Watercolor on the road

Sometimes when I travel, I take art supplies with me, and sometimes when I do, I find time to use them.  Last week I was in Philadelphia for a meeting, and I took watercolor supplies with me. 

Lots of greens and blues.  The bottom row of trees and mountains are for Father's Day cards.

Cats and yarn

A week or two ago, I ate an a French Bakery and Diner called Amelie's.  It was across the street from my hotel in Charlotte.  There were a row of tables against a wall - the back seats for benches below lots of these needlepointed images.  They were padded and hung - and I assume they were  meant to be cushions for the people sitting on the benches to lean against.  

I was sitting in a chair facing this one.  She's a woman who is knitting - or winding yarn - I'm not sure which, but look at her expression. Doesn't she look like she wants to send the kitten into the next state - or at least room?

Kittens / cats and yarn.  It's why I don't knit very often near our cat.  They just can't resist playing with yarn.  And how fun that a needlepoint artist captured that feeling in a piece.

On the Needles: Dupont Circle Scarf

I've started on a new project. using the yarn to the right.  This is yarn from Fibrespace in Alexandria, VA - a great yarn store.  The yarn is from Neighborhood Fiber Company - it is Studio Worsted in the colorway Dupont Circle.   A nice black and pink.

I'm knitting a scarf (what else is new?).  It is 42 stitches across, and I'm knitting it in Farrow Rib - a simple K-K-P pattern.  I'm using size 7 Knitpicks wood circular (exchangeable) needles.

I've mentioned before that I like knitting scarves because I often knit in movies - I can knit scarves easily in the dark.

This week (and last week) I've been attending the United Methodist General Conference as a reserve delegate.  This is a lot of sitting and listening, and some of that time, mindless knitting is great. 

I enjoy watching yarn like this pool and pattern as I knit.  Three pictures below:

Scarf beginnings in the car on the way to the Conference

Scarf draped over the handle of my wheelie bag at Conference.

Scarf as it is today.
See the pattern developing?

Finished Object: Roll the Dice Cowl

A new finished project!

This is the cowl I talked about here.  It uses Roll the Dice yarn from Sin City Yarns.  I bought it at Sin City Knit Shop in Las Vegas.  The yarn is 100% merino, and has a little bit of a sheen.  It is dyed so that one end of the skein has whites and blues, and just a little purple while the other end is all purple; in between it graduates from the blue end to the purple end.  

The pattern is for a cowl, and it was free from the yarn shop.  It is designed to use with this yarn.  As you knit the cowl, the color changes from one end to the other.  Also, even though it is a 4 knit / 4 purl pattern, the base rowl is set up so that the knit ridges travel around the cowl in a spiral.  Very cool.

I used one complete skein of yarn with a size 7 needle.  The picture is of the project prior to washing and blocking.

Retreat List

 Back in November, I participated in an Altenew Cozy Comfort Retreat.  It was an all day zoom retreat - one of the retreats where you craft cards along with the teachers of the classes.  It was more expensive (by a lot) than any card retreat I've done.  I decidd to do it because I follow and appreciate all of the teachers - Jennifer McGuire, Kristina Warner, Therese  Calvird, Carisa Wiley, and Kelly Taylor.  

Registration for the class included a shipment of supplies, which was great.

I enjoyed the retreat, although at the end, I was worn out.  A few days later, I created a list in my bullet journal of Five Thoughts about the Retreat:

• There was lots of homework - in fact, that is my biggest advice for you if you ever decide to do one of these.  Do the homework and be very organized in your set up.  I put the supplies for each class in a separate zip storage bag (the ones from Simon Says Stamp)
• The teachers were great - the best part of the retreat
• The Altenew rules were not my favorite - I really appreciate Hero Arts in this area.
• I needed more breaks - I was worn out by the end of the day.  An hour for dinner would have been great as well as an hour for lunch.
• I was lonely even though it was a zoom retreat with lots of people.  I missed my time with Steve for the day.

All that said, the cards were great!

Easter Cards

 Spellbinders has some great monthly kits.  Each month, I look at the kits avilable and choose one or two.  One of the ones I purchased in February was the Large Die of the Month called Floral Bunny Basket.

I had a great time working with it - I made six Easter cards.  Here are the die cuts for five of them:

Many Easter Card Parts

See the bunnies? Here are the bunny pieces:

Bunny cuts

All in all, each card had 52 different die cuts (not counting the sentiment which wasn't die cut).  That's 312 die cuts for six cards.  Whew!

