All this talk about language was really just paving the way for me to talk about my true love: knitting, and by extension the language of knitting. Yes, you read correctly, I said the “language of knitting.”

How, one might ask, can she honestly say with a straight face that knitting is a language? Well, I have a few facts to present in my defense:

1. Go to any knitting club/circle (mine is held every Friday night at my local yarn store, or LYS as we say, here in Anchorage); and you will find a group of women ranging from early teens to the twilight years sitting around laughing and contentedly clacking away at one project or another. Then suddenly one may break through the laughter, slamming down her knitting and with a frustrated growl cry, “I have been knitting two together! I did the yarn over then knit two together purl wise and slipped the next stitch and somehow I have still been decreasing by a stitch every row. aaarrrrrg!”

At this point all the knitters, no matter the age or station will share a commiserating sigh, set aside their projects and lean in to attempt a translation of the instructions arguing good naturedly over how exactly the original knitter continued to decrease when she was supposed to have the same stitches at the beginning of the row as at the end…Most likely the conversation will deteriorate into the philisophical realm of making the object “her own”, weather it is worth it to always follow the instructions and what exactly is meant by slip one stitch.

2. I dare even of you non-knitters to sit down and tell me what the following is saying:

On your DPNs CO 12 sts devide among the 4 DPNs

Join to work in round

Row 1: K

Row 2: *K1, yo, pm, K1, yo, K1* repeat from * -20 sts

Row 3: K

Row 4: *K to marker, yo, slip marker, K1, yo, K to end of needle* repeat to end of row

Repeat rnds: 3 &4 18 times untill you have 172 sts (43 sts per dpn)

K 1 round BO.

Now Auntie Em could sit here and tell you what that all means but really where’s the fun in that? I will tell you that it is a simpler pattern. Here is what one of these looks like when its done.

one of the squares to my barn raising quilt

3. There are entire books, shows, radio programs,, letters and more written in this language and conversely on podcastes how to understand and learn this language.

and fianally

4. It is a live language, not only are women and men speaking this on a daily bases, but it is an evolving and ever changing organism. Adapting itself, creating new slangs and definitions everyday.

Now if you are still not convinced let me share a couple videos with you. One is of a fascinating language found in the Spanish Alps and I call it fondly “the Whistling Language” and the other is an example, or proof if you will, of the “Knitting Language.”

and for the “Knitting Language,” here is the translation for K2tog:

What’s Going On?

So last week I held ya’ll off by telling you I would share the whole adventure with you this week with pictures and now I come clean:

the weekend on my adventure started out simply and enjoyably enough when the ladies from my church got together for our annual camping trip. I had suggested we head to Trail Lake about 25 miles from the little town of Seward and off we went. I was driving the van from my print shop and thus carrying the bulk of the equipment.

Making it to Trail Lake in safety and realtive comfort, we set up camp and I immediatly set my sites on a trump around the lake. Gathering most of the ladies with me we were off.

Trail Lake is a beautiful study of man and nature. Glacier fed the water is a silvery grey and so dense that the eye cannot penetrate; and the river feeding the lake is so furocious and strong that the shore is a graveyard for entire spruce and evergreen trees ripped completly away from their home turf by the roots. Bleached that perfect ghost white that only another drift wood refugee can attain, the shoreline resembled a line of ghostly apperations.

If one looked across the imposing lake you would see the beautiful deep green of a forested mountain, but to the left only blackened remains of a once equally lush forest resides. Here to it is like unto a grave yard only this time what I imagine the site of a battle to resemble. Blackened statues point skyward, while small shoots of green make their own way heavenward. Finally to the right, just peeking through the treeline is mans contribution to the scene, the Seward Highway. when superimposed on the rest of the scene it struck me as odd and in some way funny: Mother nature’s grey river next to mans grey river, both teaming with rushing, struggling life.

When we got back to camp, my friend Anna, who had stayed behind to protect everything from being kidnapped by bears, informed me that my rear tire had all of a sudden let loose a torrent of air and was now well on its way to being flat. After an instence investigation, we all concurred that the valve had busted and since I did not have a spare tire, I was driven out to a cell reception area and called my boss, who just happens to be my father as well, to let him know of our delema. It was as follows:

do I

1. try to make it back home on the tire as is
2. take it into Seward and hope for a auto shop to be open on the weekend during the hieght of fishing season,
3. get a ride with someone else back to town or
4. fly on a wing and a prayer.

I opted for option 2 which meant the next morning found me loosing out on the hike and limping into Seward where I found not one place in town to be open or even a mechanic within ten miles of the shoreline….

I think I will make you wait with baited breath for the next installment of dun-du-DA “What’s Going On?”

