Baby Hoodie and some thoughts

 Completed a baby gift

The pattern is here, done in Cotton Comfort from Green Mountain Spinnery, knit from stash, oh yeah!  I ran out of the natural and did the button bands in green, saving some natural for the last row.  I like it. This yarn is not springy and due to the cotton it's stiff to work with.  I did put it in the washer and dryer, both for short periods, and it softened up nicely. It still needs buttons..in a plain natural mother of pearl, I think.

This last week marks the passing of Levon Helm.  Levon was the drummer for The Band, who kept on sharing his music through his life.

Here he is with friends at the Ryman (that's in Nashville, y'all) three years ago, smiling and singing well  following radiation to his vocal cords for cancer (never let cancer co-opt your smile or your attitude...).

A fan of The Band since college, I listened to their albums relentlessly.  I am a fan of live albums, The Last Waltz (1976) on disc or DVD is not to be missed.  For me, their music exudes American roots and gives me a sense of nostalgia and, somehow, patriotism. 

My hands down favorite album of theirs, also a live one, is Rock of Ages, recorded in 1971.  It got a full listen this last weekend. 

An interesting note:   if you saw Elizabeth Zimmerman's obituary in the New York Times, December 12, 1999, then you will recall (well, I might be the only one to recall this...) that Levon's band member Rick Danko's obituary appeared on the same page.  His was above EZ's.

Other people whose passing this week one might ponder:

Dick Clark (never let a stroke co-opt your smile or your attitude, or your business sense, either...)

Jonathan Frid (on Friday the 13th, you KNOW he did that on purpose; despite my ambivalence to Tim Burton's extreme gory visuals, I'll look forward to seeing the new Dark Shadows movie to see Jonathan Frid's cameo, if nothing else...)

Time

A good friend of mine once said "I either don't have enough time or enough money...".  I think of her quote weekly.

There are multiple UFO's right now, including...

the edge of the lace shawl that I designed.   I have trouble finding enough time to do this or any knitting...so I am doing one point every morning before work.  One point per day, I can handle it...

Working on spinning some singles lace in my favorite green that I started almost 2 years ago

I tightened and oiled my wheel 2 weeks ago so it was time to get back to it...

More spring

The garden and yard have a lot of my attention this week

I love my iris

In other news, my friend Linda gave me a bag of cleaned soft underbelly fur from her pup, Isabelle.   It smells like doggie shampoo. Sammie investigates

The fibers are very short, about an inch.  The fiber will need to be carded and rolled on to puni's before spinning, both of which I need more practice at.  I have done this with cat fur before but not dog fur.

I had a nice weekend with lots of road knitting time as my son and I motored  to upstate SC and back. The baby sweater didn't go as planned, I changed patterns, here we are so far

It will be a little hoodie with buttons up the front.  I modified the pattern to do it in the round, my strategy.  A description of the pattern is here;  it's free although one must sign in to Bernat to get it.

Another personal vintage item

With the wild popularity of Downton Abbey (no, I certainly was not immune) I was sure that lace blouses would make a comeback this year.  I think I was right...check out some spring catalogs of women's wear.  (In case you've living in a cave, you can still watch  this year's episodes of Downton Abbey at pbs.org, click on "watch video" and search for Masterpiece Theater).

So, I was lucky that my sister returned this sweater to me.  I guess at one point I  must have given it to her.  I knit it in the early 90's and darned if it doesn't still fit.

The pattern is from a wonderful book entitled Classic British Knits: 40 Traditional patterns from England, Scotland and Ireland,  by Madeline Weston, published in 1986.  (There is another edition that has the same patterns entitled The Traditional Sweater Book).  (I am not up on my politics but do the Irish not dislike being called "British"?)

This is a very nice book with lovely examples of the different types of knitting found through the British Isles...ganseys, fair isles, some lace, and my beloved hap shawl, with patterns for all.

Once upon a time, I knit lots and lots of sweaters on really tiny needles, and this is one of them.  This has fountain lace in between a simple cable.  I am not sure what the yarn is, but I'm pretty sure that it's a mercerized cotton in sport weight, it might be Joseph Galler, I'm not sure.  I still have a sample of the yarn.  It's tough but soft.  

