Shaking the dust off my feet

A,

I'm leaving tomorrow for AZ and our new home, and I'm not sure what length of time it will take to set up internet, so this might be it for a while. Hopefully not too long though. I don't know if it's a problem on my part or yours, but I was unable to view the pictures from your last post, which was sorely disappointing. You have been busy! And knowing your work, and from your lovely descriptions, it sounds like you crafted some delicious knits. I would give you lots of ribbons if I were in charge of the fair.

So you figured out how to read the Norwegian pattern for the mittens? Well, I guess the most important part was the pattern chart, and that's not in any language. I don't know what to tell you about the color combo. I'm assuming the child's pair you made were traditional black and white? Which may mean you'd be interested in some fancy color mixing for a change of taste. I might agree. White and black are classic, but if you put in colors, you own it more. Not that I feel qualified to say which colors to choose. I'm insecure in my color sampling. But obviously something with high contrast. A dramatic pattern like that deserves a dramatic color contrast. Sorry I can't be more help.

I have a question for you. I was pondering felting. What would happen if a cabled item was felted? Would it retain any of its cabled qualities, or would the design just sort of melt into the background of the felting? Hmmm.

I was surprised to hear that you went camping as well last weekend. Isn't it wonderful to smell like campfire smoke? We learned a cheater method, which was that soggy wood lights better with lighter fluid. Oh, this lovely spot where we went, I could live there. I could move to this town. It's charming and cultural and has an art co-op and rows of family-owned small businesses with quality products. Not to mention trees. It's only draw-back is its extraordinarily tiny grocery store, well, that and the severe lack of chemistry jobs in the area. But still. Lovely place. Went back there last weekend. Lovely.

Sleepy. Going to fall into bed. Goodnight. When do you start learning activities? How long until you're a doctor?

K

Adult Questions

K,
One more thing...

What colors should I make the adult Selbu Mittens?

White and black like traditional?

Or White and what colors?

Help help.

The ones I'm making are the first pair shown.

A

Bon Voyage!

K,

Wow. I have been a very busy knitter. And embroiderer. And you would think it would make me possibly want to take a short break.

This is not true. The almost finishing of things (but not the actual finishing) makes me want to start new things even more.

However, I present you with the items that are now winging their way to the Iowa State Fair!

My handspun, handmade Monet's Waterlillies mittens. A bit grumbly on the surface, but always a delight. I believe you have the specs on these already. Rambouillet, handyed, handspun, handknit...I like my hands. Handwarmers.

Again, sorry for the picture quality. I need to steal a camera like you need air conditioning. The color is so washed out and weird.

Kris's Gloves! Knitpicks Swish Superwash in Jade.

One of my favourites, Baby Selbu Mittens from a Norwegian Selbu book, which were so delightful to knit that I can hardly wait to start my my larger and smaller gauged adult selbu mittens. These ones are in Henry's Attic Kona with dyed blue and natural cream. A superwash merino. Because it's for a baby. They are messy and fussy.

This came together in the last week before it had to be done, my blue reversible cabled scarf out of Knitpicks Panache in dusk. Let me just say that if I could choose a fiber to knit with the rest of my life, it might very well be this one. It was absolute delight. 40% baby alpaca, 20% fine merino, 20% silk, 20% cashmere all comes together for the softest most beautiful yarn ever. If it wasn't chunky it'd be even better. And in more colors. I mean, what they've done with it doesn't make me happy. But the blend...I could just collapse into that and be happy.

Maybe I'll post the pattern I came up with for it on here sometime. Super easy with just a spark here and there to keep it exciting. This would be a great thing to knit for somebody as a gift who you like enough to spend a normal chunk of money as well as knitting time on them.

And the grand finale are these beauties.

If only you could comprehend how much I love them. I really, really forgot how long embroidery takes me. Especially the leaves. Leaves take so long.

This is more color friendly, but really doesn't capture it at all.

The leaves are a beautiful mix of pink with hints of purple, the flowers are bright bold pink, and the stems and stamens (or french knots) are purple. All on black stockings. The stockings are made with knitpicks gloss which is 70% merino, 30% silk, and the embroidery thread is my own from my silk thread that I dyed and put six strands together for floss. It really hits the spot on the beauty factor in my life that I always like. I'll get more awesome pictures when I can. Here's a little depth perspective.


Those, my dear, have left and are out to the fair. Rereading the directions, I think I was only supposed to include patterns for what I made up, but that was 4 out of the 5, and so I included a pattern for all. Well, for the ones I made up, beyond the scarf, which is simple enough to remember, I wrote what I thought I did. Which is probably not exactly what I did, but I'm a bit of an organic knitter.