I did a little bit of shading for the tulips, bunnies, and carrots.  The blue background is embossed with the one of the Altenew Sweater Pattern Builder stencils, just to give it some texture.

Happy Easter!

Postage Valentine's Day Cards

 I am really enjoying the Waffle Flower postage dies, stencils, and stamps.  They seem to be releasing different versions seasonally.

I used the Rose Stencil set and the Love stamps for several Valentines Day cards.

Currently

Current View

Current Bullet Journal Palette

Current knitting
Notice how the color is changing? Cool

Reflecting Pool Scarf

 

Another finished scarf.  This one was knit with Malabrigo Rios Yarn in the color Reflecting Pool.  I'm not sure where I bought it. It's very nice! I used about 1.5 skeins.

The needle size was US 7, and it is knit in the Yarn Harlot's one row pattern (cast on a multiple of four +2, knit two, knit one through back loop, purl and repeat until there are two stitches left - knit those.

I finished in January of 2024.  It was mainly knit in movies because it's an easy pattern to knit in the dark. I'm not sure when I started it, but it was after the Quince scarf, which was after the stacking, not stacking cowl.  

Here's the weird thing.  I have two more skeins of this yarn.  Did I buy it twice? I think I must have.  What will I do with the other two skeins?  I don't need another scarf made out of this yarn, as much as I like it.

Another post about this scarf

On my needles

 In this post, I talked about yarn I have that is "in the wings," waiting to be knitted.  This was one of them:

It's Roll the Dice yarn from Sin City  Yarns.  I'm knitting a cowl that the yarn store suggested (free pattern). You cast on 103 stitches on a 24 inch needle (size 7 for me), and then knit 4 and purl 4, repeatedly.  

I'm not sure if you can see it in the image, but the stitch pattern creates diagonal ridges of yarn that swirl around the cowl - cool.  Also, can you see in the first image that the yarn is lighter toward the middle and gets darker on the outside?  The cowl is following that color pattern.

It takes more concentration that I anticipated, but I do like it, and am enjoying the knitting.  I'm anxious to see it when it is finished.

Quince Scarf

How about another finished object.  This one was in a drawer, completely knitted, without the end woven in.  I mean, who does that?  Me, apparently.

This scarf is knit with this yarn.   It's Quince & Company's Osprey yarn.  It's a heavy (aran) weight wool, and the color is Aleutian.  I bought it at Kanawha City Yarn Company.

I knit the scarf with either US size 8 or 9 needles.  My notes say it is knit with the Yarn Harlot's one row "pattern," but it looks like farrow rib to me, so I'm not sure.  

How long did it take me to knit it?  Well, at the end of 2021, the yarn was still wound, and I hadn't started.  Even though I'm counting it as a finished object in 2024 since that is when I wove in the ends, I don't know when I finished the body of the knitting.

Really, I need to keep better notes.

It is soft and squishy, and I like it. 

Blue Striped Socks

I seem to be a finishing mood, picking up projects and completing them. At least one of them, so far. But I have more plans.

I finished a pair of socks this weekend. The yarn is Berroco Sox, color 1477. (Kingston). The color doesn't seem to be on the Berroco web page, and it's no wonder.  These have been on needles forever. Today I found a note about these socks that I made on February 1, 2014, so I've been knitting them since before then.

The socks are knit with the Yarn Harlot's vanilla sock yarn pattern from Knitting Rules.  I knit them with a pair of Signature Needle Arts double pointed needles, sized 1.  A side note - I'm not sure I've ever mentioned this, but I have two pairs of double pointed needled from this company (which is now closing).  They were very expensive, and feel wonderfully luxurious, but I don't like to knit with them.  I prefer my wooden needles.  

The yarn is self striping, and I find that very fun and amusing, as the stripes appear as I knit regular stockinette.  

I have no idea when I started these socks (other than it was before 2014).  I know I did a lot of work on the second sock in early 2020, because I posted pictures in my Instagram account.  Apparently, I can't knit socks during a pandemic, because I think they languished on the needles until I picked them up this weekend with on the toe (and a little of the foot) to knit. 

