Oh, Joy! I have a skirt. And it’s cute as a button, after all that.

Here’s the chain of events that happened to make this a reality:

Last year I bought a sweater at a resale shop. Label: Ralph Lauren… and it says hand made in Uruguay. The yarn is the same colorway as Manos del Uruguay yarn I’ve seen in several shops. Price, less than $10. I take it home, even though the colors are more muted than I usually wear. (Photo 1)

I wore it once. It was raglan style and snug fitting, and it came to the waist. I like long tunic sweaters that are baggy. I sometimes buy Men’s sweaters and roll up the sleeves, I like them that big. I’m not a large woman, I usually wear a size 6 or 8 US/Medium size, and I’m short, only 5′2″ tall.

Sweater ages in closet wondering what it will be when it grows up.

Sally Melville Color book comes out. Rae knits a skirt from the book. I look up the skirt pattern, and it calls for Manos del Uruguay. The gears in my brain start working overtime.

I realize I don’t want Sally’s skirt. I don’t like eyelets, don’t like wearing lace. My favorite skirt in the world is a tube skirt, knitted cotton/lycra. But I take another look at the sweater.

The light goes on! The sweater looks a lot like a tube skirt with sleeves. I measure, and sure enough, my favorite skirt is the same circumference as the body of the sweater.

I let the idea percolate a while as I gear up the courage to rip apart a perfectly good sweater that just is not my style. One night after midnight I’m peaceful enough inside to go for it. It takes 2 hours to un-seam the sweater. (Photo 2)

I take the parts to Rae and try on the remains of the sweater body (as a skirt) for her. Looks promising! I realize I don’t want elastic at my waist, so I don’t need much yarn to knit up from the armholes to make it fit with elastic at my hips.

I rip the yarn out down to the armholes. I realize that one reason it was so hard to undo the seams, was that the knitter had alternated skeins of handpainted yarn to avoid pooling. Amazing how it did in fact work well! It does mean that I have a whole lot of tiny, golf-ball to tennis-ball size balls of yarn with which to work.

I pick up stitches around the sweater with a circular needle. I choose a needle size really a bit small for the project, but I plod on anyway. All these years as a socknitter means I love dense fabric when loose and drapey might be fine.

I knit in circles until I am out of the yarn I’d ripped from the body. I debate whether I should rip out the arm yarn as well, but I have designs on making the arms into legwarmers so I think better of the idea. I rip back one row, and re-work the row as a purl ridge for a turning edge. I knit an inch or so of fingering weight yarn in charcoal for the back facing of the elastic casing/waistband. (Photo 3)

I sew the casing shut and thread elastic. I block the waistband. I gasp at how short it looks on the table. (Photo 4)

I put on the skirt and model it around the house like I’m some movie star! I realize how short the skirt really is when I put on the sweater I thought I’d wear over it, and the sweater is as long as the skirt. Oops! I find one plum knit jacket in a fine gauge that works great for a dress/work occasion, and a fisherman knit bulky blue mohair sweater for casual. (Photo 4)

I’m very pleased that the skirt goes great with the charcoal Maggie’s Organic Cotton/lycra tights I just bought at the Food Co-Op this week. (And the hose feel wonderful and look like they will last a good long while. They even have heels knit in!)

That was fun!!! Adventures like this are few and far between. I enjoyed the ride.

My hands sure have been a knitting machine of sorts lately. I’m cranking!!!

Yesterday I knit two skeins of Noro Kureyon on Rae’s Watercolor bag sample. I just need to do the bottom and I-cord handle for that bag. And the coolest news? My music friend Edna, who plays washboard (as in Jug Band Style) has an extra washboard she doesn’t play and she’s giving it to me! Just in time to beat the Threadbear Watercolor bag into submission. Perfect!!!

But I’m also knitting on my Manos sweater-to-skirt project. For those tuning in late in the story, I found a Ralph Lauren sweater at a resale shop, knit from Manos del Uruguay premium yarn. It did not fit me well the way it was made originally so I was willing to unravel it and make something new.

It sat for a while and then it whispered to me that it wanted to be a tube skirt. So I unraveled it down to the armholes and now I’m knitting up. I want the elastic or eyelet-with-tie to fit at my hipline. I am more comfy without elastic at my waist, plus it will take less yarn and I’m going to wear it with a huge, long, tunic-like sweater over it anyway. That is just how I wear things.

So I picked up stitches on Monday and started knitting. I first thought I had too thin a needle and then decided it was fine, so I kept going. I have about 2″ done already and maybe 2″ to go. I’m going to love this thing!!!

I tried to take a photo of my skirt progress. The photos I took in front of the mirror got all blurry (glare from flash, I think). But when I turned the camera toward me, I got this funky artful self-portrait out of it, anyway! It does not show the skirt well at all, but this is what 47 years old looks like at my house! I’m pleased, I look better in the photo than in real life… now, to get rid of that poker face…

You all know how much I love wool. And you all know how cold I get in Michigan most of the year. I always swear I’ll knit a pair of wool longjohns but I never seem to get around to it. Mind you I have a large collection of different types of longjohns to make it through the winter. The best ones I have right now are the cuddle duds Sue gave me. I can even wear those under a skirt, as they are slippery on the outside like a slip. But when it is really really cold, I crave wool.

In college I had a pair of the original Duofold longjohns, one smooth layer of wool over one smooth layer of cotton, but I wore them until I had a hole in the knee. Since then I have mostly had to make do with thermal-knit cotton… better than nothing, but bulky and no good when damp.

I have looked for this original Duofold fabric at the local sporting goods stores. They typically carry Duofold brand but it is that synthetic stuff everyone seems to love these days. I can’t wear polyester, it makes me itch! Just like wool can make others itch, I guess. Boo hoo…

Two years ago I swore I’d buy some wool longjohns (made with superwash wool they are neither scratchy nor handwash, they are just plain the best). And then I looked around a while to find some. SmartWool looked good but the midweight ones were $55 USD a pair (now they are $60), and I just could not stomach that idea. That brand is always excellent quality, but pricey next to similar items from other companies.

And so I surfed. No surprise, the best solution for wool longjohns seemed to be in Australia, where they really understand about great wool. At wool-underwear.com they had several styles… from feminine and lacy to lightweight to double-knitted. I was thrilled because one of the designs went all the way down to the ankle without a cuff/ridge of ribbing. I wear my longjohns under tight-fitting leggings, and the ridge that shows about three inches above my ankle with most longjohns is a hassle requiring legwarmers or big slouch socks if I want to cover it up.

So I hemmed and hawed and while doing that I got a catalog from Land’s End. They had silk longjohns for less than the wool (about half the SmartWool, actually). I caved in to financial considerations, and got a pair of the silk.

No surprise folks… I don’t like the silk. They *are* warm and they *are* thin, but the fabric sort of catches on my hands and they are very static-elictricity-prone. I may be wrong, but I swear they are not as warm as my beloved wool might be. You can bet I do wear them, but I am disappointed.

Fast forward two years. This week I got checks for my birthday from both my Mom and my in-laws. I decided I really did not *need* anything, have all the clothes/yarn/food I can use, my car is in good repair and computer parts are already coming on their way to fix the only real need I have right now.

So I went back to wool-underwear.com, where they had a page with six choices from which to choose. And I bought two pair, thanks to my two birthday gifts. For about the same as one pair of SmartWool would have cost. (I ordered style PBJ, which amuses me since in the US that stands for Peanut Butter and Jelly.)

I’m really excited to finally be able to stay warm, in my own style. Wool!!! Now I need to allow time for the mail to deliver, which is not exactly fast from Australia. I have already waited two years, though… what is another week or two?

This almost makes up for not going to Africa during the snow season!

I typed my first ColorJoy! blog entry on November 28, 2002. This means I have completed three full years of blogging. In that time I have written 1128 posts. If you divide 1128 by 356 days a year, I have written 3.16 years of posts, or an average of more than one post per day. I’m proud of that record.

But writing every day is nothing without you loyal readers. I firmly believe that the strength of the Internet is relationship. It is truly amazing how we can build friendships, primarily based on black-and-white text in English.

My statistics say that in the last 697 days I’ve averaged 1005 unique visitors to my weblog folder on my website. Some of those are folks who did a Google search for something and did not really want to find me. But I would guess that a good majority of the visitors do really want to read what I say. I find this very gratifying.

