Crafty Kim

Trees. They grow.

I've been laughingly referring to our backyard as a jungle for weeks now. I've apparently been saying that every year in July, but it's more true than ever this year. See?

Look at the great shade on the back of the house! We have insane afternoon sun in the backyard and it's nice to finally have something to block a bit of it and cool the house off naturally.

The tree on the left is a curly willow that originally came in a flower arrangement I sent Tim. It lived for many years in a large pot and never got taller than 3 feet. When we moved into our house, we planted it in the backyard were it's gradually gotten a wee bit taller every year.

The bushy thing on the right is a Celeste Fig tree that also started as a twig. It's never produced as many figs as it has the potential to produce - celeste figs suffer from fig drop whenever the weather shifts dramatically between hot/humid and hot (but cooler) temperatures, which effectively describes to a T the weather in Nashville.

Compare that to July 2006:

And then if you really want a laugh, to November 2004:

What's up?

Every once in a while I think I'm the lamest blogger in the universe for posting so infrequently. Then I remember that I'm a grad student and give myself a big pass on the guilt :) I have a billion knitting FOs to post about, but first here's some catching up on general stuff:

iPhone? Still love it. Spinning wheel? Still love it.

Has there been anything going on besides that (and school, but we won't talk about that)? I suppose, but not much!

I've been on twitter for a while, but with the new iPhone, I'm actually using it. You can see my updates over there on the left.

I also started using GoodReads, which I signed up for... oh, a billion years ago. The little badge over on the left will take you to my info if you're on GoodReads. And if you're not? Check it out! You can write reviews of books and find books from others with similar taste to you.

I'm still trudging my way through the never ending bag that is steadily eroding my love of knitting. I really wish it didn't look better with contrasting duplicate stitch, but it does. I finished duplicate stitch on the first side of the bag and now I'm moving on to the second side. I'm going to set aside some sewing time this weekend to make the lining and also to whip up an apron for a swap I'm doing in the ravelry Sew Obsessed group. The worst part of the giant bag? All that duplicate stitch is messing up my totally even and gorgeous stranded colorwork interior. Of course, the interior is going to be covered up by the fabric lining, so this officially just makes me a little bit crazy and a whole lot o' lame.

Sadly, with all the craziness going on with school, I've decided that I need to drop out of the Daring Bakers. In the kitchen, I'm mostly focusing on healthy eating right now. It's taking forever to sort out how to use more whole grain flours and strange new (to me) grains like quinoa, which leaves too little time to work on advanced baking skills. I think Tim & I are probably spending more time in the kitchen than ever before, just figuring out how to do things differently. And we're still having a lot of fun, which is half the reason for cooking to me! Hopefully we'll get things all figured out soon enough, and I'll certainly post what works for us when we do.

Now, since this has been a wordy post, here are some blackberries from our yard for you:

Another shiny new toy!

Probably not as interesting to my fellow crafty blog readers as my spinning wheel, but I got an iphone today! I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting a huge line at the Nashville Apple Store. A bit of a shock when we walked in at 7:45 am and discovered a few hundred people in line. I have a more flexible schedule than Tim, so I stayed in line while he went off to work. A mere 6 hours later and I was the proud owner of a new iPhone. Tim is waiting to upgrade until he sees if I like mine. As if there's a doubt :)

The only downside is that I will have to work on Sunday to make up for today. Lots of busy stuff going on right now with my research project!

ps This message was posted from my iphone using the new typepad iPhone app. Apologies for typos, I'm still getting the hang of the keypad! Also the photo of Oscar is just because 2 blog posts in a row without photos is tooooooooo boring!

ETA: Oh! And of crafting interest... of course I had a knitting project in my bag while I was hanging out in line. I worked on a gathered scarf in SWTC Yin. Coming along nicely, but still lots of knitting to do. A perfect project for standing in a never-ending line.

Oops. I bought a spinning wheel.

I'm pretty sure that I had a conversation somewhat like this with Erin last year when she got her spinning wheel. Although mostly I was just silently mocking her in my head, ha!

Erin: I got a spinning wheel.
Kim: That's nice. THINKING: OMG, why did she want a spinning wheel???
Erin: It's great!
Kim: Uh-huh. THINKING: Why would I want to spin yarn? So little time to knit already!
Erin: It's a lot of fun!
Kim: Hmmmm. THINKING: As if I would ever consider getting a spinning wheel!

