Rug photo

This was Kelly's first and only rug....made from Red Heart yarn, colors are Monet and black. Made in 2005.

Gift bowl

This was one of our Christmas gifts from Lori, she made it in studio arts; a glass fusing project. It is now holding oranges on our table...Hope she enters it in the fair this summer, it would do very well. She also wanted a side view to show how deep the bowl is, as the first photo looks like a plate.

Knitted hood

This a Christmas present for my Mom, finished today. Had to wrap it up still on the needles and get it back after opening! It was made of Paton's Classic Dark Natural mix and a lighter Natural Mix to get the tweed affect.

Christmas cookies

Cookies anyone? Not much to blog about lately, hope that changes soon. Am working on a gift, will post that photo after Christmas.

Fiber blending and color choices

If it wasn't for the spinning meetings, nothing much would be getting accomplished around here lately. Except maybe some snowshoeing. There isn't enough snow for cross country skiing, but we are supposed to get a lake effect storm starting today. Time to wax the skiis!

In the works are some machine-knit kids hats for a Christmas fund raiser, and maybe a basket or two ( also bakery by Dec. 13) Yesterday we blended fibers on hand cards, and my choices were a commercially combed brown corriedale and a coppery bamboo top, then spun on a drop spindle. Am glad to see the copper shows up in the photo. Taken under a daylight 40 watt CFS bulb, instead of the indoor bulbs, which give a yellow cast to the photos. The amount blended was around 60 wool/40 bamboo.
When I got home, realized what caused me to pick those colors. This is Pepper.

Knitted hats

These are machine knitted skull caps that will probably fit a newborn. Made from Red Heart acrylic, and had fun picking the stripe colors.
This rolled brim one was a basic recipe from a member of Ravelry.

Dyed Silk hanky

This is a silk hanky, ( which is made up of several silk cocoons processed into a flat, layered mat about 6" x 8") dyed with Country classic dye at Joyce's on Nov. 5th. The colors I used were fluorescent pink, pumpkin and daisy. We put plastic wrap down, laid out the silk hankies ( I layered mine, 4 altogether) and then dabbed on the color with a disposable paint brush. Rolled the whole thing up in the plastic and put in the pot to steam for 30 minutes. Next week we will be spinning the silk, so will post a picture of it finished up.

Too cute

Introducing Lars McSnuffles

Painting

This was posted to the spin list yesterday. It was painted in 1853, and here's a link to the site where you can purchase prints, or browse through other artwork.

http://www.the-athenaeum.org/art/full.php?ID=7214

What a surprise

When we went to the pet store to buy a bigger cage for our daughter's pet rat, they offered a free rat with any cage purchase. Well, Lucy wanted a friend, so another female came home with us. Two weeks later, this is what we found...a dozen babies. They are cute, and mom is taking good care of them, so far. They were born Monday, October 27.

* update Nov 7- the pet store took them all back, with the cage and suggested a trade ; a dwarf hamster and cage...we are going today to pick them up.

Rug making

These are the fabrics to be made into table runners, or narrow kitchen sink rugs. It is leftover warp from the place mats.

Cutting the fabric into 1 " strips with a rotary cutter. Next time they will be cut wider, am used to using denim and sweatshirt materials and the runners turned out thin.

Here they are ready to sew together into long strips.

These measure 13" x 36" and 13" x 41" and were finished Oct. 27th for the craft show on Nov. 15. One of them was supposed to be a gift for a co-worker, but there is so much pink in them, she probably won't like it. So will blend the leftover fabric with some darker, more traditional colors and start over with a multi colored warp. But all in all, I am happy with the way they turned out.

Fall camping photos

We went camping a few weekends back, and had the chance to go on the Mt. Bohemia chair lift to see the fall colors. You won't catch me on this lift in winter, it is extreme back country skiing.

Progress on a baby afghan

Updated on Oct. 27, it is coming along, and after seeing it in the photo, am liking the white/solid color variation.
This pattern is from the House of White Birches book Knitting in the Round. It is very cushy and soft, nice for laying a baby on the floor, or covering up the car seat in cold weather, which we have an abundance of. It's done in the Log Cabin quilt block pattern, binding off all but 1 st, then turning work and picking up a multiple of 8 sts across. It is worked in double strands of a single color, then drop one strand and pick up white for the next two blocks.

Blue Campanula

These campanula survived the first real frost we had last night. I bought this plant at the Tori Market, along with the cosmos.

Signs of Fall

M & M dishcloth

This is a birthday gift for a friend that recently went to Las Vegas and toured the M & M factory.

