Cuz its just that awesome here...

Its no secret that I love this little town. Be it tranistory or not, it has become our home. The people, the surroundings, they have all become near and dear to us. When you move a lot--always following the job path, as we do--you don't really allow yourself to become part of a community. It is difficult to allow yourself to invest in friendships and to really and truly connect with people.

But being here has changed my mind about that. We were welcomed here with wide open arms, and pulled into the community whether we wanted to be or not. My kids have found the perfect playmates, and even though its no longer summertime they still make time to hang out with their buds. Another great thing about the neighborhood? Movie & Pizza Night at the neighbors' house every Friday night. The kids love it and can't wait for the end of the week to roll around.

Fall has been amazing here, and as it turns out the community doesn't go into hibernation just because there is a chill in the air. In early October our gracious friends and neighbors hosted Blocktoberfest, block party/Oktoberfest all in one. There was awesome food and I met and blabbed with people I regret not knowing sooner!

Of course there were gobs of Halloween activities going on, which we took full advantage of. There was pumpkin painting and carving, crafts, and hot dogs and chili. The kids had an awesome time! The pics to prove it:

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

I love Halloween. I love it that kids are a little bolder and adults are more spirited. Heck, I even knit a Bat Shawl. I'm always a proponent of rediscovering your primal self, and Halloween definitely lends itself to impishness and fight-or-flight responsiveness. For one night, people step out of themselves just enough to play pranks and let themselves be just a little bit scared.


How exactly is all of this about knitting, Betzi?

Let's start with the New Year's Day 2009. I made several resolutions, one of which was "teach 10 people to knit or spin". It might seem like a very strange resolution to some, but I firmly believe that even if people don't want to create their own wearables, they should as least know that they can. I love spreading the word about knitting and spinning (as you all know) and prosylatize its benefits probably more than my friends and family can stand. And you never know...maybe they will someday teach someone to knit or spin and further spread the tranquility and joy comes with playing with yarn.

It is this thought that motivates me more than any other.

At any rate, Betzi has been busy teaching people to knit. What started out as one "student" quickly became two--this poor drop-in hardly knew what hit her as she had two needles and some yarn thrust into her hands. As the word spread, two became three. If you count in the 2 people I taught to spin I'm now up to 5. That's halfway to my goal of 10, but ya know what? I'm confident that I will be able to find some more potential yarn junkies knitters by December 31st. There is a whole neighborhood full of people who don't know how to knit!

I'm such a wool pusher...

Here is the budding knitter that started it all. She always brings the most awesome baked goods!



You should know that in lieu of our next knitting lesson, we are all going to the Yarn Store to introduce these ladies to my supplier. I am so excited!

It is such a lovely and peaceful thing to sit around with interesting people and talk, drink tea, eat homemade baked goods, and above all KNIT. There is a quietude that comes with the soft tick-tick-tick of needles in motion, and a distinct feeling of community, even with such a small group. Women and men have been doing this very thing for hundreds of years. It comforts me that even though certain aspects of knitting have changed so much (the materials, the designs, and techniques to name a few) the important things--the fact that knitters still gather to create and learn from one another gives me great comfort.

Well that's it for now from the Blue Bungalow! There is so much going on right now that I hardly have time to blog it all. But blog it I will, and hopefully next week I'll have some new yummy yarn to show you! Take care and keep on keepin' on!

Contest Winner!

...And we have a winner! Thank you everyone for entering! The entries were all fantastic, and I absolutely love the explanations some of you gave. We had over 50 entries between the blog responses, Twitter, and Plurk. Thats a lot of names to ponder! But ponder I did and I have decided that my poor nameless Schacht will now be known as...(drumroll please)

Simon!

I have always loved the name, and "smart and sexy" as Lisa M put it is exactly how I like my men! ;) Out of all the name suggestions i received it just seemed right. Congrats Lisa! You've just won yourself some handspun, hand-dyed roving, or something knit from 4 oz. of handspun! Please email me your contact info at inkyfingers@gmail.com !

