Baby Sweater Done

Just finished baby sweater for a lady faculty member at work.  It's made from worsted weight superwash from a free pattern from Ravelry called the Ribbed Baby Jacket. I worked like a banshee for the last few days and got finished last night at 8:30 (Dec 12, 2011).

I'm finally getting around to posting pictures of some things.  One is some jewelry I bought at a holiday fair yesterday. Now normally, I'm not really interested in the flatware jewelry or items that people sell. But these were so artfully done, I couldn't resist. And the bracelet is curved and fits around my wrist perfectly and will not get in the way while I'm typing. I loved the way the handle designs meet in the middle with a pretty bead. I also like the fact that they are turn of the century flatware and have the dates and the name of the pattern on the back. Nice details.

I also finished the February Lady sweater by E. Zimmerman (at least the baby sweater was hers, then someone modified it to fit big people (adults that is).  I had purchased some pretty wooden heart buttons for it and attached two of them and then realized that I had lost one of the buttons around the house.  So I took them off and put on some more buttons that I had bought at Yarn Dogs in Los Gatos.  I like them but are not what I originally envisioned. I'm sure the heart button will turn up again and hopefully I won't lose the other two before I find the third.

Lastly I present to you the finished iteration of the Daryl jacket.  I added some finishing details because it looked too plain as it was.  I added some banding around the sleeves, on the front pockets and in back (to look like a belt). I then added some pretty contrasting buttons that I had bought at Yarn Dogs in Los Gatos. If the jacket still fits later, I may put in a lining.  But at this juncture it's done. I'm pretty pleased with the results.

Has it really been that long?

Apparently it has been almost three months since I've posted.  Most likely the reason is frogged knitting and no weaving.  I did just finish Elizabeth Zimmerman's February Lady sweater.  I made it in Cascade 220, purple heather colorway.  I can't tell you how pleased I am with the outcome.  I have made multiple sweaters throughout the years and for one reason or another I most always hate them.  Usually for the reason of them being ill fitting - too big mostly. I think the reason is lack of doing proper stitch gauge (with finishing and blocking).  I always think that my gauge is spot on with the patterns but over the years my gauge has loosened quite a lot.  Typically now to get a typical 5 stitches per inch, I'm having to go down to a size 6 needed where I used to be able to use an 8.  But I'm reverting (diverting?).  So hence, I don't knit for myself very much.  But this swear seems to have come out spot on for sizing. The pictures of it on people in Ravelry don't hold a candle to the way it looks and feels in person. It has beautiful color depth due to the heathery colors and it feels substantial.

A couple days ago I bought some grosgrain ribbon to put underneath the buttons to hold the button band down and to have something to anchor the 1" wooden heart buttons down.  I used tiny little invisible stitches to anchor the pretty dark pink grosgrain ribbon down and today I'll sew on the buttons.  I'll probably try to find little buttons, in the button box, to place on the grosgrain ribbon side, underneath each button, to anchor it even more.  I'll post pictures on here, Ravelry & Flickr when I'm done.  

Yesterday I went to 3 Beads and a Button store in Cupertino to pick up one button to match the 5 round horn buttons I already have.  I ran into Jasmin and Gigi of the Knitmore Girls podcast.  I was across the room from them but thought I recognized Gigi's voice and look up and there they were, in person. Jasmin is the one who told me a week or more ago that this lovely little store is going out of business. It's really a nice little store. It's always sad to see nice little mom and pop stores going out of business.  Anyway, I took the opportunity to go over and say hello and tell them I was a fan of their show and we began a conversation that probably lasted a half hour.  It was a lot of fun to talk to them, they are fun gals.

OK, just because I haven't been weaving or finishing lots of knitted objects, doesn't mean I haven't been busy. Earlier this year, I took the first of two classes that was supposed to prepare us to 1) weave fabric and then 2) weave it.  So in April, I took a workshop (through Blacksheep Guild in Woodside), for yarn and pattern selection for the fabric for the jacket, with Sharon Alderman. Then in September, we took a workshop with Daryl Lancaster, to put one of her Daryl jackets together using the handwoven fabric.  I could never figure out what yarn I wanted to use for the fabric so in the end, I just purchased some from JoAnn's fabric and craft store.  I didn't learn nearly as much as I would have, if I had woven the fabric but I did learn stuff and turned out a light weight unconstructed jacket, with Hong Kong seams inside (in 3 days).  Since then, I've put together two more jackets, one for my friend Vicki and one for myself.  They both turned out great. I'll post pictures when I get a chance.

I've also been doing a lot of dyeing of fiber in the last 3 months on the back patio outside.  I've done pounds and pounds of fiber.  I don't think I'll buy any more fleeces until I can see some noticeable reduction in the stash of fiber I own.  I haven't really been spinning much in the last 2 or 3 months since it's probably taken me that long to knit the February Lady sweater. It really surprised me how long it took to knit it since I'm always hearing about people popping things off the needles right and left on my podcasts. Sorry, digressing again.  Anyway, I think this blog post is long enough so I'll sign off now.  Have a lovely Thanksgiving everyone!

