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Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Whew. Just popping up to grab a gulp of fresh air before diving back in again. Things are crazy here, but I did manage to get one design commitment in the mail today…not that I’ve actually finished sizing and writing the pattern, but who’s keeping score? A sneak peek: 
This will show up this winter in a great venue a designer friend of mine is helping spearhead, and it’ll be fun to be a part of it. Meantime, I do need to hit the books (and the calculator) and get busy and get the instructions done and OFF MY PLATE. Hopefully today, but probably not until tomorrow, actually, the way things are going. Ever hear of Murphy’s Law? At least it’s been soggy and cool, keeping my spirits high, in a way, by not being so gorgeous that I’m crying I’m not out enjoying the summer. At the same time, a little sunlight streaming in the window might help move things along quicker. Maybe?? Send some my way if you’ve got it! And now, deep breath, plugging nose… |
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Monday, July 21, 2008 So I’ve been teasing about having finished photos of a little summer sweater for quite some time. And today’s the day: 
A little sleeveless tank top with a button front. Took only 2 skeins of Sandnesgarn Mandarin Petit Egyptian Cotton: 1 of each color. Colors chosen by the recipient, buttons picked up elsewhere, since I didn’t have anything to match at my shop. 
The knitting was a breeze, and happened in a flash, but the finishing kept getting put off and put off and put off, until next thing I knew, weeks had passed. (Can you tell I’m not the biggest fan of finishing?? Join the club, right?) 
I used a Katia book for kids that I used to have in stock. (Heck, maybe I still do…I need to go and check.) Even if I don’t, I’m sure I have a pattern for something similar. If you’re interested, just drop me a line. Besides putting in a few moments here and there on the sweater above, there has been camping, canning, thrifting, shopping at farmers’ markets, and knitting on magazine deadlines happening around here. And now I’m off to hang some sheets on the line before it decides to rain, enjoy a cappuccino, and get back to a sleeve that needs to get finished TODAY. Hope you’re enjoying your summer! I can’t help but enjoy mine with gifts like this at least once a day: 
Thursday, July 10, 2008 Where have I been right? I really thought I’d have something good to show you, even by last week, but it just hasn’t panned out. I’ve been THIS CLOSE to finishing a little summer sweater for over a week, now, but then I also got yarn for a magazine design, and well, we all know how that goes. Finished objects soon, I promise. We actually had some fabulous SUMMER weather there for awhile. The whole Canada Day weekend was spent at the beach, which was awesome; I can’t tell you how much! Last year our beach was flooded out, so we didn’t get in a single beach day. And this year it had really been too cold up until that weekend. But then we got a few scorchers, and boy, did we take advantage! We only live 5 minutes from an amazing sandy beach with shallow water for miles, and it’s just fabulous for kids, so we go often while the season’s on. Now it’s turned chilly and rainy again, so we haven’t been to the beach for almost two weeks, and I think we’re all in a bit of withdrawal. What else? Oh, some fresh cherries from the fruit truck…not Bings, so they were a bit small for canning (meaning, they’re a bit small for my pitter, which takes out a hefty chunk of cherry when it takes out the pit), but I did do 5 quarts. The rest of the 20 lb. box we’ve been eating. For those of us trying to eat as locally as possible and living in the north like we do, the fresh fruit season starts pretty dang late. And there are only so many sticks of raw rhubarb a person can take in one day for their fresh fruit servings! So, we broke down and bought BC cherries from the Okanagan. (Local-ish, inasmuch as they were from BC at least, since pretty much anything you could get in the grocery store is from the US or even further afield. Yup, you can thank good ole Jimmy Pattison and his ilk for his infamous tactics of buying one country’s fruit cheap and flooding the other country’s market to drive down the prices of the fruit there so he can buy it cheap and turn around and sell it back down to the country from which he bought the first batches. Playing the farmers. I really don’t know how a farmer stays in business. And we won’t even talk about the useless food miles tacked on to produce by this technique.) Long story short? Mmmmmmmmmmmmm. And a crisper full, still. Yes, working on a magazine design, and here’s a great reminder that you can never be too complacent in your knitting: I had about 8 rounds done on the body of my colorwork sweater when my husband grabbed my knitting and set to trying to untwist it. I said, “What ARE you doing?” And he said, “Oh, I just thought maybe it was twisted.” And I haughtily replied, “Oh, no. I checked that CAREFULLY when I joined my round. And I haven’t noticed a thing so far, so I don’t see HOW I could have twisted anything.” At which point I proceeded to demonstrate to him that my sweater was indeed NOT twisted and found, of course, that it was. GROAN. Rip, rip. Good thing he noticed, because I would have been a LOT further along by the time I would have clued in. Always good to keep a pair of fresh eyes around. And thank goodness for husbands that have picked up a thing or two about knitting by osmosis over the years. |
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THE WOOLLEN EARTH, PO Box 2530, Vanderhoof BC V0J 3A0 Canada Phone: (250) 690-7777 1-866-690-9665(WOOL) Email: |