Then I saw that there was a spinning class at a local fiber festival. Why not at least try it so that I could stop thinking about how spinning seems to be strangely addictive for everyone who tries it?

It was fun, although a bit chaotic - 2 hours isn't enough time to get you very far in spinning, especially when there are too few wheels to go around.

Then someone on ravelry posted about a two day workshop in September at the Appalachian Center for Craft. I've always wanted to take a class there and 2 days seems like a reasonable amount of time to cover spinning basics. So I signed up.

Then I started thinking about how, if I was going to take a class, maybe I should get my own wheel so I could learn how to spin on the wheel I was planning on using.

Did you notice the subtle shift there? From "hey, I'll try this out and probably hate it but at least I can say I did it" to "Hm, maybe I need my own spinning wheel"?

And then I found the perfect wheel for a newbie who wants to try things out without a super serious commitment: the Schacht Ladybug. I hesitated to order a wheel online. There's a fairly active spinning group here in Nashville and Leah volunteered to bring wheels to try out to their next meeting. Always better to try a spinning wheel in person, right? But I couldn't help myself. After a flurry of emails, I found a brand new Ladybug in stock at Copper Moose. (BTW, they were very nice to deal with and I highly recommend them. Special thanks to ravelry user athena139 for pointing me in their direction.)

It seemed like an eternity of stalking the UPS website, waiting for box to arrive. Of course, it didn't help that two pounds of corriedale roving arrived on Monday, a free bonus from Copper Moose. Tuesday was awful, I kept checking the UPS website for delivery info. When we got home on Tuesday, the box was sitting on the front porch and I promptly... went off to Tuesday knitting night :) I only stayed until 7 though, so I could come home and play with the wheel.

Tim gave me a hand with assembly (easy peasy) and I was up and practicing. "Oh," I thought, "I'll just treadle for a while." Three hours later, after a brief break for dinner (also assembled by Tim) I had plenty of treadling practice and a partial bobbin of something that is definitely not usable yarn. But I'm getting the hang of it. There were even entire 3-5 second stretches where I felt that I understood how to draft!

Today's lesson: Spinning: it's a vortex that will suck you in even if you try to avoid it. Or possibly more accurately: Kim is weak willed when it comes to hobbies, especially ones that involve (shiver) complicated equipment.

Photos tomorrow. I took pictures last night, but I didn't stop spinning long enough to upload them :)

Wisconsin, where it's NOT 90 degrees out...

Tim, Oscar, and I went on a quick trip to Wisconsin this weekend for my sister's housewarming party. We drove, which was crazy for such a brief visit. I failed to get any pictures of Kathy's new house because we were busy with last minute unpacking and party prep. On Saturday night, we took a break from the unpacking and headed over to Council Grounds State Park for a campfire, cookout, and walk in the woods. It was light out until around 9 pm!

Here's a view of the beautiful Wisconsin River:

There was a beach right on the river and while it was a bit chilly to get in the water, Oscar ran around like a mad man on the beach. Who knew he liked sand? It was like watching a rabbit run. He also formed a crush on my niece's dog Chloe, a yellow lab who is 20x his size. He lurves her.

Most of the roads in the area have fairly low speed limits, so Oscar also got to engage in his favorite hobby: sticking his head out of the car window:

It was a fun visit, but as usual too brief. We picked up cheese (of course! Including cheese curds) and some fresh peas (there was a sign along the highway, I was powerless not to stop). There was also much knitting (in between spells of driving) in the car. I finished a better bucket hat, but I think I need to tweak the size a bit. We're going back to WI in August for my Dad's birthday, but I think we'll probably fly - driving that much makes us both grumpy :)

Happy Wednesday!

The daylilies in our yard are blooming like crazy right now. This color is my favorite.

Ahhhh, the sweet feeling of another FO: Lake of the Woods Wrap

When I first started knitting, I would be working away at a pattern and really have no clue what was going on. Every stitch was a surprise - "Oh wow! I had no idea that doing K3, P2, yo, etc was going to make that!" I felt like I was really getting the hang of knitting when I could look at a chart or at written instructions and understand what to expect *before* I cast on a single stitch.

Every once in a while though, a pattern can still just knock me on my heels. "Wait! Where did that come from?!? Am I doing this right???" This was definitely the case with my latest FO, the Lake of the Woods wrap from Ilga Leja. When Tim was helping me get it all pinned out and blocked, I realized that while I was knitting, I was totally clueless about what was going on. No idea why though... this pattern seems really rather straightforward.

See?

Project stats:
Raveled Here.
Pattern: Lake of the Woods by Ilga Leja
Yarn: Reynolds Odyssey in colorway 404 (Lavender/sage mix)
Needles: #10 Addi Natura, #8 Addi Natura circulars
Started: 31 May 2008
Finished: 22 June 2008
Will I make this again? Possibly. Nice, easy lace pattern - but it does eat a lot of yarn.
Mods Nothing other than yarn choice.
Wood buttons are from from Haus of Yarn.

My sister Kathy used to live in a small Minnesota town right on the shore of the Lake of the Woods, a large freshwater lake on the US-Canadian border. Beautiful (but cold!) place. I was drawn to this wrap because of how well the pattern captured my impression of the lake.

Here's an action shot with the finished wrap:


I've had this Reynolds Odyssey in my stash for around a year. I originally bought it to make a cable and lace cape, but the pattern just didn't inspire me to actually cast on. I've never knit with Odyssey before, but I enjoyed the experience. It's a worsted weight merino yarn with a very interesting dyeing style that creates subtle color variation. The payoff came the second that I put the finished wrap in a warm soak with some Euclan. The yarn was soft to begin with, but soaking made the fiber even softer and it really bloomed.

This wrap is just something light to wrap around my shoulders when it gets a little chilly out. Ideal for springtime or the fall here in Nashville. I didn't get too hot while we were taking these pictures either, even though it was fairly warm out yesterday!

And another picture of the whole thing:


A brief word about price: I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't mention that this pattern was a bit more expensive than I would usually pay for a single pattern, $12 CDN which is just under $12 US right now. I truly value the effort that goes into writing quality patterns, but at the same time you can buy books of patterns for not much more than the price of this single pattern. The pattern instructions were clearly written, the charts were well done, and there were quite a few tips on technique. The finished product is insanely gorgeous. In other words, it was worth the $12. For me, it was a big leap to spend $12 on a pattern without knowing what to expect, but now I have confidence that other patterns from Ilga Leja would be high quality and something unique.

Easy peasy FO: diagonal lace scarf

There's plain ol' yarn in the stash and then there's the yarn that calls out to you, saying "Why am I still in the stash? I'm too beautiful and smooshy to stay in the stash!!!" This ArtYarn Ultramerino 8 is definitely in the second category. It's been taunting me for months, wondering why I haven't turned it into some beautiful project to match its friends the Fetching mitts that I knit way back in September 2006.

I think it's probably a crime to let yarn this nice marinate in the stash that long, especially when you have no plans for how to use it! Addressing this serious lack of stash-usage was easy though:

Project stats:
Pattern: Diagonal Lace Scarf (free pattern!) by Helena of Midnight Purls
Yarn: Artyarns Ultramerino 8 in colorway 111
Needles: #7 Addi Natura
Started: 20 May 2008
Finished: 5 June 2008
Will I make this again? Possibly. Easy to memorize pattern, beautiful results.
Mods Nope.
Raveled Here.

I love how this turned out, even if 90 degree weather is an inappropriate time for a photo shoot with a wool scarf. The stitch pattern is incredibly easy to remember - that's saying a lot because I'm generally horrible at remembering even simple stitch patterns. My only concern is that it feels a bit like this scarf is going to tend to roll into a tube a lot. I can't say for sure yet and won't know until it cools off enough to wear it a bit.

I stood in the sunshine long enough for Tim to take a picture even if it was crazy hot outside:

After this, I realized that I actually have two more skeins of this yarn (in a different colorway) also hanging out in the stash. After knitting with the ultramerino and realizing how wonderful it knits up, I feel compelled to come up with some project ideas for it now!

Summer is the season for great crafting books?

I have a bit of a craft book habit. I like going to the bookstore and browsing the craft book section almost as much as I actually like crafting. Part of the reason I prefer looking at books before buying is because I'm picky - I have tons of informal rules about what I look for in a craft book. Things I look for: quality photography, concise directions, charts (ie for knitting lace and cables), lots of projects that I'm interested in making. Another big rule (for knitting books at least): sweater and top sizes need to go up to my size. If I'm going to pay for a book, I don't want to fiddle with sizing the garments up. I'm not saying that every single top needs to be in my size. Trust me, I understand that some styles just don't look good on my size. I just find it irritating when books don't include larger sizes in patterns that would look great on larger sizes.

I generally don't talk about books that I decide I don't like unless it's due to poor pattern directions or that kind of thing. Some books just don't "click" with me and I end up returning them or selling them. Recent examples: Knitting New Scarves (too much work for a scarf), How to Knit in the Woods (no projects that really grabbed my interest), and More Big Girl Knits (ditto). There's nothing inherently wrong with any of those books; I just didn't find anything I wanted to knit in them in the end. I often end up checking books out of the surprisingly good craft book collection at the Nashville Public Library to take them for a test drive first. The same thing is true with cookbooks, another one of my book obsessions.

All of that said, I've come across some really excellent crafting books recently that I want to review here on the blog over the next few weeks. Today, I'm going to kick of the reviews with a book that actually breaks some of my informal rules, Closely Knit by Hannah Fettig. This book came out in March and I passed it over at first glance. I wasn't familiar with any of Hannah's past designs and the concept of the book didn't seem that exciting. The subtitle is "Handmade Gifts for the Ones You Love" and, honestly, I'm not a big gift knitter. I came across the book at amazon by chance again a couple of weeks ago, linked to some other book I was looking at. I took a closer look this time and ended up deciding to give the book a chance.

Closely Knit is organized into six "gift giving" sections: Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, Men in Our Lives, Wee Ones, and Friends. Of course, most of the projects could fit under any of these categories, so the categories seem a bit artificial. There's an impressive 31 projects in total, ranging from really simple hats to vests with intarsia and sweaters for adults. Nothing seems terribly complex, but some of the patterns could be a bit challenging and there are definitely some nice simple gift ideas that look more complicated than they really are, always a plus when gift knitting :)

My favorite pattern in the book is the Kangaroo Vest, a children's size intarsia project featuring (obviously) a kangaroo. The book gives the good advice that you could use the chart for other projects, like a baby blanket. I've got visions of cute matchy-matchy baby gifts for friends. My other favorite is the cashmere ruffled scarf. I love the striking red of the scarf in the book. I'm usually not a big super colorful accessories person, but this one really appeals to me.

Rule breaking alert: Remember when I mentioned my rule about how the patterns need to go up to my size? This book is a huge rule breaker in this area. There's a super cute Cabled Cardigan that I'd love to make but it only goes up to bust size 40". I almost sent the book back when I got to that sweater, but I kept paging through the patterns and there were so many other interesting projects that I decided to keep it.

Overall, Closely Knit has multiple patterns that I'm interested in knitting and it's definitely a keeper. If you're looking for some fun but not too time consuming projects to knit for yourself or as gifts, check it out!

The project that goes on and on and on and on and on....

I'm sitting in a hotel room in Memphis right now, in town for two days for a research trip for school. Plenty of time for knitting tonight after dinner, although I'm bummed to be missing my weekly knitting night. Also, I managed to totally forget the one project that I really wanted to work on. I think it was a big of a freudian slip. I'm a bit tired of the project and it feels like I'm never going to manage to finish it.

The project? Kristin's Favorite Carry-all (from Best of Interweave Knits). The knitting? Not particularly hard. It's a fairly standard colorwork project. The only rather scary part was steeking the body, my very first steeks! With a little handholding from the stranded colorwork group on ravelry, I was able to make it through the process without too much difficulty. No pictures though, I was too busy worrying about cutting my knitting :)

I'm done with knitting the body, the handle, and the gusset. I still need to knit a little closing flap, and sew the lining. The pattern just calls for a flap to hold it closed, but that doesn't seem like enough for such a large bag so I'm also going to sew in a zipper. The thought of all that assembly and sewing together is a bit of a drag though. Must not put project in WIP pile just because bored by assembly.

Here's a picture of the finished body (pre-steeking) with the lining fabric that I picked out: 

The dark color is more brown than it looks like in this picture, and the teal color is actually a tiny bit lighter. The fabric is a really interesting fois bois print they just got at Textile Fabrics. I love how everything goes together, I just am not enthusiastic about the assembly required :)