knittyvana.

Working with lace

2009-08-13T14:03:00.000-04:00

I finally made the plunge and decide to try out some lace weight yarn. And I have to say, while the process of knitting an complete FO with such thin yarn is very time consuming, I love the end results

Earlier this summer, I worked on the fountain pen shawl by Susan Lawrence. This shawl is going to be a gift for my mom, who has a milestone birthday coming up in September. I used Tess' laceweight superwash merino. The pattern was fun, but the rows got really long toward the end. I only managed to complete 10 of the 11 suggested repeats before calling it quits and jumping into the edging chart. And the edging chart was so fun! I think it was my favorite part to knit and is my favorite part to look at. As for the yarn, it was okay. I'm a little disappointed that it didn't really soften up after washing. Also, my left finger was constantly black from the dye bleeding while I knit. That was a big deal, just a little annoying.

Next up was the whiper cardigan by Hannah Fettig. I was dubious to knit this cardi because I couldn't quite wrap my head around the construction and if I could make it fit me. I would not be pleased to frog and re-knit a laceweight sweater! But after 3 people I know made whisper, I decided to give it go, taking into account the lessons they learned from knitting it. I made somewhere between a M/L size. That is, I cast on the right number of stitches for an M and knit the appropriate number of inches for an L. This made it a little tricky to decide how many stitches to pick up for the collar. Nothing that I little counting and a calculator couldn't solve, though! I also made one mod to the lower back: increases every 4th row rather than every other row.

Oh and the yarn! I absolutely love this yarn! I bought this skein of Malabrigo merinocash in the "smoke" color way during my trip to San Francisco in May. ImagiKnit was (is?) carrying merinocash as a test product. It is so soft to knit with and the color is fantastic. Hopefully it will be more readily available in the future!

CSA August 8, 2009

2009-08-12T11:00:00.000-04:00

My CSA partner said I could have ALL of the CSA veggies this week, since I'll be away for the next 2 pick ups. Hmmmmm, that's a lot of tomatoes for a gal with a husband who doesn't eat tomatoes. Actually, that's just a lot of vegetables to eat in 5 days!

As usual, I was drwan to the beautiful flowers in the pick your own garden. This week, I went with a purple and pink theme.

I attacked the veggies with great vigor! I am detemined not to let anything go to waste:

1. Shredding/freezing squash for future sweet bread or muffins.

2. Blanching/peeling/freezing tomatos for a winter sauce.

3. Pesto... this jar might last until next summer!

Rule of Thumb

2009-08-07T16:00:00.002-04:00

Who knew? I certainly thought that the rule of thumb had to do with wife beating. The actual explanation is a bit of a snoozer.

Alpacas!!

2009-08-05T23:58:00.001-04:00

In addition all the fun puppy play in Garrett County, our friends treated us with a trip to BlueBell Farm Alpacas.

Our first stop on the farm was to visit the female alpacas. Here are some pictures from the ladies' side of the farm.

One-week old baby.

Sun bathing!

Curious creatures!

Here is the latest addition to the farm: a brand new baby alpaca. Only three-days old! Alpaca babies are called crias. Jo, who owns and runs the farm, picked up baby so we could take a closer look.

I got to hold the baby. She was too adorable and soft to describe.

My visit with baby was short lived though. Mama was nervously pacing and humming at me as I held her little one. After a few minutes of holding baby, I put her down and she and mom ran off to the corner to nurse.

The next stop was the farm shop. I was, of course, in fiber heaven! Even though I was overwhelmed in trying to select my fiber souvenir, I still managed to goof for a few minutes too.

Spinning wheel in the shop. I forgot to ask what kind this is.

Reason 4,387 I love my husband. He spent a couple hours watching me play with the alpacas and then still has a good sense of humor about being dressed up in silly alpaca hats.

I finally decide to purchase some roving from "Smokey" and some yarn from "Cappuccino." Yup, that's right, most of the fiber in the store tells you exactly which animal it came from!

The last stop on our trip was to visit the male alpacas. I took picture (not great ones, since we were in a barn) of the two boys whose fiber I purchased.

Smokey

Cappuccino

Weekend at the lake

2009-08-02T21:43:00.007-04:00

This weekend, the mister and I headed up to Deep Creek Lake to visit with some friends and to take a sorely needed mini-break. Our friend Mercedes is the director of HART for Animals. She and her husband are constantly raising money to find good homes for homeless animals. They are hoping to raise enough money to open a no kill shelter in Garrett County.