Here's a link to the pattern if you want to make your own, or a different one, there are many different occasions to pick from on this blog. What a talented designer, and generous person to share all the patterns.

http.knittingmemories.blogspot.com/2006/08/m-m-cloth-lssk-cloth-kal-82006.html

Pink placemat

Blue and purple handspun

This is the light blue and purple roving (see below) and was finished on Oct. 6th. I started the blue roving with mohair last night, and will post a photo of it when it's done.

Brown/gray handspun

This is a few ounces of unknown roving. It spun up very nicely and was finished Oct. 1st.

Cabled baby hat

This was a pattern from Ravelry, and it was finished Oct. 4. Made from Red Heart yarn, it will go to a local Christmas Giving Tree.

New rovings

These rovings were a gift from Joyce, from her own animals and processed at Zeilingers.
This one has mohair, columbia and possibly shetland.

Placemats in progress

Finally finished warping the loom and here are the placemats in progress. Usually do a chain of them until the tension gets uneven from having them wrapped around the front bar. There was enough material for three of this color combination, then will start on some placemats in shades of pink. After that it will be time to get going on some rugs.

Cabled hat

This is the Basic Cabled Hat, from the SnB Nation book. Finished this morning, made from Red Heart in Warm Brown.

Dyed fiber

This is the combed white shetland/columbia cross from an earlier post. It was dyed at Joyce's also,the dye pot was an experimental mixture for overdying a walnut dyed handspun, and they overdyed it yellow. Then they dumped in colors one at a time and got a brown, then a forest green, then this burgandy. What we couldn't figure out was how Kathleen's yarn and my fiber ended up being the same colors as they were done separately and were processed differently?

*Update* 10-1-08 : Joyce put some fiber in the dye pot after I left and she ended up with a denim blue fiber!

Pink cabled bag

This needs at least a zipper and possibly a lining sewn in,and might be a knitting bag, or purse for next summer. The zipper was sewn in, but needs to be taken out and redone. The problem was: twill tape was sewn in to stabilize the area underneath the zipper, but it wasn't measured and each side is a different length due to being stretched while sewing. One of those DUH moments...The pattern is the Cabled Hobo Bag, found on Ravelry, and the Bag A Month group project for the month of June.

Dye workshop yarn

This is the corriedale yarn from an older post, dyed at Joyce's house at her workshop on Sept. 15. It started out looking like U of M colors, ( Lorrie sang the fight song, and it stuck in my head most of the afternoon). I was hoping for more of a graduating color look, yellow turning into green, then dark blue to lighter blue. Like many dye experiments, the results were not what we expected.

Finished handspun

This yarn was finished on Sat. September 13,while demonstrating spinning at the Stamp Sand Art Experience. It is a merino dyed roving purchased at Fiber Whims. Hope there's enough for a hat.

New African Violet photo

Here is another picture of the magenta violet. It was in a much earlier post, but this time the color is accurate! Our camera doesn't work well with the fluorescent light in our kitchen, and there isn't a setting for that type of lighting so it was taken outside on a cloudy day. It's the same plant in the fair entries post, but now all the flowers are open. Just playing around with the camera a little to see what it can do.

Doll bed

This is another basket from the same book, started Sept. 7 and finished Sept. 9. It will be for displaying knitted baby socks, hats and mittens at the craft fairs. It measures 7"x12". And now, back to the loom, have to get the warping done this time. Really. I promise.

Heart basket

I have been wanting to make one of these for a long time. It was started and completed on Sept. 6. The pattern came from the book Country Wreaths & Baskets by William C. Ketchum and Linda Hebert.

Garterlac dishcloth

This is for a dear friend, and the pattern came from here:

http://criminyjickets.blogspot.com

It is also on Ravelry under patterns and dishcloths. Entrelac was easier than I thought, and would like to make some more of these, sometime. It was started Sept 2, and finished Sept 6th.

Purple cosmos

Trip to the beach

This was taken at Bete Grise. The water was cold, but the waves were worth it!

2008 fair

These were my fair entries: a basket display of handspun yarn ( koolaid dyed,slubby novelty, and smooth worsted spun yarn), a digital photo of a rose and an african violet.

Also two knitted hats, M&M cookies and apple squares

Skull hat

This hat was finished on Aug. 16, and made of Paton's Classic in black and winter white. Another fair isle project, it is getting easier. There is a folded hem inside the hat, it's joined just above the skulls. Learned to do a crochet cast-on (provisional) that made it so much easier to fold the hem and join the live bottom stitches with the ones on the needles.

Green Handspun

This yarn is from a commercially combed top from Fiber Whims. There was at least a pound of it, and so far have two large skeins of it. Was happy to see the yarn is brighter than the fiber was, and the accents really show up well against the hunter green.

Cosmos

These are the short variety of cosmos, also have the taller ones, and hoping they turn out to be pink. Taking digital photos of flowers is a new interest and you know how these hobbies(obsessions) take over!