What the heck's happening?

Not a lot, really. The family is slowly going broke, but so is most of the country. We've been selling off a lot of stuff trying to stay afloat. Sigh.

I'm still knitting and designing, albeit somewhat slowly. The latest is my Spiral Twist Hat, just published to Ravelry. I made up a new one in Patons Mosaic (love this yarn, even though I'm something of a yarn snob) and am saving it for Ali's boyfriend for Christmas. I'm hoping he'll like it.

I've been doing a lot of dyeing recently and have managed to take over the kitchen table for a dyeworks. It's much fun, and, as the holidays approach, sales are picking up a wee bit. In fact, I need to run to the Post office today.

If anyone needs/wants a 36" 8-harness loom (see pics below), I need to sell it. :-( I'd prefer to sell it somewhere near to San Diego. I can only imagine what shipping would cost on this beast!

Here's the latest from my Etsy Shop, "A Spinner's Palette"

A New Site to Sell on = Bonanza

So ebaY is upping it's fees, my Etsy store is moving really slowly. I'm giving Bonanza a go. So far it seems to have an extremely friendly community. The tools are great and pretty intuitive as is site navigation and FAQs. I posted a few miscellaneous items just to see what traffic is like. The experiment begins.

Here's a cute little widget they provided for my blog:





Wish me luck!

My New Fiber Studio - Yay!

OK. So having been laid off, fired or whatever from my job at St.Gregory's has had at least some advantages. Sure, we may lose the house at some point, but for now, I've organized my fiber studio in hopes of making some money to help replace the salary I no longer bring in.

The Storage Bins

 The loom has come out of the corner and moved into center stage where it could actually be used. The yarns all came out, were inventoried into Ravelry (Thank you Gabrielle, couldn't have done it without you!!!), what needed to be frogged was, yarns were re-skeined, washed and inventoried as needed. Fresh sachets were added to bins to keep nasty critters at bay.

Bookcases & worktable

All the books, booklets and magazines were inventoried into Ravelry as well. Most of the non-craft books were moved out into other bookcases throughout the house. A worktable was set up with a thin top that allows me to attach the skein winder and ball winders. This is also where I will set up a weekly photography station and my light box as needed. Marge stands guard in the corner.

I love these spacious cupboards from Ikea. See how tall they are? They're really deep, too! Look below at the big tubs that fit in them.  My daughters sneak in here every morning as they're getting dressed for the large mirrors. The right side cabinets have more tubs, sewing machines and serger, drum carder, and files.

Cupboard

Cupboard interior

ReIn-Yarn-ated™Yarn waiting to be re-skeined

Ashford Traddy with all the extras 

The Spinning wheel is back out of it lonely corner in the bedroom and will be ready for action soon. It needs a nice polish and probably a new drive string. I'll use my handy dandy padded fake leather storage bench as a spinning stool for the time being.



All in all, the room is large, but crowded. It's a great space with tons of light. One window faces north (by the work table), and the other faces east (the back of the loom). There are also small light high above the bookcases on the west wall that let in the afternoon sunlight. I should be able to get some great work done in here. All I'm missing is a real office chair and a comfy, cosy chair for knitting. I have no idea where I would put said chair, but alas, tis a dream.

Enough for today. Time to get some actual work done. Can I really call it work?

Something completely Random

I have a Fairy!

My fairy name is Nettle Hailshimmer
She protects and comforts the lonely.
She lives in brambles and blackberry bushes.
She is only seen when the first flowers begin to blossom.
She wears purple and green like berries and leaves and has cheery turquoise wings like a butterfly.
Get your own fairy name from The Fairy Name Generator!

I'll have to get Ali to paint me a picture!

Just checking in!

Although I have not finished anything lately, I have slowly been plugging along on the baby coat, the duck socks,  and Ali's mitts. It just depends on what project is closest at hand when I decide to knit.


Mostly, though, I've been in the process of designing new knit projects. I've put pencil to paper and have been poring through my most inspirational photo books to begin designing a few socks and children's clothes to begin with. I have a tea cosy partially planned out that needs to be written up and test knit. As progress is made, I'll fill you in. In the meantime, forgive me if posts are slow - the design phase is probably boring to look at! I'm sure enjoying the process. 