Needless to say, they have a few rescues of their own.

This is John Kerry, named for being found on the side of the road on election night 2004.

This is Chance. What a perfect rescue name! He's a greyhound/shepherd mix. A 90 pound cuddle bug!

And finally, Nikki. She's a Malamute/border collie mix puppy. She's always in motion and constantly herding the others in her pack.

With all the animal love, we couldn't leave our little buddy behind. Rocky had a fun afternoon of swimming (actually, more like wading waist deep in water and drinking it), stalking spiders, and hypnotizing ducks from the dock.

We took a break from pup play to visit the Penn Alps artisan village. What a charming place! We visited several of the craftspeople, including the soapmaker. I spent some time outside the soapmaker's shop admiring the beautiful flowers before I bought two shampoo/body bars (English Garden and Lavender). Yum!

We had a great time visiting our friends... and we also got to go somewhere for a real treat. Wait until to see my next post!

My first real yarn!

2009-07-26T12:47:00.005-04:00

Well, well. After my last post I "just" had to ply something together to share my first real skein of handspun with you. Ha! Little did I know that plying would take me a good 4-5 hours of time! Anyway, I recently shared some work in progress pictures of this hand spun project and now I have the FO for you.

I can't wait to cast on and actually knit with this yarn, but for now I just carry the skein with me everywhere I go... yes, it's in my purse... because I just love admiring the pretty colors! When I finally do cast on, I think I'll make a shawl with the yarn... perhaps the textured shawl.

I was impressed with my ability spin thin yarn. The 4 ounces of fiber yielded 480 yards of 2 ply fingering-weight yarn.

I also have another spinning project in progress. I have one pound of BFL that I am spinning up for a sweater. So far I have 2 skeins. One skein is a dk weight and the other is a fingering weight. These two skeins used to be one skein, but I spilt it into two when I realized that I started spinning thicker yarn and got thinner as I progressed. Beginners error! I'm hoping the rest can be spun up at the fingering weight.

CSA catch up!

2009-07-19T16:14:00.003-04:00

I've missed blogging about CSA treats for 2 weeks. This weekend, I'll play catch up!

July 4...

July 11...

July 18... first pepper and tomato!

Lots of spinning to share... but first I have to ply something together! ;)

Feeling blue and brown

2009-07-12T18:30:00.003-04:00

Two of the projects I am working on right now are in the blue and brown color family.

First up, a quick knit from leftover sock yarn from my Spirit Trail Fiberworks Charade socks. This is the tiny shoe pattern by Ysolda Teague. As with most of her designs, this one is very clever, with minimal seaming/finishing involved.

I'm also getting in my spinning practice. A friend bought me a surprise gift of Sheep Shop Yarn Company merino roving in "Royalty." So far, I've spun up 1 of the four ounces. I am still a pretty slow spinner, but my product is getting more consistent as I go. Here's a picture of the roving, pre-drafted roving, and spun single ply. I have no clue how this is going to knit up. I'm thinking this will make a lovely winter shawl or scarf.

Cocoa Cup and Enablers Meet-Up

2009-06-27T20:22:00.006-04:00

I finished my cocoa cup! This is a pattern by Heidi Kirrmaier called Buttercup. I made the small, but probably should have gone with the extra-small because of the plunging neckline. In fact, the only mods I made were on the neckline. The neckline was way too low for me so I ended up redoing it 3 times until I found a relatively comfortable fit without scrunching the top too much. Instead of picking up the neckline per the instructions, I picked up every other stitch along the neck, every stitch along the sleeve, and 3 of every 4 stitches across the back.

The tee took me 5.5 skeins (841.5 yards) of Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy. It's interesting knitting this yarn up at 22 stitches per 4 inches instead of 24 stitches per 4 inches (as in the Arbor I made last year). The fabric has a lot of drape!

Here's me with a couple of my fellow "enablers," all in our buttercups...

But even better than 3 buttercups are 12 enablers! Check out the picture from our Enablers Anonymous Meet-Up! Our host Kate made some delicious treats for brunch. We managed to take a break from some serious knitting, chatting, and eating to take this picture outside. Even though it was in the 80s, we were adorned with FOs -- lots of shawls and summer tops!

CSA 2009, Week 5: June 27, 2009

2009-06-27T20:05:00.006-04:00

Mostly greens this week! Turnips, beats, kale, garlic scapes, squash and zucchini, spring onions, salad greens, head lettuce, fancy lettuce, tons of cilantro, and (one of my faves) kolhrabi!!

