Almost there

All I can think of is putting the pieces together, but it is so warm I am extremely hesitant to pick up my knitting. I have so much time to do it too. It's a three day weekend. I am by myself. What better opportunity, right?

OK, I went on Ravelry yesterday and gave myself a deadline. I told everone else that I will be done with the hoody for my husband by the end of the week. That's all I have been doing and thinking about every time I have a few idle moments. Not really!!!!
I am very good at creating distractions:
- Walking Adams Ave.
- Buying a new pair of shoes
- Thriftstore hopping
- Gardening
- Doing Laundry
- Grocery shopping
- Walking the dog
- Walking the dog
- Walking the dog
- Cooking
- Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner
- where did all the time go?

On top of that, I miss Ruben. Hurry up Rozanna and get better soon!

Summer Fun

Yes, I like knitting and traveling
Yes, I do other crafts and projects like crocheting, sewing

Yes, I make it a special mission every year to read at least one book in English and one book in German

and Yes, sometimes another 'new' passion sneaks into my world.

I have discovered cooking soup.

First it was just a few soups to have something different than the same old meat. It was actually my husband's constant searching for 'other' meat that brought my idea to the fore front. Soup can be with or without meat and does not take long at all to prepare, usually about 30 minutes.

I have settled on a few favorites now.

• Fennel soup, with Fennel, Chickpeas, Tomatoes, Garlic, Chicken broth, and a big Potato
• Sicilian Wedding soup, with Spinach, baked Meatballs, Noodles, Garlic, Onion, Carrot, and Celery. The broth for this soup can be Chicken broth or Beef broth, both work well.
• Potato soup, with Potatoes, Leaks, Carrots, Celery, Garlic and Steak strips, Chicken broth, and Onion
• Chicken Noodle, with Celery, Carrots, Garlic, Chicken pieces, Noodles, and Onion

There was something else that contributed to this soup idea and that was my little raised garden bed out front. I started growing Basil, Tomatoes, Hungarian Peppers, Green Beans, and Chives last year.
All the best ingredients to spice up a home made soup.



on the left, below my porch, my husband built the raised garden bed for my plants



Today, I spent some time at a Nursery to buy this years second growing season plants. I researched on-line that San Diego has the right climate to plant some winter vegetables. This afternoon I was busy planting 2 Tomato varieties, one regular and one purple. The purple came very much recommended from our friend the gardener. I also bought two Pole Beans, and seeds for Cool Weather Pees, and Kohlrabi.

 I have also reviewed some Garden Magazines last month. Hard to believe that there was still time for that between the knitting, the Olympics watching and the finishing my 900+ pages Dragon story book.

In the magazine I found the chairs I wanted for my porch that my husband built for me 2 tears ago.

Finally the right chair, I thought. Luckily there was a store in San Diego that had the chairs. I wanted the yellow ones. The woman at the store recommended to take the chair outside to be sure the color was what I wanted. I am so glad she did that because the yellow was more orange glowing than I wanted. Seeing them up close and in the sunshine made me change my mind. The ones I bought are red and beautiful.



Now I sit out there in the morning shade and cool air to celebrate the beginning of
another day with the first cup of coffee



As you can see the chairs are also used for modelling some of my knitted wares, like the Poncho I made years ago



Don't you agree the icicle shawl from 2007 does look better on the chair than on me



Man's hoodie progress

While I knit when I can some evenings go by without progress. Working sometimes becomes the draining culprit and sometime life just happens without any time for the HOBBIES.

I have made progress though. The back is done, the right front panel is done, the left front panel is about 1/2 done. Before the left front was started I layed out the right front panel and trial positioned the buttons. I needed to know where and at what row distance to make the button holes.

First I tried to lay-out the buttons to match
the lumberjack pattern but gave up the idea.
I wanted more than just 5 buttons and
10 would have been too many.

Laying the buttons out on the pattern
has always worked for me.
I finally decided the distance of
18 rows works out great for 6 buttons.

So now I am working on the left piece
and include a button hole every 18 rows.







