Too Good Not to Post

Update

You might remember this from an earlier post - it was mentioned in passing as one of my current projects.  Well, the knitting is done - it isn't blocked and the ends are dragging, but those things will happen much, much later.  Here is the finished piece - if you look closely, you can see what it is.  Or maybe it's just me that can because I already know what I'm looking for - it's much clearer from the back or the sides . . . 

This is my first block for the Marilyn Blanket for Girl Far From Home.  She's already finished one too, but I don't have it here to photograph (it's Far From Home).  Mom is working on one and Dena is working on another.  Girl Far From Home is hoping that Crazy Celtic Cousin (or Tall Dark and Kilted as his mother calls him) will also knit one.  The other cousins know how to knit too, as does That Other Girl.  Maybe someone else would like to knit a block?  It's fun and really easy.

What a Mess!!!!

So Dena and I are chatting and browsing on Ravelry the other day and I showed her a shawl that a friend of mine from down under had made.  I say, I really like this little shawl and I want to make one just like it.

Thus begins another of our famous knit alongs.  It's not that we don't have enough knitting already, just that we keep finding things we love and want to knit.  Heck, it isn't even like we don't have three or four knit alongs going on already (Pine & Ivy, Tina's Sweater, Hedgehogs, Cambridge if I ever find yarn, etc)

So, our newest knit along shawl is called Sothia and the yarn recommended for it is Madeline Tosh Merino Light.  This yarn is all hand dyed and the colors are beyond lovely.  So we look around and find some online. I buy 5 hanks of this lovely coral color because we each need about 2 and a little.

It arrives in the mail and is even more lovely in person than it was on the screen.  The colors of this that you see on the screen vary from the palest peach to a deep orange and who knows if it's just difficult to photograph or it actually varies that much, but what we have here is lovely.

One hank must be wound into a ball and then divided into two equal sized portions.  You would think that would be easy.  You would be very wrong.  It took me over 2 hours just to wind it out of the hank and because of the level of difficulty, I then had to rewind the ball a bit looser and then divide it.  

This hank was a tangled mess!  

I go check on Ravelry and sure enough, in the comments on this yarn, there are dozens of complaints about how tangly and messed up the hanks are and how difficult it is to wind into either balls or cakes.  Madeline Tosh supposedly replaced yarn for a bunch of people, but that's hardly the point when you are trying to start a project.  And what if you are knitting under a deadline?  The color is nice, but frankly, the yarn just isn't all that and sure isn't worth two and a half (or more) hours per hank for ball winding.

So, Dena, here is your shawl kit.  I will try winding one more hank and see how that goes, hopefully better.  If they are all as tangled and messy as the first one, we may want to get a different yarn for this project.

Sacrificing for my Sister

These are for my sister, Dena. I sacrificed my waistline to get them for her. Now she will take them and turn them into shawl pins. Maybe she will make a shawl pin for me if I send her enough of these.

And then there is my current knitting project (well, one of them). I hope to have a better picture of it tomorrow!

This is my other current knitting project . . . this one is going to take a very long time to finish.  I do love the yarn and the color though, so I don't mind spending a long time with it.

And I am making progress with my tatting - and tomorrow is Tuesday.

Allow me to Introduce . . .

The Hedgiebabies!!!

They are at least a full size smaller than the ones I usually make.

That's them in the back row - the reason they are taller is that they are sitting on a step!  The three in the front are from previous batches of hedgies . . . I think the one in the middle needs a little more felting before it goes anywhere.

As you can see, they are quite a bit smaller than the biggest guy . . .

This seems to be a classic color combination . . . lots of red/black hedgies on Ravelry.  It could be because there are a number of sports teams that use this color combo - including University of Georgia.  This little guy was made with Paton's Classic Wool and Lion Brand Fun Fur.

This little guy was an experiment with sport weight yarn as opposed to worsted weight.  He was supposed to be smaller than the rest and it is actually his fault the rest are so small.  When I was felting the three of them, he came out of his pillowcase so he's the one I checked for completeness.  I didn't think he was felted enough so I restarted the washing machine.  Probably because I was coming down with this nasty cold, I just didn't think about him being white and white yarn not felting as well as other colors.  I also neglected to take into account that I had knit each of the three critters with a different feltable wool so I could see how the two new wools felted.  I just wasn't thinking at all that evening.

This little guy was knit with Knit Picks Telemark and Lion Brand Fun Fur.

This one is a gift for Girl Far From Home's new room mate.  She picked the colors (from what I had on hand).  I think he might be the cutest of the bunch.  He was knit with Galway Worsted and Lion Brand Fun Fur.

And here we have the three new little guys all together - the Hedgiebabies!

As you can see, Tatting Tea Tuesday wasn't a complete waste of time, even if very little tatting occurred.

Reality is an illusion that occurs due to a lack of wine.

 It was a Tuesday.


It should have been a Tatting Tea Tuesday.    

But it didn't work out that way at all.

The Tea was there; I had a Chai Latte and Teresa had a cranberry and orange tea.  The Divine Miss M had a pot of Lady Hannah tea.    And we already know that it was a Tuesday.


So where was the Tatting???