New flowers in the pick your own garden this week: poppies!

CSA 2009, Week 4: June 20, 2009

2009-06-22T20:12:00.003-04:00

That's a lot of greens: lettuce mix, head lettuce, garlic scapes, beets, turnips, radishes, zucchini, braising mix, and kale.

Not only were we inundated with greens this week, but the wildflowers were just to beautiful to resist. I picked 4 bouquets for the party we hosted on Saturday. So pretty!! I need to learn the names of all the flowers... one day. But for now I can appreciate how beautiful they are to look at!

CSA 2009, Week 3: June 13, 2009

2009-06-14T18:50:00.005-04:00

Each week's pick up is getting more and more bountiful! This week we had spring onions, lettuce mix, radishes, garlic scapes, Swiss chard, and summer squash. I also picked flowers, dill, and cilantro from the garden. The herbs smell heavenly!

I mixed the dill with chickpeas and served them over brown rice cooked with the spring onion. For an added zing, I added lemon juice and a dollop of yogurt.

Flowers!!

This morning I cast on for a new pair of socks. This is the second pair of socks that I'll be making with this yarn. I frogged my Jaywalkers due to poor fit. The new pattern I choose (Herringbone Rib Socks) is nice and stretchy and, so far, I like the way the pattern and the yarn work together.

Elephantine hat-trick, radishes, and a princess lioness

2009-06-09T19:45:00.004-04:00

They are done! Three mix-and-match Elijahs. And boy do my hands hurt. I calculate that each Elijah took me 12-13 hours. Nothing like Cascade 220 Superwash on size 4s for that many hours to give you a hand cramp. But they are way cute and I can't wait to give them to the recipients! These little guys are for three little boys, ages 5, 3, and -8 weeks (i.e., still in utero). :) I hope they like them!

Tonight I cut up some radishes from this past Saturday's CSA haul. What beautiful colors!

One more random picture to share. Here's little Miss Chloe, The Princess Lioness. Yes, I put a feathery scrunchy (favor from a baby shower - -not something I willing purchased!) on her head. She posed proudly. Or she was too lazy to move. One or the other.

CSA 2009, Week 2: Saturday, June 6

2009-06-06T12:20:00.003-04:00

CSA week 2: kale, radishes, spinach, salad, peas, spring onions, asparagus, strawberries, garlic scapes. And from the pick your own: wildflowers and cilantro. Yum!

I finally took pictures of my "Little Green Monster," a pattern of my own creation. The only thing it's missing is 4 little buttons. I'm thinking red would go well with the green... hmmmm?

This was a fun project, not only in that I improvised the pattern but also in that I used 2 different yarns: the light green is Karabella Aurora 4, a sport weight merino, and the dark green is Spirit Trail Fiberworks "Brigit," a fingering 100% superwash merino. It adds some depth and texture to the sweater and it helped my use up some project leftovers. Win-win!

CSA is back!

2009-06-01T19:48:00.004-04:00

Yay! CSA Week 1!! This year we have the Saturday morning share, so my "CSA partner" (a dear friend :) ) and I went for a 3.5 mile run before heading to the farm to pick up our goodies. This week's haul: braising mix, asparagus, spring onions, collard greens, strawberries, cilantro, irises, and wildflowers. What a great morning!

Oh, and I just picked 5+ pounds of strawberries with some of my knitting/spinning buddies this afternoon. Yet another activity where we don't have to look at each other when we talk... I think we're developing an unhealthy pattern. :)

Alco-tourism in San Francisco

2009-05-30T10:18:00.009-04:00

Actually, we went to San Francisco (probably one of my fave cities ever!) for a wedding. But why not turn it into a little mini-break for us, right? My only regret is not bringing more knits. It was cold! I could have used some more wool!

I really love San Francisco.

A pair of hand-knit socks came in handy on a particularly windy day.

Here's a mini-sampler at Beach Chalet (stout, red, wheat).

We found the Rogue Brewery in town. Surprisingly, the walk to the brewery seemed much longer than the walk home. :)

Our favorite brewery was the Magnolia Pub on Haight, which featured some awesome cask conditioned brews.

Knitting a few rows of my jaywalkers in between sips of my Blue Bell Bitter. (Sadly, since arriving home, these socks have ended up in the frog pond because they fit terribly. I'll use this yarn for another pair of socks.)

