Home again, home again.

I came home yesterday from Christmas visits in Massachusetts and Connecticut, and first uploaded pictures, mostly of my four-year-old granddaughters' besotted pleasures. In the above two-shots, the girls are on their way to bed on Christmas Eve. Even though they look beyond excited, they fell asleep in three minutes, and stayed asleep for eleven hours--if only the knowledge that Santa comes to those who sleep worked every night of the year, heh.
The day after Christmas, and more subdued, Ainsley gets ready to go tromping in the snow, in the Eco Wool sweater I made up last Spring. It's such a winner, I stopped at WEBS (end-of-year blowout sale), on my way from Massachusetts to Connecticut, to get more and still more of these yarns to make more, larger and smaller, same and different. I do like the turned in and hemmed and wide neck, so will repeat that, when I get to making more of these.


And I wish this picture of my mother, graciously, laughingly enjoying her Xmas mittens, was a better or truer picture of her,...But it's not. The mittens on the other hand are perfect. Baby Ull and the Twist Collective "Postwar Mittens" pattern. Mom and I (and the mittens) went off to see "Young Victoria" (I think that's the title) and have dinner at a boutique Spanish restaurant.

And now I'm home, the new snow started, and almost stopping, and I am getting to work organizing my life--not too modest an ambition. With only the afterthought heel to go on my own Christmas stocking (couldn't quite get it done by the 24th, heh), I'm also getting ready for new knitting projects.

Christmas Stockings and mitten

The stockings are modifications or take-offs of "Judy's Colors" stockings, all knit while leading a class in these handsome stockings, at Knitting Etc. I got a bit excited, wasn't able to exit the stocking mode. These are for my DIL, Schuyler, my son, Alexander (with the requisite purple dinosaur, Mary), my daughter, Elizabeth, and her housemate, Kevin, both Seattle doctors on duty over Xmas, so needing stockings to stave off self-pity.

The mitten (whose partner is in the works), is for my mother, who power walks every morning come rain or come freeze, and who, then, will appreciate the warmth of the Dale Baby Ull stranded knitting. The pattern, Postwar Mittens by Mary Ann Stephens, is available at Twist Collective, and designs a mighty elegant gant.

*Why is all the above underlined? Go figure.*

Maggie Goes Samantha

Maggie, who's had this sweater for a year, has grown into it. Her mom just sent this picture. Are they a dear combination!!

May the force be with you, Gooser

After consulting with Alexander, who has an excellent memory of the possible self-consciousness of an eleven-year-old, I decided not to knit Gooser a Star Wars hat for his birthday, which is today, since he might feel a little un-brave wearing it to middle school, but, rather, to give him a pillow, which he can enjoy in the privacy of his own bedroom. Stormtroopers and R2D2s, yes. Cant wait to give it to him, along with some beef jerky, late this evening, when I get home from teaching the Samantha (dress/jacket/tunic/sweater) class, session one. I know he'll love the beef jerky, and he can pretend to love the pillow, whether or not. (I had Huron County buffalo jerky for him, very special, but Yogi found and devoured it, just before he died; and that's the truth.)
And here's the match to Eliza's Norwegian Star hat, for Ainsley. Mailed last week, these hats might be on their heads when I see the girls this weekend. I'll get to attend their make-up dance class on Saturday morning, after an overnight with Mom, at Dawn's School of Dance, where I got to go every Monday while living in Northampton last winter/spring. It's a hoot and a half. (Not that they'll be wearing their hats in class, but maybe when we go trick-or-treating later on Saturday.)

Hats

Aside from afghan squares, of which I've now completed about thirty-five (of sixty-three), I seem mainly to be knitting hats, hats, hats. All containable projects, easy to pick up and put down (and take dog-park walks with). This blog has subsided; and I don't know when I'll resume thinking about knitting enough to write more, so for now, here are the various hats on and off needles. And a little vest, the fem' variant of Hickory's "Ryland's Vest, " pattern soon available at knittingetc. newsletter, my ruffles an option. To identify the hats here, you could go to my "projects" page, my sort of knitting history, at ravelry.com/people/lyndabogel (at least I think you can go there).

Doing Scales. . .all summer

I'm off of real music, and on to scales, doing every scale I can find, both in Barbara Walker's Learn-to-Knit Afghan Book, and, quickly, beyond--beyond to her anthologies of stitches, treasuries. I'll be using her book to teach afghan - making this fall, so am getting a jump on the blanket. It's an excellent book, helpfully graduated in technical challenges--one starts with a striped garter stitch square, moves through various textures, cables, laces, slip stitches, keep on movin', until one has--if one pays no attention to the passing of years--sixty-three eight-inch squares. (And then you just have to put them together.) No problem.

So, I'm blocking the first dozen, and will take pattern libraries to Michigan, when I go in about a week, as well as balls of this Cascade 220 superwash.




The only other thing I've done this month, I think, is this little sweater for baby Isaac, across the street (also in Cascade 220 superwash).


I'll be teaching four knitting classes this fall. In addition to the afghan, I'm teaching two sweater classes, the Cayuga Cardigan, and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Baby Surprise Jacket. Later in the fall I'll offer a Christmas Stocking class.

Saia's off to the Funny Farm

Saia's off to the Funny Farm as soon as they cross-wrap her arms/sleeves around on the back.

Heh, here's a six-weeks baby in a six-to-nine months "Samantha."

Goodbye to WEBS !!

I think we've had three parties at WEBS in the last week: not only do we love to knit, we love a send0ff. And, lucky me, I'm the one being sent off. In the top picture, I'm wearing a present that I think is not originally a hat, but reminds me of what one wears to Ithaca's 8-sided school house, back in the days when one knit without a commercial alternative.

The other pictures feature the four tiaras I was given; and you'd need to know the Princely Prince Charles story to understand why so many great minds thought alike in giving me tiaras: "I'm a Winner."

I have made wonderful friends at WEBS, staff, teachers, and knit-along regulars. Such a snappy community, of edgy, witty, concerted, varied women. We learn from each other, about slip stitches and canine lupus and matters of the heart. What a rich six months for me!

Sharon, Barbara, Kathy, Marlene, Rina, Pat, Pixie, Beth, Jenny, Gail, Nicole, Dori, Louisa, Karen, Leslie Anne, oh my: thanks for sharing, laughing, and commiserating.

bathroom pictures

Good morning, Kangaroo yarns. I guess I won't be showering early this day. All my beauties have aired overnight, and feel ready to be wound today.
Above and below: wool with a bit of tencel, for sheen, a la J-Knit Stunning. We did two parcels of this, at 450 yards apiece, so lovely Sharon Burke and I can do identical scarves, a pattern that Dori Betjeman designed and displays at WEBS. I think this forest floor color range might be superb; it's the one I'm probably most excited by, maybe because I know what garment it's heading toward.
The other green colorways yarn is Green Mountain Spinnery's wool/mohair blend ("Mountain Mohair"), a 140 yd skein Gail had given me. It was my first try with the green blendings of dye.
And here's the kid silk haze. I'm not a little relieved to witness it fluffing up and drying away from the sodden matted plops it was yesterday. Gail and I set two chairs on her porch about twenty feet apart and strung this out, so we could, after tying it neatly along the ways, make long colors before it would repeat. Dyeing it in two bowls, I created at first what looked like the leftovers at a beauty shop. But it seems to be becoming. Will be tricky to wind, no?
Trying a range of reds on "O" merino wool, which I bought yesterday at the Shelburne shop, Metaphor Yarns:
And here's sock yarn Gail gave me, the same yarn she dyes her sock yarn for WEBS:
And now, on with the day.