The sweater still fits, I am wearing it these days with a cami underneath. 

More baking than knitting

There was likely more baking than knitting this last weekend, although some of the latter did happen.

A bit of a celebration of sorts forced me in to the kitchen.  While I try really hard not to bake sweet stuff because I eat too much of it, I really had no choice.

Found a recipe from my favorite baking book for whole wheat cinnamon rolls.  Who knew, before Judith Fertig taught me, that yeast dough would rise in the fridge??  What about all that " put in a warm place to let the dough rise" business??

Anyway, while the recipe says to grind one's own flour from wheatberries, I didn't, but I swear I'll do that once I retire.  I swear.  Rather,   I used King Arthur white wheat, which is my go to...  I didn't forget to use Grandma Helen's ancient rolling pin, which adds a dash of those  je ne sai quoi old wood fragments, the matrilineal rolling pin version of sour dough??  (Its handle fell off about 5 years ago, still works great...).

There's a reason that I knit rather than, say, sculpt;  it's that I don't create matching 3 dimensional free form shapes well  (I'm very bad with  the Lucia bun S shape...)

However, the result looks pretty fine, on a tea saucer also inherited from Grandma Helen. It also tasted pretty good, the cream cheese drizzle on top used a WHOLE BOX of confectioner's sugar, which sort of mitigated the taste of the tannins in the whole wheat.  A particular teenager wasn't unhappy with the lack of white flour

And then...at yes, I confess, Walmart, I found the cutest little mold for gingerbread men cookies, which was convenient as I had some frozen gingerbread dough left over from Christmas (these pictured are unbaked).

Really cute although really the wrong time of year...

On the knitting front, I have had some gauge-related frustration with a pair of socks that I've been working on and put aside last month, waiting for patience to return. I  got back to them this week, figured out which needles I needed, and steamed ahead

They are for that nice man, done in Poems sock yarn.  Do love the slow color gradation.  I'm on a size zero.  Just heard on a podcast today that the smaller the gauge, the better they wear.  That's good news, I'm at about 9 stitches per inch here...

Handwash? Must she?

Someone I know is having a  baby.  I am a firm advocate of machine washable yarns for baby, but I would like to use some stash stuff, and there isn't much machine-washable-suitable-for-baby in there. (I  tend to buy baby yarn for individual projects with someone in mind, rather than stash it).  This time, I would also like to use something more natural.  To that end, I dug out some Cotton Comfort from Green Mountain Spinnery for an experiment.

Pattern-wise, while EZ's Baby Surprise Jacket is always fun, I've done many and I really like a yoke down pattern.  I have  also done Carole Bareny's Seamless Yoked Baby Sweater many times, it's been on the internet for years and I really like it. Here's one  I did some years ago for a coworker's baby, ironically also in Cotton Comfort.

Carole now has a website with cute free  baby patterns and while perusing there I discovered another sweater similar in construction called the Eyelet Yoke Cardigan.  That is my choice.

I am happy to report that my Cotton Comfort sample made it thru the washer and dryer unchanged in size!  (This yarn is an 20-80 cotton and wool blend). I consider this to be a bit of a coup. It also softened up very nicely during this process. I don't know of any other natural minimally treated yarns that will tolerate washer and dryer.  Perhaps 100% cotton? 

Knitting time has  been precious little this week.  I'm working to optimize it this weekend!

7 year old project finished!

I finished my kilim shawl.  I wrote a little about it here.

The fun part was that it knit up in a cone, getting larger and larger.  It involves a steak and confidence with involves trusting a sewing machine.  I thought the fringe was gonna take a long time, but it didn't!

DONE!

It's a big afghan of a shawl

OK, there is Spanish moss where I live.  So, check this out (sorry about the commercial).

I'm not so ambitious. A little research revealed that Native American of the South and Gulf coast made good use of our local epiphyte.  And ehow has directions on how to rett or process it for spinning and weaving.

Might be a good summer project for me...wonder if I need a dedicated spinning wheel just for moss?  Looks messy...let me know if you'd like me to send you some!!!