Ursulmas 2012

Friday afternoon we drove up to Snohomish to spend the night with my sister, Tanya, and her family. We had a lovely dinner and spent the evening socializing. Saturday we were up and out of the house to drive to Monroe to the fairgrounds for Ursulmas.

Next year if we go, I'm going to try to do a bear to take along. We brought rugs, chairs, my spinning wheel, a table and food, so it took a few trips to get settled in. We were set up next to the Baron and Baroness so that Brandon and Andrea could attend them. I helped organize the layout of things and readjusted our layout a couple of times before settling on a setup.

We had been warned that it can be cold, so we were all wearing out warm clothing, I even came with flannel pants on! Thankfully, I was either running warm or the building was warmer than previously, because I was able to take off the flannels. Andrea put up my hair for me and I was able to try out these cool pearl pieces my mom had gotten me for Christmas.

I put up Andrea's hair in return, but Brandon didn't take a picture of that. Once we were all done with grooming we took a walk around the building to take a look at the different displays and booths.

Looking off towards the rapier area

Archery supplies

Woven leather - very cool!

Red Wolf - circlets, hair holders, pins, brooches and clasps - awesome metal work!

Armored ferret

Duchess Miranda and one of her boys in a crocheted  Viking hat

knives and swords

The circlet that came home with me. Like the amber!

These are hat dangles that Andrea and I wanted a picture of  so we can make some

Looking down the hall

Loom display. I have a small table loom that I could use like this!

Spoon carving

Working brick oven

Food display - spices and legumes

Fresh food display

Working cooking pit - awesome design! When we went back around with my sister and her husband John, they had flat bread and a yummy raisin sauce as samples. 

Grain grinder

Sword making

Back of a German dress and hat I want to make a similar dress and hat for myself!

Brandon and Andrea goofing around

Front of the German dress. Don't think I'll make the shoulders so low, that would just drive me nuts!!

Side view of the dress

Eoghan was 'cadeted' in rapier at the event, hence the red tie on his sleeve. We just missed the ceremony!

Poor Jose! Four women trying to make his back feel better. Don't worry, his wife is the one with her hands on his head. 

We had a fun time and since we were assured of a place to sleep in the future, I can see us going up again next year.

A shawl and a bag

I was out of town for the weekend and didn't get it posted last week. All that preparation for going out of town got in the way! I finished up Wendy's Meandering Vines Shawl. Soaked it a couple of times, once with vinegar to help set the color a bit since one or two skeins were transferring color while knitting. Then blocked it. It came out really long, but I think she'll enjoy being able to wrap up in it at work. Still trying to coordinate getting it into her hands for use though.

Unblocked on my bed

Close-up of it blocking

Blocking on the bed

Showing the wingspan of it, notice that it drapes over my hands on either end.

Sitting a little high on the shoulders

I wanted a bag that I could use with Miss Molly the Ashford Traditional spinning wheel. Something that I could put the orifice hook and the oil pen into while spinning. I have a lovely large spinning basket but wanted something handy to the wheel. In my queue has been a pattern from Vicki Square's Folk Bags book - The Monastery Tassel Bag. Its done in a fuschia and red in the book and felted. After reading the pattern, I decided for what I want to use it for, I didn't need the full length and so only did one and a half repeats of the pattern. I had some red and black felting yarn from Tammy's destash over a year ago that I thought would be perfect. Other than forgetting to knit inside out while doing the stranding, I think it came out well.

Pre-felted

Felted

I have a little sweater almost done for Leeloo. I just need to join the pieces together and sew on some pearls (I think I have those!) I am finishing up a cowl, Ice Queen, the Version A with less beads, and currently doing the first picot bind off (it has the top and the bottom). I'm using the leftover green that I used with the dragon shawl. Still not happy with the green color and need to over-dye it. Shelia had the suggestion of doing a yellow to add more green. I'm going to test that out once I'm done with the cowl and see if that works. I have the Lemonade Kool-Aid or yellow Wilton's cake dye to see it that works.  With these two projects done, I'll have January all wrapped up, so I can start February projects.

Fog

A couple weeks ago we were at a family get together because Brandon's Aunt Mary Lou was in town on her way to San Francisco. Mary Lou lives in Philadelphia, so its a social event when she comes to visit. We brought Brandon's grandfather over so that they could see each other. The event was at Debbie's house with a view of the Saint John's Bridge. 

Late afternoon and we were still enjoying the odd clear skies and noticed that there was also a full moon and the fog rolling in:

I had some fun with my new camera taking photographs of the fog, the bridge and the general view out on the balcony. Went back inside and continued socializing with various family members.

Then Paige spotted the moon glowing and the fog and pointed it out to me. She only had her camera phone and knew it wasn't going to be able to get the pics, so out into the cold on the balcony I went. I think they came out rather cool using the nightscene setting. There's a few for comparison to see the difference the setting makes.

I think I'll watch the Walgreen's photo sales and maybe have a couple of the above printed. Might even enter them in the fairs this summer. Which ones do you think I should use/do?  You can give them a number based on their order here.

I may or may not have some snow pictures. They're still on the camera that I need to download after getting some shawl pictures so I'll have it ready for this upcoming weekend's event - Ursulmas.

Socks, Wristwarmers and a hat

I was trying to clean up leftover works in progress from last year and so picked up a pair of wristwarmers I had started last December for Gail. They had sat in my basket for a year. So I tried working on them and was finding mistakes, or I wasn't reading the knitting well. Couldn't get excited about the pattern and really, they should have been done in a week, not languishing in my project basket for a year. So I frogged them and went looking for a pattern to use the yarn with. I tried looking for a different wristwarmer pattern and didn't find anything that excited me so looked at socks and found the International Sock of Doom pattern, simple but interesting. A nice fast knit with lovely results:

I used leftover yarn to reinforce the heels of this pair, but also the previous pair I had made for Gail. She had worn a pretty good sized hole in the heel of the first pair and the second sock was getting thin in the heel also. Both have added reinforcement so hopefully no more holes.

I then got to work on a pair of wristwarmers for Wendy. She had bought some lovely Road to China yarn - baby alpaca, camel, cashmere, and silk in a gorgeous blue called appropriately - Sapphire. The pattern set was for wristwarmers as well as a cowl.

Soft and warm for the hands in a chilly office environment!

I had fun coming up with how to used the five yarns that Lorajean sent me for a sample hat. Ida's Kitchen calls for seven yarns but I was working with five and so some math and making sure that there wasn't going to be the color I reassigned right next to itself took some planning. I still then ended up doing some reorganizing of the colors. I might not have personally picked one of the colors, but once it was altogether it worked out really well.

Currently, I'm working on the shawl to go with the wristwarmers for Wendy.  Its sooo awful to work with this yarn - NOT! I'm looking forward to giving these to her soon, I know she'll love them.

I have one item leftover from last year that I'm still going to procrastinate on. Its a blanket for the nephew, and is a spiderman style blanket. He's six now and I need to check if Spiderman is still a favorite. I might also get crazy and try to make a pullover for him instead still using the theme.

Anyone else trying to clean up WIPs? Stash that's been in there unused for more than two years?