A girl and her books, dogs and crafts

Ursulmas 2012

2012-02-02T11:30:00.000-08:00

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

2012-02-01T16:23:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-23T11:20:00.000-08:00

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

2012-01-15T22:23:00.000-08:00

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?

Last project of 2011

2012-01-02T17:05:00.000-08:00

I was knitting right up to 2012 but finished the second shortie finger glove in the pair for Brandon. The pattern calls them fingerless gloves, but to me those are ones that you don't knit each of the fingers on. The fingers aren't enclosed, so they aren't mittens. Most pairs have you stop at the first knuckle, but his request was to the second knuckle. I also found that I needed to pick up a couple extra stitches than called for on the ring and pinky fingers for him. Big hands = big fingers. He's happy with them and that's the important thing right? ;-)

I also finished out the year reading two more books than I had the previous year. Cool! 112 books read. Okay, some of those books I didn't fully read because they were anthologies and I didn't read all the short stories in them, but they were read so counted as a book. Two of those books were non-fiction even, not my normal urban fantasy/paranormal reading. I received a Kindle Fire for Christmas so I can possibly read more books, but also have internet access where there's free WiFi when out and about. Better for me than an iPad.

Holiday Pups of 2011

2011-12-31T15:00:00.000-08:00

I took advantage of the last day of sunny weather that was known to me (it was freakishly sunny for a week in December!) and with Brandon's help tortured* the dogs with holiday photos. Leeloo we were able to get photos from each of the three hats we have for the dogs. Norbert we were able to get a couple that weren't showing the whites of his eyes in terror (he was shaking the whole time, you would have thought we were going to skin him or something.) Leeloo has since gotten a hold of one hat and chewed off the holly and berries off of one of the Santa hats.

There's holly and berries under the flop over.

She thought this would make a wonderful toy to rip to bits. I think its the jingle bell.

It wasn't until almost done that I realized in trying to get the pics and hat on that I realized that the headband had pulled her beard and mustache back oddly.

Norbert desperately trying not to see the evil camera eye.

Looking off into the distance and trying to look dignified.

Christmas tree before all the gifts were loaded underneath. We went to a lovely artificial tree several years ago due to my allergies.

Leeloo has some sweaters in her future, so further dog torture* pictures will show-up.

* Disclaimer - no actual torture of animals happened, or will happen.

Socks of 2011

2011-12-31T08:00:00.000-08:00

I took on the challenge to knit a pair of socks each month for last year. For most months it was an easy challenge, others not so much. ;-) Trying to get shawls also knit and other projects sometimes impacted a sock project getting done as planned. So I had a few months where it was two pairs, or more for a month. I kind of imposed the thought that ankle socks weren't a full pair, so made a couple pairs to equal one. So if you're counting up all the socks and come up with more than twelve, you know why. Same with the pedicure socks. The ladies really liked those once they were told that they were socks not hand warmers. lol

I made these for my dad for Christmas. I must say that pattern writers that use a C2F and C2B are just plain crazy to expect a knitter to use a cable needle or hold a stitch (and not drop the little beast!) when there's a lovely left twist or right twist out there that works just as nicely and much more sanely!

Java Socks

Its a nice easy to do pattern with an interesting twist in doing the gusset in pattern and decreasing across the instep. The pattern is also done through the toe decreases.

In case you forgot all the socks, here they are in a handy dandy collage. ;-)

I have 2012 all planned out in socks. I have two pairs of lace weight knee high stockings planned (yes, get the padded room ready, I'll be checking in I'm sure!), one pair in silk and the other in wool-silk. I'm giving myself permission ahead of the game to alternate other small projects, such as hats, bags and fingerless gloves/wrist warmers. There is that other insanity of sweaters mentioned previously. I have the patterned printed, just need to put the skeins into balls and I'm ready to go. Not sure if I'll cast on at midnight or if I'll wait for morning.

Are you doing any year long projects like sock clubs? Shawl of the month? Spinning of the month?

Christmas Goodies Finished

2011-12-30T23:03:00.000-08:00

Let's see I made some more soap bags to send soaps off in to family:

I was talking with mom on the phone with the one on the right and forgot to do an eyelet round. Still works, so off it went!

Leafy Wash Cloth pattern both versions worked - stockinette and garter.

I was just going to let them kind of be trivets, but Lorajean put fabric on some she did and since the sewing machine was out....these went to Brandon's Aunt Debbie. She seemed to like them. ;-)

Back of Cole's Toddler Surprise Jacket.


Cole's Toddler Surprise Jacket

I'll find out New Year's day hopefully how it fits Cole. The hats for the cousin-in-law's girls were a bit big, so they have plenty of growing room. The shrugs all fit. The ones for the nieces looked like they would be too small but they stretched to fit.

I had one project that I was knitting up to my deadline, but that's next post. ;-)

Dragon's Mist Yule Feast 2011

2011-12-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

This was the Barony's first Yule Feast, so we took our normal Revels night (Fridays) and made it our feast night since the location was already secured and paid for. ;-) It was a potluck similar to the Three Mountains Yule Feast, except no assigned category based on last names. I made brussel sprouts for the 3M feast from this recipe. Made a Knight very happy (I had caught him sneaking sprouts out of the container) by sending him home with the leftovers. Very big happy grin on his face. For this feast I went with my medieval standby - Roasted Root Vegetable Medley. I didn't pick up turnips and don't generally have celery, but doubt anyone noticed. I had gold beets and red beets along with garlic and onions and some heritage carrots. Sliced up, drizzled with olive oil and threw on sprigs of fresh thyme and rosemary from the garden. I had two trays of it and popped into a serving container and then drizzled white balsamic vinegar over all. I came back with about half of them, so people were eating them. ;-)

Brandon is a guard, so we had to arrive a half an hour early so that he could help with the setup. I brought our stuff inside and then manned the food repository area for awhile. Much easier than putting little tags under chairs that I was almost roped into doing. ;-) It was also interesting to watch everything be organized and not have to worry about it.

Since we were running on a tight time frame (we needed to be out by 10pm and starting at 7pm), food was obtained by the court members so they could be able to help out with court stuff while the rest of us were eating. The Baron and Baroness had planned ahead and come up with a dinner bingo game to play, so there would be a couple extra prizes.

Brandon had been requested from the Baroness to create an orb, because no one told her she couldn't have one. (It was mentioned that Duchess Miranda might develop orb envy so I've suggested to Brandon that he might want to be prepared for a future request for another orb.) He made one out of some black walnut that he turned on the lathe. He didn't get a picture of it before giving it to the Baroness, but here are a couple of pics with it in its first use - those populace that would like to swear their fealty to the Barony:

Baroness Svava and Baron Ref with Lady Iuliana, Lady Osaa, Lord Jose in the foreground. Lord Nicolai acting as guard and Lord Ignatious in the background

You can see the gleam of the orb here.

Because we were scurrying around setting up or cleaning up or eating, not a lot of picture taking was happening. I wore the same dress as the previous week, still need to put my slits in, that's a goal for the next event - Carnivale in March. I might even try to get my Eleanor de Toledo stockings done for this event. I want to use my saffron silk lace Blue Moon Fiber Arts yarn to make them - they'll be fun stockings!

Here there be dragons

2011-12-11T12:00:00.000-08:00

Kind of in a Dragon them in preparation for Dragon's Mist Yule Feast. I needed to get together some household gifts for Lady Millicent, Amelia, and Larissa. Currently we have agreed on a household name of the Dancing Dragonflies, but Ignatious is waffling on that for some reason. Until there's a change, I found a dishcloth pattern of a dragonfly and little soap sacks with little dragonflies on them:

Close-up of the dragon fly dishcloth - moss stitch version

Dragonfly Soap Socks without their soaps

I also found a dragon dishcloth pattern for a Chinese Fire Dragon:

The dishcloth. I gifted it to Baron Ref along with a trio of soaps. I found out later from the Baroness that he really loves soaps, so a greatly appreciated gift.

This is the same pattern as above, just done in bulky yarn and two colors. Since I was doing colorwork, I opted just to keep as knit instead of purl bumps to show the dragon. I sewed it to some yellow fabric and Brandon made a pretty banner stand to enter it in the Dragon's in Any Media contest. It didn't win, but I know the Baroness really liked it.

I have another soap sack I've knitted up, but I plan to make a couple more of them, so you'll see those in a different post in the future.

We did a gift exchange and I received a charming little blue dragon that roars:

Three Mountains Yule Feast 2011

2011-12-10T19:47:00.001-08:00

Last Saturday we took Dawn-Marie and Larissa over to the Barony of Three Mountains Yule Feast in Milwaukie. It was an all day affair and I went prepared with my spinning wheel and plenty to spin. Brandon set me up near the stage after learning that the first corner he was going to put me in was going to be where the kids korner was planned. It would have been a bit noisy to be there too since it was near the main entrance. I drew in other people and shortly had a circle going of people chatting while working on various projects. Lady Havoisse (think that's how she spells it) was working on some little squares of fine linen she had embroidered a "G" onto. She was hemming them with silk thread finer than your standard sewing thread. Impressive work. These are "largesse" for the current Crown Princess Gwyneth of Tir Righ. She's going to be Queen for the next six months and wants to be able to offer those people who are being awarded at Court something other than a paper tissue.

I was able to get Brandon to take a couple photos of me spinning - gasp! Often at different events I'm running them so don't have time to sit and do the activity, so I have few photos of me actually spinning. ;-)

Lady Brigitte spinning on Miss Molly (you can see Baroness Svava's coronet in the foreground)

I can't remember what Lisa was talking to Baroness Svava about, but it was interesting...

Baroness Svava feigning shock at what's under Amelia's (Andrea) skirts. Her striped satin bloomers.

Baroness Svava is a riot. ;-)

My dress is inspired by a Hans Holbein dress and is still a work in progress. Still need to add the splits in the bodice. Andrea's dress gets a different look by changing her belt and her sleeves and even the chemise.

Downstairs where the feasting was going to occur later. Everyone brings their fancy feast gear.

Ignatious (Brandon) receiving a Golden Torc for his acts of service to the Barony from Baron Aelfric and Baroness Jill

The Golden Torc - Pretty!

Socializing while waiting for the final food preparations

Can you find me?

Tis the feasting season. Yesterday was the Barony of Dragon's Mist Yule Feast. Our first as a Barony.

Soaps!

2011-12-03T11:30:00.000-08:00

Last year we ran out of the home made cold processed soaps that I had made a couple years previously. Cold processed are soaps that are made with lye and not the melt and pour stuff that you can get in the craft stores. I had bought the oils from Liberty Naturals along with various essential oil scents. I'm out of Sweet Almond Oil, I think it might have turned a bit rancid. We picked up some shortening and lard at the grocery store and I was set to get started.

My original thought was I would do a little soap making class with some SCA friends. I got one person interested in doing it, our new Baron, Ref. With his new responsibilities trying to get a Saturday that worked for him was not happening, so I went ahead and jumped into getting batches going.

Castile soap is made with olive oil and is considered a luxury soap. Well yes, olive oil can be pretty spendy, unless you're buying it by the gallon from the Cash n Carry store. I had two tins of it in my pantry just for soap making. Two big batches were made along with variations on them with milk and shortening added.

Then the following weekend there were the soaps with more scents - lemon and lavender and again milk. Making up a batch of massage bars. Bars that melt with body heat and have honey in them. Andrea helped me with these, so she'll get some for her business use. I used one on a massage and the person seemed to really enjoy.

You can see the honey kind of sank to the bottom but smooths into the skin nicely. With the dryer winter weather don't forget to use a daily moisturizer, your skin will thank you for it!

I added calendula flowers to one set of the bars and then with some of the last batches the oatmeal soap had a bottle of beer as well as milk added in - all great moisturizers. It looks really organic too. I've been enjoying the smell of the hops of the drying soaps. I mentioned the lack of Sweet Almond oil earlier but I also wanted to do a Cinnamon soap and it called for it. I researched it out and found that Canola oil is a good substitution and made up a batch. It also smells really yummy.

The Castile soap takes four weeks for it to cure (use up the lye in the mix), since it was done early enough, it will totally be ready for Christmas giving. Even the last batches are done early enough that there won't be issues with people using it upon receiving at Christmas. I have some soap sacks I need to knit up along with some face/dish cloths to go along with them.

There is an event on Saturday, a Yule Feast, we'll be attending that I'll make a soap sack and give a bar also. I'll need to include a note about waiting to use.

Here's what the soaps look like:

I have some plastic and tin molds. The very dark brown is the cinnamon and the lighter brown the oatmeal. ;-) I also used some silicone molds that I recently received. The massage bars were in a chocolate mold I purchased.

There is a plan to do kind of an informal soap making class locally at the grange on a Saturday. I have a bunch of people interested. If you're local and interested, do please let me know so I can include you in the group. I'm not sure how much I'll charge yet for the class. Everyone will get to leave with some soap at the end of the class.