Lace Knitters Anonymous

As you all know, I have been tirelessly working on my Cherry Leaf Lace shawl. As with most lace patterns, the beginning is fiddly, cumbersome, and annoyingly difficult. Every time I start a new pattern, I wonder how I will ever get the thing completed. It always seems daunting, but once I have cast on those few first stitches and get a few repeats under my belt, something just clicks.

I have heard at least a thousand times that knitting is the new yoga. I completely disagree with this statement. Knitting can be quite stressful. Anyone who has dropped a double decrease and watch it ladder down 12 rows will know exactly what I'm talking about. Even though dropped lace stitches are reparable, it isn't easy and shouldn't be taken lightly. Fixing that mistake will take hours no matter how you do it.

This is why lace knitters--those shawl-after-shawl kind of lace knitters--can be described as somewhat intense, with addictive personalities. I myself have been known to compare lace to crack from time to time. No, that's not really true: I always compare lace to crack. Many of us can't stand the thought of having a huge, gaping mistake in our lace and will spend hours tinking (thats knit backwards for the uninitiated)what took us even longer to crank out, just to fix some funky deacrease or wrongly-placed yarnover. But that isn't all that reveals our addictive nature: If I have something non-lace on my needles, I'm still thinking about the latest Ann Hanson design, or how long it is going to take me to knit that last border row, or maybe when and if I can ever knit that darn Crown Prince Square Shawl from Estonian Lace (mark my words, one day I will conquer it!). Here it is by the way, gracing the cover of the book:


Look at those nupps! What dimension this shawl has! Anyway, to the topic at hand...

What is it about lace that attracts me so? I love the charts, I love the incredibly thin yarn and tiny needles, I love the changeable repetition that comes with knitting a triangular shawl. I love the rush that comes from knowing that you no longer need that chart. I love that my mind, my eyes, and my fingers can reach such a harmony with one another that they are able to read what I have knit like a book and know what comes next. Working in harmony with one another, they reach a kind of knitting nirvana. This is what I really love about lace knitting. The epiphany that comes with absolute coordination of mind and body.

When I show friends and family my latest shawl-in-progress I always sort of stumble over myself and apologize that it looks so funny. They always kind of look at it and fuss over it politely, unaware that its true essence has yet to be revealed. That's something else that makes me adore lace: the transformative magic of blocking.

I actually hate the process of blocking. It is a two-man job at the very least, and usually I'm so excited that I finished a shawl that I can't wait for hubby to come home and help me pin it out. So I'm left to my own devises, sticking myself with pins huge T-pins and knocking myself in the head repeatedly with blocking wires. Oh, and the measuring and repinning are just vile. I swear sometimes it must look like I'm attempting to play some sort of demented knit version of Twister. In the end, all of that insanity is worth it. Because what you get as a result of all that precise pin placement and lump of holes, nupps, and stockingette is a masterpiece. Here is proof, seen once again in the example that was Kiri:

Kiri as a lumpy, noodle-y mess:


Kiri after washing and blocking to within an inch of its friggin life:



I know that many of you are thinking that the Kiri lace "leaf" and the Cherry "leaf" are similar--if not the same--animal. It is a common misconception that all lace leaves are the same. They are most definitely not. You'll notice in the previous post that there aren't any holes in the Cherry Leaves, just lines created by doing decreases. Here it is again, just as a reminder:
(wow, I'm all about the photo recycling today!)
The yarn over increases that counterbalance those lines are placed at the outer edges of the leaves to form a negative space outline. The opposite is true of Kiri. The yarn overs are placed in the center of the leaves and the decreases form the outline of the leaf. And displayed at the Barbara Walker Knitting Project is the gorgeous "Candlelight Pattern", which utilizes yarnovers both in the center of the leaf and along the outside.

