9 posts tagged “knitting”

I had an inquiry today about O~Wool Classic .  Someone wanted to know if it felts.  I haven't made many felted items so I decided to test it out.

Here's what I know about felting:
Use a wool yarn or something that's MOSTLY wool
Put it in a zippered pillowcase if you like having dry floors
Use hot water

Yep, that's about it.  I've done a couple felted needle cases and it was really fun but it makes me sad to see my knitting getting SMALLER.  I'm too impatient to felt regularly.  I would have to be on some kind of anxiety medication and/or antidepressants.  I'm the kind of knitter that measures her knitting every row, even when I know I'm inches away from completion.

So, I'm anxiously awaiting my felting results.  I started with a 4 inch wide by 3.5 inch long sample (see, I couldn't even hold out to get a square swatch) in Robin's Egg Blue.  It's 100% Organic Merino and supposed to be handwashed, so I would THINK it would felt, but we shall see.  It's in the washer now.  I will soon have my results, but it won't be soon enough.
Here's prefelting, stockinette on  size 4 needles (typically O~Wool is knitted on size 2-3, but I tend to knit tight on small needles)

I recently got an email from Dana Zukofsky from New York.  She started knitting about 4 years ago, making scarves for family and friends.  And you know how it is, you start knitting and you simply do not want to stop.  She kept on making scarves & donating them to the Bronx Jewish Community Council for them to distribute to those in need.  In her first year allow, she donated 100 scarves, over 3 years ago.

Obviously, knitting 100 scarves can get expensive so Dana is looking for donation of either yarn or finished scarves for the project. 

I'm starting "Knit for Necks" at Granola Yarn.  If you have extra stash or  hand knit scarves sitting around, please send them to me (along with your name and email address) between now and November 15th.  I will box up everything I get and send it off to Dana. In return, I'll email each participant a 10% off coupon their next yarn purchase at Granola Yarn.

I thank everyone for their help with this.  It's starting to get cold out there, so let's show the world.  Please send me an email at heather@granolayarn.com if you want more details or for the shipping address, visit the Charitable Page (also has information about Granola Yarn's ongoing charitable project).

Freedom!  Sweet knitting freedom!

I never started more than one project at a time.  I felt like I was cheating. But then I noticed a pattern. I'd happily knit along and as I neared the end of the project, I would start thinking about the next.  Then all of a sudden, I would HATE the old project.  Stupid old project keeping me from the new, shiny project of the future.  Grumble, grumble. grumble.
Then I said to myself "Self, you CAN have more than one project going at a time." 

Knitting Liberation!  So what did I do?  I put done the O-Wool Balance scarf in the cool bamboo pattern down and I picked up some yarn I bought on sale a while ago and started a sweater for my friend's daughter. 

Then yesterday while cleaning my office I found a sock knitting book so I picked up some Midnightsky Fiber Yarn to start my first pair of socks.  Scary!  I don't know what my aversion to sock knitting is, but it really freaks me out.

When I should have been working on photos of new yarn, I took a break to Simpsonize myself.  For those of you who haven't seen it, you should check it out if you're looking for something funny.  It's like a really really good episode.  Plus Homer sings a song to the Spiderman theme called "Spiderpig".  Hysterical.  Stay for the credits and get a CHORAL version.  Seriously, it's been running through my head for 5 days now. 

Ok, enough talk.  Here am I Simpsonized!  And in a few hours there will be new yarn HERE!

A couple weeks ago I started a hat made from Peace Fleece Samantha-Katya Pink .  It was a one skein project I modified slightly for my noggin.  I didn't want it to come too far down, but I still make it mighty big because I have lots of hair.  This hat is specifically for "I'm-not-completely-angry-at-my-curls-today-so-I'll wear-my-hair-down-but-I-love-hats- so" days.  Here I am! 

In this heat, I still had the energy to get my new yarn and new patterns from Peace Fleece up today.  I added two new colors - Soyuz Apollo Teal and Hemlock.  The teal is pretty straight forward - it's a great deep blue teal with a bit of a greenish halo around the edges.  The Hemlock can best be described as the offspring of Ancient Fern and Shaba!

I also added three, count 'em, THREE new patterns up from Peace Fleece as well.  More to come!

Enjoy!

I love to redecorate - if I had the money I would repaint and reaccessorize every year.  I absolutely LOVE color - not so much.  Our kitchen recently went from blue with geometric blue and white rectangles (which took F-O-R-E-V-E-R) to yellow.  I now liken my kitchen to a funky pancake shop in the making because it seems all good pancake places have yellow on their walls.  The color was also influenced by my curiousity in French country.  I'm by no means a rooster kind of gal, but I really love yellow, deep reds and cobalts together.   That's why I call my new style French Pancake House. I suppose that would be Crepe House, but give me a fluffy pancake any day over a crepe.