First thing will be finding some lye. I've heard that the Red Devil has been pulled from grocery stores because its use in making methamphetamine. I used up the last this weekend, so next grocery shopping trip will keep an eye out for it. Hope its not a problem! I'll show driver's license or whatever to get some.

November Spinning

2011-12-02T00:00:00.000-08:00

I was still using the Ashford Traditional, Miss Molly, to spin with. I really do enjoy spinning with her! November planned spinning though was some 50/50 merino/silk that I had received from Morgaine with the purchase of my Lendrum, Miss Mabel.

This stuff was free because it had been bouncing around in boxes to many shows and handled and some slight felting had occurred. Just to spin it I had to get ruthless and shred it into strips. Then do some opening up of those strips to help pre-draft. Even with all of that the silk was hard on my right thumb. It helps pull out the fiber to be spun in the style I use for spinning.

So I was steadily making progress with it during the month, went from here at the beginning of the month:

To this at the end of the month:

I decided that I'd give it a whirl with navajo plying so I could keep the color stripes intact. The silk had allowed me to get it really thin, so a three ply would still be a lace weight when done. The last time I had done some navajo plying I was still doing the chaining and then treadling it on to the bobbin. I'd watched Bobbie show Beth on our Black Friday Spinning so went for it. It worked! Found where the underspun spots were but it helped for moving the yarn up on the bobbin. I also plied it on Miss Mabel so it was a joint wheel effort. ;-)

Ended up with 409.5 yards of three ply lace weight yarn that I'm calling Summer Twilight Skies Yarn:

Close-up with a dime to give you an idea of how thin it is

Another close-up so you can see the color variation. Blues are so hard to photograph!

The whole skein. Not sure yet what I'll make out of this, but I'm sure I'll find the perfect pattern for it in Ravelry!

This is some Abstract Fiber dyed roving called "Blackberry". Its a 60/20/20 blend of Merino/Yak/Silk that I received as a thank you from Wendy for helping out her Knights celebration. Found out a few days later that it was the Knight chip that Intel had released. ;-)

I did have another roving from my stash that I planned to spin in December, but its undyed Perendale that isn't terribly exciting. I'll admit that I'm going to be shallow and throw it back into the bin and start spinning this lovely stuff. 4 ounces of December Joy! Wouldn't you? ;-)

I have next year's spinning all planned out. If you're a Ravelry member you can check it out here. Its at the top of the list and number for the month it will be spun (hopefully). I still have some stuff that's been in the stash for a while and it will get spun, just might take a little longer. ;-) There's at least another year's worth of fiber to be spun up and I'm sure it will continue to grow.

Looking back through the stash of stuff to be spun, there are a lot of undyed fibers in there. Think some natural dying and some acid dyes might have to be played with over the next year or two. With the acid dyes, I think something beyond Kool-Aid should be the way to go. I also need a drum carder. There's a lot of uncarded fiber in my stash that will have to be run through one before it gets spun up. The Gotland doesn't count because I plan just to flick the ends open and spin from the locks.

How is your spinning coming along? Neglected fiber? Stuff you bought but now don't love? What do you do with it? I have some in my Trade folder but no nibbles so far, so it went in the list for spinning next year.

Learn a new thing

2011-12-01T12:00:00.000-08:00

One of the goals I had for the year was to learn how to double knit. With Thanksgiving and going down to family for dinner, I thought doing a hot pad as a hostess gift would be a great idea. I've used Knitting Help.com as a resource and they add a hot pad that I thought would be easy to learn with, a nice heart pattern.

The directions on how to cast on worked for me, kind of. Keeping the colors consistent in their pairings would have been nice to know also, I read that *after* I got done with this project from the Interweave Knits Fall 2011 magazine article on Extreme Double Knitting. So its firmly in my memory for my next double knitting project, another hot pad for gift giving.

What the directions leave out is to change the chart colors in your head on the even rows. Le sigh. Very frustrating first few rows, where the project almost got pitched across the room before I found someone's very helpful project notes. (I love finding someone else that writes project notes on Ravelry!)

I did use Lamb's Pride Bulky to do the hot pad in so it came out BIG. I left it up to Kristen to decide if she wanted to shrink/felt the hot pad. I did soak and block it before giving it to her.

You can see where I was still trying to keep in the flow of flipping the colors in my head on the bottom right of the red background heart.

Thankfully the IK article explained to me why the hot pad doesn't separate all the way, those color changes for the heart. I thought I was doing something wrong while I was knitting, but soldiered on because I needed to get it done! ;-)

Here's a Ravelry link to the other hot pad I'm going to help reinforce this new skill with - Coffee and Tea DK pot holders.

Have you taught yourself something new this year? Plan on doing something new next year? Now I have to find something for next year. Any suggestions? (Please no entrelac.)

November Socks

2011-11-30T20:14:00.001-08:00

I found the Edwardian Boating Socks and thought they would be a perfect pattern to finish using up my slightly more than a skein worth of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sock Candy in Blue Boo! I had mad a pair of Leyburn socks last year for my sister Jennifer and thought I'd make a second pair for her that were similar. The yarn was the leftovers from those socks and so two little balls. Well when I had to dip into the second ball, even after taking out one of the pattern repeats in the leg, I knew I was in trouble. So I put the finished sock aside and went back to the yarn I used for the other pair I made for her this year, some Lane Cervinia Strompegarn.

I still had the Blue Boo! yarn and didn't want to go through and frog the one sock and have it still sitting in my stash, so cast on and started the second sock. Halfway through the toe, is where I ran short.

So I have a gift pair and I have a pair for myself, since really the toes are going to be in shoes who's going to see that one is different from the other?

One other pair of socks to make for the year, those are also going to be gift socks, for Brandon. I'm all set to go and will get them started later. First, I need to make a dress for the weekend.

11 Shawls in 2011

2011-11-16T13:00:00.000-08:00

A friend, think it was Rebecca, had done the ten shawls in 2010 and I thought what a cool way to get all those shawls in my queue knitted up! So I paired yarns and patterns and was all set to get started. I've shared them along the way and with the completion of the Swallowtail shawl I'm done! I actually did make twelve shawls, but after completing it, found that it was short by twenty yards for the minimum yardage required of 250 yards.

Here's the collage I created to show that I had met the goal:

Crimson Haruni - 344.3 yards
Alpaca Dane - 363.8 yards
Cabled Capelet - 660.3 yards
Beaded Aeolian - 446.5 yards
Cafe au Lait Zen Rain - 399.0 yards
Camel Fan - 631.0 yards
Forest Dragon - 1417.5 yards
Blue Boo Shetland - 468.0 yards
Blue Pimpeliese - 448.8 yards
Snow Dunes - 564.8 yards
Red Hot Swallowtail - 336.5 yards

Total Yards 6080.5 yards - Wow!!

Three of them are definitely going to be gifts, plus shawl number twelve. Three of them are from handspun and staying with me. Two of them I plan to wear to SCA events. So that leaves three shawlettes for those special dress up times.

Shawl number 12, in case you forgot about which one it might be:

I have it setup so that I can do 12 shawls in 2012, yarns and patterns all matched up. I'm not sure yet if I'll follow through with that plan though. Not that I don't like knitting the shawls! I would also like to get some sweaters knitted up. I have the yarns and the patterns for those also. Not all of them adult sized, I could definitely have one or more each month if counting dog/child sweaters. ;-)

I have a month and a half to worry about that though! In the meantime, I still have two pairs of socks to knit. Both are gifts, so need to get those done! I also have some other small gift knitting to do.So plenty to keep busy until the new year.

What do you think? Can I do socks, shawls and sweaters plus gift stuff along the way?

November Shawls

2011-11-16T10:00:00.000-08:00

I started shawl number ten in October and really hoped to finish it for that month. Pick a simple shawl pattern that really only has one row to remember and for some reason it slows you down. ;-) Lovely pattern though - Dunes from Knitty. I was able to use some soft yak/merino that I spun up a couple years ago.

Keeping me warm at an event

On the piano trying to show some details

A former co-worker from Intel contacted me for help for a group event she was planning. She had played for a number of years in the SCA and knew that I was currently playing. She was hoping to use our loaner garb for group members to get into the theme of the party - Knights (their group name). We brought displays and fliers and a couple of people to do a rapier demo:

Eoghan and Gerald

Once I was done with Dunes, I wanted to get a jump on finishing the last shawl of the year - Swallowtail by Evelyn Clark. Instead of doing the nupps, I opted to use beads. I added some in the last section of the shawl too.

Close up of the beads

Blocking on the bed.

The fun thing about lace is how it comes off your needles all scrunched and small. Then you soak it and block it out and it can grow, sometimes a lot. This went from 15 x 41 inches to 22.25 x 48.25 inches. Kind of a shawlette really and I think I might have been able to add in one more of the Budding Lace charts, but it would have only given me another inch. Still a pretty neck warmer. I may give this as a gift to someone.

I tried it out

2011-11-15T22:48:00.001-08:00

With the last post I showed that I had some yarns soaking in alum and cream of tartar getting ready to try out a natural dye bath of black beans. So as a refresher - a single of polworth, three ply of polworth, merino two ply and a two ply of merino-alpaca-silk. I put in two bags of black beans in a couple of pots and while the yarns were in the mordant, they soaked overnight.

The next morning I wrung out the water and transferred them to the bean pots:

Just added to the crock

Just added to the pot

After 24 hours

After 48 hours all in one big pot

After 5 days


Kind of a blue-grey

Out in true lighting - very grey

So with the less than impressive results, I decided I'd do a Kool-Aid dye bath. Two packages of Blue Raspberry and one of Lemon-lime all into a Pyrex measuring cup (I have a HUGE one) but the green really popped as the dominant color. So I pulled out some Wilton icing dye and added in a dollop or two of blue. Stirred and popped the yarns into the cup and heated. As you can see below, they all took the colors differently. Fascinating really. ;-)

Left to right - three ply Polworth, merino-alpaca-silk, merino, and polworth single.

I am going to try dyeing again with the black beans. Next time I'll only use the alum to mordant and I'm going to try using vinegar after it comes out of the pot. I also think I could get away with just letting it soak for two full days.

Finishing October up

2011-10-31T20:56:00.000-07:00

So wrapping up the month with a couple more small skeins of yarn from Miss Molly. A merino that I got from Cindy. She had gotten it in her SOAR 2009 bag. Two-ply, 21 grams, and 134.3 yards. The other is also from Cindy, but this time a WWSiP day sample from her shop, Urban Fiber Arts, merino/alpaca/silk. I spun an ounce of this and Kool-Aid dyed. This sample I'm going to use a natural black bean dye. It's also a two-ply, 28 grams, and 132.2 yards.

Merino

Merino/Alpaca/Silk


Pre-mordanting in alum and cream of tartar

Did a quick little knit for Halloween of a witch's hat for Leeloo. Took picture of it on both dogs:

Norbert


Leeloo

Saturday we drove up to Olympia for a music and bardic symposium in the Barony of Glymm Mere. We were a little late, but Brandon was able to get into his guitar class, then a lute class, story telling, and how to host a bardic event They enlisted a couple of local people, they even asked us if we wanted to compete, to be their bardic champion. This would have happened after the dinner, but there was a slight delay in beginning. It was $10 per person for the event and Brandon had to pay a total of $3 for two of his classes (one had a music CD). What we were paying for was this:

1st Remove
Bread with herbed butter (very good)
Mushroom & cheese pastries (got to bring 3/4 of a pie home with me - yummy)
Compost – vegetables pickled in wine & spices (surprisingly tasty!)
Cameline Beef (nom, tender beef slices)

2nd Remove
Duck with glazed turnips (I carved the duck, it was good! so were the turnips)
Bernaise sauce (they had a hard time with keeping it blended but still good)
Cameline sauce (a little tart)
Cynches (these came out well, I've made them in the past - roasted chickpeas)
Peas with pearl onions (a little overdone)

3rd Remove
Pork stuffed with bacon, brie, and chestnuts (would have liked to try the chestnuts, but I don't eat pork)
Yellow pepper sauce
Mustard cream sauce
Apple Muse (this was good, kind of an applesauce in milk)
Rice in milk & beef broth (a bit dry but good with the apple muse)

4th Remove
Pears in wine & honey (tried to eat it while still way too hot, good, but not as good as the meringues)
Cream Horns (the horns were a bit stale, probably made the day before but not covered well - yummy cream)
Meringues Chantilly (I ate two and a half and could have stuffed my face with more if I hadn't already been stuffed from all the previous food!)

I wore my gates of hell green dress and Brandon got to wear his new jacket that Andrea helped him make. Here he is all dressed up for his work Halloween party (his co-worker/D&D friend Brent is in the background):

Still working on my October shawl, Dunes with my handspun Yak/Merino. Its a nice simple pattern to knit, just might be too simple because I find I have to put it down and make my brain work or spin a bit. So my goal in November is to get the shawl done first, then work on the November socks and then start on all the extras I'd like to do.

