Thurmont

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My Thurmont Shawl is all done! I really like it too. Easy and fun knit which I am looking forward to wearing this fall. Right now, no way. DK weight Merino wool is not for use in the south in the height of summer heat. Winking smile It should be just right by October though.

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I ended up using 225-230g of yarn for mine, so I have enough left of the third skein for fingerless mitts or a small hat.

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I haven’t started a new knitting project yet. I still have my Honey Cowl on the needles so I will piddle with that for a day or two and probably call it done. After that I have an idea about what to knit next. I  am thinking about finally making my Sonnenblume which I still have the yarn for in my knitting bag. I was the dyer for Anne’s FIFC club in 2012 and I saved myself a skein to make this. Honestly I hate doing a provisional cast on and I think that caused my procrastination. It’s quite silly, I know.

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I will leave you with a picture of my work for the last two days for the mill. The two colors in front are to be spun separately and then plied together; the same for the two colors on the middle table. I wish I could see the yarn when they are done because I bet they will look cool. Smile

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Catching Up

I know it’s been awhile since my last post, sorry about that. Since I got back from Hoosier Hills Fiber Festival it has been a busy week and a half with both work and family.

My second oldest daughter flew up for 5 days from Jacksonville with her youngest daughter. We got together here for dinner and visiting almost every day. I don’t get to see her or the children nearly often enough, so we had to squeeze in a lot in only a few days. I didn’t get a lot of pictures but I will share a few of the highlights.

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This is Heather (my 2nd oldest) and her youngest, Lillah.

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Three of my daughters and my two youngest granddaughters. The lone boy here is of course my youngest, Elijah.

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A couple of Pandora who, as babies do, is growing and changing every day. Recognize the sweater?

This week has been so far a time of catching up on household tasks and preparing to do some dyeing. We cleaned the house on Saturday and then set to work on finally getting those last two bedrooms painted that we didn’t get to when we did the whole house about 18 months ago. They look so much better now. I still need to wash all the windows and clean the furniture upholstery if I can get to that. I also need to turn in my end of the year grade reports for the children and order yarn to dye. I am planning a few new colors this year. More on that next post I think.

One more quick update on knitting is called for I think. I am so close to finishing Thurmont. I only have the last chart to knit which is only 12 rows so I should finish up in a day or two. Here’s my progress as of this morning. I did have to go into a third skein of the Classic Merino Superwash DK which I hoped would not be needed. I knew going in that it was a good possibility since the yardage called for was just above my yardage in two skeins.

 

Thurmont

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Back to Lace

Well after all that baby sweater knitting it’s back to shawls. I started a new shawl in DK weight yarn. It is called Thurmont and is a new design of Dee O’Keefe’s.

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It has an interesting design in that it is an asymmetrical triangle knit sideways. The stitch patterns used are easy and fun to do. 

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I am in Wooster, OH today and through Monday for the Great Lakes Fiber Show. I drove all day today and will spend most of tomorrow getting the booth set up for the show on Saturday and Sunday.

Sorry to be so brief but it was an early day and 9 hours of driving so I will close this post. Who knows I may be finished with Thurmont by my next post since it is going along pretty fast.

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Travels and A New Pattern

Hello again! I am posting from Lexington, KY this weekend. We are happy to be back at the Kentucky Sheep & Fiber Festival again this year. We are in the Ag Pavillion as we were in previous years but we have a new location, booth #31.

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I am all settled into my hotel room for the night having a cup of tea. The booth is all finished for the big weekend.

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The Yarn Boxes have been popular this spring. They did very well at DFW and last weekend at the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival in Minnesota.

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I finished the knitting of the medium sized Dora Cardigan in the hotel last weekend in time to put it out for the show. You can see it in the picture there along with the small one in the Superwash Sport above it.

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Here’s a better view of it that I took in the hotel room which is surprisingly not too bad. Smile

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I have the pattern available both on my website and on Ravelry.

I have started a new knitting project but I think I will save that for my next post. How about a couple cute family pictures to close with?

Here’s my cute husband…

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and a new one of my granddaughter Dora from yesterday. She was awake for a while but I stupidly forgot to take any pictures until she fell asleep again. Maybe next time. Smile

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Babies and Sweaters

Where to start? Quite a few things have happened since my last post a couple weeks ago.

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First I finished the new version of Dora in my Classic Merino Superwash Sport yarn. I made a couple small changes, including changing the neck shaping method to German short rows. I love these! One of Dee O’Keefe’s patterns introduced them to me and I decided that would work better for the neck than the way I did the proto type.

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I have the pattern all written up and am knitting up the second size in my Organic Cotton Sport. I am reasonably confident in the math for this size and the large but won’t know for sure on the yardage estimates until they have been test knit.

I will have it for sale this coming weekend at the Shepherd’s Harvest Festival which I am currently en route to as I write this post. I have stopped on the way up in Rockford, IL and will arrive in Minnesota tomorrow afternoon. I will have the pattern online at the website and Ravelry very soon too. I will let you know when that happens.