You maybe have read here that both my Grandmothers were writers. My father was also a writer/journalist, and my mother is a very fine storyteller though for years she told her stories with the spoken word more often than print. It seems likely that I would love writing this column for you!

When I go to Michigan Fiber Festival and someone (Lori Konopka was the first) comes up to me and says hi, that she recognizes me as LynnH from reading my blog, it makes my heart sing. When I get email from Max, the woman in Canada, with photos of her beautiful part of the world, I know friends truly exist over the ether. (The other Max who used to write to me, the man in the USA, sadly passed away in October… may he rest in peace.)

When Marie Irshad in Wales/UK(!!!) strikes up conversations with me, first about my handpainted yarns and later to ask if she could interview me for her Knitcast program, I know I’m doing the right thing. The world is my home, not just Michigan/USA. Marie is not my only online friend outside the Americas. I really love this part of blogging!

When I go to the coffeehouse in Okemos to have tea with Sarah Peasley and someone (Barb) comes up to me and says “I read your blog every day!” I know I am doing something right. I want to share my views (of life as art and art as life) with others. And it clearly is getting through.

When I go to a yarn shop where I teach, and mention this or that about my current project to someone there, and they say “oh yeah, I read that on your blog,” well, I must be on the right track. It happens at all my yarn shops where I teach… Threadbear (especially Rob and Marti), Rae’s (Hi, Rae), Little Red Schoolhouse (Linda), Yarn Garden (Kim and Pat), Heritage Spinning (Joan and Deb). It also happens at Working Women Artists… Regina is always on top of my doings from reading here.

And how would I stay in touch with Sharon P, one of my dearest Lansing knit friends, if it were not for our blogs? In fact, I think we really became friends after we both started blogging.

I know it’s a hassle to contact me, I’ve been a full year without a comment feature. Yet today Chelle took the time to write to me. She touched my heart with these words:

I enjoy reading about your inwardly rich and introspective life not to mention your creativity, sense of style and great attitude toward life. Whenever I m down, your appreciation of the everyday world makes me remember why it s good to be alive. Over the past few years, you ve turned me onto a lot of good music, books, gift ideas, and appreciation for many things normally out of my everyday life.(snip)

Chelle, it is for these very reasons I write. I am thrilled that my intent somehow gets through. Thank you for the report card.

With that, I’ll take the time to say I had a wonderful birthday today. My day started with sleeping in, followed by a phone call from my Mom. She always sings me the birthday song, start to finish, on my birthday… usually by phone. We had a great talk.

Following that, Altu took me to lunch, gave me a gorgeous light raspberry shawl/wrap, and took me to tea at Beaners. After that I went to Rae’s and knit like a fiend on her sample bag while talking yarn… then went home for a while (knit some more, this time on my Manos skirt).

Brian took me to dinner for Indian food in East Lansing, followed by a nice walk around downtown East Lansing in the wet (no longer raining) weather… and then followed by tea at the Gone Wired Cybercafe. Whew!

So we went home, and I finished the third skein of yarn on the same bag while chatting with my friend Iris C. who called from Chicago to wish me a happy birthday. Now I’m going to put down the bag for a while (I only have to knit the bottom and the handle, then do my best to felt it along with trying to felt the bag for Threadbear once more).

I’m going to start up again on the Manos sweater-to-skirt project. I started it on needles that are a bit too small for comfy fabric so I’ll rip out the 3 rows I did earlier and go for a fatter needle and see how I like it. I’m eager to wear the skirt while it’s perfect wool skirt weather. I’m saving up my photos on this project for when it’s finished… it should be soon.

Life is good. Really good. Simple, sometimes… I don’t have fancy stuff, you know? But the people in my life are just top notch, and my town is a very friendly place to live. I wish the same contentment to all of you.

Images: 1) One of the first images I ever put on my blog, a drawing I made as a tiny child (thanks to Mom for saving it). In magenta and purple crayons… no surprise, huh? 2) A photo from January 2003, my BarberPole Sock pattern knit in Cascade Fixation yarn by my friend Deb/Scarlet Zebra.

It is the Monday after Thanksgiving. A year ago, on the Monday after Thanksgiving, Altu and I left for Africa.

Today it is gloomy and gray again. The thought of five weeks of sunshine sounds very good to me right now. I’m really OK with staying here with my Brian, but there is a small bit of melancholy in my heart.

However, I started my day with a phone call from my mother, and now I’m preparing for lunch with Altu. I’ve already done some knitting this morning. I’m determined to make it a good day.

Photo: Laundry day in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, taken approximately New Year’s Eve, 2005. This woman looks SO Ethiopian! And check out those sharp shadows, from the strong sun near the equator. Also notice that color is not scary to Africans… pink buildings are not uncommon.

It is gray and sad outside today. I woke up to rain, and the sky is our typical Lansing winter sky, gray from edge to edge. I didn’t see a single ray of sun myself, though I heard from a few friends they saw it try to peek out. I tell you, this is enough to make a cheerful person feel down.

Fortunately, I was able to distract myself much of today. I started having lunch at Emil’s Italian restaurant with Altu’s daughter. Later I then went to Little Red Schoolhouse to work out class, pattern and yarn decisions for next term. She will now be carrying my BarberPole socks pattern. Unfortunately, the only available sample I had already knit up for that design was a prototype which I knit from my own handpaints. (The sock shown at right is already at Rae’s as a sample there.)

Patterns sell best when the shop carries the yarn the sample was knit in. I don’t have time to knit her another sample. So she is buying a small group of skeins of my yarn (to put up in kits, for the most part). I have very little yarn in stock right now after my wonderful Labor Day Trunk Show at Threadbear. However, I think this will work. We’ll see.

I haven’t sold my yarn to shops before. I have avoided consignment entirely and been afraid of anything that looked like a long-term committment to supplying X amount of yarn by a deadline. In this case, I will deliver the yarn when I deliver the patterns so she can make kits. And maybe that’s it, and maybe not. I am not making any promises beyond that. My business does tend to change frequently, so who knows what will happen in time? Nobody knows.

I’m OK with giving it a shot. I have considered kits before. If this goes well, perhaps I’ll re-think the relatively small yarn part of my business and consider more kits. I have wanted to make kids’ hat kits, with yarn/button/pattern. I have not written out a pattern yet, though!

Which gets back to yesterday’s lament… how in the world can I do all the things I already have committed myself to doing? Never mind all the things I’d planned to do or hoped to do but which do not yet have deadlines attached?

Well, enough of bellyaching. I guess I can be glad to be so popular!

I do have pleasant news today, besides the previous lament. Between lunch and visiting Linda, I stopped in to Rae’s. I had promised to show her a hat, made of some yarn she has in stock. The hat is owned by a knitting student, I had made a repair to it, so I was not going to have the hat very long.

Well, Rae sure surprised me! She had a lovely wild blue gift bag full to the brim, with hot magenta tissue paper and a bow made of wonderful soft pink/magenta yarn. For me!

I tell you what, my friendships are gift enough, I never crave “stuff” from anyone… but she knew my birthday was coming (Monday). In the gift bag I found three fat (100gm) balls of Maggie’s Ireland tweedy magenta yarn with hot pink, hot green and periwinkle purple flecks in it. (In the picture here you can only see 2 of the balls, the other is still in the bag.) The yarn is magnificent.

She figures there is enough for a pair of legwarmers. Woohoo! I don’t have any pink/magenta legwarmers yet, and I have recently been contemplating this missing wardrobe link. I wear legwarmers every day for about 6-8 months of the year. Now (assuming I can find time to knit them) I will be able to have magenta legwarmers! Marvelous. Perfect. Thanks, Rae.

OK, so I’m sitting here knitting the Watercolor Bag sample for Rae’s shop when I’m not typing for you… and soon we go to an Abbott Brothers Band rehearsal. Where I will use my hands on my bass rather than my knitting needles. But somehow I’m eventually going to get all this knitting done, I just know it!

Photos: 1) Barberpole sock knit in Debbie Bliss DK Merino; 2) Birthday gift from Rae, Maggi’s Tweed Fleck Chunky, Color: Cerise.

