Loose Ends

Things that are difficult to quantify -- and nearly impossible to photograph

2012-01-30T10:50:00.000-08:00

It's been an interesting 10 days here in my little world. First, Bob is a continued joy and a continued strain on the budget. He had a heartworm scare -- which if you know anything about heartworm in kitties is terrifying. If you have kitties, do your family a favor and read up on it. It's not pretty and really dangerous for indoor and outdoor kitties and the kicker- it's preventable, but not curable. Ouch. While he doesn't have heartworm he does have some damage to the right side of his heart. As Naomi (aka kitty godmother) tells me this somehow better than having damage to the left side. So, yay? Our intrepid vet will talk to the kitty cardiologist and see what his prognosis is now that we know he doesn't have heartworm. It is possible it's just something we'll keep an eye on, he may need medication now or eventually to help slow the progress of heart disease, we don't know yet. We're happy to have him in our lives as long as that may be. He is on schedule to get neutered in a few short days which I'm hoping will make him a little more palatable to the other kitties and get rid of some of his less desirable behaviors. We can hope. In the meantime he's warm and snuggly and full of purrs.

I've made this crazy plan to try to move with as few unfinished projects as possible, which means clearing out some old, old, old, things that are on my needles. Instead of committing to finishing them all, I'm also giving myself permission to take things off the needles and wind up the yarn and re-stash or give it away (ie. sell it during our summer sale) Because of this you may be seeing a few things here that you've never seen before, or things that you've seen in progress at the shop many many moons ago.

Anyone remember that ring of Kureyon squares? Back in the day, before Naomi had the brilliant idea to rewind the Kureyon so we could see what the heck-o was in those center pull balls, we had a giant ring of knit squares, one for each color of Kureyon that we sold. That was 30 colors, dear readers, actually 32, and I personally knit a square of each one in the awesome pattern Lizard Ridge. Once we changed the method of displaying Kureyon the squares were obsolete and just sitting around... for 2 years. I started knitting them almost 3 years ago and now, they actually resemble a blanket!

You may look at the original pattern and note it takes 20 skeins, assorted, one skein per square. Ha, um, I had 32. So I sewed 30 of them together and used the un-knit skeins from the other 2 squares, and a little bit I had left over to crochet the border. Can you believe it took 2.5 skeins to sew that bad boy together and crochet the border? Wow does crochet take a ton of yarn. Anywho. It is the largest blanket ever, Josh and I comfortably fit under it and it's warm and wooly, which is just how I like things. I'm also super happy to have the closet space, and bonus, I found a Chibi just sitting in the blanket... The return of lost things is going to be a theme here.

I also spent the last week painting our den. Some people have been calling these "caves" recently and ours certainly qualified. It was amazing-- the same light no matter the time of day or the weather because we have black velvet curtains to block out all light and dark blue walls, it was like a timewarp. This is super convenient when you are up at all hours with a newborn, 12 noon? 12 midnight? It doesn't matter!

It was also crammed full with furniture, a giant Ikea bookshelf to house all of my knitting books and tools and in-progress knitting, a giant black chest that I made (I think it was the 2nd piece of furniture I ever made all by myself) to hold everything we need to stay warm in our chilly little house and our home theater/entertainment equipment. It was definitely high on the realtor and stager's list of rooms we needed to work on and definitely low on our list of rooms we wanted to change. So, after finishing almost every other project on our to do list, this one had to be next. It was traumatic at first to have such a drastic change, but I have to admit it's growing on me. It's also much easier to see this as the 3rd bedroom in our house now that it is painted in a nice ice blue.

This really has been the hardest room to re-do. The process of preparing our house for sale is really a long goodbye to this place. We've lived here for 10 years, and celebrated all but our first wedding anniversary here. It has been the theater for our lives for so much of our married life that it almost feels like a member of our family. So I'm working (hard) at finding the positives. It is a lovely color and in the process of tearing apart the room I have found 2 things that I've been looking for for years. The first, many of you will understand, was my #6 addi click tip. I honestly thought I had lost it in the store and it was going to be gone forever. Imagine my surprise when I was sweeping under the heater that was previously behind the giant chest and there it was! I put it to good use almost immediately knitting that pillow cover you see on the futon.

The second is an earring. I love earrings and I always lose them and so some of my favorites I don't wear because I'm terrified to lose them. I have so many single earrings that I often wear mismatched pairs because I can't give them up. This pair matches a ring that Josh gave me a few years ago and I was so sad that I lost one of them that I really couldn't admit it to myself for at least a year. I'm strange like that. So when I went to pick up an envelope off of the floor and saw it sitting there as if nothing happened I almost cried big, fat, happy tears.

They are now, happily, in my ears reminding me not to give up hope on things that I have lost, because you just never know what will come running back to you when you least expect it.

I am hoping that we will continue to find lost gems as we clean and purge the house. As much as I miss my old cluttered house, there are parts to this cleaner, more streamlined house that are really quite nice. I hope I can find a better balance between the two at our next home. In the meanwhile I'll keep plugging away at the to do list and forming my vision for the next few years. There are so many big changes coming that it is daunting at times to face them head-on. Especially when so many of them are impossible to plan to the last detail (which is usually how I roll) I have to have faith that things will work out, that the people I trust as experts know what they are talking about, and that the opportunities we need to move forward on so many paths are just waiting for me to take the next step.

In the meanwhile, I'll just be happy that the painting is almost finished.

knitting, this time for real

2012-01-20T09:36:00.000-08:00

I have been knitting, honestly. I just haven't finished anything I can tell you about... gift knitting (shhhh!) But this post isn't about me...

There really is a special joy in sharing things that you love with the people you love the most. It's really even better when it's with your kids. It's hard not to hope that they will like at least *some* of the things that you like and when it comes together this well, it's pretty thrilling.

Clara took to knitting, like, well, the daughter of a yarn shop owner ;) I have always said that she could knit if she'd like but I wouldn't pressure her. She started asking to learn when she was about 2 and a half and I told her she would have to wait until she turned 4. There are a few other things that I recommend to people when they are trying to figure out if it's time to teach their kids to knit. Coloring in the lines or drawing their letters tells you they have the manual dexterity to knit. Having the attention span is also important. If they are the kind of kid that sits and plays with legos for longer than 5 minutes, that's a good start, 20 minutes is even better. Clara is super focused and can play the same game for hours, but that's not entirely common ;) 4 is usually the age these things start to come together, but it's good to wait until you see those signs they are ready rather than use their age alone as a guide. Nothing is worse than getting someone so frustrated that they never want to knit again. If your little one is interested in learning to knit but you don't think you're the right person to teach them, I also have (grand)parent/child rates for my open knits on Thursdays and I'd love to help out ;) Kids are *so* much easier to teach than grown-ups!

Anyway, after her birthday Clara reminded me that she got to learn to knit when she turned 4 and that she was anxious to do it. We talked about what she would like to make and she decided on a toy for one of our kitties so I picked up some 128 Superwash in bright green (of course! her favorite color!) from the shop and took some nice sticky handmade wooden needles out of my needle stash and got her going. She was thrilled, knit a couple of rows, and then promptly forgot about it for a few weeks. This was precisely what I was expecting.

So I was actually surprised when she asked to do more a couple of weeks ago and remembered nearly all of the steps. She was knitting entirely by herself -- and telling stories to her sister at the same time! Those of you who came to knitting later in life will know just how difficult it is to knit and talk at the same time in the beginning. Color me impressed. Josh didn't believe me until he saw her a few days later. A few more rows and we'll have a nice little toy for monkey. Then she tells me she wants to knit her sister a sweater... that's my girl!

Life lessons from Bob

2012-01-17T11:38:00.000-08:00

Well, we picked a very un-japanese name for our new kitty (who we've decided to keep by the way) Bob. He's a bobtail cat after all, and he's just such a sweet and unassuming kinda kitty. I've never named a cat with a person's name, and I have to admit to anthropomorphizing him more than I usually do. The days since he's joined our lives have been dramatic but just so wonderful and peaceful- almost like the heady days with a newborn. The whole family has been hanging out with him in his isolation chamber- our den and half bath downstairs, snuggling and commenting and noticing his every move and attending to his every need, much like you do with a newborn!

He's doing great, by the way. His coat is shiny, his wounds are healing and his appetite and a bit of spunk are returning. I don't believe this cat will ever be, well, energetic. He's a bit of a lump, but a delightful purring lump, so we're just fine with that. I just got a call from animal control and it looks like as long as we get our three kitties up-to-date with their rabies vaccines, we can quarantine him in our home. He has to stay inside for 6 months and considering our other kitties have been inside for, oh, 5 years or so, that shouldn't be a problem. We're waiting to find out if we can have him leave the house long enough to get neutered- if not it will have to wait until his quarantine is up. I think we'll manage.

I've been so very calm since he's been with us and I've spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out why. It would make sense for me to be more frazzled. We've had to run all over getting him to the vet twice, we've been cooped up in the den, there are so many things to think about with a new member of the family. But I've been calmer, more peaceful, less fazed by the circus I call my life.

I was driving to the grocery store (again, seriously, how much milk can 4 people drink?) trying again to figure out what made the rest of my life seem easier and possibly more fulfilling to have helped Bob. Talking it over in my mind I think about the family who had him before, how they were in over their heads (much how I feel with my girls many days) how they didn't have the knowledge or capacity to love him as much as he needed. I can say without a doubt that his life is better in my house than it was before. It's so easy, at least we love him.

I spend so much time questioning whether I am enough mother to our girls. Clara, as many of you may know is a very intense kid and I sometimes wonder if I am the best mother for her out there. If there is a mother out there who doesn't wonder sometimes if she's doing the best, or is the best for her kids then I don't really want to know. (please don't tell me) That kind of self-confidence is something I'm not capable of. I doubt myself. A lot, actually. But for whatever reason the universe sent my girls to me and I am the only mother they have. And I love them. A lot, actually. Why, I ask myself, is it enough for Bob that we simply love him, provide him soft places to sleep, excellent health care and tasty food. If our love is enough for him, if it all seems so simple for him, then why do I question if my love is enough for them? Really, it is. It is all they ever really need. There were lean times in my childhood when love and a place to call home was about all my mother could give us. It was plenty. Why, then, do I spend so much time hating on myself and my parenting? I have no idea. My new mantra- Love is enough. Thank you, Bob. Every time I start to feel a little overwhelmed, I'm going to go give you some pets and remember this.

kitty update!

2012-01-13T11:15:00.000-08:00

I'm afraid the newest addition to our family (we're still not sure we're keeping him, but I'm hoping we do.. lots of factors... ) may be hijacking the blog for a few posts. There are a few people who have expressed interest in how he came into our lives so I thought I would tell his story as I know it.

He was taken as a kitten for the daughter of a family who apparently never had cats. He'd never seen a vet, but it appears that he was an indoor kitty. My thought is that the family just had no idea what caring for a furry mammal was all about. When he got a bit older he was causing a little damage to their leather furniture, and well, they decided that having a cat wasn't for them. It was at this point that a friend of mine who helps re-home kitties was notified and she posted a plea to facebook last week. When I saw his picture he reminded me so much of a dear kitty of mine and I fell in love. What can I say? I talked with Josh about it and he is just so practical that he said, "Really, are you nuts?" I mean, I freak out all the time about how busy and insane our life is, his logic is the last thing we need is another thing to care about. Fine, I try to put him out of my mind. He's right, honestly, the last thing we need right now is something else to worry about.

Well, the following Wednesday I see another post from my friend on facebook that this little kitty got out accidentally and got in a bit of a fight and now the family is really not having it. There are rumblings that he may just get let loose somewhere... or worse. Sigh. I go back to the sweetie and this time I'm a lot less flexible. I see lots of calls to help animals (these are the crowds I run with) and usually I am moved, but not called into action. This guy was different and I knew I couldn't see him die. Not him.

So we arrange to meet up with the liason- my friend's friend- the next day. I manage to get a quick appointment at the vet Naomi uses (our usual vet couldn't fit us in that day and I really needed him to get checked out before I brought him home) and off we go. Like any good story, it was storming and raining and blowing, and we were late. But my friend's friend is lovely and tells me a few spots he was hurting that we should be sure to check out- his cut on his face and his back left leg that he is favoring. As crazy as the day was the kitty is very calm and full of snuggles- even at the vet he snuggles!

He, of course, has a few issues, fleas, a heart murmur we need to get an ultrasound before he can be neutered, we have to call animal control because he has a wound of unknown origin while not vaccinated- we're still waiting to see if he needs to be quarantined... it's amazingly complicated. All of our kitties have come from rescue organizations but this is my first time organizing the rescue so to speak. I'm relying on the help and expertise of many people who have done this before and his kitty godmother (Naomi) is an ever present gentle source of encouragement that we can do it, that we are doing the right thing, that we need each other.

It wasn't really the perfect day to pick him up, on Thursdays I go to the shop and we have our babysitter, so I wasn't able to be with him the whole day. When I got home Josh mentions that he hissed at him once when he was petting his back leg, and he's limping on his front leg. I snuggle him while watching Star Trek, I make sure he has some food and we go to sleep, he's sad when we leave and I am already wishing we could let him out so he could sleep on the bed.

When I woke up this morning he's still really not putting any weight on his front left paw and I call the vet again. They fit me in in the morning and kindly wait to call animal control back (oh that is a long and silly story) so they can treat his paw regardless of his quarantine status (they are so so kind) He's got a bit of a raw spot on his foot pad that needs cleaning, and he needs some special litter until it heals, but other than that he's just fine, and did we mention sweet? and full of snuggles?

It honestly broke my heart to take him back to the vet this morning because I just knew he thought we were taking him to another house. But we're back home now and he's resting on his favorite spot. He's had quite an exciting couple of days and he's sleeping a ton. When I pick him up and snuggle he's ever so willing to lay there and purr. He is a truly gentle soul. We all adore him- especially the girls.

So now the fun part! We need to pick a name for him. His old family named him Demon- the irony. We temporarily named him Ollie- short for Oliphant. Because he is so grey. But we need some help finding a name. He's a very sweet, kind, gentle cat- possibly the most mellow I've ever had. He also has a very short tail (not a sad story, a birth defect!) about 5 inches long- seriously that's it!

But he's not an Ollie. I'm thinking he needs something literary, or something Japanese (since all of our cats have Japanese names) he's a survivor, someone who did what he needed to do to make it, but generally wants to live a quiet life. I feel like he deserves a big name, a quiet name, a name with a great story. Any ideas? I promise some knitting soon- I'll be spending a lot of time hanging in quarantine with my new friend so I should be quite productive... that is if I can manage to stop petting him! Thank you for all your support on our adventure (and cross your fingers this animal control thing is a non-issue) more soon!

unexpected delights

2012-01-12T10:20:00.000-08:00

Well, dear readers, it has happened again. My marvelously insane little life has thrown some unexpected things my way. Last week at this time I was marveling at this kitty who needed a home who reminded me so much of my dear cat Selki, this week, well, see for yourself:

His previous family sounds like decent enough people, just not cat people. We are cat people and as you can see from his forehead, his circumstances were fairly dire. It's complicated rescuing any animal and I am working on managing all the details, getting him well, neutered, and settled. But he's just such a dear and I hope that if we can't find room in our home for him permanently then we'll be able to find a place for him once he's fully recovered.

Also, I may have stepped into a mitten obsession- I have been putting them off trying to finish things that are already on the needles, but I took a little detour this weekend for Josh. Since I still can't find the zipper for his sweater (where did it go?) I needed for him to have something!

