Vogue Live ~

How lucky to have Vogue Live in our area this weekend!  I met up with Marion and we worked the booth for the Seattle Knitters Guild in the afternoon and met lots of great knitters! Lots of stories and lots of knitted projects and lots of "what did you buy?"!  Sort of a big Yarn Yoga for our area!

The market place was fun, starting with this array of Cascade Yarns hanging from the upper deck. A rainbow of colors from black all the way to the lightest of creme.  They said that on Sunday when the show was done, they would cut the ribbons and we could grab the yarn as it fell....I'm sure it was pandemonium when this happened!!

There were great vendors and great displays - our favorite yarn store Serial Knitters was there, and our favorite Yarn Artist Susan Tidwell, plus Hazel Knits and Paradise Fibers...The Fiber Gallery...Soon I will tell you the very very special purchase that Marion and I made...here is a hint: We bought the LAST ONES!!!! (Stay tuned!)

Knitting o' the green ~

We had a great yarn yoga today with our wonderful group of knitters. As I thought about this time together knitting, as I always do....as our time together is such fun and too short, and I immediately start looking forward to our next time together..... well, I thought since it would be St. Patrick's Day, I should knit on a green project... and I was surprised to see how many of my 17 projects "On the needles" are green!!!  There is the newly reacquainted Barfly sweater, the party scarf out of the lovely shibui, my oh-so-soft qiviut scarf, another shibui project called the Trillian shawl, the Deep-V Tee out of hempathy, and the scarf that I cast on for the July wedding last year (and then found a better yarn for that outfit) and the socks from the sock flat....Seven projects out of 17 are green......

Since the sock flat yarn is called, "Top 'o the Mornin'" it seemed an easy choice to knit on this project on this special Irish day!  I hope you all did some knitting to celebrate!!!

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!!!

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!

Major Birthday Surprise ~

We were planning a Yarn Yoga with many birthday surprises and secrets.  There was one secret that only I knew about, and I was not sure that I could pull off such a major birthday surprise...Could I possibly find the time and patience to spin and ply all 7 ounces of the ever-so-lovely-and-soft 55/35/10 Alpaca/Merino/Silk for Jitteryknitter's birthday, a month early? Plus, could I figure out a clever way to make a yarn label?

 I did!  I was so pleased with how the spin and ply turned out, and the yarn label was a blast to create!

Jitteryknitter liked it too! Plus a big birthday surprise as her birthday is in December!!!

Earth Day Yarn Yoga ~

I was very glad that we had planned an Earth Day Yarn Yoga last month, as I knew I would be able to knit something other than the mystery squares for the afghan because the squares were all due at church that morning. There was an extra spring in my step walking through the courtyard at church, through the spring trees to the sanctuary entrance, as I knew I had sock knitting in the car, waiting for Yarn Yoga....As one of my church friends greeted me at the door with, "Welcome" she also said, "Hey, I have my squares for you!" and reached into her bag and pulled out a zip-lock bag with lots of yarn...but I didn't see any squares.... She said, "I started one,but didn't really like knitting them, so you can finish them and just give me back my needles when you're done...."  Remembering that I'm at church, I knew that there must be a lesson here, so I said, "Sure, I can finish the square for you, and return your needles"  and she smiled and replied, "Oh, there are three squares in the bag"  No sock knitting for me on Earth Day.....just more squares that will never end...

Thankfully I have wonderful friends to share the square nightmare with.... and we had a lot of fun at our Yarn Yoga... Lisa knitting on a shawl, Marion knitting  bunny slippers, Debi knitting a shawl, Kathy finishing two scarves and Patti knitting a lovely brown scarf..... and I was knitting garter stitch squares....

Community Tree Socks ~

What has happened to the Blogger formatting, I do not like this new way of posting! Plus, who has time to figure out the new way, when it is tough enough to find time to post in the first place!  Sad...so I will post a few more times to see if I can live with this, but I don't like how it looks with the pictures floating without the words surrounding it... anyone have any ideas... I am not a computer geek or even an HTML geek, so this is not a comfort zone...back to the knitting....

We were able to get together on Saturday to work on the Tree Sock art that we started last Saturday. Suzanne has been doing a marvelous job with these trees, and we were able to knit more on the stripes and sew some of the stripes together. It was a great Yarn Yoga event for us, as we had not been together since our February island vacation!!

 We were able to get together on Saturday to work on the Tree Sock art that we started last Saturday. Suzanne Tidwell has been doing a marvelous job with these trees, and we were able to knit more on the stripes and sew some of the stripes together. It was a great Yarn Yoga event for us, as we had not been together since our February island vacation!!