No-reply blogger

2011-10-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

Borrowing some of these from Coffee and Cabernet:

"As a blog follower, do you wish the author of another blog could respond directly to you if you ask a question in their comments section? Are you frustrated by the fact that you really want to know the answer but most often you fail to remember to check back for their response?

What is a "Reply" & a "No Reply" blogger?

When someone leaves a comment on one of your blog posts, you get an email notification, right? So, you log in to your email and read the comment. If you hit 'Reply,' one of two things happens:

1) their email address displays in the 'To:' section and you can reply to them, or

2) their address looks something like this:

Jane Doe

If scenario #1 happens, that commenter is a "Reply" blogger. {score!} If scenario #2 happens, that commenter is a "No Reply" blogger."

So how do you change your settings?

1) Go to your Blogger profile and click "Edit Profile"
2) Under the Privacy section there's a check box unchecked for "Show Email Address" - check that
3) Just below that, under the "Identity" section, enter an email address. This does NOT have to be the email address you maintain your blog with. You can create a new email address and enter that. This email address is used only when another blog author replies to a comment you've left. Gmail now has settings so you can maintain more than one account easily (not that I'm doing that).
4) Don't forget to click on "Save Profile" or your change won't stick.

Thanks to Sue at Alderwood Quilts for reminding me that I wanted to fix the "no-reply" for myself. Hopefully this is something that others wanted to know about too. ;-)

You can of course remain a "no reply" commenter, but I'd like to think that you'd like to get some kind of response to a comment that you've left on my blog or another blog.

More October knitting

2011-10-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

Two pairs of Cascade Fixation anklets were quickly knitted. Nice simple pattern on US4 needles and you have soft squooshy ankle socks for lounging around the house or wearing with your tennis shoes:

I had a quick knit sample for Lorajean in some of her delightfully soft and squishy Bulkan. It's Irishgirlieknits Comfort Food wristwarmers:

She had a trunk show last weekend at For Yarn's Sake and after I finished the second one, gave her a call. Told her I could get them to her shortly, if she could hang out a bit. I arrived just as she was in the process of loading up her stuff so it worked out for both of us. Yes, I didn't get them blocked but she can get that done. Andrea almost didn't give them up after being asked to model them. ;-)

I was going to start my October shawl but found that I was missing the charts, so went with the quick and easy Barn Raising Quilt blocks. I after all had some recently finished samples, so why not use them? These are really like potato chips, you can't stop at just one. Four were shortly made and I have a fifth in time out on the needles. Here's the four from - Rogue Adventures, Upstream Alpacas and that Pear Tree Merino:

If I were going with the proposed 42 blocks, I'd be almost done. I want t bigger blanket, so more blocks to make. I've also been toying with the idea of putting it together similar to a quilt with sashings around the blocks. This will help increase the overall size and with one color pull them all together. Not sure about the color though. So do I back it with like a flannel sheet or do I make other blocks in a different pattern and put those together to become a double-sided blanket?

I jumped in and started my October socks, planned as a Christmas gift and have one done and the other partially done:

Pattern is from Knitty, Breeze. My suggestion for sock designers, do not assume that they will be knitted one particular way. These assume three dpns. I'm doing them with two circs. It has suggestions to increase the heel stitches for larger feet, but does not have instructions for the extra stitches. I just went with the suggested and it worked out, but was kind of annoying.

Still need to get my October shawl started, have everything all ready to do, just need to finish the second anklet and get started. I've been spinning on Miss Molly and have the Knitted Wit samples all spun up. I started on some BFL/Silk I got from Rachel. She didn't like how it spun up and I'm not either. So it may become stuffing for some knitted toy.

I had noticed this plant in the box with the Nasturtiums and the peppers but no idea what they are when I noticed they were flowering:

Anyone know what it is?

I almost forgot a project! It's a cover for Leeloo:

Top picture is pre-felting as is the centr one. The bottom one is after felting. I need to get all her measurements written down somewhere so its easier to knit her stuff that fits. I used up my purple all wool yarn scraps/samples to make it, so its her Purple People Eater sweater. I have more sweater projects lined up for her, so those measurements are crucial. ;-) This one will be okay, but won't be a favorite.

Early October knitting and spinning

2011-10-08T08:30:00.000-07:00

I actually finished my shawl in September but didn't have the final project photo until just yesterday. I knew I wasn't going to get it in time on the 30th, so just waited until I could get Brandon's help.

Pimpelliese Shawlette:

You're supposed to weigh the yarn, knit to the half way point and then start decreasing. I went a little over, but thought that it wouldn't be an issue. I was a little bit more short and ran out so had to use another leftover yarn to finish. When wrapped in the front as a shawl its a bit obvious if you don't drape correctly and worn as a scarf, it can also be hidden. I had planned to give as a gift to the person who had given me the yarn, but now, it will go in the stack and most likely donated at the end of the year. :-( Pattern was fun to work though!

I had also finished my guanaco fiber in September. I have enough that I think I can do another Pretty Thing Cowl:

This weekend, I needed a break from the knit project I had started Friday night. I've discovered I must be allergic to mohair. This is the second time using mohair has made my tongue tingle and my face itch. So I broke out my WWSiP samples and spun up the Upstream Alpaca samples, because its just plain yummy to spin with and the Pear Tree merino sample. I think it has some silk in the blend and was nice to spin. I navajo-plied the Upstream Alpaca samples and just two plied the Pear Tree, but I did them all as one single skein. I knew I wasn't going to have much in the way of yardage from any of them so why not make it one skein?

I think I mentioned that Kathy and Marcello are moving to Italy? They're friends from SCA. She started by giving me her stash, then her canning equipment - BIG canner, jars of many sizes but lots of quarts, the lifter, magnets and funnels. Plus supplies from her pantry. Then plastic storage bins and glass canisters and more pantry items. Today it was more plastic storage bins (really can you have too many?), glassware and two pretty torchieres. So to thank her for their generosity, I knit her a medieval pouch to use at events while in Italy:

Kathy had also learned how to Nalbind last year at An Tir-West War when I took the weaving class. She only has one needle and had misplaced it (she's since found it). With Brandon's help in cutting them out, I then sanded the points in and some linseed oil and then a final finish and they all went to her with the bag this afternoon:

There are ten of them. She immediately put them into her carry on bag to take on her flight. I need to go through my stash and find more Lamb's Pride that I can give her to take along.

Meet Miss Molly

2011-10-07T08:30:00.000-07:00

I had been bidding on an Ashford Traditional spinning wheel through a Goodwill auction. It was under $100 when someone from Arizona posted it on Ravelry in several groups. So before it ended it had gone over the $200 I was willing to go for it. It wasn't coming with any bobbins. Once it went over that mark, I started looking around on Craigslist and saw that there had been one listed in Springfield. I emailed the person and asked if they would take $200 instead of the $250 it was listed for. It also included three bobbins and the lazy kate.

Tom emailed me back and said yes to the offer. I contacted him Tuesday morning and found out that he was going to be home, so with Brandon's permission, jumped in the car and headed down to Springfield. I ended up chatting with Tom for a couple of hours before loading up and heading back home. Showed him about Ravelry and got to see his spinning and quilting. It really was a lovely time and I'm glad I got to meet him and hope to see him again (we both missed OFFF and hope to go to BSG next year).

Brandon thought the wheel could use a bit of linseed oil, so I oiled her up and took her to spinning on Wednesday. There Rachel helped me by telling me to loosen the back mother of all screw that holds on the bobbin and shortened the cotton drive band, then oiled all areas. After I loosened the brake band, I was off and spinning!

I'm looking forward to being able to take Miss Molly to events and spinning with her. Now I have to decide if I want to 'pimp' her out. Some Celtic knotwork on the front or on the wheel? The wood is too pretty to paint. Thanks to the Ashford Spinning group on Ravelry I found the Traditional Timeline and it looks like she was built in 1982. Only the color is different. (There are some people out there that PAINT?! over that lovely wood.)

All my spinning wheels: Great Wheel (Brandon still needs to fix her rim), Lendrum and Ashford Traditional

Some of my stash baskets as well as Leeloo can be seen. I need to move the stash baskets back under the piano once I finally get all out camping boxes moved out to the shed this weekend. Though I recently have come into more plastic storage boxes and really hope to move them into those so the yarns don't gather dust and get some protection from any possible wayward moth problems.

Hat Fun

2011-10-06T19:33:00.000-07:00

I've always liked hats but have had a hard time finding fun hats that aren't terribly expensive. Enter Shop Goodwill. I've gotten some hats in lots and individually. I don't always like all the hats in a lot, so will either give them away or sell them.

Here's some of the hats I've gotten:

Showing the feather on the hat

Also has a bow. Need to find some way to keep on though!

Barely perched on rabbit beret. Not sure I'll keep it, but can't wear with hair up or I need to find a way to keep it on.

In surprisingly good shape! Brown with sequins and netting. I'm not keeping it, so sale or giveaway.

Perched on top! I'm not keeping, it does remind me about something from the 60s.

Shows the feather. It's brim is velvet.

Red velvet on the top. Think it would look great with a steampunk outfit if I ever do one. ;-0

Fall = Harvests = Preservation

2011-10-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

No pictures unless you'd like to see one of my very full pantry.....

I started out making jams -

strawberry balsamic-pepper
boysenberry
raspberry-blackberry
peach-Brown Sugar-Rum
Peach-Raspberry-Ginger
Ginger-Apricot-Pepper
Ginger-Aprcot-Peach-Pepper

Figs happened in bunches. I dried a couple of bags of the figs and gave away a couple of boxes to friends. One ate them and the other ate them and pickled them. I need to find other exciting things to do with figs next year.

The squashes - summer and zucchini started ripening and I sliced the first and sliced and shredded the second and put them in the freezer for winter eating and baking. I'm going to try to slide the zucchini into other baked items than chocolate zucchini bread. ;-)

The tomatoes started ripening and I had the food dehydrator out for drying apple chips, so all the recipes for 'sun-dried' said to either do it in the oven or in a dehydrator. So a batch or two of the Romas became sun-dried along with the little candy-like Sun Gold yellow-orange cherry tomatoes. I also did a batch of the Romas with olive oil and roasted in the oven. They didn't really dry out, and wouldn't be safe just jarring them, so into a baggie they went into the freezer. I've done a couple of batches of tomato sauce and still have a lot of tomatoes to process. I'm going to roast more and then sauce them I think.

The Chehalis Apple tree ripened in August instead of the normal September so we lost about half of the apples trying to keep up. We still have 12 gallon bags all peeled/sliced/cored and ready to become apple pies in the freezer. A handful of quart bags filled with apple chips in the pantry. Brandon pulled out the juicer and had five gallons of apple juice. Only three quart jars so far of applesauce. The Gala tree is ripening and I want to try to get more applesauce.

We found a great area to pick blackberries and have gotten a couple gallon bags that went into the freezer. They joined the two quart bags of boysenberries in the freezer. I love blackberries.

Beth went to Hood River last week and mentioned that she was going to get pears for .25/lb so I asked her for $2 worth. She brought back a mix of pears, I'd have to go look at all the different varieties to be sure of what she brought back. I made a batch of pear butter that is divine! It has orange juice and the juice from it as well as some grated nutmeg. Almost embarrassed myself if someone else were in the kitchen with me at the time but didn't stick my face in the pot to lick clean. ;-) I'm going to do another batch of this recipe and add a little crystallized ginger for a little zing.

SCA friends Marcello and Kathy are selling their house and spending at least a year in Italy. I've been the lucky recipient of spices, glass canisters, a whole ton of tomatoes, beets, ceramics and 50 lbs of milk chocolate. I traded some of our garb for their honey, for future mead making.

The beets are still new to me as a food item. I've used them as part of my roasted root medley at SCA events but wanted some way to preserve for future use. I had thought about making chips, those are yummy, but the overwhelming suggestion was pickled beets. So I went to Tasty Kitchen and found a pickled beets recipe that called for sugar and cloves as well as the white vinegar. Five tall jelly jars and a pint jar came out of the four pounds cooked. I'm going to try the boil and then peel method for the roasted root medley, it was slick!

I still need to pickle the red cabbage. They're sitting in my refrigerator crisper drawer and really need to come out. I want to do the sweet and sour kind and think because of the vinegar that I shouldn't have any issues with canning it. After all its like pickling - right?

The milk chocolate? I'm dividing up with Shelia and keeping some for my own use. She plans to use it for fudge and I thought that it might not be bad to try making some myself.Went off to Tasty Kitchen and found some recipe possibilities, including a Key Lime and coconut fudge. You don't have to be a member to use the site, the advantage of being a member is you can save recipes to your file.

Not preservation, but also a fall activity - soapmaking. I've put out a request for frozen juice containers to use as molds and am going to do a small soapmaking class in a few weeks. I want some more homemade soap and we've been out for a year. So multiple batches will be made. ;-) I think all of this preserving, soapmaking and fudge making will help balance things out so I don't have to do as much knitting. I really like that idea! Less pressure on me to do something for everyone. I do have a bunch of stuff already made and others still planned, just can scale back some.

