Old Pattern - Kindling Coffee Cuff

A few weeks ago, my husband and I met our friend Becca at the local Caribou Coffee to hang out. I was pleasantly surprised to see a bunch of reusable coffee cuffs, some knitted, hanging around for purchase.

I was also amused... about 2 years ago I made a bunch of my own just for fun but didn't think anyone would want to buy or use one. While re-arranging my craft corner the other day, I stumbled across the pattern I'd worked out for this one:



And so... for your knitting/stocking-stuffing/white-elephant-gifting pleasure, I give you the extremely simple directions for what I decided to name Kindling:

Grab some worsted-weight yarn (like Paton's Classic Wool).
Using US Size 6 or 7 dpns, cast on 36 stitches (a cable cast-on seems to work best!) & distribute them on 4 needles.
Join & knit two rounds in this manner: (K9, p1, k7, p1, k9, p1, k7, p1)

Then repeat this pattern 4 times, or until desired length:
Round 1: K9, p1, k1, k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k1, p1, k9, p1, k7, p1
Round 2: k9, p1, k7, p1, k9, p1, k7, p1
Round 3: k9, p1, k2tog, yo, k3, yo, ssk, p1, k9, p1, k7, p1
Round 4: K9, p1, k7, p1, k9, p1, k7, p1

After achieving desired length, complete last round as follows: (K9, p1, k7, p1, k9, p1, k7, p1)
Bind off.

Here's a shot of the details, sort of:


Happy Knitting & Merry Christmas!

Um.

I'm pretty sure that knitter/artist/photographer/designer Jared Flood (of Brooklyn Tweed) is an evil genius.

I've been reading his blog for about two years now, but I've only managed one project that he had a hand in, Smariek's Cap Karma. Granted, I've completed that project about 10-12 times.

Well, I started Koolhaas tonight (sweet hat pattern, check it out), and I'm certifiably addicted. I don't want to put it down, but I really should because it's 1am and I have an early class in the morning. Ah, sweet irresponsibility!! Maybe??

One day, I shall get up the guts to start this or this.

One day, I shall also dust off my camera and take pictures of the projects I've finished lately.

Study Tactics

I'm sure this won't work so well for the longer papers that I have due in coming weeks, but for now I'm enjoying this approach to studying:

Write a section.
Knit a few rows.
Write a section.
Knit a few rows.

Thanks to some rest and the prayers of a few good friends, I think I might be able to fend off Cold #3, which was threatening earlier this week. Whatever it was knocked me out for Tuesday, but I refuse to be knocked out any longer... but I'm still moving slowly.

And writing a section,
Then knitting a few rows.
Repeating repeating
til this assignment is done.

At this rate, Shalom could be done by the end of November. You know what... I need peace AND a warm sweater, so that works out well. :-)

But all is not dark...

I know the last post was a bit of a downer. You'll get that here periodically, as I try to be genuine. Where I am is where I am and I won't try to hide it.

But all is not dark in my life. I have an incredible husband and I have a handful of friends, near and far, who are willing to stick things out with me and help me carefully peel back the assorted layers of my heart.

I also have a few sanity-keeping hobbies that I will carve out time for. My bike will get plenty of use, as will my running shoes. My paintbrushes will likely not stay dry for long, and there will be plenty of fun on my knitting needles. I know better than to dive into a mess without some diversions. :-)

Thanks to my wonderful friend Yvette (who gave me a fantastic birthday present - a gift certificate to my favorite local yarn store), I was able to get some yarn for a sweater today. No pictures yet, just a delighted impatient me who has already cast on for my second iteration of the Shalom cardigan. This time it will have sleeves, a la here and here.

The first time I made it, I used something I affectionately (haha) dubbed "Quintessential Itchy-Scratchy." Basically free yarn, also basically unwearable. Really, I just wanted to prove to myself that I could make a sweater if I could afford to. The completed product lives on my duct-tape dress form, whom I call Ducky. This new sweater will live on me. :-)

I should be writing a paper, but I'll get to that in a few minutes. Grad school does not have to be all work. Just remind me of that in a few weeks...