Forget the UFO's - I started (and finished) something new. :-)

I admit it. I needed another fix of instant gratification and my other projects seemed to be moving kind of sluggishly. My headaches have been rather bad lately and working with the smaller yarns has been difficult. I perused the baby patterns in my queue for one with larger yarns and found this (in aran weight.) A day later - voila! A wonderful, suggly-soft sweater in merlot red made with Elsbeth Lavold's "Angora" for Leisl's baby-to-be. We still don't know the gender but this seems to be suitable unisex. It was fun and easy to knit and the yarn was lovely to work with. I can't wait for her to see it!

Patterns, Patterns for Everyone!

More housecleaning. As I was thinking about designing this morning I went through my Spinner's Palette files on my hard drive and located a few patterns to share with the knitting community. I'll post here and on Ravelry. Hopefully knitters will find them useful.


The Fuzzy-On-The-Inside Double Knit Hat

Complete with my own, anyone-can-do-it instruction on double knitting.

Please note: Googledocs wreaked havoc on my docs and my PDF's were apparently to large to upload (?). If you'd like a PDF, email me at cadawley@earthlink.net.




A Brioche Scarf

Simple enough. Wonderfully forgiving and fast to knit. Talk about instant gratification. Grab a ball or two of bulky yarn and away you go.








My Funky Pink Scarf

These are so fun to knit that I've knit many for friends. Every time I've finished one, it's been grabbed right off the needles. Still have a bunch of those novelty yarns hiding in bins around the house? Here's a great way to use them.






Enjoy!

Success at last!

At Long last! Over two years in the making - the long awaited varsity socks are done and the ever patient Felicia was there with bells on (can you see the excitement in her face?) to help me celebrate. Just had to put fingers to keyboard to celebrate the final expungemnt of this lurking FO from my list. Ha!

OK - So whatever happened to the others? See post from January 9, 2010 for pictures)

• The red shawl salvaged from the Cedar fire was frogged. I decided the pattern wasn't working for me and the yarn was too nice to just sit, at least as a UFO, because it's still sittin' but at least it's not staring at me any longer!
• Double-knit hat: That I finished - and another like it as well. I should do more of that kind of knitting as I have nice warm bulky stuff in my stash and chilly homeless people all around.
• The beaded scarf: Whoops - that's still around someplace. I know I put a few rows on it but not much more. Where is that???
• The hand-spun shawl: Hey - that's another one that's been misplaced. I actually did a lot of work on this one. I was trying to finish up the yarn, but it's about due to be cast off. I'll fill you in when I clean the master bedroom. It's probaby hiding in there keeping the beaded scarf company...
• The Edwardian coat: unfortunately languished a little too long unprotected in the bottom of my UFO bin. As the picture shows, the hole is not small! Farewell, Edwardian Coat.
• Einstein Coat: I tried to pass this on to Samantha. I wonder how it's going?
• Fuzzy Red Shawl: Done
• Mobius Scarf: Finished and gifted to Lisa this year
• Fir Cone Shawl: Frogged. I decided I was never going to pick this up and knit it. I'll save the cone for weaving.
• Green Shawl: Frogged
• Irish Moss: Still in Progress
• Double knit scarf: Frogged
• Fair Isle laptop cosy: still not begun

OK, so there are a couple more UFOs lurking in the shadows that I need to locate and bring into the light. The knitting priorities for the year are changed a bit. Baby knitting for sure, but I also want to do some designing again - I haven't had a chance to do much of that as of late. I'd still like to have a year of the hand-knit sock but perhaps this time designing my own?

And I want to spin again - and weave. The closest I've gotten to spinning is to dust and polish my wheels a few times and get my fuzzies out just to peek at them. It's time. The poor loom sits in my craft room, well, looooming! It's been partially warped for 3 or 4 years. I can't even remember.

So I'm lifting my coffee cup to a new year of Fiber Faithfulness. It certainly can't be any worse than the last, can it?

Inventory Complete.