Of course, there was yarn to be purchased! Here's a new little buddy I met at Imagiknit. What a fantastic store.

And here's the purchase from Imagiknit. One skein of Malabrigo merinocash for me and one for a friend. Lettuce and Smoke.

And a little souvenir from Bluebird Yarn in Sausalito. Paca-Peds HT from the Alpaca Yarn Co. It's superwash Alpaca Hand-Dyed Sock Yarn with 360 yards of the colorway and 90 yards of a coordinate solid heel/toe color.

And on a food related note... two exciting finds! First, I tried some fresh-caught bay abalone. So cool! (Yes, that's my swallowtail shawl keeping me warm!)

And, a kumquat tree in our cousin's backyard in Sacramento. These beauties came home with me.

spinning progress

2009-05-17T20:24:00.003-04:00

Spinning takes a lot of concentration for me right now. But I'm having fun playing with my Ashford Traveller. And I'm hopeful that I'll be making knitable yarn soon.

Here's an action shot of me spinning, courtesy of a friend and her new camera.

I'm not 100% there yet with regard to making consistent yarn. But, I'm giving myself points for progress. Here's what I have to share: from left to right my first, second, and third handspuns. The first two are "practice wool" that I bought at MD S&W and the third is practice merino courtesy of another friend.

I took a few detailed shots of the merino before plying and then after plying (in the skein). The skein had not been wash yet in this picture, so I think it will even out a little more.

Thanks, ladies!

2009-05-17T20:14:00.002-04:00

My prize (a WEBS giftcard) for winning the Enablers Anonymous KDAL arrived in the mail yesterday. Thanks, ladies! I'm looking forward to replenishing my stash.

I met Ysolda!

2009-05-17T19:32:00.003-04:00

Two weeks ago I went to a business conference in Charlottesville, VA. I didn't expect to report anything exciting, but I was pleasantly surprised.

On Wednesday of the trip, I stopped by The Needle Lady, a LYS less than 2 blocks from the conference location. Mimi, the owner, was very friendly and has a fantastically stocked store! I told her I was in town for a conference, and she invited me to join the store's knitting meet-up the following evening. They were hosting a special guest: Ysolda Teague, designer extraordinaire!

Knitting with Ysolda was lots of fun, as was dinner afterwards. She is a treasure trove of knowledge on knitting and design. I hope I can retain some of her pearls of wisdom!

Check out the "Enable Me" button! It was given to her by one of my fellow Enablers and Ysolda still had it in her knitting bag.

Read more about Ysolda's visit to Charlottesville on The Needle Lady's blog, Ysolda's blog, and Vilde's blog.

A surprise Sheep and Wool purchase

2009-05-09T20:20:00.005-04:00

What did I buy at Sheep and Wool? Yarn, yes -- lots of goodies: Tilli Thomas (10 skeins of superwash merino for $20!) and Tess (a sweater's quantity of superwash merino, black superwash lace weight for a sweater, and green superwash laceweight for a shawl) got most of my business... that was before lunch.

But before I about the purchases, check out the pre-gaming Sheep and Wool celebrations. The first annual Enabler's Tailgate!

A little bubbly to kick things off!

Some of the ladies enjoying a cold beverage.

Elijah was a big fan of the coffee cake and his mimosa...

By far the best (only?) S&W tailgate!

A few stars from the festival.

Check out the teeth on this guy! He was very social and let me pet him while he was munching.

So, what was the big purchase? After lunch, I decided to take the plunge and buy a spinning wheel! Here's the picture of the Ashford Traveller that I tried. I have her twin in my living room now! More on how spinning is going (hint: not well yet! ;) ) soon...

why the hiatus?

2009-05-01T09:13:00.005-04:00

Oh, yes, and I should explain my posting hiatus. I've been busy... knitting! I know, no excuse not to post. Why didn't I share? Well, in an effort to knit down my stash over the past few months, and with the encouragement of a little friendly competition, I have kept my "nose to the needles," if you will.

The result? 10,914 yards knit into FOs from December 1 - April 30. As Sarah pointed out at Wednesday's meet-up, 6.2 miles of yarn. Wow. Needless to say, I have lots of FOs to share and will try to catch up in some upcoming posts.

With Sheep and Wool coming up tomorrow and my stash pretty much decimated, the timing could not be better. I'm looking forward to some lovely sheep goodies to replenish my knitting basket!