September Sample Knitting

2011-09-30T08:30:00.001-07:00

Lorajean of Knitted Wit put out a call for sample knitting a while back ago and I put in my needles for the option. I love her colors and like helping out friends, especially when you get yarn or fiber in return. ;-)

We got a list of choices of projects to knit and I threw in for a baby sweater and thick yarn cowls. I am still recovering wrist wise from the mad knitting I did on my Dragon Stole. First came the yarn for the baby sweater. A nice seamless sweater with cute details. Lora Jean had an idea, I just had to make sure we were on the same page. As I had leftover yarn, I made up a little hat to go along and a small bit leftover. I had planned to try out a Baby Jane booties and was using the detail yarn when I thought I'd go ahead and try my luck with the small bit. I was extremely lucky and had just a few yards in the absolute end. Nadine was kind enough to take them to OFFF so that Lorajean could have them up in the booth.

Sweater - I didn't have enough of the orange flowers, so alternated with red flowers

Newborn hat

Baby Jane booties

The full sew. I put them on a hangar and sewed loops for the hat and booties to keep them all a set and not wander off during the event.

These were knit with her Cypress Hollow Yarn a nice bouncy Rambouillet handspun like yarn in Sport Weight.

The other project was the Cowl by Debbi Stone - Faye in Lace. It was very reminiscent for me of the Mystery KAL socks I did last month. So it was a very easy knit up. I did the large size and its long enough that it can be kind of a coat scarf and do either two or three loops to be a cowl of varying closeness. The yarn is a lovely DK in polworth and silk:

I really do hate having my picture taken.....I think Brandon was saying something pithy, thus was getting 'the look'.

Three loops of softness

Two loops, kind of casual, imagine with a jacket

Knotted scarf like (maybe I should wear scarfs more often?)

Lorajean I think is off to California for another show so her Etsy store is currently down. If you haven't tried Knitted Wit, you're truly missing out on lovely colors and yarns/fibers!

State Fair Wrap-Up

2011-09-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

When I picked up my items from the drop-off for the State Fair I had a couple of pleasant surprises. An item that I thought hadn't won a ribbon actually did win one! The Poppy hat had a white third place ribbon on it. Going back to look at the picture I took of it in the display case, I can see where it was hidden by an item below it.

The Camel spun Fan Shawl that received the Best in Class was given the additional prize of a fleece:

Crimpy fleece! Three colors in the fleece, still in the grease. The box says 5lbs and I haven't weighed it so will have to find out after its washed.

I have been washing the fleece and its turning out wonderful. Using the Unicorn Fiber Scour, Wash and Rinse to get it ready for spinning. I'm almost done washing the box, and will have to decide if I just want to flick the locks or borrow/rent a drum carder to get it ready for spinning. I will also probably divide up the colors so they can be spun separately. I have no idea what it will become but hope that I can spin up a sweaters worth.

No OFFF this year

2011-09-29T12:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't able to make it to Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival this year. Until someone comes up with a cloning machine, I couldn't be at two places at the same time. So instead of hanging out with my fiber friends and visiting the sources of our fiber delight, I as hanging out with my SCA friends at a place where I used to hang out with my Scout friends. It could have all been very confusing. ;-) We attended Boar's Head Hunt and Feast 2011 up at Scouter's Mountain in Golda's Kitchen.

The geographical location that we live in under the SCA is in the kingdom of An Tir and until Saturday was known as a Shire. On Saturday we were raised up as a Barony and had our Baron and Baroness crowned:

Baron Refr and Baroness Svava

Then it was on to the rest of court where the different awards were being handed out. A lot of friends were receiving their Award of Arms (first level award - can now be called Lord or Lady), Goutte de Sang (in recognition of service) and Jambe de Lion (recognition of artistic ability of some kind - sewing, fiber, leather, beads, etc or science). People have to write in letters recommending you for these awards, they just aren't handed out willy-nilly. ;-)

So imagine my surprise when the Herald mangled my name, just as I had learned it was possible the night before, Brigitte Giesen Riegers von Wolfratshausen. I then was escorted by Brandon - aka - Lord Ignatious:

Remembered my bow to the King Thorin and Queen Dagmaer and already starting to cry:

Talking with the King Thorin and Queen Dagmaer

Lovely pic of me with my Award of Arms by Kristin, still stunned:

I now have to work at getting my name registered, and develop my heraldry. So I can feel comfortable with being called Lady Brigitte or Lady Reigers. ;-)

Brandon, Dawn-Marie, Larissa and Andrea have all been asked to be part of the Barony Retinue in our Household. This will leave Scott and I to keep ourselves out of trouble while at events where they are off helping court to run smoothly.

Brandon made the boxes that the Baronial Crowns will be stored while not in use:

He received a nice flask in recognition of his work from Baroness Svava:

During the day Brandon taught a couple classes, though no one showed up for his constructing drop spindles class, the other class on Period Encampment Construction was well attended. I did a drop spindle class and had a couple of people attend. So I did have my fiber! I spent part of the morning with my wheel working on some guanaco I was trying to finish up and did.

Besides becoming a Barony, the other intent of the event was to have the Arts and Science competition where the new defender is chosen. Osaa is the new Defender until next year when the position will be known as a Champion (difference between being a shire and a barony - defenders vs champions).

September knitting

2011-09-29T08:30:00.000-07:00

I started it the end of August but finished it on the first of September, so it counts for this month:

Pattern is Encompass, Yarn is Cascade Yarns Eco-Duo - Alpaca/Merino, knit with one extra repeat for a total of four of the pattern. I had sneezing fits when working on this, so it most likely will end up becoming a gift.

Bordered Heart Dishcloth

Leaf Lace Wash Cloth

Pattern: Flippant by Sivia Harding is a great way to use up some of the left over sock yarns I have. Top is Plymouth Happy Feet and the bottom pair is Shibuiknits.

Current work in progress from early on is Pimpelliese. Its a scarf/shawlette that you start at one end and work sideways working the body and edging all at the same time. Its delightfully simple and easy to memorize. You weigh your yarn before you start and increase until you have half of the yarn left then start doing your decreases. I'm half way done with the decreases and sure I'll have it done in time for the month.

I do have a bit more knitting to show off but that's for another post. ;-)

World Wide Spin in Public 2011

2011-09-28T15:56:00.000-07:00

This is our third year having this event and the second year in a row its rained on us. Luckily, it only rained part of the day. We were tucked under the overhang, near the stairs and by the Starbucks. Close to the Starbucks is handy on a rainy cool day. ;-)

We received awesome donations of fiber from Knitted Wit, Upstream Alpacas, Urban Fiber Arts, Opulent Fibers and a little ball of superfine merino from Pear Tree Yarn of Australia through Urban Fiber. Unicorn Fiber sent us samples of all three of their products - Scour, Wash and Rinse. Bethany gave a lovely cowl pattern as spinning inspiration. The bags were donated by Angela, Duffy and Tracy. Finally, I made drop spindles out of yellow heart, curly maple, black walnut and purple heart.

The bags already to be scooped up by eager spinners

The drop spindles drying, before they were put in bags.

Some of the contents in the bags - drop spindle, Knitted Wit big bag o fiber, Upstream Alpacas and Urban Fiber Arts, bookmark for Beyond Toes Up

Opulent Fibers donation, each of the bags had three superfine merino bumps

Pear Tree Yarns of Australia purple-ish superfine merino bump

We had a destash/trade table and I scooped up some Ashland Bay 50/50 Silk/Alpaca that Rachel C brought to trade. I had brought llama and hemp. I have a LOT of alpaca, I must like spinning it. ;-)

I think I might try overdyeing these since there's not a huge amount of them. I think if I try for like a red on both I could try spinning together or in stripes. We'll see.

Lisa C teaching Terrie how to use the drop spindle from her goodie bag. She liked it a lot more than her big clunky spindle and is now looking for a used wheel to purchase.

Tracy taking a break from her wheel with her Turkish Delight, giving advice to another new drop spindler (I'd gotten her started, but have forgotten her name). Nicole had her Turkish Delight.

Jess, Rachel and Kristy

Melissa and Duffy with her new wheel

We were not wheel heavy this event so I think that made it interesting for the people who stopped by to see what we were doing. Nadine (her picture came out horribly blurry) had her espinner, so we were well represented by the variety of spinning that can be done.

I think it was an awesome day and look forward to organizing next year's!

What I saw at the State Fair 2011 (picture heavy!)

2011-09-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Everyone was out of the house with one thing or another, so I took myself down to Urban Fiber Arts so that I could pay for my fiber for next week's drop spindle class at Acorn War. It was pretty busy with women pawing through bins for destash deals. I admit, I was drawn in and brought home three bags - two of yarns and one of fiber. It's a pretty red merino that looks like an Ashland Bay Merino-Silk blend. It's two and a half ounces of pretty that I might have to spin up soon. ;-)

The day was getting warm but after a few side tracks I was able to get myself on to I-5 headed south. Darn one way streets and trying to head closer to the river before trying to get on a freeway. My father had assured me that things had changed and parking was free for the State Fair in the surrounding fields. So I followed his directions on how to find the field closest to the freeway and was near the outside edge of that field. They were having a good day. It was a bit windy, but I was still grateful for my parasol providing some shade from the sun.

Once inside I headed towards where I thought I wanted to be, and turns out I was right! I bypassed all rides, food, and those booths selling things. I was on a mission. The Textiles were tucked in an alcove towards the front of the building, in a lovely air conditioned area (less bodies, meant it was cooler).

Here are some of the cases I photographed (click on picture for larger image, then use your back button to see more of the post):

The Cascade Lizard Ridge afghan didn't win a ribbon.

I missed it the first time through, they have it like a hat - felted bowl top right and two skeins in bottom right - Exotic Fibers - Alpaca and Other animals - Pygora

Poppy hat to the left - no ribbon; Hydrangea socks - third place

Pygora single - first place upper left

Chocolate bunny covered by its tags, holding down the Pretty Thing Cowl - first place

Zen Rain Shawlette - third place, mid left; The center two items and the top right were knit by a man using lace for the beige and crochet thread for the other two. Most impressive work!

Polworth 3 ply first place, bottom left


Kelly Cabled Capelet, bottom right - second place

My SCA colorwork bag - upper right, second place

Sorry, didn't know it came out blurry, until I was home! Yellow Shrug This - Center, second place; Crimson Haruni mid-right - first place; Alpaca Bear to the right of it, second place

Handspun Camel Fan Shawl center right - first place and Best in Class

Aeolian Shawl (beaded item) - center, third place; Any other handspun - merino-silk - in chair, first place

I took nineteen items in and three did not receive a ribbon, nine received first place, four received second place and three received third place. Very nice!

An example of another winning spinner (+5yrs - I'm under 5yrs):

My poppy hat wasn't the only one there! Someone from else also sent theirs in and also didn't get a ribbon:

There were racks with the crocheted afghans (where most of the crocheted items were) and the machine knitted and the one hand knit afghan I could find:

You can see why it might have gotten a first place ribbon! There were a few more cases that I didn't photograph. I think they may have had the crochet items and the embroidery stuff.

I didn't take photos but I did check out the rest of the building and the quilts. I thought my friends with cats might like this one in partiucular:

Egyptian cats

I think I spent two hours in the Creative Living building. By that time I was in sensory overload and not really looking forward to the walk back out to the car and the ride home. It was hot outside and the smoke level was increasing. I'm glad I went though!

Sport of Kings

2011-08-29T23:50:00.000-07:00

So I sent Brandon off to Sport of Kings last weekend because Baron Aelfric strongly encouraged it at DMDT. I had heard the site had lots of mosquitoes and there weren't any Arts & Sciences classes I was interested in, so opted to stay home. I did get hired to cook for two other ladies for the weekend, since I was already sending Brandon off with food. Three really is easier than one.

Then I find out *why* he had been so strongly encouraged, he was going to be receiving his Award of Arms. (Its the first level of awards you can get is the best definition I can find.) Sigh, I had no plausible reason to change my mind about camping, so had to find transportation to day trip. I was able to talk Judy into taking me and bonus, Brandon has been wanting to show her what we've been doing.

Judy picked me up, then we picked up Corbin (nephew/grandson) and headed out to Trojan Park. The day was in the low 90s and by the water a bit humid in the late afternoon. Brandon was happy to take his mom and nephew around and very happy to see me. ;-)

Our pavillon and rare shots inside. I have a hard time getting him to stay neat. Apparently, I just need not to be there!

We're working on a divider panel, until then the lion tapestry.

We haul a futon mattress & feather mattress to sleep on. I've been promised a bed fr next year. ;-)

Brandon at different times had a photo shoot with his ladies. Dawn-Marie and Andrea are dance partners. ;-) We all camp together and have talked about creating a household called the Dancing Dragonflies and that was the camp name used to reserve the area.

Dawn-Marie - aka Lady Millicent (she has her Award of Arms)

Andrea - can't remember her SCA name

me - Brigitte

Brandon in his pluderhosen he designed and sewed, a lot of it by hand! Wearing the kilt hose I knit him and the dragon bag.

