Confessions of Fidgety Fingers

It is February again

2012-02-11T17:08:00.002-05:00

Hey look it is February again and I'm doing a post. It seems odd that i feel the need to try to blog about the same time every year.
I had another successful year knitting Christmas presents, but I believe that was the last year where I'm going to try to knit something for everyone. There is just only so many hats, scarves, mittens, etc. that one group of people can have.
I went to a winter retreat in Ashville, NC, and learned to hand pant roving. It was a roving sampler with angora, llama, white wool, and brown wool. I have spin up two of the samples, and I have started the third. I also took a class on cardboard looms, and did a small sampler.
I started my first pair of socks, and they failed. I tried two at a time on two circulars, but my yarn ended up going in all of the wring directions and at least one of the socks was having some bad laddering. I'm going to try them again soon, but I think I want to finish spinning up the hand panted roving samples first.

A slacker I am

2010-02-12T11:52:00.000-05:00

Well it has been a year since i have posted. I would say that time flys, but I know that I could have made the time to be better about posting.

As a quick catch-up, last spring I did some knitting, and freelance work. In June I got a contract job, which I’m still working. Starting in October I knitted my fingers off trying to get all of my holiday knitting done, and I was actually mostly successful.

And now for more details.

While I did enjoy some of the freelance work, there were many parts of it that were frustrating. I think one of my biggest problems was that I accepted too many projects, so I had to work longer hours than I wanted to make progress on the projects. Also I found out that communicating with international clients proved to be more challenging than I was initially expecting.

The contract position that I got is working for A.D.A.M. I was initially brought in to finish out another person’s contract, which was supposed to expire at the end of June. The contracts are 3 months long, and as of right now I will be here through the end of March.

Since this is supposed to be mostly a knitting blog, now it is time to talk about fiber. This year for presents I knitted a hot water bottle cozy, 2 scarves, 3 pairs of glove-mitts and two gift card holders. I’m sure I’m missing one or two items. I had to re-knit one present as one of the pairs of glove-mitts was too small for my father-in-law. This year I’m hoping not to have the same knitting time crunch. I have already started the knitting for this year’s presents. I would love to be able to do one present a month, but I’m already a month behind for that goal due to the re-knit.

In November we lost our oldest kitty. She was 17 years old, and the only one of our cats that my wife had before she met me. Early this year we started to notice some strays in the neighborhood. One of them looked a lot like the one we lost, so we started to feed them. As we got more and more to show up, a total of about 6, we decided we should be responsible and get them fixed. My wife found a place that will spay/neuter and administer a rabies vaccine to feral cats for $20. So far we have taken 5 in to get fixed. One of them obviously was a pet at one time and he is currently residing with us. He is still on probation, but depending on how he gets along with the other cats at the end of the month, he will most likely stay.

fiber, toes and cats

2009-02-12T22:47:00.003-05:00

Well I have finished my first skein. I still have a lot of the roving to spin, but my first spindle got too full for me to spin any more. I Andean plied it. I think I may use it to knit a hot water bottle cozy.

Before I get to the ugly pictures, I was out walking around the house and saw these crocuses. They are about a week and a half old now, but it has been really nice outside lately, and I couldn't resist the picture.

So earlier this week I tried to step over a chair and struck my toe in it. I got a nasty bruise, but my wife and I don't think I broke it, it was still rather sore for that day. The first picture is what it looked like a few hours after I hit it, and the second picture is what it looked like the next day.

We have five cats, so I figured I would introduce some of them. First is Dewi. She is the smallest of our cats, weighing in at only twelve pounds.

Next is Hammie. He is the youngest of our fur-kids and quite often hyper.

Pala is our fat kitty. She loves to sleep and cuddle, and is happiest when she can do both at the same time.

Matahari is the last one in this round. He is about seventeen pounds and loves to lay on my lap, or at night, on my chest.

knitting, spinning, work and fish

2009-02-03T21:32:00.004-05:00

My knitting has been progressing. I have finished the red band that was in my last post, as well as the white band and I'm starting on a black band. As I get further along will take another picture. I am about halfway through the broken rib scarf. I have started another scarf, a 3x3 rib, that will be a Christmas present for a another extended family member.

I was putting away some of my Christmas presents and found a book on spinning yarn that my wife gave me. This got me to want to try my hand at spinning again. I have taken a few classes in the past, so I grabbed one of my spindals and some roving that I bought many years back. I'm still having some issues with a consistant thickness, but it should be some interesting yarn when I'm done. I have no idea what I'm going to do with the yarn, but practice isn't a bad thing.

I got my first freelance project done. I was having trouble maing sure that I was working on the project effectively, so I started moving the office from the spare bedroom upstairs to the living room downstairs. One of my first projects in this move was to shift the aquarium. This is a 55 gallon tank that my wife bought for me many years ago. I had it running for a while, and i ended up letting the fish die. It was in a room that we hardly used, and as you can see it started to get some nasty hard warter stains. I'm going to need a bit of time to get the aquarium cleaned before I can refill it.

silly and odd songs

2009-01-26T18:55:00.002-05:00

I was listening the the Cast On podcast today and she played a song that I liked called "Code Monkey" by Jonathan Coulton. I find this musician very funny, but admittedly I have a rather twisted sense of humor. Some of his other songs that I like are "Re: Your Brains", "Ikea", "Mandelbrot Set", "Bacteria" and "That Spells DNA".

knitting updates

2009-01-25T20:20:00.003-05:00

I have gotten a bit done on the baby blanket for which I was commissioned. It is turning out rather nicely I think. It currently measures about 10.5 inches across, and the request was for it to be about 48 inches square.

The other project that I'm working on is a scarf for a friend of the family. It is the first present that I'm knitting for Christmas.

