First Outfit for Granddaughter!

Our first granddaughter is due May 21st and the baby shower was last weekend. Since I was under orders not to knit a bunch of pink stuff (this is not going to be a frilly girl), I made the most of the opportunity and knitted the cutest little outfit in a pastel rose colored cashmere yarn. Just adorable, even if I do say so myself! So for those of you who didn't get to see if before it was gifted, here are a few photos. They were taken before I found ribbon that matched perfectly, but you get the idea.









Here's the beautiful mom-to-be opening gifts...


And this is me with my favorite daughter-in-law, mom, and our daughter.


It was a lovely baby shower and she was innundated with frilly pink things, so I think maybe we're in the clear now to buy whatever we want! Yea!

Texas Bluebonnet Tartan Project

Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day for a drive to Navasota to meet with my weaving study group. The bluebonnets and indian paintbrush are just starting to appear along the sides of the road, which reminded me of a project I've been wanting to start. Ever since I learned that Texas has an official tartan pattern, it's been on my weaving to-do list. It was designed by June P McRoberts and recognized by the Texas state legislature in 1989. You can read more background information here. It is a beautiful pattern and captures all the colors in a field of bluebonnets. While I was crawling around amid the flowers, I was reminded how fragrant bluebonnets are! Years ago when we went down to Eagle Lake to visit the fields of Wildseed Farms, you could actually smell the bluebonnets before you could see the fields. If I ever get my little place in the country, I'll have a big section planted with bluebonnets to enjoy each spring.









I guess since it was such a pretty day, only Loretta and I showed up for our meeting so we had a couple of uninterrupted hours for talking weaving. We're new friends and still getting to know each other, and it was a nice surprise to find out that she's been wanting to weave the bluebonnet tartan too. And that's how simply we get started on a new path. Since we're still going to be teaching the new weavers in our regular group, this will be a long-term project for us both. Hopefully by next spring, I'll have some beautiful yardage.

Odd things we remember

I was talking to a doctor friend last night and as conversations often do these days, it wound it's way to the topic of obesity. We observed that when we were kids, we were skinny and all our friends were skinny. And actually, there were only one or two obese children in the entire school. The weird thing is that we both remembered the full name of the only fat kid in our elementary schools. I recently ran across my class pictures from elementary and couldn't remember even all the first names, and these were my friends. It's odd, and in this case sad, what factoids stick in your head over the years. I remember a girl from about 4th grade that had the most horrible bad breath. So bad that you didn't even want to stand anywhere near her. In retrospect she probably had dental problems that her parents weren't able to get taken care of, but I can't remember her name. Just goes to show how society influences us from even a very young age. Was being overweight more gross than having bad teeth? Now that so many children are obese, is it still the stigma that it was when we were kids?

Don't Drink and Drive (or Weave)

Recently I bought a placemat kit from Lotsaknots on etsy.com. I had already put the warp on by my sick weekend, the bobbins were wound, and all I had to do was sit down and weave a bit. They were just plain weave. That should be an easy, mindless activity when you've got a cold. So once I was feeling a little better, I put on some nice music, sat down with some Limoncello that James had surprised me with, and wove all the way through the first placemat before I decided to finally go to bed. I got up the next morning so proud of how productive I had been in spite of being sick. Until I actually looked at what I had done! OMG! I have never in my life seen such ugly selvages! Are they even salvageable? I wouldn't have even thought that you could make that big of a mess of something so simple. But thanks to the miracle of a hot water wash and the dryer, they are presentable and the second sober one actually looks pretty good.


First dishtowel on the loom. It actually looks ok under tension, and I didn't get the edges in the photo.


The finished towel. I can't really say that I like the way they look in such a heavy cotton, but they are definitely thirsty!

Ahh Springtime!

Nothing like a bad springtime cold to make you more productive. I spent the first perfect spring weekend stuck inside with an awful cold, so I started working on my Level III swatches. They turned out to be a perfect project for when you're not feeling up to par. I got the first four completed with references and questions answered. They'll more than likely be reknit since I always do a trial swatch first to decide on an appropriate cast-on, cast-off, and proofing instructions. I do have to say, they aren't too bad, but I really don't like the Central Double Increase. Don't know if it did it wrong or if it's just an ugly type of increase, so it will definitely get a re-knit. If I did it correctly, it's definitely not something I'll ever use!

Level III Reports

Reports are now finished and marinating for a while before I reread them and do the final edits. Sometimes it's hard to proofread objectively when you're already tired of looking at it. The most difficult thing about writing a report on such a broad subject such as Scandinavian knitting is to keep it from just sounding like bullet points. There are whole books just on Scandinavian knitting and I only need a few pages, so I focused mainly on Selbu style mittens and Shetland lace. The most interesting thing about the Selbuvotter is that the design can actually be traced back to one person, and that the Selbu star pattern is what most of us think of when we think of Norwegian motifs. Just goes to show that you never know the ultimate influence of one person's work. I chose Shetland lace as my second focus just because I LOVE knitting lace. It's pretty rare that I don't have at least one or two lace projects on the needles!

When I was perusing the message boards on the Ravelry TKGA group the other day, I ran across a post about revised instructions for Level III. Thankfully, the report section was unchanged. But I am requesting a new copy before I start my swatches. I can't believe that it's already been two years since I started this level! I must be getting old because time is just flying by and I can hardly keep up!

While I wait for the new instructions to arrive, I haven't been sitting around idle. I've warped the loom for a set of dishtowels just to get back in the groove. To save a little time, I ordered a kit from Lotsaknots through their Etsy shop. The warp looks great, but I would have rather the weft not be prewound on paper bobbins. I'm having to rewind them because they don't fit in my shuttle. When these are finished, I need to get the loom set up for a prayer shawl for our April retreat, then I want to warp for more dishtowels. These are planned to be Christmas gifts this year. We'll see. I'm already seeing my typical pattern of overcommitment.

On My Way to the Masters

I started the process of getting my certification in 1999 and am down to the final level of TKGA's Master Knitting Program. Thankfully, it's a self-guided program without a time limit. The caveat to that is that if you take more than a year, you have to send for a new set of instructions that may have changes. That one bit me in the butt on Level II. I had everything done except for the reports when I set it aside and went back to school. When I pulled it all out again, The Knitting Guild of America had become The Knitting Guild Association and the instructions had gone through major revisions! I ended up throwing out quite a bit of work and adding in some new requirements. But the real kicker was that the report requirements stayed the same, and it only took me a couple of evenings to do that part! I've learned my lesson about procrastination!

So now I'm working on Level III, and I'm doing the reports first! These are more involved and I can't just knock them out in a couple of evenings. I'm going to take advantage of this COLD weekend with no committments and get all the writing out of the way. My reward is that I then get to work on swatches. Still work, but at least it's knitting work. To help me keep my focus, I started a local support group within the Knit at Night Guild. There are about 10 of us and we plan to meet every other month to lend support, guidance, and motivation to finish. My goal is to have reports and swatches finished by the end of summer, and the designs completed and ready to begin knitting by the end of the year. It's kind of a long time table, but I have a lot of other things going on in my life and I just can't push them all aside. Spring is already full of knitting and spinning workshops, two weaving groups, and knitting for our new granddaughter who is due in May! Her first gift is going to be a beautiful little winter outfit in pink cashmere. The cap and booties are finished, just have to finish the dress. After two grandsons who absolutely will not wear anything but tshirts and polar fleece, I'm looking forward to being able to make some cute girly things.