Judy and Corbin (no Leeloo) watching court, Corbin looking at Brandon's mink recorder holder:

Getting his Award of Arms from the King and Queen of An Tir:

The Award of Arms - all hand painted and scripted

Thanks to Judy for gettng me there to see it! It made it that much more special for him.

Next up is Acorn War and then Boar's Head Hunt and Feast, I'll be teaching drop spindling at both of these. Boar's Head Hunt is where the Shire will be raised up to become Barony. Way cool! I also have World Wide Spin in Public and Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival. September is going to be fun and busy!

Socks, I have socks!

2011-08-29T22:28:00.000-07:00

Please forgive any typos, I burned the ring finger on my left hand and hunt-peck typing, ;-)

I finished the second sock of the penispoopcakewaffle socks:

I found another ankle sock to go with the Best Friend Anklet - Girlie Anklet Sock. It went much faster than the first one! I did run out of pink and had to go to the Kool-aid dyed Lion Brand Sock-Ease:

I couldn't leave it that way, so a combination of Kool-aid dyeing occurred to give me these results:

I kind of like them!

The other item off the needles is my Shetland Shawl that will go to a non-wool wearing home as a Christmas gift. I got the yarn from Tammy, its been in her stash awhile as Blue Moon Fiber Arts doesn't list it at all. 100% cotton lace in Blue Boo! colorway. It has kind of a mauve color and I added clear beads to the edging rows to add weight and some bling. :-)

But I'm not done with socks for the month! I did a free Mystery KAL where the clues came out each Friday. I had fun with the first clue, even starting late, and figured if I wanted a pair by the end of the month, I had to also get started on the second. I used some pretty Malabrigo Sock in Chocolate Amargo. I probably should have saved it for some man socks, but I'll stkk enjoy wearing them this fall. ;-)

I am just one pair short of being back on track for a pair a month, I think. lol I have a cheater quickie that I would be working on, except the finger is on fire when its not melting an ice cube, :-( I also have cowl all ready to go, yarn balls all wound, pattern printed and needles ready. Maybe tomorrow....

Fruits and Veggies

2011-08-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

This is our first year trying to grow artichokes. I'm rather impressed by the show. It's a nice sized globe.

It wasn't alone though and has a second smaller stalk growing along side.

I think the red cabbage heads are probably ready to pick. I really only grew these with the plan to use them as a natural dye for the yarns. The yarns I thought I'd use them with are off at the State Fair. So I'm just letting them grow, though Greta asked me Thursday night if I had let them bolt.....

Twin orange cherry tomatoes! They are totally separate from each other, but joined by a single stem. They were yummy to eat, so sweet its like candy.

I bought a flat of Boysenberries to make into jam. These are the processed (truly canned) jams waiting to be put away. I was kind of disappointed in the farm stand. I had called and asked for a flat, they said they would pick them fresh the next morning and then call me when they were ready. I picked them up Saturday early afternoon and started canning them. Sunday early afternoon. I ended up throwing around almost 3 pints of moldy fruit - top, middle and bottom moldy fruit.

I came up with enough leftover that I was also able to do a freezer jam. Plus the trays of individual berries went into two quart bags, so some summer love in the winter months.

The blackberries on the other side of the fence looked like they were ripening, so Dawn-Marie and her daughter Samantha joined William and I in picking some. They took theirs to Sport of Kings to eat with their yogurt. I discovered I had 5 cups of berries, pre-crushing and so added in some frozen raspberries and made a yummy batch of jam with them. No pics of those jars but they look very similar to the Boysenberry jars.

Since we were kind of in a picking mode and I had William's help to reach the higher limbs, we picked the figs. I ate a couple fresh and warm from the tree, then peeled their green outer skins and filled dehydrator trays.

The blueberries are slowly ripening this year and several of the bushes really, really need to be moved to better locations. I've eaten handfuls, but have also started freezing the picked ones for summer love in the cold winter months. Nothing like a nice berry smooth with berries from your own yard. ;-)

These are the tomato bushes overgrowing their metal cages. There's Romas and orange and yellow cherry tomatoes in that mess. You can kind of see gleams of the ripening orange cherry tomatoes. Brandon has since pulled them up and given them support to the roof overhang. Now it just has to stay nice for the Romas to have a chance at ripening. I plan to use the dehydrator on at least half of them for some 'sun-dried' tomatoes.

It's very weird. I looked up how to do 'sun-dried' and everyone says the best way is to use a food dehydrator. So that's what I'm going to do. I can pack them closer to the holidays in some nice olive oil and give jars as gifts.

This is our heavily laden Chehalis apple tree. They are also ripening early this year, I can see picking some before the end of the month. I'd like to put away some in the freezer for pies over the year. Brandon also likes making cider. I need to shop for another apple tree. The gala has always been a weak producer - very small apples that are spotty. I'll need a semi-mature replacement. Towards the back of the Chehalis is a Black Turkey Fig that also needs to be moved this fall. It tried growing fruit this year, but needs to have a better location than under the apple tree.

Not pictured is the Asian Pear. It's branches are also full of fruit. I'll enjoy one of the varieties and send off the other to people who like them. I can't remember which varieties we have, it started out as a four and I think we've lost the grafted branches of two.

Off to the State Fair

2011-08-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

Not me yet, but the items that went off to compete at the Oregon State Fair this year:

A neatened up Cascade Lizard Ridge Afghan. Fixed the pulled loops in the back and snipped any ends that had popped out. The socks, bunny and teddy bear along with my two polworth skeins from the county fair. Things new to the fair events in this picture: the felted handspun bowl I made at Easter, my handspun Finn Pretty Thing Cowl, my colorwork SCA bag. Kind of blending in are three handspun yarns - blue merino-silk, alpaca and pygora. I also re-soaked my three ply that had received a 'slightly overspun' comment and that helped balancing things out.

I didn't realized that the Zen Rain Shawlette was so tucked under, but the way the different categories are worded, I was able to send off five different shawls to compete, so the Kelly Cabled Capelet, Haruni and Camel Fan shawls from the county fair are joined by the Aeolian and Zen Rain.

Cafe ua Lait Zen Rain Shawlette

Thankfully I was going through my list when I was packing everything up, because otherwise I would have forgotten the pretty yellow Shrug This and the Poppy Hat.

It wasn't until I got to the Beaverton Mill End store that I found out that I hadn't looked at the form closely and had checked that I was dropping off at the Milwaukie store. Ugh! So we spent half an hour making 19 tags for everything and the let me pin them on to things. They'll transfer over my official tags in Salem. Now I just have to get someone to take me to the Fair so I can see how things done. There's also just waiting until I get them back to find out how they did, but I'd like to see the competition too. ;-)

August Thus Far

2011-08-19T12:33:00.000-07:00

I've been working on projects, but then feel like I haven't done anything at all. Ever feel that way?

A skein of lace weight yarn has joined the stash ready for future use. It's just under 600 yards of merino-silk. It would have been just over 600 yards, but I was doing a center pull ball to ply and it became a knot mess the last few yards and I was just DONE and didn't try to detangle.

I had a lovely skein of yarn I'd gotten from someone's destash, I think last year. Pretty skein of Mountain Colors 4/8 wool in Mountain Twilight colorway. I knit it because its a nice pattern and a larger weight yarn that I thought would work for the 11 shawls in 2011. Even though I knit it on larger needles and tried hard to use the whole skein, I still ended up with some leftovers and short of the 250 yard minimum. It's a nice size shawlette that will make a nice gift for the person I have in mind. Pattern: 198 yards of Heaven, mine is 230 yards. ;-)

Noriko has been knitting and spinning with us when she isn't traveling out of the country for school. She's graduated from Optometry school and off for at least a year to Georgia. She put out a request for everyone to make her a square that she can piece into a scarf or we suggested maybe a lap blanket. Here's my block for her, its from a lace pattern book and is called 'paired leaves':

Back in May I was knitting the Best Girlfriend Anklet socks as my pair. The most interesting part of the sock is the cuff, then it just become boring stockinette to the end. The sock is waiting for a mate:

I came up with the idea of making it a fraternal twin since its been holding up sock knitting since late May. I'm now two pairs behind! So went through my queue looking for other cuffed socks. I found another that I've been wanting to do and thought the pink would be perfect for it. The pink is perfect, but the cuff is shorter, so I'm making a pair of them:


PenisPoopcakeWaffle Sock

I'm past the heel turn and working on the foot of the sock on the second, so should be able to get it done before the end of the month. ;-)

I needed something quick and fun to knit and so used the Kool-Aid dyed Alpaca-Merino-Silk handspun and had a pretty block in a few hours. I used a smidge of it to finish up an earlier block. Still have a bit left to use for another block for a blanket, different pattern though. I have another block started in the leftover camel, there will be leftovers of it also.

I have another pair of socks that I'm working on this month. It's a Mystery KAL and something I haven't done before. We received a clue each week. The first sock was knitting up nicely, so this week I decided that since the last clue comes at the end of the month, I should start the second. I was able to get the second sock through the first clue. The second is the heel and heel turn, so should go quickly along with the third clue's foot work.

The Shetland Shawl I started with another destash yarn, BMFA Purl One in Blue Boo! Purl One is a cotton lace yarn with a sheen kind of like silk. It will be interesting to see how it all blocks out. I've finished the neck chart for the pattern and ready to start on the body chart.

Strained my right wrist with the power knitting I was doing with the Dragon Stole, so wearing a wrist band to aide it in support. It doesn't help when I turn-twist the wrist, but is better than nothing.

July Projects

2011-08-03T11:48:00.000-07:00

So here I was thinking I really hadn't done much and then found that I had a few things done! The last couple of weeks I've been power knitting the Dragon Stole because I wanted it ready for "Dragons in Any Media" a competition at the Defender's Tourney. I was able to get it 7/8ths done in time. My household encouraged me to go ahead and enter it. I got it in late, so many people didn't see it to vote for it Brandon thinks.

Blocking on the bed. Pre-blocking it was 64 inches, after 90 inches

So long it took Brandon to show its full width

Balancing one of the two dragons on my shoulder. Notice how long it drapes down the front. I have the end in my right hand. I can wear it like a sari (is that the correct piece?)

I'm seriously considering another over-dye. It was a Rare Gem from Blue Moon Fiber Arts (rare gems are boo boos in the dye studio that Tina won't sell as regular stock) from Oregon Flock and Fiber 09, and had some white-ish yellow spots. I tried dyeing it with leftover Rit dye being used for a shirt. So some good dye to over dye may be needed. I'll take it to my Wednesday night knit group and get opinions. It may also go to the State Fair. I think the dragon's are terribly handsome ferocious beasts. ;-)

For Washington County Fair I did the alpaca Teddy Bear and added in another dish cloth so I could have the required set of three. (The other two were - the large Owl face cloth and a leftover from last year Snowman)
I think I'm going to try my hand at adapting the Teddy Bear to not requiring all the sewing up of small pieces.

Classic Teddy Bear free pattern from Interweave Knits


Double Flower Dishcloth

I wanted/needed a bag to wear with my SCA garb and wanted to knit one. I plan on knitting messenger bags that I'll felt in the future for both Brandon and I. Until then, I have this one:


Stranded knitting of an extant Islamic pattern - this measures 6x12 inches. I loop the strap around the belt and let it hang. Light items or it really pulls on the handle. What do you think? State Fair entry?

The Camel hand-spun Fan Shawl went to the fair as seen earlier, and was supposed to be June's shawl, but didn't get done in time. So it became part of July.

So a two shawl month! Other than the State Fair and getting things out the door for that, I shouldn't have any reason not to get August okay for at least shawls. I'm also behind on socks.

County Fair 2011 Results

2011-08-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

I took eighteen items to the Washington County Fair and thirteen of them won a ribbon earning me a total of $24. Not too bad. ;-) Shelia wrote a couple of nice comments to let me know why I didn't get a few higher ribbons. I think I can fix those, so one may go on to the State Fair. (I need to read that brochure quickly and find out if it can.) So the stats are three First place, five Second and five Third place ribbons.

The ones that didn't get a ribbon:

I think the cape fell into the problem of some shawls in the same competition. None of the Haruni's won a ribbon. The yarn was a little overspun, and there were others in that category, so no ribbon. I'm still really happy with it and will give it another hot soak and see if that helps it out. The other two were things that I've done recently so found categories and I have no idea what they were competing against.

First place winners:

My knitting Shaun Sheep, Hydrangea socks that I completed one of them at Sock Summit 09, so really happy they won. The skein of yarn was fiber that I got with my Lendrum and navajo plied. I think it came out really lovely and have these planned for the yarn.

Second place winners:

My alpaca Teddy Bear (I think I'm going to have to try writing this pattern up as something with minimal sewing.) The single ply skein of polworth yarn. The sun hit it just right, but the Shrug This I did earlier in the year as a Christmas gift for Linda and my recently finished camel handspun Fan Shawl. I'm pretty sure the Teddy Bear and the skein will go on to the State Fair.