 Look at all that great acrylic yarn!!!  Hurrah!!!

 Here is Suzanne with MY STRIPE as the top most stripe of the "tree sock" she is holding up! See how she likes neon yellow and neon pink matched with peach and variegated purples and oranges!!!

Here is the first "community tree sock" that we all helped knit on, by hand, not by the knitting machine. My stripe is the one above the solid turquoise stripe.  See how lovely and crazy it looks!!!

Whidbey Wonders ~

We had the greatest weekend for our island retreat. Five great friends for four delightful days of laughter, stories, creative fun and Yarn Yoga. We look forward to this every year, and this year was super deluxe. Friday we started at Madrona Fiber Arts, and ended up on Whidbey Island.

Wait until you see all the fun we had!!! Look for some clues in the picture!

Brandywine ~

After seeing Ms M's Brandywine, it seemed like a good idea to cast one on, as it seems to be a magical shawl, full of beauty and grace. The Yarn Yoga gals helped me pick out the perfect yarn from my Sock Summit stash (which may be discontinued now, as I can't find it online), and so I decided that the 4th of July weekend was the perfect time to cast on.

It may not look like much, yet, but I'm already on row 11..... :)


Isn't it beautiful!!!

Busted ~

Last fall, at one of our Yarn Yoga events, the JitteryKnitter and some of the other knitters were having some trouble with a 4 row pattern on a scarf. It was basic enough that it was easy to get confused, and then the pattern would be wrecked... The yarn is super soft, and the needles are rosewood, and super smooth. In a gallant effort, and since these needles are heaven to knit with, I told her that I'd finish this scarf since I found the pattern to be so easy...and I may have mentioned that I really really liked these needles... She noticed at the recent Yarn Yoga that I still had this project, and inquired how it was coming along, since an alpaca scarf could have come in handy last winter... although summer doesn't appear to be here yet...

So I started knitting on this again after the rain drenched fireworks, as I thought we could use an alpaca scarf to watch the 4th of July fireworks... but I really won't want to part with these needles....

It is looking very beautiful, indeed....

July Yarn Yoga ~

We had a great day today as we gathered for Yarn Yoga. This is what we call our monthly knitting group, and we had a great time today - as we always do when we get together. We did a lot of knitting, and the best of all was the 'show and tell' of finished shawls. Here's Ms M's Brandywine...(on Ravelry)

...stunning....

absolutely stunning....

Here's JitteryKnitter's Sayona (not sure of the spelling) - very beautiful, and those leaves are so great!

Thank you ~

I received the nicest "thank you" from our friends at:
Packages from Home

1201 South 7th Ave, Ste 50

Phoenix, AZ 85007

They were very grateful for the 6 helmet liners that our Yarn Yoga knitting group sent for our troops. If you've thought about knitting for a good cause, here's one to think about....

Yarn Yoga chicks ~

They (not sure who "they" are, but they have a lot of influence) sometimes call knitting groups, "Chicks with Sticks" however we call our knitting group meetings, Yarn Yoga. This time, we shared our knitting group with chicks...


but they didn't have sticks - just lots of cute feathers and lots of cheep cheep cheeping!


(aren't they cute!)

Yarn Yoga in March ~

We are back together again for Yarn Yoga. This month our projects are very fun and creative, as always! Marion is knitting socks on double points - love this yarn!

Debi cast on a new sweater pattern from our Whidbey Island trip - more lovely yarn here!

Debi's mom is crocheting baby hats for preemies - check out how small this hook is!

Lisa is knitting a beautiful shawl out of Miss Babb's amazing colorways....

Try to tell me that these are the wrong colors for a Harry Potter scarf!!

It is turning out to be great!

Six for Troops ~

I'm sending six helmet liners to the Helmet Liner Project today. Hurrah to Sue that knit two, and to Marion, Debi, Lisa and I that each knit one ~ what a great Yarn Yoga knitting group....

Bravo to us for our charity knitting, and Bravo to the brave troops that will be wearing them.

True Yarn Yoga ~

As we were winding up the new yarn, so we could start knitting our special weekend scarves, Debi had some interesting yoga moves to help with the tangles.

This one is called.......Silk Salutation.......

This one called....Mountain Merino..... Very inspiring!

Lovely weekend ~

For Valentines' weekend, we are having a Yarn Yoga away for the weekend...


Three days of knitting socks, knitting sweaters, quilting and fun fun fun....and some special guests that celebrated Valentines' Day in a wonderfully romantic way!