I could probably go on and on about the merits and joys of leaf lace, but I'm sure this is not something everyone would like to hear me expound upon, so I'll just leave it at that.

One more thing I do want to mention about knitting lace: cats love it. I don't know why, but a cat cannot resist laying on a blocked shawl. WendyKnits has photographed her own cat perched haughtily on her delicate work of art many times. My own cat even enjoys the process. He loves batting at the blocking wires as they wiggle their way through the holes. It is a miracle that none of my shawls have suffered damage from this. A good thing, too, because my shawl wouldn't be the only thing suffering damage!

A Few Reminders:

* Please please please remember to enter the contest! We have 8 entries so far on the blog, plus a few on twitter and plurk. You can win either a skein of handspun, a handpainted roving, or something knit from 4 ounces of handspun yarn. All you have to do is name my wheel! See previous post for details.

* Virtual Knit Night is scheduled for next Thursday November 5th at 930 pm and will be air live at Stickam.com. Please remember to friend me before the show airs. It will be a closed session and we'll need to be buds before you can enter the room. You can see my profile and friend me here. Please remember to add something to your friend request that mentions where you heard about the show; I get many requests from users with such charming names like "naughtysecret37592" and "sgtlongdong". If you are hell-bent on using one of these names you will definitely need to identify yourself as a knitter or spinner. Uually these people get an automatic deny!

* I haven't forgotten about posting about my foray into reinactment spinning. I promise to blab about in the next post, when I talk exclusively about spinning and announce the winner of the Name My Wheel contest.

That's all from the sundrenched Blue Bungalow, where the weather has taken a lovely, sunny turn! I hope you are enjoying the same sort of treatment from your skies... Til next time!

A Contest: Name that wheel!

Spinners, like boat owners, often christen their wheels the moment they get them. My first wheel, a gorgeous Lendrum, was dubbed "Lucy" right out of the box. I've had my Schacht Matchless for nearly a year now, and it has yet to be named. That's where the contest comes into play.

Here are the details: suggest a name for my wheel! The winner can pick the prize: a skein of handspun, 4 oz. of hand-dyed roving, or something knit from 4 oz of handspun. We'll talk colors, etc. once you are picked. Please no more than 3 entries per person. I will announce the winner in a week--October 24th--so be sure to check back!

Oh, and I should add that I'm pretty sure this wheel is a boy. Here he is:


Edited to add at Ann's request: my wheel's character: One treadle on this guy is really cranky and slips quite a bit. I'm constantly having to put it back into place. It eats up a lot of oil, but if you treat it right it spins like water. I don't use the double drive because it I kind of feel that it doesn't have enough finesse. I much prefer the sensitivity of the single drive/scotch tension combo. And if it helps, it was "born" on 6/13/07!

Commence naming!

Casting on--again and again and again...

I don't know what it is about fall that makes me want to cast on for new knitting projects. Is it the fact that I spend (slightly) more time indoors? Or perhaps I am overly-eager to own some new warm things for the upcoming winter? Whatever the reason it has been my habit to temporarily stash my wheel in the corner come late September and bust out the knitting basket.

Not to say that my wheel will be neglected during the fall & winter months, no way. We had a few really gorgeous days last week and I couldn't resist sitting in the sunshine spinning my brains out. This is what most recently slipped through my fingers--a lovely superwash Corriedale:



I know, this is supposed to be a post about knitting, right? Sorry, I was temporarily discombobulated by the wool fumes. Now back to knitting:

I currently have 2 projects on the needles (correction: I have 2 projects on the needles that aren't hibernating. And I'd reather not talk about the Estonian Lace shawl... ). The first isRani, a simple beaded cuff from Knitty. I picked out the beads for this pattern long before I knew what color the yarn would be. I knew it had to be something dark, though, to really make those silver-lined beads--and the ornate design they form--pop. I chose a lovely dark peacock blue sock yarn (Cherry Tree Hill) at the LYS that I now love and adore. I cast on right away, trucked through the first 2 repeats, and realized I had grossly miscalculated the number of beads I would need. By half.