It is an early start, but I have a few small, easy travel knitting projects for Christmas presents, so I'm using them as filler knitting, when I have only short periods of time to knit.

cold weather and hot drinks

2009-01-16T18:41:00.002-05:00

It has gotten cold down here in Atlanta. For the last two days we haven't gotten out of the mid 30's (F). Thats has made me think of hot drinks that I enjoy. I'm currently sitting with a nice hot cup of cocoa, but I just finished making some Spiced Tang Tea mix. I didn't quite follow this recipie, as I looked at the spice rack and added in some allspice and cardimon.

As I sip my plain hot cocoa, I'm wondering what I can add to spice it up. I know I could add some flavored booze, or some cinnamon, or nutmeg. I have to go looking and see what I can find for suggestions.

a small change

2009-01-16T10:02:00.002-05:00

For those of you have who read this blog in the past, you may notice that I have added in ads to the right. I'm not sure how I feel about them yet, so I'm going to play with it for a while and see what happens.

baby hat pics

2009-01-15T23:00:00.002-05:00

As promised the commissioned baby hat.

microblogging and commission knitting

2009-01-14T22:21:00.003-05:00

Many months back I decided I wanted to try Twitter. While I was working, and had things to say, I did good at posting my 140 or characters or less. Since then I created a Plurk account. I haven't been as good about posting to my Plurk account, as I don't have as many followers there. For those of you who don't know, microblogging is a way to just put a short, 140 character or less, posting to a site, where others can see what you are doing at the time.

A few posts back I mentioned a baby hat and blanket that I was commissioned to do. I just finished the hat this weekend. I haven't taken the time to take pictures of it yet, but I will get a picture soon, and I will post it as soon as I do. I'm pretty happy with the hat. I started the blanket today. It will be concentric squares, starting with black, using narrow bands of white to separate the black and red sections.

takadai

2009-01-04T00:37:00.002-05:00

My lovely wife bought me a takadai for Christmas. OK actualy this is a Christmas, birthday, anniversary present combination. It arrived shortly after Christmas, as FedEx wanted to hold on to it for a little while. I haven't had a chance to warp it up yet, but as soon as I get a few projects taken care of, and figure out what i want to braid, I will have it warped up. i ahven't taken any pictures of it, but she bought it from www.lucets.com. You can find a picture of it here.

a year passes

2009-01-01T00:43:00.008-05:00

Well it has ben an interesting year. There has been good moment and bad monents. Overall I have to say that it was a good year. I got several projects done, and learned new things. I maybe out of work, but I had been wanting to leave that job anyway.

I have been wanting to post thing for a while as I have finished the folowing items before christmas. The last present I had to knit was a hot water bottle cozy for my wife. It was done with a hand dyed worsted weight wool. This project knitted up nicely, but the neck of it seems a bit long and a bit tight. This is good to know, as I will be making another one for my great aunt in-law for Christmas 2009.

Hammie looks so cute looking over the chair.

The other project I knitted was a Checken Viking hat. I have to say this is my least favorite item that I have knitted. The overall size of it is good, but the earflaps are a little forward for me, as the back of them come to about the back of my ears. The legs on the side are rather small for the size of the hat, so next time I want to make them bigger.

I'm currently working on a commission piece of a baby hat and blanket in University of Georgia Bulldogs colors (red, black and white). I have also put together a list of items that need to knit for Christmas 2009. I have already started on the first present for next year, a scarf .

my things are changing

2008-11-21T19:00:00.007-05:00

My knitting has been coming along well. I have finished the pink ribbon illusion scarf. I'm not completely happy with this, as after I finished I realized that the pink ribbon is on opposite sides of the scarf. I also feel that the ribbon itself is streached out a bit long. Both are things that I can correct if, or when, I make another one.

I also finished the tea cozy for my MiL. I think it is a bit big, but my wife says that it should fit because the tea pot that my Mil has is bigger than ours. I'm thinking about possibly making a pad to go with the tea cozy, but that will depend on the amount of time that I have.

I have finished one of the mittens for my BiL. I made a couple mistakes on it, but I think overall it went well. I have just finished the thumb gusset on the second one, so this project is comming a long well.

Speaking of time, I should have a lot. I was fired form my job on Wednseday. While I have been unhappy there for quite a while, I would have prefferd to be looking for a new job while I was still employeed. I have been spending the last couple days talking to recruiters, searching and applying for jobs and doing some chores around the house.

im a ":"

2008-11-14T23:03:00.000-05:00

You Are a Colon

You are very orderly and fact driven.

You aren't concerned much with theories or dreams... only what's true or untrue.

You are brilliant and incredibly learned. Anything you know is well researched.

You like to make lists and sort through things step by step. You aren't subject to whim or emotions.

Your friends see you as a constant source of knowledge and advice.

(But they are a little sick of you being right all of the time!)

You excel in: Leadership positions

You get along best with: The Semi-Colon

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

and another month has gone by

2008-11-03T12:46:00.002-05:00

Well the month of October is over, and I can't say that I'm sorry. October was a busy month for me. The kumihimo class that I had went well. I had 7 studnets and all seemed to enjoy it. I had to give up the volunteer work, as it was too much of a workload for me to stay sane.