Third place winners:

The Poppy hat that will be a Christmas gift to Jenna, my Easter Egg and Chocolate Bunny, my three dish cloths, and my Cascade Lizard Ridge. It was the afghan that Shelia wrote about the ends. So I'll go over it tomorrow and see if I can fix those so that it can go to the State Fair, if it meets their requirements.

My problem looking back over finished projects is a lot of them go out as gifts. So I dipped into the current stash of future gifts and found that I'm behind. I wanted to enter my Orion Socks I did in January, but also wanted to wear them to Sock Summit. So they'll get washed and set aside for next year's fair. I may enter my Cafe au Lait Zen Shawlette to the State Fair. I may need to do a quick poll on what shawls go into each of the competitions at the State Fair.

Duffy's skein of sock yarn got a third place ribbon. Rachel hadn't picked up her items on Monday and plans to do it I think on Tuesday. Angela's December February Lady not only one first place in its category but Judge's Choice. Very cool!

Dragon's Mist Defender's Tourney 2011

2011-08-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

As previously mentioned, I dropped Brandon off Thursday night after work in Vernonia where the event was going to occur. This allowed him to setup the encampment and socialize with others who also came out early, and me to have the car on Friday so I could get back out there from Sock Summit (I'd been MAXing it in and back). The spoiled view also said that I would arrive to a campsite almost fully up and functioning. He left the decorating/placement of kitchen stuff to me.

You can't see Dawn-Marie's or Andrea's tents but here's the pop-ups and our pavilion:

Dawn-Marie traded her sewing services for gate entry and meals. She made me sleeves and a caul to go with my former wedding dress. She added some length to the skirt and lowered the neckline. I now need to make one of my chemise a square neck so that I'm not having to fuss with it all the time. I have more garb that needs to be made, I'm definitely going to ask for help with them!

Dawn-Marie and Andrea getting the sleeves all in place and looking pretty.

Caul made from the same material as the sleeves

Showing that the sleeves are fully reversible. Dawn-Marie and Andrea tell me that I can add button to the tops and bottoms of each of the stripes to make the sleeves more fancy and look like the stripes are attached with the buttons. I'll have to find out what kind I can use that won't also dig into me. ;-)

More cleavage! Also means a sunburn if you don't remember to sunscreen. Pretty sleeves! Dawn-Marie also says we can tuck in the sides a bit to give a bit more form for the dress. I'll still need to wear a bra.

Leeloo likes camping and staying in the tent and now the pavilion. Brandon was able to get three more rugs from a work sample sale that will make the floor of the tent. We have the tarp down, but I hate the sound of walking on plastic.

Our encampment is a work in progress. We have ideas of creating curtains that can go up on the sides of the pop-ups to allow privacy in the kitchen area but also shade. I'll be on the hunt for baskets for storage and Brandon will be making cook boxes that will be work/storage areas so that the tables can be used in other ways. I absolutely want to get a collapsible garment rack or two, but also free up or get more totes for storing/carrrying garb. I hate having wrinkles!

We all worked the gate at some point during the event. I cook but also got away for for a "Fire Cooking" class taught by Eulalia, I've pointed to her blog for some past recipes and the mead. I learned that while I have interest in doing period recipes, not so much with the fire cooking. It's not my idea of fun being stuck in camp all weekend long babysitting a fire. Learned cool things though and glad I took it!


Fire cooking class. We made gingerbread and cheese gnocchi - yummy!

The gingerbread was made by heating up the honey to soft-ball stage (we didn't get it exactly there but close - no candy thermometer to test) and then mix in ground ginger and long pepper and add in dried bread crumbs (apparently sourdough is really really good with this recipe). Let cool until you can roll into balls with your fingers. We learned that it helps to have a water dipping bowl handy so that the honey doesn't cause the bread to just stick to your fingers. Eat warm or cold. The cheese gnocchi was simply ricotta cheese, egg and flour mixed together then dropped into boiling water. Really more like a dumpling as it came out. Then sprinkle with parmesan cheese.

Brandon took a Baking Bread in Dutch Oven class. The instructor's fire pit is a cool tripod setup with a welder's apron underneath that allows him to use it even though it doesn't meet the 18 inch requirement for fires. I learned where to buy charcoal to use in them. ;-)

Brandon got over to the archery field. Caterina is all in purple in front.

Andrea tried her hand at throwing - spears, axes and I think knives. She discovered she likes it, but it really works out your arm when you aren't used to it.

Frederick the Reckless head of Fire and Steel

Another two nights of Fire and Steel. They were using us as practice for Sea Dogs. The first night we didn't have drummers (very strange) and the second night they just opted to go with their planned music to practice with.

We all agreed the event wasn't long enough. We had the first Bardic competition that went well. The weather was sunny with a breeze that kept things from becoming unbearably hot. There were lots of good conversations with people, some people were drinking, I was just trying to get enough sleep. ;-)

This will be our last Defender's Tourney. We are changing from a Shire to a Barony. So we also had a Baron and Baroness Q&A with the three couples that want to be those roles. Brandon is apprenticing to the Baron of Mountains Edge, the next nearest Barony to us, for woodworking. He was strongly encouraging Brandon to attend the Sport of Kings coming up later in the month. I thought we might day trip it, but Brandon thinks that he may need to be more available to the Baron, so will be camping. It's up by Trojan park and I've heard there are tons of mosquitoes and that just doesn't sound like fun for me, and there aren't any A&S classes I'm interested in taking, so I'll stay home and have a nice quiet weekend. We may day trip to Autumn War, but I need to talk to the A&S Autocrat to find out class details. There are possibilities but there may be overlap in class times so knowing what will be taught is important. It's a couple hours drive north and no potable water, so I don't want to camp for the weekend.

I reorganized the three main kitchen boxes and made room for things, but I need to do more to be happy with it. I'm not sure if that will happen until I get those cook boxes. lol I'll still do the standard re-washing of the dishes and get them back to where they should be. Cool tip we found out was to use those singleton socks that have been looking for their lost mates as covers for our potter cups. What an awesome idea!!

The Haruni Project

2011-08-01T23:15:00.000-07:00

Here's some photos of the ones that were entered that I was able to get pictures of. There were at least two that I personally didn't get the picture of, but can get one link (see below in participants).

Participants: Robyn, Jennifer, Kristy, Angela, Me, Duffy, Cindy, Noriko, Rachel, Rebecca, and Carol. Not pictured is Kathy's and Kathleen who missed the Fair deadline. There were a few others started but not finished yet - Tammy, Kim and I think Rachel C. I can't remember if Shelia had started hers or not before accepting the judge position for the fair.

I think that Cindy's was the only full sized one out of the group? I'm sure someone will let me know if I'm wrong. ;-) There were three that had some beading - Robyn, Rachel and Angela. They all nicely show the color range of Stitchjones, who is borrowing them to take to show at the Tigard Knitting Guild this month.

Notice how they look different from each other besides just the colors? Blocking I don't think were the same across the board. I'm going to see if Shelia would be willing if everyone is interested, in doing a judging just on the Haruni's. I'm not sure why absolutely none of them won anything at the fair.

Sock Summit 2011 and OSCON

2011-08-01T20:53:00.000-07:00

So last week was Sock Summit. Not having any money available for classes, I volunteered to help out with things. Turns out that made it so I could attend at least one lecture and get away and watch a demo and free entry into the Marketplace. My time was to start at 11:30am on Wednesday. Bobbie (Tiggywinkleknits) and I arrived a ten minutes early to find out that instead of the training starting at noon it wasn't going to start until 12:30pm. So spare time for knitting. We joined a table of ladies already there and one of them was showing off a pad she got from someone from OSCON (Open Source Conference on the other end of the Convention Center). There was some mention about being able to get in free to their Exhibit Hall, so we decided to take a few minutes to wander over and see if we could get in.

A nice man at the Registration Desk hooked us up with ID tags and soon our hands were full of cool goodies: blow up globes and yummy Dutch chocolates and toffees, playing cards, lots of pens, fun cling stickers and pads from the O'Reilly booth, really nice canvas bag from TAOS. Google was also there and so we got flashy pins and a wood block puzzle (Brandon took it to work before I could get a picture) and a couple of t-shirts. Bobbie has a nice picture of her stash, here's mine (I had fun collecting pins):

The hairband with devil horns to the left have buttons inside to make the horns flash. I wore them Wednesday and Thursday while working the Registration Desk.

I missed the Marketplace opening up on Thursday afternoon since I needed to get home to take Brandon out to Vernonia to set up our encampment for Dragon's Mist Defender's Tourney (next post). Friday morning I attend the Curvy-Grrl Knee Socks & Legwarmers lecture. Then caught the halfway point of the Backward Knitting demo in the Marketplace. One of the nice ladies, Nancy, whom I was working with for the last couple days knew I hadn't gotten a chance to go through the Marketplace so covered for me while it was quiet. I got lucky and ran into Rachel. She was able to show me where all the free stuff was and along the way I found a one ounce batt of cashmere (60%) and camel (40%) that just had to come home with me. I hadn't seen that combination of fibers, so new to my stash. Ms Gusset from Australia brought some lovely cormo fiber with her and she had some delicious black that I couldn't resist. Looking back, I wish I had bought two bags. Hopefully I can get another from her soon. I did point Cindy in her direction and I understand the shop will have some of her Optim. My last purchase was a small bottle of Citrus SOAK, I'm really low in my big bottle, so got the bottle I could buy with my leftover cash. Here's my Sock Summit swag and the fibers:

Sock Gate wearing my Zen Shawlette

4 ounces unwashed black cormo


1 ounce cashmere-camel

If there's another Sock Summit, I'm not volunteering, especially if there's also an SCA event I'm supposed to be attending. Just too stressful and I didn't really get to hang out and do the free stuff in the Marketplace. I needed to work about half the hours I did to really enjoy the whole experience while I was there. Though I must say my filing fu was awesome! I was amazing people by being able to almost reach into any of the boxes and pull registrations out with just a couple rummagings.

Meet Meme!

2011-07-26T10:00:00.000-07:00

Nicole came over with Meme, a two year old spayed Pug-Miniature Pinscher. She has a pretty severe underbite issue where her bottom teeth show, but it doesn't inhibit her eating at all!

Nicole and Meme in her Angel Shirt (it has wings.)

Meme in one of Leeloo's t-shirts

That spot in the grass that smells good enough to roll around in....

Checking that Leeloo is just watching and not going to try to take her spot...


Doggie bliss

Meme came to stay a week with us to see if she and Leeloo would play with each other. Leeloo tried really hard but at first Meme's barking scared her and then they both just kind of shutdown around each other. Norbert kind of snarked at her over food issues and so she spent much of the week snuggled up against me sleeping. Leeloo would come bark at her and bring toys to try to get her to play and when she was ignored, bark at me in frustration - Make her play with ME!

Brandon also stuck to his rule of only two dogs that we own, so since it wasn't a perfect fit, Meme went back to Nicole. Nicole picked her back up from me Friday night and we could all see how happy Meme was to see her again. She's back where she belongs. Though if the perfect home became available, Nicole would let that happen. Meme has a luxating patella in her right knee. It doesn't pain her or really slow her down. She just lifts it up and goes on with the other three. Meme would make an awesome agility dog, if she had the surgery done. It's not something that Nicole has the money for, and since there isn't pain, not a priority.

Norbert showing off his fresh haircut

Does that look like the face of a 9-1/2 year old dog?

She loves her back yard

Meme is a smidge taller than Leeloo, she's all legs!

Little puppy baking in the sun

Hair in the face, showing mom she needs a trim. She loves laying out on the patio in the sun for a bit while waiting for a bird to chase out of her yard.

Leeloo has been very affectionate since Meme has left. I'm not sure if she's trying to show me how happy she is that things are back to 'normal', or if she's worried that she might 'go away' too. Lots of kisses and requests to snuggle on my chest.

How my garden grows.....

2011-07-25T17:45:00.000-07:00

We kind of cheat with our garden and put in starts. The last weekend of April or the first weekend of May the Tualatin Valley Gardners Association has their annual plant sales. We've been going for many years now to get our veggie starts and sometimes blueberry plants, flowers or trees for the yard.

We have been having a rather wet spring and early summer. So things were slow to get started. In fact I had to get new zucchini and winter squash plants because the slugs got to them and killed them. Home Depot's garden center fills in what we don't get from the plant sale.

This is what it looked like before we went to An Tir-West War:

Shelia got a whole bunch of the Swiss Chard (I planted them because they were supposed to be rainbow colored.) Spinach went into bags for the freezer (you can see them at the far right in the photo below.) I used some in the quiche we had for breakfast at War. (Yes, I planted nasturtiums in the veggie box.)

This is the pepper box with some nasturtiums planted here too. The ones on the far right are still small due to the slugs, but I think they'll have a chance to come along and do something in time.

