who could resist the siren song?

of the luscious pink fluff? not i!



thanks bethieee for sending me the fluff, i have been sorely neglecting the wheels lately...

this pink goodness was just begging to be spun up laceweight on my jensen tina II.

now it is about 272 yards of 2 ply.


on the niddy noddy.


having a warm bath.


hanging from my skein dryer, aka chandelier.


wound on the ever elegant toilet paper roll.


measured on the wpi sett gauge, 28 wpi.

after it had a bath, and was towel dried, the yarn got a good whapping on the edge of the sink. i'll have to ask bethieee* what the fibers are, it had shiny bits like angelina and is nice and fuzzy, but still very soft. the whapping helped bring out the fuzziness.

methinks this yarn will make a lovely scarf for dd. maybe kiri, or another pattern worked from the tip up.

* who could be in a bad mood with a name like bethieee?

H

H is for hebredian!
my favorite yarn in the world :-)
except for maybe k0igu

here is henry VIII in hebredian, at rhinebeck.

here is marina, just begging to be knit, in hebredian. an online friend of mine in australia decided she would never knit marina, so it is mine all mine! thanks beryl :-)

here is st.ciaran, in hebredian, all fringed out. doesn't this look cosy?

y'all come and set a spell.

why why why?????

do those door to door christian ministers have to come to my door? i have a loooonnnggg driveway, and 2 large dogs, one of whom hates people coming to the door. its the major scramble to get the dogs inside, then have to explain that i am very happy with the religion i already have.
i guess the worse part is feeling guilty about watching the alias i taped in my pjs at 9:30 in the morning.

had lots of knitting time last weekend, no cooking of a huge easter dinner this year ;-)

just a mitten marathon. 3 pair. terri, if you are reading don't go any further.

one pair knit with vy 3 ply hebredian sea ivory to match the seaweed scarf.


and 2 pair knit with rowan scottish tweed aran in thistle to match the bronte scarves knit with rowan yorkshire tweed 4ply deep aubergine. the colors don't match perfectly, but they go well together. in real life, the color of the mittens is a rich dark purple.

another why why why ??? rowan, in your infinite wisdom, why on earth discontinue one of the only wools i can wear? must stash more yorkshire tweed.......

snapped a few photos of a nantucket lightship easter basket i made. i love the scrimshaw, it has easter eggs scrimmed around the name, and the knobs on the handle are easter eggs :-)

i won! i won!

a contest on the on my needles blog! bethieee sent me the loveliest pink roving with angelina :-) dd walked by the package and said "wow, that's really pretty", high praise from a 17 year-old!
thanks bethieee :-)








got the seaweed scarf blocked, and the fringe tied on. it blocked 14.5 in wide, and 86 in long! that's 4 inches longer than the pattern, but dd liked it long, so i left the length. knit it with size 4 brittanies, and the color is sea ivory. i found my pattern notes from my ddil's mittens unbelievable, and i also have the mittens, so i will knit a pair to go with this scarf.



i do not want to get stuck racing to get through the christmas knitting this year, so i'm trying to get a good start!

thanks for all the sock compliments, linda m, i can't find a way to thank you by email ;-)

a tale of two socks, or you can teach an old dog a new trick

yummy yummy, i got me some lisa souza sock! merino in the mail. had to drop all the other needles, and cast on a pair of socks.



now this lisa is a generous gal, there are 560 yards of merino goodness in that skein (all for a paltry $16!) this is petroglyph.

i've never knit a pair of toe-up socks before, and since i got a new postal drug dealer scale to play with, i thought i'd weigh the yarn first. 120 gms.

wind yarn onto handy toilet paper roll, and away i go. following the generic "you're putting me on" socks by judy gibson. i love this pattern, it has a regular heel. most toe up socks have a short-row heel which is not my favorite.

fooled around with the increases, so i could have my usual lefty and righty toes, and knit the cable pattern from nancy bush's conwy socks (knitting on the road) on the instep. since i like a deeper heel, i did extra increases in the gusset, so my numbers ended up being a hybrid of the 60 and 72 stitch charts.