As for my knitting, I have almost gotten to the second ribbon on the pink ribbon scarf. I have finished the thumb gusstet on the first mitten for my BiL. I determined that the tea cozy that I was going to knit for my MiL was too complicated, so I have picked out a crochet pattern. I still need to find the yarn for that project, but it calls for worsted weight, and I have a lot of that. I am going to make a hot water bottle cozy for my wife. I have ordered and recieved the yarn for that, but not started it. I was going to start the mittens for my MiL, but I can't find the size 4 double point needles that I bought. I may just need to buy a new pair and go from there. Well since I have less than 2 months until Christmas, I guess I really need to start knitting every moment that I can.

quick catch-up

2008-10-01T13:22:00.002-04:00

Wow. I didn't realize that it has been so long since I posted. I have been super busy, so I'm just doing a quick list of statuses on projects and life

Kitchen Set - I still need to try felting the two pieces. I have a pair of jeans that I want to throw in with them, but I just haven't taken the time to do this.

Pink Ribbon Illusion scarf - I have gotten past the first ribbon pattern and I'm working on the stockenette (sp?) between the two ribbons.

Mittens for BiL - I have gotten past the cuff on the first one, and I'm working on the thumb gusset increases. This is my first colorwork project and it is proving interesting.

Tea Cozy for MiL - I have cast on, and that is it. THis required a tubular cast-on, which was interesting to work.

My class finally finished on 9/28. Wow did the class drag on, and on. Now that it is finished I'm thinking of getting my Microsoft Certified Professional certification. It won't make much of a difference for my current job, but it isn't a bad thing to have.

I'm teaching a kumihimo class at an SCA event this weekend. I'm not sure how well it will go as we are having a gas shortage in the area, and it may be keeping people away from the travel.

I have picked up some volunteer work. I'm currently the webmaster for the Atlanta Toys for Tots. This oppertunity sort of fell in to my lap. It has filled in most of the free time that I had, but it is a worthy cause, and it helps keep me in practice with technologies that I don't use at work.

My knitting time has greatly been diminshed, but I'm hoping that it will ease up in a few weeks and allow me to make some progress on my knitting projects..

busy busy busy

2008-09-11T22:19:00.007-04:00

Well I have been keeping busy enough that trouble has stayed away from me. My work has been sending me to a .Net programming class for 5 nights a week and two hours on Saturdays.

This doesn't mean that my knitting has completely stopped though. Just before Labor Day I was able to finish the cabled mitens for my great aunt-in-law.

During Labor Day I was at my in-laws for a family reunion, and I was almost able to complete the kitchen set for my sister. I was using Noro, and I realized that it wasn't 100% wool, so I have stopped on that project, which needs about 100 more stitches. I'm going to try felting the two pot holders (below) and see if it is worth me finishing the last piece, or if I need to frog the whole thing and find a different yarn.

Since I have t two projects so close to being done, I have started on a pink ribbon illuson scarf (below) for my cousin, who has brest cancer, and a pair of mittens for my brother-in-law (no pictures yet).

My class is going on for another week, and then I have the Atlanta 2 Day Walk for breast cancer. The fall is always a busy time of the year for me.

almost done another project

2008-09-03T18:53:00.001-04:00

As much as family events can be stressful, I was able to get a lot of knitting done over the holiday weekend. We had a family reunion over the weekend, and I took my sister's christmas present to work on during the slow times. I had most of an oven mitt completed before I left, and I was able to finish that off while I was there. I also knitted all but the last thumb of the casserole mitt. I believe that I'm going to have to buy another skein of the yarn, as I doubt that I have enough of the yarn left for the thumb. Once I have everything knitted I'll take a picture of the the prefelted items and then the pieces after they have been felted.

I'm rare

2008-09-02T22:10:00.000-04:00

HowManyOfMe.com

There are
5
people with my name in the U.S.A.

How many have your name?

busy, but not with needles

2008-08-28T18:29:00.000-04:00

I have gotten rather busy lately. My work has provided me training for a programming language. It is Monday through Friday from 6:30 to 8:30, and then Saturdays from 10:00 until noon or 1:00. This has reduced my knitting time quite a bit. I have started to exercise daily, and due to the class, I am exercising during lunch, which is one of the times that I was knitting.

I have put my wife's sweater jacket on hold, so that I can focus my time on Christmas presents. I'm still working on my great aunt-in-law's mittens, but I'm in the middles of the last repeat of the cables in the hand. I'm working on my sister's kitchen set while I'm at home, and I'm most of the way through the oven mitt. I'm not sure which project I'm going to work on after these as I bought some sock yarn while i was on vacation, as well as some bulky weight yarn.

I was able to post the pictures from my vacation to my Flickr account. As well as from the wedding I went to on the way home from vacation.

yea. new car

2008-08-13T20:35:00.007-04:00

I got a new car today. It is going to be a bit of a change since I'm use to driving a Ford F-150.

And now I'll be driving a SmartCar. Isn't it cute.

vacation time again

2008-08-12T23:39:00.001-04:00

Yea for vacation. For me vacation is a two week camping event called Pennsic. This is very similar to many of the other SCA events, but just on a larger scale. this year, due to the economy and gas prices, there was only 10,500 attendees, and we have been running close to 12,000 and 13,000.

My vacation started off with a bang. We had picked up a good friend of our, and her two kids, as they were going to ride with us. After getting most everything packed, and having dinner, I decided to clean litter one last time. As I was taking the first litter box out a small bird, a wren I believe, flew in to the house. It took us close to an hour to get the very frightened bird out of the house. At one point we had to move the cats out of the main section of the house, as two of them (Hammy and Dewi) were very interested in the bird, and one of them, Hammy, had actually caught it in mid-air and brought it down to the floor. He then didn't know what to do and let it go. The following morning we finished the packing and headed out. We stopped for the night in Morgantown, West Virginia, and arrived the campsite the following day about noon. We spent the rest of the day and most of the following day setting up camp.

There are a lot of classes offered at the war, and so on 7/31, I started taking my first class, which was ASHI CPR Pro (CPR for the Professional rescuer), which took close to 6 hours. The following day was ASHI First Aid, which due to the fact that there was only one other person taking the class, and we both have been taking first aid classes for more years that we want to count, the scheduled 6 hour class was completed in 2.5 hours. Completing these two classes allowed me to work as a Chirurgeon again, as my CPR certification lapsed back in February.

