What a Mess

Tuesday evening I sat down with my knitting and pulled this mess from my bag. Two projects each with two balls of yarn in the same bag both of which had been pulled out to knit during the day. It only took 10 minutes to straighten out.

Bavarian Tulip Mitten

Pattern: Bavarian Tulip Mitten from Interweave Knits Fall 2010.

Yarn: Spud and Chloe Sweater

Needles: Size 3. I probably should have gone down to a size 2 as my gauge was a little off, but knitting with this weight yarn on a smaller needle would have been hard on my hands. The mitten does fit, so it wasn't far off.

I liked the pattern, but would change the side chain pattern. It has a repeat of 14 rows and directions say to start the first repeat on row 1 and the second repeat on row 5. If I were to do it over, I would start on rows 1 and row 7. The way it is, the cables are only slightly different; looks like a mistake. It would be definitely different starting the pattern farther apart. I might even just start them both at the same place.

The second mitten will be made when I teach the class, in January I think it is.

On Ravelry someone mentioned that the thumb decreases made the thumb too pointed so I followed her advice to decrease down to 7, not to 4 as the pattern says.

I like the way the Kitchner stitch forms the top pattern.

Saturday Sky

I remembered on Saturday! The day started out with light showers and clouds all morning. All of a sudden this afternoon the clouds are clearing and it is 62 degrees outside.

The leaves are just starting to turn. Some say we will have beautiful colors because of all the rain; others say they won't be as pretty. We'll have to wait and see.

Walk Through the Woods Kerchief

I was at this point and had just about decided to frog, but when I laid it out like this I thought I'd knit one more repeat of the border before making my final decision. I just wasn't sure I liked the pattern. Maybe because it wasn't my usual lacy shawl pattern.

I did one more repeat and liked it much better, so did finish it. In fact, I've worn it once and received several compliments on it.

Pattern: Walk Through the Woods Kerchief by The Sexy Knitter.

Yarn: 100% super wash merino dyed by Lorajean of Knitted Wit colorway Two Roads.

Pattern, Yarn and Button were from Wool Girl Sock Club. www.woolgirl.com.

Button from Wooden Treasures.

After Hours KAL

Knitters Brewing Co After Hours Shawl Knit A Long. I purchased the kit from www.knittersbrewingco.com which included yarn, pattern and beads.

Yarn: Knitters BrewingCo Sock-aholic Sweet fingering Weight which is 60% Superwash Merino/15% Nylon/15% Bamboo/10% Silk. One skein.

Needles: US Size 11. I used the needles called for in the pattern, thinking I'd like a tighter gauge. Because I often use a smaller needle for lace shawls, I decided I'd use what it called for to see how I like the final results. To be honest, I wish I'd gone down about 2 sizes as this is a fairly loose knit and from the pictures I've seen on Ravelry, the pattern is more defined with a smaller needle.

Nursing Class Retreat

Last weekend my nursing class had its weekend retreat. We started this in 1990 and have done it every 5 years since then. Twenty five of us graduated, but several who did not finish with us have come, too, so we had 23 women this time. Words can't begin to express the special friendship we have. In our school days we lived together 24 hours a day for 2 years. The other 2 years at St Olaf we were together, but were intermingled with the rest of the college class. As nurses, we were drawn close together by the stress of long hours on duty and class, and caring for ill and dying patients, but we had lots of fun, too.
We started talking even before we got in the door.

Later we enjoyed the perfect weather.

We visited in the conference room.

We visited in the dining room over coffee and meals.

We visited in the hallway outside our rooms. We talked all weekend!

We get together at Mt Olivet Retreat Center in Farmington, MN which is a beautiful place in the country on wooded grounds with beautiful flower beds. We even had a campfire and made smores!

Maureen and I planned this get together, so after it was over, we celebrated a successful weekend.

Sky 09-13 and 09-18-10

I finally remembered this is Saturday and got a picture of the sky. Having periods of sun and cloudy, but when the sun is out is nice but cool. Only supposed to get up to 58 today.

Last week I forgot on Saturday so this is Sunday. It could just as well been Saturday as the days were identical. Maybe it was excusable because it was the first day of my nursing class retreat which Maureen and I were responsible to plan. More on that later. We did such a good job of planning, even the weather was perfect. Not a cloud in the sky all weekend and it was warm enough to sit outside during the day.

Slippers

This is a class I will be teaching at Amazing Threads. The pattern is Knitting Pure & Simple Loads of Slippers and has patterns for 4 different styles of slippers. I decided students in this class could choose either one of these as they are made basically the same. I like the looks of the top slipper, but it feels loose and I think it would fall off easily. The bottom one feels good and secure on the foot.