On My Needles

This week, I was ill for a day and thus I was able to crank out 13 inches of my brothers, re-knit vest. I am a little concerned though because of all the alterations I made I am not confidant that I have enough skeins to see me through, and Rowan yarn has discontinued this line. I rushed to my good friends at my LYS “Far North Yarn Co.” and put them on the hunt to see if their Rowan rep. could track down a few more skeins of my Rowan Tweed in the colorway and dye lot that I am working with.

One of my Favorite things to do on an evening, is sit, needles in hand while Andrew Zimmern, Anthony Bordain or any of the other Travel Channel hosts, whisk me away to some far off climb.  I am a terrible traveler, always becoming ill even before I leave, and so as the saying goes, I have become an armchair traveler. As a result of my “travels,”  I have discovered that there are cultures and languages all over the world that even in our modern realm of technical advances, we will never come to know or indeed have an opportunity to understand even a glimmer. 

For example, in a little community in the Nation of Columbia there is language that is spoken by less then 3,000 people.  Palenquero  is the name of the Language and according to the reporter:

Palenquero is thought to be the only Spanish-based Creole language in Latin America. But its grammar is so different that Spanish speakers can understand almost nothing of it. Its closest relative may be Papiamento, spoken on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao, which draws largely from Portuguese, Spanish and Dutch, linguists say.

 

Then there is the Basque Language.  Ahhh  the people of Basque, or Euskal Herria, as they call their country, is nestled between Spain and France and is controlled by both of those countries.  I liken it to Alaska in that it is a refuge for the outcast, the extreme a people who fit no known norm. I had the opportunity to live among a group of Basque that had immigrated to America awhile back and was a little surprised at how at home I felt among them.  The people I met were mainly shepherds, I know that  historically they have been shepherds, huntmans, trademen and all around gypsy’s, however I am not sure what they do today.  Their language is remarkable though and according to one site:

Just as no one is sure about the origins of the Basques themselves, linguists are not in agreement over the origins of Euskara, the Basque language, either. (In Basque, the word euskara is not capitalized, but when using it in English, it is customary to capitalize it, just as we capitalize the names of other languages.) Although there are theories (none of them proven beyond a doubt) that Basque is related to other languages (such as the Georgian family of languages in the Caucasus, or the Berber language family of Africa, or even the Quechua language of Latin America). So far, the only thing most experts agree on is that Euskara is in a language family by itself. That is, it is not related to any other language in the world. It is, therefore, not an Indo-European language (the large group to which English, French, Spanish, and Russian belong). 

http://planetrjl.tripod.com/LaFraughName/id6.html

 

And Finally I need to mention Hungary and the Hungarian people.  Like the Basque they are related to the gypsies.  My brother lived there in Buda and Pest (what we call Budapest) for two years and he informed me that 90% of the people he encountered were gypsy, orginating from one tribe or another.  And, like the Basque, their language is also hard to classify: 

 

For long it has been believed that Hungarian belongs to the Ugric branch of the Uralic language family based on a relatively large number of words (~300-400) of Finno-Ugric origin in the language. Hungarian, like other Finno-Ugric languages is agglutinative, which means word meanings are modified by adding different and multiple endings or suffixes to the words, rather than using prefixes like, for example, in English. On the other hand, several linguists believe that Hungarian is related to Turkic, rather than to Finno-Ugric languages. Turkic languages are also agglutinative, but they are classified into the Altaic language family. They form a sister group with the Finno-Ugric language family, and supposedly both groups originated from the same Ural-Altaic proto-language, although this idea has also been challanged.

Others try to relate Hungarian to Sumerian, a language that was spoken in the Middle-East some nine thousand years ago. These ideas have been rejected by scientists for several reasons. The most important of these is the claim that most similarities are only superficial and that these words are not genetically related (i.e. not coming from the same ancestral words). The claimed similarities are mostly based on transcriptions of words, and not on actual phonetics of how those words were pronounced. Nevertheless, it is an undeniable fact that an ancient segment of Hungarian that has been preserved mainly in child songs, lullabies and verses, shows some degree of similarity to Sumerian. Many linguists, however, regard these old remains of an “ancient language” as of unknown origin.

– About the Hungarian Language

I found the following clip on youtube and thought ya’ll would love to see Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” in Hungarian:

I bring these three examples up because they remind me that there are still mysteries and uniqueness out in the world today.  As time passes one can become immured to this world, feeling that there really isn’t anything new to discover or understand.  But the more I reach outside myself, the more I understand how little I know or see in my little corner of the world.  In places like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles you can walk down one street and feel immersed in Mexico and the next you are in Italy, Greece, Jerusalem or China.  This is wonderful, astounding and encouraging but let us always remember that there are so many more people and cultures out there for us to discover.  It is estimated that there are over 3,000 languages and cultures in the world today.  Sadly many of them are dyeing out, not unlike Latin. Let us become explorers in our own back yards and reach beyond the norm to discover the extraordinary people of our world.