easy peasy, but somehow disconcerting. i like decreasing down to the tiny toes, like a sock victory, instead of ending up with the cuff.

and since there are so many yards in this yarn, 28 gms for one sock, i didn't have to worry about running short.

this pattern will be very useful with koigu. i'm afraid to make to cuff too long and run short of wool, so i always end up with too much left over. with the toe up, you never have that angst =:>0

i actually have more than enough yarn left to knit another pair! but i do have fairly small feetsies.

just a little green

G is for green!

mulberry tree, yum!

green is for sea ivory.

at madrona, melinda of the purlwise blog was wearing her vy sea ivory seaweed scarf. it is gorgeous. must have it.

since i have quite a bit of 3 ply sea ivory left from inishmore, i can knit a pair of mittens to match the scarf and add another check to the christmas list ;-0

ddil brought me her mittens from last christmas so i can copy them, because i of course can't find the notes i jotted down when i was knitting them...

is norton security driving anyone else insane, or is it just me?

free at last, free at last!!!

free from stockinette hell!




while packing the truck for spring break, i of course forgot the selkie yarn and st.ciaran. luckily i had packed a backup, the koigu sweater from handpaint country. the yarn has been marinating in the stash for a few years, jo-anne from four seasons knitting did a fabulous job matching the colors in the book. one of the things i love about her site is that it lists the number of skeins available under each color, genius :-)

now all i have to do is sew up the seams, feh.

i started the front, back and sleeves with a provisional cast-on and knit a hem, but now am wondering if i should frog the hems and do an attached i-cord cast off instead.....

the collar is supposed to be reverse stockinette, but i knit a rolled collar instead (and had to frog it and the front to make the neckline deeper, the way the pattern is written, it's too high and gets an awful crease).

any bets on whether it gets seamed up tomorrow?

how lucky are we?

to live in a virtual world of online group and blogs? i have a younger newly married friend in fort lauderdale, her husband owns his own business and travels a lot. they moved to the west coast for a year, and the next time i saw her, she told me what an unhappy year it had been for her, she hadn't met any friends and had been very lonely.hmm, i thought to myself, i am so lucky! between online groups, and blogs, i have friends pretty much all over the u.s., and a few european countries. and if i had to move somewhere that i didn't have any online friends, all i'd have to do is post to the groups, and i'm sure i'd find someone to hang with. all because of knitting and spinning. aren't we lucky?

what decade does your personality live in?

quiz brought to you by lady interference

love this meme

love the post your favorite paintings meme.



this watercolor has a wonderful story. in june of 1996, we went to nantucket for the first time with our children. i fell in love.
every time i get off the plane and smell the nantucket air, my whole body changes. and i am entranced once again. but i digress...
at the time, i was a single working mom, with no extra cash. tom and i had just started living together. on old south wharf, barbara van winkelen's studio is charm itself, and i saw this painting. "foxglove fairy grove" is the painting's name. not only are foxgloves my favorite flower, but the background has the most magical crackle effect.
needless to say, i couldn't afford it.
i won a bet, and tom and i came back to nantucket that october. the painting was sold, sigh. (i still couldn't have afforded it, but i like to torture myself).

many year's later, i am checking ebay, and there is the painting! i could not believe my eyes!
the best part was tom had had a few scotches, and after i told him the story, he said, bid on it. the kids were my witnesses. a week later, the painting was mine! i still get a frisson of pleasure every time i look at it :-)







robert frazier painted the second painting. the scene is our acreage in venus florida, where we keep the cows, and he painted it just for me! bobby is now the director of the nantucket artsists' association . he shows at the naa gallery and at the old spouter gallery on nantucket. bobby is also a writer and poet.



dd painted the last 3 paintings 3 years ago. she loves to go painting with bobby, and it is easy to see his influence on her paintings. of course i am not impartial, but i think she painted well for being 14.