Last year we had broccoli but they were kind of small wimpy heads. This year I got two HUGE heads to make some broccoli-wine-cheese soup out of. I also got two HUGE heads of cauliflower, with a third coming along (it was being overshadowed by the others). The two red cabbage plants are finally acting like they're going to produce heads.

The other one looked like this too.

Wonder if purple cauliflower starts were nearby? Notice the purple tints to the head? The other one didn't have much purple.

Artichoke. I've never grown one before. No idea what I should be looking for other than it seems to be healthy.

Roma tomatoes now taller than I am! Along with the cherry tomatoes, yellow again.

This one is a little slower but starting to grow tomatoes. I can't remember what it is, just not what the other two are. ;-)

Second zucchini plant and winter squash. There's some potatoes and onions in there also. The lemon verbena came back in the back right corner. The sage didn't come back but Brandon admits he could have accidentally ripped it out.

Both cherry trees provided lots of fruit. The asian pear and the Chehalis apple tree are both loaded with fruit. The blueberries are starting to ripen and the strawberries are still ripening. There are a few gooseberries, but I cut them back pretty heavily last year. The summer squash has starts and flowers loaded down and the zucchini not far from it has a bunch of flowers, so some of that coming soon.

An SCA friend is going to Italy for a year and so I got a bunch of her canning jars. I think I'll be putting them to good use this year! I think I'm going to miss the raspberry season, so may have to substitute in Marionberry and Blackberry jams in its place. Very good substitutes!

So while things I think could be producing more, the cloud cover and humid days don't seem to be hurting the garden terribly. How does your garden grow?

To War and Back

2011-07-16T14:02:00.000-07:00

After the World Wide Knit in Public event, I spent the following Sunday pre-preparing our camp food for the end of the month. Dawn-Marie planned to camp with us, so I offered to provide the food and she helped by providing help in getting it all ready.

Here was our menu:

Thursday:

Lunch – Calzone (ended up being our dinner)

Dinner – Shepherd’s pie (defrosted and shared with the Murphy family) & pudding tart

Friday:

Breakfast – Panchetta & Spinach quiche/ fighter biscuits

Lunch – handpies

Dinner – chicken curry with quinoa & lemon tart

Saturday:

Breakfast – Scotch eggs& hash/ fighter biscuits

Lunch – handpies/leftovers

Dinner – Lombard Soup and rolls & lemon loaf

Sunday:

Breakfast – oatmeal bake

Lunch – leftovers

Dinner – Pasta shells & sauce & lemon loaf

Monday:

Breakfast - Oatmeal

I need to remember to pull out the first night's meal out of the freezer in advance and defrost. Keep it on ice to keep cool of course, but frozen solid, with no microwave to help you defrost before you warm it up, takes forever!!

We ate well as you can see. Brandon tried out some Portuguese Fry Bread as our rolls with the pasta shells. I'd tried my hand at making some homemade ricotta (very easy you should try it out!) and so cooked up a box of pasta shells and then stuffed them with my ricotta mix. We had a dinner that night out of the shells and I froze the rest of them on a cookie sheet, then bagged. I tried taking a German sausage package I had on hand for the Scotch eggs (not the link I was given, but will give you an idea of how to do it) and discovered that popping the sausage in the food processor and pulsing it back into a ground consistency wasn't going to be enough for this recipe. We tried to keep the sausage on the eggs, but they kept falling apart. Not enough fat in the sausage to help hold them together. So it became a 'hash' with the addition of potatoes. It all mixed well and was hearty in camp.

We tried our hand at making a 'weak mead' from a recipe shared here. It came out sweet and very carbonated. Lisa liked it so much that she put in a request for a bottle of her own at the next event. There really was very little alcohol content and could very easily be drank as a 'pop'.

I let Brandon have the camera for the weekend, and for some reason no pics of the pavilion were taken. I'll fix that at the next event. I did get some undocumented spinning time on Friday in camp spinning for Tour de Fleece. Saturday I took Leeloo down and we watched the War scenarios going on. She was very fascinated by all the action going on and didn't appear to be intimidated by all the men in the various amour.

Shadow Wolf Wood in his mask, you can kind of see the tattooing (if FB allows you to view) on his left arm.

I had Brandon take this photo, because I was just so impressed by how he rocked his look. Armour, hair, tattoo. I wouldn't want to take him him on.

Snuggling Leeloo in her pirate sweater, with Dawn-Marie and Larissa in the background.

Asim in his armour. He's looking good too!

Brandon knows what's going on here, but looks like its just one-on-one combat

Pretty shields and helmet

Combat!

Don't you just love his helmet with the mohawk? I think these were some of the Spartans, but I can't say for sure. The Spartans we had as neighbors last year didn't come up. They were from the West and were not the host kingdom this year.

Dawn-Marie in my loaned apron dress. I'm in a simple gates of hell over dress walking Leeloo and heading through the merchants.


Shannon, Draven and Barry Murphy (Merrie and Joseph de Merrick). We were camped with them again this year. Draven is showing a cool scroll he got from a gentleman for correctly translating some runes on a tent in one of the encampments. Not an easy feat for many and most just ask. He impressed the owner who gave him part of another special tent to honor him. Pretty special and cool.

Here's a link to the event. I was a little disappointed, I'm sure there were some Arts and Science activities, but they weren't well advertised and I didn't see much going on in that area when I went to visit the Merchant's area. I know that there was the Hosen War like I did last year, but I had zero interest in making another pair for Brandon. I did bring some yarn for it in case I became inspired. I did get a pouch started and showed Shannon how to get started with using two circulars for doing socks and stuff. This helped me to at least cast on the second sock for my May socks. Yes, they aren't done yet!! So behind.....

Overall, we had an enjoyable weekend. I learned I'll have to work with Leeloo and not reacting to big dogs. Sigh. I also learned that I want to pare down some of the stuff we're bringing and reorganize things. So that's been going on.

Wednesday night quickie

2011-07-06T23:21:00.000-07:00

I used to do Scout training with Sue when ~~we were both~~ I was involved with the Boy Scouts. I was pleasantly surprised to stumble across Sue in Ravelry and have been following her since. I really do need to go to Forest Grove one month for her knit night at the Grand Lodge.

Sue is also a quilter, (I have a few that I need to sew up, so I read her blog to get inspired) and has a lavender farm. She's doing a lavender bundle giveaway to those in the United States. Go check out her blog and if you'd like some lovely lavender sent your way possibly, enter to win.

I plan to do a regular blog post tomorrow, but wanted to get this out to as many friends as possible. Love the lavender!

WWKiP 2011

2011-06-20T21:12:00.000-07:00

This last Saturday was my fourth annual World Wide Knit in Public Event. This was our second year at the Hillsboro Farmers' Market. They are lovely hosts, providing us with a couple of canopies, five tables and lots of chairs. Last year we appreciated the shade the canopies provided, this year it was protection from the drizzle/rain that came after a day of beautiful sunshine.

Each year local ladies volunteer to make the goodie bags that are filled with yarn samples from local hand dyers. The goodie bags are really project bags. This year they were made Grace (check out her Etsy store for her needle cases, especially if you aren't local and can't get into Urban Fiber Arts to buy one), Debby has been making them each year, and Angela, who made some last year. Here's a sample of the three styles:

Yarn samples came from Abstract Fiber, Knitted Wit, Three Fates Yarn and Stitchjones. I made stitch markers as did Trtlgrl and Rachel (she sells them at Urban Fiber Arts, but if you have need of some pretty ones, contact her for info.)

These were the lovely door prizes provided by Three Fates Yarn (yarn), Trtlgrl (fan), Urban Fiber Arts (kits) and The Knitting Bee (yarns and books). We have awesome yarn stores!

Pics of the event:

By popular demand we do a destash/trade table. We were also prepared if we had anyone that wanted to learn how to knit we had needles and how to books. At one point the table was well covered with yarn, but I only came home with the box you can see on the left to be dropped off at the Hillsboro Senior Center.

You can't see it but Don over on the right of the pic was busy knitting a hat for a friend. He's Grace's DH who helps enable her stash at yarn stores. Of course a good portion of it is so that he can get hand knit socks. ;-)

I actually don't mind being in this picture! You can't see it but, not only am I sitting down, but I'm knitting! ;-)

We pulled the Blueberry lady over to find out what she was doing there, as its too early to have them in season yet. I remembered that Robyn was wearing a blue shirt and was teasing her that she was as round as the Blueberry lady. Thankfully Robyn has a sense of humor and went along with me getting a pic of them together. It was the Blueberry Lady's idea for them to both rub their tummies. (Robyn is due this week, she thinks - I'm voting for another week unless she drops soon.)

The canopies started to fill with water and Sari was elected as the tallest amongst us to help with the situation. The bundle of knitting needles were useful for other things than knitting. ;-)

Watch out!

The wind picked up on us and started blowing the water out of the canopies. Sari looking up to check on it.

The next event I have planned is the World Wide Spin in Public event the weekend before Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in September. It will also be at the Hillsboro Farmers' Market. We're hoping for no rain. ;-)

It fits!

2011-06-20T20:31:00.000-07:00

I bought the yarn over a year ago with the thought of making a sweater of some type for my mother. A nice cotton in a pretty red-pink, colorway name is Wild Rose. I had in mind that I would do the Hey Teach! cardigan at that time, then decided it was one that I wanted to do for myself first. So came up with another cardigan, but that design was bottom up and I was worried about having enough yarn and I haven't done a set in sleeve design yet, so went looking again for another pattern. I stumbled across the Razor Boob-Olero and went for it. I was able to get to the point where at spinning I was able to have Robyn try it on to see how it fit and it was looking good. Later that night at knit night I asked Carol to try the completed sleeve and still on target for it to fit mom. Her actual birthday isn't until Thursday, but she was up visiting this last week. We had my birthday dinner this last week, and I had it done and blocking with a fan. It wasn't dry though, so I had to wait until this Saturday to give it to her:

I was worried that it wouldn't be long enough, but looks like I did okay! She was amazed I was able to get it to fit without having her there. ;-) A nice summer sweater for her to wear back home in Reno where its a bit warmer than we are now.

Laid low and crawling back

2011-06-04T22:57:00.000-07:00

I started coming down with what I thought was the bug the boys had gone through the last week of May. Fevers and coughing that progressed to the point by the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend that I had spiked a fever of 104 and couldn't breathe laying down. So I called Brandon whom I sent off camping for the weekend to come take me to the hospital. The ER doc was going to send me home since nothing was really showing up on the x-rays but my pulse-oxygen had dipped down to 82 and was hovering in the mid-80s. Kind of explaining the headache that was developing. So I was given that lovely oxygen tube to stuff up my nose and after a bit of checking, I got a ride up to my room away from the noise of the ER.

I had just gotten the okay on Friday, from Michele to post about my test knit that I had done for her - Zen Rain Shawlette. It's a fun shawlette that grows width wise more than depth with a flirty ruffle. You can wear it a number of ways too. I need to find a nice circle to pull it through. Michele sent along some naturally dyed glitter yarn from Pico-Accuardi, Stevie Sparkles and the colorway name is "This is it, Joel!" It reminded me of my big ole cup of cafe au lait, with the silver being rain sparkles. Here's my version:

I didn't pin it out, just stretched it out and let it dry. I guess I might have been able to get a bit more out of it, if I had pinned....

I tried spinning the cotton and have a start, but I wanted some little instant gratifications, so spun up some of the samples that Cindy had shared with me last month.

Left to right - International Fibers Shetland, Serenity Sheep Wool, Suri Network Suri, Rogue Adventures BFL, Camel/Silk, Desert Charms - Alpaca, CA Red, Border Leicester

I had started a Barn Raising Quilt Square out of Abstract Fibers BFL in Smith Rock but needed a bit to finish it up. So the Serenity Sheep Wool, the CA Red and some of the Suri from Desert Charms wrapped it up:

Kind of in a wrap up mood and they had grown, so felted Brandon's Kilt Hose Ties:

Before

After

I was still plugging along on the Spiderman Blanket, but wanted some instant gratification, so whipped out a couple of blocks from the samples above:

Suri in the center with the light brown of the camel/silk and Shetland on the outside border.

I had this orginally as a small block with the lavender and the dark blue, so picked up the edges and added on with my kool-aid dyed merino/alpaca/silk. I still need to do a full block with this stuff too.

Short the last few in this shot but gives you an idea of the blocks that I have so far. More blocks definitely needed!

Before the end of May I had also started a pair of socks. They're anklets, so I have the design portion and the flip done on one sock. Just working towards the foot. A little boring just knitting around and around though. Need to get these done so I can do June socks. (I'm totally cheating in June, but you'll have to wait to see how!)

After not having the energy to knit for a week and a half, I have a bolero started for mom's birthday. It's a nice crisp cotton that I think will make a nice summer cardigan for her to use. She flies in on my birthday to visit, so need to have it done by then! I have eleven days. I'm through the ribbing and first 12 rows of the lace pattern increases for the sleeves. Going with a nice raglan top down design so I can have it done in time. Might go for the stretch and see if I can get the socks done for her too, but again a stretch.

