Bubbles has been shedding lately so I'm collecting her fur and spinning it. Fortunately she doesn't mind being combed unlike my previous 6 rabbits. It isn't long enough to make a great yarn, maybe 1 1/4" to 1 1/2", but I do think it will be fun to use. The second photo shows the yarn plied and knitted up. I think perhaps I'll have enough to use for some fluffy mitten cuffs.

Mondays are for...

Today was a really rainy day, which after the absolutely glorious weather we had last week, made everyone in the house pretty unhappy. The kids spent the afternoon staring at the windows. The boys finally gave up waiting for the weather to improve and took the dog for a long walk anyway.
Homeschooling was great this morning. PH zoomed through his equation solving, Sh through his angle measurements and S through her divisions. Reading was great, science perfect, writing went smoothly, spelling was a breeze, and we had a great discussion on the nature and history of anti-semitism. Why am I telling you all this? Because when everything goes smoothly, I get a lot of knitting done. Remember yesterday's picture of the Sophia sweater for S., well the back is done, and I am half way done with the left front!
The pattern (Ella Rae Book 4, Sophia Pattern) is so far really nice. I made a slight change for the last 6 rows of the back piece. I knit in plain stockinette instead of continuing the eyelet stitch pattern. I thought that the eyelets at the shoulder seam might gape a little, so no more eyelets!
I should get a lot more done tonight... Only one load of laundry stands between me and my knitting!

Crazy Life of a Knitter...

Crazy, there is really no other word to describe my life over the last week and a half.You probably all noticed that I did not make my usual Sunday post about the new colorways. I was sick, so sick that it took every bit of energy I had left to upload the new colorways to the website. I remained sick for part of the week, and so spent a lot of time in bed, reading about water gardens, dreaming of all the yard work awaiting me, knitting very little, as I was too tired to do even that.
I looked at so many pictures of gorgeous water gardens, that they became the inspiration for this week's colorways. This week, my colorways are Water Lily, Koi, Waterfall... I hope will enjoy the Water Garden Collection . Above is a picture of the Lotus Colorway.




I made some progress on the promised new sock pattern. I really like its simplicity, and yet very beautiful texture. I am half way down the second sock, checking my notes. The pattern will be available as a free pattern on the blog. I really like playing with 2 colors, without any fairisle, just a pleasant game of slipped stitches!



I have also started working on a summer cotton jacket for my baby girl. I am using an Ella Rae pattern. It is called Sophia, and can be found in her book 4 of patterns for Women and Children. I am not using her yarn. I had 8 skeins of Saucy Cotton in a great turquoise colorway. I know she will like it. I love the simple lace pattern, and keep wanting to complete "just" one more repeat, which is a pretty good sign that I will enjoy knitting the jacket. The pattern does not include any edging, and I know that I will be adding one, as I prefer the edges not to roll. I will probably crochet it, but I am not there yet. It is my goal to have the jacket ready before my little one leaves for France with my parents, so that she can wear it on the beach. The departure is on May 12. That leaves me about 2 weeks. I am making the size 7-8 years. I hope this is not one of my crazy unrealistic ideas...



I mentioned earlier in my post that I had been looking at a lot of books on water gardens. We live in Boston's Jamaica Plain neighborhood, which used to be a suburb of Boston. The large Victorian homes that can be found here, also have large city gardens. Ours may have had some plants at one point, but is now just a plot of underused land. I have been dreaming of transforming it. The transformation will not be easy. The previous owner of the house must have been a squirrel, or somehow related to one. He did not burry nuts, but rather he burried bricks. Each time I dig, and try to turn the soil, I hit a brick. They are not burried as if they had once been a patio, but rather randomely! I must have dug more than a hundred, in one corner of the yard only. All these bricks gave me an idea though. I like the idea of recycling materials, and so the idea for a central brick patio area was born. Even though I liked the idea, I felt there was still something missing. Which brings me to the topic of water gardens. While I was sick, I was browsing some magazines, in bed feeling pretty miserable when a picture of a bricked patio, with a square pond in the center caught my eye (May 2008, Country Home). I fell in love. So this summer, apart from designing new colorways, homeschooling the kids (which is pretty much a year long thing for us), knitting, painting the inside of the house, I will also be digging hundreds of bricks out the ground, digging a hole for a pond, setting up a pond, building a brick patio, putting up a fence, and planting zillions of seeds that will hopefully grow and bloom to transform my abandoned garden , into a little city paradise, where I can sit, and knit while the children play around me...