Procrastination Station

The other name for... facebook. and gmail. and... my blog. Sorta.

Actually, I've been fairly responsible in moderating my web-related distractions so far this semester, as evidenced by the dearth of interesting blog posts. Heh... that might be going to far to assume that any of them are interesting in the first place. ;-) Anyhow, I've decided to take advantage of this particular procrastination station for a few moments to tell the world (or at least by east-coast homeys) that autumn has finally come to Colorado. The past few weeks have included highs in the 80's, which is in no way autumnal... but this week has become crisper and more colorful by far, and I'm giddy about it!

So far, I've celebrated autumn with:
- a run in which i wished for warmer clothing,
- a batch of pumpkin chocolate chip muffins,
- some yellow garden vegetable curry,
- an Irish Cream mocha from Blueberry's,

AND

- a hike in Deer Creek Canyon, which is practically in our backyard.

This week is cram-packed with projects and assignments to finish, but I've got a a faithful Father, an amazing husband, good friends, a project on my knitting needles, and a plan of action... so I think I'll make it.

That is, if I survive Jon Buck's dead-fly-carrying paper airplane...

yarn cakes & happy tires

(the title is for you, Jeromie; appetizing, isn't it?)

So, for the past year, Tuesdays have been my favorite day. Two reasons: house church in the evening, and it's one of my two consistent days off (Sunday being the other). It seems that other days off are always cram-packed full of people to hang out with and/or things that need doing. Not that I don't want to hang out with people - I actually thoroughly enjoy it now - but being a Liz, and still introverted at my core, I need a day to myself sometimes.

Tuesdays tend to be that day.

So, yesterday I:

* slept late to make sure my migraine was really gone
* read a little in A Separate Peace
* changed a flat on my road bike (happy tires!)
* set up the swift & winder I got for my birthday from WEBS, thanks to Darla
* set to work on making yarn cakes out of my huge bag o' yard-sale yarn, and
* made sausage-lentil soup from the More-with-Less cookbook!

Let me tell you, that bag o' yarn is going to take a bit of work to make knittable.

The story behind it is as follows... My friend Melissa and I were responsible for coordinating the DCF Yard Sale at the beginning of May, and it went off quite well. (I just want to say that God had everything to do with that.) It just so happened that the nearby Lutheran church was having a yardsale the same day. Jeromie paid a visit and spotted the yarn - sprawled on the table and strangely tied. Well, he sent me up to look at it and it appeared to be wool and at least hand-dyed, so I spent the $5 I had to get a few bundles. Well, while we were tearing down in the afternoon, a volunteer from the other yardsale walked down and asked one of my friends if I wanted to just have the rest of the (garbage-sized) bag for free. Knowing me, my friend said yes. :-D

A month & a half later, with swift & ball winder in my possession:

I sat down this morning, cracked open the bag & loaded the first bundle onto the swift. The winding went swimmingly at first, then I started getting to tangles & loose ends. It took 45 minutes to an hour to get that first bundle all caked up, complete with much patient untangling. It's definitely wool, and it's almost certainly handspun. There are lots of planty-looking fibers throughout the yarn, almost as if it was born in a barn. (Wait a minute, it probably was born in a barn literally. You know what I mean.) I've now affectionately dubbed it "the quintessential itchy-scratchy," because it is!

But I'm still excited about coming up with some good projects for it. Perhaps some mad felting?

Meet:

Quintessential Itchy-Scratchy.


Rather furzy, but practically free!

Creating & Resting...

This week has been a bit of a whirlwind, and today was no less so... but more in a restful way, I guess. This week at work, I pretty much officially took over responsibility for scheduling & coordinating bookfairs & signings. No big deal, just a few new things to learn & process. Today's whirlwind was more of the creative sort.