Were you expecting snowflakes? not Cthulhu? When I saw this pattern I just knew Josh would love them and when I found the vile looking lime green/yellow I managed to resist casting on for about 24 hours. They worked up quickly and delightfully in Sheep -,a yarn I actually cried when it was discontinued. Luckily I have enough in my basement to keep me well supplied for approximately the rest of my life. He tells me they fit better than any mitten ever has, which may just be sweet talk, but I'll take it.

There will be more as we settle with our new kitty and work out the logistics of his rescue... I've been knitting like a mad woman (and painting, and cooking, and and and) and I have so much to share! Isn't he adorable?

Holiday Knitting

2012-01-04T13:28:00.000-08:00

It's funny how to do lists have a way of making me feel calmer and more panicked at the same time. It's as if I say, "That's it?" in one breath and then in the other realize exactly how much is there. During vacation I took the time (in the glow of the grandparents loving on the babes) to make a monster to do list. I hoped that I would be able to get everything out of my brain and then make a nice plan. You know, plan the work and work the plan. When I was finished I took one look and decided (as I told you last time) that I was going to put off this website nonsense until after the house was on the market. I made a spreadsheet of all of our time and all of our projects and I tried to make sense of what we needed to do, when we should do it, and to come up with a reasonable timeframe for when we would be ready to put that little sign outside.

I figured somehow, someway, we would be kind of ready come the middle of February. And with any luck there will be a little snow, enough to hide our somewhat amateur landscaping, but not so much to keep people away from the open house. And there will be no other houses on the market so our little gem will be super sparkly and sell in, like, 3 hours. (a girl can dream, right?)

Of course I put all of the house things on the list, and promptly forgot about those little things like laundry and dishes, so when I woke up this morning to laundry all of over the place I panicked. How are we to sell the house if we need it to look like a Pottery Barn shoot 24/7 and we can't even manage to put dirty laundry in the basket? Queue panic attack. You know it's a great morning when you hear your 4 year old ask, "Daddy, what does 'overwhelmed' mean?" Awesome.

If you are a normal person you take a deep breath and start folding laundry and putting it away. If you're me you think (as you have panic attack #2 in the downstairs half bath) that it would be really nice if just one of the rooms in your house looked amazing, just like the real estate stager wants it to look. You look around for the room that is the closest and coincidentally it's the room you're in- oddly it's also the smallest room of the house. So instead of working on Mount Washmore (laundry) I decided it was the perfect time to install the new faucet in the pedestal sink. Thus removing the box with the new faucet that I've been kicking for a couple of months.

It really only should have taken me an hour but the wonderful human who owned our house before us was not the best plumber and tightened the plug on the bottom of the sink way way too tight and I had to dismantle the entire sink to remove it. The sink has a very very narrow pedestal. It was impossible to remove the plug any other way, argh. This required more tools and a trip to the Home Depot. The weather is trying to convince me that it's really really winter (this time we mean it!) and it's super cold today and we had to get all bundled up. So in my mixed-up world, I justify throwing away the to do list (temporarily) because it presented the perfect photo shoot for holiday knitting project #2 knit in the 48 hours before christmas. Tiny Tea Leaves for Zoë. Details on ravelry.

Aren't you glad I'm a little nuts? These photos were taken moments before we all piled into the car to buy tools. And really, how perfectly does her outfit match that sweater? Total accident! And the adorable christmas book she's reading (upside down)? I had nothing to do with it! It almost appears that I planned the whole thing. Sometimes flying by the seat of your pants works. Of course, that implies you actually have clean pants. I should get on that.

new inspirations

2012-01-02T07:56:00.000-08:00

I've been (periodically) hard at work creating an ecommerce site for Bella. Which sounds terrible, doesn't it? Most of you know I'm totally into knitting and the kids, but fewer know that I was a big geek in college- math and computer science. So while web design isn't something I may have done, ever, it has been fun dusting off all of that programming I did in college. It's shocking how much I actually remember, and how really well that education has served me. Given my terrible memory, I'm surprised at how easily some things have come back.

But, you know, we have a *lot* of things for sale at the shop. About 10,000 items. That, my friends, is a lot of pictures, a lot of text, a lot of data entry and tweaking. And really, I'm just one person, and while Naomi is helping a lot with the copy for the items, but the rest is squarely on my shoulders.

To say that the tedium of taking thousands of pictures of yarn was getting to me is a bit of an understatement. I love yarn, and I love my camera- but shooting and re-shooting all of the yarn will test even the most profound love of yarn. It has also been an enormous challenge just to find time during bright daylight to take all of these pictures now that the sun sets at like 10am. Me making a crack about not having light really tells you something- the dark is the thing I love about winter! I have been really frustrated and stalled on the site because of this. That is, until, my father in law gave me a new lens for my camera for christmas. Have you ever seen Cascade 220 superwash look this amazing? This was on a cloudy afternoon!

If I were crazy (crazier, actually) I'd be tempted to re-shoot the entire store. Of course I had just decided to put off true insane work on the site until we have our house on the market. Trying to paint every room in our house, do some carpentry, and re-tile our kitchen floor and trying to spend a couple of hours a day making these items beautiful for the shop is too much for me right now. I try to tell myself that the world has waited this long for the most amazing yarn shop online, it can wait a few more months. Besides, I'm supposed to be the shipping department for this operation and if my grand plan goes well, I'll be able to walk to the shop to pack all of those boxes. In the meantime I'll just be taking more and more pictures and drooling at the lovely things we have.

I have a few knitting posts in the pipeline for you- my holiday knitting is almost finished (Josh, the patient man that he is, doesn't mind that his sweater wasn't ready for christmas, hannukah, or new years) and I'll be parading those this week. Lots to look forward to in the new year. Again, if all of my grand plans come to fruition it should be a very exciting and eventful year. I can't wait to share it with you here! Happy New Year!

vacation time

2011-12-30T06:52:00.000-08:00

One thing that I love about vacation (that i don't so much love about being back from vacation, but you know) is that parenting can take a little vacation too. I don't mean that I cease to parent and love my kids, but we can relax rules, we can soften our tone, we can indulge where we otherwise would stay firm.

Because my kids have never been great sleepers and the excitement of *so* many grandparents in such a short period of time kind of winds them up into a frenzy, I often have to spend a lot of time getting them mellow enough to sleep when we are in Maine. This would normally drive me insane. At times I feel like I've spent most of the last 4+ years trying to get one or the other to sleep. But on vacation, I don't have my to do list, I have all of those grandparents helping, feeding me and letting me nap, and instead I can enjoy a rare moment.

It's times like these where I think about how many times I really get to rock my girls to sleep. Most nights, honestly, it seems like too many. But then I look at this picture all of a sudden life is traveling at warp speed.

hannukah

2011-12-26T05:51:00.000-08:00

How happy am I that Hannukah is nice and late this year so we can celebrate properly with Mimi and Grandpere. I was given a new lens for my camera for christmas and I'm having the greatest time seeing just how little light I need. These were all taken by candlelight alone, amazing.

Happy Hannukah!

The Magic of Maine

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Driving up Thursday afternoon, I packed as a "just in case" a pair of snowpants for Clara and a snowsuit for Zoë. I mean, it was 55 while we were packing the car and for most of the drive- only when the sun went down did the temperature approach something resembling the week before christmas.

Imagine my surprise when we woke up to snow! It was perfect snow for playing, heavy and wet and only 5 inches or so. Not so much that Zoë had a hard time traipsing through it, but enough to make a snow person.

Magic. Merry Christmas!

Part 4a...? this is getting ridiculous- COOKIES!

2011-12-24T00:00:00.000-08:00

You all have seen us making and decorating cookies before. Clara, being 4(!!!!) is quite capable of cranking out 2 dozen perfect toy soldiers at a time. She is almost ready for rolling out the dough totally unassisted, thanks to the rolling pin that Grandpère made her. Her ability to control how much flour she uses, is kind of not there yet.

I told you yesterday my plan of making new kinds of cookies each year, and we did. But when making new things I find it's best not to take pictures that way I can just allude to the tragedies later without photographic proof. This year we tried vanilla crescents: which were awesome, delicious and we needed to make two batches because we *inhaled* the first one- recipe here. Also Molasses spice cookies, which are good and crispy but I think next year we'll try for a proper gingerbread instead.

My plan was to make (but not decorate) some traditional sugar cookies - we'd do the decorating later. We've made these cookies about 5 billion times, so when the Zone woke up early from her nap (we had just finished making the dough) I thought, what the heck, we'll forge ahead. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh boy did I underestimate how much that girl loves cookie dough.

Our yield was slightly less than in previous batches.

Part 4: Insane amounts of food

2011-12-23T08:11:00.000-08:00

In my head Christmas presents work like this: kids get toys, grown-ups get snacks, grandparents get pictures of their grandkids. I think it works. Really, big people can get their own stuff, kids just need some spoiling (right?) and grandparents, really our children *are* their gift and the photos help in those moments when they can't be right there.

So at our house we make a massive amount of treats and give them out to friends. This is good for two reasons: 1) it gives the kids and I something fun, delicious and messy to do and 2) I get to give most of it away so Josh doesn't complain too much that I'm trying to kill him with sugar and fat. I have this magical idea that every year we'll try a few new things and then by the time the girls are heading off to college I'll be a pastry chef.

In my perfect world I try to attempt these projects when one of the kids is out or asleep. Somehow the idea of two kids and molten sugar that hardens to your flesh and continues to burn freaks me out a little, so I like the mellow vibe that happens when it's just me and *one* of the girls. On this particular morning, the zone was taking a wee nap:

just look at that little head:

So my plan was chocolate peppermint bark and some toffee if we had time.

First we get Clara occupied unwrapping two boxes of peppermint candy canes. This takes a while, get a cup of coffee, check facebook, have a nap.

Next about 4 cups of chocolate chips get all melty

and smeared on some parchment on a cookie sheet. If you are able to wait for a cold day, then you can use your porch like a giant free refridgerator:

Then we get Clara set up to beat the tar out of the candy (and pray it doesn't wake up the little one!):

Just look at that face!

Once the candy is all broken into bits, time to melt about 4 cups of white chocolate, stir in (most of) the candy cane debris and smear it all over the dark chocolate. Then sprinkle some leftover candy cane bits on top.

Then back on the porch for a little chill:

Then, pressing your luck, you'll decide to do the toffee- I mean the smashing candy canes didn't wake up Zoë, so why not?

In the pot goes some butter and sugar and salt, yum. Digital thermometers are really great for teaching numbers- tell me when it gets to 285!

The magic of thermodynamics when applied to butter and sugar and salt:

When it gets to the magic temp for me and my pot- 290, pour it on a cookie sheet with a silpat - seriously don't screw it all up like me and just use wax paper. oh did I forget to take the pictures of me painstakingly scraping all of the wax paper off of the toffee, my bad. just imagine my joy. okay?

Now, I'm no food blogger, and you have to move a little quickly at this stage to get the chocolate chips on top so they stick in and get melty and magically incorporate themselves into the toffee so when you smash it to bits the chocolate doesn't come flying off. You will have to move *so* quickly that there is no time for taking pictures. So some magic happens and you end up with this:

I think that I need to make this the new background on my computer. mmmmmm.

The toffee has heat to spare so when the chocolate is all melty you spread it out. yum.

total success! These things all get broken into something resembling bite sizes and tossed into some containers and into the fridge. Next we make cookies, lots and lots of cookies. tomorrow you will see!

Part 3: gift giving

2011-12-19T10:11:00.000-08:00

Around here we love to give presents. I mean, who doesn't love picking out the perfect thing, wrapping it just so and watching the person unwrap. It's fantastic. I am normally a person who keeps very few secrets, so this time of year is always a little challenging for me. For instance, Josh and I have both- already- ruined eachother's surprises. My reason for spilling the beans was totally practical, if I had a snowball's chance in heck-o of finishing his sweater then I had to knit on it in front of him. Of course, I blew it by telling him what I was doing. Apparently I knit large enough variety of things he didn't recognize it despite having picked out both the pattern and yarn. I should have kept my mouth shut and he would have been none the wiser. Now that I know I can knit surprises in front of him have been rescued from the many many late nights trying to knit in secret.

Clara loves mostly the wrapping of presents. She's starting to get into the choosing as well, having just picked out an adorable Ernie doll for the Zone for christmas. She went through a phase this summer where she was gift wrapping everything she could find with one of her babysitters. Not thinking too clearly I gave them one of my boxes of gift wrapping supplies in the morning and when I returned that afternoon it was empty and they had a pile of presents- such delightful things as crumpled up paper, pens and markers, cars, rubber bands... It was adorable- but unexpected. Next time I just gave them a pile of plain paper and markers (make your own wrapping paper!) and a bunch of tape. They could wrap to their hearts content and I could save the wrapping paper for gifts!

Clara and I love wrapping presents together- I measure, she cuts, I fold, she tapes, she chooses and affixes the bows. Really, we are a great team.

Zoë not so much.

Oh well, there's always next year!

Part 2: The tree

2011-12-14T05:28:00.000-08:00

I love a christmas tree, I love the smell, I love the whole act of getting the tree, I love eggnog and decorating while listening to cheesey christmas music. Every year right before christmas we trek up to maine to spend the holidays with our parents so I like to get a christmas tree as soon as it's socially acceptable. Let's be honest, you don't see to many christmas tree farms open in September, so the weekend after Thanksgiving is the time we go. Having grown up cutting down our tree ourselves with our own tools at the 'U cut $5' place, I have a hard time going to a parking lot and paying for a tree. I like to drive somewhere and cut a tree down. Of course liability laws, sigh, mean that it's hard to find a place where you can cut down your own tree around here. So I have to settle for a place that cuts down the tree for you or at least a place that has trees living in the ground nearby.

Two years ago I was googling for another christmas tree place (as the place before had been kind of a disaster: loud holiday music piped everywhere, trailers with giant cardboard cutouts screwed to the side to make them look like Santa's sleigh and an actual Santa on site... a little too much cheese, even for me.) and found a tiny place called The Shire Christmas tree farm. Well, any Lord of the Rings reference makes me happy- so we went. Somehow I'm always deciding we have to do these things at 3:30 in the afternoon and I was not yet used to the time change. The drive was long and it was getting dark. Josh was skeptical, Josh's mom was amused (this being her first outing ever to get a christmas tree) but I was smitten. The place is tiny- they have a little grove of trees you can look at and then fresh trees on a lot. It was the first tree that Clara had a hand in decorating, and really she loved it. I thought the whole thing was a grand success.

Josh is a bit of a scrooge and while he enjoys the tree, finds the pomp a little tiring, so last year the girls and I went in the afternoon the week after thanksgiving while he was at work. I went back to the Shire, they net the tree and tie it on the car for free- so I could manage it with a small mobile toddler and even smaller non-mobile infant. But again, it was getting dark when we arrived and totally dark when we were driving home, in rush hour, with a tree strapped to the roof of my tiny car and two hungry screaming kids in the back. Um, less successful?

This year I warned Josh in advance. This weekend we are getting a tree, Saturday or Sunday, I don't care, we're going back to The Shire (Josh rolls his eyes). I try to get us out the door early, so it won't be dark. We had snacks, things to amuse the children and of course I would drive so Josh wouldn't have to think about it. Josh still wasn't convinced, and it didn't help that I got confused and took a wrong turn. The GPS re-routed us and we passed a different, larger, tree farm. To appease the situation, I said, hey, here is a tree farm- let's go. I'm trying to be flexible, which I'm somewhat famously not. We park and I try to get the snot and granola bar off of Zoë's face- knowing the upcoming photo op. Josh inquires about the pricing of the trees and when we all meet up, we pet the enormous dog who lived there and start to walk to the trees.