No News (is good news?)

Sorry I haven't posted in a while but it's been lazy days here at Casa de Sharolene all summer. I haven't done any weaving and only a bit of knitting.  I've been getting stuff together for a Daryl Lancaster jacket making class next weekend - no small task.  Many small parts and some trips to the local fabric store.  I decided not to make the fabric for the jacket because the muslin I made from her last one day class was a bit small. Granted I was 15 pounds heaver when I actually made the muslin than when the pattern was made for me almost a year earlier.  (Digressing:  I really don't know how I can go up that much weight in that short of a time, since I don't binge eat.  I just eat a little too much food every day and don't weigh.  But that has come to an end. I'm tired of the yo-yo dieting thing and am determined to weigh a few times a week for the rest of my life so that doesn't happen any more.)  Anyway, I bought some light weight jacket fabric which I hope will work. It's a bit lighter than she wanted but I'm basically using it as a muslin so I don't care very much. The jacket style is not something I'll wear much anyway, it's more the experience of the class that I want rather than the finished product.  Several people in the class have made fabric for the jacket and I'm sure that their products will be fantastic. I envy them their confidence. 

Crochet Jewelry

I created this necklass in a Blacksheep Study Guild workshop a couple of weeks ago. I just thought to blog it. I found a box that exactly matches the color of the necklass, how unusual is that? Thank you Patt Shelton for teaching it.

It's very easy to make. Just some simple single crochet. You prestring the beads onto 32 gauge wire and then single crochet them together. The hardest part of this is trying to figure out how to make a necklass symetrical. Of course, leave it to me. I'm the only one in the group who tried to do a symetrical necklass. And, of course, my long center beads, were not centered in the version I made in the workshop. I had to go home, cut the necklass apart to reclaim the beads and then rework it the next day. Didn't take too long to do, maybe an hour while watching TV. To finish it, you put on a couple of jump rings on each side, attaching them with a very small crimping bead and then attaching the finishing hardware, which you can see in the photo. Quite a fun project, which I might repeat this weekend at a retreat house I'm going to with some friends.

$86 Worth of Textile Tools

Jim and I went to a SF State textile department sale on Sunday. Usually trying to get him into San Francisco is impossible. He really hates everything about San Francisco. But due to the fact that he had the week off and because it was textile related (and because I couldn't find anyone to go with me), he acquiesed. We got up there very efficiently, even finding parking in the closest possible free area they had. Amazing in itself given that there were graduations happening all weekend. We even got there about 20 minutes before the sale started. We had some good conversations with people waiting in line and I saw a couple of people from the Blacksheep guild as well. There was lots of stuff in this 20x40 foot room that looked like a lab room without the lab equipment. People were grabbing stuff so fast, you hardly had time to look at it. The largest things they had seemed to be spinning wheels. I think there were three of them at about $100 each. I got probably 10 old Handwoven magazines for $1.00 each, about 25 pounds of heavy weight chenille (at $2.00 a pound) and some tools: rope maker, some small shuttles, a warping paddle and about 20 cardboard spools for $1.00 each (not a bargain but I didn't have to pay for shipping). When I'm doing a big spinning job, I like to wind off the yarn onto these kind of spools so that I came compare colors from yarn that is still tensioned. If you try to put them into balls, there is no tension and the yarn relaxes. Lately I haven't been plying my yarn because I would rather wait for that process in case I want to weave with it single ply. Once I ply it, that's it and I have no more yarn structure creative control over it.

Do you know what the 2nd picture is of? It's a tamping tool for either tapestry weaving or cut pile. I'll be using it for cut pile.

Waffle Weave Towels

We just finished some waffle weavetowels. They were quite a challenge to warp - primarily because we did front to back warping. Don't get me wrong, we have mostly just done F2B warping. It is always messy but we have always been able to straighten them out, although at times they look like such a mess you'd never be able to straighten them out. This one was so bad that we thought we'd have to cut out the messy section and retie back on, 650 threads. I don't know if we saved any time by straightening it out thread by thread but at least we saved the warp and didn't have to tie on back all those threads.

Well the warp is off the loom and I'm in the process of hemming and finishing six towels. One of them has problems where the shafts weren't lifting correctly on the dobby loom, an issue we've had problems with since we bought the loom three years ago. We never seem to weave enough on it to work out the bugs. I will need to do some hand weaving to catch some threads so the towel is usable, at least by us.

Since these are waffle weave towels, there was considerable shrinking. The measurements were/are:

On Loom: 27"

Off Loom: 24" x 36"

After finishing: 18-12" x 26"