So, dear reader, you say "I want French Pancake House style too!"  Oh you can have said style, my lovelies.  Here's what you do:

1. Paint the room the color of the your favorite pancake place.
2. Replace roosters with owls (zoom the picture to see example on table)
3. Replace any white or off white with a similar color with the word French or Cottage in the name (Cottage White in our case)
4. Find some deep red and cobalt blue accessories (I'm still working on that)
5. Make these fantastic looking place mats found at KnitPicks .  I'm planning on starting those soon.  Really I am.
   

As you can see, the wall by the table is bare.  I'm not a clutter person, so I got an idea from my dear friend Lorena to take pictures of food, but very close up so it's just a texture more than a picture of food.  I like it!  But I'm also up for other ideas.  Does anyone out there have any other cool, funky or eclectic art?  Maybe a fun way to display an herb garden or house plant?  I don't know - I'm just looking for ideas that don't involved roosters, grapes or brooms! 

Ok, ok, I'll admit - the title is a little mellow dramatic but last Saturday Randy and I returned from an afternoon out and our ever-so-vigilant neighbor informed us there was no power.  Panic set it immediately.  It was hot.  Not just Whew-I-Need-Extra-Deoderent hot but Check-On-Your-Elderly hot.  I'm convinced August in Ohio is some kind of weird global warming experiment.  It's humid, hot, sticky and downright nasty and as much as I want to help the earth, I loves me air conditioning.  No power = no cool.  Eek!
It's been years since the power was out for more than a few minutes.  So we had to sit back for a moment and make some decisions.  When we were out, we picked up a few items from my favorite local grocery (including the best organic iced tea EVER) so we had to get everything in the fridge quickly.  Then it started to dawn on us.  We were going to watch 300.  Couldn't.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix on the Wii?  Out of the question.  Scheduled Tivo programs?  Forget about it.  I didn't realize how much we (ab)use electricity.  There's so much I take for granted and although I'm not giving up these luxuries any time soon, I have to say we had a blast that afternoon. 
Once we ruled out what we couldn't do, we could concentrate on what we could do.  First of all - sit in silence.  It was nice.  Randy perused the book shelves for something new to read while I picked out which Peace Fleece I want to use to make a winter hat (I went with Samantha Katya Pink). Then we chatted a bit and played a board game.  The house was buzzing.  Not with buzzing with electricity, but with talking, laughing and general happiness.  And it was nice.  I'm a very lucky woman - I not only love my husband but I like being with him too.  He is my bestest friend and my protector but on this day, he was also my entertainer and my co-star.  I can only hope the power goes out in the winter for a while so he can be my furnace too! :-)
Anyway, it turned out to be a great afternoon and I have to say that when the power came back on a couple hours later I was really only thankful for the air conditioning part of it.  I need to realize that a lot of the best things in life come from unplugged sources.  Sometimes, all it takes is the loss of electricity to find that spark.

You recycle!  You conserve!  You craft!  It’s time to face facts that the yarn in your stash might not reflect that you are trying to do your part to help the environment.  I’m not here to bad-mouth synthetics.  There’s no way I will throw away my grandmother’s crocheted afghans lovingly made with acrylic yarn from K-Mart, nor will I  toss the funky polyester cap I knitted in my quest for greener crafts.  No, after all, acrylic was created out of innovation and need.

By 1953, sales of top loading washing machines surpassed those of the wringer models that had been around in both electric and non electric forms since the 1700’s.  A washer that needed no human assistance - a blessing to the “modern” housewife.  Acrylic made laundry day so much easier.  It dries quickly, it’s colorfast, warm,  wrinkle resistant and it holds its shape.  Women were just getting into the workplace they were up for anything that saved time in the home.  I should be more thankful – it sometimes takes me days to fold my towels! 

But the automatic posed serious problems to wool and cotton garments and when it’s paired with electric dryer in the next decade – the results are disastrous.  But by this point, less and less clothing were made from natural fibers.  In 1944, DuPont began developing acrylic and it was sold commercially by 1950.  I won’t get into the science of acrylic, but it’s a long chain synthetic polymer produced from a petrochemical called acrylontrile.  Really, all you need to know is acrylic is produced from a petrochemical, so  the process and chemicals used to make it are hard on the environment!

What I’m suggesting isn’t that we abandon synthetic yarn and non-organic  altogether, but think about slowly introducing organic or sustainable yarn into your stash.  Maybe use it for special gifts – that way you’re giving a beautiful hand-crafted item plus you’ve given back to the earth!  Or maybe buy a skein or two of hand dyed or hand spun yarn to use for smaller projects or accents!  These are also less taxing on the environment because there’s less machining involved and much more artistic to boot!