The place is huge and there is a stream and a gazebo and Josh tells me the prices of the trees. I'm a little annoyed because they are more expensive than my little Shire. But, eh, it's only $10 let's keep walking. And then I see the sign just past the barn- netting $3. really?

So I turn to the sweetie and tell him, really, the other place is just 7 minutes away and it's less expensive, mellower and the netting and car-tying are free and there is no stream for Zoë to go swimming in (when she saw it she said, "SPLASH!" and tried to squirm her way free.) He agreed and back to The Shire we went. We still had enough light to take some awesome shots of the girls running around pointing at the little trees and we scored a beautiful tree.

We weren't home before the sun set, but I think I am finally getting the hang of this tree-procurement thing. It was off the car, in the stand and in the house without any stress. Josh found some christmas music he didn't mind and the eggnog was flowing. Zoë adorably piled all of her ornaments in one spot on the tree and then took her shirt off and danced. Clara decorated like a mad woman and then sat in her rocking chair and admired her work. It was a total success.

Part 1: Where I inadequately explain things and try not to offend you

2011-12-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

I have struggled in the past few years with the holidays. Trying to find traditions that didn't feel hypocritical to our everyday kind of agnostic existence has been difficult. Especially when I have a completely inexplicable cheeseball love of christmas. I love a tree, I love love love christmas music, I love the food, I love winter and snow and and and! But don't identify myself as Christian. As an adult I tried to do christmas but felt like a poser which I hate, so I just tried to deny the christmas love. We didn't have a tree for a few years, not even for Clara's first christmas. We exchanged presents, and celebrated with our parents, but we didn't do anything in our home. I admit, I did secretly listen to christmas music in my car, but heck, I do that in July, so that wasn't all that strange ;)

I do *love* family traditions and with Clara's arrival I was eager to try again. I was raised Christian and a lot of my happiest memories are of our christmas traditions. Josh's mom is Jewish and his dad is catholic and he celebrated both christmas and hannukah growing up. I also love hannukah. The intimacy of Jewish traditions makes me swoon, I love how much of it happens in ones' home. Playing the dreydl is pretty darn fun, also I love fire, also the food- did I mention the food? We toyed with doing a little of both but it seemed so odd when we are not religious in any other way. At one point I gave up and decided we should just celebrate the solstice because it was a completely observable event- yay science!

But somewhere I decided that it was okay, that I can love a cultural tradition without having to love everything. I hope if I am mindful that we are borrowing some of these traditions that we can build rituals that work for our family and aren't hypocritical or offensive. So we decided to take the pieces we like- charity, trees, piles upon piles of delicious food, time with our family and gift giving. This year at Clara's request we're adding Santa into the mix, but I'm trying hard to avoid the whole naughty and nice aspect of it. It has always just felt like a way to threaten your kids to behave well- not exactly how I like to roll. So Santa will visit us and fill our stockings for the first time this year regardless of how many tantrums we have and whether or not we go to bed on time. Thank goodness, because otherwise my stocking would certainly be empty!

So in the next couple of posts I'm going to talk about what we like for the holidays (in a totally secular way.) Starting with the tree.

The little box that saves my bottom

2011-12-12T05:26:00.000-08:00

Or at least the box that saves the bottom of my socks, and the cuffs of my sweaters and anywhere else the little stupid moths in my house like to nibble. A couple of years ago I decided that I didn't really want to keep all of the leftovers of my knitting projects. But you know, accidents happen, and if you really love a pair of socks, eventually they will need repairs. So I got a little file box and started saving just little butterflies of yarn from my knitted projects. It really cuts down on how much I have to store and really, you don't need a whole lot of yarn to fix most problems.

So on Saturday morning when I put on my favorite socks and noticed a hole on the ball of my foot I could just hop down stairs, pop open the magic box and find just what I needed.

A few duplicate stitches to cover the hole on that sock and a few on its mate in the same spot (when one goes often the next isn't far behind) and I could wear them happily knowing that they have many many more days of life left.

Eventually I may need a larger box, as things are pretty jammed in there as it is. But I have been so happy with my system. The larger leftover balls of yarn go to my Mom in law who knits amazing creations using millions of scraps of yarn. I'll post some pictures of her work soon- it's amazing!

How do you keep track of your old projects and leftovers?

Boxes

2011-12-09T06:08:00.000-08:00

Recently one of my friends on Facebook posted a link to geekdad's 5 best toys of all time and I was reminded of it this morning when I went downstairs and found the boxes I had brought home from the shop to help me start packing. No, we haven't found a house yet, but apparently when selling your house you essentially have to move *out* of it first so I have lots of "clutter" to pack up to make the house fit for Architectural Digest to visit.

It occurred to me that I may get more done if I let the girls have one of the boxes. Of course, being the wannabe engineer that I am I had to build a house out of the box first. Learning from the design flaws from my first cardboard box playhouse, I improved this one. I kept 1 of the flaps on the bottom and taped it to the walls for stability and added a side porch. I have to say, if I could find a cozy little cape like this in Barrington or Warren (perhaps about 1696 square feet larger) I'd be quite happy!

I also should have mentioned that the stockings are up on ravelry here and here. Sorry bout that! I'm really trying to keep my ravelry projects updated. (along with the blog of course!)

A little holiday magic!

2011-12-08T07:09:00.000-08:00

After last year's hilarious reaction to Santa and the possibility of a large mystical creature coming down our chimney in the middle of the night - presents or no, I didn't really think that Santa would ever be visiting our house (at least at night!)

But some healthy watching of traditional children's programming has warmed Clara to the concept of Santa- a magic dude, bringing presents, is apparently okay for 4 year olds. So of course we needed to have some stockings for Santa to fill!

True to the yarn shop owner’s dilemma (along the lines of the cobbler's children have no shoes)- I’ve made several stockings for Josh and I and I’ve hated all of them because I just used whatever wasn’t selling, or was left over from something else. (bright yellow lamb's pride bulky one year... sigh)

This time I swore was going to be different. I spent a whole hour (to myself, in my store with just my business partner, with no children even!) picking out precisely what colors and yarns I wanted. Sparing no expense and not caring one bit if I was taking something that would surely sell. I spent a long time looking at Ravelry for inspiration- trying to find just the right feeling in a pattern that I could play with. I wanted something fun and hilarious and bright- just like the girls I was making them for. And let's be honest, I wanted something impressive and complicated. Something that would say, "Yo, my mama owns a knitting store, what did you expect?"

To say that I am pleased with the results is a massive understatement, I am THRILLED and so are the girls. Zoë’s was a little more challenging than Clara’s, as I knit it second and I wanted to make them really different and it didn’t go so well- upon the suggestion of Naomi, I ripped out most of it and repeated the tree motif which is absolutely the best part of Clara’s stocking. I changed the horizon color and one of the mountain colors to vary it a bit. I love how having the trees in both stockings gives a bit of consistency, but they are different enough that they are not perfectly matching- much like the sisters themselves.

Of course, then I became terrified that at some point there will be a sweetheart and a demand for a "matching stocking" (we get several panicked mothers, aunts, and grandmothers every year with the same dilemma) and the pattern will be gone and I'll have to rechart the damn thing from scratch. Naomi points out this is what safe deposit boxes are for- I am likely to agree and the next trip to the bank we'll have a little knitting addition to the birth certificates and notices of loans paid in full. That way in what I'm sure will seem like a heartbeat and a sneeze I'll be able to whip out matching stockings for any sweetie that decides to love my babies well enough to deserve one!

Clara's has a cat motif that I adapted from Norsck Strikkdesign and Zoë because she loves them, got Elephants slightly modified from Alice Starmore’s Children’s Collection. They each had 9 colors- the most colors I’ve used in anything ever. They are the brightest things I’ve ever made and I just love them. The girls are equally thrilled, Zoë kept on pointing at it while I was knitting going, "ME!" and then pointing to Clara's hanging by the fireplace and going "Dada's!" (which is how she say's clara, really very adorable!)

So, now the cobbler's children have some enormous socks. Love! Oh, and Mommy and Daddy? Plans are in the works, I have patterns chosen and as soon as we finish some gift knitting they will go on the needles. Blue and White to honor Josh's 1/2 Jewish-ness. And because I found the most gorgeous patterns, oh my just wait until you see them!

Saturday mornings with Daddy

2011-12-07T18:32:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about Clara getting a little older is how much more we can do with her. I love how *so* much more engaged she is in her play and her conversations with us. It is so fun to share with her the toys and activities that we loved so much when we were little. My sweetie, Josh, is a bit of a geek (to say the least) and it's pretty par for the course that he was into legos when he was a kid. Yes, he even has the original manuals for his sets, if he has the boxes, then he's wisely hiding them from me!

For Clara's 4th birthday one of our dear friends got her a Hello Kitty lego house that she's been totally obsessed. Until then she had difficulties with the small standard legos, but I guess 4 is the magic age for such things. Recently Josh hauled out the giant box of his legos and they had the most adorable play session ever. As you can see, mixing Hello Kitty dream mansion and hoards of medieval solders is a total win. Also, lego interchangeability rocks. Case in point:

Hello Kitty and Mimmy defend their mansion

Josh's army approaches

Clara's army- how awesome!

This has become a saturday morning tradition- Zoë has her nap and Daddy and Clara have been working on a castle- it's impressive. I love sitting and knitting and watching them work on their project. They are both so focused and engaged. We are definitely loving 4 around here!

hello again, friends.

2011-11-21T11:07:00.000-08:00

You know it's funny. I just read my last post and it totally had a teaser- and then no follow-up. It was never my intention to take such a long hiatus from the blog, but these things happen. I was pondering last night why I have found it so difficult to get a post out in the past 7 months and then I looked at the date on that last post and it was a little less than a month before Zoë's first birthday. It struck me why and I have to be honest and most of it was fear. fear? yes, fear.

I am amused by looking back at the blog posts from the first months after she was born. That was honestly one of the most difficult times in my life. The transition from 1 to 2 children was very challenging for me, I had a hard time still feeling close to Clara when this little screaming newborn was thrown into the mix. Clara was then and is now (again) the 2nd greatest love of my life (you know, I actually still love that husband of mine) and the feeling of my heart stretching to find room for Zoë at times felt like there was really less room for Clara. It was heartbreaking for me.

Add to that the stress of Zoë's (albeit minor and easy to repair) Hip Dyplasia, her issues with food- me giving up dairy? did that even happen? and Clara deciding to potty train 2 weeks after the Zone was born? and then Clara fully embracing what it meant to be 3? Ugh. Honestly, just thinking about it threw me into a panic.

So as I approached Zoë's birthday I was reminded at once of what felt like the glory days of my relationship with Clara and then the tremendous stress of her first few months. I panicked and shut down. I didn't want to look at pictures, I didn't want to plan an elaborate party for Zoë, I just couldn't. I am a very seasonal person- I listen to the same music in the summer, every summer, I eat the same foods, as the seasons change I have different levels of energy for certain activities... so confronted with the time of year that Zoë was born I freaked out!

A funny thing happened a couple of weeks ago (sheesh, it was probably more like two months ago- but the past 6 weeks have been CRAZY for other reasons) I bought a new computer and it had a bunch of pre-loaded crap on it and I needed to figure out what it was and delete/uninstall a bunch of it. I clicked on the snapfish link and saw a pretty amazing deal on prints. It was a few weeks before Clara's birthday and I wanted to put together Zoë's first year album and the deal was great enough to get Clara's prints for her 4th year album. So I took a deep breath and started looking back at all those moments from Zoë's first year. Instead of being reminded of all of the pain, anguish, and difficulty of that year I was reminded of all the fun we managed to have. Yes, 99% of the pictures are us in the living room and us in the front yard. But we did have fun. I remembered weird things that Zoë did and just how smiley that kid is. It was like a light went off in my head and the darkness started to creep back to the corners where it belonged and I could finally see again. I could find a way to share again.

truthfully we have made enormous progress, my heart stretched plenty to fully embrace both of my sweet (and crazy) girls, I have figured out a little bit how to do this whole mommy of 2 thing and looking at those pictures reminded me of how far we have come, how much we have done and really how I'm not all that bad at this parenting/person thing after all. (one has many dark thoughts when the lights are out up there.)

So hello, again. I'm hoping to start dusting off this blog- I have ideas and photos for a bunch of posts. It's going to take a while to get me back in the habit (and the past 6 weeks- 10 trips to the doctor for our family total... so I'm still trying to recover from pneumonia and get the girls through this most recent cold) but I hope you will still be interested in my little musings about life, family, crafting, and whatever else happens to come into my mind. It's good to be back- and here's a little sampling of what we've been up to while I've been (emotionally) hiding in the corner:

Zoë turned one- I made her a tiny cheesecake, it was full of win!

Mother's day- the outtakes are hilarious and have several outfit changes!

We went to Portland, OR and loved nearly every minute (especially in the Children's Museum!)

Zoë cut about 13,000 teeth

Clara and I planted a garden with mixed results - lots of fun not so lots of food.

Clara started gymnastics- and boy did her mood (and strength, and confidence) improve!

We went on a little vacay to Maine with dear friends and watched our kids connect with them - magic.

Zoë became an omnivore (thank you 13,000 teeth!)

We had a hurricane- and only lost power for 24hours (lucky!)

Well- those are the highlights, you are basically caught up. There is more and a lot of it will be here in the coming weeks and months. Thank you for your patience and I'll see you here soon. I promise!

A Day in Knitting

2011-03-30T08:01:00.000-07:00

I often hear, "Kim, how do you knit so much? And with 2 little ones?" Well, today, I'm going to show you! It's amazing how much knitting you can get done when you sneak it in a row here, a row there. We start off in the morning with a little bit of a sleeve that I started the night before:

This is a pattern that I'm writing myself for Flicker from Berroco. LOVE this yarn, it's a cable construction (so it looks kind of braided instead of twisted) with a little hint of sparkle. It is so squishy, which, of course, I love. So anywho, we started off yesterday playing restaurant, my server:

After some fun restaurant play, with Zoë at my feet playing with a box of hot wheels, it was time for Zoë to have her morning nap. Usually Clara and I watch a Sesame Street. This is some very good knitting time!

Clara prepares some snacks for Sesame Street!

my progress before naptime - only an inch!

my view during Sesame Street

After naptime, we have to have a spot of lunch and play and at some point I can usually get the girls playing independently to knit a little more. We're back to the "restaurant" this time Clara colors for a while and the zone is playing _under_ the table...

my progress after naptime

It was sometime around here where I realized my math was correct but my initial conditions were ALL WRONG! I tried to make it work, but the sleeve was looking weirder and weirder and so, well, before:

After:

While the girls were bouncing on the couch I managed to re-take my gauge (it was off 4.5 instead of 4 sts per inch and 6.5 instead of 5.5 rows...oops) and re-do my math (lengthening the sleeve significantly) Of course, the evening doldrums started to creep in and we had two tantrums and one (very long) meltdown. So dinner was in order! After Josh came home, dinner was finished and Clara and Mommy were back from our ice cream date it was time to get back to that sleeve. My favorite knitting time is when one of the girls is in the tub. They are both self sufficient enough that they don't need my hands on - but do need supervision. So while Clara was creating adventures with one of her toys sailing the seas, with many mishaps and boat fixing and even making his own raft and riding around on turtle - I was starting the sleeve over:

just cast on - not even joined in the round yet!

