It Has Been Quite an Interesting Week

Spring time in middle Tennessee can be volatile and it has been quite an interesting week. It is typical this time of year to be in 70’s or even 80’s but then that can change on a dime and it’s chilly again the next day. We experienced some strong storms with straight line winds over 70 mph on Friday. We lost a few shingles from our work shop and a tree in the back yard. Thankfully that was not near the house. There is a pine tree in the front that was dangerously close to going down which would have taken out the power lines to the house. You could see the ground lifting at the base with the strong gusts. It was very scary, but the winds finally abated and it is still there. For now. It will probably need to come down before the next threat rolls through, just in case.

We did lose power, along with over 115,000 other Nashvillians. There were downed trees, power lines, and poles everywhere. Our electricity was out for about 13 hours. We were fortunate that it wasn’t worse. A little cleaning up is all we had to worry about. There is still the tree to deal with because it is hung in some other trees making it a possible hazard but it is at the back of the property where it’s less of a priority.

So, after all the excitement from the weather was over, it was back to the tasks associated with getting ready for the first festival coming up. Last week I was getting all the new yarn labelled. Then it all needed stored, some went in the trailer and the rest in our work room storage bins. There are also new Darning Eggs, Nostepinnes, and Shawl/Hair Sticks to be tagged/packaged and stored. Like the yarn, some go straight in the trailer with restock in the work room storage.

Yesterday I got the oil changed in my truck. I took along my computer and got some inventory updating done while I was waiting. We did some grocery shopping in the afternoon. Today has mainly been packing for my trip. I will drive to Raleigh, NC in the morning and set up the booth on Thursday at the Carolina Fiber Festival. I have a full schedule on my website, if you’d be interested to see what we have booked this year. If all goes as planned, we will be vending at 21 events this year.

I have made progress on my knitting project but will post a picture of that next time since it’s too dark at the moment to get a good one. I didn’t get started on this post until near dark. So, I’ll sign off for now. It’s almost time to start rummaging in the kitchen for some supper.

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What a Great Week for Dyeing

With the exception of Saturday, we had a great week for dyeing. What is even more exceptional is that it is still only February. The daffodils are in full bloom too. Of course it’s in the upper 40’s today, after a high of 84 degrees yesterday. Yep, that is totally normal for middle Tennessee.

Saturday morning had a very chilly start of 24 degrees, but work must be done. So, we got out there early and got the largest batch of yarn dyed. I forgot to get pictures while it was drying so here’s the buckets after taking them off the lines. The colors were the warm greens, purples, greys, pinks and teals.

We took a day off between batches to allow for drying time and to prep for the next one. Monday was much warmer and we got the second large batch done. The colors we did were cool greens, black, yellows, oranges, reds and neutrals. We took a day off again to let the yarn dry and prep for the last day’s work.

Wednesday was blues day and the weather was even better.

I am very pleased with how great they came out. I am also so glad to put away the dye pots for awhile. LOL!

I am working on labels today while Jerry is back at work in the shop on some new Shawl and Hair Sticks. We are adding back some exotic woods like Purple Heart and Mahogany, as well as restocking the domestic woods.

I have been working on my new design when I can, which is not as much as I would like. Progress has been made though. I completed the edging on the cast on end and have knitted 4 and one half repeats on the main body. The edging will look much better after blocking.

I apologize for the time between posts and for the brevity in this one, but labels await my attention. See you soon!

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It Has Been a Good Week

It has been a good week. Last Saturday, I was at The Yarn Patch in Crossville, TN doing a trunk show. It is a very lovely shop. You should definitely stop in and shop if you are in the area. There’s a bit of my Classic Merino DK there now too. I had a great time meeting knitters and crocheters, helping them select yarn for their projects, and knitting a bit on my latest design. I will get to that in a minute.