I got up to my alarm clock (!!), checked email/blogs, ran an errand (in case it *actually* snowed significantly... it didn't really do much), and spent the rest of the day in the craft room sewing and knitting. I managed to alter a wool skirt I found at a thrift store a few weeks ago, finish the curtains for the room (long time coming), and finish the fingerless gloves I started earlier this week.

It felt good to finally seize some time to exercise a bit of creativity. Working on projects tends to get me thinking about new ones, and it seems that the energy I spend making something just brings more energy with it. Unless I'm burned out. Running does that to me too. :-) Today was the first day in a while where I felt alive and resting ~ full of growing and mending and dreaming and resting and hoping, connected to my soul. As opposed to alive and wrestling, I guess, which tends to feel more like dying sometimes.

I don't really want the day to be over, but I won't cling to it and ruin the grace that it's been thus far.

*******

Kindling Fingerless Gloves


I think this experiment turned out pretty well!



A note: The fingerless gloves are my first real attempt at putting together my own pattern for something other than a scarf or a simple tube. The process was so much fun that I have to resist the urge to start working on another one right away!

Not yo' mama's koozie...

I recently discovered that making a "coffee cuff" is a fun way to experiment with different stitch patterns while still making something useful. My first one was a mid-project switch, so it ended up being an improvisation on the beginning of the Fetching cables. For the second one, I took the stitch pattern I used for my grandma's Kindling scarf (faggoting stitch? = bundle-of-sticks stitch), and turned it into a sleeve.

I'd rather use my travel mug than disposable cups, but I think these little cuff-things work pretty well for the times I don't have it with me. And it saves a little piece of cardboard, I guess.

Here's the first intentional cuff:


Mmmmm... coffeeeeee...


A straight-on shot of the interesting part


One of my coworkers thinks I should sell these... I dunno. What do you guys think?

A Mostly Handmade Christmas...

I had a lot of fun hand-making some of my Christmas gifts this year. Since I started at the end of October, I didn't get to make something for everyone I wanted to, but I got a couple of things done. This year, I intend to get a jump-start on knitting Christmas gifts... maybe in July. :-) It's really hard to just sit on gifts for that long though. When I finish something, I get so giddy that I want to give it right then!

Warning: the pictures aren't all that great. I ran out of time for creating, and I also ran out of time to get some good pictures. These were snapped just before I wrapped them. :-\


Handmade Christmas 2007

Fetching Fingerless Gloves x4

Source: pattern by Cheryl Niamath in Knitty Summer 2006
Yarn: Malabrigo Worsted (blue) and some kind of yummy soft grey wool that I've lost the label to. :-(
Thoughts: A fun and easy pattern... well, easy once I got the hang of it. Also, I now understand why everyone raves about malabrigo yarn. It's incredibly soft!


Cap Karma x3

Source: Smariek's blog for the hat, with Jared's decreases
Yarn: Moda Dea Washable Wool
Thoughts: I was a bit wary of the the yarn at first because it seemed shiny, but it ended up working very well with the pattern... and it's washable and comfortable to wear, which are both good. As for the pattern, including Jared's decreases, I think it's beautiful, well-written, and fun to work.


Branching Out

Source: by Susan Pierce Lawrence in Knitty Spring 2005
Yarn: Andean Alpaca Regal
Thoughts:I'd never tried any sort of lace knitting before this project, and I was a bit intimidated. It took several attempts, complete with frogging an hour or so's worth of work, to get the thing going. I finally wisened up & figured out how to use a lifeline... after that, the pattern became thoroughly enjoyable. I'll have to keep my eyes peeled for more lace-knitting opportunities.


Kindling Scarf

Source: A stitch dictionary from the library and my head
Yarn: Lamb's Pride Bulky in a sage-green color
Thoughts: This one started out as just playing around with the stitch dictionary & some yarn I had in my collection, and turned into a scarf. If I do this one again, I'll use a lighter yarn and make the scarf longer.