The problem is that I didn't make any notes about the numbers I used when knitting.  I ended up with not only fraternal socks (the stripes do not match up), but also socks of two different sizes.  I used two different numbers of stitches to start the socks.  By a lot. 

See the difference in width?  Oh, well.  They still work as socks, and are warm.  The toes are kind of pointy, though.  Poor things.

Sock Christmas Ornaments

 When we were in Las Vegas last fall, we made a stop at Sin City Knit Shop.  It's a great shop - I recommend it.   I bought this yarn:

It's from Socker Mom Fibers (I had already wound two of the tiny skeins).  Each one was about 5 grams of yarn or 27 yards, I think (or close to that).  The pattern is also from Socker Mom, and it is for tiny Christmas tree ornaments shaped like socks.  They had a little tree decorated with them.  They also had a kit for a garland made of tiny socks.  Adorable. 

I loved the yarn.  It was slightly overdyed, so there was a variation in color.  In the image, you can see it best in the green.  I knit the socks with size 0 needles.  Tiny.  The hanger is created with a crochet chain stitch - hook size D.  

I ran out of the house on the way to leave for the weekend with the yarn, pattern, and needles, but no other notions.  I had to go to a craft store and pick up darning needles and a crochet hook to finish the socks as they flew off the knitting needles.  Not at all prepared. 

As you can tell, I knit them on the road - we took a weekend trip right before New Year's Eve.  They knit up SO FAST.  Well, compared to a normal sized sock, anyway.

The pattern was clear. It used what it called a shadow heel (which I've never heard of). The shadow heel used stitches called TWK (twin knit stitch) and TWP (twin pearl stitches).  I did have an issue with these stitches - maybe it was the yarn or the needles, but there was some splitting of the yarn.  Also, it was sometimes difficult to figure out (for me) how to create the stitch in the leg of the stitch directly below.  Lots of transferring of stitches from one needle to the other.  It did result in socks, though.

The kit was designed to knit three socks, I think, but after I finished one of each color, it seemed like there was enough yarn to go again, so I did.  Six stock ornaments altogether. 

And the leftover blue yarn?

I had more yarn leftover of the other colors, but not much of the red and green. Still - good use of yarn! And fun knitting. 

Yarn-in-waiting

 In the spirit of keeping a better record of the yarn I purchased (and have not yet used)....

This pink and black yarn is from Fibre Space, a lovely yarn store in Alexandria, Virginia.  The yarn is from Neighborhood Fiber Company - it is Studio Worsted in the colorway Dupont Circle.  Charmingly, their yarn colors are named after area neighborhoods.  This scarf from 2012, was knit with colorway Georgetown.

While I was at Fibre Space, I also purchased these scissors.  After my purchase, the store clerks helpfully wound my yarn while Steve and I sat outside in their lovely green space.  The packaged everything in the canvas bag under the scissors.  Visit this store if you get a chance.  Love it.

I purchased this yarn at Sin City Yarn Shop in Henderson (or Las Vegas), Nevada in 2022.  No, I haven't made anything with it yet.  The company is Sin City Yarn and Roll the Dice is the name of the yarn.  As far as I can see, there isn't a colorway on the tag.  Pretty, isn't it?

So, that was my 2022 yarn purchase from our visit with Josh.  We also went to Henderson (which is right next to Las Vegas) in 2023, and I purchased this:

This is Socker Mom Fibers Ornament Set (I also bought a pattern).  It contains four 5 gram skeins of yarn in red, green, blue, and cream.  In my next post, I'll show you what I've made with it. It's lovely, soft yarn - superwash merino with 25% nylon.

One last yarn purchase.  This is black wool and a rainbow roving that I purchased (online - this is not souvenir yarn) to make thrummed mittens.  Notice I wrote "to make."  This is how the wool looked yesterday, and continues to look. It's lovely, but I haven't knit with it yet.  I follow the Yarn Harlot on Patreon - which I very much enjoy.  She did a knit along for these thrummed mittens.  It sounded like fun, so I ordered the yarn from River City Yarns in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.  (Note that River City Yarns is no longer selling yarn - looks like great classes, though).  The black Yarn is River City Yarns Epic yarn.  I purchased the roving from River City Yarns, but it is from Fleeceartist.com . It is Merino Silver in the colorway Hibiscus.  Their yarns look wonderful (as a browse the site) - seems like a great place to purchase yarn (not just roving).  Will I ever knit the thrummed mittens?  I don't know. 

