Tag Archives: knit picks

feline

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apparently, i am part cat

as i have found myself inching across the rug

as the morning wears on, to keep squarely in the shaft of sunlight

streaming in through the southside windows of the livingroom.

and trailing along close behind

is my newest knitting

in ‘jalapeno‘.

i have not

(i repeat not),

started the ‘owls’ sweater that i am supposed to be mid-kal on at this point.

the other kal gals are finished to halfway done.

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i want to make changes to it as i go

and am currently without

the required sleep

to do so.

instead i have cast on suss cousins‘ open front pullover.

this i intend to knit as written;

well, almost

except for shortening the sleeves and mangling the gauge.

(for now that’s the best i can do

at ‘leaving it alone’).

‘cast’ taken from 21:6 in the book of john.

enthusiasm

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my eldest

has been home

sick and still sick.

looking for restful things to do

& wanting any way to play with the new little

sleepy owl,

she made him a bed.

really i guess it’s more like

a blanket to snuggle down into

which is perfect in the midst of the rain

and more rain that we’re having currently.

‘the brighter, the better’ is to her current liking

so i took the pic above to give you an idea of the intent of the gift.

it’s a good thing, really that the little guy has his eyes closed.

otherwise his sleepytime quilt might jar the sweet dreams right out of him

or at the very least wake him fully up.

here’s what it really looks like.

zip, zap, zut, zinger and zowy!

i love the enthusiasm of it.

i’m gonna wear less black

‘cuz this is too much fun

(don’t cha think?)

to be missing

out on.

‘wake’ taken from 57:8 of the book of psalms.

from falling

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karla‘s little guys.

i just want to make them all.

amigurumi sleepy owl is the newest.

i found some leftover knit picks wool of the andes

in just the right colors

and hooked him up.

serioulsy cute.

no?

and i followed

the pattern to a ‘t’

except for the eyes …

and the feet (to balance out the eyes).

you know me.  had to change something.

‘eyes’ & ‘feet’ taken from 116:8 of the psalms.

prudently sheltered

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ta da!  done.
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and it was so much fun to make.
(big thanks to karla for letting me test the pattern)
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i put the leaves on backwards.
i turned the buttons into flowers.
i'm really bad at following directions
when it's not imperative that i do so.
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that said, karla's pattern was clear and easy to follow
(all of her other patterns that i've seen are too).
she adds very well labeled close-up photos and drawings for all the steps
leaving very little room for error.  nice.
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and i managed to finish it at night
so my littlest did not see the final project
which means i can still surprise her with it for her birthday.
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she's gonna just love it!
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'steps' taken from 14:15 of proverbs.

leaves

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for Christmas i got a little plastic cup with a peat pellet in it and a pack of seeds.

my little e and i carefully read the directions

(well, i read them and she repeated them after me)

before we planted them.

she was so ready to see them growing 5 minutes later

and as she somberly carried the cup from the window sill to me, she sadly said,

“they didn’t work“.

ah, patience is a learned skill and i am perhaps not the best model of it.

a week and a half later when the little seedlings poked their tiny newborn heads out of the soil

taking their first peek at the world,

my youngest tenderly carried them around quietly singing to them.

this greatly concerned my son.

‘is that good for them?‘

‘do they like it?‘

‘will she hurt them?‘

i think my assurances only partially comforted him.

we find it so hard, don’t we?, to accept things outside of our own understanding.

i even find it hard to believe God, the creator of everything, when His way is not my own.

(this, of course, is often.)

next, my girl decided she must share the new sprouts with everyone, absolutely everyone.

so each person who entered the house

each family memeber who entered the room

and each soul who braved a telephone call into our day

was told at the top of her little lungs ‘smell them!‘

as simultaneously the  fuzzy green growth was thrust at their faces

(or at their receiving ears as the case may be).

i love her enthusiam.

i hope

no, i pray

that the things that are important to me are obvious

blatantly unaviodable, to everyone who touches my life in anyway.

this is all on my mind as i tie up the loose ends (literally) of my test crochet for karla.

it is the leaves that got me thinking.

we work so hard to flatten and straighten our work

when it is nearly finished

by wetting and blocking and drying it just so.

yet, these little green bits of crocheted wool of the andes

look the most like ‘real’

the most like the way leaves were actually created

if left to curl

and bend

as they will …

… sometimes i spend a lot of time,

ever so distracted.

fighting against all the wrong things.

here’s to today, a monday, a new day

and to a clean (forgiven) slate.

‘leaves’ taken from 22:2 of revelations.

delights

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here it is,

called by the name of ‘beautiful’.

the latest version of the ‘kissed’ choker

knit up in fingering weight yarn this time.

(knit picks stroll kettle dyed sock yarn to be exact)

lots of pieces of my news yesterday had to do with the knit picks company.

in the morning,

stacey winklepleck posted an interview with me

on their community blog.

not everyone i deal with in the knitting world is wonderful to work with.

stacey is.

and there are now three of my patterns

much enjoying the company

of other indie patterns on the knit picks site.


