Smmmittens

On Wednesday I bought a bouquet of tulips from the market. They looked like this.


Today they look like this, which is good, because this week has been rough.


I've been buried under a truck load of e-mails and meetings for a National Fiber Festival that I'm helping to organize. You can check out the blog for the festival, here. I haven't done any knitting since before Christmas. I haven't really felt like knitting. I don't know why, but I completely lost interest. Well, all of a sudden I'm feeling like picking up the sticks again, and I've picked out two new patterns to keep me motivated. Both of them are stranded. The first is a mitten kit from this company.


I took one look at her mittens and decided then and there that I must knit a pair. She dyes with mushrooms among other things. Her blog is fantastic. It inspired me to run out on an impromptu fungi hunt. That's the best kind of fungi hunt. You can check out my natural dyeing adventures, here. This is another reason I haven't had any time for knitting. Too many dorky hobbies, not enough dork time.
The mittens are coming along quickly. The Finn sheep wool is soft and rustic all at the same time. I'm a little at a loss to describe it. It has a nice shine, a sweet smell, a gentle drape, and it's hairy.....in a good way. The colors are indigo, Japanese knotweed, and woad. It's really fun to have all three plant dyed blues next to one another. The mitten knitting is keeping me sane for the moment. Try saying mitten knitting 5 times fast. Yup, that's the other way I'm staying sane.
The second project has hit a wall. The wool is from Blacker Yarns, and was a Christmas gift. The pattern is from Kate Davies and is called "Tortoise and Hare". I love the pattern, and I like the yarn, but as soon as I opened the bag of wool I realized I might have a problem. These two balls of yarn are supposed to be different colors.


They are different, but they aren't different enough. Just my luck, one "mid brown" sheep happened to have a fleece just like his "dark brown" cousin. I don't want my tortoises and my hares to be the same color, so I went stash diving for a substitute. I have a whole tub of Jamesons Shetland, but none of the colors were right. This is the best I could find and I'm still not thrilled with the combination.


I think a silver gray might be right.....I guess that means it's time for some yarn shopping!

One, Two, Three, Doh!

This whole learning a new craft thing must be good for the brain because it's making my head hurt.


Kumihimo, the ancient craft of Japanese braiding, is both "fun and relaxing" until the moment where you realize that the conversation in your head has gone from "one, two, three, four" to mentally yelling at the conservative guy Jon Stewart is interviewing. Then there's a pause. Then there's some pretend counting that doesn't really correspond to where you're actually at in the sequence. You're just doing it in the hopes that it will remind you of where you were and then you realize with horror that you're completely lost. This has happened twice. I blame Jon Stewart and my toddler.
After the shock and cursing had worn off I went back to the decidedly unhelpful little booklet to see if there was a "troubleshooting" section. There was no such section. I would like to take the time to issue a warning to all the new crafters out there. If a booklet has less than 20 pages it is like a good looking, rich, popular, high school sports champion. It will get you into trouble very quickly and it will feel no remorse. Maybe it should have been obvious that the secrets of the ancient Japanese art of Kumihimo could not be explained in a 10 page booklet, but I'm an eternal optimist when it comes to these things. Well, I'm somewhat of an optimist and I'm most certainly impatient.
Thankfully, the second time I made this mistake I had taken photos of each "point of braid". That's this...


and of the braid itself, as it was being worked. That's this...



So no all I have to do is find some quiet time when I can figure out exactly where I am in the braid...."Childrens do learn."

In other news, my husband celebrated another birthday recently. I made him some stellar chocolate, cherry, and black current cupcakes and a seriously tasty Greek spaghetti squash Spanakopita type thing.


The recipe for the cupcakes is in Nigella Lawson's book "How to be a Domestic Goddess". Boy do I miss watching her slink around the kitchen, plunging her finger into whatever unsuspecting bowl was silly enough to leave itself uncovered. She really is an Olympic champion of the Sunday morning lounge.
I substituted black current jelly for the cherry jam she calls for. The recipe was ridiculously simple for such a rich and sophisticated tasting cupcake. I'm sure there's a good argument against using the word "sophisticated" to describe cupcakes but I think that's a snobbish approach to food. These were gone in less than two days. Next time, it's marmalade.

Away

I've been away for a long time. There hasn't been a lot of time for knitting. I mean, how can you knit when you're chasing your children here?...


Or here...


Hawai'i was amazing even without the knitting. The colors and the smell of flowers are overwhelming.




Then there was the mad dash for Christmas presents and a last second toilet installation before we met my parents in Paris. Never underestimate the power of multiple toilets to soothe even the most savage of holiday family events.


Paris was lovely, as usual. We trudged through the cold wet snow with the expectant smiles of an Arctic expedition on it's first day. At the end of each day we were tearing through piles of food and pyramids of shopping bags. I managed a quick yarn stop, but no knitting.

Christmas morning was spent in the shadow of the 15 ft. Sequoia my husband slayed. We celebrated a very memorable Christmas in the shade of it's magical shadow. Santa was very understanding of my fiber needs. He'd been checking to see if I was naughty or nice and discovered that all I've really done this year is chase a two year old around the house with a pair of pants in one hand and a baby tucked under my arm. Santa really came up with the goods. There were mountains of yarn, a knitters loom, and a surprise gift.


I am learning the art of Kumihimo, that and chasing babies.