We all got together on Oovoo, GirlFarFromHome, Teresa, and Me (Dena) and we knit huggable hedgehog.
Teresa was teaching the how to's via video, showing us exactly how to do it and what to do.

We drank our tea until it ran out and we moved on to the wine. 

We got our hedgehogs almost finished.  Photos will be posted here.

Find your favorite tatter; make a date for next Tuesday to get together and Tat (or knit or crochet).  With Skype and Oovoo you can live far apart and still have Tatting Tea Tuesday.





 Post by Dena

Getting a Head Start

On Tatting Tea Tuesday.  My Mom sent me this lovely little tea for one set and I bought this tea at Miss Tami's Cottage when I visited Mom & Dena in Idaho.  Cranberry Orange tea and very, very good!

So, the tea set and tea were put to good use the other day so I could have tea while I tatted.  I haven't finished this piece yet, but I'm hoping that Dena and I can share Tatting Tea Tuesday tomorrow over Oovoo or Skype and I can make some progress on this spinning wheel mat.

Dena sent me all this cool fun fur!  Novelty yarn has become such a bad word these days that it's terribly difficult to find.  Dena has a place where they have it in big fat balls.  I guess there are more hedgehogs and gnomes in my future after all!  (Hey Dena!  Keep an eye out for black fun fur cuz that's what I need for penguins.)

Dinner!

Someone decided that since Dad is out of town, she wanted to do some cooking.  She found a recipe and we gathered the ingredients, purchasing what we didn't have. 

And we started cooking.  I was in charge of cooking the salmon.

She was in charge of not just one but two sauces.  The problem with this plan was that nobody was in charge of the sides and so we almost didn't have any.  At the last possible minute we found a way to add a starch and veggie.

She is going to be a very good cook.  She has her very own cookbook and she's planning to try every recipe in it.  So far, so good.

This is the salmon with the first sauce on and under it - it's a teriyaki and pineapple sauce.  I love pineapple.

This is the second sauce - more teriyaki plus some pineapple preserves and some sweet chili sauce.  This gets added when you serve the salmon.

And the table set for two - notice the candle, we wanted it to be nice for our dinner for two.

'Nother one

I seem to knit a lot of repeats.  I've knit nine hedgehogs so far.  I've knit the hello baby sweater twice.  I've knit tons of socks - usually different patterns, but I've knit the toasty twist socks at least 3 times.  And now, I've knit this No Home Gnome pattern again.  Actually, I don't follow the pattern at all, but I do knit the idea of the pattern.  (The pattern calls for all the pieces to be knit flat and seamed and I just don't do that.  It also calls for them to be a different size and shape from what I do.)

This little No Home Gnome has gone home to be a young boy's friend.  Hope he likes his new home and hope the boy likes him.

Hubby is leaving in the morning and won't be back until Monday night.  I need to decide what Dena and I are drinking this weekend so here are pics of my stash.  The bottom row are regular wines - all good.

The top row are all either special harvest or ice wines . . . seriously sweet and delicious, but smaller bottles than the regular wines.

So, what do you think we should drink?

Baby Presents!

The baby things are knitted and delivered.  Well, I delivered them to the Gramma yesterday and she'll be delivering them to the family today.  

I made one little purple sweater.  I had planned to make a hat and booties to go with it, but I just ran out of time.  This is the Hello Baby Sweater by Susan B. Anderson available for free on her Spud & Chloe blog - there are a lot of really cool knitting patterns available free there.

I also made this sweet little baby hat.  It's called the Sweetie Pie Hat and it was designed by Tanis Gray for Be Sweet Yarns.  It comes on the ball band of their Bambino Taffy yarn and it makes a cute little toddler hat with one ball of yarn.  I downsized the pattern to make a newborn hat - the ball actually had one more color change in it that I just left out.  I hope the hat fits.  It was quick and fun to make.

And then there were the Hedgehogs.  This one is for the new baby - a girl.  The fun fur looked multi colored but I had no idea it was going to come out striped.  The way you knit these critters tho, there are rounds around the face that are knit first and the first color on the ball was pink so this little critter has a pink ring around it's front.  

The new baby has a big brother, about 6 I think, and his favorite color is yellow.  I didn't want him to feel left out, so I made him his own hedgehog.  These are such a great size and shape, I figure he and his dad can play football with this one if they want.

This hedgehog isn't going to that family.  I love this one so I'm keeping it.  I had one ball of black fun fur and two partial balls of a variegated gray (some light, some darker) that has a silver tinge to it.  I started with the black and made the ring around the front and then switched to the gray for the back.  When I ran out of gray, I switched back to the black and it worked out that the back is gray and the bottom is black.  It just turned out so cool.  

All three of the Hedgies together - can you tell that the red/black one is a bit larger? You never know what you are going to get when felting (actually fulling if the wool is knit first) because different colors of the same yarn felt at different rates and different wools felt totally differently.  That's ok because the red is for an adult and the yellow and pink are for kids.  Nice how that worked out.

One more pic of the finished baby blanket - so soft and so nice.  

And the whole lot together before I wrapped them.  I hope they like them!

Now I'm going to go tat something . . . no more knitting deadlines for a while.  I think I'll finish that Spinning Wheel mat I started out of Anika's thread first and then I'll finish Bree's pattern.