 

In My Universe

Lots, and lots of things have gone on here in ole AK.  My father decided that his lawn needed to be completly redone, so the whole crew, and friends, came over on Memorial weekend and we ripped up weeds, bouldars and spread two truck fulls of soil over the grand 5,000 square feet of lawn he prides in. It was gruelling but truly a lot of fun what with the grandkids building pyramids from the bricks, a satifying round of “rip that twenty year old tree from the ground” and more mud, sweat and groans then found in any Supurbowl.

The following day was my little Brothers birthday and since he isn’t anymore keen on cake then I am he decided that homemade donuts were the order of the day.  we started making them at 1pm and finally had our first taste at around 8 that night.  I have a new found respect for Bakery chefs now.

This last weekend I had a grand adventure, but since I did not have my camera with me and so must wait on the mercy of a friend to send me the pics, I will in turn, make you wait until next week to the whole sordid tale.

On My Needles

I had so much going on this last week that I didn’t seem to have enough time to knit, yet somehow I managed to get half way done with my grandmothers lace scarf, design and execute a hat for my niece, knit up another inch or two on my brothers vest and start a pair of toe up socks.  So really even when it seems like my energy is too divided between my loves, I still manage to appease the knitting gods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Looking back now I think I always felt the rhythm in the language I spoke.  Growing up in a home where music and learning were key elements of daily life I think it would have been impossible not to make that connection.  Funny thing is I can’t speak any language other than English. Having studied in times past: German, Latin, Spanish and Russian I have to date the happy knowledge of a small child, able to chirp hello  and point to objects and grunt. With the vain hope that the listener will take said grunt as the actual name of the object.

Yet everytime I hear another dialect spoken, I pause helpless to move on while there are words exchanged.  The pure music of it all holds me in thrall.  

Every tongue holds within its core a connection.  That connection is the rhythm or heartbeat if you will. For instance if I was to say:

The dog ran over the hill

The rhythm that is obvious and one cannot help but pick up is:

da-DA da-da-da-da dum

Finding this same cadence in another dialect is so exciting, it presents me with the knowledge that we are all connected even if it is down to only our basest of instincts.

I think this is why my music listening runs to world and folk.  I instinctively want to hear the rhythm of anothers tongue, know the story and in some way make my own connection to the people of that land.  Even if all I will ever be able to do is sing a simple lullaby in that tongue, I have made that connection, felt the beat of the words and acknowledge the relationship.

One of my favorite examples are the Chieftains.  Hailing from Ireland they sing the traditional songs of their home on their own and in company with singers from around the world.  In this clip one of my favorite American singers joins them in a traditional song: Molly Ban

 

On My Needles

This last week I have been almost faithful to my brothers vest.  I knit it while I watched a movie with my brother.  I knit it while driving to work (my brother was driving I was just a happy passenger)  I knit it while running a program at work, and I knit it at my weekly knitting circle.  However I seem to have a commitment problem as I couldn’t stop my fingers from itching to cast on a lace scarf and a few presents for some out of state friends.

I know, I know, it seems irrational that I would cast on for another scarf when I just got done telling ya’ll how much I dislike them but that’s me an irrational creature.  Really the truth of the matter is the scarf is a cross between a shall and a scarf. When I bought the book “Vistorian Lace Today”  a book I had been saving and waiting with baited breath to get for months, I just couldn’t help but cast on the night after.  Ahhh me, really I think I need to learn to be magnanimous to my knitting, I’d get more done this way.

Sites to Cherish

http://www.anthropologie.com

This site has me drooling all over my keyboard I visit.  The cloths are all very bohemian, flowing and free, plus the knitwear is to die for,  I keep hoping that someday they will osmosisly hear my pleas and publish a pattern book centered around their cardi’s and pullovers. Oh, and let’s not even go into their jewelry I might go into a fit of rapture.

 

http://www.chicknits.com/  

Chic Knits- as their website says:

is your source for modern hand knitting patterns. You’ll enjoy making AND wearing our collection of sassy classics designed by Bonne Marie Burns
that reflect the way you work and live.  

I think of them as a sort of extension of the online knitting magazine Knitty.  As far as I know they are not connected in any way except to my mind they have the same, chic/fun/sassy outlook to knits.

One of the designs I have in my dream list of “To Knit if I ever stopped knitting for others, ignored the world and just hunkered down to indulge in shameless flirting with my sticks” is the Ribby Cardi  http://www.chicknits.com/catalog/ribbycardi.html 

And finally we have http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html 

I find this site fascinating as it is an independent learning language site born out of Francois Micheloud love of languages.  This site wont displace a comprehensive hands on course like the Rosetta Stone but it sure is fun to play around in!

I heard that motto awhile back on one of my favorite Podcasts “Cast On” hosted by Brenda Dane.  I have been thinking about it a lot and have even adopted it as my motto.  To that end, I started this blog.  Only here’s the hiccup in the plan:  I knew I needed a blog, I knew I wanted it to be craft focused  and that my friends is as far as I got in the master plan.

