Noro-licious!

In the last few months I’ve had the chance not only to knit with the new Kureyon Sock but with the new Silk Garden Sock also.  My experience with Noro started very early in my knitting career.  My third ever scarf was knit out of Silk Garden, in seed stitch. I had the most horrible time with this yarn. I think I had particularly bad skeins as the yarn kept on breaking. I didn’t find out about split-splicing until almost the end of the scarf, so the amount of ends to weave in was ridiculous. Also, I think I ended up using about  4 or 5 balls all told for the scarf. It still ended up being a pretty nice scarf and I gave it to my MIL for her birthday.

Later I used some Noro Kureyon for a felted bag, Kemp by Jane Ellison.

Both these patterns were knit in 2006 and in 2007, I knit the Fake Isle Hat as part of Fair-Isle February. Since then I hadn’t knit anything out of Noro, until the day Noro Kureyon Sock came out.

At the beginning of May I cast on for plain stockinette socks out of the colorway 185. A couple days ago I finished knitting the second sock. The socks match almost perfectly, just a slight shift in the cuff area. I love how these socks came out and look forward to wearing them in the Fall!

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A few weeks ago, Silk Garden Sock became available and I promptly grabbed a skein for myself. You already know that I decided to knit something else than socks with it and that I started working on a cowl. Well the cowl has been done for a while and, although it is a bit on the large size, as you’ll see in the pictures, it will be well worn once it becomes cool enough to do so.

In this picture you can see it right side out. It’s gathered around my neck so you can’t see the size so well.

In this picture you can see the cowl inside out, purl side showing.

You can also get a better idea on how big it is! I think that a shawl pin or something like that will be the solution to keeping it closed once the cold starts again. Maybe even something to buy at Rhinebeck in October…

I hope you enjoyed this trip to my history with Noro. There were tangles, there were knots but mostly there were beautiful colors and beautiful stripes. I’m definitely looking forward to working with the Silk Garden again, both in the worsted and the sock weight, maybe the Lite too. And I’m sure that more Kureyon Sock will find its way in the stash someday also.

Spinning Monday’s back!

Last Sunday or maybe the Sunday before that I had this sudden urge to spin something. It had been quite a few months since I’d last spun anything so it was nice to sit down at my wheel again.

I went through my spinning stash and decided to try one of the Crown Mountain Farms pencil rovings that I purchased last April.

I picked the Spring Blooms colorway

and started spinning.

I try to spin a bit every day or every other day. I haven’t weighed the ball of roving yet so I am not sure how much I’ve done so far. But this is what it looks like, or rather what it looked like a few days ago.

I think that I will just spin it into a 2-ply, and with 8oz to begin with should have a pretty good size skein when I’m done.

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I’ve also done some knitting; I finished my Noro Silk Garden Sock cowl, I finally finished my first Celebrations socks and am a few rows away from finishing my second Noro Kureyon sock. You can expect a FO post pretty soon! For those interested in sewing I’ve also finish my doll-size quilt and made great progress on my pinwheel quilt, so maybe another sewing post soon.

Great swap and contest results!

A couple of months ago, Keri from Knitty Gritty Thoughts and I decided to have our own little swap. I had been admiring her battlets in her etsy shop and I offered to make her one of my box bag for some of her spinning battlets.

We both send each other’s package last Monday and both received ours on Friday. I think I got the best end of the deal… Look at all the goodies she sent me!

There’s some fiber there, a cute notebook with and Eiffel tower key chain, the cutest fabric fat quarter and some of her awesome Spinning Project Cards.

Here’s a close up on the fiber she sent me:

4.3 oz of A Little Dotty on the left and 3.6 oz of Woodins on the right

The fabric has cute sheep, ducks and hedgehogs on it… I’ll have to find a pattern worthy of this fabric!

Make sure to check out her etsy shop, she dyes great roving and makes beautiful spinning battlets. She also sells cute little project bags although she has none in stock now. Thank you Keri, what an awesome swap!

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And now for the contest!

It’s taken me the longest time to finally pick a winner. I had 45 entries with a choice of over 100 possible names, you guys have an awesome imagination! I quickly narrowed my choices to my 5 favorites, but then it got really hard and it’s the reason why it took me so long. Last night I finally narrowed it down to 3 names that I really liked and I got rid of one only because it’s already an online store’s name.

Here were the final 3 contenders:

Atelier Champignon by Greely

Pink Mushroom suggested in some form by Maryse, Heidi and Miss T

Stitching Mushroom suggested by Sidney

At that point I decided to let the random generator make the choice for me… And the winner is Sidney with “Stitching Mushroom”! Sidney, I will be sending you an email shortly so make sure to check your spam mail if you don’t see anything from me!

Thank you very much to everyone who participated and for all your wonderful suggestions!

Quilt blocks, quilt top!

Last weekend I finally started working on the 1930’s quilt I mentioned a while back. First I made a sample out of cardboard just so I would have an idea of how the blocks would look like.

After cutting out all my pieces I made a sample block out of spare fabric.

The quilt blocks for the actual quilt weren’t going to be mismatched fabrics but I still got a good idea of the size and the final look.

After chain-piecing all my blocks I ended up with 25 blocks. Each block is 10″x10″ so just the blocks along make a nice 50″x50 quilt top. I tried a few different layouts and these were the main contenders.

Random:

Gradient:

The general consensus is that the gradient layout is the most interesting. It’s also my favorite, so I’m quite happy with it. Next up I have to decide on sashing and borders and buy fabric accordingly. I hope to have a finished quilt top next weekend!

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If you’re not interested in making your own quilts like me but would like to win your own, go check out Old Red Barn Co.‘s blog. She’s currently giving away a beautiful quilt with fabulous fabric from designer Sandi Henderson for Michael Miller fabrics. It’s the second time that she’s giving away a quilt and although I didn’t win last time I will try again this time! If you would be interested in winning this quilt yourself, make sure to go here and leave a comment! There’s nothing hard about that!