You know what? The only thing that really matters in life, is the people you care about. Really. Or this is what I’ve determined in my own life of losing far too many people, far too young.

Today was wonderful. I met Sara, my Goddaughter, for lunch. She had a birthday earlier this week. She loves sushi so she told me which place she likes best and we went there. I had never been to this place and it was lovely to look at as well as full of tasty food. Fun!

Then we went to Scavenger Hunt, a resale shop in East Lansing run by some music/art friends.

I ended up with a South-American knit sweater, very fat yarn in lots of colors. It says it is alpaca, but it is scratchy rather than soft so maybe it’s very old alpacas or alpaca/wool blend. It will be warm this winter when I bundle up against the drafts in my office.

After that, we went to our regular knitting spot, Starbucks Coffeehouse. Sara gets a strawberry/cream concoction and I get tea and tea cookies. And we knit.

This time I started a pair of legwarmers for Sara, a gift she’ll get just whenever I can finish them between my work obligations. I hope it will be this holiday season. She’s a dancer and will actually wear them out in class, and she’s very excited about them. They are in Opal six-ply (sport or DK weight, I’m at 5.75st/in on size 4 needles) yarn, self-striping in sort of rainbow colors. We got it at Rae’s not too long ago. The ribbing is looking very cool.

Sara is working on a pair of my First-Time Toe-Up socks in worsted weight for herself. She has knit the foot and now is starting the heel flaps. She is knitting back and forth between the two socks at the same time on double-pointed needles, so when she’s done, she’s done.

For our next lesson she will have decreasing for gussets, and then she wants a rolled cuff so 8 more rows and she’ll be done. It should be exciting! That will have to probably wait until she is done with her Final Exams, though.

Of course, I forgot my camera. Trust me, the sushi was real art, just gorgeous. And my Sara is as pretty as they get!

After I took Sara home, I stopped for tea at a coffeehouse I’d not tried before (Mike’s, near the sporting goods store in Okemos with the cool neon sign, a person walking with a shopping cart). The woman I talked with there, was originally from Yugoslavia and then moved to Germany before moving here. She finds it very friendly here, which pleased me.

Then I went clear across town to Little Red Schoolhouse. I had not seen Linda, the owner of that yarn shop, in weeks. It was great to see her and chat about possible classes for next term. And talk about yarn and knitting and all the possibilities out there and in my brain!!!

Sigh… I just love being at yarn shops… this is where I am understood. I don’t have any explaining to do… I can talk about a three-needle bindoff, or any other procedure, any sort of yarn, and people “get it.” Sigh… I’m finally home.

Well, yarn shops close, this one did only an hour after I got there. So I went home and made a quick dinner and now I need to go back to my knitting. I’m sort of overwhelmed with it all. Too much to do, too many promises, too many ideas, and I have to sleep sometimes. It could be worse… I could have work I did not like. But I’m off now to work a little more before Brian and I rehearse.

Tomorrow is more relationship. I have tea or lunch with Altu’s youngest daughter. She did some work for me when I was preparing for my trunk show at Threadbear, around Labor Day. She wanted me to knit her some wristwarmers in return, but she never picked out her yarn.

Sunday we’ll handle all that… and I’ll have one more knitting project on my hands… but I’m ready. I can do wristwarmers in one day and then one of my many promises will be off the “to do” list.

After lunch with the wonderful kid, I’ll be back to Little Red Schoolhouse to deliver some patterns and make more firm plans for classes in January-March 2006. Whew!

Goodnight. I’m off to print some patterns and knit, and rehearse…and, and, and…

Wow, I am just nuts with projects. I delivered the purple sample Guitar Herringbone Hat to Threadbear today. It looks good. I lost one test knitter earlier this week but I gained another today, the trusty AnneMarie who also was a tester for my tea cosy. We will hope to have a hat pattern for sale soon. Crossing fingers.

Project 1
I knit a bit Thursday on the Lucy Neatby Equilateral Vest. In fact, I finished knitting the back (there is a lot of mattress stitch still pending there, and then blocking). And then I realized that somehow I was all excited last spring, that I got gauge on the first try, for the smallest size which calls for 3″ triangles. Except that I tried on Lucy’s sample and it was the second size, with 3.33″ triangles. So now I’m making a vest that is expected to measure 36″ which is my exact bust measurement. I will have a tank top rather than a vest? In worsted-weight wool? Ugh.

It took me since June to knit the 80 triangles for the back. I am not going to do that again! Either I can block it larger, or I can’t. If I can not, I will try (thanks for the suggestion, Rae) knitting some triangles in a strip, which would go exactly where the side seam is designed to go. That would take the circumference from 36″ to 41″ (Lucy’s is 40″). I bet that will work just fine, although the item will be a little shorter than I expected. I just plain will not be ripping out these 80 squares! If it has to be a worsted wool tank top, so be it! I am actually sure it will be really cute even if it fits differently than originally planned. I can wear it with a skintight turtleneck underneath if I must.

It took only 2 skeins of yarn to knit the back. And the front (two sides) takes less yarn than the back. And I bought EIGHT skeins of this gorgeous yarn for the body of the piece, plus 3 skeins of Kureyon which I planned to use as the I-cord trim. We’ll see what I actually use when it’s all done. I wonder if I would like legwarmers out of the remaining yarn??? I probably have enough yarn to do that!

Project 2
I worked further on the Scribble Lace stole. Oh, such joy that brings me! I sit there just imagining how it could be used. It would be a gorgeous wedding veil. It would make a great curtain for my back door (this I really think I might do). It will definitely be a wonderful stole. And what else might it become? Only time will tell.

Project 3
At least a year ago I bought at a resale shop, a Ralph Lauren sweater. In Manos del Uruguay yarn, burgundy multi. A colorway I’ve seen in several yarn shops. With a label inside the garment indicating that it was made in Uruguay.

It was a raglan, pretty short, snug fitting, all the things I don’t really prefer in a sweater. I figured I’d rip it out and re-use the yarn. I did try to wear it once but it was not comfy the way my oversized sweaters are.

But it’s not as intensely colored as many other yarns in my stash, so it didn’t call out very loudly. Until…

Until Rae knit a skirt from the Sally Melville Color book. And I looked up the skirt, and Sally had specified Manos Del Uruguay for that item. Hmmm… And I really love knit skirts.

So I pulled out the sweater. And thought about skirts. I don’t really want to do the Sally Melville skirt, it calls for lace/eyelets and I’m not excited about that. I like my little tight tube skirts with huge sweaters over them. And then I looked again at the sweater. It was exactly the same circumference as my favorite cotton/lycra tube skirt! Bingo!

So last night I took the plunge. I ripped out the seams from the neck down to the armhole. I detached the sleeves. and pulled on the sweater, over my hips. It is going to be perfect!!! I need to rip both front and back more, so that I am at a point at the base of the armhole where I can pick up stitches around the sweater and knit up circularly into a skirt. Voila! I’ll take advantage of a bunch of knitting I don’t have to do, and create a garment I’ll really enjoy.

Project 4
The Threadbear Watercolor Bag needs more felting/shrinking. I’m bummed, but I remember that my own bag in the specified yarn even needed some hand felting and it’s still very soft-sided. I asked Rob, Matt and Rae about the bag today and all three suggest a temperature shock treatment. (Good rubber gloves, and a hot bin of water alternated with a bin of iced water. Dunk in one, dunk in the other, repeat…)

I’m not happy with this development, but I’m clear that they are right. Ugh. Sometimes we have to do things we don’t love doing, and this would be one of those times.

The bag is absolutely gorgeous, though. Totally gorgeous. The K1C2 Paintbox yarn is just lovely… pink to purple to blue to purple to pink and back and forth. Soft and even and wonderful. And the fabric, unfelted as it is, feels so soft and fuzzy and wonderful! It will be a great bag when I get it going.

Project 5
The other day I started a Watercolor Bag for Rae. It’s totally not my colors but really beautiful and rich. I started with eggplant and now I have grass green working down to eggplant again and then a lighter green, to be followed by some autumn oranges. I am only maybe 3 inches into it but it’s my “brainless knitting” right now. It could be finished soon. Watercolor Bags are really easy to knit quickly.

Project 6
Except that when I went to Threadbear Friday, I totally forgot my knitting bag. I left both Rae’s and Threadbear’s bags at home. Pooh!