After the girls go to sleep, is my next best time for knitting. Usually we relax in front of the tube - either josh plays some video games or we watch some quality programming. After 2 episodes of X-files I've got a lot more sleeve:

Oh, just think about how much more I would get done if I didn't have to rip out so much! That's okay, really, it's all part of the design process. I could tell you that it's all sleep-deprived haze that makes me screw up so much. But, honestly, I did just as much ripping out before I had kids. I just make lots of mistakes!

I can't wait to get a little farther on this sweater, I discovered something pretty neat while making the other side-to-side sweater and I want to make a little tutorial for you. You definitely will be seeing more of this Flicker! So there you have it, almost a sleeve (or two depending on how you think about it) in one day of knitting with kids... Not too bad! If you can manage to put down your knitting at a moment's notice to kiss boo-boos or do some state-department level negotiations for the yellow bouncy ball then you can get as much knitting done as me!

Now, back to that sleeve!

What is soft?

2011-03-25T07:06:00.000-07:00

a : pleasing or agreeable to the senses : bringing ease, comfort, or quiet

f : smooth or delicate in texture, grain, or fiber

It seems like such an odd question - What is soft? We all know when we feel something that is soft... But we all have such different ideas of what soft means. Naomi and I are always in conflict on this point becuase our definitions of soft are so very different. We rarely have yarn-gasms over the same yarns. For Naomi, soft usually means a more slippery, slick kind of smooth. For me, soft is not slippery, it's more squishy. If I feel a ball of yarn and it's hard when I squeeze it, it's not soft. I need some squish like a pillow. I generally like woolens - a nice merino, especially a tweed. Soft for me has a lot to do with the fiber preparation - which is why a tweed appeals, it has that lofty squish that I just can't get enough of.

Naomi loves the rayons, the slick, cool feel of a bamboo with all the drape and swing that they imply. I know this, I'm familiar with that. So when I passed this sock to my sweetie and said, "Isn't this soft?" and he looked at me all funny and said it wasn't soft at all - I was confused! I passed him the sweater I am working on out of a bamboo rayon and said, "What about this?" That was soft to him. Apparently I'm in the minority of my (albeit small) sample group. So I ask you - What is soft?

For me: our newest sock yarn - so new we only have one (disgustingly, shockingly, beautiful) color of it. Taiyo Sock from Noro. In the Wavy Lace Sock from Favorite Socks

A wee little tutorial: Grafting Garter Stitch

2011-03-21T08:27:00.000-07:00

So my ingenious little sweater that I told you about a few days ago, My Better Side (to side) is pretty much mundane knitting except for two little things, my nifty casting on under the armhole (tutorial soon) and the very end where you graft the two pieces together. Now, if you are a lucky knitter and get to finish the sweater in a stockinette section, then wheeee! It's just like finishing the toe of an enormous sock, we can all graft that. Well, most of us, at least, but it's pretty straightforward and the instructions you find online or in books for grafting are all for stockinette with the right sides (knit sides) facing you.

But what if you are me, and you end your sweater in the garter section? And you don't just want to do a three needle bind off, because then you have a horrid little seam and it doesn't look like the sweater sprang, fully formed, from your forehead? Then you have to graft your garter stitch section, and well... It honestly took me a while and a few tries to figure it out, so I thought I would make up a little tutorial to show you the general idea.

Here we go: You, dear readers, have two pieces of "sweater" in garter stitch. The key is that you need to finish one with a wrong side row, and one with a right side row. If this were a plain garter stitch object, it wouldn't matter, because garter is reversible. This sweater has stockinette sections in between the garter sections so it does matter. For those of you knitting the sweater, please remember one side having finished wrong side, other side having finished right side. Place your two pieces facing eachother (this is how I like to think of it) with the tails of the working yarns on the same side:

Now make sure that the wrong side is looking up at you on the back piece, and the right side is looking up at you for the front piece. This way when you pick them up to do the grafting, the wrong sides will be together. In this orientation, both pieces have the purl bumps facing you:

Now, grab your darning needle of choice and meet me at the tips of your needles. Both pieces are in your left hand and your threaded darning needle is in your right hand- I like to use the yarn attached to the front piece: (oh my god, is that a video? It is!)

So there you have it, grafting with garter stitch in glorious HD! I hope this helps, it's a darn cute sweater and the little finishing touches make it!

Where did my knitting groove go?

2011-03-14T14:21:00.000-07:00

Don't get me wrong, it's not that I haven't been knitting. I have. Actually, I've been knitting a lot these days, but none of it seems to be working the first, second, and possibly the 4th times. In a run down of knitting disasters I've had recently:

The first is a sweater that I designed, that I love, and is knit from side to side. I got the idea from a free pattern for this yarn we sell, called Giant Skeins from Handpainted Yarn Company. It's 12 different yarns all dyed to match and all sold in one giant skein (well named, that yarn!) It's 1440 yards, which is generous. They have this sweater, also cardigan, also side to side, but I found the pattern hard to read, hard to knit and the sizing was odd. Also, my larger customers would have had to buy two (not inexpensive) giant skeins to make it and that didn't seem fair. So I shortened it, and shortened the sleeves to make the yarn go farther. I loved their striping sequence, so I kept that but instead of knitting it left to right, I decided to make both pieces identical and start at the sleeve ends and work toward the middle (on both pieces) and graft them at the center of the back. Of course, I knit two left fronts. (go me!) frog, frog, frog. 2nd time worked just fine, a left and a right front thank you very much and it's gorgeous (if I do say so...):

My better side (to side) details coming on ravelry and pattern available soon!

Then the clapotis, you stinker. This is a gorgeous pattern and I wanted to knit it in some gorgeous yarn we have, the ever beautiful Rayon Metallic from Great Adirondack yarns. I had heard that, yo, you wouldn't have enough yarn so leave off one of the repeats, and it's all good. So I truck along, leave off one repeat and run out of yarn. Hrm. So I frog back to the beginning of the decreases, rip out one more repeat and truck along, and you guessed it - ran out of yarn. Somewhere during this repeat my cat may or may not have consumed and then regurgitated about a yard of the stuff. So I ripped it out one more time thinking, surely, SURELY, if two repeats wasn't enough, then three certainly would be, and um, I ran out of yarn again. Careful readers will note that was the third ripping out, the 4th time I had tried to knit the decrease section. Sigh, so I decided to get really critical. I counted how many stitches I had on my needle (40) and since I was decreasing 1 stitch at the end of each row I knew I needed to knit 40 more rows each with one less stitch... (did I mention I was a math major in college? stay with me) so that is 40 + 39 + 38 + 37 + 36 + ... + 3 + 2 + 1 = 820. 820 stitches of yarn is what I needed - so I figured out that I had 107 stitches on the needles before I started decreasing so if I ripped out 8 rows (8*107 = 856) then SURELY I would have enough yarn. And I did, just enough. To be precise, I had 2.5 inches of yarn left. I was sweating it at the end, let me tell you. It certainly is a thing of beauty, and it's a good thing the yarn was rayon or it would have become completely destroyed with all of the reknitting.

do you see that little tail there on the bottom right? yeah, that's how much I had left!

Lastly, and most recently I wanted something mindless and easy to cleanse my knitting pallate from the (#*%&!!!) Clapotis from heck and so I started this little spring hat for our adorable (and now walking) Zozo. Of course I had a pattern in mind that Denise had knit and it was so cute on that I grabbed the yarn and brought it home. I remembered that the smallest size cast on 80 and the largest cast on 112, so I picked 96 (did I bring the pattern home too? oh no, that would have been the smart thing to do, sigh) and cast on with some #4s. And the hat fit me. So I did what I always do, I pinched off the size I wanted, counted the stitches and cast on that many.... and made a yarmulke. Because when the world is crazy, and Japan is underwater there is nothing less comforting than knowing I can't even manage to whip up a hat for my kids without ripping it out twice (or more for fun!)

bonus action shot, the hat is obviously too small!

I'm sure this bout of bad knitting karma will end soon. These things always pass. It will probably help when Zoe starts to sleep a little better. She's cutting teeth like there is a steak waiting in front of her and she'd like to have enough teeth to eat it before it gets cold. Overachiever!

I have to admit that my knitting may be turning the tide already. I'm working on a pair of gauntlets for a friend of mine and the first one turned out perfectly with only one rip out session... and frankly that was the gauge "swatch" so it's all good, right? I'd put a photo up - but they are kind of a surprise... so not yet!

I'm so sorry for the unexpected blogging vacation! I expected my life to get significantly easier after our little trip to maine and somehow it all got more complicated! Things are evening out and I will hopefully have a little more "free" time for the blogging next week. As you can see, I've been knitting like crazy, even if I don't have a whole lot to show for it! Hopefully there will be even more FOs for you to see soon!

dumb sock for my smart phone

2011-02-21T08:00:00.000-08:00

Anyone who's spoken to me on the phone recently will understand the title of this post. My phone, a "smart" phone is one of those objects that's more like a computer than a phone. I have to say that most of the time, when i'm using it as a computer/web browser, I love the thing. But as a phone, well, it's pretty dumb. I have it because my life is a little more portable than laptop these days with two babies and the business. I like to be able to do a certain amount of things truly on the go and a laptop just doesn't cut it. I also need two hands most of the time, even when I'm talking on the phone. And this particular smart phone has a cute little gyroscope that lets it know when I've moved it around. So I'll be talking along, and go to, say, change a diaper (a very likely scenario in my daily life!) and prop the phone on my shoulder to use both hands. It's at that magic moment that my phone thinks to itself, "Hello? Did you want to change your phone options? Are you finished with this phone call? May I hang up for you? Or, possibly, dial your voicemail? Are you needing my dialpad so you can press 3 to hear more options?" Since the phone is a "smart" phone, any contact with my warm human flesh, say, my cheek, will select any one of these options.

Poof! my call will vanish and my brother who is in the middle of needing my very solid advice will think I've hung up on him, or my husband, just calling to see how my day is going will end up hearing my voicemail.

All of you who know me well enough to chat on the phone with me frequently have gotten used to my "smart" phone being stupid and will patiently wait, saying, "I think your phone has done something naughty, are you still there?" and give me enough time to find the darn page with the phone call so they can hear me again. It is deeply annoying and I saw no way around it (being as attached to it's non-phone capabilities as a person could be) until I tried to use the phone with gloves on. It didn't work! Which of course meant that I had to knit a dumb sock for my smart phone.

The yarn: scraps of Madelinetosh tosh sock left over from knitting the girls matching socks. The pattern? cast on 48, work in K1, P1 rib for 1/2" continue in stockinette until the phone is mostly covered by the thing, graft the bottom together with kitchener stitch and blammo! your "smart" phone is now warm, and oddly uses less battery. (or at least mine is using less battery! Bonus!)

Now with it's little cozy I can comfortably prop my phone on my shoulder and never drop a call again. I know you're all relieved!

new teeth and new hobbies!

2011-02-17T06:46:00.000-08:00

Little Zoë is just growing up so fast! I can't believe that she already has her first two teeth! It is so adorable how much she loves food and chewing! Her new favorite is cheerios which she will happily munch for hours. I think she still metabolizes them faster than she can eat them, but her manual dexterity is improving all the time and now she has a little helper. Clara's new favorite pastime? Feeding Zoë cheerios. Really, it's symbiosis at its finest.

Little Pea: Finally finished*

2011-02-14T10:27:00.000-08:00

*Yes, well, I *still* haven't knit the largest size, so I'm only guessing how much yarn it will take. This is totally cheating in my mind, but it's still a good educated guess... so I don't feel too bad about it. And, well, you have been asking me and my operatives at the shop for it, and some of you have even bought yarn for it! I have definitely been feeling the pressure to get it finished and out.

I just wrapped up knitting the 12-18 months size in Berroco Vintage and I'm really pleased with how it turned out. I have to sew on some buttons and it will be a lovely store sample!

I apologize that it took so long for the pattern to come out and to those of you I said could test knit... I just couldn't wait! So to help take the sting out, I thought I would give a few copies away! The first 3 folks to comment will get a sweet little pea pdf emailled to them! (i think free patterns should just be an employee perk, so Cam, you don't count! You can print one out on wednesday! ;)

Here's the pattern page from ravelry. I hope you love it!

from the world of sick & ick

2011-01-26T07:48:00.000-08:00

Last week we had an absolutely lovely play date with dear friends of ours who happened to be a wee bit under the weather. It was positively delightful, a balm for this (sometimes feeling a little isolated) mommy and Clara was BEAMING because she loves these dear boys so much. except, well, it turned out that the boys were a little more than a wee bit under the weather... and we got hit with a douzy.

we have been to the doctor and to the emergency room with Clara and while she is feeling much much better, now Zoë has the cough and we are watching her closely. So I haven't had much time to think about this space as I would like and I'm just coming up for air and hoping that I'm not getting the ick as well.

I haven't forgotten about you dear readers! I promise! This is the first time in a few days this computer is being used for something besides playing Kiki and Totoro over and over and over to entertain our adorable toddler. I have to say, that in the small world files, the on call doctor at the emergency room is married to a knitter and we recognized eachother from the shop. Of course Clara was wearing her orange socks that I had knit her (Feverish as she was (105!) her feet were like ice.) and everyone admired them and it was one of the first things the amazing staff at Hasbro got her to talk about once her fever started to go down.

I was needing a bit of the normal and I was so inspired by SouleMama's inventory of her knitting basket, that I thought I would show you what I'm working on these days. There are too many things, and like usual, some of them are experiments that will be frogged eventually, but I hope it's fun for you all to see my design process, and to see that things do take me longer than, say, 5 minutes to knit! Now, this list is by no means an accurate depiction of all the projects I have in needles... it's just what I'm carrying around with me in my knitting tote. Shall we begin?

This is something I've been working on for a few weeks. Featherweight Cardigan from Hannah Fettig. I'm totally in love with this pattern and the yarn: madelinetosh merino light. It's gorgeous, and a bit more green than the photo shows. The pattern is entirely, deliciously, mindless and perfect for moments where I just need my hands to move. Of course, I totally screwed up my switch to the ribbing while watching Inception this weekend. I knew it was a good movie while I was watching it, but to get me to screw up a K1, P1 ribbing, it must have been exceedingly good. I'm almost finished with the ribbing. It's a slow mover because of the gauge and my girth, but it's a a pleasure! And it's for me!

This is another Little Pea, there has been a lot of interest in the pattern and I'm trying to work out some kinks in the sizing. I realized a major gaff on my part (knitting to size, instead of adding ease, doh!) which means that all of my sizes are one size too small. I was wondering why the 12 month size looked so good on Zoë... So I have to either rework, or just add a few more sizes. I'm just wondering if this is going to be a good 12 month size or not, we shall see. It's a pretty quick knit- I knit the above in one evening, but there are a lot of sizes and I tend not to notice them being all wonky until I put the sleeve stitches on holders. It's knit with Hacho (big surprise, i do have *cough* a lot of that in my stash...) in a color that will hopefully look nice with the yarn I've picked out for the next size up. I'm already imagining the photo shoot for this one! We'll see if this gets frogged for a better size or not.

These are a little pair of socks for my big girl. We went to the the store a little over a week ago to help Naomi with this ridiculous shipment of yarn. Clara was such a huge help, and so very well behaved, that as a reward she got to pick a ball of yarn. Of course, girl after my own heart, she picked some Madelinetosh sock... in super saturated green. When our doctor told us to bring things to keep us occupied for our trip to the ER (wise man) I grabbed this to wind up and work on. It's lovely, just as the insane orange that she picked out for sister matching socks. I didn't want to do a plain pattern so I wandered through my Knits & Purls Harmony Guide and found something I liked. They are adorable, but possibly too large. She'll grow, thank goodness.