First of all, we're having another Rabbit Adoptathon at Albuquerque's westside Petco on 3601 Old Airport Road. The Adoptathon will be on May 10th between 10 am and 2pm. All the rabbits available have been rescued from the Albuquerque and Santa Fe city shelters and are spayed or neutered and litterbox trained. Come check out some wonderful bunnies and talk to some experienced rabbit people! We should have lots of baby bunnies as well this time.

I don't have an FO for you this week which is just as well because Blogger won't let me upload photos today. I do have a few links though.

Amaryllis Mittens - Aren't these just beautiful? You can buy either the kit using Baby Ull or the pattern.

DIY Mitten Blocker - Speaking of mittens, here's a really cool homemade mitten blocker you can make yourself from Kathryn Ivy.

Inches to Centimeters - I am trying to add metric measurements to my patterns and this calculator will be extremely helpful.

Apartment Therapy Small Cool 2008 - Our little rented casita is about 100 square feet too large for this contest but the AT designs and storage solutions for small spaces are always inspirational. There are a ton of contestants so expect to spend some time looking through them all.

Alamosa Mitts

Here is my latest design - the Alamosa Mitts. (The pattern is HERE ) They use 3 skeins of sport weight alpaca (Knitpicks' Andean Treasure is used for these) and size 3 (US) or 4 dpns or circs depending on which size you're making. The one in the middle is the Women's Large size - the others are the small size.


I'm also planning on using some alpaca to make a men's chullo-type hat and a pair of mittens. I just bought some of Elann's alpaca yarns to use for these projects - the colors are just gorgeous but it is less soft than Andean Treasure. So far I'm enjoying using alpaca for colorwork - I just have to remember to weave in my yarn ends for a lot longer because they're so much more slippery.


And yes - in that first photo it is actually snowing! When the desert heat does finally arrive it will be a great shock here.

Knitters that Rock My World

"Knitters that Rock my World" is the name for this coming Sunday's SockPixie Collection. You have guessed it, each colorway will be inspired by a marvelous knitter. There will be an EZ colorway, a Kaffe Fassett colorway, a Yarn Harlot colorway, to name only a few. I have picked knitters which have had a great influence on my work, from knittingg technique to color.
Won't that be fun?

About your comments and Questions

I have a problem and I need your help. Because of the way Blogger handles comments, when you leave a comment asking for help about a pattern I do not know which pattern it corresponds to. Could you include the name of the pattern with your questions?
I apologize for not answering some of your questions but at times I just could not find which pattern the question corresponded to.
Thanks for your help!

Gone With the Wind

Here is Gone with the Wind, part of SockPixie's Sunday update!
I hope you will enjoy this week's yarns.

It is not yet Sunday...

Before I say anything else, I want to take the time to thank you all for your lovely comments on the blog and on the site.
I have been busy working on many things. First this week's new colorways... I decided to watch all my favorite movies, and create colorways for them.So this week, we will have Hello Dolly, Rear Window, That Touch of Mink.That was a fun challenge!
The second thing I have been working on is a new sock pattern, and a new baby slipper pattern. If all goes well, the patterns should be ready sometime this week!
There is also a third big project, but I am not quite ready to write about it...