So of course I found myself some Plassard Merinos washable wool in multiple turquoises, and bought some double pointed needles, and cast on right then for a First-Time Toe-Up sock. I made it extra big because I know this yarn is not supposed to be dried and it sort of settles in a bit, not really felting but denser, when I wash it. I’ve made 2 pair socks from its thinner cousin whose name I forget. Worst case, it doesn’t settle in and I wear it as oversocks in the winter when I’m at home complaining of cold feet.

So I’ve knit on those socks today while out and about, buying lunch, waiting in line for the post office. I have about 3″ done on the first sock. I have not done much socknitting at all this year, and it felt so right to have that sock in my bag!!! It’s soft and will be a great sock.

Un-Project 1
Less than a week ago I bought some Louisa Harding yarn (machine washable cashmere blend) from Rae to knit some DK-weight gloves for myself. The yarn is still in the bag.

I finally was so cold Wednesday night that I admitted I needed gloves instantly. I went to Sears and found that they had ONE single style of glove that was mostly animal fiber. Polyester makes my skin uncomfortable and wool makes me happy and warm… luckily even though the gloves were sort of thin, they cost a mere $7 on sale and I can wear them under my bulky alpaca wristwarmers. They are exactly what the doctor ordered.

Well, once more I’m falling asleep at the keyboard. My watercolor bag is now through eggplant, green, eggplant, green, yellow, orange… So I’ve done well today… and I do have photos to illustrate my column today… but I need to sleep. See you later!

Today is Thanksgiving. I am thankful for much. I used to have a sad life and now instead days are rich and full of friendship, art, good music, good food…

I am thankful for (not necessarily in order)..

• Brian, and our Music.
• My family-of-origin… Eric, who knows me better than anyone else, and Mom who is my best fan.
• Altu, who is the truest of friends (and who took me to Africa for 5 weeks if I ever doubted her love).
• Sara, my Goddaughter who at 19 still asks to go out for dinner and knitting.
• All the amazing people now in my life… friends of all types, yarn shop owners, students young and old and in-between, neighbors, colleagues and former colleagues. Including you guys who read my words here.
• The Yarn Shops who in large part make it possible for me to make a living doing what I love.
• The arts community in Greater Lansing… no matter where I go, I know someone who dances, sings, acts, knits, does poetry… something!
• Other folks’ children and pets. I have neither, and it’s great to get a taste now and then.
• A decent-sized collection of good ethnic restaurants in my town, unheard of when I grew up here in the 1960’s and 70’s (unless Italian and Chinese makes up an “ethnic collection”).
• My paid-off blue 1998 New Beetle, Joy… who is dependable as rain at over 100,000 miles.
• My laptop.
• The Internet.
• My collection of warm sweaters and other wool goodies.
• My cute little house with light purple and coral trim, and flocks of plastic flamingos… and a husband who thinks a house like that is just fine.
• The luxury of time alone regularly, and the maturity to appreciate it.
• My pretty-colored dishes (I lost the formal china/crystal set in my divorce, 1991, and never missed it).
• Wool, Alpaca, Mohair… warm animal fibers to keep me happy and comfortable, and knitting stitch by happy stitch.
• Wool socks. That fit. In bright colors!
• Good tea. Perhaps especially good tea. It can make an ordinary moment into heaven on earth.

A more immediate gratitude is that we got to stay home for Thanksgiving. No early alarm clock, no making my portion of food for a group (I don’t like to cook), no slippery roads, no tank or two of gasoline. None of the down sides that can come with a holiday…

just a leisurely day with my beloved. And food I bought from Altu’s restaurant on Wednesday night, to heat up at meal time. I confess I bought all the supplies for pumpkin pie but have no particular interest in baking it, so maybe I’ll make it on this coming Monday (my birthday, and I really do prefer pumpkin pie to birthday cake).

Of course, I was sure I’d knit all day! Instead I slept in until I just could not stay asleep any longer. Total luxury! I read a bunch of blogs, I’m so desperately behind in my reading I think I’ll never catch up. I read a magazine. I totally love magazines far beyond their real value, but it gave me an hour of happiness anyway.

Then something that took a little bit of time, is Brian and I fussed with my laptop, which is complaining lately. I think I’m going to just buy new parts for the laptop I have rather than buying a new one. The hard drive is on its way out but the basic machine is more satisfactory than anything I can find on the market, at least in my price range.

I appreciate Brian’s viewpoints on geeky subjects like this. I now think we are just going to work together to put a new hard drive in, buy a better wireless card and live with this machine for a bit longer. I got so spoiled with my first laptop 7 years ago! It was one inch thin and only three pounds, and not ridiculously expensive. Now the only lightweight laptops with features I can live with are too pricey, and the smallest ones with a 12.1″ monitor (the perfect size in my opinion) still weigh 4 pounds or more. Pout. The one I have now is 4.5 lb so I will hang out for another time.

After the computer chat, we went for a walk. It is brutal out there today! It was about 19-20F (-6C) and sunny during our walk, but the wind was wicked!

Yesterday it snowed in earnest for the first time this season, and it kept coming down for hour after hour. Thank goodness it stopped and got cold enough to make the roads a bit safer for holiday traffic today. If Thanksgiving had been yesterday, we could have had some serious highway disasters. As it was, there were slowdowns at “rush minute” after work, but no major problems. Today, colder is better for the roads anyway.

Today we walked 5 blocks to see if the 24 hour diner was open (figuring we’d be good neighbors and have a cup o’tea there if they were open… but glad for the employees when we found the lights off). We walked a little further but then raced home to get warm.

Dinner was wonderful, thanks to the great cooking of my friend Altu. I bought 3 dinners last night just before she closed her restaurant. Today I just heated up the food and had the best possible food I can think of. Everything we had was from Altu… mild chicken with a wonderful onion sauce, mild lima beans (these are to die for… Americans don’t have a clue how to make them but Altu makes them creamy and flavorful), spicy lentils, collard greens and cabbage. Plus the famous Ethiopian bread, injera, with which one picks up the stews and eats with one’s fingers. Real food!!!

I’m so full I feel like curling up like a snake and sleeping until I digest it all. Brian’s listening to some turn-of-the-century marimba music he found on the Internet. It’s a bit surreal listening to that as I type on the Internet, but it is lovely background music.

Now it’s getting dark, and I have only knit a few stitches today. My Watercolor Bag for Threadbear is in the dryer after two rounds of washing in hot/cold.

The bottom of the bag (Montera wool/llama) felted really densely as expected, and there’s no real surprise that the K1C2 “Paint Box” yarn sides did not felt as much. This is just as true when I use Cascade 220 for the bottom and Noro Kureyon for the sides. It just is, I guess, and I do like a softer side on my bag most of the time.

What is odd is that I did a decent-sized sample swatch. It shrunk a lot more evenly than the larger bag is doing right now. We’ll see what happens, but that’s the extent of work I’m doing today on Thanksgiving.

I had planned to knit and knit and knit on my Lucy Neatby Equilateral vest! LOL (laughing out loud) on that one! I maybe have knit ten stitches on my scribble lace and that’s all the knitting I have done so far. And it’s dark already! I may easily be awake for another six to eight hours, though, so there is time to make up for that lost early knitting time.

My Wish to All of You
May you all find something to be thankful for today, if only a soft piece of wool, a smile, a ray of sun, a beautiful color, a good song, a friend, a story, a warm heat vent, a comfy sweater, a cup of tea…

Remember, if you wait for big things in order to be happy, you’ll likely miss the boat. Small things can bring happiness. In fact, noticing small things may be our only real chance of bringing ourselves a happy life. There are not enough big things to keep us going, yet there are so many small joys available to us, even daily, if we just open our eyes.

In fact, I’m sure that my ability to love small things is what got me through my many sad years. I somehow could forget the sadness for a moment, when I saw a flower or a sunset or a beautiful color. I sang a lot in those days… sang most of the time I was alone. The singing could change my day.

So, even if today is rough for you, do look around you. Find something that might give you a better day, a smile even. I’m aware that not everyone is in a good place right now. It’s the nature of life to go up and down. Feeling down during holidays is painfully obvious to the sad one, and often invisible to outsiders. Hang in there, and take care of yourself in any way you can.