I'll have to tell you soon about the Doctor Who Scarf Yarn. The thread that will become yarn, at least. It shall be interesting.

However, I have a migraine, and I'm tired as I woke up at 5:30 today and just got back from work at 5:30, and I'm hot, and thus I'll leave that for another day.

However, a few more things. First, I agree. I have always had major problems with the Martha story. In fact, I have problems with a lot of the Church's interpretations of many of the classic Bible stories. I'll get into that more sometime...but that's really a whole other thing that you don't want to get me going on when I've got a migraine.

Second, Kris and I also went camping last weekend! Cattle stampeded and tried to maul us, rare cattle, but we survived. More on that as well.

Thirdly, I finished the Ultraviolet yarn. I had to adjust the color of it so that you could view it. Because we all know that normally this would be invisible to the human eye.


I hope it doesn't burn your retina's too much.

Off to lots of find pain relievers,
Amy

Mary vs. Martha

A,
My mom sent me this book, "Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World." You know the story where Martha is all busy preparing for Jesus while Mary hangs out at his feet? And then at the end of it Jesus says that Mary did the better thing. It's in large print, and I'm a little wary of it, because I'm not sure how the author was able to make an entire book out of this story. It's for women, and I think the premise is to slow us down, encourage us take on less, become more intimate with God. That sort of thing.

I can see some of this wisdom. We are the type of people who take on a lot, you and I. Lots of knitting, lots of learning, lots of all that stuff. Sometimes we need a reminder to stop and make time for God. However, I don't know about you, but I've never liked the story about Mary and Martha. I never liked that Jesus seemed to reprove Martha. Because I align with her. I feel for her. And so I have my own theories. Maybe Martha was fine. She was, after all, serving her lord in the way that she knew how. Maybe Martha wasn't the problem. Maybe the problem was Jesus. Okay that sounds blasphemous. But maybe the difficulty lay in the fact that Martha wasn't speaking in his love language, and so he didn't recognize that what she was doing was serving him. It could have been a lack of communication. Because I think what Martha did was fine. She was all about being a good hostess and serving her guest.

I began to suspect this book when I came to the realization that this was a book for women. As far as I can tell, it is solely for women, with apparently no mention made of the man. And I began to wonder what the reason was for this. Are men less likely to take on more work? Or are they less likely to be distracted by their work? Are men inherently closer to God that they don't need this reminder to slow their lives down? NO!! Of course not! So why is the focus on women? Why?

I don't like where this book seems to want to go. Isn't it possible to find God within the busyness of life? Or should we give up the prospect of doctorates and listen meekly? Mary was a wimp. Long live Martha.

K

My Thread and Butter

K,

The Iowa State Fair is the awesomest state fair in the world. Going on for over 150 years, the Iowa State Fair is listed only second to Las Vegas as a super duper summer destination travel spot in America. From good old Wikipedia,

"Additionally, the fair is home to several traditional contests and tournaments, including rooster crowing, sheep shearing, pigeon racing, turkey, duck, and chicken calling, wood chopping, pie eating, arm wrestling, banjo, fiddle, accordion, harmonica, mandolin and piano playing, and backgammon, chess, cribbage, and checkers tournaments."

And knitting. While perhaps not a contest or tournament, one can enter knitted objects (I've seed a very poor knitted clock...more so a swatch with a clock inserted) into the fair. You can enter as many as you like. And you can win ribbons! Ribbons! The blue is not even the best one. The best ones are purple. This year, I'm just aiming to enter. Start small, you know? Next year, I'll maybe pop out something specific for the fair that is completely awesome, just like the fair!

I have been to the fair every year of my life since I was just 3 months old. I love the Iowa State Fair. There's even a cow made out of butter! Full size! And don't think I haven't considered the fiddling competition. But I haven't found a banjo or guitar accompaniment nearby, yet.

I'm entering some of this.


The blue lace is not going to be finished in time, but you see the handspun handknit Monet's Waterlillies Mittens, my Man's Green Gloves, and a teensy bit of baby Selbu Mittens peeking in at the lower left-hand corner. What you don't see are the stockings I'm embroidering right now. K, I forgot how long embroidery takes. It takes a long time.

I got kinda sad, because I got a letter when I got a letter from Baylor College of Medicine that said that I wasn't selected. So, as usual, I violently tore up the reject letter and threw it away. I think I would have burned it, but the stove is electric, and hard to get a flame out of. I'm not too disappointed for two reasons, however.

1) I wasn't going to go there anyway. I'm happy where I've chosen and I'm really excited to start school in a month.

2) This arrived in the mail!


