Archive for March, 2008
What’s next?
The hats are done.
Koolhaas Hat 4
Koolhaas Hat (large) – IK Holiday Gifts 2007
Noro Kureyon color 188, ~60g on #7 needles
Painting by John Dempcy
I don’t normally knit the same thing over and over, except socks, but I knit four of these hats, in a hurry. DD went to Alaska and needed hatS. Wasting no time, I knit the same thing four times and in four different yarns.
Here’s the pile of stuff for a teenager going to Alaska and the Yukon with 54 (!!!) classmates for ten days in Spring:
It looked much bigger when I was sitting in the middle of it trying to label everything.
There are the four hats along the bottom:
Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted (green),
Noro Kureyon (purple green),
Noro Kureyon (turquoise brown),
Debbie Bliss Merino Aran (gray).
So, knitting hats and getting DD all geared up and ready for the big Alaska/Yukon adventure sort of took over my spare time for the last few weeks. Now I have a chance to think about what I want to do next. There are the dust bunny issues…but that is not what I want to think about.
Where was I? Poetry In Stitches, Koigu fingerless mittens, that vest I knit last year and need rip, re-write and re-knit, AS vest in Shibui Midnight, the Mason-Dixon Knitting Inspired Dining Room Project (needs it’s own post)
So much yarn, so little time.
…and three days after that
Wednesday:
ETA:
See them three days earlier:
https://knittinginmind.com/2008/03/16/28-hours-later/
and the day before that:
https://knittinginmind.com/2008/03/15/shitake-mushrooms/
Oh, right, this is a knitting blog:
Koolhaas 3
Koolhaas Hat (large) – IK Holiday Gifts 2007
Brown Sheep Lamb’s Pride Worsted, color M120 Limeade,
~77g on US7 needles
Next up, one more hat:
in Noro Kureyon color 188
28 hours later…
ETA:
See the day before “Shitake Mushrooms”:
https://knittinginmind.com/2008/03/15/shitake-mushrooms/
See them GROW “and three days after that”:
https://knittinginmind.com/2008/03/19/and-three-days-after-that/
Shitake Mushrooms
Here’s something DH does in his spare time:
growing shitake mushrooms
(mushroom kit from Fungi Perfecti)
Evolution of Mushroom
His best crop so far prompted perusal of the cookbooks in anticipation of the harvest feast:
Beef Wellington with Shitake
Stuffed Shitake
Beef with Shitake
Chicken Rolls with Shitake
Asian Rice Salad with Crabmeat & Shitake
Monkfish with Shitake Mushrooms and Fresh Ginger
from The Complete Mushroom Cookbook by Antonio Carluccio
and
Mushrooms Favorite Recipes by Andrea Kösslinger & Sibylle Reiter
Ah, Saturday morning, coffee and cookbooks…
ETA:
See them grow “28 hours later”:
https://knittinginmind.com/2008/03/16/28-hours-later/
and GROW “and three days after that”:
https://knittinginmind.com/2008/03/19/and-three-days-after-that/>
Variegated
I love variegated things.
It started with these soaps.
I have had these since my mom was guilted into buying them way back in the early ‘70s. Apparently my mom had a hard time saying “No” to the Avon Lady:
(WHAT is with that tree, is it supposed to be the Faberge Bay Tree Egg??)
At first, I didn’t like that one soap with the big white blotch. Then, something clicked and it became my favorite.
Variegated and asymmetrical things appeal to me.
Plants with variegated leaves
Pinto ponies
Patchy dogs
I even love my graying hair.
It’s coming in unevenly and unsymmetrically on my head, which makes it even BETTER.
So. You can imagine which yarns appeal to me.
I love variegated yarn
My Favorite Yarn Of All Time is pictured in my header.
It is currently tied up in a sweater that is waaaaaay too big. I want to pull it apart and re-knit it into something that fits and weighs under 10 pounds, but I am afraid the yarn won’t take the abuse. I don’t spin, don’t own a wheel, should I get a drop spindle to put a little twist back into it? Anyone with experience with this?
On to knitting:
The first Koolhaas Hat is complete.
Koolhaas Hat (large) – IK Holiday Gifts 2007
Debbie Bliss Merino Aran color 325302,
~75g on US7 needles
I say “the first” because on handing it to my teenager for a try on, she said, “You know what would be really cool? A BUNCH of these in different colors.”
WOOHOO! Music to my ears. I don’t usually knit the same thing over and over but I have a deadline, not a lot of time to futz with a new pattern.
I was thinking NORO Kureyon
Okay you must understand, this is a teenager who has made it clear She Likes Solid Colors, she does not like variegated, she does not like self-striping.
(How can this be? :- )
“Let me show you these really cool Japanese yarns…”, I tempted. “They aren’t self-striping yarns, exactly, they kind of…evolve from one color into the next.”, I appealed to the painter…
Color 183. Yes!
Koolhaas Hat (large) – IK Holiday Gifts 2007
Noro Kureyon color 183,
~60g on US7 needles
Next up, a Solid Color Hat (I can be fair)
Yarn Mob
If I had it to do over again…I probably wouldn’t.
I was one of hundreds, no thousands, who descended on Hilltop Yarn on Saturday for their Fire Sale – 50% off EVERYTHING.
As I drove there I contemplated the 1-hour parking spots.
Not likely.
As I drove past, I saw the line that was most of the way down the block, ten minutes before opening.
Well, I was already there.
I started laughing, as I walked past the entire line to get to the end.
Wish I hadn’t drank so much coffee.
The line began to move, it kept moving. And moving.
They let EVERYONE in! It was packed.
Completely packed.
I stood in the doorway and momentarily considered the wisdom of going into a building that was jammed well beyond fire code. Then a space opened between two bodies. Of course I wasn’t going to let those knitters get ALL the yarn.
In I went.
Well, what do you know? All those years of abusing my ears and whatevah at rock concerts paid off. I knew how to get through a crowd.
But it was already slim pickin’s.
I got a couple of balls of cracksilk in blackcurrant, I think I was lucky to get that. I also snagged three hanks of Debbie Bliss Pure Silk, two in ecru and one in black.
I turned around and got a sinking feeling (no, it wasn’t the floor collapsing, though the thought had crossed my mind).
“Is this the checkout line?”
“Yes.”
Though the pile of people I was looking at could hardly be called “a line”. It was a room completely full of people all facing west – the direction of the next room with the cash registers and beyond that the front door.
Sigh. I’m not sure, but I think it was about forty minutes later when I got out.
There were jokes, there was camaraderie and balls of yarn being passed and even tossed across the room…and there was some trying of patience, though no one lost their temper or manners, that I saw anyway.
Costume Jewelry
When I was little, my mom would let me pick out her jewelry when she and my dad went out dancing. I always always always *wanted* to pick these:
but I would often pick other things because I knew she thought these were a bit too flashy to wear every time and I knew she liked her other things too.
Now that I’m all grown up I can see that the other things are fine, in an elegant understated way, but these are still my favorite.
The earrings are clip-on and unfortunately too painful to wear and I don’t dare alter them. I love beads, but beading is not my thing.
I have attempted to make a matching pair of earrings a couple of times before and never been happy with the results, but I like my latest attempt (new pair below the old pair):
I plan to wear these for a special occasion this weekend along with something my mother would never wear:
Chanel Blue Satin it’s a dark navy blue.
Knitting In Mind 