Yarn:Plymouth Chunky Superwash.

I've often thought to avoid SSS (second sock syndrome) I would use the same yarn but use different patterns for each sock. Kind of like my grand daughter's soccer team who wore one black and one white sock.

Saturday Sky 09-05-10

Well, I forgot Saturday, but this beautiful sky on Sunday reminded me. It was a beautiful Sunday, cool, temperature only in the 70's.

MN State Fair

I took my annual trip to the MN State Fair last week, along with a few hundred thousand other people. My trip was short and sweet. I saw, ate and bought what I wanted and went home. The Creative Activity Building is a must and I spend a lot of time there. I love to stand in front of the knitting display case and listen to people's comments. The most popular one, "That takes so much patience." When I heard someone ask her friend, "When do people find time to do this?" I had to interject, "My knitting is in my purse and I knit all the way to the fair on the bus." My favorite comment this year was, " What do they do with these things when they bring them home from the fair?" Her friend's comment was, "I suppose they enter them in another fair." Duh...they live in MN and in front of them are sweaters, hats, mittens, and socks.

This year I came away with an angry feeling. Here is a typical display of the knitting. This rack has beautiful shawls, scarves, afghans, crammed together so nothing shows. The back of the display cabinet had sweaters hung so close, overlapping you couldn't tell what it was. Amazing Threads has a youth knitting group and one girl (maybe 13 or 14) made a beautiful sweater which she entered in the adult division. When she proudly brought her family to see it displayed, all that showed was the button on the front. Then, walking through the rest of the display area, there are quilts hung all over, all beautifully displayed. The ones that weren't in the cabinets had glass double sided display units which hung together so you could page through like a book. Lots of quilts, all visible. (I have nothing against quilters, just the displays at the State Fair.)

Knitting in the 50's

My nursing class is having a reunion this coming weekend, so I'm gathering old pictures to bring along and found this one of dorm life in the 50's. This was an evening in the dorm, knitting.

Sock Clubs

I've belonged to Wool Girl Sock Club www.woolgirl.com all of this year and I think it is my favorite. It is just like Christmas when the package arrives! The regular club shipments come every other month, and she has extra ones that you can order. This is an extra: Glinda, the Good Witch.

Each kit comes with two patterns, so it isn't just socks, plus lots of goodies. Usually there is a project bag and every one I've gotten has fun stitch marker.
This is the August club shipment.

I discovered Three Irish Girls yarn and just love the yarn and colors, plus this is a local yarn from Duluth, MN. I joined Yarnista Sock Club for only two shipments to try it out. This is my first shipment but I know I'll continue with more. Prior to shipment time, you get notification to choose from several colors of yarn. Check out http://www.threeirishgirls.com/ for a choice of three yarn clubs. (I missed that-will have to check it out.) I like the lip balm that was included with the yarn-no patterns included in this club, but that's fine with me.A friend of mine likes Hazel-Knits Sock Club, so I also gave this one a try for a two month trial, I think. www.hazelknits.com. This one has two skeins of yarn, a pattern, and a gift.
My husband's comment when I confessed I'd joined all these clubs, "What will you do with all the yarn? Add it to the closet downstairs?" (I also joined Romi's shawl and pin club, but have not received that one yet. I know, I'm obscessed!

Red Hat Dinner

My Red Hat group went to dinner at Osaka's in Roseville, MN. I hadn't even known it was there and I'd even been at the other end of the same strip mall the week before. One of the eating options is to have the chef prepare the meal right in front of you plus put on an artistic show with the knives, which is what we did.
That's the way to get your sake!

Beware if it is your birthday! This was a fun experience and the food was excellent.

Technology Again

Last week my husband and I bought a Wii, hoping to get some exercise and have something for the grand children to play with when they come over. Well, my husband has no skills at hooking this kind of thing up so didn't even try. I opened the instructions and decided I didn't want to take the time to figure it out. So when our grand son, Blake, called up and asked to spend some time with us before school started we explained our problem. No problem! He'd do it! So last night he had an overnight and here he is setting up our Wii. My husband and I just sat on the couch and laughed watching a 9 year old doing something beyond us. We had fun playing some of the sports with him. When he was finished playing he wondered what else we could do. Well, two old folks don't have a lot for him to do, but he jumped at the chance to bake chocolate chip cookies. He did it from scratch. It reminded me of when I was young, my grand mother taught me to make chocolate chip cookies!

Knitting Students

It's fun to see a knitting student so excited about it that she knits on the bicycle! A few months ago I started a class at my Curves. The women in the group are so excited. What fun for a teacher!