It also meant that I was able to start taking fun classes. The first of which was "Medieval Islamic clothing from head to toe". I currently dress in 14th century Irish, but I have been thinking about changing to Islamic clothing, as it is cooler for the hot Georgia summers. This was actually the only clothing class i took, even though I had planned on taking a few others. It is vacation after all, and there is no sense in forcing yourself to do something that you don't have to do.

Some of the other classes that I took include, "Teaching in the SCA", "Butter churning", "Bag cheese made easy", "Spinning silk on a drop spindal", "History of hand knitting", a mead brewers' round table, and circular sprang. I think that I only went to half of the classes that I was originally planning on going to, but I still learned several neat things.

We had to leave earlier than we normally do. One of my best friends from college was getting married on the evening of 8/8, in Maryland. While we did miss the actual ceremony, we were able to make it for the reception and enjoyed ourselves greatly.

We headed home the following day, and had a pleasant and scenic drive. We did run in to some trouble just north of Anderson, South Carolina. We were traveling down I-85 and the the passenger side tire of the trailer we were towing blew. We pulled off to the side of the road and determined that the rim was also damaged. We were able to just barely get to a store in time to get a new tire. The whole process lost us about two hours.

I did take a lot of pictures, but I still need to review them and post them to flickr. Once that is done, then I'll get a link up for review.

I'm a nerd....

2008-07-23T22:52:00.000-04:00

big surprise there.

podcasts

2008-07-15T23:05:00.000-04:00

I'm going to diverge from my normal topics for this post,a nd discuss the podcasts that I enjoy. I'm going to stay away from the standards for knitters, like Knit Picks', Cast On and Diva Knitting.

I listen to a few National Public Radio (NPR) podcasts. I daily listen to Marketplace. I find the commentary that they provide very insightful. I follow that up with the weekly recording of Marketplace Money. To help keep me up-to-date on the science front, I listen to Science Friday. Just so that I don't feel overburdened and heavy from all the serious stuff, I listen to Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!, a humorous political quiz show. Lastly, for a bit of quirk there is This American Life.

I'm a fan of all sorts of fiction. Unfortunately, I have problem finding time to actually sit down and read. The first of such podcasts I found was Escape Pod, which plays mostly science fiction stories, but was also has created two spin-offs of Pseudopod for horror and suspense stories and PodCastle for fantasy stories. To round out the short stories, there are the podcasts Random Signal and Variant Frequencies which are not as genre specific.

For longer stories, I feel a great source is Podiobooks.com. Most of these works are read by their authors, and tend to be unpublished, or self-published books. Another great resource for novels is LibriVox. LibriVox has a much greater listing of books, and contains several classics. I have used Podiobooks.com with my podcatcher, and it has worked well. The last time I was looking at books on Librivox they didn't have the ability to download the books through a podcatcher, but I just checked, and they now offer that service. With either of these sources, I have found that while the story maybe excellent, the person reading can really turn me off the feed.

While there is a large list here, I'm lucky in the fact that I can work with headphones on, and listen to many of my podcasts there. I also listen while I do yard work, which makes cutting grass much more pleasant.

and there is a new project in progress

2008-07-11T23:40:00.001-04:00

I'm almost done with the first mitten for my great aunt-in-law. I have less than an inch to knit on the thumb and then I'm done with the first mitten. I would have been much further along on this, and possibly done, but my wife and I spent a long weekend over the 4th of July with her parents. The recipient of the mittens live with my in-laws, so I couldn't work on that present while I was there. So I decided to work on a kitchen set that will be the Christmas present for my sister. We stopped at Joann's on the way out of town, as I knew from the pattern that i needed a bulky yarn. I found a nice variegated yarn and we headed to the mountains of North Carolina. When we got there and settled down I pulled out the pattern. I then noticed that this is a felting project. I checked my new yarn, and it was only 20% wool. I knew there was a yarn shop in town, so the next day I headed down to town and picked up some nice 100% wool yarn. I got the two pot holders knitted, but I had no yarn needle to take care of the ends, and my mother-in-law couldn't find hers. I did learn the magic loop method of knitting on the pot holders, so that was quite fun. I went to start on the oven mitts, but i needed two size 11 circular needles, and I only packed one. We were going in to town again on Monday, it was a long weekend, and I checked the walmart, but they only had circulars in 4 sizes and none of them were 11's. I used the extra time to work on my wife's sweater jacket, which I had taken, in case I couldn't find any yarn for my sister's present.

We had a rather bad yard sale the other weekend. As we were putting up the items that didn't sell, my wife took pictures of the furniture. We posted the items to an unlinked page on her website (www.erinjoi.com/yarsale.htm). We have since sold several pieces, totaling to about $90. While it doesn't increase the overall yard sale total by much, it is a help in the raising of $3000 we need for the walk.

I had a doctor appointment earlier this week, and she told me some sad news. My blood sugar was high and my triglycerides were high. This basically means that I'm on my way to becoming diabetic. She suggested I start the Carbohydrate Addict's diet and told me to come back in three months. If I haven't gotten it under control in that time, then she is going to put me on drugs. That is not something I want, so I'm working on cutting my carbs where I can.

need more progress

2008-07-01T20:38:00.000-04:00

There isn't too much to report on my knitting. I'm still working on all three of the projects from the last posting. I would be done the first of the mittens, but one day when I was working on them while my wife was having some oral surgery, I wasn't sure if I had the cabling in the body, so I ripped it out to the ribbing, and had to rework the body. I'm working on the last 4 rows of the body, and then I'll be decreasing for the top. I would love to work on them over the upcoming long weekend, but the recipient will be around. I'm thinking about starting the kitchen set for my sister, but I need yarn. If I can't find anything that I like, then I'm just going to work on my wife's sweater jacket.

