Heading to SAFF!

I finished and blocked the lace scarf/ shawl while I was at my Mom's recently. She has tons of room in her basement workshop and she had the perfect thing to put under the towels for blocking. She had two big pieces of some sort of white art board that you could poke pins in. Worked great!

This week we'll be heading down to the Asheville, NC area for the Southeastern Animal Fiber Fair (SAFF) where we will actually be camping right at the Ag Center SAFF site! Can you believe it? I have only to walk out the door and I'll be there! Three days of total fiber immersion!

Did you know that not everyone understands what a fiber festival is? My son just told me that he thought it was a festival for people who take Metamucil!!! Can you imagine all the porta-potties they'd need for that kind of festival????

As a non-spinner, I'm torn between the fascination of spinning and the sure knowledge that I already don't have enough time for knitting, so why do I think I have more time for spinning? But I ignored logic and signed up for three spinning classes (and one dyeing class) anyway! It is high time to expand my horizons, don't ya think? Although I pretty sure that a spinning wheel will not fit in the motorhome or my budget right now. I've heard of new spinners coming home from fiber festivals with spinning wheels, but I am strong. . . I can resist. . . I am strong. . . I can resist. . .

Right now we are near Lynch- burg, Virginia in the mountainettes (what I call the foothills) of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. Yesterday we went hiking at Holliday Lake State Park, so I thought I'd show you that the leaves are finally just starting to turn colors. You can read about it and see more pictures here and here.

And, finally, here are three cute little pumpkins that took only about an hour each to make. You can get the pattern here.

Current knitting

Just finished a pair of manly ankle socks in the Tampa Bay Buc's colors (red and gray) for a friend's birthday coming up this weekend. Both of the toes are gray, although the picture doesn't show this very well.







Next, I'm I just about finished with a lace scarf/ shawl in the most beautiful mohair blend 2-ply lace weight yarn . . . which I got on sale somewhere (Indiana?) this summer. I didn't know what I was going to do with it until I saw this pattern in Knit Simple magazine. This yarn is so soft, although a little warm to be knitting with in Florida in the summer.

Anyway, here's a picture of the work-in-progress (wip). This will be my first major lace blocking project, and I'm trying to figure out where in the motorhome I will find enough room to spread it out to block it!

An embarrassment of riches

This is all the sock yarn that I won in the Summer of Socks "vacation sock picture" contest!!!



I am totally flabbergasted ! ! !

This amazingly beautiful yarn arrived in the mail today and is enough for five pairs of socks. I piled all of these pretty skeins in a basket on my desk so I can admire them and dream about all the beautiful socks they will make.

You can see the winning picture (taken by EB, of course) here.

More Baby Surprise Jackets

Whew! These baby sweaters by E.Z. are addicting! They were knitted out of leftover yarn and donated to the charity knitting group at Yarnworks, my LYS in Gainesville, FL.

Here is more info on where to get the pattern, plus additional notes on the pattern.

It's a sweater!

This is the third adult sweater that I have knitted . . . and the first one that actually fits me! Sweater #1 was a raglan pullover that was way too big. After laying around for a couple of years, I unraveled it to use the yarn in other projects.

Sweater #2 was a cute little thing. The emphasis here is on the word little. As in too little for me. Guess I thought I was too smart to swatch. Ha, learned a lesson from that one and swatched the heck out of the next sweater yarn. My mom was the lucky (?) recipient of the little sweater.

This one is "Tithe" from the book Noro Unlimited (can't find a link, but google NORO YARN and you'll come up with lots of options), which has lots of great patterns. I actually used Plymouth Yarns Boko to knit this because it was cheaper by half than the Noro yarn. Unfortunately, two out of ten skeins of Boku shredded when I tried to knit with them, so I can't recommend it. I have two other colorways of Boku and I'm hoping that they are a better quality. Several people on Ravelry have used Boku without problems.

Anyway, this sweater took about 8 skeins of Boku (50 gms each) and was knit on size 8 needles. It has 3/4 length sleeves and no buttons on the front. It is just something light to throw on when the weather is a little cool, or perhaps the A/C at a store or the movies. :)

SOS - Last pair?

This is pair #4 (and maybe the last) for the Summer of Socks knit-along. They are also the August pair for the Ravelry sock group. I really have to stop joining these knit-alongs. Just keeping up with their blogs takes way too much knitting and biking/skating time!

These are made out of the most incredibly soft yarn - Mountain Colors Bearfoot (60% superwash wool, 25% mohair, 15% nylon) in the Ruby River colorway. Oh, they feel soooo good on the foot! Not sure if I'm keeping these, or if they are a sister present (you know who you are!).

The pattern is "River Rapid Socks" by Sockbug. It had an easy to remember pattern on the leg and going down the instep. I did my own thing on the heel.

Here's an outta focus pix of the sock blockers I made from vinyl-coated coat hangers. I got the idea from another website, which I can't remember at the moment. If I do, I'll come back and post a link here. I made a bunch of them to give to sock knitting friends. They may not be as pretty as fancy $30 sock blockers, but they cost next to nothing and probably work just as well.

Baby Surprise Jackets

I jumped on the Elizabeth Zimmerman "Baby Surprise Jacket" bandwagon last week and really enjoyed the math challenge of EZ's ingenious pattern. I was half way through the first one before I knew what part of the sweater I was knitting! The first sweater involved a lot of head scratching and trust that the pattern wouldn't let me down. It was a real puzzle to solve, and I made copious notes while knitting to supplement EZ's sometimes sparse instructions.

When I finished the first sweater, I was hooked by the simple genius of it. So I immediately sat down to do a second sweater while it was fresh in my head so that I could really understand how the pattern (puzzle!) works. I refined my pattern notes and will be happy to share them. Just drop me an email: jeanie_west AT yahoo DOT com. You will still need to purchase the pattern. At the end of the post, I'll give you some links for where you can purchase this and other EZ patterns.

Here's what the sweater looks like after it is knitted (all in one piece) but before you sew the top of the sleeves and shoulders together. Those are the only seams. See what I mean about it being a puzzle? Or as EZ says in the pattern, "Are you still with me?"

And here's what it looks like finished with some cute little buttons.

On this version, I only added three of the original five buttonholes called for in the pattern. This jacket will probably fit a newborn to three month old and the yellow jacket with the red buttons will probably fit a six to 12 month old. I cast on the same number of stitches for each, but used different size needles and yarn. There are many, many variations you can add to this pattern.

Here are some helpful links if you want to knit this or other Elizabeth Zimmerman patterns:

A wiki with great pictures and notes on the BSJ: http://www.knitting-and.com/wiki/Baby_Surprise_Jacket

Schoolhouse Press where you can order EZ books and patterns: http://www.schoolhousepress.com/kits.htm