OK. Remember those Varsity socks that were almost done? Well, they're still almost done. Sigh. They got buried in the bottom of a basket and were forgotten. They've been moved to the top of the priority list so I can finish them at last. Besides - with this cold weather happening, someone must have cold toes!

Here is the Current list of UFO's - not as bad as last year, and not as bad as I though either.

The Sagittaria Shawl: It's very pretty, probably 40-50% done. It's hard to estimate. The center part is finished and there's a wide border

that I've begun. The yarn is fabulous: Little Knit's Indie II, marvy blend of Cashmere and silk. The red color is divine. I started this in the fall and the center part went quickly as the pattern was simple to memorize. I've slowed down a bit on it now that I'm on

the edging. Never fear - I plan to finish this! If you want the pattern, it's available here:

http://vilman.blogspot.com/2007/03/sagittaria-shawl.html

Ali's Fingerless Mittens: This is actually the second pair of these I'm making the first pair I gave to my sister. They were a little large for Al, who wanted them dearly, so I took a few

stitches off the backside (four to be exact, one rib repeat) and decreased the thumb increases by one as well. I also shortened the top a little, but not the wrist length - she wanted that loooong. These are made from a sport to DK weight pure alpaca yarn I had in my stash. I think it may have been from something I started

last year and frogged... Very soft and warm. That pattern is also available on-line: http://petrastrickt.myblog.de/petrastrickt/page/166936 Don't be freaked that the pattern starts out in German. It's translated into English further down the page. Click on the chart to print it out larger.

Baby Jacket: My friend Liesl is pregnant! Perfect excuse to knit

cute baby stuff and of course, I couldn't wait to cast on. Not sure yet if it's a girl or a boy. This is the Just-in-Case-It's-A-Girl project. I'm telling you, DROPS design has the most amazing free patterns to be found on the internet today. This is but one example. Pattern is here:

http://www.garnstudio.com/lang/en/visoppskrift.php?d_nr=b16&d_id=3&lang=us

Biff Baby Cardigan: Another baby cardigan started for Leisl, this one

in case it's a boy. It's mighty hard hard finding great baby stuff for boys, but this pattern really caught my eye! This one I've barely started, so I'm posting a pic of the finished cardigan. I'm doing mine in gray also. The puffiness comes from the fact that the stockinette in between the garter ridges are actually double knit patterns. The pattern calls for knitting them separately and then bringing the two sides together with the garter ridges, but I'm double-knitting to save time. Works perfectly! (More fun, too!) Oh - here's Berocco's pattern: http://www.berroco.com/exclusives/biff/biff.html

Mittens: Frost Tapestry pattern. In cream and a variegated yarn. I have one mitten almost finished, but I think I prefer the black and white in the photo. These are on hold and may get frogged. I like the whole set, even tho I look like a chemo patient in hats. :-(

Lace V-Neck Dress: I think I had this started last year. I'll go back and take a look - probably tomorrow at this point. At any rate, although it's temporarily shelved, I hope to have it done by the time the weather warms. I have the back complete, although not blocked yet, (see picture), and a goodly portion of the front done. It won't take too much more to finish up. I'm using Paton's Silk Bamboo - a yarn I really like working with. I know it's going to be a pleasure to wear as long as it wears well! We'll see!

Last but not least (or maybe it is) - the Snowdrift Wrap: I'm not sure if I should call this a a UFO or not, I really just started enough to do a 'proof of concept'. I haven't truly decided if I want to continue. The wrap is very pretty and the yarn I'm using is actually (for once) the yarn called for, Elann's Woodland Cashmere. I need to think on it some more.

This list is soooo much smaller than last year. Tomorrow I'll take a look at last years list and figure out what happened to everything. I did a major clean-up in the craft room a few months ago when I discovered that some critter had eaten a pair of socks I'd been saving. (Very sad). I haven't seen much moth activity but we have a lot of carpet beetles and silverfish. Ugh. I transferred a lot of yarn stash into ziplock baggies to minimize contamination (after careful inspection!)

So much for now. I'm going to try and finish those danged Varsity socks tonight! LOL

Oh, Good Grief!