Thus halted progress on Rani. I normally favor the crochet hook method of bead placement, but prestringing the beads is a much better choice for the pattern. It makes the knitting go much more smoothly because the beads are packed so tightly together in the chart and resultant. To have to stop every other stitch to hook a bead onto the yarn would get tiresome very quickly. You can see what I'm talking about here:



Unfortunately photographing shiny, silver-lined beads is challenging--this is the absolute best pic I could come up with. The beads reflect the light and sort of make everything look fuzzy, but here it is anyway:


So what's a knitter to do when she is trying to put off stringing 270 beads? A knitter casts on for something else, that's what! I bought 2 beautiful skeins of Auracania Itata Muli last spring, intending to make the Cherry Leaf Lace Shawl from the photo-packed book Victorian Lace Today. This is a fairly easy, typical leaf pattern, but the design and edging originate from Weldon's Practical Knitter, a publication from the 1890's. And you know exactly what kind of sucker I am for this sort of thing! I love shawl patterns that have a story or tradition behind them. So I did a little stash-diving and wound these two beauties up, ready to grow up into a very cozy shawl.

Oh, and did I mention what this yarn is made of? Merino, silk, and bamboo. Its so lush you want to eat it.


And here, I give you actual progress:






I'm very excited to finally have this shawl in production. Its been on my mind for a while now, and I'm happy to have found my groove with it. I'm pretty content with the way its turning out, and can't wait to see how I fare with knitting on a border--something I shockingly have yet to try.

But that's not where the cast-ons stop. Oh no. I have a sweater's worth of Wool of the Andes yarn that used to want to be a February Lady Sweater. But I didn't really like knitting all that garter stitch, and the pattern started to wear on me. If there is one thing I can't abide in knitting, its tedium. Give me a challenge and I'll eat it up, but hours of knitting only garter stitch? blech. It just wasn't my thing. I hit my favorite place for pattern searching: the black hole that is Ravelry. After searching high and low for just the right pattern, I settled on the rather interesting Norah Gaughan pattern Surface. I love the texture of the cuff and collar. I'm not sure how much I would wear it, but honestly I think it will be so fun to knit. And let's face it, the woman is a pattern-writing genius.

Also on the agenda are some sweaters (and no doubt handspun hats and scarves) for my kids, something for my adorable newly-transplanted nephews from Germany, and of course plans for another shawl--the Honeybee Stole by Ann Hanson. I also plan to knit some some scarves for Knitting for Hope. I'm not crazy about knitting scarves, but kids can make use of them for a long time, and charities never seem to have enough. Thats a lot of projects. Lets see how long they will last me, eh? Once I get in the knitting groove, the projects fly off my needles!


In Other News

Virtual Knit Night is back! We had a great time chatting and it was so good to see everybody again. It was an awesome turnout, especially considering it was only the second time airing since its resurrection. Many thanks to those who attended, and to those who have been pestering me time and again to get it going. It was great to be back. I definitely plan on doing it again soon! Look for updates on our ravelry group. If we keep having such a nice attendance I may set up a blog for show notes and video clips.

Oddly enough this lens-shy gal always feels pretty comfortable blabbing about knitting and spinning, even in front of the ever-so-intimidating webcam. I think I could talk to anybody for as long as they could endure about fiber and yarn. Of course we don't just talk about that: lets just say that it is a mature audience and alcohol is a mainstay. Take from that what you will, and trust me when I say that pretty much anything goes. I love to share with you guys, and hope you don't mind terribly when I laugh so hard gin tonic comes out my nose. I do plan on doing some demos again, but for now its just nice to be back in the saddle yapping it up.

Well thats it for now from the Blue Bungalow. Apologies for the dry spell, I have been struggling a little, but things seem to be getting back on track. Stay tuned next week for a post about Betzi's first venture into the land of public spinning demonstrations--I'm demoing at a local Harvest Faire this weekend! And for those of you who are going to Rhinebeck: have a blast and I'm jealous as hell!