We had another yard sale last weekend (6/28/08). This was a rather poor yard sale, as we made less than $500 for the cause. The weather wasn't too hot, and we didn't have any rain to speak of. The only reasons that I can come up for how poor we did are:
1) the economy, an easy scapegoat
2) we lost a couple signs pointing to the yard sale and some that ended up pointing the wrong direction
3) if there were people taking the week of the fourth of July off, they may have left the weekend before.
We'll be having another one in the fall, but we haven't set a date for it yet.

2008-06-10T23:27:00.002-04:00

My wife's sweater jacket is coming a long. I'm not spending as much time on it as I would like, but that is partially due to the increase in exercise that I have been making myself do. The exercise is effecting the progress on this project because it is my TV knitting. I was at the hair salon the other day and when the young lady was finished and showed me the results for my "approval", I noticed that the bottom of my face looked fat, at least to me. This has encouraged me to increase the amount of time I spend on the tread mill. I also want to start some stomach flattening exercises, as i have a little bit of a belly.

My truck/travel knitting, the cabled mittens for my great aunt-in-law are coming along nicely. I took them to a medieval event this last weekend and got to where I'm to make the thumb opening, but had to stop, as I needed some scrap yarn, which I didn't have with me. I do have to admit that I had to change the yarn I was using on these mittens. The first yarn was a nice baby blue, with a shiny fiber running through it. I thought that it would show off the cabling nicely, and it did.

The problem was that I didn't read the yarn recommendation of worsted, and the blue yarn is closer to a fingering weight. I have to say closer, as this is some mystery yarn that I have in my stash. I went back to my stash and found the left over, partial skein of gray from the sampler scarf I made for myself, and started using that for the mittens. I'm hoping that I have enough of the yarn, but if I don't I should be able to buy another skein.

A while back I had said that I was only going to work on two projects at a time, as this would allow me to make a good amount of progress on both, and was easy to separate in to in-house knitting and travel knitting. Well after listening to a past Knit Picks podcast, where charity knitting was discussed, I decided to go and look and see what options there were out there. I found the website Knitting for Charity, which had a nice listing of charities. I was originally looking for something breast cancer related, as I am heavily involved in breast cancer charities. I saw one that was for chemo hats, and another that didn't limit the type of project, as a patient would like a shawl or scarf as much as a hat. But I found one charity that I couldn't resist. The Snuggles Project is a group that promotes making small "pads" for cats and dog in shelters. I'm starting out with a simple garter stitch pad, but I think I may do something a bit more complicated for the next one.

I had the spang class. I think it went well. It looked like the 5 students picked up the technique, even though they weren't able to finish their learner project. They all seemed genuinely interested, and were interested in me teaching other fiber classes.

woohoo. my first project for me is done

2008-05-28T23:40:00.005-04:00

The fiber fun continues. I have finished the fingerless mittens. I think they would have looked nicer in a yarn with more of a sheen, as I feel this would show off the twists for the faux cables.

The sweater jacket for my wife is coming along. I have about nine inches of the body knitted. I hope that I have enough yarn. This is a new pattern, and I initally had to restart as using one strand was too light and wouldn't weigh enough, so now I'm using two strands. The yarn in the pictures is actually lighter than the actual color. The yarn is actually a dark teal.

My next project is a pair of mittens for my great aunt-in-law. They are cabled, and the first of the many Christmas presents for this year. I'm hoping to not be knitting every spare minute in November and December this year, so I'm starting early in my holiday knitting.

Since my last posting, my wife and I participated in a community yard sale. It was nice and relaxing. We sold a whopping $3.00 of stuff, but several of the people donated their unsold items to us, so we came back with more items than we took.

Memorial day weekend was my 11th anniversary. We went to Baltimore, Maryland for Balticon, a sci-fi and fantasy convention. This is significant in that we first met at Balticon. We both enjoyed ourselves. We were able participate in several interesting, and some not so interesting, panels. I was able to listen to Mur Lafferty read a new piece of fiction that she is working on, and we spent many hours listening to filk.

catching up

2008-05-07T07:20:00.000-04:00

There have been a lot of things going on since my last posting.
I forgot to put in my last post that I have gotten yet another book on knitting. I received "Cables Untangled: An Exploration of Cable Knitting" by Melissa Leapman. I had seen this in the book store before, but had decided not to buy it then. I had really liked the cable sampler afghan/blanket. It is in my Ravlery queue, but I know I have some other knitting to complete before I can start that.

Two weekends ago (April 26) my wife and I had a yard sale to help fund raise for the breast cancer walks that we do. The yard sale was fairly successful. We earned over $900. There was a few issues with the weather. We had a downpour just after lunch, and then a nice rain storm as we had closed up and were packing up. We would have not been able to do as well, if it was for the help from a good friend of ours, and her son.

I'm slowly making progress on my two knitting projects. I have almost finished one of the two fingerless gloves. I chose a faux cable pattern that uses a T2 stitch (k2tg, k through first, move both stitches to right needle). I think it is mainly the yarn, but from what I can tell, the T2 stitch isn't as pronounced as I was hoping. The sweater coat that I'm working on for my wife is coming along nicely. I had to rip out my first three rows, as single strand of yarn, it was too light, so I'm using two strands of yarn, and it is knitting up much nicer.