So, I guess my blog is turning out to be a New Years' thing. LOL Back to cataloging my projects - which I'll do tomorrow if I have time - and report back on how those UFO's are faring!

It's January 5th and I have a finished project to my credit: the Della cowl. The details can be found on my Ravelry page: http://www.ravelry.com/projects/cdawley/della-cowl

I have a few projects on the needles. Alison wants some fingerless mitts (one down, one to go), and a good friend is pregnant so I have a couple a projects begun for the baby.

I expect to have a little more time on my hands this year. Chronic Fatigue has finally caught up with me so I'm slowing down a little. I'm hoping to spend some time organizing my home and my life (yea huh) and catching up with what's important.

Wish me luck!

Off to take Ali to trumpet lessons. I'll take my knitting. :-)

The Lost Blogger Returns!

Ok, so it has indeed been awhile since I've posted. Much has been going in in the Dawley household. Dance recitals for Sam, Alison is really going to town on her trumpet and is currently involved in five (count 'em - 5!) ensembles!

The knitting continues slowly but surely. I have started a few new projects (out of need - really!)

So, what have I been working on? Mostly the green cabled sweater - it's a long term project, but a great project to take with me to Ali's San Diego Youth Symphony rehearsals on Saturdays. We're there from 3pm to 6:15pm now - 2 ensembles: Concert Winds and Jazz Class - so plenty of time to knit. When it actually starts to look like something I'll post a progress picture.

I've also been working working on (gasp) a cross-stitch project. There's a women's tea coming up in May that I've promised a bread cover for (so has Sam for that matter) so I need to get that finished at some point.

What else do I have hiding in my various knitting bags? Searching around it's not as bad as I feared: the green sweater is in one, a new pair of socks begun for more portable knitting - I promise to post a picture soon - oh - and I started a baby sweater that is sitting by my bedside table. I do have a few baby items to knit up. It would also be nice to knit up something gorgeous for the parish gala to auction off. We'll see.

No pretty pictures today. I need to clear out the data cards from my cameras and sort through. I'll try to be more forthcoming... and interesting.

Happy knitting.

Be blessed!

Cheryl

The Catalog

I spent my days off this week photographing all the knitting WIPs (Works in Progress) I could find. (Notice the qualification.) My Facebook friends may have seen these when I displayed them Friday afternoon. In a way it was kind of like airing dirty laundry.

So, for those curious, here is the more complete explanation of my knitting procrastinations. Yesterdays post had a picture of the Varsity Socks I'm knitting. Fun pattern. I like knitting 2 socks at once. Pretty close to done on those.

This is the oldest project in my WIP pile. How do I know for sure? My WIP reset button was pushed in 2003 when my house burned in the Southern California Cedar Fire along with

hundreds of other houses here in San Diego. Gone were years worth of hand-knit and hand-spun projects,quilts, etc. This piece of knitting I happened to throw into the car for "something to do in case we're stuck in a hotel for a few days". 2 years later we were finally back in the house but the shawl is not complete. This is hand-spun lace-weight yarn made from hand-dyed Bluefaced Leicester. Someday it will be an Orenburg-

style lace shawl.

A friend of mine who recently took up knitting is knitting hats for the homeless people who

dwell in the canyons nearby. I decided this would make a good project for me as well, not only for doing good works, but it will help use up some of the yarns in my cupboards as well. This is a double-knit hat pattern I designed a few years back. The yarns I'm using are Paton's Soy Wool Stripes and something soft and fluffy but had lost it's label. This is my current 'mindless knitting' project that I've been carrying around with me.

A beaded scarf awaits finishing. A soft wool boucle yarn. I began

a few items I had hoped to give as gifts but then injured my

wrists in a fall. The didn't heal for most of the fall so no hand-

knit gifts this Christmas. :-(

This is another project made with hand-spun yarn. It's wool, mohair, angora, angelina for glitz. I found the shawl pattern at a yarn store in Portland OR and enjoy knitting this project. It's currently on the sidelines. It is probably about 2/3 finished.