Impromptu Virtual Knit Night

Semi-impromptu Stickam session will be held tonight at 930 pm EST. No fancy tutorials or demos, just good old fashioned knitting and blabbing. Its been a while since we've had a Virtual Knit Night, and it will be fun to catch up on what everyone has been up to lately. Feel free to join us! Don't forget your knitting, spinning, crochet project! Its not required of course, but its nice for a little show and tell. If you are new to the whole stickam scene, head over to their FAQ. If you need a little extra help getting started just email me at inkyfingers at gmail dot com (or use gmail chat, its actually easier) and I'll be happy to walk you through it.

My best tip? Wear headphones/earbuds. It really helps cut down on the backround noise that can occur with so many people blabbing at once. Can't wait to see you all there! Oh, and don't forget to friend me. We'll be chatting in a private room. Trust me, its far more comfortable this way!

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The Trouble with Color

I love the beginning of fall, when the leaves start to drop one at a time, giving you a lovely crimson glimpse of things to come. Of course its breathtaking to see the golds and oranges dramatically splatter the landscape in October, but I think a fire-red leaf in the midst of all that languishing green is something special. Something to really ponder.

I've spent a lot of time taking little walks with my daughter now that Big Brother is in school. We collect little bits of color and shine and stuff them in our pockets to rediscover when we get home. She picks the few remaining dandelions or cornflowers(yes, there are still a few!) and hands them to me with wide, proud eyes: "See Mama, I picked it just for you!" Its because of these walks and their resulting treasures that I get the urge to pull out the dyepots and dye our world.

The real trouble with dyeing is getting the colors you want to turn out just so, to get them to look exactly like the picture in your head. When I am dyeing I like to take a few continuous sheets of paper towels and lay them out in front of me. Essentially I use this as my mixing pallet. Then i start mixing colors, adding a smidge of this or a dash of that until I think I've got the right color. During this mixing process, I use the paper towel to see how the dye will show up out of its container and onto a white background.



And of course it is quite the picture: there I stand, mixing and stirring like a mad scientist in my back yard, long white strips of wool laying prone and sopping wet in the sun. I'm sure the neighbors probably think I've officially lost my mind. Which may or may not be too far from the truth.

The trouble with color is that it doesn't always behave. Sometimes when a roving dries, it dries brighter or darker than you have anticipated. Once in a while, this is a very good thing--you might just have created a new and very popular colorway to add to your repertoire. Conversely, you may end up with what amounts to a heap of fuzzy mud.

Yes, of course this has happened to me and yes, it is tragic indeed. Those mishaps are the ones I keep for myself to spin up. And even though they don't look like much in roving form, they nearly always make an interesting yarn.

The trouble with color is that it can also remind you of things. It can take you back years or a week. Here is an example: think of the color avacado green. Did it bring up the memory of something in your childhood kitchen? Did you start smelling cookies or meatloaf or Tang? Let's explore what else color can do for you: think of the last time you were stuck in bed with the flu or a bad cold. What color is it, this ickiness? No fair saying avacado green--we've done that one already! Now think of your best friend or your First Great Love. Think of the place they occupy. What color are they? Every person has a color, you better believe it. I have dyed so many "people" rovings its not even funny. Everyone I know has one.

And what about the places, the scenes in your life that mean so much to you: what color are they? I don't mean your wedding or graduation or the birth of your kids. I mean those stolen moments that stick with you forever, the ones that don't seem like anything at the time. Like collecting leaves and sticks and lost earrings with your daughter. Those moments--these little snippets of time--are so sweet and delicious it is difficult to express in any other way.

The great thing about color is that it translates these things, people, and moments quite well. If you don't dye or paint or really do anything with color but appreciate it, go check out the myraid of online art exhibits like MOMA or SFMOMA. And go give someone you know a color.