Photos: 1) Our Thanksgiving feast for two, before serving up any food, 2) my plate after serving… center food is spicy lentils… then clockwise, from top, are mild chicken, mild lima beans, medium collard greens, mild cabbage (it’s yellow from the flavorings she uses, but it’s not spicy). Add the injera sourdough flat bread under it all, plus a cup of Twinings English Breakfast tea (unfortunately without the spices I’d have in Ethiopia) and it’s as wonderful a meal as one could ask for!

Aaaah, I’m ready for a holiday now! Tuesday I started winding down, I guess… my friend April across the street had some leisure time for once, and invited me over for tea. What fun that was! Her baby Isabel is so fun now… she walks around like a pro, getting into everything. She plays peek a boo, by covering her eyes with her hands. She snuggles. I especially like the snuggle part! Babies are so pure and uninhibited!

Since I was planning to have a work day on Tuesday (to make up for Thursday’s Thanksgiving holiday… I typically work Thursdays), that meant I worked into the wee hours making up for my teatime. I did not mind at all.

I finished the sample hat for Threadbear. The hat design now has a “working title.” It’s the Guitar-Trim Hat. Or the Guitar-Trim Herringbone Hat. It looks enough like herringbone trim on a guitar that Brian kept commenting on it. He was right, and the hat named itself. Of course, advice is welcome at this stage of the game… I haven’t printed any patterns yet.

I’ve done three of these hats in variations of turquoise/hot pink/hot green (the prototype, one for Yarn Garden and one for Rae’s), one hat in dark green/grass green/yellow (for Little Red Schoolhouse), and now the one for Threadbear in dark purple/raspberry/lilac.

The next version of this hat will be knit by me in natural colors of alpaca. It will use brown as the main color, with black and cream herringbone patterning, to look like wood with ebony and pale wood trim. I am hoping it will photograph OK, as black can be a real problem.

Wednesday I went to Threadbear to buy another skein of the Montera yarn I used as my solid color in their Watercolor Bag. I just need to do a little more I-cord for the handle.

I’m OK needing another skein, as I adore working with this yarn. I’ll have enough left over that I can use it for something else. I hate to admit how many skeins of this yarn I have in my stash already… plenty to do any number of projects… hmmm, stripes. I’m sure I’m on the way to designing in stripes soon… maybe this is the project where I’ll start.

While I was at Foster Center with CityKidz Knit! program Wednesday, I finished working in the ends on the Threadbear Guitar hat. I didn’t have my I-cord with me to complete with the new Montera skein. Therefore, I started back on Rae’s Watercolor Bag. It is going to be so nice and earthy, totally rich and unlike any I’ve made before in my own color style. We’ll see how far I get with that this weekend!

I figure I’ll be throwing the Threadbear Watercolor Bag in the washer Wednesday or Thursday. I’ve promised myself no knitting for anyone else on Thursday, but I am sure to be doing some laundry and can do the felting while I’m in that mode of running up and down the stairs.

After the felting I have a little bit of sewing to do (D-Rings which attach the I-Cord handle to the bag), and then my goal is to take the bag to the boyz at the shop on Friday. That’s my hope, anyway. Assuming I have all the supplies I need at home. JoAnn Fabrics will be a zoo this weekend, I know this from previous experience. It will be a madhouse to go and buy one package of D-Rings if I need some. I’m crossing fingers on that.

OK, so the I-cord is done for the Threadbear bag. I will felt it during laundry time Thursday. I will knit a few rows on my Scribble Lace project before I go to bed tonight (not sure how far that will go, as again my eyes are trying to shut as I type this). And then tomorrow? Tomorrow I knit for me! Selfish knitting day!!! Holiday!!!

Thursday is Thanksgiving Day in the USA, and I will be thankful. I’ll be thankful for Brian, for my warm home, my warm clothing, food from Altu’s Restaurant (I bought three dinners to go Wednesday night, so we can heat up goodies from her for a few meals this weekend), and quiet knitting time.

We are keeping it simple, which is exactly what I love. My family is two people (at least from day to day), and this family of two will enjoy good food and relaxation together. We’ll go for a walk and we’ll eat and listen to music, maybe play our instruments together, and just relax. I’m very grateful I will not be driving on the now-slippery roads, this holiday.

I am planning to work on my Lucy Neatby Equilateral Vest Thursday. I could do that or a bunch of other possible projects, but that one requires the most concentration and the most attention to a pattern. I make mistakes on anything designed by someone else which requires a pattern! So quiet time will be great for that.

I could instead bring out my knitting machine for some fun exploration. However, right now the house can not handle one more mess and I don’t want to clean before I play. The vest will be perfect.

For those who celebrate, may you find something (or many somethings) to be thankful for this Thursday.

Hi, friends. I need to thank Dawn K. for writing at just the right time! My “Cozy Corner Teapot Sweater” is now available as well… and somehow I never put up that pattern on my website.

SO: I amend my offer… order three patterns (minimum purchase $15) and choose either the tea cosy pattern or the Garden Capelet pattern free. And I pay shipping.

Deadline 11/30/2005. Send email to Lynn AT ColorJoy DOT com detailing your order, and I’ll get you started.

Thanks, Dawn!!!

I’m knitting as fast as I can, once more…

Monday night I thought I’d finish the knitting part of my Watercolor Bag for Threadbear. I ran out of yarn while knitting the I-cord for my handle. Drat! I am using different yarns for this bag than I originally specified in the pattern, and the solid I chose is a heavy worsted weight yarn with fewer yards than my original solid. Pooh!

I do love the solid yarn I’m using this time. It’s wool/llama in a single ply, really great. So I guess I’ll have leftovers and I’ll enjoy making them into something, perhaps a hat or wristwarmers.

The down side is that I can’t finish my bag today unless I trek over to Threadbear, and I’d hoped to keep it a little closer to home. Wednesdays I’m on that side of town so now I have a one-day delay. I’ll get over it.

Other knitting: I am working slowly on my Scribble Lace Stole. Oh, my! It’s so pretty and fun. It makes me want to knit “sheer” curtains for my doors! It makes me want to run with it through the woods at dawn! (Now, THAT is something that will only happen in my imagination… but I have this picture of the sun shining through the lace at a low angle… maybe sunset will have to do.) Well, at least window covers might happen…

My current scribble lace suffered from being taken out in public. I lost 2 stitches while working the laceweight mohair, during just 3 rows (56 stitches each) of knitting. I found one, but was lost on the other, so when I popped in to Rae’s for some yarn, Rae found my dropped stitch. I could hug her!

Speaking of Rae… she knit a Garden Capelet literally in a few days, using Louisa Harding Yarns and my pattern. It’s so pretty, so dressy, so different than the yarns I’d chosen (which were of course bold and intensely colorful). Hers are subtle and elegant. As shiny and gold as mine is fluffy and bold.

The ribbon she chose is particularly great for this design. It’s gold and glittery, thick and randomly colored. The thick ribbons give it a distinctive texture and complement the randomness of the colors. It has a soft teal green-blue as its primary solid color underneath that gold-multicolor ribbon. Gorgeous.

By the way, I just got a little home DVD video from a friend, of a small part of our performance at the Midwest Ukefest. I was wearing my own (purple) Garden Capelet, and it was very flattering as I moved to the music.

I am pleased with how this item actually wears in real life. The neckline is a beautiful curve which was low enough to show off the rhinestone necklace I wore (sentimental… Dad gave it to Mom when they first were together). In the DVD that necklace was glittering from afar, above the capelet neckline. It worked even better than I expected!

Now, for those of you who are still reading… the Garden Capelet pattern has not previously been available on my website before today. So I’m offering a special… order any three of my patterns (not the freebies, of course), and I’ll send you the Garden Capelet pattern for no extra charge, plus I’ll offer free shipping. You just can’t beat that!

I appreciate you blog readers more than you know, and sometimes I can offer you something special like this in thanks. The special expires at midnight Eastern Time, November 30 (that’s next Wednesday).

Photos: 1) Garden Capelet knit by Rae Blackledge of Rae’s Yarn Boutique, in Louisa Harding yarns. 2) Garden Capelet I wore on stage at Midwest Ukefest last month.