Do gauge swatches count? This is Berroco Flicker, a new yarn that is sick- sick I tell you. Chainet construction, wool and a very tasteful strand of metallic running through? Oh, yes, please. I have two different ideas for this yarn. But I'm not sure which to dive into first. You'll have to wait and see. It is light as air and so so so soft.

And now from the really deep freeze department, a Lizard Ridge that I've been working on for literally years. I made all of these squares when we were deep into Kureyon at the shop so customers could see the different colors. It was useful, but cumbersome and we've come up with a different system, so the squares all came home with me and have been taking up a huge amount of space on my wall of knitting projects. (wall? yes, a wall.) So when Clara was feverish and cold I thought immediately (in that irrational, my kid is sick kind of way) that I should finish that blanket and at least sew all of my worry and care into the blanket. I got 9 squares together that night. As you can see from the pile of remaining squares, there is still a bit of work to do. But when a mama is that worried sometimes you can't actually knit. Sewing pieces together is very mindless for me and good for those moments. And, well, it's been cold here recently and it will be nice to have a wool blanket.

So that's what's in my bag right now. There are some things I should be working on - josh's sweater? yes. I know. I still just hate cotton.... but soon I'll work up enough guilt to start working on that again ;) and oy, so many others. But we'll just leave it there, okay? No need to drag out my entire list of projects, right? That would take quite a few posts.

I hear my little one has gotten up from her nap so I must rescue her from the crib and get back to my mommy job. Hopefully some cute pictures of the Zone with some finished items soon. I will admit the snotty nose and sad looks have a particular adorable quality, but I don't think she's quite up for a photoshoot today.

I hope this post finds you well!

all of my beautiful snow!

2011-01-19T07:55:00.000-08:00

I know, I know, I'm nearly the only one in the universe, but winter is my favorite season. I'm a hermit by nature (you would never know!) and I love the snuggling, hunkering down that we do during the winter. It sounds unbelievable, but I even love the darkness! I will admit that I wish the sun rose a little earlier in the day, but the 4pm sunset doesn't bother me one bit. Having babies, I think, has made me appreciate the other seasons a little bit more... but I still love winter best.

The past couple of days my corner of New England has been hit by the most unpleasant of winter precipitation: the "wintery mix" It wouldn't be so bad but the rain is ruining all of our snow! It's not enough to melt the feet of snow we've gotten since Christmas, but it's enough to make everything, well, gross. Hopefully Friday's forecast will pan out and it will all be replaced by new snow. I know I'm crossing my fingers!

So, to console myself about this wretched weather, I'm going to go back in time to some playtime in the snow just before the new year. Clara is finally old enough to appreciate all that a major snowstorm can provide and it's great to have someone to play in the snow with. I love how bright and magical the few days after a snowstorm are. All the sunlight reflects off of the snow and the sky is so blue and clear! She loves helping me shovel our walk. We don't have a tiny sized snow-shovel, so she uses a dustpan to shovel... fantastic! And when we're done shovelling she loves playing Queen of Snow Mountain!

My business partner grew up in Texas and never experienced snow as a child with all the possibilities for play it provided. She only knows snow as an adult with all of the annoyance of removal and the horrible driving conditions. I hope these few photos help remind you how much fun it can be, and if you were unlucky enough to never experience snow as a child yourself, to see how much fun it can be! (trust me, get some snow pants and dive in, you won't regret it!)

Happy Winter!

a tour of my home away from home

2011-01-17T09:05:00.000-08:00

It's so funny to think that just a year ago Naomi and I decided that having two kids in the store just might be one too many and that perhaps since we were open 7 days a week it might be useful to have me work in the off time keeping track of orders, bills, payroll and whatnot. Last January, I stopped working part-time in the store and began working part-time for the store. What an enormous change!

We (all three of us) went into the shop last friday to help Naomi with a particularly large order of Cascade yarns that had arrived. (When we say we recieved a ton of yarn we mean literally 2000 pounds!) It was very nostalgic for me having my babes with me in the store. When I think that I basically did all of my early parenting with Clara in that space... (and in the previous space just down the road) that Clara pulled herself up to a stand for the first time in the old Bella, all of those moments of her baby-hood are so deeply tied to those spaces. It was our home away from home, a place that she knows as intimately as our own house. It makes me a little sad that Zoë won't have that experience of being there daily, but logistically it is a challenge and we are sometimes not much more than comedic relief for Naomi when we do visit. I do feel we all need to go there more often so she can feel as comfortable there as Clara does. And I do miss the store and helping my ladies find what they need.

You may not have been to the shop in a while (or ever, really, if you are coming to this blog from far away) and you may be interested to see what it looks like now. Why don't you come in for a moment?

Some gorgeous Blue Heron Metallic Rayon that greets you at the door along with...

Some hand-made lavendar wands from Naomi's Sister. We have a much diminished supply of these. THis photo was taken about a month ago and many have sold. We get them seasonally, as Naomi's Sister grows the lavender herself.

We had to put our register in the middle of the shop, due to some visibility and resulting *cough* shrinkage. But we love having it there. It freed up the back wall for something we've always needed - a place to put our leaflet patterns. Now you can easily browse all of them!

We also have expanded the machine washable section to the north side of the store. Can you believe that ALL of these yarns are machine washable?

I actually can't get the machine washable section all in one frame, it's just that large, you're missing on seeing another whole bay of yarn - the bulky machine washables.

Now the hand-wash yarns take up the south wall and the center island.

And a class in progress:

So much fun! I didn't take pictures of the store room, because you aren't supposed to be back there anyway! And if you knew how large Naomi's stash was, you would try to break in at any opportunity!

It's so lovely there, don't you just want to come visit sometime soon? Maybe for class this Thursday? More adorable pictures of the girls in a couple of days... I promise. Hopefully one of a brand new tooth if we're lucky ;)

Little toes (now, not so cold!)

2011-01-05T07:30:00.000-08:00

I had promised you some shots of Zoë's little socks in use. I maintain that this is the best baby sock pattern ever. Naomi made some for Clara many moons ago and she wore them for over a year. She has tiny feet that decided not to grow so much until this year (3 shoe sizes in about as many months.... phew!) but these are great.

A trained eye may notice that I made two left socks, oops! No time to rip out since her toes were really cold, right?

These were made out of Hacho, from the Mirasol Collection. It's one of my favorite yarns that we couldn't support at the store. I have odd taste in yarn, apparently. But when we decided to close this yarn out I bought most of it to stockpile for just these reasons. It is super warm and durable and perfect for kids stuff that you don't mind handwashing. She's felted these socks a bit already, and I really do need to make more of them. I also have an idea for little matching baby legwarmers... the first one is on my needles, but not going very far. I've started a project for me that has taken all of my attention. Maybe one of these nights if Zoë gets to bed at a reasonable hour. Knitting on dpns while the girls are playing around me always seems like I'm tempting fate. Very Pokey!

return to reality

2011-01-03T07:48:00.000-08:00

At least, almost. Today is our first day back to the real world from vacation. Sigh. I knew it had to happen, but it's always so nice to have Josh at home that I try to pretend it will last forever. We're all having a bit of a difficult time transitioning to our day to day (even with some big changes we've made to hopefully make our lives a little easier) so I'm going to spend the next couple of posts reliving our glory days from the holidays. Let's try to stretch the 12 days of Christmas out a little more, okay?

I want to take a short step back in time. This is the second year that Clara and I have made christmas cookies. The first time we made them, it was literally the first time we had ever made cut-out cookies together and there was quite a learning curve. She was just past her 2nd birthday, I was pregnant, we were in a different place altogether because we were still working in the shop almost every day.... oy. It was fun, but also frustrating for both of us, we were just trying to jam too much into our schedules.

I had decided that I wanted to start a collection of cookie cutters. My family LOVES a theme present, so for the holidays we were gifted quite a few from my aunt Ninny, who always seems to get THE perfect present. I also went shopping for some more with my Mom. We went up to Rooster Brother in Ellsworth, ME, a fantastic shop for cooks and picked up some extra weird ones and some for specific themes. They have a great selection and we got lobsters, sailboats, tons of farm animals and a squirrel! I haven't actually counted our collection, but I'm sure it's close to 200 cookie cutters. Honestly, half the time it takes us to make cookies is in the selection process. I still have more that I would like to find. We have all of the farm animals, but no farm buildings... it would be awesome to have fences and barns, then we could make a whole edible farm playset! But I digress....

Clara and I spent the next few months making cookies all the time. We mostly made the alphabet, as we were trying to teach Clara her ABCs and she could eat whichever letters she could name. She started calling any cut-out cookies "Letter cookies" because we spent so much time just making letters. We have made dozens of batches of cut-out cookies since last year, so when it came time to make some to give away for the holidays, we were practically professional bakers! We narrowed our selection down to ones that were wintery, but not christmas-y, and made DOZENS.

The only difference between these and our regular cookies is that we decorated these ones. I only took photos of the decorating part... the cut-out part being such old hat by now. I find frosting to be challenging when decorating, because it never quite seems to set up well and then the cookies get stuck together in the tins. My favorite technique is to loosen up some frosting with water to make a wash for the cookies, I paint the wash onto all of the cookies and Clara uses sprinkles to decorate. We used a sparkly white frosting for the wash and so everything kind of shimmers a bit. Very cool.

This time, we didn't get too frustrated, and we made just enough to feel like we had plenty, without getting bored. A double batch, which makes quite a few cookies (especially when 2/3rds of them are tiny snowmen...)

This year we decided to up the ante a bit for our holiday gift tins. In addition to the cookies, we made some toffee and some peppermint bark. It's amazing that we were able to do so much, but Zoë does love a long nap! The week before the holidays we spent one nap a day doing some baking and we ended up with way more than we needed. First we baked the cookies, then the next day we made the peppermint bark, then the next day the toffee, then the next day we decorated the cookies and then on the weekend we put all the tins together. It was lots of fun. We have had some reports back on the treats and now we know who likes what the best... so next year oure recipients can expect a little more of their favorites in the tins. It's a fun tradition that really gets Clara involved in the gift-giving. I'm sure that next year we'll add more to the list of treats that we make. It's so much fun to cook together, and I can't imagine it, but Zoë will be helping next year (is that even possible?)

This year I was also able to use a cookie cutter that my mother gave me that belonged to my great-grandmother and namesake, which was especially wonderful for me. These little things passed down mean so much to me. The star with the wavy edges is hers.

Especially good times. Our little blogging vacation is over and I have so much to share with you! Lots of finished objects, some memories from our trip to maine for the holidays, and hopefully a tour of the shop so you can see some of the changes we've made (if you haven't visited in a while, things look pretty different!) I hope you all had wonderful holidays! Happy New Year!

sentimental

2010-12-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

I have the worst memory. I don't remember much of my life, actually. I remember big moments, like getting married, graduations, some key horribly unpleasant social encounters that shaped my childhood and adolescence... But I don't have great memory of the things that I did every day- games I used to play as a child, toys, places I went. Even in high school and college my memories are vague and blurry for the most part. There is a part of me that really hates this. I had a conversation with a friend of mine whose grandfather had perfect memory and that seemed equally unpleasant, perhaps moreso. But I do really wish that I remembered better the life that I've had.

As a result, it has been really important for me to document my girls' childhood as much as possible. There are many times where I have been too busy and insane to take photos for weeks at a time and I always regret it. One thing I'm hoping to do with this blog is to keep a record for myself so I can try to bring up the memories of our daily activites. I live in hope that my brain keeps those memories, I just don't access them that frequently. I hope these images will work as triggers to bring them to the surface.

For the holidays my sweetie helped me get a new camera that will hopefully inspire me to take even more photos. I have a lot to learn, this is my first ever non-point & shoot camera, but the experimentation has been so much fun and I've had it for less than 24 hours! Here are two of my favorites from this morning. How did I end up with such beautiful children?

finally finished

2010-12-16T07:04:00.000-08:00

and waiting for Zoë to get big enough to wear it (soon) I love the monster buttons. They make me so happy!

I'll start the next little pea soon. It turns out, knitting 5 of the same sweater back to back is not as much fun as it sounds. So I'm breaking it up with some other knitting. If you're super anxious for the pattern, you can test knit for me. I would love it! Just let me know the size and I can send you the pattern! I also am planning an adult version in chunky yarn, and I would be happy to let you test kit that one, too... ;)

Luckily we spend the week between christmas and new year's in Maine, the land of snow and many grandparents, so I have great hopes of knitting massive amounts in front of various wood stoves.

Cold Toes

2010-12-13T09:32:00.000-08:00

One of the great things about being a knitter, and particularly a knitter with a yarn shop is that when the need strikes your family you can pretty much make anything on short notice. Last week we had a serious cold snap here in Rhode Island. We had temps in the teen's, highs not reaching the 30's and WIND! There wasn't a lot of playing outdoors for us this week, as you can imagine. But poor Zoë was still cold. Even in her footie pj's, the fleece ones, with monsters on them, INSIDE. One morning her thighs were even cold, and that just sent me over the edge. She needed wool! Now!

So I went into my ridiculous stash (that I cleaned out this summer and have been replenishing to about 4 lifetimes of yarn every since, sigh) and pulled out the most cheeful color of Hacho that I had and set to work. Thank heaven for Car Bordhi and the miracle of the baby coriolis. Best. Baby. Sock. Ever.

A trained eye may be able to tell that they are already pilled and felted a little. They were finished thursday and spent the next few days on Zoë, next to her skin and underneath her jammies or her new faux shearling boots. Together the boots and the socks do the trick and her toes have been toasty warm! We are back to unseasonably warm, so all of our warm clothes will get a wash and a fold and be ready for the next snap!

I have plans for a pair of matching baby leggings that are like the yoga socks we have in the store. It turns out that I usually keep her leggings over her heel to keep them down and it would be super convenient for her to just have a stirrup so she could have better movement with her feet. Seeing as how she spends most of her time standing and trying to climb things ;) I've cast on, and they are trucking along.

I also thought I'd show you the socks I'm working on for the girls out of the Madelinetosh that I wound up with my nostepinne a couple of weeks ago. They are gorgeous so far:

These are Clara's socks. I would have whipped up Zoë's out of this, but those were emergency socks... so I found something DK weight so they would work up in a jiffy. This pattern is from Knitting Vintage Socks by Nancy Bush. Infant's Fancy Silk Sock. I've in fact knit this sock for Clara before, out of Misti Alpaca Laceweight handpaints doubled on a 00 needle. This time I'm on fingering weight with a 3, and they are perfect for her. I think I'll do the same thing for The Zone, but on much reduced stitches. It's such a lovely little lace pattern, and Clara is really keen to match her sister.

So we're in the middle of operation warm toes right now. I have been finishing up a few things for the shop and a few designs, and I hope to have updates for you soon. Maybe when the sun comes back I'll get some adorable shots of these socks in use!

Imperfect

2010-12-08T06:54:00.000-08:00

It's little things, because I'm a mother and a knitter that make me really happy. This morning as little zone (as clara has recently nicknamed her) was rocking out at the music table

I noticed something about the sweater she is wearing. You see, it's a sweater that belonged to Josh when he was a little and I love it desperately. For some reason I didn't steal it from Josh's mom when Clara was born, only this past summer when we were looking at clothes she had picked up at the awesome resale shop in Blue Hill. Maybe it was too boy-ish? But who are we kidding, I dressed Clara like a boy most of the time. I don't know, but I love this sweater. It is incredibly soft and very easy on and off and for some reason, just perfect for zoë.