‘line upon line’, ‘shines’ and ‘loved’ are looking forward

to another ‘friend’ of theirs

joining them

real soon.

now back to my needles…

‘beautiful’ and ‘delights’ are taken from 7:6 in the song of solomon.

tangent

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ears

eyes

cookies

these are a few of my favorite things

but really.

these are just a few of the things my two youngest kids think that the covered cds i crocheted for the ends of itsybittsysider’s log cabin carrier should be used as.  i may whip up a few more for them to use for toys when i’m ready to assemble with the current ones.

as far as knitting goes, i have often knit with two, or even three, strands of yarn held together.  i like big needles and this is a good way to bulky up most any yarn so i can use them.  but it has always been more than one strand of the same kind of yarn.  this week i’m using knit picks wool of the andes bulky which is plain wool (although calling the great colors it comes in ‘plain’ is quite an understatement).   i’m knitting this together with knit picks suri dream which is light and airy.  the resulting fabric is not really much like either of the yarns knit up seperately.  it’s sturdy like the pure  wool but has this great ‘makes me want to stroke it’ halo to it.  already in my head i have ideas for what else to knit in this combination and i’m not yet done with the pillow…

since i am known for not thinking in a straight line, it should be no surprise that there’s another project in the works (or should i say another new project in the works).  it’s still hush, hush but i can say that the soft touch of plymouth yarn company‘s kudo silk blend is really nice to work with. watching the colors stitch by stitch as they gradually change from light lime green to muted pink to soft brown is fun and there’s a tweediness to the whole skein that really attracts me.

see no evil.

hear no evil.

eat no cookies?

how about have no fear?  there, that’s better.

‘fear’ taken from 23:4 of the psalms.



testing 1, 2, 3

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karla fitch has adorable crochet patterns.

i really had a blast making her fairy hideaway,

and when i told my kids i’d made the amigurumi piggie holiday ornament as a gift

they all but begged me not to give her away. 

actually they did beg me,

then they compromised saying it was ‘ok’

as long as i made 3 more (1 for each of them).

 

started test knitting her newest design, a log cabin carrier for little creatures, with partial skeins of  Knit Picks yarn yesterday.  i think i’ll name mine ‘shelter’.  i’ve just finished the part that requires 2 old cd’s (finally a use for those aol promo cd’s i got in the mail and have been saving for so long).  it’s really clever and it totally works to add the strength this toy needs.

photos coming soon … maybe tomorrow. 

now if i can just keep my youngest from figuring out what i’m doing (i hope i can by putting it all together at night while she sleeps), it can be a gift for her ‘just around the corner’ birthday.  shh…

 

and big thanks go out to karla for letting me play with her newest idea.

i’m having such fun. 

 

‘shelter’ is taken from 27:5 of the psalms

morning without

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always strikes me as strange that some mornings i’m so glad to wake up to the sound of steady rain and on others even a grey sky feels gloomy.  more about what’s inside me than what’s outside i think.

been reknitting ‘shining around’ in city tweed hw from knit picks this week.  it’s a much lighter weight yarn so i’ve doubled it all the way through and gone down a needle size.  the pillow will be smaller in the end than the original burly spun version, but pillows of all sizes are always welcome on my couch.

reknitting brings to mind what i was doing, what ground i was gaining and where i was grasping to maintain my position when i was knitting the first version.  i guess i am a ‘process knitter’ after all.

now, you’ll never know when the pillow’s done but, having carefully checked before i joined to knit in the round that there were no twists, i got 7 rounds in toward the pillow’s center and realised i was knitting a mobius which would never become a pillow no matter how much i wanted it to.  sigh.

one minute of catering to a distraction is all it takes for me to begin to spin, or in this case knit, off-kilter.  nevertheless … i love that word ‘nevertheless’.  always have.  there’s something about the idea that it doesn’t matter a lick what came before or how i feel or what urge is stirring in my gut.  that what comes next has nothing to do with what’s been said, or what hasn’t.  it’s a choice. oh how i love that  … i choose to go on, rightly.  which in this case meant frogging back all 7 rounds to restart at the knitting in the round bit of the pattern. 

nevertheless …

 ‘morning without clouds’ taken from 23:4 of 2nd samuel

compromise

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 knit pick‘s comfy bulky honestly is comfy (and cozy, and cuddly… i could keep going but i’ll spare you).  really nice and machine wash’n’dry.  this yarn makes the mama in me smile.

i just reknit ‘loved’ in this yarn.  different colors and different yarn give it a different feel.  good different, yet different none the less.  change is not my easiest thing by far, but good change is worth letting the earth tremor just a tad under my feet for.

the sink princess ...

...

... strikes again.

my youngest, who is currently loving washing her hands every chance she gets, agreed to be photographed.  although i could only get her to stay still enough to be unfuzzy with her elbow deep in soap and water in the bathroom sink.  good enough.

‘loved’ is taken from 4:1 of philippians