As I wrote in my last post, I managed to lose my battery charger for my camera during the move. That made it so that I couldn't upload my pictures from the things which I was writing about. That situation is resloved now!
These are the my first ever fair isle gloves which I was attempting to make for myself. I loved the colors of the yarn and had pretty much decided that these would be the most beautiful gloves the world had ever seen. One small problem. Since I had never worked with fair isle, I was unsure about tension. They seemed much too small for my hands. Even at the beginning of this project, I considered ripping the whole thing out and starting from scratch with larger needles or less tension. But in the instructions the author wrote that, as with all color work, these would stretch with blocking. So I kept knitting away. But in my gut I knew that something was wrong. I should have listened! I learned from the ladies at my knitting group that they don't actually stretch THAT MUCH, and I will, in fact have to rip the whole darn thing out. Bummer! Here are some better pictures (since the last ones were taken on my cell phone)!
Also, last weekend Jaimie and I went on a hike with our room mate and his girlfriend. Here are some pictures of the beautiful scenery!
After our hike/photo op, we stopped at a restaurant called Pier 1 in a town called North East, MD for brunch. It was really wonderful. We all thought that we were super hungry, so we each ordered biscuits and gravy along with some kind of pancake or french toast. None of us were able to finish all of that food, but it wasn't for lack of trying! By far the best biscuits and gravy I have ever had!
This past weekend was the big Annapolis Boat Show. My dad and step-mother flew up to visit he hubbs and I as well as check out some gorgeous sail boats! I fell in love with one of them- too bad that it costs $2 million! My major gripe with sailboats is that the galleys are so small! I love to cook and I don't think that I could live for any length of time in a place where I had basically a small kitchenette to work with. The $2 million boat had a decent kitchen, though. I'll start saving my pennies.
My dad adored our dog, Carbide. He kept playing with him and talking to him. Very cute. I hope that he likes his real grandkids that much when we have children someday!
They seemed to have a really good time, which made me happy. I cooked a TON of food in preparation for the trip, and they seemed to really like it. I made my dad's favorite "cookie"- hermits. I brought those to pick them up from the airport. For dinner I made Roasted Red Pepper Humms and pita chips, New England Clam Chowder, Roasted Chicken (my step mother's favorite) with baby red potatoes and artichokes. For dessert- Angel Food Cake. I hadn't made a homemade angel food cake since I was 7 and made it for my father's birthday. That was before I understood how vital beating the egg whites was! I thought that I had been beating them for long enough and it was time to do something else- needless to say, the cake was only about 2 inches tall. Oops. This one turned out much better-and was much taller.
Since this is supposed to be a knitting blog, I suppose that I should blog about some knitting! I am very nearly done with my youngest sister's Christmas gift which is some illusion dragonfly knit mittens- to match her scarf from last Christmas. I thought that a pattern for dragonfly mittens would be the easiest pattern on the earth to find-but that turned out to be incorrect! I actually had to combine the dragonfly illusion knit pattern from her scarf last year with an illusion mitten pattern which I purchased from Fresh Isle Fibers. It worked out beautifully because I only had to fudge one stitch! (The dragonfly patter is 31 stitches across at its widest point, and I was allowed 30 stitches across for the mitten top.)
Unfortunately, when the yarn arrived, there were two problems. The first was that the color of the yarn was a VERY pinkish purple (more of a magenta than a true purple) so it is not the same color as the scarf that I knit for her last year. (It looked much different in person than on the computer when I ordered it. Go figure). The second problem was that the yarn is very, VERY scratchy. So scratchy, in fact that I think I might have to sew a fleece liner or something inside of it so the scratchy yarn isn't up against her skin. The good thing, though is that the yarn can both be washed and dryed, so once I am done knitting, I might try that a few times to see if I can soften it up a bit.
And finally, yesterday my friend Dharma and I went up to PA to check out a knitting and spinning wonderland called The Mannings. It. Was. Amazing. They had every kind of yarn and wheel. I really love the old fashioned looking spinning wheels that remind me of Sleeping Beauty from when I was a kid. There was a particularaly gorgeous Kromski that I was really into. There was an exceptionally knowledgeable gentleman there (Mr. Knisley, who teaches all of the spinning classes) and he walked us through the differences between all of the wheels. He had me sit down at that Kromski and tell him if I felt like there was a problem. The first thing that I noticed was that a large part of the wheel juts out at you and is about 2 inches away from your left knee. I felt a little boxed in. Also, since I am tall, he thought that the wheels with a lower orafice might be difficult for me to work with. I had mostly come to check out the Ashfords since you can buy them unfinished, finish them yourself and save some money. The Traditional wasn't as nice as I thought it might be, but the Traveler seemed like a great wheel. At The Mannings, they don't sell it unfinished, so I couldn't really save the money there. Also, the Lazy Kate that it has built in isn't tensioned, so I would actually have to buy another Lazy Kate in order to ply my yarn.
There was another wheel there-the one that my friend Dharma is in love with and will be buying. I walked right past it and thought nothing of it. It was plain as plain could be. Light colored wood. Vertical layout. Nothing ornate or fancy. I couldn't understand why she made such a fuss ofer this Lendrum spinning wheel. That is, of course, until I sat down at it and started spinning (or at least trying to).
This wheel was brilliant in its simplicity! ![]()
It is very smooth to treadle. It comes with a super fast flyer and 4 bobbins as well as a tensioned lazy kate for $622. That is more than we were planning to spend, but it really does include everything. It folds almost completely in half, and can slide under my bed or be easily transported. Also, the orafice is very high (the highest I saw yesterday) so I won't be hunched over to spin with it. And the whole top piece (everything except for the treadles) are angled forward towards the spinner about 30 degrees or so. I didn't understand why until I spun with wheels that didn't have that angle. It is so you can see the yarn that you have spun and know when you need to adjust your hook to let the yarn feed onto the next space down on your bobbin. Cool, huh? My name is now on the waiting list!
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