Anywho, I was admiring how she was finally happy for a moment (after some ibuprofen and a few extra layers... teething and cold weather a bad combo for zo zo) and I noticed this:

A little mistake. The person who made this (I'm assuming it was Josh's mom, but I have to ask her) did a little absent minded purl 4 on the right side or knit 4 on the wrong side. Of course, this is on the back, just a few rows past the ribbing so the knitter was still getting the hang of the pattern. This is why we start most sweaters with the back, so if you screw it up, it's less noticeable!

One of the many things I love about knitting is that it is a person making something for someone. Whether it is for themselves, for their family or friends, or to donate to someone in need, it is a human spending time to knit each stitch. One by one they make something that can be (hopefully) cherished by the recipient. I love the idea of Josh's mom, in the haze of pregnancy (hers were difficult) or in her baby moon knitting away for this little love that became the love of my life. When he was wee, and cold (or tucked safely inside her) she knit each stitch, one by one, to make him something he could wear and I could treasure.

I remember when Josh and I were ordering our wedding rings I was very specific to the jeweler that I wanted him to make them by hand. He told me that if he did that they wouldn't be perfect, that it would be better to have a machine make them. But I want those imperfections. Life, marriage, these things aren't without flaws. It is the imperfections that remind us of our humanity and, for me, make these objects special.

These little mistakes are what make these items real to me and they send me through the roof with joy. Of course, if it were me, I probably would have ripped back to fix it. I think I'll reconsider in the future. Maybe one day someone just like me will find the mistake and it will remind them of the person behind the sweater, knitting each of those stitches, one by one.

Holidays and Memories

2010-12-07T08:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes it's unbelieveable to me how much has happened in the last year. This year has been hard for so many reasons and so joyful for many others. Last year at this time I was pregnant with Zoë, just past my first trimester. I was still working part time in the store and by January I had switched to working from home for the store. Big changes were coming.

Every year since she was born, I have made an album for Clara with photos documenting her year. I am by no means a scrapbooker, so get the glossy images out of your head. These are really just snapshots of her doing stuff and some captions. I've been going through photos recently to get ready to have the magic ones printed for her next album, and to get a good head start on Zoë's. It has been quite a journey down memory lane, looking at the images that show our transition from working outside of the home to inside and becoming a family of four. It's amazing how much you forget in the haze of the babymoon, and how drastic the changes in your little ones are when you can see the timelapse photography.

Just look at the difference in Clara... Most of the time, I honestly can't believe it. Last year, decorating our tree:

And now this year:

okay, not the best photos... how about this for a difference. Making bread last january:

And just this week eating dinner:

Really, the difference between 2 and 3 is so huge. She's a big sister now, she uses the potty, she can climb in and out of the car and hook up her own carseat. Her language development is insane, most folks can understand her fully now. The decision to not work in the store was as much about her as it was about the store needing me to move to a new role. She has always been introverted and being in the shop was just too tiring for her. It's amazing to me just how much she has blossomed this year now that she doesn't have the stress of talking to strangers every day. It has freed us up to get her involved in some activities, she's in the world's most adorable martial arts program for young children and she's now learning to swim!

This year the holidays are also really different for Clara. She knows the deal with hannukah and christmas and our weird little family traditions. She's very excited about this tree... last year was the first time she had one, and she remembers it. She's super excited for all the wrapping of presents and the, well, unwrapping of presents. She is very excited for the giving of holiday cookies and cards and presents for the people she loves.

Which transitions nicely to the knitting news...We really wanted to do something for our amazing babysitter, Shayna, who has become one of Clara's favorite people. Of course I had to knit something because, well, it's me. So last weekend on Sunday we went down to the shop for Clara to pick out some yarn for her present. I had in mind a pair of fingerless gloves and a hat in Misti Chunky Alpaca because that stuff is so warm and soft! I pointed Clara to the appropriate area and told her to pick what she though Shayna would like.

She did a great job! She picked out a lovely fuschia and a hot pink that really looked nice together. I'm not the best at combining colors and my mom-in-law gave me a few ideas. I worked up the Maine Morning Mitts from The Knitter's Book of Yarn in like 4 hours:

Then I found a slouchy hat pattern on ravelry and whipped that up in no time (I think 2 episodes of x files...)

But the piece I'm most proud of is the cowl I decided to make to tie the whole ensemble together.... I found a little scarf pattern that I thought would look nice in two colors. It began as a really wide scarf, but I decided after watching some college students walk past one of the parks we visit that it would be better as a cowl. I really geeked out because I didn't want a seam so I grafted the ends together, in pattern, on the wrong side. It took several tries to get it right. Since I'm used to grafting toes, in stockinette on the right side, it took a bit to get the back side (the non-pattern end, oddly) right. But it turned out lovely and I'm super proud of it. Here's a shot of the graft:

A close up of the pattern stitch:

And then what it looks like on me:

I'm very pleased with the results. More importantly, so was Shayna. It turns out her winter coat is the exact shade of hot pink Clara chose. Good job, Clara! The pattern for the cowl (including grafting instructions) is forthcoming. I want to work up a version for me (single color in heavy worsted) and I'll take photos of the grafting then. I'll post proper entries at ravelry as soon as I can get Zoë to nap again this afternoon. The teeth appear to be moving again and hopefully when they finally arrive we'll all get some more sleep! It's so hard to see her suffer when she has been through so much already. She's usually so good-natured and she's been so upset! Keep your fingers crossed for us that this one pops out soon and we have our happy little boo boo back!

Happy Hannukah!

A nearly finished item and a wee little tutorial

2010-11-29T12:45:00.000-08:00

I'm still cranking out those little pea samples so I can make sure that the pattern is perfect before I pop it onto the ravelry site.... Here's the 12 month size:

All done except for the buttons! The pattern is coming along nicely and I'm pretty happy with it!

I'd also like to invite you all to our booksigning on Wednesday 6:30pm - 8pm at the shop. Naomi and I will be signing Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders. Naomi has two patterns featured in the book and I have one. I'll be baking something delish and we'll share some cider or champagne and talk knitting! Come!

Now for a little tutorial... recently Naomi and I have been discussing bringing in another line of looms and spinning wheels and one company also has really nice accessories including nostepinnes. They are fantastic little doo-dads that help you wind a center-pull ball. I know a lot of you know how to wind center-pull balls by hand, and some lucky folks have ball-winders and swifts. But there are a lot of things I like about my nostepinne. I love that it's small, and portable and I can put it away when I need to. I can tuck it into my knitting bag and therefore I can wind easily whenever I want, where ever I want. I don't have the space for a ball-winder and swift at my house. Since I'm only at the store a couple nights a week the one there is of limited use to me. But I love having center-pull balls and so I've been using my nostepinne a lot these days.

So let's get this thing going. First, you have to pick your yarn and put it on something to keep your loop from getting all funky. My first choice is always one of my dining room chairs:

I'm winding up a little madelinetosh tosh sock for a pair of matching socks for the girls. Colorway: Tomato. I'm in love, but that's besides the point. Now, grab your nostepinne and find the little ridge along the top and tie your yarn around it:

It's time to start winding! Start off in the center of the winding area and wind a nice big chunk of yarn. You need a bit to get started, but if you do too much the first few pulls from the ball will tangle, so don't go nuts.

You want to wind the yarn at an angle from the bottom of the ball on the nostepinne to the top of the ball. Each time you wrap, turn the nostepinne towards you so when you wrap your yarn around the next time you are going over a different part of the ball. The more you turn the nostepinne the more space you have between each wrap. I don't tend to twist too much each time because that makes the ball taller rather than fatter. Here's what it looks like just after you've gotten started:

And once you've gotten a good bit on there:

Now if you keep on going like this you'll end up with a ball that looks kind of like a football. Nothing wrong with that at all, but I was curious if I could get it to look more like the balls that come off the winder at the shop. So once I liked the length of the ball, I started to change the angle and wind a little more loosely to make the ball start growing outwards while not getting any taller. I found the most important part of this was to keep my tension loose. If it started to get tight the threads would slip and the ball would get messy. Here I am ready to change angle and tension:

And here I am making the ball fat and square instead of long and pointy:

One thing I love about the nostepinne is that I can get my center-pull ball without needing to keep the darn thing attached to my hand all the time. As you know, I have a couple of adorable babies and life is often not organized enough for me to, say, wind a ball of sock yarn all in one session. I love that I can do a bit, and set it down when things like this happen:

Then when all is better I can pick it up again and finish what I was doing. Winding around my thumb just doesn't cut it these days. When it looks like I'll be putting it away for a long period of time, I can just twist up the remaining part of the skein and put the whole thing in my knitting bag without worrying about it all falling apart or about the kitties throwing yarn raves with the parts left hanging about.

Now that things are all better, we can pop back over and finish winding!

Secure the end of your yarn back in the ball, and un-tie the knot at the top and pull it off the nostepinne:

Voila! Keep track of that little piece hanging out the top of the ball, that is where you will knit from. I generally pull out a bit and wrap it around the ball and I'm done! Which is a good thing because Zoë is trying to climb the stairs again! Fun! Hope to see you at the booksigning!

Previews & Patterns

2010-11-22T09:32:00.000-08:00

Well, dear readers, what a week! More sick at casa de Conterio, another cold on top of the one we're all recovering from. Sigh. Sometime in the next decade I'll get to sleep again! My babysitter hit a little misfortune as well and threw out her back and couldn't stay as long as she usually does, so today's post may be a little on the light side!

I have a little preview for you today of that sweater that I've been working on. I just finished the 6 month size and popped it on Zoë for a little photoshoot last friday. I think it's adorable! Introducing Little Pea:

It took a long time to get the proportions just right and I'm really happy with it. The sample is out of Cascade 220 Superwash handpaints. I loved working with it, but I have a few recommendations. #1, don't put it in the dryer. I know it tells you that you can, and for sure it didn't felt, but it didn't treat the sweater all that nicely either. You see, wool that has been made machine washable is very slick (so it won't felt!) and it really needs blocking to get the shape right. I had to steam it after it came out of the dryer to get the ribbing to look nice. Also, because it is so slippery the buttons loosened dramatically when it was washed. I highly recommend not using the yarn to sew on the buttons. This sweater isn't really to be worn it's just to be displayed at the shop so I didn't bother to redo the buttons. I just tightened them and moved on to the next thing. If this were going to spend anytime on my babes, I would have pulled them off and sewn them on with thread.

I'll be working up the next few sizes to check the pattern, so you'll be seeing a few more of these soon. Some from stash yarn and some for the store. I'm so glad it's finally working out! Hopefully I'll have the pattern up for sale soon. It's a really quick knit!

I also wanted to let you know that Naomi, my intrepid business partner, has a couple of patterns for sale on ravelry. Introducing the very popular Highway Hat:

Even more exciting, you can buy it without having a Ravelry account (but why wouldn't you want one?) Click here and it's yours for $5.50! I've also added links to the sidebar where you can purchase my current ravelry downloads. The Mountain Colors Swirl Wrap pattern gives you the laceweight instructions written by Naomi. That has been a very popular pattern in the shop and we're really happy to make it available to everyone online.

That's all for now, I hope all of you have a safe and wonderful holiday. I have much to be thankful for this year! I'm really enjoying bringing you a little slice of my knitting world each week and I hope I'll be able to increase the frequency of posting soon!

a day late...

2010-11-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

Oh dear, let me tell you, things have been nuts in our house recently! Lots of crafting, colds, teething, solid foods (and all the resulting digestive fun, poor zoë) and not as much time for the blogging. Sunday night I got a whole hour of sleep (1!) and I was a zombie on monday. Happily, i got to buy lots of yarn for the shop from Berroco... boy do they have some great things coming up! But you'll have to wait a bit to see that (sometime in February...)

So finally, here is a little photo of Clara in her winter coat. She's obviously 3 in this one...

Thank god for blogging or I never would have noticed that the non-buttoning buttons need some serious tightening! Then I got her to show a bit of the lining (she's happier now because we're on our way to watch the sesame street!)

Had a lovely visit with our Berroco rep yesterday (even though I was a zombie) and I was discussing my problems with the Weekend. I've been knitting off and on a sweater for Josh and not loving it. It's the perfect yarn for him, because he's a hot person and all of the wool sweaters I've knit him inevitably end up in the "when it's really cold" pile. Frankly, it doesn't get that cold in Rhode Island (at least not by our standards having grown up in Maine...) so he never wears them.

I really wanted to make him something that he would wear, and so I settled on making him a cotton sweater. I'm no great lover of knitting with cottons, so I had to wait for just the right one. When we got Weekend, I thought it was a good candidate, and the reviews from our customers put me over the edge. So I took a bag home and cast on Lakenvelder:

Well, I hated knitting it. It was splitty and weird and I just couldn't stand it. Now, Josh is no small man either and it was looking like it was going to be a LOT of knitting. sigh. So, into the bottom of the B-list knitting bag it went and I went on to other projects. Josh is a very patient man (otherwise he never would have married me!) and he understood that other things were very important to knit. I had a string of samples that the store needed and the sweater just kind of sat around for those moments where I needed something mindless.

Enter Andra who tells me that I shouldn't be knitting the thing on bamboo needles and try some turbos. She had no problem with the yarn! Well, sitting there during our spring yarn visit I whipped out some turbos and switched over. I'm in love! Which is a good thing because having forgotten what size I was knitting I totally screwed up the armhole shaping and had to frog back to the bind off... just a few hours of knitting!

Oh, and speaking of frogging. Those lovely nereid gloves went into the pond as well. I finished the first one (a thing of beauty!) and weighed the rest of the ball and realized I wouldn't have enough for the other. Seeing as I am fortunate enough to have TWO hands, I had to frog it. I just whipped up a pair of incredibly simple fingerless gloves. I innovated a bit adding some thumb shaping so my thumb wouldn't end up with a floppy little tube. I'm loving the results and I will hopefully pop it up on ravelry soon. I'm definitely planning on going back to the nereid gloves soon, probably with some string theory that I've got hanging around that will be a much better match for that pattern.

That is... as soon as I can put down Josh's sweater! More news soon on some new ravelry downloads and also that adorable sweater I was working on last week. I just need to weave the ends in an put it on my willing model! Soon!

Oh, and do you like the new look/name? That's all that's going to change, promise. We just realized that Naomi is not a blogger and it would be better if the blog were just mine. That gives me a little more freedom to talk about things not so specifically related to the shop (but who are we kidding... nearly all of my yarn comes from there!)

unfavorable conditions

2010-11-08T07:07:00.000-08:00

The weather here in Rhode Island has been really trisky the past week. Lots of rain, clouds and gloom. Last night we even had our first snow fall. The weather forecast said this weekend was supposed to be nice with lots of sun and it was cloudy and funky the whole time. So the photography opportunities were less than awesome!

Isn't that a lovely excuse for not sharing with you Clara's Winter Coat? Ahhhh, well, it's not the only reason, dear readers. I kind of hate it. Now, it serves its purpose, it is certainly warm and Clara LOVES it, but it is just not the sweater that I pictured in my head! The proportions are all wrong-o. The sleeves are just right, but the body is HUGE. The neck is way too big so what was supposed to be a turned over collar ended up going all mandarin on me. Also, the lining was an insane job but I finished it. I channeled my Tailor of Gloucester and hand stitched the buttonholes. I am not pleased with my results, but my little girl is. I guess we can call it a partial success. I'm sure that soon I will get over it enough to take a couple of quick shots for you (as soon as the conditions improve!)

