Christmas Eve in Santa Fe




I had the most wonderful vacation involving green tea, DH doing all the cooking, and reading many books on my Kindle. My one fiber-related Christmas gift was a beautiful Nordstrom cashmere scarf in my favorite color. It is actually a men's scarf but I like my scarves really long. (In case you're wondering what on earth I'm reading about mashed potato protests, it is The Food of a Younger Land by Mark Kurlansky.) 

I started the pretty Cross-Country Ski Hat from Norwegian Handknits but even using the same weight yarn and a smaller size needle, my gauge was way off. I could have easily omitted one 26 st pattern repeat and still have had a pretty large hat. The Ravelry pattern page also states there is a chart error so if I attempt another project from the book I'll check the pattern errata first.

Here are some Christmas Eve photos from Santa Fe.





Drops Karisma Yarn



I bought myself some Drops Karisma superwash yarn at Nordic Mart to make the Drops Socks we're doing a KAL for on Ravelry's Stranded Forum. The price was definitely right - I'll let you know what I think of it once I start knitting the socks.

Bubbles was caught in the act of opening a present too early! She really does love to rip stuff up and could probably find full-time employment as a document shredder.





MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Snow Day

The snow is here, just in time for Christmas. I love Boston in the snow!

Ishbel Ma Belle

Ishbel ( which I nicknamed Ishbel Ma Belle)is finished and ready to become my mother's Christmas present. I had so much fun wih this project. Spinning was a delight the Merino roving, and knitting Ysolda's wonderfully feminine pattern proved to be equally pleasurable.



I am of course fond of the rich orange color. I dyed the roving using chemical dyes in a dyepot, which gave me quite a bit of color uniformity, but at the same time preserved gentle variations.



I can hardly wait to give it to my Mom! I'll let you know what she says...

No Heat, No Colorways!

This is not my week!First I planted a wood working tool in my hand. And now my furnace stopped working during a real cold snap in New England! The repair could be done tomorrow if the part arrives on time, or Monday.
So basically, I will not have any new colorways this weekend.
But on a happy note, my hand is healing, and I was able to spin a little...

Handspun Eye Candy

A new post, a new handspun. I actually spun this yarn a couple weeks ago. It is a merino silk blend spun in light worsted singles.
I hand-dyed it in a lovely tealy green.
It will become a beret as soon as my hand recovers from a wood working injury...

Finally Finished!

The beautiful bunny Christmas stocking Kate knit and donated has been auctioned off by the NM House Rabbit Society. It was won by a woman who purchased a raffle ticket after seeing the stocking at the Weems Art Fest.

Kate has more talents than just knitting. Her podcast story, Miss Eiderdown's Stocking, was inspired by the bunny stocking and was professionally produced with music. It tells the story of a yarn store employee, Miss Eiderdown, who knits this extravagant stocking and all the adventures (including a love story and a thief) that occur. You can listen to the podcast for free at the Knitpicks Web Site:







This is the Selbu Modern Hat (free pattern PDF HERE) knit on size 1 needles using Elann's unfortunately now unavailable Peruvian Alpaca Fina. It took forever but once I realized I have the perfect person to give it to and I'm seeing her this weekend, I finally bit the bullet. I blocked it over a dinner plate. As you can see you can wear it above  like a beret or as seen below. I have a very large head and it does fit me in the manner seen below but more snugly.




Grace Kelly Collection

Grace Kelly is my inspiration this week's collection.



The colors were utterly feminine, glamorous, seductive... I love them.
I hope you will enjoy them as much as I do.

I almost forgot! I have a special little gift for you. All orders $50 dollars and over will receive a lovely handmade drop spindle with 2 oz of hand-dyed fiber. I have been loving spinning so much that I thought this would make a great gift for you!

More Handspinning

Ishbel is finished and is being blocked. In the mean time I spun some more yarn. I spun wensleydale for the first time. The staples were soooo long! I first spun a multicolored roving in firy tones (you know how much I like bold colors!) The result: soft fingering weight singles.



I then chose a contrasting roving, a practically solid lavender. When I placed them together, I instantly fell in love, and though it was way too late, I spun all the lavender I knew I would need.



It was a good thing it was so late when I finished, because that forced me to let my singles sit overnight before being plyed.