Oh, and before I forget, I dabbled in dyeing and spinning in the month of April, thanks to the generosity of some of my favorite "enablers." To be clear, I understand the general principles of these activities now, but am far from being proficient at either of them. Nonetheless, I have a some souvenirs from my non-knitting fiber adventures.

Here is my first attempt at dyeing. The base is a wool/nylon blend. There was a bit of a mix up with the colors and I used "teal" where I wanted to use "moss." No matter. A little over-dyeing resulted in a brilliant, rich green. The grayish-green color in the skein is called herb green. Although it looks more plain-ole-gray than green next to the rich moss over teal. And the white spots? That's just my error and inexperience, i.e., not knowing how to fully saturate a skein of yarn. The combination reminds me of something industrial... don't know why. Anyway, I dubbed my first colorway "green machine."

Despite my blunders, it's knitting up nicely into a pair of Jaywalkers.

My second dyeing attempt was on a fancier base (Fingering / 4 ply Nylon, Metallic, Silk, Merino). The first round of dyeing this skein was using various concentrations of the color "wedge wood." It was pretty, but in the end looked like a blue version of "green machine." I was going for more of a semi-solid look. So, under Shelby's great advice, I over-dyed the skein with a medium concentration of the color "gunmetal." I named this colorway "gunmetal over wedge wood." Clever, huh? I'm hoping to knit this into a pretty, sparkly shawl.

Finally, my first attempt at spinning. The result is a ridiculous mess, really. Thick and thin and totally un-knitable. But how fun to watch yarn appear before your eyes! I couldn't quite get the hang of a drop spindle, but the spinning wheel was lots of fun. And thank goodness for Elizabeth's patience in teaching me. Boy, were my hands uncoordinated!! At least I got a good laugh out of my clumsiness. I'll have to get some more practice and do some serious research before I invest in a wheel... one day though!

little herb garden

2009-05-01T09:08:00.000-04:00

Pictures of the the little herb garden from last summer.

This little crew of pots was transferred into the kitchen for the winter and back to the deck last weekend. We had a few fatalities over the winter: the hot pepper plants, the dill, and the basil. But the sage, mint, rosemary, oregano, parsley, and chives are still going strong.

One note on the parsley is that it grew increasingly covered with aphids in the kitchen. I tried to get rid of them by spraying the plant with vinegar (which burned the leaves!) and then some diluted castile soap. No luck. The aphids came right back. Interestingly, they didn't infect any of the other plants. A friend of mine suggested buying some ladybugs, but the smallest quantities available for purchase would give me something like 20,000 ladybugs. Probably not the best thing to introduce to my little potted eco-system. Well, oddly enough, as soon as I put the parsley outside, the aphid problem went away. So many thanks to all the little buggies, whoever you are, that have help clean up my little friend!

Oh, and one side note on the herb garden from last year: A tomato surprise! I fertilized my pots with compost that was not quite finished composting. And the result was a tomato plant that sprouted up! I was so excited. Too bad it only yeilded one yucky, mealy, flavorless tomato. Booo. But at least it was pretty, right?

What inspired this post? It's almost CSA time again! Red Wiggler has been busy planting goodies for this year. Goodies are just around the corner...

Little senses of accomplishment

2009-03-01T15:36:00.005-05:00

I've been doing a little of this and that today. The nice thing is that I finished several projects today, which makes me happy!

First, I put the buttons on the BSJ that I finished for a baby shower I will be attending next weekend. I think the buttons are two mice in a boat fishing. But it could be some other animal too. In any case, they are very cute! I used Shalimar Sock Yarn and size 4 needles. I still have about 85 yards of this yarn left, which means the sweater took about 320 yards. For a more polished look, I picked up and knit stitches around neckline. After the pick up and knit row, I knit one row additional and then bound off in knit.

I blocked my first Clapotis. For this project, I used size 3 needles with a Peruvian tweed alpaca yarn. It's dark grey and brown , and I simply love the warmth of the color combined with the actual warmth and softness of the yarn. This was a MD Sheep and Wool purchase from last year. I have now officially used all of the yarn I bought last year!! Since I only had 600 yards of this yarn, I knit one fewer set of increases. This means that I had about 80ish stitches on the needles instead of 100ish for the straight rows. (I don't have the pattern in front of me right now for the exact number of stitches... and I'm too lazy to go look on knitty and do the math right now.)