So enter take 5? no I had to rip this one out once already... Take 6:

I'm still working on the original vision which is a cross between a sweater I saw on a girl at the farmer's market about a month ago and a peacoat. This one is the 6 month size because I'd like to work out the kinks in the proportions on the SMALLEST SIZE POSSIBLE! I started Clara's Coat I think 4 times and knit all the way to putting the sleeve stitches on holders each time before deciding it was wrong all wrong. I'm still not at all sure what to do about the collar, should I go for a turned over collar or no collar or maybe just a couple of rows of garter stitch to neaten it up... we'll see. I'll be thinking about that while I knit the sleeves.

The yarn is 220 superwash handpaint. We have our lovely inside out blanket in the shop now and it's doing its job admirably but we need to show folks how beautiful the 220 handpaints are... so this sweater is working double duty as sample and drawing board. Also, the gauge will be spot on for my outside in (or should i call it Right Side In?) sweater, so I can start that as soon as this pattern is out of my brain, which can come any day now, please!

In the evenings when I can't stand the thought of working on a sweater that I've tried to knit 6 times, I've been working on a pair of fingerless gloves for me. This is the most selfish knitting I have done in a long long time. a) it's for me. b) it's not yarn we sell in the store c) it's a free pattern off the web!

it's coming along nicely:

details on ravelry. Hands are still cold, but soon, SOON, they won't be. yay!

In other news, Naomi and I will be having a book signing for the newest One Skein Wonders. We both have patterns in the book... Naomi actually has TWO! We're very very proud of it. I'm really excited about a lot of the patterns in the book, not just ours.

So save the date: December 1st @ 6:30 pm. We'll have treats and drinks and we'll sign your book!

Next week hopefully a new pattern on ravelry and some better photos. I'm shopping for a new camera that will help with my woeful lighting conditions and very swiftly moving targets! until then!

Inside out turns me outside in!

2010-11-01T06:17:00.000-07:00

This time, dear readers, I present to you the Inside Out Baby Blanket designed by my intrepid business partner Naomi Herzfeld. She designed this awesome blanket for a yarn we loved (Cascade 220 Superwash) that wasn't doing as well as we had hoped... and BOOM it starts flying off the shelves! We had the blanket in the shop until the Cascade Yarns rep was visiting and he LOVED it. He asked if Naomi would be interested in selling Cascade the pattern? Well, we love love love being published, so of course she jumped at the opportunity. Unfortunately, they needed to take the blanket, leaving our poor store blanket-less and more importantly sample-less for the wonderful 220 Superwash. So onto my knitting queue went the fantastic Inside Out Baby Blanket.

Now, I have to say, that I had issues with the pattern. Mostly because I am a dork. My partner so kindly fixed them and emailed the changes to Cascade so you wouldn't suffer! They were little things, that if you are me, and you are ridiculous, end up costing you a lot of knitting time.

The main issue I had was that Cascade photographed the blanket (with a white border) on a white background and then cropped the border off. Being the dork I am, I am used to fudging a pattern when I think it's wrong (even when my partner designed it (oops!)) and making it look like the picture. Well, that made me knit the border in a totally wrong color which I had to rip out and then re-do. This normally wouldn't have bothered me but the blanket is knit center out, so I had to rip out 13 rows at 8 trillion stitches per row. yargh!!!!! Even worse, I thought I was running out of yarn (because I was knitting the border in the wrong color!) so it stalled my progress on the blanket until I could get to the shop and chat with Naomi about it. It was then I discovered the weirdness on the photo, which led to my stupidity and the resulting unfortunate frogging. sigh. Not a rockstar moment!

But in the end, it turned out beautifully! You just have to feel it to properly understand. Once you wash the 220 superwash it gets so soft!!! Zoë definitely approves!

Pattern is available online for free here with new photos and corrections! It takes 5 skeins of 220 superwash, 2 in the eyelet/border color and 1 each of 3 other colors. In the time since Naomi designed the blanket we've seen many variations of yarn and color and they have all been beautiful! I tried to do something a little more grown-up with this color scheme so you could imagine knitting it larger for your home (not just a baby) but I was so inspired by the colors that I want to knit an "outside in" baby sweater reversing the colors, have the gray be the stripes and alternate different turquoise colors for the eyelets. That's coming soon. Some teething, a 3rd birthday, halloween and a (sigh) water main leak at my house have seriously limited my knitting time so I haven't finished Clara's winter coat sweater yet (in my LOVE tonos worsted) It's coming... I am on the 2nd sleeve! Last night we gave the Zo some advil and watched some X-files on the netflix streaming. If all goes well I'll have some photos for you next week!

Enjoy!

Zoë loves love: an adventure in design.

2010-10-25T08:29:00.001-07:00

New Ravelry Download: I heart Silk Garden Sock Baby Sweater

We've had this sweater (in various forms) in the shop for a while. It all started almost 2 years ago when we were writing patterns for the recently released Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders. I love the idea of taking a striping yarn and doing colorwork with it. I remember a Spin-Off cover many years ago that featured two self-striping yarns worked against eachother for a fantastic felted tote and ever since then I had wanted to do it! When the opportunity to design for this book came up, Clara was a little over a year old and I was deeply into making things for her.

The pattern that ended up in the book is the Crazy Wavy Dress that you can see in the shop and soon on Ravelry and in the book, but I had a little time before the deadline so I tried to work up another garment, this time a cardigan and with Silk Garden Sock. The results, sadly took more than one skein of yarn! So I couldn't send it in... But it looked great on Clara:

Version 2 was a quick re-write trying to get the project down to just 1 skein of Silk Garden Sock, I dropped the turned over collar and shrunk it to a 12 month size. The results would have gone to One Skein Wonders but with the re-write, we missed the deadline... but it looked awesome on my friends son!

Version 3 happened when my intrepid business partner Naomi tried to work up the pattern in a 3rd yarn (not self striping) omitting the heart pattern entirely and found the yoke to be nearly unworkable. I had recently added a 2 year size to the pattern and she was working up a sample. She ended up re-writing the pattern to simplify, removing some charts and trying to make the pattern easier! We don't have a picture of that yet, but it did work up very well in the Zauberball 6ply in the blue mix.

Now, I hate it when my patterns make people have heartburn and I had wanted to add a 6 month size at the same time. Enter my next model, Zoë! I took all of the decreasing out of the colorwork, and according to the EPS, took more stitches off under the arms (which make the yoke grand join much more pleasant) and worked all the decreases in 4 rounds. Much easier! I simplified the colorwork pattern further to remove the single color stripes (which is a geeky thing to do on a circular needle, but not the easiest thing to describe!)

The results are pretty fabulous, the sweater was a lot easier to knit and I'm really pleased. I did futz with the yarn a bit to make the sleeves match, because I knew that adding bits later would be no big deal and because I knew I would have to pick up and knit that border anyway and extra stripes make it look cool. I think I have enough yarn left over to make some booties and I would love to put the heart motif on the top of the foot. But that will have to wait for another day, Clara is in need of a sweater for winter and I'm on version 3 of that. I'm almost to the end of the body (it's top down) so I'm getting close. We're going to line this one with polar fleece or possibly some quilted fabric so it can serve as her winter coat. You'll definitely be seeing that one soon because it's really getting cold and she needs it!

you, me, and a deserted island

2010-10-18T06:43:00.000-07:00

Everyone talks about what they would take should they ever have the misfortune of getting stranded on a deserted island. Well, frankly, I'm hoping that the island I end up on is in the arctic circle, or possibly that I end up stranded at a deserted ski resort! If so, this yarn is now on the top of my must have list. Misti Tonos worsted. holy cow do I love this yarn. It's 50/50 alpaca wool blend in beautifully tonally dyed colors. gaaaaaaaaah. it's just to beautiful for words.

When I was pregnant with the Zoughut (as we like to call her) she had this knack for picking out yarn by kicking me when i was holding it. (much like my mother reports that I picked the house we lived in when I was born!) Previous to this selection she was really into blues, but when the tonos came in last fall she fell in love with this purple. I knew that it was going to turn into her winter sweater, but I wasn't sure what sweater, or what size for that matter, so off it went into my stash until the time when it spoke to us again.

A few weeks after I returned from my maternity leave, Zo and I were hanging out on the couches teaching a class and she started staring at Cambria's February sweater. Now, the little knitting junky in my mind remembered that that was originally a baby pattern and could it work? Amazingly enough it was perfect! Right gauge, right size, true love! The pattern is found in The Knitter's Almanac and is a little hand-wavy like most Zimmermann patterns. I did have to rip out a bunch for some silly reason, but honestly the thing is so small that it hardly seems worth mentioning it. I love that the sleeves are loose and a little on the short side. She's into everything these days and it's nice that they don't really get in the way of her adventures.

I just barely scratched the surface of the 2nd ball of yarn for the sweater so my mom in law made a hat for her and her big sister out of it. She used the left overs from a hat I had made for the shop in a different color. So cute! That ends up being 3 balls of yarn for a baby sweater, a baby hat, a hat for a 3 yr old and a had for an adult. Great yardage!

This yarn is such a joy to knit and so beautiful that I've already stashed a bunch for Clara's winter sweater (that I'd better get crackin' on!) I have in mind to knit myself a sweater out of this gorg teal we have as well. I think it's my new favorite.

Clara loves green

2010-10-04T06:13:00.000-07:00

Early this summer I decided she needed a sweater for the summer, something warm-ish for cool summer nights (like we actually get those in Providence!) or heavily air-conditioned environments. Given my profession I am lucky that I can be picky about what I knit for my girls. Sadly, we don't carry a lot of greens at the shop and Clara's favorite color for a while now has been green. I also wanted just the thing... something soft, bouncy and easy to wear and not too hot. This girl has a thermostat I would kill for and she doesn't want to wear really warm clothes.

Enter Louisa Harding Fleuris with two colors I knew my girl would just love. It's soft and just a little chunky. But that darn label says hand wash only! Now, I'm somewhat famous for making my girls things that are not machine washable.... and yes, I've felted a few items in my sleep-deprived haze. (mostly socks, they are hard to find in the wash!) But I have found that most things do just fine in a cold water wash and as long as I fish them out before they end up in the dryer I have no felting issues. LH Fleuris is one of those yarns that works just fine in the wash, but no dryer please! (we felted a swatch, oops!)

It's funny, Knitting for kids is a little harder than I thought, and much harder than for a baby. Babies are round, and largely immobile and as long as you don't put on so many buttons that the poor mother never gets them all buttoned, life is really alright. Kids MOVE and they don't like fussy things and it has to be just the right color, and there is so much size variation! Clara is normal for height but pretty darn skinny and things just don't fit her very easily. I knew it would be easier for me to do a top down pattern for her because we could try it on as we went, but the ones that we had at the shop were for bulky or for DK.... and Fleuris is a heavy worsted. I tried mucking around with the pattern, changing for the different gauge and I ended up with the top half of an absolutely enormous sweater. So I went down a size by her age for the bulky pattern and tried that. Bingo. A little extra length in the body and the sleeves and it fits her perfectly with a little room for her to get a bit bigger. The great thing about the top downs is that I can easily rip out the cast off edge and make the body and the sleeves longer. Unless she develops a taste for, say, lard in the next couple of months I'm guessing that the width will fit her for a good long time!

And best of all, she really likes it. Her next sweater will be something really warm to be her winter coat (because winter coats are too warm for her!) and she has requested "sky blue" with of all things squirrel buttons (that I have yet to find...) I'm planning on the double breasted sweater on the cover of last year's Berroco magazine, Vintage Family. In a yarn that I'll be blogging about soon...

SWTC Bamboo sublime baby dress

2010-09-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

For this adorable little number we picked South West Trading Company's Bamboo. THis bamboo differs a bit from other bamboos on the market. Most bamboos you find are made like any other rayon, the plant fibers are maserated and then extruded into fibers which are spun/woven together into yarn. This rayon is a bit different. The bamboo is hammered into many long fibers and then knit into a tape. This tape has the same problem I have with most tapes, that I find myself stabbing the tape with my needle when I try to knit it. It's pretty forgiving to knit and I did manage to get through this little project on my addi lace needles. For something bigger I would definitely switch to a more blunt tipped needle.

Despite my issues with tape yarns, I seriously love this yarn. It's so soft! Bamboo is slippery soft in general but this one just seems so much nicer. The color, again, is one I found a little loud, but it turned out so lovely and I would definitely put this on my purple girl! This took much less than one ball of yarn, making it a nice bargain for a baby shower. The knitted fabric has a bit of drape, but not nearly as much as some of the other bamboos I've used. I don't think gratuitous stretch is a problem with this yarn, making it suitable for grown-up garments as well.

swtc aMAIZing!

2010-09-22T08:57:00.000-07:00

The yarn for this baby dress is South West Trading Company's aMAIZing. I decided to mix it up with this one and do a two color version of the dress with a wee little pocket on the front. I mean, sheesh, it's a little much to knit so many of these dresses with no variation, right?

Normally, I don't like the tape yarns, i find them a bit fussy and a bit difficult to knit. (my needles are always stabbing into the tape!) This is definitely an exception. I remember knitting this during some very hot april days hanging out with Clara in the front yard. I barely had to look down from the toddler dance party to knit this. I was knitting with my addi Lace needles with their extra sharp point and I never had a problem stabbing through the yarn. This has to be the friendliest tape yarn ever made.

The knitted fabric definitely holds its shape (no drape! keep this in mind for grown up projects!) and feels very squishy and good. I picked a color I was a little unsure of for the dress and I loved how it turned out. The variagation is just right, with minimal pooling.

Really an enjoyable knit. Coming up: more SWTC!

Queensland Haze

2010-09-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

For this baby dress we chose Queensland Haze, one of our funky Corn blends. And, you know, I have to be honest, knitting this yarn was not so much fun. It has very little give and was kinda hard on my hands.

That said, I absolutely love the results. It's soft and bouncy and not too stretchy. The knitted fabric has quite a bit of body and the colors are gorgeous. So while the knitting itself wasn't the best, the results were fantastic! This took less than one skein of the yarn too, so it's a nice bargain knit for a new baby!

Sublime Baby Dresses! The First of many...

2010-08-24T08:54:00.000-07:00

We have a lot of washable yarns at the shop, specifically a lot of DK washable yarns and I wanted to do one sample that would showcase the differences between them to help folks make educated decisions about which one they wanted to use. We picked 5 different yarns that we thought would be fun candidates and I set to work.

For the sample, we chose a little baby top from Sublime #606. I had already knit one of these babies for my (then soon-to-be) little Zoë out of a yarn you can't get anymore (Jo Sharp Soho Summer, in navy... she's a blue kinda girl!) and loved it. It takes practically no time at all to knit and some of these would only use up one ball of yarn!

Pattern Notes: I knit the one for Zoë in the round, changing the pattern and I didn't enjoy it, so I thought I would do as directed and knit it flat and sew it up. It seemed to go even faster in pieces, as the mindless stockinette part seemed shorter.... I did hate the finishing picking up and knitting around the straps that I did on Zoë's so I omitted that step and I think it looks really clean without it.

Yarn Notes: This first edition is in Sirdar Juicy, 80% Bamboo, 20% Cotton. I love the way this yarn feels in the ball and it's an absolute joy to knit. Not too splitty and nice and slippery. It is definitely baby soft, I wouldn't hesitate to put this on a wee one! This version took 2 balls, with enough left over to whip up a pair of booties, if you like. You will notice from the photo that this yarn does have a tendency to grooooooooooooooooooow, so I would recommend making the straps much shorter than called for in the pattern (I did this in later bamboo versions) to accomodate this tendency. Also, we learn, don't make this for fitted garments as you will be disappointed with the results! This is a great yarn for something you want to wear close to your skin...