As some of you may know I love to write, I have a daily lifetime goal of writing for fifteen minutes a day, whether it be in a journal, on a short story or poem or just free forming it by simply putting pen to paper (or fingers to keys as the case may be) and just typing until something emerges from chaos.  However, I do not share my writing and I rarely, if ever, talk about it.  

For years I took creative writing classes at my University as I studied for my Business Degree, but I never made it my minor.  I took everything from short stories, to essays, to critical thinking, journaling, traveling and even went out on a limb for poetry (I stink at that by the way).  I even took Master classes when I had used up all the undergraduate ones.  This is not to say that I am a great writer or that I know what I am doing.  In fact, as me what a dangling participle is and I will get that crazed rabbit in a corner look.  Ask me to spell Mississippi and I will sing you the song just so I’ll get all the s’s and p’s in.  In short I have a long way to go and am rather sensitive about the journey.

However writing in secret wasn’t allowing me my full potential and so while the need was hot I bit my tongue and plowed forward to wordpress.com to sign up and in.

Now though, I want, no need, a direction in my blog.  I found myself journaling last week and not truly talking about anything of substance.  So I have come up with a game plan and it has me so excited that I am forcing myself to hold back and just post one a week.

Game Plan for AllUnwound

I will be posting in series. Each subject topic will be explored anywhere from 3-6 weeks so that I can truly expound and challenge not only my writing and creative skills but my research and development skills.

Each post will follow the same basic format of:

1.  Headline Story
2. Short Personal Update
3. On My Needles
4. Sites to Cherish.

I will also be adding pages (as many as I see fit) on such subjects as:

1. Knitting News (✔)
2. About Me (✔)
3. Fiber of the Week
4. Projects: On and Off the Needles
5. Running List and links of Sites Highlighted here
6. Tips and Tricks

We’ll see how far I can run with those.

So, sigh, Onward and Upward as they say.

Next week will start our series with a look into languages.

On My Needles

I finished my mothers Sculptural Birds Nests and presented them to her on Mother’s Day.  I am not to sure she knew what to do with them until I explained that she was to do nothing with them, just enjoy and maybe use them as book ends or some such.

 

Sculptural Birds nests in the wild

 You can’t really see all the details and designs that went into these but trust me, there are vines, leaves, a bird and a line from Edgar Allen Pole on each of them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I Had to Frog (rip out) all the work I had done on my brothers “Freddy Vest” for when we tried to get it over his shoulders it became lodged and unruly.  It was rather therapeutic ripping 5 skeins of rowan tweed yarn, winding it back up and starting again using the measurements I first intended to use but was talked out of. I ripped and wound, and ripped and wound with the help of my good friend Emily (ironic isn’t that count them 2 Emily’s…funny thing is I have 4 other Emily’s I call friends as well.  My mother was definitely following the trend of the year when I was named 🙂 ).  Then I immediately took up my weapons (number 9 needles) and cast on all over again. wiping out the first 5 rounds that night.

I have also started on my market bags.  I purchased the kit from Knit Picks, received it last night, and within the hour was casting on I was that excited about the pattern.  

Sites to Cherish

I’ve been extremely busy this week so I  only have one to share  but I feel it’s a goodie:

dailywritingtips.com  I have been subscribing to Daily writing Tips for about 2 years now, and I am constantly learning something new, having my fancy tickled by some obscure meaning or phrase, laughing out loud at the quirky things people say and write and just learning.  That last is a big one for me.  Another one of my daily goals is to learn something new.  Here, Meave, a supplanted Chicagian now in Scotland (I believe) regales me and hundreds of other like minded readers and writers with wonderful nuggets of tips, tricks and facts to fill all my days.

Enjoy!

 

The sun is out, the sky is blue
There’s not a cloud to spoil the view
But it’s raining
Raining in my heart

Well, not really, I just really wanted to quote that line from Leo Sayers song, “Raining in My Heart”  There’s no rhyme or reason to it, I don’t question the urge and neither should you. 😉

However it is true that the sun is shining and there isn’t a cloud to spoil my view of the not so lovely street outside my work.

On My Needles:

As I listed last week, Mothers Day is this coming Sunday and since my mother loves 2 things that I am sure of, I decided to create a sort of story fiber art sculpture incorporating those 2 things.  1) She loves birds houses and as I result I knitted and felted a series of three birds nests.  Two of them are for the sculpture but I couldn’t bring myself to be to artsy so I made one for it’s practical use of housing a family of sparrows or what have you.  2) Her favorite poet is Edgar Allen Poe, in particular the “Raven” poem.  So after felting my nests, I needled felted a raven on to both and broke up the line “Quoth the Raven- Nevermore” half on one and half on the other.  I have then proceeded to bead on shiney seed beads, outlining the birds, the opening in the nest and creating a vine like tree limb feel to the whole thing.  Pictures to come.

