wind each cop off the spindle into a center-pull ball and and plied them using the center pulls. I ended up with 135 yards of a two ply of the brown and white spun together. And since the white cotton was much better spun as a single, I got nearly 37 yards of a two-ply yarn out of the leftovers! And since then, I got a 2nd spindle, spun naturally greem cotton and some dyed gray cotton and plied them together using a drop spindle. Drop spindling is a completely different beast! The green is fun because if you add Washing Soda when you scour it, it changes color! We made a fund chemistry experiment with it for Thing 1.
Before:
After:
Before:
After:
On the Run –
Not much new running, I’m on the 3rd week of my slow-and-steady training plan. Legs are holding up well, though I’m getting knots in my calves for some reason. My knee is also holding up, and Thing 2 and I have come to a truce – I carry him down the outside stairs and he walks up them. He’s learning numbers and I’ve made it into a counting game which he loves.
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Episode 30 - Thank You
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Thursday Jan 11, 2018
Episode 30 - 1/11/18
Windswept Designs on Facebook, WindsweptMonique on Instagram and Ravelry, come join Ravelry group
KAL, Pattern Release, Wips, Pattern Acquisition, Spinning, Out and About, On the Run
KAL – get your FOs posted ASAP! I’m going to lock the thread tonight on my way to Vogue Knitting Live
Pattern Release – First off, a HUGE thank you to all of you for making 2017 an amazing year, knitwise. I started this pordcast, attended multiple festivals and conventions, including FINALLY getting in to SSK, and I even learned to spin! I’ve met such wonderful people both in person and online. The fiber community is AMAZING. So I’ve put this pattern for sale and if you use the coupon code THANKYOU you’ll get it free through January 16th. This is my thank you to you, the Use Your Stash Shawl
Wips
Frosted by Paper Daisy Creations, on snowflake 5 of 5 on the stranded colorwork yoke. Was planning on using 3 colors but after doing flakes 1 & 2 in color 1, then flake 2 in color 2 I decided that really they should all have been different colors. But I was not going to rip it out again, so I dug a skein out of stash, Plymouth Yarn’s Nettle Grove in colorway 42, a denim-ish color that matches the rest of the blues I’m using fairly well.
Star Wars sweater for Thing 1 - Using Nordic Yoke Pullover, a free pattern from Patons, as the base and altering the charts to have Star Wars characters/spaceships/icons. I’m about 25% through the yoke collar, currently working on R2D2’s head. Body of sweater will be red as that’s his favorite color
Vanilla sock in Berroco Comfort Sock in Bali colorway. Still chugging along at this 2+ year old WIP, it’s my car knitting.
Pattern Acquisition
Derwentwater by Tess Young, won it during the Indie Gift-a-long KAL, forgot to mention it last week!
Spinning
New segment - I finally figured out this spinning thing! Working on my 2nd single in undyed cotton
Out and About
Off to Vogue Knitting in NYC tonight! If you’re there stop me and say hello. Just to warn you I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights recently with the kids and my husband being sick, so if I seem a little dazed or perhaps a little overly caffeinated, that’s why. But please come say hello anyways. I am really looking forward to the 2 classes I am attending on Friday.
On the Run
I’m on my 2nd week of my half marathon training plan, and unfortunately I am dealing with some unexpected knee pain.
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Be-A-Helper KAL Delay Notice
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
Saturday Jan 06, 2018
As you can probably tell from the sound of my voice, or if you've seen recent social media posts, you've probably realized I'm sick. The Be-A-Helper KAL was supposed to wrap up today but I just want to go back to bed, so I'm granting an extention. I'll lock the thread on Thursday, January 11th at 7pm EST when I board my train to Vogue NYC. Thank you so much for helping to make the world a little bit better!
Thursday Jan 04, 2018
Episode 29 - Snow Hurricane
Thursday Jan 04, 2018
Thursday Jan 04, 2018
Episode 29 – Happy New Year!
Wips, Knitting Fail, Pattern Acquisition, On The Run
FO
Mahalo Socks by Dana Gervais – on the 2nd sock in CoBaSi by Hikoo and progressing nicely
Hibernatum hat by Talitha Kuomi – full disclosure, I know Talitha, we’re part of the same knitting group at our recently closed LYS and she is an amazing human being and also a very talented designer. I’ve never knit one of her patterns before, so when I stumbled upon her Hibernatum hat designed for Alpaca yarn while trying to find a hat to knit with my Criativ DK, an alpaca blend, it was too perfect not to choose! Oh, and it’s a free pattern put out by Classic Elite so go knit this yourself. It would totally work with other fibers too. I cast this hat on Christmas Eve and it’s rather potato chippy because it’s a knit row followed by a simple pattern row and I kept wanting to knit just one more row.
Wips
Frosted Sweater by Paper Daisy Creations, my Christmas cast on – a snowflake-patterned colorwork yoke sweater. She used a gradient mini kit so the snowflakes go from light to dark using 5 colors of a warm blue with a green tint to it on a white background. I found 2 skeins of Debbie Bliss Amalfi in Pale Blue and Denim and also a skein of Hempathy by Elsebeth Lavold in a color just between those two shades so I’m only using 3 colors and I’m hoping I might have enough to make the matching hat.
Plain Vanilla sock in Berroco Comfort Sock in the Bali colorway. I started this pair of socks 2 years ago and got Second Sock Syndrome. It’s now my purse knitting so I’m hoping to finish them this winter. I’m on the second foot, going toe-up with an afterthought heel.
Lush by Tin Cast Knits, my New Years Day cast on
Knitting Fail
Frosted Sweater – take 2. I did run into one issue with this sweater. The Medium would probably fit well if I got gauge, but I have 24 sts per 4 inches instead of 25 which gives me an extra 1.8 inches around the bust in size Medium… that’s just too much. Plus, after trying it on the collar is too wide for a New England winter. So I did the math and I’m going to knit the small but add one pattern repeat of the snowflakes which will give me an extra 12 sts around the bust which, if my gauge holds true, should give me a perfect fit, not too tight, not too loose.
Had to tink back 4 rows on my second Mahalo sock – note to self, don’t start gusset increases while making dinner when boys are cranky. While the gusset increases themselves came out fine, I totally screwed up the lace pattern, by 2 rows, then dropped a stitch and had to tink back to more to fix the now-wobbly looking increases.
Pattern acquisition
Berroco had a pattern sale this past week – one free pattern per person and I picked up the Dahlia shawl by Brenda York, a worsted weight colorwork shawl, experienced level, by a new-to-me designer (never bought a Berroco pattern before, though I love some of their yarns). It’s gorgeous and there are no projects on Ravelry! Looking forward to making mine the first.
Vanilla is the New Black by Anneh Fletcher – I’m finding purl bumps uncomfortable and I heard this pattern is reversible, so I want to give it a try!
On The Run
Still No running for a while – it hurts my back, but walking does not, soooo…. I’m going to train to walk a half marathon in September! I’ve set up a very gradual training plan to slowly work up to 13.1 miles over 9 months and I’m going to take you on that journey with me. I’ve found a half marathon in Salem, MA with both runner and walker divisions, so it’ll be perfect whether or not I get to start running between now and then.