I have been happily drowning in Watercolor Bags lately. I’ve been knitting the sample for Threadbear for a while now. I did cut out the section of yarn I didn’t think looked right, and grafted it together. I finished that on Saturday night, and I have pictures of the whole process once I get time to sit still with PhotoShop for that many photos.

That bag is down to the decreases for the base of the bag, and then interminable I-cord for the handle. I bet I finish it by Wednesday. I hope.

Sometime in the last week I was at Rae’s and realized that she also does not have a sample of this bag. This bag is in my top 3 pattern sales, and samples do sell patterns! (I’ve already knit one for Yarn Garden in Charlotte, one for Little Red Schoolhouse, and amazingly one for me.)

I need Rae to have a bag, so I had her pick me some yarn for the project. It was great to have her do that, because she chose very different colors than I would have, and this rounds out the possibilities well. The first photo here is my batch from Rae, with sort of autumn colors and eggplant solid. I haven’t knit with this Patons Classic yarn yet so I’ll look forward to that.

Then on Thursday night, I started the first session of my hats & bags (circular knitting) class at Foster Center. Two of my students are making Watercolor Bags (they got their yarn at Little Red Schoolhouse). The middle photo today is the yarn picked by Lori, and last is the yarn picked by Brenda. More yarn combinations I would not have chosen, which is very exciting to me. I will be very eager to see how these turn out!

And with that, Dear Readers, I will “hit the feathers” as a friend says (go to bed). I have more photos, one of feltmaking class at Threadbear on Sunday… but I need to sleep. See you soon!

Whew. Saturday I went out to dinner at Altu’s, then went to Old Town (Creole Gallery, the closest thing to Chicago we have in Lansing) for a CD-Release party/concert. The performers were Pat Madden and Sally Potter, both absolute anchors in the local music community. Actually, they used to sing as a trio (with Betsy Clinton) called Second Opinion. Second Opinion sang at our wedding nine years ago, which was a great honor.

The music was incredible, the company afterward was just plain home. Knitters/musicians everywhere, everyone was friendly and happy and it was the most fun I’ve had in a crowd in a long time. I talked forever. I got home after 1am. Now, I often go to bed around then but I’m usually home for the night at around 9pm. I’m still tired!

I have so much to tell you and I have been out more than in lately, little time to edit photos or even write to you.

Here’s a very sad little star I knitted. This was the project we did at knitting guild on Tuesday (almost a week ago). The guild is making a garland of these stars, knit by many members of the group.

However, the yarn I used here was dyed with Kool-Aid by my CityKidz Knit! program a few years back. (We used Canadian Kool-Aid sent by an Internet friend, and yarn donated from a knitting buddy either locally or online, I don’t remember any more.)

I decided that it would be most appropriate to give the star to my supervisor at Foster Community Center. She really does appreciate things just like this, handmade (she is a crocheter, herself). And she likes to decorate for holidays.

I was right, she loved it. And it felt right that she have it since the yarn was from the kids, anyway.

Happy
I had a wonderful Friday. I slept as long as I could (the city furnace inspector called before I really wanted to wake up but I did sleep longer than usual). I got enough sleep to shake off the 2-day headache, which was great news.

Lunch with Tony
I had a small late breakfast with great tea. Then I went at noon to New Aladdin’s at Frandor to meet my friend Tony for lunch.

I had not seen Tony in months. I missed him. He is such a fine individual, and very good company as well. We had a great lunch and then we went to Rae’s Yarn Boutique across the street (how convenient that she is right in “my neighborhood”). It was quite the scene there today… I saw someone I’ve known since the late 1970’s, and saw Sarah Peasley and Sharon P. as well.

Knitting Time/Talking Time
And then my friend/student Sue came around, and we knitted and talked and knitted more. Sue started a new scarf with gorgeous thick/thin yarn in pinks and white and greens.

Fiddling/Revising Scarf/Hat Set
At the same time, I finally finished the skein of yarn I had on the 2nd Ebeneezer Project scarf… and it made a fairly short scarf. So to make the scarf better, I took some stash textured yarn in almost the same color, picked up stitches at the bottom of the scarf ends. I knit another 3 garter ridges and then 3 rows of looped knitting (Rae showed me how, it was easier than the looped cast on I did once). Then bound off.

The looped fringe was cute on the scarf. But then the hat didn’t really match… Tony suggested a pom pom and I ended up making one with loops rather than cut ends (the stash yarn would have ravelled if cut).

The hat is way more cute than it was with a button on top. The pom pom is just adorable! And actually, the looped fringe is good as well. It did make a scarf with a right side and wrong side but that’s not so bad, really, as when we wear a scarf one side is out and one is not visible. I hope it makes someone really warm, the base yarn is Lamb’s Pride Worsted wool/mohair.

More Proof that Lansing is a “Small Town”
So then I walked across the street (I told you this is my neighborhood) to get groceries at the health food store. And ran into two young ladies I used to know around 1990 or so when I worked at Black Child and Family Institute. I’ve run into them and their parents from time to time so recognized them. We got talking and talking, there is so much to share sometimes! It was wonderful.

Home, Sweet Home
Then home, and a simple dinner of pasta and italian red tomato sauce, with fava beans for protein in the sauce. And some knitting. (Later we also practiced our music… a wonderful way to really feel married, if you ask me.)

Happiness is Knitting without Deadlines
I got a lot done knitting today. Since Friday is a day I designate ss a day off, I mostly worked on items not for work/yarn shops.

Besides finishing the charity hat/scarf set, I finished grafting together two parts of the Watercolor Bag (I took photos of the whole process if I ever get the time/inclination to edit them). It’s ready for me to start knitting the bottom of the bag (it’s top down).

I also swatched a bit more on the Indulgence yarn from my friend Rob at Threadbear. I like the two choices I swatched a day or two ago, but now I am trying a few more stitch patterns before I decide. It will be a LOT of knitting. I want to really love the process of knitting it, and I want to really love the result. Swatching now will help me love everything about this project.

Extra-Fun Knitting Project for Myself
And best of all: I started a Scribble Lace stole from Debbie New’s book “Unexpected Knitting.” Of course, I am not following the instructions literally (and I can not believe Debbie would expect me to). However, it’s really beautiful so far.

I am using a thick/thin yarn in white, dark blue and bluish-turquoise (I got it in Indianapolis), along with a very thin laceweight fuzzy mohair yarn in a medium-light purple (from Rae). The purple is just the foil for the blues (I am the only person I know who does not like standard blues at all, though I like teals and purple-blues if they contain very little gray).

So I love the color combination and I love the very intriguing/textured fabric. I can guarantee that when I was a child, this fabric would have really bothered me because it is not even or orderly at all. Right now, it is the right kind of wild!

I am just sure this will be a very warm stole with the fat wool and the mohair. Mohair is so very warm even when extremely lightweight! I’m excited… who knows when I’ll finish it but I’m sure I will, it’s so beautiful. The down side is that it really requires looking at the knitting as you work, and I’m not very good at that. I’ll have to have other “on the road” projects.

I’m expecting a good-sized stole. The thick-thin yarn in the book was Colinette Point 5 which has 54 yards in a skein. This yarn I’m using is GGH Trikolore and it has 77 yards (70m). The lace mohair is Kid Merino by Crystal Palace with 240 yards in 25gm.

I’m knitting 2 rows of the mohair on size 19 US/15mm needles and one row on size 15 US/10mm, plus one row of thick-thin on the size 15, and that is one repeat. It looks like I have a very close to perfect ratio between the yarns for that repeat sequence, and I’ll have a significantly larger wrap than the book shows. I’m looking forward to wearing it already!

The Scribble project goes really fast, on those huge needles. I just started the project after dinner, and I have almost a foot (30cm) of fabric knit already (only 56 stitches per row, 16 rows knit thus far). Wonderful!

Photo Status
I’m still sort of overwhelmed with how many photos I’ve taken in the last few days. I’ll eventually get you a great photo-essay of the cutting/grafting of my Watercolor bag, and some photos of at least one class, and perhaps some scribble lace (so far the only lace that attracts my eye in any real way). For now, it’s already bedtime again.

(OK I lied, I amended this entry to show one close-up of the scribble lace around midnight… then another larger view added on Saturday just before noon. Fun, huh?)