For the 'life just happens' comment I do have pictures for you.
A friend of mine had a baby in April and we, my husband and I, spent Saturday afternoon with 'the Baby' Allison. Isn't she adorable!

Who is this strange woman, MOMMIE help I am being cuddled

Never mind, I am being fed now, let's just let her do it.

Perhaps this stranger is not so bad. I could just smile a little.
She did feed me, after all

This guy has my toy?

Fair Isle a different way

I am knitting a hoodie for my husband. The idea came from him:
I wish a had a hoddie, something army green, but not too warm, short sleeves would be OK.

The Fall 2010 edition of

Interweave Knits

had a picture and pattern

for a men's jacket

that gave me an idea.

What if I make this hoodie

using a similar design?

The squares would

be knitted in the Fair Isle

style. I like to knit

designs with colors and

have completed many

Fair Isle knitted garments

and even gloves, shawls,

and socks.

.

"LUMBERJACK" is the name of the squares

For the hoodie I would have to find some summery type yarn. So I did venture to The Black Sheep in Encinitas and came away with Nashua Handknits from Westminster Fibers, 50% Linen/ 50% Cotton.  Like I said, summery yarn, light weight and airy,

The colors are Army Green and Brown. I did look to find a Green/Gray combination, but there was nothing beside merino winter wool available. He said he likes the green/brown combo.

Once I started preparing the work and knitted the Gauge, something dawned on me:

Fair Isle knitting will use double the yarn since the second color is carried in the back all the way from end to the other on every row!

I was shocked when that thought hit me.
There goes the idea of a light and airy hoodie right out the window.

I persisted though and spent a few nights (I do have a day job) figuring out how the gauge that I arrived at would translate. I used 5.5mm needles, larger from the recommended 4.5mm. I wanted a light and airy result, remember.

After gathering my husbands measurements I knew how wide at the hip and breast and how tall from the underarm, shoulders and the middle of the neck the hoodie needed to be.

First, I sketched it out. 26" overall length (he does not like long shirts either), 46" overall width, 2" for a waistband.

Second, I wrote out the design rhythm. Yes, I said that before, rhythm is knitting. 

The Lumberjack pattern in the photo was 6, 12 repeated. For my design that did not work because it would require several more green/brown section then what I had in mind. The design would be too busy and I had to also consider where in the pattern would I have to start to have a good connection to the front.

So I started writing out the rhythm with the front:

button band brown, 7 or 8 stitches, solid green 16, green/brown band 8, solid green 16, green/brown band 8, solid green 4. According to my Gauge that would give me the correct 1/2 of a front.

Ergo, the back would then have to start with the remaining 12 solid green, green/brown band 8, solid green 16, green/brown band 8, solid green 16, green/brown band 8, solid green 16, green/brown band 8, sending with solid green 12.

The left front would then again start with the remaining 4 solid green, green/brown band 8, solid green 16,green/brown band 8, solid green 16, ending with button band brown, 7 or 8 stitches.

I don't know why that always happens, but that is exactly what happened and it resulted in the measurements for my husband's hoodie.

Once I had the pattern and design written down and worked out, I went for it and knitted the waistband.

Row 1: all knit stitches

Row 2: 1 purl, 1 knit, all the way across in that rhythm.

When it became time to start knitting the main body I did remember that my balls were hand wound and I had access to 2 strands from one ball (one from the inside and one form the outside), and a good thing that was.

I still had the problem of double threads on the back to solve.

But, being a long-time knitter I just started thinking. I remembered that most of the Fair Isle designs call for many colors and there was no way to not carry the yarn all the way across. I also remembered that I read somewhere about twisting two strands of yarn around each other once to help carry them across larger sections.
This Lumberjack design was different from regular Fair Isle though. The design just needed two colors in 4 places.
You see, two balls with two ends each, provides brown for 4 places. Just what I needed!

So I decided to use two balls, drawing two strands of yarn out from each ball. I attached each strand at the four places in the pattern that used brown, and not carry the brown all the way across the solid green sections.

