Garden vs. Knitting

Time has been flying by this year.  I've put in a large garden and it's already full of flowers.   The peas are blooming and the boys are already pulling up radishes and chasing lizards. 



 Last year I was busy helping to plan the wool festival and I didn't have time for gardening.  I promised myself that this year I would make up for lost time.  I was very proud to harvest my first asparagus this year.  It was a small and very ceremonial harvest.  We cut about 25 spears, but that just made it all the more exciting.  I think eating it raw, in the field...during a light spring rain is one of the best ways to eat asparagus.

 

 The garden hasn't been the only thing demanding my attention.  Our boys are discovering more extreme and exotic ways of destroying our home. It feels liked they've got some top secret silent toy spraying gun.  I turn my back and the living room is instantly coated in toys.  I'm told that a some point I can expect them to pick up after themselves.  I think those people are delusional.  I have never met a tidy boy. 
We had a lovely birthday party for our youngest.  His birthday falls close to Easter and so we celebrated with an egg hunt.  We did something similar last year and I think this may become an annual event.  I made the cake with my mother.  We were very proud of our efforts.  The "rocks" are candy and the grass is dyed coconut.  The little boys were suitably impressed.  You can tell when children are in awe.  They didn't even reach to stick their fingers in the frosting.

Right now, we're in the middle of a chicken pox epidemic.  One of my boys is spotty and the other one has a high fever.  In between looking longingly out the window at my garden and trying to coax the baby into eating, I've finally had a chance to think about knitting. 
I'll admit that summer is never really a season that inspires me to pick up the needles.  Gardening usually takes up what little time I have.  When we go on vacation I usually pack a lot of projects and get very little knitting done.  More often than not, I end up coming home with more yarn than I left with.  Exotic yarn stores have a certain charm.
So, what brought knitting back into my consciousness?  It was a fortuitous combination of events.  The boys have been watching lots of movies.  Every time I open the cabinet to turn on the DVD player I see all of my UFOs on the shelf below.  Several of the movies that they like feature knitting; "Tangled", " Winnie the Pooh" and "Wallace and Gromit".  On a side note, Gromit is probably my favorite TV knitter.  He knits in bed.  He knits over breakfast and he knits when he's stressed. 
The event that got my knitterly attention happened while I was changing out the winter clothing for the summer clothing.  I discovered that a few of my summer clothes had gone missing.  My husband admitted that my favorite linen cardigan may have been given to charity sometime last fall.  Ooops.  He kindly suggested that I go and buy myself a whole new summer wardrobe.  I'm not sure how much of this was kindness and how much of it was self preservation, but it was a smart move on his part.  He found himself in the perfect storm of sick children, a hormonal wife, sleep deprivation and a missing cardigan and he weathered that storm with confidence and grace.  
 As I was perusing my favorite retail websites, I discovered that I am incapable of buying myself knitted cardigans.  I'll happily accept them as gifts, and if I find a beautiful one on super sale I'll give in, but I'm very reluctant to buy something I could (in theory) make for myself. 
I really need a summer cardigan.  The evenings are cool here and we're planning at least one trip the the ocean this year.  So, it's decided, I HAVE to finish up at least one or two summer cardigans.  Here's the short list of possible candidates.

"Watershed" by Amy Swenson
 "Lilas Cardigan" by Hilary Smith Callis
"Soay" by Gudrun Johnston

 To finish up this mish-mash of a blog post I'm going to do a quick photo log of FOs.  These are all projects that deserved blog posts, but it's been such a long time since I finished them that I don't think I could squeeze a real post out of any one of them. 

A crochet cowl for Pauline.

 This skirt was from Veronik Avery's book "Knitting 24/7".  That's a great book, by the way.  I like the skirt but it needs a bit of elastic at the waist.  The butt is foxy. 

Little thrummed mittens for the baby

A snake scarf

Stranded mitten kit "Blue Hearts"

 I'm going to see if I can get back in to the habit of blogging.   It's such a nice way to self motivate, and lord knows I could use a kick in the knitted pants.  That summer cardigan isn't going to knit itself. Well, not unless Wallace and Gromit decide to build me a new knit-o-matic.  If you don't get that joke, then you should go and watch "A Close Shave". 