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Oh and one more really exciting thing happened. The real Dora has arrived and we are smitten with her tiny self. This is my fifth grandchild and fourth granddaughter. Smile

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More Baby Sweater Knitting

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This shows my progress this past week in my second knitting of Dora in my Classic Merino Superwash Sport yarn. This also shows that a number of times I planned to write a blog post and didn’t quite make it until today. Each progress picture was a day I meant to blog. Smile The sleeves only took a evening each.

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Here are the two completed sleeves and the start of the body from a couple days ago.

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Here is my progress as of today, and this is probably only a couple hours of actual knitting time. I didn’t knit much yesterday since I had a mill order to dye which I worked on Wednesday afternoon and most of yesterday. Here’s the samples I worked on to match the swatches that came with the fleeces, that I dyed up on Wednesday.

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I should be able to start writing up the official pattern within a week. I am mostly waiting to fill in details like yard requirements from my yarns and to calculate the other sizes I will be adding based on the small I am working on now. I won’t have time to knit all the sizes before I publish the pattern but hope to make good estimates based on this one.

Well that’s it for this post. Sunday is Emma’s 11th birthday and we have some birthday shopping and birthday cake (well cupcakes actually) baking to do.

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New Pattern Coming Soon

The new baby sweater is finished. It needs a few tweaks to the pattern when I write it up. I basically have a bunch of rough notes that I need to adjust a few things as I re-knit the sweater again in some of my sport weight yarn. I will eventually knit it in both Classic Merino Superwash Sport wool and in the Organic Cotton Sport. I haven’t decided for sure how many sizes it will be written for until I get in there and start crunching the numbers, but probably at least three, the smallest being the size I have now, which is a newborn to 3 months. It measures about 19” at the chest.

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I had the idea to write blanket pattern in sport and DK weights to include. It would have seed stitch on the two sides and the lace pattern for the main body. After swatching the plan I found that a bind of of the lace pattern doesn’t have a nice scalloped edge like the cast on edge does. So, I cast on and knit a few repeats again and tried grafting together the two halves for a symmetrical edge. I am not really sure if I like that either though. I don’t like the interruption in the flow of the lace design. So, that idea may be scrapped.

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I do like the sweater and after a few adjustments it will be just fine as a stand alone pattern. I am considering names for it at the moment. What do you think about Dora?

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Break Time

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It is pretty good to be home after weeks on the road. It has taken me all week to make progress on getting caught up on things around here, but I am getting there. I spent the first part of the week doing taxes, bookkeeping and the children’s lessons. It was even good to just spend my Saturday morning giving the house a good scrubbing. I finally feel like I can slow down a bit. I still have a to-do list of business plans to get through, but this day and Sunday are a time to refresh.

As you can see I have been coming along on the baby sweater design. I opted for lace edging on the sleeves. I have started the bodice section which shouldn’t take much time at all. I may even have it all finished by my next post which I will try to keep up with more regularly this month. Smile

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It finally looks like spring

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While I have been busy travelling spring has finally arrived in Tennessee. The peach blossoms against the clear blue sky yesterday were begging to be photographed.

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I can’t remember what this flowering shrub is called. If anyone knows leave me a comment.

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These little wild violets are all over the place in our lawn.

I am off today on my last trip until early May. I will have a nice little break of four weeks starting Tuesday. I am on my way to the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the DFW Fiber Fest. I will get there late tomorrow afternoon and set up the booth on Thursday.

I haven’t made much progress on the baby sweater so I didn’t take a new picture. I may get some time Wednesday and Thursday evening to knit and if that happens I may get the bodice started.

Happy spring! Hope it’s looking more colorful where you are too!

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Quick Knitting and Travel Update

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Good Morning! I apologize for the long spell of silence. It has been so crazy busy with all the traveling lately that when I have a breather I don’t feel like writing. I am in Raleigh, NC this weekend, headed home on Sunday. I am here for the Carolina Fiber Fest which is back at the NC Fairgrounds this year rather than the Sanford location where it has been for the past several years. I will be going over to the festival in a couple hours but I wanted to give you a brief update on the nine days since my last post.

That’s my knitting progress for the time period and frankly it’s amazing I have that much to show you. I have five inches of the body done and I think I will stop at six inches and begin the sleeves. I am making the smallest size. I haven’t decided between a seed stitch cuff and the lace for an edge, just one repeat. What do you think? I will be doing a seed stitch edge for the collar, and there are seed stitch edgings for the button bands.

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Here’s a few pictures from the Madison Knitter’s Guild Knit – In last weekend. The Yarn Boxes went over nicely; we sold quite a few of the new Walnut ones!

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The Bocce Shawl on display.

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Yarn, yarn, and more yarn!

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So yeah that is pretty much what my days have been like. Hauling, driving, setting up and breaking down the booth, meeting knitters all day; rinse, lather, repeat. In between I have had a day or two at home only to wash and repack clothes and buy the family some groceries. After his show I have one more in this cycle of travel and then home for a few weeks. Happy Easter if I don’t post before then. Today we remember the cross and the sacrifice but on the first day of the week we celebrate the glory of His resurrection!

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