 

Anyone who knows me knows that I never make anything easy for myself, and with that thought in mind, about 8pm on MOnday night I decided to make a neckalace for my good friend who was to trun 30 the next day.  No big deal I already knew what I wanted, knew what she would like and had everything to hand so 2 hours later and Ta Da we have lift off!

 

Beaded necklace, three stranded seed beads in chartreuse and turquoise.

Now it was 10:30pm and I realized I still had no clue and less time to figure out what to get my other good friend for, again, her birthday which we were also celebrating the next day.  Then I thought of it, that lovely, soft, meltingly beautiful creamy yellow Bellezza wool I had hidden away for something special. That thought spurred the recollection that Elise wore scarfs with abandon and the lace scarf idea was born.  

Now in general I am not a fan of scarfs, I don’t like to wear them (people with no necks have empathy with me here) and I especially don’t like to knit them as they seem never ending.  For any of you out there contemplating your first knitting project warning: Steer clear of any and all scarfs.  They will suck you in and half way through you’ll realize how far you have left to go and throw the darn thing in your closet where it will molder and morf into that dreaded monster we all feared as kids.  Take my advice and start with something like a hat, half the time and you great bang for your time.

So needless to say, crazy woman that I am I decided to knit Elise a scarf that night.  Not only that I only had one skein, so in order to stretch it for a full length scarf, I made up a quick and dirty lacr pattern.  It went as follows:

Cast on 17 sts (or any odd Number)

knit 3 rows

lace row: *K2tog, yo 2* till 1 sts remains. K1 (34 sts total)

K row, dropping the first of every  yo 2  to end up with 17 sts

K 3 rows

repeat lace row.  

And that my friends is all she wrote.  For those of you not savvy in the knitters language here’s what I said:

knit 3 rows (self explanatory there)

lace row: *K2tog, yo 2* till 1 sts remains. K1 ===  K2tog meane “knit 2 stitches together in order to decrease”  and yo means “wrap yarn around needle as if to knit, then insert needle into next stitch and knit, I just added and extra wrap”

Here’s how she looked being blocked:

 

Elise's lace confection of a scarf being blocked

I had to block it at work as I stayed up till 2 am then up again at 6:30 am and knit till I finished it at 8am.  This meant I was late for work.  I couldn’t give Elise the scarf without blocking it though as lace looks like complete crap (or a very messy spiders web) before it is blocked.  So I took up an entire table, and blocked it on my break… By the end of work it was done and looked marvelous.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

the Party was a real corker.  Since it was Sinco Di Mio  I obtained a pinnate and filled it full of their favorite treats.  We all gathered at a friends and had a roaring good time whacking the living daylights out of it.  

A swing and a miss! Don't worry I got the bugger in the end!

personally I took out my frustrations with life on the poor innocent paper donkey and completely demoliched it.  tore it limb from limb in fact.

 

 

 

 

 

Noteworthy Sites:

 

 

Dandelion Summers

First I am going to be completely shameless and promote my brother and sister in laws wonderful organic website (organic as in they sell organic products.)  My older sister started it a few years ago, but now that she has so many kids at home and no time on her hands, my brother gladly took it off her hands.  

” Visit this site for all your organic baby needs: organic crib mattresses, organic baby bedding, organic mattress pads, organic Moses baskets, organic baby blankets, organic baby clothes, organic adult bedding, organic mattresses, organic sheets, organic mattresses, Ostheimer wooden toys, Waldorf style playstands, wooden building blocks, wooden toy trains, Holztiger sets, Noahs ark sets and all kinds of organic and natural products.http://www.dandelionsummers.com/index.html  ”

 

Pink Argyle

Next is a wonderful blog I lately discovered written by a mother and daughter team about – you geuessed it knitting.  It is fun, and informative two of my favorite things. http://www.pinkargyle.com/

 

Finally another blog I have fallen in love with is : Bagatell

It is absolutely delicious and that is all I will say.  So go check it out and discover it for yourself! http://www.spellingtuesday.com/

 

 

 

This last week has just been spectacularly fun!  So much news and happenings I don’t know where to turn.

The beginning is always good right? 😉

Last Friday found me scrambling to get all I wanted (not needed mind you) done.  I ofcoarse had work to do, but my friends Cecilee and Crystal left to Mexico that morning leaving me to care for their cute little pups.  So I needed to run home to let them out while being at my knitting club by 5:30 to get in some quality knitting before rushing off to another concert.  I was able to accomplish it all and squeeze in a midnight watching of “Meet Me in St. Loius”  with some good friends.

Speaking of the knitting club, we just have a rollicking good time all cozy and snug in the Far North Yarn Co.  There are lots of laughter (no tears yet), new friendships, sharing of ideas and techniques and did I mention laughter?