Happy Birthday Beautiful Boy

My oldest son turned four on New Years Day. I can't believe he's already four years old.


He has many redeeming qualities. One of his best character traits is that he knows how to receive a hand knit gift properly; he puts it on, caresses it and immediately starts dancing. I love that kid.


Happy Birthday sweetheart.

A New Year a New Found Love

My love for all things wooly hit a bit of speed bump earlier this year. I had a serious case of fiber festival fatigue. The sight of yarn made me queasy. Thankfully, sometime around September the stash began to call out to me again. The lovely naturally dyed indigo/woad mittens that I posted about last spring are finished and warming my hands.


I wasn't planning to knit any Christmas gifts, but somewhere around the 20th of December my inner knitter took over and the mittens, scarves and hats started to pour off of my needles. The damn has burst and there is no looking back. Mittens, scarves, blankets, a skirt, hats and several cowls have just flown off of the needles. My UFOs are going before the death panel. Finish or be frogged is the mantra. There was a small fiber arts stash sale and I sent two laundry tubs full of yarn off to find new homes. There's no room in my stash for slackers.

In an effort to use up some of the smaller amounts of stash yarn I've decided to knit up a couple of pairs of bulky boot socks. I don't love sock knitting, but I do love think warm wooly socks. These are a pair called "Aran Socks" from the book "Country Weekend Socks" by Madeline Weston.


They aren't charted and so it was slow going for the first repeat of the cable, but now I'm cranking along at a respectable pace. The yarn is "Not Your Average Washable Worsted" by "J Knits". I'm a little on the fence about superwash wool, but this stuff is pretty nice. I'm knitting them at a slightly tighter gauge to try and make up for the extra elasticity that superwash usually has. The colorway is called "wheeling" and it reminds me of a snow sky. There's some very subtle variegation in the dyeing. It's a good match for this pattern.

Looking back on this past year I'd have to say that the knitting highlights were spending a weekend hanging out with Ysolda Teague, dyeing my own yarn with plants from the woods around our home, getting a handmade needle case from a dear friend and teaching my brother's wonderful girlfriend how to knit. She's a natural.

All in all, it was a very good year.

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.

We're all finally over the summer of "big ouches", as my toddler would put it, and are doing some much needed catching up.


In these last couple of weeks there's been a whole lot of family time. When we're sick all we ever seem to be able to keep up with is the bare minimum of house work, so the last thing I want to do right now is stay inside. The boys agree.
We've been picking things in the garden, watching movies, eating lunch at kid friendly cafes, visiting with friends, swimming and generally trying not to sweat the small stuff. It's been a good month for all of us including the dust buffaloes roaming around the living room.
Yesterday at about 8:30 AM we saw a hot air balloon being inflated in the distance and threw the kids into the car with only about half the usual amount of back up clothing, caffeine, snacks and diapers. A bit of bad weather arrived and we lost sight of the balloon so we headed out to a plant sale ( I found a caper berry bush. I know, amazing. I'll talk about that later.) in a neighboring village. Because we'd left in a rush, we arrived a half an hour before the plant show was scheduled to open. We ducked into a second hand shop to pass the time and I found this.


She's a little beat up, but that just means that I won't mind sharing her with little children. There are 11 dolls in this set. The smallest is about the size of my thumb nail and she opens. The patterns on their aprons and kerchiefs are made out of straw.
I've been thinking a lot about patterns lately. I think it must be the changing colors in my garden. With fall coming on I'm tempted to start some stranded mittens or maybe a stranded vest for one of the boys. I haven't the heart to start another sweater right now. I also lack the time and the focus to work on anything of consequence. I've channeled my color work desires into a men's scarf. It's posing with my sexy radicchio.


The color work is an easy to memorize slipped stitch pattern from Barbara Walker's first book, knit from odds and ends of Noro "Cash Iroha" and "Silk Garden". The other day I was pawing through my stash when I realized that I hadn't done any knitting since we recovered. I think these long days in the sun are leaving my brain a little scorched. My other projects are looking too fussy and complicated. I'm glad I started this. The Noro "Silk Garden" in this scarf is providing a little interest without demanding any actual work. I'll just keep on knitting until I run out of remnants. That's about all the planning I feel like doing after a long Indian summer day.