I played in the kitchen today too. I had a craving for quiche, so I improvised this recipe from one of my cookbooks. The key ingredients are milk, broccoli, eggs, cornmeal, Dijon mustard, and onions. I made them in individual serving sizes so they are easier to take for lunches. Also, I skipped the crust, since I didn't have any and didn't feel like making any. Some cooking spray kept the mixture from sticking to the dishes.

Finally, I baked some oatmeal apple cinnamon muffins. I love this recipe! The only adjustments: added cardamom for some zing and didn't put in flaxmeal (didn't have any). And in the time it took me to write this blog, I have already eaten two of them!

Ah, the Pacific Northwest

2009-02-23T19:20:00.004-05:00

Last summer the mister and I traveled to the Pacific Northwest (western Washington and Oregon, and also Victoria, BC to be more specific) with a couple of very close friends. We deemed our trip "Beervana," as our goal was to sample as many fine brews as the Pac NW would offer us, while still remaining coherent enough to see the beautiful sites this region has to offer. Or actually in the reverse order: sites first, beer later. Right, so that was pretty much the trip: walking city streets or hiking paths/trails during the day with a breaks for meals at a local brewpub.

Last year, I blogged about some of my favorite beers from the region. Here are some of my favorite non-city sites.

Multnomah Falls, OR.

Sunset over Puget Sound.

Falls at Mount Rainer National Park.

Mount Rainer.

Crescent Lake, WA.

Hurricane Ridge, Olympic National Park... who doesn't love snowmen in July?

Mount Hood, OR, as seen from a vineyard in WA just on the other side of the Hood River.

The Gorge Games in Hood River, OR.

A scenic overlook on the Pacific Coast Highway. Look at the weather front! Sunny on the left, stormy on the right. Amazing!

A view of WA from the ferry between Victoria and Port Angeles, WA.

So, why the trip down memory lane? Well, I just finished knitting up the yarn I bought from a small shop in Cannon Beach, OR. STR (socks that rock) is actually local in Oregon: that's where the stuff is made! What a great way to purchase my first skein!

I spent a long time deciding what to do with this yarn. It's 380 yards of medium weight superwash 4-ply merino in the colorway "Montley Hue." Very appropriate as the sky was pretty much this shade of bluish grey on the day I made the purchase. The tanish flecks remind me of the sand on Cannon Beach. Perfect. Anyway, I decide to make the Shetland Triangle by Evelyn Clark. I did my research on Ravelry and saw that other knitters that used STR for this project knit with size 6 needles. So I decided to do the same. No swatching for me!! As a result, I ended up only having enough yarn for 7 of the 8 body repeats. I should have known better and gone down a needle size from everyone else because I am a loose knitter. The shawl blocked out to 27 inches in length and a 55 inch “wing-span,” (which is larger than what the pattern called for). So, as you can imagine, my "leaves" are pretty big. But I'm happy with it. I can't wait to wear it to a wedding we're attending in March!

Two great accomplishments this week

2009-02-19T20:32:00.003-05:00

I made a fantastic soup this Monday. The recipe is amazingly simply... inspired by a pumpkin soup I had a La Tavola a few weeks ago during Baltimore's restaurant week.

Here we go:

step 1: cut up 4 sweet potatoes (leave skins on) and one head of cauliflower.
step 2: steam veggies in large pot with 1/4 inch water and 2 tablespoons canola oil for about 20 minutes
step 3: while the veggies are steaming, boil pearl barley for 15 minutes.
step 4: puree veggies in food processor for several minutes. add water to achieve desired consistency.
step 5: put barley in bowl, pour veggie puree on top. drizzle with balsamic vinegar. add fresh ground pepper if desired.

enjoy!

I presume you could substitute the veggies with others, particularly roots (turnips, for example) or a fall or winter squash.

(also pictured above: sourdough bread rising... used unbleached organic white flour and rye flour in a 2:1 ratio.)

I made a feather and fan cowl from Curious Creek Fibers Etosha (110 yards). I love the name of the colorway: plum thunder. My first knit from the purple color family. It fuzzy and fun to wear! Here's what I did:

- cast on 90 stitches, placing markers every 18 stitches
- rounds 1 and 2: knit
- round 3: begin feather and fan (k2tog 3 times; yo, k1 5 times, ssk 3 times). repeat 4 times to the end of the round (5 repeats total)
- round 4: knit
- repeat last 4 rounds, ending on round 4, until almost out of yarn.
- bind off loosely in knit

And so it goes with a week of creativity. I also have one other FO from this week: my first shawl and my first project using STR (same project). I had fun with both! More on that once I take the pins out and get some pictures.