I love this group so much (and the store) that I even started a group for it on ravelry.com   For those of you who don’t know what that is:  Ravelry is an online knitting community where you can meet up with old friends, make new ones from around the world, show off your knitted projects, shop around for patterns, yarn and all kinds of knittery goodery.  It is like manna from Heaven. **Caution** cruising ravelry has a tendency to become addictive, attempt with caution.

 

On Saturday I was sopposed to attend my neice, Aftons, dance recital, but after 4 trips through the dryer, my clothes were still quite damp and so I threw on a pair and suffered the 10 minute drive to my parents to finally get my cloths dry and missed the whole thing.  Luckily she was so excited about dancing in front of a great big crowd that she never noticed her Aunt Em wasn’t there.

That night (this is beginning to sound like a travel log)!  My good friends Pepe and Kay (who own Far North Yarn Co). opened their third restaurant out in Indian AK .  They bought the Turnagain Roadhouse and renamed it “Pepe’s Turnagain Roadhouse”  Sunday was their opening day, so on Saturday they invited friends and family to come out and try the menu on for size.  I dragged my friend Nancy along and met up with Ann Courtney, a Vundebar gal from the knitting club.  We sat and ate, ate and chat and ate some more until 4 hours had passed!  The food was melt in your mouth goodness and all I can say is: Well done Pepe and Ann you really made something wonderful there!

 

On My Needles

This week in knitting, I finished up square 1 of my barn raising blanket and started on #2.  Only 48 more to go!  

I have been distracted with my mothers day gift.  As I am sure my mother does not read my blog I feel I can speak freely.  I have knitted and felted her a series of 3 bird nests.  

the 2 showey nests without their plumage

2 are solely for decoration and one is for actual bird use.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have found that if you take 2 cheap sandals and irratate the fabric between the 2 it really speeds up the hand felting process and I think I enjoy taking my frustrations of the day out on it! 🙂

I ended up felting them by hand last night as the washer seemed incapable of creating hot water (what is with me and washing machines lately)?  They turned out really well.  After rolling them in a towel to squeeze out any excess water,

 

the useful one being stuffed

 

 

 

I stuffed them with plastic bags in the shape I wanted them to remain in when dry and left them to it.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Ravens Outling being Needle Felted

Now the hard part, coming up with the decoration without going overboard.  I want to needle felt  a raven on one, and a line from her favorite poem by Edgar Allen Poe on the other.  Then I will finish it off with some decorative beading, not to much bling, just enough.

 

 

Sites to cherish

http://www.twistcollective.com  is an online knitting magazine with lots of informative articles and a truly innovative format.  Normally when designers submit to a magazine, say like Vogue Knitting or Interweave Knits the magazine will pay a flat fee for the pattern.  At Twist Collective however, each time the pattern is purchased and downloaded the designer gets paid a little more. (there is a whole new trend leaning towards this method it is quite interesting and empowering).

http://www.knitty.com Knitty is another online magazine that is truly great.  Here the patterns are free.  It’s the ads that pay for all the patterns here.  This site is a little more quirky, it labels patterns “Mellow, Tangy, Piquant and Extraspicy” instead of the yarn standards traditional beginner, intermediate etc.  They also have many great sections and articles like: Knitty Roundtable, Knitty Spin, Patterns galore, a blog and shopping!

 

I applaud these enterprises and look forward to seeing them grow and develop in the forthcoming seasons.

 

For the past couple of weeks my wonderful, beloved car has been troubling me in one way or another.  You know when you hit that unfortunate teenage period where pimples start breaking out on your face like dandelion weeds?  Well, this is where my Dorcas is at right now.

–Before I go on, take a moment and digest it.  Yes, I name my cars and yes my Malibu is a girl-child named Dorcas.  Those of you that adore “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers” like I do understand and feel there is no need for further explanation on the subject.  The rest of you sorry sorts truly need to inject some culture into your lives.  Do yourselves a favor and sit down to the beautiful musical score of this classic movie and then come back to us, we’ll wait.

   —-Are you done?  Good, let’s move on shall we?—-

As I was saying, Dorcas has been having some blemishes appear here and there, her wheels were shaking, the widow wipers were deteriorating rapidly, she received her first ding last week, she needed an oil change and winter tire trade out, and the rear break light wouldn’t work.  I think the last one was the last straw for her as every time I put on the turn right signal she would click it on and off at the rapid, fluttery pace of a marathon runner. 

So over he past couple weeks I’ve been trying to heal her little wounds.  I took her in and had the balance righted and tires changed.  The fact that the mechanics very obviously went through my things I had stored in there ticked me off, but that is another story. And I tried, in vain, to fix the blinker problem on my own.  I changed out the lights not  once but twice and even yanked out the fuse (like I know what a good one looks like):-/ .  Finally I took her over to the local Quick Lube today, and she came back all shiny and sparkly.  I want everyone to know that these guys treated me and my baby like we were queens. They fixed all her little hiccups/pimples (including the chip!!!) and now we are back to looking sexy as we drive down 5th Ave.