On Monday, the weather was finally improved enough to get back out to the dye pots. We dyed the remaining color for the order I showed you last time. It was even dry by the end of the day. That is a bonus this time of year. Once again the color looks a little bit distorted here. It’s actually much greyer in person.

I mentioned above about a new knitting design. I did some preliminary calculations and planning and then cast on with the Classic Merino Bamboo in Ironstone.

The shape is a stole knit from end to end with knitted on edging at each short edge. I began with a provisional cast-on onto a spare circular needle. I dislike this process but it was necessary in order to have live stitches for the edging later. I find it less tedious using a spare needle than using waste yarn when need to use those live stitches later. It saves the effort of putting them onto a needle, which is tedious to me.

I recorded the weight before and after knitting the first two repeats of the body lace chart. That let’s me know how much yardage it will take for a given size shawl. Then, as you can see, I joined a new skein to knit the edging. I want to know how much yardage will be used to knit each edge. I weighed the skein before starting here too. It is a little fiddly with two skeins attached, but it won’t take too long and it is worth it for the information gained. I am happy with how this looks and lace knitting is my happy place!

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A Lot of Dyeing Going On Here

I have knitting to report but before I get to that, here’s what else I’ve been doing. There has been a lot of dyeing going on around here. We will be dyeing our own yarn next month, which is what some of those boxes contain in the back ground. At the moment, however, we are working on a custom dye order for Anne Hanson of Knitspot Designs and Bare Naked Wools.

Before we proceeded with the order, I skeined some of their base to dye samples of the colors they want.

These are the results I sent. The bottom samples are actually less violet in person than they look in the picture. It is actually a silver color. After they approved which colors to use, we spent a couple days getting the dyes mixed and the yarn prepped. We also added a fourth dye pot and propane burner to gain efficiency.

We planned to dye the larger portion, the blue, first. Monday was chilly and damp but was better than Tuesday, so we got the blue yarn dyed before the bad weather started. It will be awhile before we get this fully dry though. We had to bring this all in Monday night. We’ll put it back out ASAP. The silver will get dyed later this week, if possible, but Tuesday was too cold. It makes it difficult to heat the pots and rinse when it below 40 degrees.

It would be great to get the second half of the order dyed by Thursday, if possible, because I am going to The Yarn Patch in Crossville, TN on Friday afternoon. They are hosting a trunk show with our yarns on Saturday, February, 4. I am really excited to be invited. That brings me to the knitting portion of this post. I need some knitting on the needles for the weekend because I will be hanging out all day Saturday at the shop and will want something to knit, right?

If you remember, I worked on a few ideas for shawl designs. I haven’t totally pitched the idea for the triangle one but I am not ready to commit to it yet either. So, I needed something to knit. My son expressed a desire for gloves when I was knitting the ones for Christmas gifts. This began my interim knitting project with some stashed Cascade 220.

This was a quick knit and my needles are once again empty. So, now what to knit? I decided to move on to the other idea I swatched instead. Do you remember this?

My plan is to begin this idea. I am going to knit this design in my Classic Merino Bamboo yarn. I narrowed my color choice down to these three colors: Ironstone on the left, Garnet in the middle, and Fern on the right. I am leaning towards Ironstone. What do you think?

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Am I Just Wasting My Time Here?

The big question in my mind at the moment is am I just wasting my time here? I am still knitting little swatches, poring over stitch patterns, and charting them to see how they will work together. I am not sure if I have a winner yet.

This is my latest attempt. I hoped to accomplish a couple of things here. The first thing is to see how the elements I had tested in my first swatch would work out with the shaping I plan to use. This is to get the visual effect of the stitch patterns when they occur next to each other. The second thing is to figure out how the charting would work with the increases.

Here is my first swatch I knit to get a feel for the three patterns. You notice in this sample, I tried knitting garter ridges between the patterns. I didn’t like that for a couple of reasons, but mainly, it was awkward to do because all the stitch patterns begin on wrong side rows. It is more complicated to get the garter to work nicely when I change colors on the wrong side rows.