Well, I had a looooong day. I had a computer training job for a client I used to see weekly, but haven’t seen in months. It was SO good to see them again, and we had a great and productive day. But our appointment was at 9am, and I don’t usually wake up until after that time. So that alarm went off mighty early! No problem, I’ll do whatever this client wants. They have been good to me for more than a decade, and they feel more like friends than just clients.

After that appointment, I had a quick lunch with my friend Altu and then went to Foster Center for the rest of the day. I first had CityKidz Knit! program, which is just more wonderful every week. Then I had a computer lab (with hangers-on knitting during computer time).

And finally I had the first session of my Hats and Bags class. Two of my students are doing my Watercolor Bag. This is quite flattering, since I allowed them to choose any project in the round they wanted. I’m excited to see how their bags come together, as they chose very different colors than I’ve chosen thus far (I do tend to go toward intense colors with blue undertones).

I’d say it was as successful and busy a day as I could possibly wish for. I loved it all… but I’m tired!

Unfortunately, underneath it all I’m fighting day 2 of yet another allergy headache. Therefore, I’m going to bed before midnight and I’m not taking time to process my photos today.

Stay warm, everyone! It was 21F at 9am here, and snowy. Ugh. At least the roads, where I was driving, were not slippery.

Off to sleep…

As you may know, I love two-color knitting… specifically, “stranded” knitting which is sometimes called Fair Isle. I love Turkish socks, Norwegian mittens, Estonian, Latvian, any culture’s knitting which does this.

I just got a book on Andean knitting (also stranded) today, through the mail. I’m only on page 23, the history behind the book is wonderful. The book is called Andean Folk Knits by Marcia Lewandowski, and I got it on Overstock.com (thanks to another blogger’s mention of it). So far, so fabulous!

Well, as I mentioned earlier, I taught at Rae’s Yarn Boutique on Monday. And my! did she have some fine knit items hot off the needles! There is a red and cream hat with stranded knitting and a “braid” detail. This one is in a more traditional handwash wool, very warm and springy.

And then the luxury of the next set: Louisa Harding yarn (a blend of cashmere, microfiber and merino wool which is delightfully machine wash/machine dry and comes in 2 weights and bunches of colors) in a hat and matching glove (soon to be two gloves, I’m sure). This yarn is squishy, dense, soft and warm. Total luxury. And lovely too… no? She says the specifics on the pattern and yarn, etc., are on her blog, Extravayarnza, if you are interested.

In other knitting news, I’m nearly 3/4 of the way through my Watercolor Bag for Threadbear. I gave in to temptation, as well, and I wound one ball of the Cascade Indulgence… and knit a hefty swatch in two different stitch patterns (both variations on ribs). It looks promising, at leat before handwashing/blocking.

I’m 1/3 of the way through my 2nd charity scarf. I’m very ready to be done with this one… it’s a color that I don’t love but it’s warm.

And I was thrilled today (the first day we’ve had any snow at all) that I found my second bulky alpaca wristwarmer (in my dance bag… the first one was in my purse). It was missing for a week and I missed it.

I’m in catch-up mode again with my photos. I went to Altu’s on Saturday to hear Scarlet Runner String Band Play. They did a great job. Here’s a close up of the guys playing.

Sunday I went to Working Women Artists. The project of the month was gourd art. Oh, my! I had no idea. You can carve them, dye them, color in other ways, drill holes in the edges for added basketweaving (or crochet/knit though nobody did that). Some of the patterning added was wonderfully detailed. I actually sat and knitted (I’m really trying to finish a lot of my promises so I can knit for myself again) but watching was a feast for the eyes. Other folks took photos, but I don’t have any of my own.

Monday (before my computer classes in Haslett) I taught a wet-felting class at Rae’s. This was a wonderful thing, where Betsy and Erin wrote me an email asking for a class. We found a day when we all 3 were available, and then I called Rae (she was geographically in the right neck o’the woods for me to teach and then pop over to Haslett and teach my night classes). Rae had room in her classroom so we made it happen.

I will do this for any two or more students wanting a particular class… let me know how many are guaranteed and what class you want, I’ll find the most appropriate location for a classroom and we’ll make it happen.

Photos: 1) Scarlet Runner String Band at Altu’s. 2) Betsy and Erin’s feltmaking projects. They first made small mug-rug type multicolored pieces. Then they made small felt balls, followed by felt-covered Orangina drink bottles, and finished with some alpaca-blend fiber (the darker honey colored items) where we made little pouches out of felt.

Tuesday, November 15, we will have a Mid-Michigan Knitting Guild meeting. It is at the University Lutheran church on Harrison Road not far from Trowbridge, between the United Methodist church and the Islamic Center. We meet in the basement social hall.

Meeting starts at 7pm (ends 9pm) but folks roll in before that and sit and knit. The snacks are always artful and tasty, and the company is grand. It doesn’t matter if you’ve never been there, you’ll be welcomed warmly if you just say hello. We are all re-learning one another’s names frequently ourselves.

Please consider a visit if you are within driving distance. We’d love to have you join us.

This upcoming weekend is a big one for me. I’m teaching my two most popular classes at Threadbear Fiberarts in Lansing, Michigan.

Saturday 11/19 will be Polymer Clay for Fiber Folk… mostly Buttons and Beads, but I’m not limiting the ideas at that. There is no way to have a bad polymer clay class… people can do wonderful things the very first day, learning how to combine colors so that they can make buttons to “go” with if not match a favorite handknit item. Class is from noon to 5pm.

Sunday 11/20 I’m teaching my wonderful ColorJoy Stole Class. This class should really be called “Combining Colors and Textures” because at least half the class is about this subject. Many folks are not experienced mixing yarns so we practice and learn together.

The second half of the day I teach techniques for this project… including how to fix dropped stitches in textured yarns/garter stitch, and other knitting hints. Often my students will make a date to have dinner with one another in a month or so, to show off their final projects. It’s as much fun as one can have with yarn! This class is from 11am-5pm.

Since both classes are a solid day, you’ll need a bit of a break in the middle. Either bring lunch or plan to go out and find a little take out on the west side of Lansing. I stay in for the duration to handle any questions.

Write Rob at rob@threadbearfiberarts.com to sign up, or call 517/703-9276. I can’t wait to have you join me!

Photos: 1&2) student projects from an earlier polymer clay class at Threadbear, 3) Sharon and Sherida in late September showing off two of their four ColorJoy stoles that they have knit since class in July, 4) extra-warm stole I knit for my friend Elizabeth in 2004.

I sure have been making a lot of stitches on the needles lately! Finally it looks like I’ve finished a few things.

Shown here is a bulky hat/scarf set for the Ebeneezer Project (a charity supported by Threadbear)… destined to a New Orleans Refugee now living in the Lansing Area. The yarn for the hat is a variegated bulky from Rae’s, and I almost ran out of that yarn. I divided the remainder into two equal balls and then knit each half as a stripe near the end, of a solid eggplant Bulky Lamb’s Pride yarn I got from Linda at Little Red Schoolhouse. Both yarns are a single-ply bulky wool and it worked very well, I think.

I’m working on a second set (Lamb’s Pride Worsted), the hat is done but not the scarf. The purple made me more interested, the second set is a soft gray-green that is not my style and which wouldn’t take Kool Aid dye when the kids at Foster Center tried to overdye it in blues and greens… but it will be warm anyway.

I also finished a sample hat for Rae’s Yarn Boutique for this pattern I’m working on. Hers is in Debbie Bliss DK Alpaca/Silk. It’s like touching air, really! So soft! She carries the yarn so she can use the sample right away and I am finishing up the pattern as quickly as is practical.

I’ve finished the three skeins of yarn required for the sides of my Watercolor Bag for Threadbear. Unfortunately, after picking yarn, changing my mind and getting new yarn, knitting the “new idea” fully… well, I don’t like it. I’m not the only one, either, as I’ve shown it around and it just doesn’t work well. It is right now two different colorways of a Knit 1 Crochet 2 brand slow-color-change feltable yarn. I just couldn’t find a good pairing of colorways that I could stand to knit together.

The Watercolor Bag was originally designed for Noro Kureyon yarn. That yarn has colorways with sometimes a dozen colors of wool in one ball. I designed the bag to combine THREE different colorways (though many students have chosen two balls of one colorway with a different one in the middle). Because the Kureyon has so many colors in it, the change between colorways is undetectable most of the time. In fact, Linda at Little Red Schoolhouse has to go out of her way to convince people that I used three different color numbers for the sample bag at her store. It works well.

