Happy Birthday Mum!

Just wanted to take a minute to wish my favorite Mum a happy birthday, as she does not get an official one this year.....since she is a leap year baby.....so she celebrated BIG last year!

When she does not get her own day, we celebrate for February and March.... not a bad deal, really, when you think about it.....Here she is with all our favorite pirates!

Truth about Elizabeth ~

I never really understood why all knitters are wild about Elizabeth Zimmerman...I know, I know... just saying that could cause a fiber riot.... but I must confess, I didn't get the love. To me, her patterns seemed to be missing a lot...as in there weren't any directions in her patterns... her double warm hat said something like, "knit a hat, then knit another hat and put them inside each other for a double warm hat" and I just can't knit like that.  Those sorts of instructions actually put me into a panic.  How, exactly, do I "rapidly increase" when I am already knitting as fast as I can?

At our Whidbey weekend, sweet Marion brought one of Elizabeth's DVDs for us to watch, as she said that was the only way to understand the amazingness that is Elizabeth...Well, between her soapbox on the value of knitting with only wool so her knitted garments would not cause acid rain, and her showing a certain technique and then saying, "But don't do it that way or you'll not have my blessing.." Well, how could anyone not love this woman? I am now a true believer.... EZ rocks!

Cashmere Deal ~

At our November Yarn Yoga, there were two skeins of wicked soft cashmere silk in the sale bin. So lovely, yet still pricey even on sale. We all drooled over them and smooshed them, and wished we could get them..... Kathy couldn't pass them up, so she bought both of the skeins. Since it was lace weight, she used both ends from both skeins and started knitting a garter stitch scarf using 4 strands of this lovely yarn. When we were at Madrona, and the scarf was about 6 inches long, she decided that it needed sequins and sparkle. She found white sparkle/sequins at Madrona, and told us she was going to rip out her scarf, start over and add the sparkle/sequins.  Well, we had an intervention….I said it wouldn't be soft on her neck anymore if she added sparkles/sequins, Marion told her it was, "Just not right" to compromise cashmere/silk with novelty yarn.... Lisa just said, "No, no way..." 

To compromise, I said I would knit her a lacy scarf with one skein if she would give me the other skein…no sparkles, no sequins…just a lacy cashmere and silk scarf for her....and she agreed to the deal. So far, her scarf looks pretty good....not sparkly, but oh, so soft!!! Plus I get the other skein of this amazing yarn!

Whidbey Weave ~

This was our first year of a loom on our Whidbey vacation. Weaving is the rabbit hole of our own Jitteryknitter....and turns out that our Marion made a loom during her years at fine arts school, so she has already been down this rabbit hole, and is super helpful and enthusiastic while we all try to warp!

There is nothing like five great friends trying to warp a loom. Nothing compares....

Even better when the five great friends and the loom are at a beach front cottage for the weekend.

 

Nothing compares!!!

Whidbey Spin ~

The Madrona weekend is here and we had a blast!  How many years have we been going to Madrona?  I am not sure, perhaps this is our third or fourth or fifth....but the first year one of us has taken a class...so we are slowly graduating into two days of Madrona.... next year, perhaps we can all get into a class or two!

Once we have had the Madrona adventure, we head to our beach house on Whidbey Island for our anniversary weekend. We arrive on Friday night and then we knit and spin and weave and make quilts....all weekend... plus we laugh and tell stories and make memories and hang out with the best friends in the world! I was able to spin on Saturday.... you can see how close we are to the beach.... perfect place for creative spinning, knitting, quilting, weaving.... perfect place to relax!!!

Yummy soft ~

My fears of piano wire were (thankfully) unfounded, as this 60/40 alpaca/merino plyed up to be super soft and squishy. Yummy as dark chocolate espresso, I am so pleased with how this fiber became such lovely yarn!

Hats off to Taylored Fibers for their lovely fiber and such amazing blends. Spinning is such a dream as the bumps are almost like pencil roving, so easy to spin as the drafting is effortless!  I am looking forward to my next spin with Taylored Fibers... I think I shall pick a cream with alpaca, merino, mohair and silk! Love it!!!

Valentine Duet ~

Today was a fun Valentine's Day Duet run. My kids were going to be a "duet" and my sister and her DH were a "duet" however oldest daughter didn't run and younger daughter had a friend substitute for her "duet" partner.  Does that make sense?  They run as a team, and their combined time is part of the fun of the race.

Here is the duet plus one, and they all had lots of fun.

Plus sightseeing to visit the Troll....however the Troll did not run :)

Super Knitting ~

I bet that many of you were knitting during the Super Bowl, and I was too.  I made great progress on Mum's birthday scarf.  Found the perfect yarn last Sunday with my yarn yoga friends, and then tried several patterns with no luck. The yarn did not want to be lace or cables, it did not like herringbone or linen stitches.... so finally, after about 8 cast on and rip outs, I tried this pattern.

First I tried a size 6 needle, and it was too firm. It would have made a great hat or mittens...so I went to a bigger size, and still the PSSOs were too tight.... so I ended up with a size 10 and the drape is perfect!  Hurrah!