I twisted the brown with the green in front of every first brown stitch on every row before knitting the first brown stitch and then un-twist it again after the 8 stitches of the brown/green combo vertical stripe were knitted.

For the horizontal stripe I knitted 8 rows, 1 stitch green/ 1 stitch brown, also using the 4 different brown strands. Every time the knitting would reach the next vertical brown strand, I twisted the current with the next brown and made sure the next brown stitch was knitted with the next brown strand.

This really worked out beautifully!

There are no ends to finish anywhere on the entire back piece except in the beginning row and end row. The balls were 100 grams in size, LUCKY ME.

I have also learned that the best way to make sure the green always gets carried all the way through was to knit (RS) or purl (WS) one stitch on either end of each row using the green main color.



armhole
green is the last stitch all the way around the piece



shoulder
green is the last stitch all the way around the piece



side edge
green is the last stitch all the way around the piece

This was done all throughout the entire hoodie, except the waistband, button band, and hood which are all solid brown.  Actually, the hood is not started yet, and might not be solid brown. You will have to wait and see! So check back if you want to know how this ends.



multiple colors

I don't know exactly why I do it, but when I am in the middle of a project knitting with more than one color I always ask myself "why in the world do you do this to yourself".
It slows my knitting way down because the pattern needs calculating every step of the way and the strands get tangled up all the time.
I am currently knitting a hoodie for my husband Ruben. It is made out of 2 colors and after spending already 2 weeks into this project, calculating and untangling it finally looks like it's all worth it.

Yesterday I even pointed out to him that the main back panel is the biggest piece. Once that is done everything else is knitting up faster. Naturally, the tangling and calculating gets less and less as well because with the big piece completed you can easily count out the stitches and rows needed to make the front panel or the arm.
This one will have short arms. The hoddie is made out of a cool yarn, NASHUA creative focus linen, 50% linen/ 50% cotton, for those cool summer evening (or days) in San Diego. I am also using much bigger needles than suggested to get a loose knitted garment. The plan is to add a solid brown hood. We will see once the entire body is knitted perhaps I change my mind about that.

Traveling as a knitter

As most avid 'knitters' would agree, YOU CAN NEVER HAVE TOO MUCH OF A STASH!

That is why I pursue 'finding' the most intriguing yarns on my trips.

Usually on my trips to Germany I buy Regina sock yarns at my German local Phildar store. It's just a few doors away from my mother's apartment. It includes a little coffee shop where we always sit and chat. I just love their buttons. I can never resist some sock yarn, knitting needles and buttons.

This time around I gathered a few more specialty yarns visiting other stores in Europe

In Muenchen I stopped at Lanaiolo  http://lanaiolo.de/ and purchased 2 strands of extreme bright multi-colored lace-weight yarn. I can already see the future scarfs, or cowls, or shawls.

- In Paris I stopped at a sore named La Droguerie http://www.ladroguerie.com/ and purchase 400g (they sell their yarn in weight) Kaleido.

It's 95% bamboo and 5% linen. So soft and smooth, I know the item that will be made out of this will be truly luxurious. I also bought some beads in that store. They will be used on one of the shawls made from the yarn I bought in Muenchen.

All in all the stash for this winter looks promising. Not only because of the trip, but also because before I left on vacation I visited a local Japanese church that had a yarn sale and 'found' irresistible cotton for several baby projects I am planning on completing for little miss Allison Clair Even.

pot holder surprise

After seeing my pot holder picture at it's new desination home I was eagerly awaiting my pot holder surprise. This week it finally arrived and it truly was a  s u r p r i s e.



Besides the very chockolat looking cup cake pot holder,
the package included 50 cup cake baking cups, German pudding powder,
and a Texas state cookie cutter 


















After taking the 'required' photo, I went on-line and posted it on http://www.ravelry.com/ to propperly thank the wichtel partner for her gifts.
All that was left to do was to find a place in my kitchen.

Right there between Micowave and Stove,
the perfect place for it. I am sure this new tool will be used often.