By the way, if you want to know what thrumming is, it is apparently a Canadian thing.  You can learn more here.

Reflecting Pool Scarf

 This is why it is helpful to maintain a blog.  

I think this is the yarn I am currently using.

You can see in the image (at least I included the tags in the picture) that this is Malabrigo Rios yarn in the color Reflecting Pool.  Do I know where it came from? I do not.  I can't remember, and that is a shame, because purchasing location is part of what makes souvenir yarn an actual souvenir.  Maybe it came from Kanawha City Yarn Company - that is my "local yarn store" (an hour from my home), and they do sell Malabrigo yarn. 

I am knitting it now, and I am almost done with the - you guessed it - scarf.  It's the Yarn Harlot's "pattern" - rows of stitches divisible by 4 + 2, then knit, knit, knit in back loop, purl.  Knit two at the end.  Great, useful scarf pattern that I love.  I'll have to check to see the needle size.  I should do that before I bind off.

It's been knit mainly in movie theaters, and is almost complete.

Stacking Cowl, Complete

Yes, it has been a long time since I posted on this blog.  I have good intentions, but don't follow through.  But one of my goals this year was to restart this blog.  It's late in the year for the goal, but it is still 2023, so I think it counts.  

Let's set the goal at two posts per month (or more) and see how I do. Let's pick it up where I left it off; with the blankety blank stacking cowl.  I did finish it.  

The image was taken inside at night, so the colors are a little off.  I did adjust it, but sunshine would have been better. My goal was to stack the lime green. You can see how I failed, and at what point I decided I just didn't care about stacking.  

I do like the cowl.  I love the colors. 

Here's the first time I wore it - yesterday.  I don't remember when I finished it, but it was provably too warm to wear it, and -- well -- whatever, I did wear it yesterday and liked it.  I am glad it's finished, most of all. 

Valentine's Day Card

I made two of these cards - one for each of our boys.  The heart is hand-drawn on black watercolor paper and painted with Finetek watercolor paint on black watercolor paper.  I don't know the brand of paper - it came in a HeroArts monthly kit.

More Stacking (and not stacking) Cowl

 

Sigh.  Yes, I'm still knitting the stacking cowl.  Yes, I would like for it to be done already.  

You can't really see it in this image, but I've given up on the stacking requirement for the cowl.  I'm just knitting.  And knitting.  And knitting.  At least that's what it feel like. 

Truthfully, I'm knitting in the car when we travel.  Some.  And sometimes in the movies.  But this is not really a movie-knit, because of the change of stitch order every two rows.  I can kind of tell that in the dark if I remember what I did two rows ago.  I am using stitch markers every twenty stitches and a unique on at the start of the round.

There has been a lot of tinking with this one.

I went back and re-viewed the Yarn Harlot's video about this one, and apparently I'm done with the main knitting (and ready to start the edging) when I finish the ball of yarn.  

Sigh.

Yarn in the wings

 This yarn is waiting in the wings for when (or if) I ever finish the stacked cowl.  It's soft and cooshy, and promises (I hear it whispering to me) to let me use a larger needle than I am with the stacked cowl, and to let me knit mindlessly.  I can't wait.

The yarn is from Kanawha City Yarn Company.  If you are in this area, I highly recommend it!  

And then - it gets a little fuzzy.  They were kind enough at the yarn store to wind the yarn for me.  Don't you love that.  I'm certain she gave me the tags, but I don't know what happened to them, so I am uncertain what this yarn is. 

I think - because I found this tag in the room where the yarn was - that it is Quince and Co, Osprey, in the color Aleutian.  (For my future self, it's color 148, lot 006. I bought two skeins of 170 yards each).  When I go to the website of the yarn, its description is just what I would expect - Aran weight, soft, cooshy, wool.  The color is a little different, and that is the only part that is giving me pause.  So, I plan to ignore my uncertainty and go with the tag I found.

This yarn is destined for a nice, easy, knit in the dark and don't worry about stacking, scarf.

Bullet Journal Spread: Christmas Gift Log

 

Each year I create a bullet journal spread to track the gifts we plan to buy to do buy for our family members and friends.  Because it's Christmas, and I like to have fun with it, I usually draw something to use.  I've done Christmas gifts a couple of years and for this year and last year, I did ornaments.  I write the name of the person on the ornament, and then list their gifts.