Slipping Behind

2011-05-04T10:48:00.000-07:00

April is over and I got my shawl done on May 2nd. I think ripping it out and starting over may have impacted that goal, along with events on two weekends. Might have been able to use up more of the Malabrigo Lace, but by the time to do the last purl row and then bind off, I just wanted to be done! So I changed the purl bind off to a knit and was done. Not too sure about beading, its time consuming! I do like it at the bottom of the shawl.

Unblocked and ends to weave in still.

Closeup of the beads. I used clear and blue ones. I didn't even mind doing the nupps! I went with the 9stitch ones because others said they looked better.

All blocked out. Lots of depth, not a lot of width.

The depth of the shawl is nice, it just needed to grow some width. The ends just meet in front, so I guess, good shoulder coverage. With the beads would be lovely as a summer cover for an schnazzy evening event. Could also make a nice gift. Will have to see. ;-)

No pics of the polworth I'm spinning. I divided it into three sections and have one bobbin done, started the second last week at spinning. I'm going to give it a whirl at finishing up today. The cotton and the hemp are planned spinning for May. That should wrap the Fair spinning up.

The teddy bear only has a few bits that are knit and will need a lot more work. Working on the Spiderman Blanket yesterday got me a good third of the way done on that project that was also supposed to be done last month....So this week is clean-up before starting on projects intended for this month.

We picked up yard plants and veggie starts this last weekend. We also had dry days to get out and finally get some weeding done. The front yard has less weeds and after yesterday the backyard has less weeds, but needs more weeding done. Hopefully there will also be mowing tonight. I'm investigating bark dust, we're in desperate need of some for the back and front. First though the plants need to go in and some trees need to move. Trying to rope William into digging holes for me. A couple won't be moving but going out, they're dead. I'm almost ready to give up on apricots and peaches for our yard. They grow in the area, but we just don't seem to be able to keep them for more than a couple years.

Carnivale and how I celebrated Earth Day

2011-04-24T10:21:00.000-07:00

Friday was Earth Day and I had been inspired to recycle and reuse something. My wedding dress from a previous marriage was hanging up in the hall closet in a plastic bag just taking up space. Since we have become involved with the SCA, I was inspired to modify the dress and give it new life and get more than one use out of it! ;-)

It's not totally period because of the zipper and the princess seams. The zipper shows as just a line at the back and isn't out there screaming its presence. The seam, a little more obvious. The original dress also came with cap sleeves and lace, along with lace along the neckline. Here's a poor pic of the original:

So I took off the sleeves and carefully removed the lace pieces off the neckline on Friday. I then changed the neckline into a more square one. I think I'm going to lower it a bit more. I reseamed the sleeves and then it was set. After filling five pots and getting them up to a boil we filled the bathtub with them until it was about four or five inches deep. Added some iDye (three packets), I had already salted the water so it just needed the dress. In it went. That was a bit of a breath holder, was I about to ruin a dress? It soaked for half an hour on one side with some stirring around. Then it was flipped and the other side was on the bottom and not floating up. Those air bubbles can be difficult to get out! Another half an hour soak and some more swirling around. It was definitely looking a dark green wet. The dress was moved into a garbage bag so it could be taken out to the washer (we have a front loader and I really don't know how to get it to work for something like this. I added just a bit of soap and let it go through a delicate cycle, then on to the dryer for a similar cycle there.

I needed sleeves and had a cream color fabric in mind for them, but was going by a stash of fabric that had been donated by Debbie for the goodie bags. There was a black polyester with butterflies that I had pulled out (Angela was snatching all the other colors that was just enough for making the sleeves. Brandon cut them out and sewed them up for me. I sewed three ribbons on each sleeve and corresponding spots on the arm holes of the dress and we were ready.

I had a dress for Carnivale:

I had my chemise underneath and my Tudor style shoes on. Hair up too. I need to work on a hair covering. Caterina has the suggestion of adding a cotton velvet trim at the hemline to give it a bit more length and make it more period. Then add some rings on either side of the zipper to then cinch the bodice down more and give support (I was wearing a bra under there). Also something about a gold belt kind of Empress style to also add as support.

Helping Sharon remember how to knit. She had learned as a child but was having problems remembering which stitch was which and tensioning. I showed her a way to keep the tension even and gave her 'bumps' and 'legs' as a way to remember her stitches. ;-)

Brandon's masked that he formed and cut from vegetable leather, then scored and hand painted. Very nice!

His linen shirt that he sewed a lot by hand.

His lined cloak based off an Italian extant one found.

The mask competition to show other people in their garb. You can also see that Brandon was wearing his kilt hose with his pants. (Andrea at the bottom right won with her peacock mask.)

Carnivale was a lot of fun. I didn't do any of the classes, but chatted with people. The feast was impressive with the number of courses served as well as the quality of the food. I had rabbit for the first time too!

The feast had the added fun of a 'civilized food fight'. It was started by another table (we had their son at ours) with the arrival of a wooden bowl with a scrap of meat and cheese and the appropriate pun (I can't remember what it was). We then had to come up with a return with the food we had available. It kept the conversation going and laughs at both tables. We look forward to doing it again in the future.

After dinner there was more dancing and Brandon was kept busy with that. He'll also be partnering for the dance demo at Faire in the Grove next weekend.

Winner!

2011-04-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

A couple weeks ago Sara posted a picture on her blog and the first one who could identify it would win some stuff she picked up in San Francisco when she was down for TNNA. Easy-Peasy! When you have two currants in your front yard flower bed, and they are one of the earliest flowering so that you know spring is coming, easy to identify.

Here's what ours looked like a couple years ago (didn't take pics last year of it, and we cut it back so much smaller this year):

What Sara sent as the prizes:

All together

Little sheep clips.

Little memo pad with the sheep and then pink sheets.

Spiral notebook with knitting kittens.

Inside the notebook the lines are caused by the ball of yarn that ran away from the kitten.

Thank you Sara!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-23T23:56:00.000-07:00

My handspun Easter Basket:

First up were the Chocolate Easter Bunnies:

Slightly different because I read the instructions one way the first time and the way they were intended the second. First is on the right, second on the left. Matching button eyes. I used handspun Shetland from my Primitive Fibers Bundle.

Took the nesting bowl pattern and kind of followed the large design. I was using a different weight yarn (lace to light fingering. I started out with the Icelandic, the grey and then used the Norwegian, the dark brown almost black. I tried hand felting it but wasn't happy with those results, so popped it into the washer and then let it dry on an upside down bowl in the sun on the patio table. Both of these from the same Primitive Breeds bundle (Finn - Pretty Thing Cowl, Gotland, Icelandic - bowl, Norwegian - bowl and Shetland - Chocolate Bunnies).

Remember the Kool-Aid dyed alpaca-merino-silk? Here it is knit onto one of those plastic Easter Eggs. I knit 95% of it then as I got to the bottom, popped in the egg and worked decreases. I used Judy's Magic Cast On and then kitchener stitched it closed, so a seamless egg. ;-) Sorry about the blurry pic, much better in the bowl below.

I wanted to do another egg, but I really should have been working on my Aeolian Shawl and Brandon would have been saying I should have been working on my dress for Carnivale.....

(More about how my Carnivale dress was my "Earth Day" dress, in that I was recycling, tomorrow.)

Giant Step Back

2011-04-19T19:35:00.000-07:00

I started working on my Azul Aeolian Shawl last week. It started out really well, even with how time consuming putting on all those beads. Things were going well. The this weekend I started struggling. I wasn't having problems with the charts and even was doing the 9 stitch nupp. I had done the suggested four repeats of the Yucca chart, but looking back could have doubled that number. I then hadn't read for the shawlette that I only needed to do one Agave chart and had done both. At that point I was sure I had enough yarn, I think I was less than half way through the ball and ready to start the edging charts. I negotiated myself into doing the Alternative edging because it had twelve less rows to do. I started the edging yesterday but then couldn't build up excitement to progress. Usually that close to the end I get on a roll and am excited to have things get done so I can see the final project. That wasn't happening.

Today I should have jumped in and started working on it, but found myself going through emails, Ravelry, Facebook, reading blog posts, anything other than knitting on this project. I had also kind of set myself up that I needed to finish this project before doing work on the other stuff for this month. The Teddy Bear doesn't count because lace shouldn't be done at knit night. ;-)

Here's were things were this afternoon:

Closeup of half the shawl

Close up of the 9-stitch nupps

Then I realized that I wasn't excited how this shawl was coming along. It was getting heavy with all those beads. It was then I realized that I needed to frog and start over, but maybe not today. So in about ten minutes I had this:

the beads

the yarn pile

all rewound back up into a ball

So tonight, I'm going to try out an Easter Rabbit out of some handspun Shetland. Tomorrow is spinning during the day and back to the Teddy Bear at knitting. Thursday I'll try to get started again and see if I can get it done over the weekend. I also need to get some sewing done, somehow.....

Was I crazy?

Spinning quickie

2011-04-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

I'm almost afraid to say anything in case I jinx myself. ;-) Spinning has been going well so far this year. Things aren't taking forever, like they seemed to last year, to get spun up. Last week it was the Icelandic Single. This week its the alpaca two ply. I got the alpaca from Chris at Upstream Alpacas. I had gotten to feel her undyed fiber at Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival (she shared lovely dyed stuff from her Etsy store in our World Wide Spin in Public goodie bags) and so knew I wanted to spin some of her stuff for my Fair spinning. (If I could, I'd buy her lovely dyed rovings every month!)

Here's the one ounce of rose-grey I spun:

127.8 yards of lace weight. Still need to do the whole wpi stuff for both. ;-)

I've started organizing the World Wide Knit in Public event for this year. We're going to have needles along with our destash/trade yarn table. So we can hopefully get anyone started who may be interested in learning how to knit. Cindy's roommate was getting a piano which necessitated her to relocate her stash. Thus a bit of reorganizing. Two things came out of it. She cleaned out her needles that she isn't using and her fiber samples that she decided she wasn't going to spin up. We have a whole bunch of needles thanks to Cindy and Terrie donating straight needles. I went through the bag of fiber samples and shared with Debbie, Carol, Tracy and Angela. I still ended up with a nice haul. ;-) There's cotton samples, camel-silk, alpacas, and various wools in different states - dyed, washed, and in the grease. There's three I'm not sure their exact wool, so hope that Shelia can identify for me. (She also went to SOAR 2009 and got the same goodie bag so should have a good idea) (If you went and know, please let me know!)

Here's what the samples look like:

Planning to spin the pygora and then the polworth. The Plants to Dye For group on Ravelry has tempted me into trying out dyeing with Black Beans. Yup, you get the dried ones and soak them in water. Prep your fiber with alum and then after the beans have soaked, you put your fiber in the liquid. Some people do it with the beans still in there and put it under the beans. Not sure how I'll do it yet. The blues that come out are really pretty.

Currently working on my Aeolian shawl with beads. 6/0 beads instead of the 8/0. I just finished the Agave chart and need to do the 'Final Agave Chart' before moving on to the Edging charts. The beading really slows things down and there are a ton of beads!

Icelandic Single and Kool-Aid Dyed Socks

2011-04-09T21:22:00.000-07:00

This month I'm doing my "Fair" spinning. Yarns that meet the requirements for the State Fair, but that I hope to be able to enter one or more for judging at Black Sheep Gathering and then the county fair. My first one I had hoped to be a thicker more worsted weight yarn but the fiber didn't want to cooperate. ;-) It was full of hay and other veggie bits and then kind of neppy. The fiber? Icelandic roving with both the tog and thel that I picked up during the Seattle-Portland Yarn Train Crawl at Urban Fiber Arts:

I ended up with 247 yards:

On the bobbin

Off the bobbin, soaked and washed and twist set

Showing the strands. It's surprisingly soft yarn even with the tog. What to knit with it after all the Fairs?

I had a different sock planned in my queue but last month as I was going through my Christmas bin I found another pattern - Twists and Turns. I thought it would be great for the intended yarn, my Kool-Aid overdyed Lion Brand Sock-ease. Formerly Cotton Candy, I dyed it with Cherry, Tropical Punch and Black Cherry. The yarn came out a bit more orange-red than planned. Then because of the yarn wraps to hold in place, there were lots of places where dye never reached. At knit night they said it looked fine and to keep it that way. It bugged me, so I over dyed again with Black Cherry after I completed the socks.

Yesterday we had a break in all our rain and had a sunny day. We took the dogs for a nice walk, but didn't have the camera. Since it wasn't raining today and I had the camera outside for the sock photos, plus the yard was freshly mowed....I was able to see that my violas were blooming:

Which caused me to discover that the Bleeding Heart is getting ready to burst forth into blooms:

The Asian Pear is also loaded in blooms and hopefully will become future fruits:

At least one Mason bee has come out of its tube, hopefully its also laying larvae in one of the other tubes over the season. Still have five others that need to come out, but we're back down below 60 degrees again and some areas got snow last week.