Gemini Loca

Wrenna Finished

I finally finished Wrenna from French Girl Knits about a month ago. I enjoyed knitting it and I think the results are great. If I were to do this again, I would find a true bulky instead of carrying two yarns. I think it made the sweater heavier than I'd really like it to be. The piece was knitted with a size 19 needle, so it truly needs a bulky yarn. Done!

  

Needle Felted Kitty Cats

My beautiful granddaughter Skyla visited last week and we got busy needle felting. We came up with the cutest little kitties. 

  

 

 

Garterlac Dishcloths

Every now and then I feel like knitting dishcloths. Ever since I knitted and used my first one, wayyyy long time ago, not other type will do. I found the pattern for these dishcloths on Ravelry. It can also be found on the Criminy Jicket's website. It's a great little pattern, quick and fun to do and I really like the look of the finished cloths. Thank you Dave, for a terrific pattern!

  

More Wrenna

Getting closer....I just have the bottom ribbing and the sleeves to do!

 

Wrenna

My beautiful co-worker Amber knit this fabulous vest sweater called Wrenna  from the book French Girl Knits by Kristeen Griffin-Grimes. I loved it and thought it would look great on my daughter. Here's the progress so far.

 

Horseshoe Lace Detail

Two on Two Socks

These are the first pair of sock I've made where I've knitted two of them at the same time on two circular needles. So far, so good. I'm using a merion/nylon sock blend that was knitted into a "sock blank". Like a dodo brain, I didn't take a picture before I began knitting these. The sock blank was a machine knitted rectangle, with two strands that was then dyed. The idea is to unknit the rectangle as you knit the two socks at the same time, but I was having some major yarn handling frusteration, so I unknitted the blank and wound them into two balls of yarn.  It's a nice idea, but for me, it didn't work as intended. I suppose if it's important that you have two socks that match colorwise, this might be a good way to go, but my socks are still slightly different, even though I started at the same place. I'm using the Lacy Rib sock  pattern from Wendy Johnson's book Socks from the Toe Up.  

Rosemary's Bell Shawl

I first made Rosemary's Bell Shawl years ago. I think it was the first lacy pattern I ever tried. On that shawl, I put an i-cord edging. When I blocked it, I stretched the heck out of it so the wing span was probably 8 feet. It was also the first blocking experience I had. All in all, it was a "first" and it was warm and I was happy with finishing a project. Many times I get to 80% and then begin other projects, so for me,  finishing is a feat.

I had to take a trip to Arizona about two months ago. My daughter Rozsika came with me and she grabbed the bell shawl to use on the plane. When we got to Flagstaff, it was sunny but snowy-cold, so my daughter wrapped the shawl around her hoodie to give her an extra layer of warmth. Well, my 12 year old niece Taylor saw it and instantly fell in love with it and begged me to make one for her. She told me shawls were popular at her school and that she really liked shawls but she didn't have one. Then she told me she had a lacy curtain at home she was trying to use as a shawl but it didn't work very well. That was all she had to say! When I got home I quickly (in two weeks) whipped one out for her very own. I put a simple crochet shell stitch edging and sent it to her. From all reports, she adores it and is now thinking of the next project I can make for her!

Noro Sock Yarn

I decided to try the new Noro Sock Yarn my local store started carrying. I really, really hoped that I would like it. Noro yarn in general has never really been a favorite of mine. I have found it to be full of knots, somewhat rough, and with a fair amount of debris such as sticks and hay and other vegetable matter. In addition, there can be very thick places in the yarn around color changes But, the colors seduced me and I bought a ball. I wanted to make socks that reminded me of the wonderful trip I had to Hawaii and from the outside of the ball, it looked like this colorway would do it. Blues, greens, sandy browns...  Too bad I didn't see the TWO knots on the outside of  ball before getting it home.

I like to break my sock yarn into two balls before I start so I don't use too much for one sock. I got out the ball winder and wound the entire thing into one ball. Then, I placed this ball on the scale, weighed the grams, and divided by two. After that, it was easy to get two balls the same weight by winding off with the big ball on the scale and watching for the grams to reach the number that would be half. If you ever try this, make sure stop winding and weigh without tension on the ball to get a true weight. Also, if you're going to wind a ball one way, you should wind the opposite way the next time. Every time you wind, you either add or remove twist. If I ever use the ball winder, I always wind it twice for this reason. The first time adds the twist, the second time takes it away again. That tip came from Judith MacKenzie McCuin, the Crone of All Things Wooly.

I had never made a toe up sock before, nor had I ever used two circulars, so I decided to give those techniques a try. I went in search of patterns and found the Snake River Socks, with the added benefit of  instructions for Judy's Magic Cast On on the same website. It's Judy's site. I recommend the video at Renaissance Yarns. It's very well done. The toe, the socks, everything, ended up to be easy to do and fun. I miss my DPNs, but with the hand issues I've been having lately, size 1 circulars were much easier to use than size 1 sticks. I didn't drop them once! I had to wind off a walnut of the Noro yarn to make these socks match colorwise. I like the charm of fraternal socks, but the intended recepient of these sock will like that they match. The colors are the colors of Hawaii and the Faux Cable pattern has the rolling movement of the waves. Oh, how I'd love to be at the beach today... I did need to keep track of where I was in the pattern as it was somewhat difficult for me to "read" my knitting. I shortened the socks a bit as my friend likes shorter legged socks. This pattern also made a long footed sock (for me). I wear a size 8.5 and it was about an inch longer than would have fit my foot.