But this K1C2 yarn is much more controlled, it has very even changes from color to color, and in most of the colorways it does not have much contrast, is mostly similar colors near one another on the color wheel.

So I used a colorway that is not far from the Noro idea, it has pink and purple and blue… and I chose that for the top and bottom yarns. Then I chose a colorway in blues and greens for the center “stripe.” And the blue/green is almost flat, nearly no contrast next to the first multicolor. And it just plain looks like a mistake. Even though there is a color that is in both yarns, it isn’t enough to relate them together.

SO… I will cut out the middle skein, graft the third skein to the first with a sewing needle (I actually enjoy handsewing so this is no problem) and continue knitting at the bottom of the bag. Using three balls of the same colorway number. Hey, it’s pretty that way so I will not knock it!

Off to knit more on my gray-green garter stitch charity scarf. Good thing I totally love both my vintage plastic needles and the texture of the yarn I’m knitting.

Oh, wow. I am in the process of trying to re-organize my yarn area, it’s just so messy I couldn’t find things easily. And I was pretty darned sure I had another hank of pink Indulgence.

I found one! And (drum roll) it’s the same dye lot as the four skeins Rob gifted me with this week!!! Whooboy, I’m living right or something. So it’s official: I have 1230 yards of this heaven-in-a-skein.

Laurie says I should consider a shetland lace shawl. She says they are easy to knit without needing to carry around a chart. I don’t even know anything about how they look. I like some geometric lace, am not fond of flowery/girly lace, but she thinks I can find something I like. I will have to go looking around.

I like entertaining the idea of a sweater of some simple sort… but this will be really warm fabric so eyelets make sense… except that there is that “I don’t really like lace” thing again.

A ballet-type wrap sweater sounds great but that would fit too tight for the garment to breathe, I think. I also tried on that greek-inspired sweater that was in Interweave Knits (Fall 2005)… when the actual sweaters were at Threadbear for a trunk show. It was really cute on me (I’d pass on the chiffon edging), but again it fits really close with stockinette fabric, and would probably be too hot in this yarn. (I can’t believe I actually am worried about being too warm, but this is alpaca/angora so I think even for me this is an issue to consider.)

Good thing I don’t have to decide right away! I sure don’t have time to knit it right now, anyway, but the planning is just as fun as the knitting and the wearing, you know?

Off to listen to Scarlet Runner at Altus…

Brian is in many bands, and one he has played in for a long time is the Scarlet Runner String Band. They usually play instrumental music for Contradances. Sometimes, however, I’m lucky and I can snag them for a concert performance at Altu’s. This Saturday (today, perhaps, depending on when you read my blog), they are playing again for Altu.

I’m really excited, I love to hear them sing for a change! Larry does a bunch of numbers but I love his cowboy song best of all. Brian sings/plays all sorts of variety, and Mike sings/plays some originals and some jug band/”old-timey” music. I love how Mike sings. He’s doing a solo performance for Altu in December, which will be a treat. Meanwhile, please join us this Saturday for good food, great music and great fun.

This photo is of the Scarlet Runner Band, playing at Altu’s in July of 2003.

Friday was wonderful. I slept in and worked at home, ran just a few errands, and then had dinner with “My Sara.” That is, dinner and a stop at Rae’s Yarn Boutique then knitting at Starbucks in East Lansing till past 11pm. There is no better way to spend a day, than with this young lady.

Sara, if you are new to my blog, is my Goddaughter. She is 18 and a sophomore at Michigan State University in East Lansing (last year she went to Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, MI). Her mother and I were friends in elementary school, graduated together, have stayed connected all these years. I like to say that my friend Jo had my children for me, which is not all that far from the truth.

I don’t see Sara’s mom or other family members too much any more (including her brother, Michael, who is also my Godchild), but Sara calls me from time to time, requesting my company. I am more than delighted to comply! She is the best company one could have… we are a “mutual admiration society” and just have a blast every time we get together. Which is not nearly enough, but we need to make concessions to busy lives sometimes.

Sara called before Ukefest and I just could not make time until now. She’s busy when I’m free, and vice-versa. We made up the lost time this week, spending hour after luxurious hour together. We ate at the Mongolian Barbecue where we both can eat food that we’re not allergic to, and enjoy every bite at the same time.

But Sara had a plan beyond dinner. Several years ago I showed her how to knit. She started on some socks but got distracted by life. When she went to college last year she picked up the needles again and made many scarves, including the one she knit for me at Christmas time last year.

Over the years I’ve knit Sara three pair of socks. (See the first, second and third pair.) She loves them (especially her Sherbet Sox/pair #2), and she says that they are getting thin. Of course I have encouraged her to get them to me before they are full of holes, so I can darn them for her. But now she wants to knit her own. Cool!

We went from dinner to Rae’s, got some Naturally 10 ply (worsted superwash merino) which I know makes comfy socks, and then we went to Starbucks where they have comfy chairs and room to spread out… and they didn’t close till midnight. Sara likes a strawberry drink they offer, and I get tea.

So we dove in, and by the time we left around 11:15, she had two purple merino toes on her “First-Time Toe-Up Socks.” On double-pointed needles. Go, Sara!

She’s a really fast learner with knitting, it’s fun and easy to teach her because she gets it the first time. She’s a determined young lady and I’m absolutely sure she’ll finish these… it may take time with school distractions, but she really loves those handknit socks. She’s hooked, as I am. I’m glad, because that means I’ll be seeing her soon to work on the heels.

At one point in the knitting festivities (I was knitting my Watercolor Bag sample for Threadbear), I decided to hold up my camera and take a picture of the two of us. I scrunched myself next to Sara in her roomy chair and we got this mug shot. It was fun, sort of giggly girl fun. I had such a good time!!!

On Monday, I went to Haslett Community Ed to teach computer classes. The lab where I teach is in an alternative high school. The room is not a regular classroom, it is shared by a number of instructors if I understand it correctly. It appears that sometimes students go to this room for something like study hall.

So this week when I arrived, the movie projector screen had been pulled down in front of the whiteboard. When I raised the screen, I saw this drawing underneath. It was graffiti of the sort that doesn’t harm any surface. It will not stay there long, I’m sure, but I felt inspired to take a photo.

It looks to me as if the artist was interrupted in the middle of the drawing. Can you see that the mouth was only partly filled in?

Now you see it, now you don’t.

Wednesday, little Isabel (my dance friend/neighbor April’s baby) came to dance practice. It was fun to have her there.

She has always been quite clingy to her mom when in the big group of dancers. This time was different. She saw all these ladies wearing such shiny things, she couldn’t help herself. She went from one dancer to the next, reaching out to touch the shiny pseudo-coins as they dangled freely. Such a sweetie. It was great to see her grow more confident (even if it was because of the shiny things we all love) and wander away from mommy more than ever. They do grow up!

Here is the sweet girl in a room full of dancers having a small meeting. Garnett/Yasmina Amal (our troupe director) is standing at the front of the group making plans for the next performance. Isabel is entranced by her coins. Nobody minds at all, about half the dancers are mothers themselves and the rest of us adore the babies who are not ours. I love this pic… business as usual for all but the child, you know?

And finally April holding our sweet thing. One of the dancers let Isabel play with her unused coin wrap. The baby was playing hide and seek with me using it to hide behind. Such fun!

I tell you what, in spite of my complaints about cold weather and being tired during this allergy season, I’m a woman with a great life. I get to teach people who want to learn what I know, I get to hang out with other creative people, I get to work for people I consider friends, not just business partners, and I just plain have great folks around me nearly all the time. And that surely includes my cyber-friends as well.

Door #1
I’ve had actual gifts lately from people in my life. When I went to CityKidz Knit! program last Thursday, a student came in who I had not seen since last spring. She’s still knitting away at home, so she honestly doesn’t *need* me much, but we like to be in the same room knitting together, and occasionally I can help her out (though it’s becoming rare). I do delight in supplying her with yarn (which comes from my knitting friends here and in cyber-land) when she needs more. She made a backpack which I’ve not seen yet, and she’s busy on a baby blanket for a sister in law who is expecting this spring.

This y