 

Yesterday my good friends, Nancy, Jeri, Courtney and Elise and I went to Spamalot at our local theatre and had a smashing time. Well, I did at least but then I kind of like a little low humor with my chocolate once in awhile.  It was great fun and we kept running into lots of good friends from Anchorage Concert Choir (They are singing Brahms next week with the Anchorage Symphony!!) and many others.  It was lovely.

From left to right: Me (Emily), Jeri, Nancy, Elise, Courtney and some random guy exiting the mens bathroom. 😉

ON MY NEEDLES

 

I seem to have start-itus.  I can’t stop myself lately from starting new projects.  I always give myself an excuse like, “I realy want to learn that techinque” or “I need something more portable” or “Isn’t the Dahli Lama’s Birthday coming up?”  This time it was a combination.  I have wanted to try out Nero Yarn for awhile and since they just came out with a sock weight line I thought “why not?” Also I just received new harmony needles from Knit Picks and needed to test their resilience and adaptability and finally I have been burning to try one of the many awesome patterns in the Knitalong book I finally was able to purchase.  So you see it’s not so much a disease as a need.

So I am knitting up the “Barn Raising Quilt” and I love it!  

my first square, 48 more to go. Along with the Nero sock yarn

The yarn however. Not so much. 😦  I have always heard wonderful things abut Nero and everyone has a Nero Sweater on their dream list of knit-ups, but the sock yarn needs work.  There are a lot of slubs, the spin is inconstant (rather like art yarn, you know how the thickness thins out or expands)  and the elastic support spun through the skein is all bunched up and awkward like.  Oh!  and it has torn apart in my hands not once but twice and I am  not a tight knitter!  

 

However, the colorway is gorgeous, and the skein set me back a pretty penny, the feel isn’t bad and I think I can get about 1/3 of my quilt out of this bad boy, so I am preserving and plowing forward.

Please note** This is Nero first foray into sock yarn, and this is there first batch** I have heard other knitters having the same problem and that Nero is aware of the inconsistencies and are working to fix it for the second batch.  Now if this is so, I think I will be  Nero fan, but don’t count your chicks till they hatch, as the saying goes…

GREAT FINDS:

So a couple websites that I am loving right now are:

http://www.yarnstandards.com/  This place is overflowing with info that you need and want to know.  This is what every knit designer follows when designing and now that I have this vital source at my fingertips, I understand where designers are coming from!

http://knitalong.net/  As I said earlier, I am knitting up the Barn Raising Quilt as well as devouring the book and the website is a gorgeous gallery of projects, ideas and news. **note, you do need to purchase the book to get at the actual patterns shown here**

http://www.folkalley.com/  Folkalley is my fav. web based radio stream, and a sure bet for a great podcaste.  I love all the new folk singers and songwriters they showcase here.  And as it is Spring it is their annual drive for funds and I am a definite supporter!

Speaking of Folk music try out the Smithsonian Folk Project at http://www.folkways.si.edu/  and their podcaste “tapestry of the times” on itunes.  Never before have I been so richly blessed with astounding little known folk songs that have shaped our world and society.  The project was started by a man back in the 1930’s of collecting and publishing as many folk singers and songwriters as he could, one year publishing 52 records (that is 1 record per week!) . He was never looking for material gain, he was just doing this for the love of the art.  When he died he left his collection of over 30,000 songs and records to the Smithsonian Museum and they have continued his work here.  Bliss!

This morning I awoke to a wonderland of frost. It was everywhere, like an epidemic breakout.  Granted it was pretty, but here in the ‘ole AK it was nice to think that spring was “springing” into action.

 

Ian's Car in Front of Shop (I was to lazy to take my own pic) 😉

 

 

I was reminded of that old Jonny Horton song “When it’s springtime in Alaska, it’s 40 below.” – I must not complain to heavily though as it is a gorgeous day otherwise.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In other news, my good friends and I have finally bought the tickets to see “Spamalot” next week and I am jittery with excitement.

 I first fell in love with Monty Pythons Flying Circus and by extension their take on “The Search for the Holy Grail”  and then the next I knew there was a spoof on that spoof calling itself “Spamalot”.  Well I had to find out what was going on here and the moment I downloaded the soundtrack and heard the words “Finland, Finland, Finland that’s the country for me”  I was lost. Completely and utterly smitten I set out to memorize the entire score:

Insert image of Emily as Diva 😉

 

This is so just in case the Diva came down with oh say the plague I could jump in and keep the whole cast going…in my dreams they osmosasly know that I can A) carry a tune, B) have a great sense of humor and by extension acting skill and C) Have been studying this part for years.  Thus they call me from NYC and beg me, on the preverbal hands and knees, to save them from destruction and disgrace.  What else could I do but graciously agree?  I live in hope…