I was contacted late last week about teaching another class. This class will be for sprang this is a weftless fabric making technique that is dated back many years. Like with the last class I will be using the proceeds from the supply costs as fund raising for the breast cancer walks.

two projects down and two started

2008-04-21T23:06:00.003-04:00

Well it was a productive weekend, fiberwise. On Saturday, I bound off my sampler scarf, and weaved in the few ends I had.

Once that was done, I finished off the kumihimo braid I was working on, and wrapped the end. I measured it, and I have a total of 17 feet. This should get me about 8 necklace cords, which isn't too bad.

Since I had finished projects, that means I need new projects. After pondering the items I had queued in ravelry, and came up with a sweater coat for my wife, and "wristers" (think fingerless mittens) for me.

a good weekend

2008-04-06T18:41:00.001-04:00

It has been a good weekend for me. My wife and I went to coronation. In the medieval recreation group, we change kings every six months. This isn't true for all kingdoms, but it is for the kingdom in which I'm currently living. During the second court of the new king and queen, I took over the position of Kingdom Waterbearer. It is now my responsibility to make sure that there is water, and other refreshments available to the fighters at all kingdom level events. I will also be asked to help with providing this service to many other events.

The other good thing that happened is that I had gotten a late birthday check from my in-laws. I bought two things with the check. One is a new knitting needle set. The wood is so pretty. I can't wait to cast on a new project and use them.

Class and excitement

2008-03-30T16:07:00.001-04:00

I'm slowly making progress on my scarf. I have finished the first skein of yarn, and if I'm only doing three repeats of the patterns, then I'm on my last repeat. Once I get through this repeat, then I will test the length, and see if it is going to be long enough.

I had my kumihimo class. It didn't go as well as I was hoping, but it was a learning experience. I have picked up a few things that I will want to do for the next time. The discs I made for the class were a bit rough, and I'm sure I can improve the quality of the discs, with a few simple changes in the process of making the discs, and in the tools that I used. I was using embroidery floss for the strands of fiber, and I had them wound on the paperboard floss bobbins. Even though it will cost more, I really think that if I provided EZ-bobbins instead, then a lot of the issues with tangling fibers will be solved. I also know that if I had given myself more time in prep, and had set up the first braid on the discs, then the "students" would have been able to start braiding faster, and seen more of a result on the first braid. Most of the students never got to the second braid, and this additional preparation would have allowed them to move on to the second braid. I have a couple changes that I need to make to the documentation, but they are small changes, and i'll have them done by the end of the weekend.

I'm really excited that I got an invitation to Ravelry, and I'm known on there as AzureSquirrel. I'm a bit overwhelmed in trying to get all of my needles, and magazines in to their system. I also want to start adding in the items that I want to make in the future.

Now that I have gotten the class done, I can concentrate on the kumihimo braid that I'm working on for the Red Raven medallions. Once that I get that done, then I'll move my main focus to finishing my the scarf, and I'll start on my wife's sweater/coat. From there, I'm not completely sure. I know I should start working on presents for Christmas, but at the same time there are the coifs that I will want before next winter.

I'm still here

2008-03-19T22:34:00.005-04:00

I can't believe that it has been over a month since I last posted. Unfortunately I can't say I have gotten a lot done in that time. I did finish the glove-mittens for my wife. She has used them during several mornings in February and a couple in early March. My only issue with the pattern is that I think the pinkie is a little tight. I think this can be fixed by adding a stitch, at most two to the pinky, and therefore the whole hand.

I'm still working on my scarf. I would have more of it done, but it is still my away from home project, so I get any where from one to five hours of work on it a week.
I have been using my home time to work on a class I will be teaching for my local SCA group on kumihimo. This has been good, because it has gotten my butt in gear on a project I have been meaning to do for a while. I mention in a posting back on September 23, 2007 that my wife and I had gotten an award called the Red Raven. We received them on elastic cording. I have been wanting to create a more appropriate cording to put them on. Well I figured that the class was a good reason to start on this projects and I started to dive through my many books to find a pattern that I wanted. I haven't gotten enough done for me to make the necklaces yet, but Here you can see the home-made marudai that I'm building it on, as well as a close-up of the braid.

Oh, yea, and Bajing, better known as Hammie is in the background.

the next projects are...

2008-02-16T20:42:00.000-05:00

It has been a while since I have posted. I would like to say that it is completely because I'm too busy, but I have been rather lazy about posting. I did receive the book of 25 sock designs by Interweave press. Several of them look wonderful, but I have yet to even cast on a sock yet.

I have one of my wife's glove-mitts done, and it is looking pretty nice. She had picked a wedgewood colored yarn with dark blue, white and red flecks. It knits up quite nicely.

I'm also working on a scarf for me. It is a sampler scarf with four patters (basket weave, sugar cubes, seed and divided square). It is in a gray, slightly, shiny yarn. It is coming a long nicely, as I'm in to my second of four sets of the pattern. The directions call for three pattern sets, but I think I will want it longer than that.

After I'm finished these items, I'm going to start on my wife's sweater jacket. I have started this twice already, but I think the pattern is bit beyond me at this point in time. I have found another pattern in a magazine that looks nice and it should be within my skill level.

I will also start a couple coifs for us. I saw the pattern in a magazine, but I want to modify the pattern a bit. The pattern has an open face, but we want to have a closed face, so I'm going to knit a flap that can be pulled across the front and then buttoned to the side, around the ear area. I still haven't figured out how I'm going to do that, but I'll look at it when I cast on the project.

2008-01-27T19:32:00.000-05:00

I have finally finished my wife's scarf. I would have wanted it longer, but my wife seems quite happy with it, and it is long enough for the way that she will be wearing it.

Now that the last of my Christmas presents are done, I have started on a sampler scarf for me, and I will be making a pair my wife a pair of fingerless gloves, that have a mitten "flap" to cover the fingers when they get cold.