I love this pattern for an Edwardian coat. I began knitting it with

Paton's Classic Wool. It was my main knitting project and was knitting up beautifully and then - the wrist injury. It sat for weeks on end in my knitting basket until the other day when I took it out to photograph it......

and discovered that carpet beetles had found their way into the basket. Oh dear. I'll need to frog this back past the hole. :-(

I promised my daughter, Samantha, an Einstein coat. I began this last summer and it's about 1/4 finished. Quite a bit to go on this project. The yarn is Lion Bran Watercolors.

A fuzzy, red shawl from a pattern called the "Truly Tasha's Shawl" which can be found at Wooly West:

http://www.woolywest.com/notebook_shawl.html

I have made several of these shawls over the years and enjoy both knitting and wearing them.

This mobius scarf made in green cashmere has nothing left to do except weave the seams together. I promised this to my sister Christmas 2008. I really need to get this done, hm?

This is the beginnings of a Fir Cone Shawl. I had one that I wore all the time before the fire. I rather lost my enthusiasm for this one as the yarn I chose is not very soft. The project has be languishing and will probably continue to do so for awhile. I may just frog this and use the yarn for weaving or felting.

This is a soft yarn. Lovely shades of green hand-dyed, hand-carded and hand-spun yarn is being made up into a simple shawl. The fiber has loves of kid mohair in it for softness and lustre. Yummy!

One of the many hazards of sock-knitting is demonstrated here: Single Sock Syndrome? Sort of. Actually, I lost the little sticky note with my pattern notes - needle size, how many round here, decreases there, etc. It's going to be fun figuring it out.

This is my current 'complicated' knitting project - what I do when I have time to devote to reading the pattern and concentrating. This is definitely not mindless knitting, but it's fun. It's a pattern called 'Irish Moss' from Alice Starmore's "Aran Knitting".

A double-knit scarf experiment. I love this variegated yarn, but am having trouble figure out a truly deserving project for it. I think I'l need to do a few more rows before decide whether or not I like the scarf pattern. That said, my daughter Alison has laid claim to it already.

Strictly speaking, this is not a WIP since I have not begun. But I really, really want to. A lot. It's a cool Fair Isle laptop cosy. Am I a knitting geek or what?

To show that I do occasionally finish what I begin, here is a simple ribbed hat, completed as last week.

And I've finished a pair of socks as well! Very comfortable, very bright. These were knit 2 at a time from yarn dyed from a sock blank. The dyeing technique is a lot of fun and not difficult at all. I'm going to have to do more on my next dye day. The sock blanks can be found at KnitPicks: http://www.knitpicks.com/yarns/Bare_Sock_Yarn_Dye_Blank__D5420174.html

And by the way, just to be completely honest, I started a new project last night, albeit with stash yarns. A baby sweater - I have a couple of friends who are pregnant. I'll try to remember to take a picture of it soon.

A Year of Faithful Knitting

It began with a challenge from a friend: I had intended last year to be the "Year of the Hand-knit Sock". It was, unfortunately, a bust, as my friend pointed out. I did finish a few pair, left a few partial finished. A grand total of one (1) pair actually got photographed and published to my Facebook page. Sigh.

Poking around the craft room for inspiration for the coming year I found a dismal array of unfinished projects - WIPs to those familiar with kn

itterly terms (Works In Progress) - needing my attention. These included not just knitting projects, but also sewing, quilting, felting, cross-stitch, weaving, spinning and a variety of other arts & crafts abandoned in state of partial completion.

The sight seemed to be a rather sinful waste.

I decided to catalog the knitting WIPS (by far the most numerous) and make it my resolution to attempt to finish all the unfinished projects and use up some of the enormous stash of yarns I have hiding in that craft room as well. (Oh, and I need to make up a few skirts for the previously mentioned dear friend who has been waiting patiently since last July!)

So - the to do list for the coming year (aside from working, keeping up with my husband and two teenaged daughters) is:

• Post all the cataloged unfinished knitting projects
• Finish up all my unfinished knitting projects
• Sew 2 skirts for Gaby Baby
• Knit hats for homeless folk using up existing yarn stash
• misc. gift knitting for up and coming babies, etc.

Someone say a few Hail Mary's for me.

Good night and God bless.