I love the result! The lavender brings some calm to the fire. I can't wait to knit it! I am thinking really hard about a good project.

Dale of Norway Sirdal sleeve cuffs

Today I need to answer some questions I received in the comments. Ruthie is working on finishing another knitter's Dale of Norway Sirdal sweater and asked in the comments to see my sleeve cuffs. Here's my Sirdal from years ago knit in Nature Spun sport weight and yes, it is starting  to pill.



I honestly don't know if I did the sleeve cuffs the right way - I vaguely remember the pattern being confusing. You gotta love those gorgeous braids and buttons though - the buttons are the actual Sirdal buttons designed to be used for this particular design. If anyone does have any questions about knitting a Dale of Norway sweater, I highly recommend the wonderful Dale of Norway group on Ravelry. You can also search for the Sirdal Sweater on Ravelry to find more photos. I don't have time to look through them all but I suspect if you click on each sweater you can find more sleeve cuff photos.




Also, Carissa found my glove knitting booklet on Ravelry and asked if it was a guide for beginners who need to learn the basics on how to knit gloves. I've had this question before and while I think it can be helpful for new glove knitters, it is more helpful for those who understand the glove construction process. It doesn't show the basic process for new glove knitters though; unfortunately I don't know of anywhere online that shows a step-by-step photo or video tutorial on how to divide the stitches for the fingers. One of these days I'll get around to doing that for the blog.

In the meantime, here is the single most valuable diagram from the glove knitting booklet. It is a diagram of how the stitches are divided when knitting gloves; each circle is a finger. The thumb is shown as the largest circle at the bottom left. After the thumb has been deal with (by using either a gusset or peasant thumb), in this diagram there are 48 stitches in a large tube when you get to the fingers. The numbers in blue show how many stitches you take from the front and back of the tube for each finger and the numbers in pink show the stitches that are either cast on or picked up . The numbers inside the circles show the total number of stitches for each finger from 20 for the index finger to 16 for the little finger.



Doing a glove diagram like this can really speed you up when you're knitting someone else's glove pattern and is especially valuable when you're converting a mitten pattern to gloves or designing your own glove pattern.

I hope this helps Carissa - I'd say the best thing to do is to just cast on. Most good glove patterns explain how you go from the large tube for the hand to the tiny tubes for the fingers so if you just follow the pattern you'll have success. I also highly recommend the Glove Knitters group on Ravelry for any technique questions.

Frida Kahlo

This week, my color inspirations came from Frida Kahlo. I love her opinionated pictures, with her bright dresses, jewls, flowers. This week's colorways are passionate, deeply saturated. And this week, I have yarns and rovings to offer!



Enjoy the Frida Kahlo Collection !

Updates





Here's the view today here. Brrrrrr.  I don't know if you noticed but I'm taking down the blurbs about a percentage of the profits from my booklets and patterns going to nonprofit rabbit rescue. I will still donate but I can't estimate how much any longer so I thought I'd stop advertising that fact. I donated $1000 to the House Rabbit Society in each of 2007 and 2008 but it will only be $600 for 2009.

Recently Lulu announced they were taking an extra $1.50 from each pattern PDF. Plus I need to upgrade to the CreateSpace Pro Plan so my technique booklets can finally be sold wholesale. As of January 1st, 2010 I'm going to raise all my individual pattern prices by $1.00 on Lulu, Ravelry, and Patternfish. This only affects the .PDF version of the patterns and not the print versions. The price on the multi-pattern and technique booklets will remain the same. I'll let you know when the stranded color knitting and glove knitting booklets are available wholesale for retailers.

We just started three new KALs on Ravelry's Stranded Forum using free Drops patterns - a pair of knee socks, a pair of socks in 3 colors, and a pair of Nordic mittens. Come join us - these KALs are especially great for knitters new to working with 2 colors per row because there are lots of people there to help you with any question you might have. All the KALs last through the end of January and use DK weight yarn so there should be plenty of time to finish a project.

HOLIDAY KNITTING LINKS

Knitting gingerbread houses for charity

Knitting your own tinsel

Gift tags for knitters you can print out

Fiber Trends cute felt birdhouse ornaments

Judy's Colors stranded Christmas Stocking Kits with some new styles this year

Free pattern for Cat and Dog Holiday Ornaments