I got a couple books over the holiday season. I had bought "Knit Mittens" by Robin Hansen before I knit the mittens for my father in law, but I haven't had a chance to do any of the projects.

I had gotten some christmas money, and with it I bought "Knitting Circles around Socks" by Antje Gillingham. This describes how to knit a pair socks on a pair of circular needles.

I'm still waiting for "Favorite Socks: 25 Timeless Designs from Tinterweave" by Ann Budd and Anne Merrow. I'm hoping that it will arrive soon as I would love to try my hand at a pair of socks soon.

end of christmas

2008-01-14T20:25:00.000-05:00

Yea!!! The holidays are over, mostly. I have presents to exchange with some close friends, but I'm done with the family units. I don't have any more knitting pictures to post at this time, as I didn't knit anything for my family. I'm still working on my wife's scarf. It is taking a bit, and it is using up yarn faster than I was expecting. I'm working on my 4th 65 meter ball of yarn and it is only 3.5 to 4 feet long. I bought 6, so I'm hoping that I don't need to go back and buy more.

Christmas part 1

2008-01-01T00:43:00.000-05:00

I spent Christmas week with my in-laws. I had a great time, even if work did call me multiple times. Everyone seemed to like their presents. My father-in-law loved the mittens, and said they fit perfectly.

My mother-in-laws hat and scarf looked good together , and it is amazing how wide the 4x4 ribbing on her hat can stretch.

My brother-in-law's hat was a bit small, but he was able to stretch it out enough to get it on his head.

After a good dinner and great company, we noticed that it was starting to snow. This made the company hurry out and down the road, before the roads got bad. When we woke up on Boxing Day, we were greeted with these scenes.
Here is a closer view of our truck.

I did get a message from my sister, and she licked her scarf, and wondered how I did it. Unfortunately I won't be getting a picture of that one.

...and one last present to finish

2007-12-21T23:43:00.001-05:00

So close, but so far. I only have my wife's present left to do, and everything is packaged up for gifting. I'm not sure if I will be able to do the pattern that I want for my wife's scarf. The pattern I'm using is called a berry stitch. I have pulled it out once because i had messed up on a stitch some place. I need to be a lot more carfeful in how I do the (K1, k1tbl, K1) into the same stitch and the P3tog, or else I'll have to find a new pattern. Luckily this time I was only on the 6th row. The reason that i couldn't fix it is because I couldn't tell where the mistake was (the yarn is a little fuzzy), and with all the increases and decreases, it is hard to tell exactly where the issue was. I have learned something from this pattern. I have learned that i should knit a bit looser, as putting 3 stiches in to one is a bit difficult at times. I have also learned that I have been knitting through the back loop this whole time.
Unfortunately I forgot to take pics of all of the completed projects before I wrapped them, so I'll have to take pics as they are opened. I won't be able to see my sister's scarf, as i won't be there when she opens it and i don't feel like it would be proper for me to ask her for a pic of it after she opens it. So, if you want to see the presents I knitted, then you'll have to wait until after the holidays.

more progress!!!

2007-12-11T23:20:00.001-05:00

Yea. I'm at my half-way point. I have just finished off my sister's scarf!. It looks great, and it should be long enough at almost 6 foot long. I have already started on my father-in-law's mittens and my mother-in-law's hat. I'm hoping to start an on-line photo account soon, so I can post pictures in the future.

one more down...

2007-12-02T20:27:00.001-05:00

Woohoo. I have finished my mother-in-law's scarf. I still need to block it as it is curling a bit, but that takes no time at all. My sister's scarf is about a third done now. It is coming a long quite nicely, and it looks like it won't need to be blocked.

I'm trying to decide if I want to use the circle looms for my mother-in-law's hat, or if I want to find a pattern and knit it. I think part of that will be determined about the amount of time that I have. I'm going to start the mittens next, as I have not found a needle pattern for mittens that i like, yet.

and the knitting continues

2007-11-26T22:06:00.001-05:00

My Christmas knitting is coming along well. I have my brother-in-law's hat complete and I am working on my mother-in-law's scarf. I have about a foot, eighteen inches complete.

I didn't like how tight my sister's scarf, so I unraveled what I had done and restarted with bigger needles, and a different pattern. Originally it was a basic 3x3 ribbing. This is still a ribbing, but is a k3p1 with an extra knit at the end to offset the purls, which creates almost a furrow.

SCA and Christmas presents

2007-11-19T22:17:00.000-05:00

I have been busy as usual. I had a big weekend. I was the head waterbearer for a small war in my medival recreationist group. This basically means that I was reasponsible for making sure that all of the fighters and populace are well hydrated. It was alot of walking and driving around the site, but it was rewarding and satisfying.

On a more fiber related note, my wife and I have figured out what we are making for Christmas presents. I'm making a scarf and hat set for my mother-in-law, a hat for my brother-in-law, mittens for my father-in-law, a scarf for my sister, and a special somethign for my wife. The hats won't be too bad, as they will be done on a circle loom, and I can normally make one in a couple hours. The mittens will also be done on circle looms. This is a pattern that I have never done before, so I have no idea how long it will actually take.

It is the scarves that I'm worried about getting done on time. I'm doing the scarves on needles, and I'm not as quick using needles. I have about 6 inches of my sister's scarf done. I need to get new yarn for the one for my mother-in-law. I had purchased a speckled yarn, but the perferated edge pattern that I'm using will look much better in a space died yarn.