There is a theme going on with all three of the patterns I picked out. They all have slipped stitches and begin on the wrong side. I like the idea of that but it is a bit of a bugger to chart. I wonder at this point if it is worth pursuing or am I headed back to the drawing board? I have already invested quite a lot of time to get to this point and I am still not sure if I love it. I have two other rough ideas I want to explore. One will be the bottom stitch pattern from the above picture with a cable element. The other is the lace pattern from my last post.

In other news, I have finished the Cables and Lace Blanket. I wasn’t able to make it quite as large as I wanted because I ran short on yarn. It is a nice size despite that and I have been enjoying it on the chilly mornings while doing my reading with my coffee.

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Do You Swatch Before You Knit?

The answer to the question “Do you swatch before you knit?” is, for myself, yes and no. I will sometimes swatch for a sweater for gauge. I will also swatch for a project if the yarn is new to me and I want to get an idea of it’s properties. When I am working on design ideas though, knitting up samples of stitch patterns is essential. I want to get familiar with the pattern; see how it looks and feels with the yarn and needles I may be using; and to work out the chart.

I am a firm convert to knitting stitch patterns with charts. Written directions are fine for verifying a charts when there is part that is confusing. Knitting from them (written directions) though is an exercise in frustration for me. I always chart lace, cables, etc. before knitting a stitch pattern if it is not already done by someone else.

Here are a few interesting stitch patterns I am working with at the moment. I charted both of them first and then started knitting some samples. I worked up both stitch patterns in two different yarn bases. The red samples are in my Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Garnet. The fingering weight samples are in my Classic Merino Bamboo in Sea Oat. I used US 5 needles on the sport samples and US 3 for the fingering weight ones.

I took both of these pictures before I blocked them. I wanted to have a record of the texture because I planned to block them as for a shawl. My initial idea was to design an asymmetrical triangle using both of the elements. After working up all four of the samples I am not sure if that is still the plan. I like both but they might end up being used in two separate designs. I also can’t decide between the bases. It’s early in the process so anything goes at this point.

I mean, just look at the post blocking pictures! It’s hard to choose between the slightly chunky texture of the sport weight and the light, silky drape of the fingering weight Merino Bamboo. I will be moving on to the next phase of swatching with the shaping and see how that works. At the same time I can determine whether combining these two elements will be a good idea or not. I share those results in my next post.

I’ll leave you with a few photos of my new pizza stone and the pizzas we made for New Year’s Eve.

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Here We are Again Facing a New Year

Here we are again facing the start of a new year. I will choose to be an optimist and look for the good I hope for in the days ahead. There is always both good and bad but I find it’s healthier to focus on and be thankful for the positive and pray for strength to get through the negative. So, welcome, 2023!

I am making plans for the coming year this weekend. I have twenty festivals and a possible trunk show on the schedule. We are also ordering yarn to dye for spring/early summer shows. Jerry is busy on the lathe in the wood shop at the moment making more Darning Eggs and Nostepinnes. (Note this picture was from a few months ago, we don’t have leaves on the trees here at the moment).

I probably should be knitting some new samples for the booth soon, but for the moment I think I will finish my Cables and Lace Blanket first. I am on the last skein of yarn so it shouldn’t take much longer. I am not decided on what my next booth sample will be. I am still considering designing a shawl but we will see.

I did get all the Christmas knitting done in time.

They were very well received.

In fact one of my daughters hinted that that hat would be perfect for her to “borrow”. I volunteered to make her one to which she didn’t say no, LOL. So, I took the day after Christmas off, a well earned break I decided, and made one for her too. This is the Hot Waffles pattern again and I do highly recommend this one for a quick, fun knit.