I ended up having 4 knots in the ball, 4 more than I think any ball should have. The knots visible in the other picture were at the end of the ball and didn't make color sense at all. That's one of the problems with Noro yarn, in my opinion. We buy it for the beautiful colors and the way they progress from one to another, until BAM!  A knot with a color out of order that messes up the whole thing so that if you WANT to maintain color order in your work, you're left with finding the color that should come next and making your own breaks. It's a pain. I also found this sock yarn "sticky". It tangles because of the stickyness and I had to stop a lot and undo knots. These socks will be warm and colorful, but they may be the last I'll ever do in Noro Sock Yarn. With softer and just as beautiful yarn out there to make socks with, Noro is just not worth the hassle.

Vogue Knitting 25th Anniversary Scarf

   My daughter fell in love with the scarf by Nicky Epstein on the cover of the 25th Anniversary issue of Vogue Knitting. The scarf was made from 25 knitted flowers sewn to a band pointed knitting. In the center of each flower there was a Swarovski crystal. The scarf on the cover of the magazine was done in an ivory, medium gray and pewter gray Silk Purse yarn by Alchemy. I tried to hunt down the yarn, but was unsuccessful. My local yarn store had Pure Silk by Debbie Bliss at the same yardage, pure silk, for half the price. Silk Purse was $32 per skein, Pure Silk was only $14. I ended up getting a cream, medium gray and black for the scarf. So, I saved some money, and had black instead of pewter. My daughter was happy with the color choice and that's all that mattered.

The flowers were fun to knit and I finished each one in about 20 minutes. They each consisted of 5 points. A row of eyelets ran along the straight edge and this was gathered to make the center of the flower. I put a clear or smoky crystal in the middle of each flower. I deviated from the pattern with the crystal also, however. It called for 15mm crystals, which were way too big (and costly) in my opinion, so I used 8 mm instead. They were plenty big enough.

Assembling the scarf proved to be a bit of a pain. It took me two days to get it together. I laid out the outside border, which was made in the same way as the flowers. I had to keep rearranging and moving the individual flowers until I found a pattern that would alternate  the colors and look balanced. It wasn't easy, and I was having a hard time making the black not over power the rest of the flowers. But finally, I think I got it right. One of the other problems I encountered was how to sew the flowers to the base. At first I started tacking it down by the leaves, but that made the whole scarf flatten out with no nice texture at the end of the petals. It worked much better to sew through the middle of the  flower petals, leaving the ends to be loose from the border. This really helped make the scarf much more three dimensional. I also attached the flowers to each other through the middle of the scarf

The pattern didn't call for enough yarn. I would definitely get an extra skein of the color used for the base. I did have some left over, but I would have been way short had I gotten only the number of skeins the pattern called for. My daughter wears it sort of like a button hole scarf. She pulls one end through a gap between flowers so it just bunches around her neck. She loves it and it actually is very beautiful on her. The crystals give a nice sparkle when she moves.

Felted Cover Journal

I attended a two day class at the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival in Canby, Oregon this past September, 2007. The first day's class involved felting a cover for the journal and the second day involved the bookbinding part of the class. It was great. I really enjoyed it and both the instrutors, Gin DeCamp, the felter and Patricia Edmonds, the bookbinder, were knowledgable and a lot of fun to take a class from. I chose to do my cover with black roving an colored locks. The festival had a GREAT vendor offering so there were plenty of materials and I was like a kid in a candy store. Since this was my first attempt, I picked something I thought would be colorful and fun, not too complicated. We laid the wool out in a large rectangle and then felted it down until it was firm and the size we wanted for our cover. I didn't get the dimensions of the pre-felted wool, but the final cover was about 18"x10".  While I used locks of wool, some of the people felted various kinds of  fabric, silk roving, silk ribbon, wool roving and even raffia into their journal covers. Each cover  was totally different. Gin took our felt home and made sure they were dried for the next day of class. Sunday's class involved learning bookbinding basics and we ended up creating the journal with 6 signatures, ten sheets of paper which we then folded, so there are 120 pages total. We stitched them together with some waxed linen and then  used beads for a little embellishment. I bought a button and a length of light blue leather for the closure, but I'm not sure I like them. So, currently there IS no closure, and I'm just wrapping the felt around the pages. Great class. The only thing that would have made this class better is a little more clarity in the description of what materials were going to be supplied and what we should bring on our own.

I really enjoyed making this journal and intend on making another one soon.  As is in my slightly obsessive-compulsive nature, I've now taken an interest in bookmaking and journaling and have been reading and googling like crazy, absorbing lots of useful information. Stay tuned for future masterpieces and a little more precise info about just how it all was accomplished.