Try this agian

2007-11-05T21:49:00.000-05:00

Well I let this lapse, so I'm going to give this another try. I'm back to working on my wife's sweater jacket, when i make the time for it. I know that I will have to set it off to the side soon, as I need to start working on holiday presents. I'm thinking that they will include some scarves, but I'm not positive because my wife is looking for the list that we had started last year.

back to the needles

2007-09-23T23:11:00.000-04:00

Well I got all of my swap mini-bags in and I should be getting my return mini-bags back soon. I can't wait. The swap coordinator says they are all great. When the swap comes back I'll post pics of both what I sent and what I received.

This coming weekend is going to be quite fun. My wife and I are going to be walking in downtown Atlanta, GA to raise money for breast cancer research. the walk is just the beging of what looks to be a very busy fall.

I have restarted my wife's sweater jacket. I'm having issues doing the make1 increase, but i know i just need to practice. I really need to start working on holiday presents too. My wife says we ahve a list of things that we are going to make, but she needs to find it.
back to the needle
My wife and I was honored this weekend. We were both awarded a Red Raven, which is an award given out for service in our local SCA group. While I do help out here or there, it is my wife that really deserves the award. She works hard and truely cares and loves what she does. I'm just there to support her. I was kind of asked about taking over a kingdom level office. Since we have people fighting in armour, one of the support groups provide water to the fighters and the populace, or spectators. I have to decide if I'm interested or not. I think one of the reasons that I'm actually considering it is that I know and respect the person who currently holds the office. If I do decide I'm interested, and get the position, I would have a kingdom office before my wife, wich would be a bit odd, as she has much more service oriented than I am.

Post-vacation

2007-08-25T19:22:00.001-04:00

Wow. What a month. First there was the packing for vacation, then there was the two weeks of vacation, and then tehre is getting caught up at work from being away on vacation.
My vacation consists of camping with many friends. This is not a small even as there was over 11,000 other people camping with me. I was able to take several classes. One of te things that I learned was how to spin with a drop spindle. This is something I tried to teach myself several times over the year, but never got the hang of until I took the class. My first pieces of yarn are a bit bumpy, but, it would pass as "novelity" yarn in the store, and as I get practice, I'll get better at it.
I need to get back to the wine and meeds I have made. I believe that all of them are ready for bottles and aging. While they are quite drinkable right away, like chilis, soups and stews, the flavor does improve with age. I have had some cases where a brew was quite undrinkable initally, but after a year or longer, the product was quite enjoyable.
My swaps are moving along slower than I would have liked. I didn't get as much done on the handbags while I was on vacation as I would have wished. One of them is almost done, it just needs a lining, a drawstring and an accent or two. I should have them done in time, so I'm ot overly worried about it.

Vacation prep and Brewing

2007-07-19T21:07:00.000-04:00

Packing. I really don't like it, even when i tis packing for vacation. I'm really behind on what I should be doing, and I really can't plan on doing much this weekend as it looks like it is going to a busy one. My wife and I have plans for all day on Saturday, and then Sunday will be busy with packing, building and cutting grass.

One of the things I have gotten done is some bottling of homebrew. I "owe" a person 2 bottles of homebrew every year that I go on vacation. I have some well aged mead, a honey wine, that I will give as my payment. As my second payment, I'm using a cranberry cordial that I "brewed" this year. Isn't it a beautiful color?

I'm working on next years payments. I'm currently brewing a raspberry wine (carboy in the back), a mead made with honey gathered mostly from foxgloves (front carboy), and a maple syrup flavored mead (you can see the air lock sicking up behind the front carboy).

Wow. I just realized I initially planned on this being a fiber related blog, and I have yet to have one good fiber entry. Oh well. I guess that is just the way life goes.

Kumihimo swap

2007-07-15T22:32:00.000-04:00

I got a kumihimo swap back on Friday. Kumihimo is a Japanese braiding technique. While this technique has been found in many areas across the world, it is mostly associated with medieval Japan. I got 7 fabulous braids, and I had kept one of my submissions. I also got a color photocopy of all of the submissions and copies of the instructions for the samples that weren't sent to me. This swap was organized through the Kumi2 Yahoo Group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/kumi2/).

Fund raising and vacation prep

2007-07-09T23:13:00.000-04:00

Well the fund raising yard sale is over. While we did OK ($900), it is lower than our average. I think we would have done better, if it wasn't a holiday weekend here in the US, and the fact that it drizzled off and on most of the morning. We packed everything back up at the end of the day, and we'll have another yard sale in September or October.

Now that the yard sale is over, it is time to start preparing for our vacation. We are going camping for 2 weeks with the SCA. This is one of the few events that I truely look forward to every year. It is two weeks of camping and relaxing and classes and friends. I guess I really need to start looking at the class list and figuring out what classes I want to take.

Well I just signed up for a swap on one of my Yahoo groups. It is a mini bag/purse swap. I'm going to make 3 of them and I already have ideas of how I want to make the bags. Now I just need to get started on them so I can get them sent off by 8/22. Since they can't be any bigger than 7 inches in all directions, I don't expect them to take long. I also have a sweater jacket that I need to finish for my wife and then I have a small fun project. It is a boa that is shaped like a snake. I'll need to get some pictures of the projects, as well as a way to track track the progress of them here.

Fourth Fun

2007-07-04T23:26:00.000-04:00

Well I didn't get much done with crafting or reading today.

We, my wife and I, spent most of the day preparing for my father-in-law coming in to town. We did go and get a load of furniture for our yard sale on Saturday. The yard sale is to raise money for breast cancer research. My wife, father-in-law and I walk in a local 30 mile walk where the minimum donation is US$1000 to participate and we have 3 yards sales during the year to raise money. The three of us also participate in the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer, where I work on the support crew while they walk.

We did go an see some fireworks. This was the first time in 5 years that we have seen fireworks on the fourth. We watched from the top of a parking garage near my wife's work. We got an OK view of one, and then saw snippets from 3 others.