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My contest ends tonight! Make sure to get your entry(ies) in! The winner will be announced as soon as I can!

Not a sock

The last few days have been spent sewing and knitting. And I haven’t been knitting socks… Can you believe that!

On Friday I had the chance to start working with the new Noro Silk Garden Sock and for some strange reason I decided to not knit socks with it. I chose the color 84, which is the color of Silk Garden I wanted to knit Lady Eleanor with, but never got around to finding the yarn for.

So instead of knitting socks I decided to knit a cowl. Yes, a cowl. Ever since cowl-mania started around blogland and everyone was knitting them, I’d been wanting to knit my own but just never got around to it. The Silk Garden Sock was just perfect for one. I had an idea of what I wanted so I browsed around Ravelry looking for the perfect pattern. I didn’t really find what I was looking for but was inspired by the Pashmina Cowl from Last-Minute Knitted Gifts and just made up my own pattern.  I cast on and started knitting, some stockinette, some garter ridges, more stockinette and more garter ridges.

I have 2 or 3 inches to go until I’m done with my cowl and I really love it. I realize now that I might have made the cowl a bit too large, but after finding the Cowl group on Ravelry and reading about a cowl’s perfect size, I think I’ve found a solution.

This last picture is as of yesterday and I have a few more inches done on it now. I expect that I will have it done tomorrow or the next day. The wonders of knitting on US 7, I had forgotten what it was like…

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Don’t forget my contest!
Thank you for all the suggestions, they’re awesome! Keep them coming!

Mushrooms… And a contest

I’ve recently come to the conclusion that I’ve got a little something for mushrooms. I like them in all sizes:

Small

Medium

Large

And extra-large

It looks like I’m not the only one that likes them too!

(Make sure to click on this picture to make it bigger, it’s definitely worth it!)

I’ve also been thinking for a while of creating a brand name for myself, to put on tags on the things I sew. And, I’d like for it to have something to do with mushrooms. The best thing DH and I have come up so far is “Crafty Mushroom” but I don’t think it’s creative enough. That’s where you all come in, it’s time for a contest!

I’d like you to submit a crafty name that has the word mushroom in it, or even “champignon” the french word for mushroom. You’ll have until the 20th of July to give me a name in the comments. I’ll pick the one I like best and the winner will receive a box bag that I’ll make especially for them. Have fun! I can’t wait to see what you’ll come up with!

Crafty weekend

I had the chance to have a few more days off this weekend so I was able to do spend some time getting some sewing and knitting done.

I spent Friday morning sewing 2 box bags. The first one is a trade with Keri, she’ll be sending me some of her coordinating battlets like these, aren’t they the greatest idea! And she’s be receiving this box bag (I don’t want to put up a picture in case she wants a suprise!) I also made another box bag for a good friend who is going through chemo. She doesn’t have much energy for knitting right now but sometimes she does, and I wanted her to have something bright and cheery to hold her knitting. 

I loved the bright flowers and the pretty sky blue of the background. I hope she likes it!

I also did some sewing of quilt blocks that my friend Carol gave me. She gave me a bunch of quilt blocks of different sizes and some leftover fabric and I took it as a challenge to try to piece it together into a quilt top.

I managed to put it all together and give it a cute, I hope, look. It’s pretty small, perhaps just over a foot square. It just needs some binding on and it will make a really cute doll quilt. Next up, my 1930’s pinwheel quilt!

I’ve worked on both my Noro Kureyon Sock and the Twisted Tweed sock since last time. I’ll have some pictures in my next post.

Eye Candy Friday

Yesterday morning I took advantage of the last of the strawberry picking season. I went to a farm close by and picked a little over a pound of strawberries. We’ll be enjoying them over the long weekend!

Yes, I do still knit a bit!

In the last week or so I did get around to knitting a bit. Of course, I’ve been working on socks, what else is there?

I worked a bit on my Celebrations socks (May pattern for Sockamania KAL). This pattern requires my entire attention so it doesn’t go very fast. Also, it doesn’t help that I made lots of mistakes and I had to keep ripping back. But at least now I have a foot, and a heel.

I’m thinking that I’ll make these short socks so that I don’t have to struggle for too long on these. The pattern is really pretty but between the mini cables and the multiple decreases it’s just too much work!

I’ve also started yet another new sock, Twisted Tweed by Schrodinger Knits. The pattern is inspired by Charades and RPM. It’s a really easy pattern, you just have to remember to shift the pattern every row. I started this sock toe up and, as noted in the pattern, the row gauge of the slipped stitch pattern on the top of the foot is totally different than the row gauge of the stockinette sole. Which makes the foot look a bit odd. Thankfully, once on they fit quite well.

The yarn I’m using is Yarn Lust 100% superwash BFL in Tiffany that I got from the store. Yarn Lust is our July Artist of the Month and is one talented girl. I had a really hard time picking just one colorway. I don’t care so much for purple usually but her Crush is really tempting me.

I also cast on for the second Noro Kureyon Sock plain stockinette sock. I needed something easy to have with me when I’m waiting around.

I managed, somehow, to start the toe in the right spot for the sock #2 to match sock #1.

I’m hoping that there won’t be any surprises and that I’ll be able to make the socks match each other. When working with this yarn, I’d make sure to work from the outside of the ball, as it greatly reduces tangles. There are some almost unspun areas of the yarn but I’ve knitted them as is. If it’s really bad you can just spit-splice the yarn together.

I’m going to alternate working on these 3 socks and should definitely have them done by the end of the month. Which means that I’ll at least have 1 more pair of socks for me to wear!