It is 9.9 pounds of fine merino wool yarn/thread from Crystal Creek Fibers! 14,000 yards per pounds, baby, but 19.5 microns, so good for next to the neck wear. Which is what you want when you're making a Doctor Who Scarf! This stuff is thin.


But I can put 12+ strands together to get something resembling dk weight.


And dye it! I like dying!

Oh man, this thing is going to kill me, isn't it? Well, test dying tonight. Hold your breath!

I'm holding mine,
A

What? There are trees here?

A,


This is basically what New Mexico looks like. Scruffy. Pretty much all over. Not a preponderance of trees, though there are some in the cities. A little dusty, a little dry. So imagine our surprise when we found that there exists a place in the state such as this:

Can you believe that this is the same state? It's up in the higher altitude, so it's cooler, tree-studded and smells like Christmas. This is where James and I spent our weekend, camping and enjoying fresh air, though smelling ourselves predominantly of campfire smoke. Just looking at the picture makes me want to breathe in deeply and put on some warmer clothes. I've got two weekends left in this state, and if possible we're going to spend at least one of those back here in the beautiful wilderness.

This, by the way, is me poking at glowing coals. Despite the fact that it rained two afternoons in a row (with the likelihood of rain every day nearing 100%), we were able to start two roaring fires. James has that wilderness thing under control. He knew how to scavenge to find all of our dry wood.

That said, holy crap Amy you posted a lot while I was gone. I'm sorry I wasn't available to help you with your yarn crisis. But it looks like you got things under control. I'm pretty sure if I were in your shoes (which would of course be stylish and too big for me), I would go insane. How many projects do you have going on? Oh, that's right. Too many for you to even count. So many that you lose track of the projects you're working on! Ahh!! This would disable me. This would drive me insane. I would forget where I was or how a pattern went or what row I was on or, like you, how many projects I was even working on. I have respect for you, that you are able to juggle so many yarns at the same time, but still, I wouldn't want to join you.

I am a one-track mind. A one-track project person (well, I've got sewing projects going on, but only one knitting project right now). I'm all, get that one thing done before you even look at buying yarn, or think of starting another project. Not that I have to even sensor myself. That's just the way I am. Which lends itself into other aspects of my life as well. I'll sit down and finish one homework assignment until it's done before starting another. One book at a time. One goal at a time (helped me finish the sock creatures, since I couldn't afford to be distracted by other ideas). It will probably make me a poor researcher, because I'm pretty sure to be good at that, you've got to be thinking all the time of what comes next, with what other venues one might experiment. I think we have drastically different approaches.

By the way, I wanted to mention with the quilt thing, I have no need as of yet for a sewing machine. My estimations predict that it may take an extraordinary amount of time to build up reserves of fabric and to cut each piece into miniature squares and then arrange all of these squares into some type of watercolor goodness before I am anywhere near ready to sew. The nice thing I like about this watercolor business is that I can be on the constant lookout for proper types of fabric. I need so many types of fabric that I can just buy willy nilly with some basic idea of what I'm looking for but with no specifics necessary (at least as of yet). It's quite different than any of my yarn-buying tactics, and so I am enjoying the diversity. Someday, somewhere, I will purchase a sewing machine, but probably not until I'm nearer to needing it.

Speaking of machines, you made mention of a spinning machine. Wow, that's exciting! Less portable (I don't think you'll be bringing that on the bus for your commute each day), but definitely fabulous. I want a picture. Most of the spinning wheels I've seen in person have been antique things that are generally obsolete except for some rustic asthetic value that is affirmed while sitting in the corner of a room, looking dusty. And rustic. I imagine yours is slightly more practical. How exciting. Be careful not to prick your finger. Wait! Can you prick your finger on it? Or was that something else? Maybe I'm getting my stories mixed up.

I'm going to prepare a sandwich and not worry about the logistics of spinning.

Happy fibering!

K

PS. What's up with the Iowa fair thing? I mean, are these up for judging? Is a blue ribbon coming your way? Or are they going to sell your masterpieces? My favorite part of the state fair was always the baby bunnies. And the baby ducks.

Yup, I'm insane.

K,

Look at this.

What is this? you ask. Why, it's two pieces of the front lace cardigan that match up with each other pretty well! I don't have to rip it out and re-consider my life stance on knitting!

Sorry for the panic, if it was unduly caused. At least, I had it for awhile.

I'm buy trying to finish up the Iowa State Fair items and pondering what to do next. You see, I could either start a new project for the fair and finish it, hopefully before the fair, or keep working on the lovely piece of sweater you see before you. Probably the second. Though the first is really tempting, you should know.

Love,

A