HAND AND CUTICLE BALM

I live in a very dry climate and I can't stand knitting with dry hands. This is a pretty all-purpose recipe; I also use it to make lip balm and even foot cream. I recently ran out and I noticed that no matter what other other creams, lotions, and even oils I used, my skin felt much drier. I even make DH a version of Burt's Bee's cuticle cream.

I generally double or triple this recipe and I use a variety of little containers for different scents. I am giving the recipe for a small amount because it is up to you how firm you want the finished product - more beeswax will make it firmer and less will make it softer. Experiment and see what works best for you.

I get the containers and the beeswax from Mountain Rose Herbs - their shipping can be high so I wait until I have a large order. You can also just save some little metal containers and check your health food store for beeswax. Vitacost has jojoba oil and Aura Cacia essential oils for the best prices I've ever found.

I wait about 5 to 10 minutes to resume knitting after using this balm.

Makes about 1/4 cup

1/4 cup jojoba oil (you can also use grapeseed oil or sweet almond oil but I think jojoba oil is the least greasy)
4 tsp finely grated, FIRMLY PACKED beeswax (Beeswax is kind of a pain to grate so I make DH do it)
1 capsule vitamin E (this is used as a preservative)
5 drops essential oil of your choice (I use lemon for the cuticle cream, lavender for my hands, and peppermint for lip balm)
Toothpicks for stirring

In a microwave-safe container, stir beeswax into oil so it is completely covered. Microwave on high for 30 seconds to 1 minute until beeswax is completely dissolved. (Cooking this too long will result in a gritty texture.) Mix in vitamin E and essential oils and stir with a toothpick. Pour into metal containers and let cool until solid. If the balm doesn't turn out as thick as you like when cool, you can remelt it down and add a teaspoon or two of grated beeswax to make it firmer.




I'm not quite sure Bubbles approves of purple toenail polish. This weekend with the Red Sox/Yankees series I'm hoping to get a lot done on my current project - the Latvian women's mittens from Knitting in America.

Durango

Here are some photos of Durango Colorado in the San Juan mountains taken last weekend. Unfortunately DH had the flash on the entire time he took these photos!

We lived in Durango for 15 years prior to coming to NM so DH could get his Ph.D. After he was finished with school the housing prices in Durango had become so insanely high (and still are) that we realized we could not go back even though DH was offered a job there. At the time that was really hard as all our friends are there but after this latest trip I realize it was a blessing in disguise. I think we need to live somewhere larger. Fortunately we're still close enough to visit.



This photo was taken from Fort Lewis College near the softball fields.



Here is the Animas River which runs through town.



The General Palmer hotel on the right in downtown Durango.

Next week I will have some colorwork alpaca fingerless mitts to show you.

Autumn Leaves Socks

Here are the Autumn Leaves Socks from Kristin Knits in worsted weight yarns from the stash. I used roughly the same colors she used although I added an extra shade of green and some extra colorwork near the toes.



I think Bubbles likes the new socks.



I knit the 2nd sock in one day. We drove up to Colorado for a quick visit - lots of uninterrupted knitting time as we drove through the massive Navajo reservation. I'll have some mountain pictures of Durango, CO for you tomorrow.

Sunday's Update...

SockPixie's Sunday update is done, and let me tell you, this was epic!My camera gave up on me in the middle of the photo shoot. I had to drop everything, and catch a train to go to the store to buy a new camera, which once I brought it home turned out not to work! Mr. SockPixie who had been out today enjoying an outing with the children, came home to a disheveled SockPixie who was screaming words to the camera she could not possibly repeat, with her rational and much calmer oldest daughter at her side . But as he always does, he saved the day. He went right back to the store, and brought me a working camera.
Apart from my camera problems, I had a lot of fun working with Kandinsky's colors. The picture above is called Kandinsky's Night. I love its brightness. I also was really excited to add a new yarn to the collection, an Alpaca sock yarn blended with wool and nylon, and a true fingering weight. I will knit my next pair of socks with it.
I am long overdue for a longer post, and my friends it will be coming soon as I have some really exciting news...