Kategirl Messenger Bag

Source: Kategirl's post on craftster.org
Materials: brown canvas fabric, a thrifted tablecloth, cream grosgrain ribbon
Thoughts: This was my second bag by this tutorial, and it went a little more smoothly the second time around.

That's all for now, I guess. :-)

Bouldering

I realized just now that it's been a couple of weeks since the last time I posted anything... and since it's been holidays, a number of things have passed since. Like Christmas. And New Years. I might have to break those up into other posts... they deserve their own. For now, I'll stick to today's adventures.

One of Jeromie's Christmas presents this year from, um... Santa, was a crash pad for bouldering, so we made it a point to plan a trip as a soon as possible. This morning, we headed up to Rumbling Bald in NC with Lance, Catherine and Daniel, hiked up to the boulders, and promptly pounced on them. We played on a number of routes, scratched our heads at some, and watched Lance rock a fair number of them.

Here are a few pictures of the action:

Jeromie on Crescent


Daniel trying out a toe hook


Daniel checking out a hi-ball from the top


Catherine gives it a shot


Lance starts...


Lance continues...


And Lance completely rocks it!


I took a shot at a couple of the routes... since I'm rather out of shape for climbing, they were mostly just shots. Just playing, as Catherine said. I took the outing in general as an opportunity to take pictures. I misplaced my camera cable several months ago and have thus solely used Jeromie's SLR for that time (which is great... I love it... but it's harder to get pictures to the computer, at least for me. Perhaps I should learn how to tell it to take JPG's). I got my cable back over Christmas and so decided to take the camera today.

Turned out to be a good time to catch some of my knitting in action:

Smariek's Cap Karma for Jeromie


My Kittyville hat from last February


The current WIP: Dashing for Jeromie


And the sky was beautiful:




*******

PS - I finally made it onto Ravelry too (as Lizzle). Apparently my original invite got sent to the spam folder. I was starting to wonder too... I mean, I know there's a waiting list, but several months? My bad!

On pins and needles...

My last knitting project took FAR too long. The cause was not difficulty, but life-related distraction. Well, finally the project is done and I can post a picture or two!



Big, Bad Baby Blanket
Source: Stitch 'N Bitch by Debbie Stoller
Yarn: Muench Tessin
Thoughts: Very blue, very warm!


This is, by far, the largest & longest knitting project I've done. The pattern was simple and turned out well with the Tessin yarn. It's fluffy & will hopefully do a fantastic job of keeping baby Luke warm for his first winter (in Colorado). All I've gotta do is stick in the mail to my awesome friends, Becki & Tony. :-D I just wish I'd gotten it done *before* Luke arrived!





* * * * * * * * * *

On the needles now are:

- (Knitting) An attempt at a little stuffed lizard... we'll see how he turns out.
- (Knitting) Some Christmas presents!

boundaries, of sorts

Hehe... a month and some change later, and I finally remember my blog exists! :-)

A whole lot has happened since the last post, particularly at work. About the time of the last post, I was mulling over a request from the facility director that I fill in as interim coordinator for the program I work in. After a lot of prayer, I accepted the role on the condition that it truly be interim and that I could pick up responsibilities as I'm able. Since then, each day has been a test of my ability to set boundaries, to keep realistic expectations, and, most of all, to trust God to provide and to work for His glory in all of it. The position, due to the current state of the program, is definitely stressful, but I'm doing the best I can to provide some leadership and take some of the weight off other staffs' shoulders in the meantime. The middle of this week makes about a month in the position, and I will continue forward one day at a time.