Stay tuned for version 2!

shoalwater shawl in Misti Alpaca Lace handpaints

2008-03-10T09:07:00.001-07:00

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Originally uploaded by bellayarns

’m knitting this for a shop sample. The yarn is a sample provided to me by my rep to play with before I get my shipment. I’ve used the lace alpaca before in solid, and loved it. I knit the swallowtail shawl for my mom-in-law with it. love!

the shoalwater shawl is satisfying to knit and i’m using the addi lace needles, which at first i thought were a total gimmick but now i’m in LOVE with them. holy cow is it easier to do lace with these. yay!

ruffles!

2008-01-26T12:16:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by bellayarns

I really like how this turned out. I had started to knit this same project with a different color of Solo (the purple/black) and black smart mohair but I got bored and wandered off. Eventually I scrapped that project, but this yarn has been sitting on my shelves for over a year and desparately needed a cute sample so I tried it again, this time with pure merino as the base.

perhaps it’s the sleep dep from new parenthood, but this time it held my attention and I finished it in a few days. I am not really a cravat kind of girl but i’m really pleased with the results. I’m working up another sample of the Solo next, this time fingerless gloves (also from the fall 2006 Knit.1) and a hat that I’m designing. this time I’ll pair it with the misti Pima cotton and silk. I’m excited!

Clapotis, oh how I love thee!

2008-01-22T09:36:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by bellayarns

Man, I love this yarn, and I love the pattern. It was fun to knit and something I could keep up with given that I get not a whole lot of sleep these days. At the end, I have to say, that dropping all those stitches with a mohair blend was not so much fun. It was great the first few times, but next time I knit this I’ll use something slinky that will drop easily.

of course, I want to make it next in this laceweight alpaca i just got in from J. Knits… which won’t drop easily at all. sigh. I torture myself.

the colorway practically glows from within, seriously. It makes up for the fact that the dye comes off on my hands (!!!) and I ended up looking like a corpse after only knitting for a few minutes. I definitely have to do some serious rinsing on this before I wear it. of course, it’s going to the store for a while, so I won’t have to worry about it until next winter most likely!

back from the pregnant!

2008-01-22T09:18:00.001-08:00

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Originally uploaded by bellayarns

Hi there,

This has been a long time coming! It seems like being pregnant makes your brain foggy and having the baby makes it disappear completely! But I'm back and I'm going to try to blog a little more frequently! Now that Clara has arrived (www.flickr.com/photos/conterio_clan) I'm knitting for big people again, so it won't be endless baby sweaters and booties! I can't believe the last time I posted was in April of last year... but when I look at what we had to do to prepare for Clara's arrival, y'know, it's not all that shocking!

But now that she's napping, I've had some time to enter some projects on Ravelry and I thought I'd blog about them while I'm at it! Right now the most impressive thing i'm working on is this fantastic sweater from Norsk Strikkedesign out of Naturewool. holy cow is this thing beautiful. It's slow going because I need to be highly caffeinated and well rested to work on it, the caffeine I get daily, the sleep, well, that's another story. I'm also working on a bunch of samples for the store (which take precedence in my knitting queue, of course) so this ends up on the back burner more than I would like. I stopped knitting this when i got pregnant with the littles (Jan 07) because i was uninspired to finish something so complicated when i wasn't sure it would fit me after her arrival. Luckily, the weight loss is on target and this should fit me, provided it goes over the lacating orbs easily. I will eventually be finished breastfeeding (in a few years or so...) so at least I know I can wear it then if all else fails!

I'm thoroughly loving working the naturewool in fairisle. it is even more interesting how the colors subtly change and it really keeps me knitting. It was really the only yarn in my shop that had the right colors for the sweater. I really wanted to stay very true to the original colorway because I love blue and black. The yardage on the naturewool is amazing, i've only barely cracked into the second skeins of the two main colors. Given how much I've put aside for the project, I'll definitely have enough for the wristers and hat. yay!

Works in Progress

2007-04-07T12:00:00.000-07:00

Well, the more exciting work in progress is the little creature that I'm growing in my abdomen. yes, blog-o-world, I am, in fact, pregnant. (whoa, a comma overload!) True to form the first trimester is basically turning me into a zombie, with the need for brains exchanged for a need for Ben & Jerry's. Of course in the first few days I began the baby knitting journey with a little sock yarn baby sweater that I designed. It's really simple, seed stitch borders, pretty yarn-over increases, not too much fuss. I love that these take relatively no time to knit and since it's sock yarn it's pretty much indestructible, which is essential for the modern infant ;)

In what seemed like no time at all, all of the unpleasant symptoms of pregnancy turned me into the aforementioned zombie, so between eating, sleeping, eating and shuffling around I haven't been knitting as much as I would like. I've started a bunch of different projects, but so far the only one to be completed is the little sock yarn baby sweater! So you get photos, and a run down of what I'm working on.

First, is a sweater I'm designing for The Sheep Shop Yarn Co. They have a fantastic new yarn, Sheep Three. It is pretty sick, 30 silk, 70 wool, knits up on a #4 needle. So the sweater I'm making is absolutely enormous and mostly in moss stitch (or double moss for those of you across the pond) It is taking me forever to finish, mostly because I decided to knit it all in one piece to avoid sewing because it is such a large sweater. I am in love with it, and I would have given up a lot sooner if it wasn't so nice to knit on this yarn. Oh how i love it.

Second, is another baby sweater, from Debbie Bliss Simply Baby. A book that I've had in the shop for quite a while and had sadly never even looked at! (bad yarn shop girl, no pint of iced cream!) It has some of the most adorable baby stuff I've seen and now I have a long list of things from that book I need to knit for the porkbun. I'm working on the Ribbed Jacket in Louisa Harding's Grace, one of the most drool worthy yarns I have in the shop. I'm doing this in a cream and brown colorscheme for gender neutrality, and it's turning out really well... there's a sneak peak in here somewhere.

Third, I'm working on a shawl from Victorian Lace Today in some Lorna's Laces that a friend gave me. I don't carry the yarn in the shop, but it's knitting up really wonderfully. If I had that with me I'd give you a look, but like most lace, it really doesn't look like much until it gets stretched all to heck and back... so maybe I'll just give you nothing until it's done! I'm hoping it will be a pretty and relatively discreet nursing shawl. The colorway is red/yellow/orange/purple, so it's pretty wild looking. Considering my normal black with grey wardrobe, it's a bit of a stretch, but I still love it.

Fourth, is a modularly knit shawl. The pattern is from the ArtYarns collection, the yarn is Ritratto from S. Charles. I think it's a nice combination, but frankly once I found out about the wee one, I lost all interest. It will make a great store sample when I get around to finishing it.

Those are the current UFOs, there are more, hiding in my closet, but we only drag them out when we're really desparate for a finishing fix.

I promise more posting as I'm coming through the fog of the first trimester and should have more energy soon. If my knitting progress in the last week is any indication, I'm very nearly back on track. phew!

summer?

2007-02-15T13:04:00.000-08:00

Well, no, not really. We've just had an ice storm, but you see, the yarn shop girl always has to be one season ahead so her samples are done for the appropriate season! Which means I'm constantly knitting cottons and slinky things in the middle of february (which is actually more pleasant than say, heavy woolens in July...) This particular piece is from Louisa Harding's Spring/Summer accessories collection from last year. Yes, I'm a year late with this little number, but to encourage my intrepid knitter's I'm teaching a class on this little number in May. It is the 2nd easiest lace pattern in the universe, Feather and Fan, in an entirely manageable number of stitches. You can slide the yarns up the side and tie on the extra sparkly ribbon as you go which makes doing all of those stripes really not so bad. It took me forever (tm) to knit this. Probably because I started it during a super bowl party and messed it up so many times that I got annoyed with it and therefore had negative associations. I'm quite happy with how it turned out, especially my color choice. Originally I had chosen to do it in an entirely different colorway of darker pinks and purple and changed my mind at the last minute into this much more delicate and feminine version. I was half way through it before I realized I had chosen a silver metallic and a gold metallic, but I don't think it detracts. The button is an older brass button from One World Buttons that hasn't sold particularly well for me, but I love the spiral on the button with the wave of the lace pattern. All in all, I think a nice sample. Next, I'm thinking either a lace poncho from the Artyarns collection of modular patterns, or a felted clutch. It will probably come down to what needles I have in the shop.

cowl!

2007-02-14T13:01:00.000-08:00

Another sample, another yarn I adore that hasn't sold very well. The yarn in question is Misti Alpaca's "worsted" 4ply 80% baby suri alpaca/20% silk. I put the worsted in quotes because there is absolutely no way that stuff knits up to a worsted gauge... but it is gorgeous nonetheless. People mistake it for cashmere all the time because it's so freakin' soft. Now, I know it's not cashmere because cashmere feels soft in a different way. This stuff is really slippery soft, probably because both alpaca and silk have that slippery soft feeling to me. Anyhow, I love this yarn, but up until this year when most knitter's decided that they could use smaller needles (bless them!) it really wouldn't have been what most people would want in a sweater yarn. Now, it's right up their ally, and the colors are beautiful and rich and the stuff knits really easily. I thoroughly enjoyed the cowl even though I chose to do it in seed stitch and it was really boring. It felt nice while I was bored doing it! ;)

The finished product came out really well, as you can see from the photo. Most orange colors frighten me, but this one is so nice I put it on one of the models in the front window. I actually knit the thing on #8 needles (because I was lazy and those were within reach... and 20/20 hindsight, I do like seed stitch knit at a slightly loose gauge) 145 stitches, 2 skeins, do seed stitch until you run out of yarn.

PS. I'm so thrilled with the quality of photos that my camera makes. :)

new toy, new project, new neckache

2007-02-11T10:43:00.000-08:00

Well, I got a fabulous rewards check from Staples because I used their overpriced copy service for my last mailing and I couldn't resist getting a digital camera to use for the blog. When I was walking to the checkout the tiny young man that had helped me pick my camera asked if I wanted to buy a case to put the camera in. What?!? Buy a case? please.

I had to run home and make one! As I was on my way home (and to be sure the camera was a bit of an impulse buy) I had not really brought anything home specifically for a camera case so I dug into one of my craft closets. I found some suede from this bag I had been crocheting before it demoralized me completely. I pulled out the yarn I had crocheted and wound it back into a ball and grabbed a skein of the other two colors I had planned for the tote bag and set to work. First I crocheted a chain a little longer than the bottom of my camera. I worked back and forth in single crochet for a while until it was a little wider than my camera and then I started working in the round, changing colors when I felt like it, until it was as tall as my camera is to the wrist strap. Then back and forth for two rows, then joined in the round again (to make a hole for my wrist strap to go through) then around and around until it was as tall as my camera. I did one round of decrease (sc in the next 3 sc, skip 1 sc) then another round even. Then I started working back and forth over 1/2 of the stitches for the long flap. I did that until it would wrap around the whole thing once with the camera inside. I ended by doing one round of sc around the edge of the flap, across the front edge of the bag, then up the other edge of the flap. The tie is just one strand of each of the two contrast colors in a crochet chain with a little tassel on the end.

Of course I was so excited about it that I crocheted non-stop for 3 hours. I now have a serious neck problem and shooting pains up my left wrist and my right thumb. oops. It's a good thing I have a massage schedule for monday, or it might have cut down on my knitting time!

Cammo Bear off to Gay Paree?

2007-02-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

Once again, I was staring at my shelves (while knitting the baby bathrobe) and trying to figure out what sample to make next. It gets a little difficult when you have a yarn shop because you stare at yarn all day long most days and sometimes even for you, things get blurry and they all start to look the same.

I've had Filatura Di Crosa Curly for ever. I even had it in my storeroom for over a year one fall when I bought too much yarn and ran out of shelf space. I brought it back early this fall and it's been moving really slow, and so it needed a little something. I thought I would make a hat and then maybe think about making a scarf. (man, I hate knitting scarves) I picked a simple hat pattern that my friend wrote up for me when I opened that uses Schaefer Elaine. I cast on really tight, and eventually mellowed and loosened up on my knitting. The result is a hat that honestly looks a lot like a beret, with absolutely no beret shaping. you just cast on tightly, let it loosen up as you go along and then decrease like you normally would for a hat. I knitted it on a #8 29" circular. it was knit flat with a seam up the back.

I think Cammo looks quite dapper, don't you? Needless to say, I didn't get around to the scarf. The Spiral Tank was calling my name and it was a siren song I just couldn't resist.

Addicted to Knitting Nature

2007-02-11T10:06:00.000-08:00

Once again, I was drooling over the masterpiece Knitting Nature by Norah Gaughan and Amy, my intrepid employee pointed out that one of the pieces "Spiral Tank" was actually knit out of a yarn that I needed to make a sample out of. It was another yarn that I've had forever that needs a sample (ie. it doesn't sell itself) While Cotton Classic is the farthest thing from pastel hairball, it is kinda boring unless you do something with it and boy does Norah do something with it in the spiral tank.

I found the pattern enjoyable. I knit all of the boring stockinette pieces first in order of most to least boring (hey, at least with the left front there is all that wacky increasing and decreasing! Anything that forces me to use two post-it notes to keep track of what row I'm on is a winner!) I was even a good girl and did all my finishing work before the cable panel so I would have something to look forward to while I was doing all of that sewing and reverse stockinette neckband stuff. (yawn)

I used a color that I hate. I usually do this with samples.... Obviously the colors I like are ones that are easy for me to sell. I find after I spend some time with a truly awful color I can appreciate it more and those folks that love bright yellow will have something truly inspiring. Also, I had a ton of bright yellow. I have to admit that the color grew on me and I really like the result. After the sample has hung around for a year or so, I may even wear it. Sweet!

Of course as soon as I start working on something summer-y our non-existant winter decides to pull a 180 and we are in the middle of a very long very brutal (for southern new england) cold snap. So the finished product isn't getting that much attention yet. I'm sure once it' s beach weather, everyone will be all over it.

PS. please forgive my color levels. horrible florescent lights and a new camera. hopefully we'll have it all figured out soon!

Cammo Bear channels his inner Hugh Hefner

2007-02-10T13:39:00.000-08:00

Recently I've been in the "must knit samples from old yarns that aren't selling" mode and the first of such projects is this insanely cute infant bathrobe. Who could resist it? The yarn is Filatura Di Crosa Bambi, which looks on the shelf like a scary pastel hairball, but when knit up feels amazing! The bathrobe is already having it's desired effect, more than a bag has sold in the past couple of weeks where I had barely sold that in the last two years. The pattern is from the original Filatura Di Crosa Baby book, which has been a great seller for me since it came out two years ago. The series of simple baby sweaters with minimal shaping have been a favorite for beginner knitters and people who just need a quickie baby shower gift. Zarina, heavily featured in that book, is to die for. The stuff is just perfect. I had yet to venture into the Bambi, because, well, it looks like a pastel hairball and therefore terrified me. I bought it for the store because the bathrobe was the most adorable thing ever, but I had stupidly not knit up a sample of the thing. Amazingly enough, the sample took me less than a day to whip up. Can we say #11 needles for an infant garment? Oh yeah! Why didn't I do this years ago?

Of course, I had to put it on Cammo Bear. He's a patient and forgiving model. I immediately had images of Cammo getting ready for a party at the playboy mansion. Yes, it really is that goofy in my brain. Just be happy I don't have any martini glasses in the store otherwise I would have had to set up a whole tableau.