We had a nice holiday gathering with lots of good food and presents. I am afraid that I am terrible at getting pictures while people are here. I received lots of useful and fun stuff. I picked a few out myself, which were some new large ceramic mixing bowls for bread rising and a larger pizza stone. I also got the classic Julia Child Mastering the Art of French Cooking 2 volume set. I also got a candle, framed pictures of two of my grands, handmade lotion bar and body balm made by my daughter. I love this by the way. I use it all the time.

Here’s the one thing I got that was really fun and I actually have a picture handy. It’s that Rush sticker on my window. Love!

Okay, I will close for now. It’s just three of us here tonight. I promised my 12 year old son that I would make pizza. Maybe I’ll even take a picture of my new pizza stone in action! See you soon. Happy New Year!

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On This, the Longest Night of the Year

On this, the longest night of the year, my holiday preparations are in the final sprint.

The larder is stocked for festive meals. There are some lights, candles, and a tree to ward off the darkness. The presents are mostly wrapped, except for a couple items. I am still waiting on two things in the mail.

I am feeling very confident that the gift knitting will be done in time too. The Hot Waffles set is all done. It is washed and drying so that it can be wrapped tomorrow.

One of the fingerless gloves in Classic Merino Superwash Sport is finished and I am knitting in earnest on it’s mate. These are pretty big so it’s a lot of knitting for a glove, so I’d better get back to work on them.

Keep the lights burning, and the needles clicking! Remember the days start getting longer tomorrow. :-) Happy Solstice and Merry Christmas!

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A Bit of Catching Up to Do

It looks like I have a bit of catching up to do here on the blog. My last post was before Thanksgiving when I was in Texas for the East Texas Fiber Festival. After I returned home it was full on Thanksgiving cooking and baking time. We had a nice day with all of the local family for dinner.

Festival travels are over until March so I have been using my time to refresh. I have been doing more cooking and baking. Christmas preparations are underway too. I have all the shopping done but I haven’t started package wrapping yet. I am still waiting for a few deliveries so it can all get done at once. Oh, and I am knitting a few gifts which I am pretty sure are doable in time.

The red hat, which will also have a pair of fingerless mitts to go with, is Hot Waffles by Anne Hanson. The blue will be fingerless gloves in Classic Merino Superwash Sport Sapphire. I am following the pattern in Ann Budd’s Knitter’s Handy Book of Patterns.

This project wasn’t really a Christmas gift. Elijah had a old Santa hat from somewhere that was looking very worn out. He likes to wear it this time of year though so I offered to have a try at knitting a replacement. I took the measurements from the one we had and made it to match those. He said it wanted it fit loose.

I made it using some of my Classic Merino Superwash Sport in Garnet. The white was some fingering weight baby wool from stash.

With all the Christmas knitting that I have been doing, I haven’t been working on my blanket much this last week. Some progress has happened though since my last post so I’ll put up a picture just for fun.

If I don’t get another post done before the holidays, Merry Christmas!!

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Greetings From the Great State of Texas

This morning I am sending you greetings from the great state of Texas. It’s been three years since I was last here and I am excited to get my booth set up today for the East Texas Fiber Festival. I am writing from my hotel room which is about a half an hour from Canton, where the venue is located. It was a long haul to get here but for a change I took my time and stretched it out over two days. It was an uneventful drive this time. We made sure to check and grease all the bearings and air up all the tires.

Due to the leisurely pace of my travels, I had a bit of knitting time at the end of my driving days to get some knitting done. As you can see I have almost finished my second Shapely Mitts. I only have to knit the ribbing at the finger end of the hand and then work the thumb section to have a completed pair.

Progress on the Cables and Lace Blanket is coming along as well. I found that I use about 23g/84 yards per each pattern repeat. What this means, which is the good news, is that I did estimated well for the yardage required to make the Medium size. The bad news is that I don’t have quite enough yarn to make that size. I started with under 1400 yards. I knew that but hoped I had over estimated enough in the pattern that it would work. Oh well, I’ll just have to leave off a repeat saving enough for the border.

I am going to cut this short and head over to the venue for booth set up. See you soon!

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