 

As for knitting I have been studiously working on my brothers vest and ignoring all else.  Just take the pic from last week and add about 5 inches in length and you have the general idea of where I am at.  I am rather upset with Rowan at the moment though as I realized last night that my skeins weren’t matching up in shading.  Every knitter knows that when knitting any project that will require more then one skein of the yarn, you always buy it at the same time making sure that the die lots match in order to avoid this problem.  I like to tell myself that I am a smart knitter and so I did exactly that, I bought 9 skeins of Rowan (my fav yarn co.) Classic Tweed from one of my fav online yarn stores Webs www.yarn.com .  Now I am not great at math, in fact I stink, but even I know that in this equation I should have come up the victor.:

Fav Yarn + Fav Online Store + Smart Shopping = One absolutely fabulous Vest.

Instead I got:

Fav Yarn + Fav Online Store + Smart Shopping = One Substandard Vest 😦

I’ve decided to keep going though in the hopes that after I hand wash it a couple of times and block it my brother will not notice.  — He’s not really the noticing type so I doubt he’ll see it anyway, but for my piece of mind I need to do this.

 

Great Finds

I absolutely love searching out crafters on the internet and one of my fav places to do so is on Etsy so I thought I would include a spot for great stuff each week.  So for my first foray I wanted to share 2 absolutely vundebar stores in Etsy:

Amie Gaines has a an imagination I would kill for and her creatures are so adorable I am making it my life goal to learn to crochet just so I can make them all:      

www.purl.etsy.com

The Wren has just smashing bags made from fabric ends and recycled fabric.  Plus she is helping the women in South Africa find meaningful and paying jobs.

The Wren

Well, finally I have worked up the nerve to start a blog.  Not sure what my fear has been, I mean I try to write for my personal enjoyment a few times a week, but something about putting it out there for all the cyber world to read has just thrown me in a tizzy.  But finally, I grabbed the preverbal bull buy the horns and vyuala you have a blog.

So as I stated in the little blurb all about me  I would like this blog to be an exploration of my discoveries in the crafting world.  Mine and my friends, please feel free to post comments and get a discussion going.  I need all the help I can get.

In the crafting world I am mainly focused on knitting at this time.  But I have been known to break out the ‘ole bead box and just throw caution to the wind and let the wackiest things come out.  Most of it doesn’t work out, but I figure one day I will have a piece of wearable art that as I walk down the street women will stand back in admiration, lights will flash and blind me causing me to trip over a small child who is gorging on a chocolate ice cream cone. We’ll tumble to the ground smearing the yummy, sticky goodness all over both of us and my wearable art becomes just another smear in the sidewalk. There are snickers and snorts in the background and I know that people are chortling through there sleeves. At this point I usually jolt out of my day dream and shove all the beads from me in pique and pick of my knitting needles as refuge.

Right now I am working on two vests, one for my Father, and the other for my eldest brother.  Both are late, my fathers birthday was last month and my brothers at the end of this, but I only came up with the idea a week before my fathers birthday so instead of getting a nice little package on his birthday he got bugged at to pick out a yarn we could both live with and me tickling him as I measured every conceivable inch of his torso.  It was rather good fun, and the cute vest he picked out was the exact one my brother picked out so I have the last laugh.

 

vest half way done!

 

 

I’m sure ya’ll have or have seen it before, where the child swears he/she is nothing like their parents and then they turn around and say or do something that is a mirror image of their parents actions that you just have to smile and nod your head in an “I completely agree” fashion while chuckling all the while on the inside.  Well, that was the exact scenario the day they picked out the vest.  It was priceless;).

I have knitted about 6 inches of my brothers vest and plan on just cranking away until I’ve got a masterpiece.

I just finished a beautiful scarf for my mother that I have nick named “the Cure-All”.  Reasoning is simple enough, I have had a terrible time breaking the life long habit of biting my nails and so when a ravelry group started testing the theory of hypnotic knitting to break your bad habits, I immediatly signed on.  It was marvelous, and the results are I bite my nails less (not completly cured as of yet but still working at it) and the scarf my mother has been asking for all winter.–I’ll post the scarf later tonight after I photograph it–

 

Jeri Sporting the lovely scarf

 

scarf

 

 

 

I am also working on a pair of thrummed mittens for a good friend.  They have unlovingly been nicknamed “the Thing”  due to the fact that it calls for knitting in  loose fiber.  The wool is lovely but it gets into everything and matted.  I followed the pattern and when I closed up the top the first time, I was super excited, quickly turned the thing inside out and thrust my hand inside only to be jolted t a stop halfway up my palm.  The darn thing it to short!!!! So now I must frog it AND the thrums back to the thumb so I can evenly space out the decreases and added rows.  Thus as I said it is is unlovingly called “the Thing” by one and all.

 

The Thing is Alive!

 

the would be finished Thing