As for knitting... those socks definitely did *not* get done in time for Mom's birthday, but I'm still working on them. They were the cause of some serious frustration though: I got to the heel turn, dropped a wrapped stitch, and had to get some serious help from Jan at The Needletree to frog back to the point before the gusset increases. I almost made the same error again when I got back to the heel turn, but this time I managed to rescue the stitch before it became irreparable (unless by someone more skilled than me). Needless to say, I got really frustrated at that point and put the sock up until I had the time & energy to tackle it again, which was hard to find for a couple of weeks thanks to work. Argh! I picked it up last weekend and am moving forward again - in the meantime, though, I had some fun felting! (Paper Bag from Knitty)

Dinner's ready, so off I go! (Jeromie cooked up some salmon and it smells AWESOME!)

Absent or Absent-minded?

Sometimes I wonder if I should keep my blog. I don't think many people read it (as I haven't really told many folks about it), thus it finds itself at the very bottom of my priority list most weeks. When I finally get around to thinking about an update, there's not really much to say (and no pictures to make things interesting).

So here's what I've been up to lately, in no particular order...

- Work - still part-time, still a tad disorganized. we're minus a program coordinator for the time being, so things may get a little more stressful in the coming weeks.

- Sinus Infection - knocked me out for most of this week... feels a bit wierd to start AND finish your workweek on a Friday. Monday I felt well enough to knit a little, Tuesday through Thursday, I slept... and read... and slept.

- Reading - A Sense of the World by Jason Roberts. I picked this one up after hearing snippets of it on NPR's Radio Reader and it is an excellent book... very well written biography of James Holman (1786-1857), who lost his sight in his 20's and went on to travel the world like no one else before him. I'd started it back in January, not made much progress because things just got busy, then just about knocked it out while out sick this week... READ IT READ IT! (Tis good!)

- Reading and Wrestling - Deuteronomy, some of Psalms, now James... Jeromie and I are reading through the Bible with some friends from house church. It's been hard not to read just for the sake of reading (and thus not even really be seeking God in it), but God seems to be mercifully drawing me back to Him in recent weeks, even though I am so prone to wander.

- Knitting!!! - after the bag, it's been a couple of small items (2 Calorimetries from Knitty, a cabled headband that I made up myself, an failed attempt at a notions bag, and the Two Movie Hat from this blog). Now I'm on to socks for Mom! Size 0 double-point needles were torture at first, but now I think I may be addicted. :-D

- Testing Limits - (of my stupid foot) - the pain in my right foot turned out to be a mix of joint inflammation & a tough case of plantar fascitis, so I've been doing as told to get it better. Until I ended up sick earlier this week, I'd been up to swimming and walking on a somewhat regular basis. Hopefully I'll be able to pick that up again this next week.

So that's at glimpse of what's been up. Jeromie and I are both looking forward to hiking again once my foot is all better... not being able to get out like that has been driving us both a little nuts.

Onward to Saturday! :-D

Knit-picking

Goodness, I haven't posted in a while. As for the outcome of the last post, no one ever looks at my nametag, so I just left it the way it was... I think I'll continue to do so until it falls apart. I guess I'm more like the grammar knit-picker than the grammar nazi.

Speaking of knit-picking, I've been knitting quite a bit recently. I taught myself several Christmases ago (4, it turns out) because I thought it looked interesting. It never really clicked until this time around. I had to rest my foot for most of the holidays in order to be able to function on it at work when I got back. Nothing like hating TV and having to sit on a couch for a week or so to make things click. Anyhow, Jeromie got me a knitting instruction/pattern book for Christmas (Stitch & B****) -- it cleared up my very few confusions about the process and resulted in a kerchief, a hat for Jero, and, most recently, a bag. I liked knitting before... I really like it now. :-) I still can't run, walk a lot, or climb much on my foot (thanks to me playing HC kickball), but I can knit and it serves as a similar enough de-stresser and a good creative outlet.

On the inside, the past month or so has been full of wrestling, doubts, and questions that are not readily answered. Some days, I ignore the questions and, honestly, I hate myself for that. I know that God will bring glory to Himself and teach me through the questions and the wrestling, but I just get so tired of bumping up against what feel like brick walls.

Anyhow, here's a picture of the bag, complete with Molly fur on the floor: