Tag Archives: knitting

Vintage Baby Bed Jacket – The Yoke

Posted on by

0

Vintage Baby Bed Jacket - Back

Hello! If you’ve been knitting this, you are now ready to joined all these strange parts together – the main body with its attached right front, back and left front, and two sleeves. While all of this is technically three parts – two sleeves and a body – for purposes of putting them together, think of them as five parts.

What is going to happen here is this – we are going to put all the separate pieces on a single needle, then join them into a single piece by knitting across all the stitches. Looking at the picture of the finished jacket, this is the rows of garter you see between the lace pattern and the smocked section of the bodice.

Okay, here goes. Let’s put this puzzle together:

MAKE YOKE:

Slipping sts off their holders and onto a size 5 needle, assemble all pieces with RS facing onto needle in following order: Left Front, 1 Sleeve, Back, 1 Sleeve, Right Front. Hold needle so that RS of work is facing. The first piece on the needle should be the Right Front. Begin knitting at Right Front edge:

Row 1: K2, yo, k2tog (this makes a buttonhole). K next 24 (27) sts of Right Front, K 29 (31) sts of Sleeve; K 45 (51) sts of Back; K 29 (31) sts of Sleeve; K 28 (31) sts of Left Front. There should be 159 (175) sts total.

The garter sts join all pieces for the yoke

Rows 2-6: K all sts

Row 7:  K5, *k1, p3. Repeat from * to last 6 sts, k6.

Row 8: K5, *p1, k3. Repeat from * to last 6 sts; p1, k5.

Rows 9 – 14: Repeat Rows 7 and 8 three times.

Row 15: K2, yo, k2tog, k1, *k1, p1, p2tog, k1, p2tog, p1. Repeat from * to last 10 sts; k1, p1, p2tog, k6. 122 (134) sts on needle.

Row 16: K5, *p1, k2. Repeat from * to last 6 sts; p1, k5.

Row 17: K6, *p2, k1. Repeat from * to last 5 sts, k5.

Row 18: Repeat Row 16.

Rows 19 – 22: Switch to size 3 needle. Repeat rows 17 and 18 twice.

Row 23: K6, *p2tog, k1. Repeat from * to last 5 sts, k5. 85 (93) sts on needle.

Row 24: K5, *p1, k1. Repeat from * to last 6 sts, p1, k5.

Row 25: K6, *p1, k1. Repeat to last 5 sts, k5.

Rows 26 – 28: Repeat Rows 24, 25 and then 24 again.

Row 29: K7 (8), *k2tog, k1. Repeat from * to last 9 (10) sts, K2tog, k7 (8) sts. 61 (67) sts on needle.

Row 30: Knit

Row 31: K2, yo, k2tog, k to end.

Rows 32 – 33 – Knit.

Bind off LOOSELY. Sew Sleeve seams, sew in Sleeves, and sew on buttons. Weave in ends.

All right!!! Yippeee!!! Now, doesn’t it look funny? The top is all floppy! But that’s where the smocking comes in.

SMOCKING

Smocking joins adjacent ribs

From RS, run a basting thread across 4th row of yoke ribbing, and then every 4th row above it 3 times to make 4 rows of basting. If you have an extra row – as I did, let it be at the top, above the last row of basting, next to the collar. With a strand of yarn – and here you can use a contrasting color, if you like –  and beginning at the first row of basting on the buttonhole side of the work, join the first and second K ribs by sewing OVER the 2 K sts twice. You will be pulling then together, across the purls between them. Carry the yarn on the WS and continue in this way across the row, joining every 2 adjacent K ribs in same way. On second row of basting, join the second and third K ribs – thereby offsetting this row of smocking from the one below – and continue across the row of basting, joining every set of 2 K ribs. Continue in this way on the next two rows of basting, alternating between the joining the first and second K ribs, and then the second and third K ribs.

Smocking from inside

DONE!!!!

Vintage Baby Bed Jacket – Sleeves

Posted on by

1

Vintage Baby Bed Jacket

Is anyone trying this great pattern? I hope so. If you’ve knit along so far, you are now ready to make the sleeves.

Now, this is the part of this old vintage pattern that got a little sparse on the info for me, so I have filled in below. Also, be careful on shaping the caps – as you work the established lace pattern you must also work the decreases. The first time I did this, I kept working the decreases, but I kept ending up with the same number of sts I had at the beginning of the row. I solved this by eliminating the first and last yo’s in that row’s lace pattern. Get it? Just do the best you can. The important thing is to end up with 29 or 31 sts at the end – depending on the size you are making – and stay as true to the lace pattern as you can.

Abbreviations can be found in the first and second installments of this pattern

Here goes:

MAKE SLEEVES (2)

With size 3 needles, cast on 41 (51) sts. K 6 rows (garter stitch). Change to size 5 needles and work pattern:

Row 1: *k1, yo, k3, sl 1, k2tog, psso, K3, yo. Repeat from * to last st, k1

Row 2 and all even rows: K 1, p to last st, k1

Row 3: *k2, yo, k2, sl 1, k2tog, psso, k2, yo, k1. Repeat from * to last st, k1.

Row 5: *k3, yo, k1, sl 1, k2tog, psso, k1, yo, k2. Repeat from * to last st, k1

Row 7: *k4, yo, sl 1, k2tog, psso, yo, k3. Repeat from * to last st, k1

Row 8: Repeat Row 2.

Repeat rows 1-8 four more times.

Shape cap:

Continuing in lace pattern established above, BO 3 (4) sts at beginning of next 2 rows. Dec 1 st at each end of next RS row (this means k1, ssk, work across in lace pattern, then 3 sts from end, work k2tog and k1), then every RS row 2 more times. For smaller size: k1, p to last st, k1 (29 sts). For larger size: k1, p1, *p2 tog, p4. Repeat from * to last 5 sts, p2tog, p2, k1 (31 sts). Place sts on holder.

Okay, next time we put all the pieces together and join them in making the yoke. This was my favorite part.

Sweetgrass on PBS’ POV – a Knitter’s Must-See

Posted on by

1

Sweetgrass Poster

Every fiberista should stop what he or she is doing this Tuesday, July 5 at 10 p.m. and watch the documentary Sweetgrass airing on PBS‘ POV program.

I just randomly happened upon it while searching for something to watch while exercising. I just got an iPad, and I had downloaded the PBS app, which allows me to watch whole episodes of some shows, including POV, its independent documentary program. I hit “play” and hit the elliptical.

Sweetgrass is about a Montana sheep ranch and its workers’ annual trek up to the sweetgrass meadows of the mountains where their sheep – thousands? – can fatten up for the winter. There is no narration, no informative subtitles, just the beautiful sounds of the Montana mountains – rushing creek water, birds chirping, wind blowing through trees, and the constant baritone bleating of sheep. The cowboys and ranchers talk, but not to the camera – only to the sheep, their dogs and each other. It is the closest any of us will get to a sheep’s eye view of life without actually raising them ourselves.

The most striking thing to me about the film was the cinematography. It was just spectacular – not just in what they showed (sheep, mountains, streams, etc) but in how the shots were framed. There are some breath-taking Ansel Adamsesque shot of the sheep on the mountains, with trees and looming skies. The first few minutes before the title grabbed me right away – and it’s just a shot of a sheep chomping some grass and then looking dead in the camera. That’s a clue that what we are about to see is an unblinking look at the life of both sheep and shepherd.

And boy, is there a lot of wool-on-the-hoof in this piece. You see sheep being born, getting castrated, medicated, fed and shorn. My favorite section was of a young cowboy castrating the lambs as though he were pruning roses, all the while telling a terrible – but very funny – joke. It’s just another day in the life.

Now, I only watched the first half hour of the program today – it’s almost 1.5 hours – but I was hooked. I plan to watch – with my knitting – on Tuesday night. I am hoping they’ll show what the fleeces from these sheep end up becoming – yarn or wool fabric? I hope there’s no mutton stew at the end.

TNNA Days 4 and 5 – Show Me The Money!

Posted on by

1

I have been out of commission, at least in terms of blogging, for the last few days and I do apologize. I have been, as Bob Cratchitt would say, “making rather merry” with friends and family who are happy over a job opportunity that has come my way. More about that in a later post, when I have details and am at liberty to discuss. But let it suffice here to say that there has been champagne (small c) flowing and lots of backslapping going on. I haven’t been at the blog in the meantime.

SO! Back to the TNNA show. This is the fun post. This is the post where I get to tell you about the cool stuff Ellen and I got for the shop, and even cooler still, about some of the cool people behind that stuff. The fact that I came home inspired and super-excited about knitting has to do with these folks we met on the TNNA sales floor.

I can’t remember, at this remove, in what order we encountered these folks, so here they are, in no special order.

STITCH DIVA – Jennifer Hansenis the brains behind the radically cool and chic designs put out under this logo. She’s a local gal, started in

JH in Hairpin Lace Design

Fremont and now lives in the San Jose area. She works a lot in crochet, Tunisian crochet and hairpin lace and even does some knitting. I’ve had my eye on her since I first saw her at Stitches West maybe 6 years ago or more and I have always admired her sense of style and her great marketing. In my opinion, she is single-handedly revolutionizing the look of crochet – something it has desperately needed for 30 or more years – bringing it a very hip sensibility and updated profile. We saw her first at the Sample It night, where she was selling three books – her “Complete Works” of every pattern she has ever made (it’s more than an inch thick), her book of Tunisian crochet patterns, and her book of hairpin lace patterns. We plan to take a deep, long look at these and decide what to carry in the shop. They are all fabulous, especially this little red number pictured on the right, which is not yet available to us. We also hope to have her come up and teach a retreat or class. She is a hot number.

 

Jackie E-S with her designs

HEARTSTRINGS – I first encountered HeartStrings patterns when I was with Ellen on one of the K2Tog knitting cruises. We made a beeline from the ship to the Beehive Wool Shop in  Victoria, BC and just inside the door they had a table with a gorgeous tableau of samples knit up, including one of HeartString’s Lead or Follow Scarfdone in

HeartString's Angels & Fairies Scarf

a gorgeous Ella Rae lace. I bought it and started it on the ship. It remains one of the most challenging and satisfying pieces of lace I have ever knit. So I was thrilled to see HeartStrings designer Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer at TNNA and be able to fondle her luscious samples and buy some for K2Tog. She, too, had a booth at Sample It, which I bought (note to designers – almost everything we bought for K2Tog we bought after purchasing for ourselves at Sample It), and I took home 8 of her new designs and pored over them that night. I find her patterns to be original – they don’t look like anyone else’s – and very thorough and well done. I like her layout too – nothing is too crowded on the page. I brought her designs back to the shop and have already parceled them out among my co-workers so we’ll have some samples ready when the patterns arrive.

FICKLE KNITTER- Sometimes you meet someone who is just starting out in his or her chosen field and you get this feeling: this person could

Michelle Miller, the Fickle Knitter

be big. I felt that way when meeting Michelle Miller, the designer behind Fickle Knitter. Like Jennifer Hansen, we spotted her at the Sample It night where she was selling a

MM's Limestone 1 Skein Shawl

collection of her lace designs. But like most successful designers, Michelle has a niche – she specializes in designs that can be completed with one skein of luxury yarn. I think this is genius, and as a person who works in a yarn store, I love this idea because it helps me make the shopper realize she can giver herself permission to spend $50 or more for a single-skein project because it is gonna look fantastic. After nabbing a notebook full of Michelle’s patterns at Sample It, I went to her booth and found out more. First, she is a doll! A down-to-earth, happy-to-talk-to-you gal about the genesis of her designs and show you pics  and sketches of her process.  She lives in Orange County, Calif. and came to design after taking time off from her physics career (!!!!!) to have a baby, an adorable baby girl who models some of her pieces.  We had this great conversation about lace knitting, which may of you know is just my passion. Here’s the most telling thing she said: “I almost like making the numbers add up and work out more than I like the knitting.” That made me trust her designs immediately. So we bought a bunch.

ART YARNS- I’ve had my eye on Art Yarns for a long time. This company, owned by

Yummies at Art Yarns

Iris Schreier and her husband, makes luxury yarns, some of it more expensive than I would ever consider buying. But it is undeniable that they carry some fabulous chic and delicious yarns that I can’t keep my hands off. We decided to order, but to start small – we got Silk Rhapsody and Beaded Silk because they have the pattern support – much of it free – to help our customers make some spectacular one-skein wonders. Add to this the fact that Fickle Knitter designs with some of their yarns, and this seemed a natural.

Laura Nelkin- Designer Laura Nelkin did not have booth on the floor, but was there as a

Nelkin Necklace

teacher. At the meet-and-greet with the teachers, she had a display of some of her current and new patterns, including a really clever, simple and elegant garter stitch beaded necklace. She very kindly GAVE ONE to Ellen (we carry LN’s designs at the store) which she promptly knit up that night and I blocked the next night, and we are sooooo gonna carry these in the store and do a free class for those who buy these hot little kits. Nelkin, you go girl!

We bought some other cool stuff too – some great buttons, project bags and silk needle cases from Lantern Moon, including a project bag that benefits a clinic in Haiti, some special tools to pick up dropped stitches in garter stitch, some water bottles and notebooks from Knit Happy and a mess of new needles from Chaiogoo and Hiya Hiya. We bought a TON of notions, new and already instock, at Bryson.

I have a bunch of great memories from this trip, and some of them are captured in random pictures. This by far is my favorite: Ellen and I were walking past the Lion Brand Yarns booth and they had a couple of really bright animal hats out on their display table – racoon, pigs, fox, etc. I dared her. She didn’t hesitate:

Two little piggies

 

 

Cliff

And we also ran into Cliff, our “rep” for Kollage yarns and needles. He was standing by a poster featuring a model that looked an awful lot like him! He is a good sport.

I had the good fortune to take two marketing classes from Chris Bylsma, one of my favorite designers (Saturday Morning Jacket and Door County Cable Sweater) and they were just great!

She was joined in the classes by Kathy Morrow, owner of The Yarn Studio in Minturn, CO. They were an absolute hoot, and also really great teachers. I learned a lot from them that I’ll be trying out in the store (LOOK OUT!) Here’s a picture of Chris just because I love her . . .

Chris, in Door County Cable

I have a bit more to share, which I may or may not get to. Aren’t you all TIRED of TNNA yet???

 

TNNA Day One – Howdy from Columbus

Posted on by

3

Here we are!

Just came back from 4 -or was it 5? – very busy days at the National Needle Arts Association‘s semi-annual trade show in Columbus, Ohio. Ellen and I both went to buy things and check out what’s new for K2Tog, which Ellen own and where I work and we both teach. Now I ask you – what could be funner than two wild and crazy yarn gals loose in a hot, happenin’, hip place like The Buckeye State’s capitol? TURNS OUT, NOT MUCH!

People, we had a freakin’ blast on this trip. TNNA is a yarn geek’s fantasy. The Greater Columbus Convention Center‘s floor is filled with vendors of yarn, notions, needle, knittin’ and stitchin’ tzchotchkies and needlepoint, crochet, cross stitch, counted thread. What wasn’t there? I dunno. And you just go from vendor to vendor and place orders for all the new things you want for the store. The best thing tho? I DIDN’T HAVE TO WRITE THE CHECKS! As owner of the store, Ellen had that honor! All I had to do was walk around and say, “I want this! And this! AND THIS AND THIS AND THIS!” This totally did not suck.

But what did suck was that all the technology I brought with me failed me in some way. The big downer was my computer would not work in Columbus. I kept getting the “blue screen of death” and I could only connect to the internet for a few seconds. Which is why all these blog entries about the show are coming to you after it has closed and we are back and I have my puppies in my lap again. So, here we go . . . .

We left at the ungodly hour of four a.m. last Thursday morning. That’s the time Ellen picked me up at my house. Oy. We decided to fly out of San Jose as the fares were better, and our flight was about 6 :30. It was brutal. We had a little adventure finding the off-airport parking lot, going around in a little triangle over and over again. Once, we passed a Frye’s electronics store and Ellen called out “Frye’s!” like the true geek she is. My equivalent is “puppy!” What does that tell you about us?

We arrived in Denver and had time for a little shopping. Whoever decided to put a Crocs store in the Denver Airport was a genius. At our gate for the Columbus leg of the flight I saw 5 women sitting there with Croc bags. Only 3 of them were knitters. Hmmm. What does THAT say about us? I’d rather see knitters in public wearing high heels. Crocs do nothing for our image, I am afraid. Needless to say, we did not buy any – me, because I think only children under 5 and the gardener should wear them, Ellen because they did not have her itty bitty size.

At the gate, we started noticing a lot of women knitting. Not a surprise, but by chance, we sat in the middle of group of some pretty interesting ones! First was Diane S., the designing mind behind Knitting Pure and Simple, a mainstay of K2Tog’s pattern line. Diane said she does not like to put herself out there, but prefers to put her patterns out there, so we won’t use her last name. It was really fun to tell her about some of the patterns I have made and wear to the store and sell. And here’s a cool tidbit – the handsome dude modeling her Henley Sweater pattern is her son. And he’s single. And he works in the Bay Area. At Whole Foods in Mill Valley. So you single

The face of Knitting Pure and Simple

knitting girls, head on over and if you see him in the produce section, say, “I loved you on number 255.” Next to her were two women from Brown Sheep Yarn, another one of K2Tog’s staples and a favorite of mine for its wonderful line of Cotton Fleece. Also there was Laura, the owner of Jimmy Beans Wool in Reno, Nev.

On the flight to Columbus, the needles were clicking! Ellen was working on her Eva cardigan, a pattern from C2Knits, a new addition to K2Tog, she and I are both knitting, she in Manos del Uruguay‘s Serena, another new K2Tog addition, and me in Madeline Tosh Lace colorway Oak. I cast on a pair of socks from Cookie A’s first sock book

Pope go round

using a skein of Malabrigo’s sock yarn in colorway Indecieta. More on this project at a later date . . .

We arrived in Columbus in late afternoon, cabbed it to the hotel, set our stuff down and immediately

Home Base Columbus

set out to hunt for the most important products we would buy here – Starbucks coffee for Ellen and Diet Coke in a bottle for me. We do not run without fuel. Columbus was hot and sticky when we got there and overcast. We found a great place for dinner, Buca di Beppo. A chain, yes, but I had never been there before and I loved the sense of humor of its over-the-top decor. My personal favorite – the pope room, decorated with all things Il Papa on the wall, and a painted bust of John Paul II set on a lazy susan in the center of the table. Take too much spaghetti and he looks you in the eye! The chicken parmesan was only so so, BUT THE CHEESECAKE. I am not kidding people, this cheesecake – plain with strawberry sauce on top – set the new high bar for cheesecake in my book. Ellen and I split it, but we still could not finish it. Oh – and as I am a continuing student of Italian classes, I had to find out what Buca di Beppo means – Joe’s Basement (really?).

Then we rolled back to the room and both basically collapsed on the bed. We watched mindless TV – I think it was “Deadliest Catch” and we both tried to knit. I tried, Ellen knit, and then I fell dead asleep. Getting up at 4 Cal time means I got up at 1 a.m. Columbus time. Gawd. Before conking out tho, we made a plan fo the next day – get up, grab out separate elixirs of life, go get out program books for the show, plot our shopping and buying strategy for the next 2 days and then go to classes in the afternoon. So more on that day later . . . .

 

The Summerflies Shawl

Posted on by

7

We are in for another week or more of rainstorms and grey skies here in Northern California. It’s been a bit of a long winter of that kind of weather – or so it seems to me right now. I have been livening up the winter by knitting a lot of Summerflies shawls designed by Holly and Ella Knits in some gorgeous colors – deep purple, dusty rose, a creamy ivory and now, a slow-moving rainbow stripe in shades of pink and purple.

I absolutely love this FREE pattern which you can get from Ravelry. I love it so much, I taught it as a knitalong at K2Tog this past month and a half. I had eight wonderful students, each one adventurous in her yarn choice and dedicated to her craft, and they came up with some beautiful versions of this versatile pattern. I am going to share some with you.

First off, I added beads to this lovely pattern, and so did the majority of the women in the class. If you are going to add

In madelinetosh "Pashmina," color "Mulled Wine"

beads, you need about 2 tubes of size 6 seed beads and tiny crochet hook – about a size 10 or 12. You place the beads on the stitch you want to adorn with the hook and then work it as described in the pattern. (If you want to make the same beaded pattern I did, I am afraid you will have to take the class, which we’ll offer again this summer).

One of the things I love most about this pattern is the shape – a gentle crescent moon that drapes well across my shoulders. I also like that the shawl has definite sections – the ridged eyelet section, the butterflies section, the knotted openwork section, etc. I wondered if I could provide my students with some alternative stitch patterns they could substitute for these sections without having to change the stitch count, thereby giving them more options for future shawls. They could mix and match! Use the original pattern’s butterflies section here and my suggested alternative there. Here are a few things I came up with . . . . with a huge thank you to Barbara Walker’s “Treasury.”

QUATREFOIL EYELET (substitute for First Butterfly section)

Swatch of Quatrefoil Eyelet

Continue as pattern describes through Row 22; complete all even rows as described in original pattern

Row 23: K3, yo, K6, *yo, ssk, K6;* repeat between * and * 3 more times, end last repeat K7, yo, K3 (47 sts)

Row 25: K3, yo, K5, *K2tog, yo, K1, yo, ssk, K3;* repeat between * and * 3 more times, end last repeat K7, yo, K3 (49 sts)

Row 27: K3, yo, K8, *yo, ssk, K6;* repeat between * and * 3 more times, end last repeat K9, yo, K3 (51 sts)

Continue rest of section as described in original pattern

QUATREFOIL EYELET for Second Butterfly Section

Continue as pattern describes through Row 46; complete all even rows as described in original pattern

Row 47: K3, yo, K9, *yo, ssk, K6;* repeat between * and * 11 more times, end last repeat K10, yo, K3 (117 sts)

Row 49: K3, yo, K8, *K2tog, yo, K1, yo, ssk, K3;* repeat between * and * 11 more times, end last repeat K10 instead of K3, yo, K3 (119 sts)

Row 51:  K3, yo, K11, *yo, ssk, K6;* repeat between * and * 11 more times, end last repeat K12, yo, K3 (121 sts)

Continue rest of section as described

in Snicklefritz sock yarn, color "Diesel Gnome"

ROSEBUD PATTERN (substitute for First Butterfly Section)

Work as pattern describes through Row 20; complete all even rows as described in original pattern

Row 21: K3, yo, K6, *k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k5* repeat between * and* twice more, end last repeat K6, yo, k3 (45 sts)

Row 23: K3, yo, K6, *k2tog, yo, K3, yo, ssk, K3;* repeat between * and * end last repeat K6, yo, K3 (47 sts)

Row 25: K3, yo, K8 *yo, ssk, yo, K3tog, yo, K5;* repeat between * and *, end last repeat K8, yo, K3 (49 sts)

Row 27: K3, yo, K10, *yo, slip 1, K2tog, psso, yo, K7;* repeat between * and * twice more, end last repeat K10, yo, K3 (51 sts)

Continue rest of section as described in original pattern

Detail, Snicklefritz

ROSEBUD PATTERN (substitute for Second Butterfly Section)

Work as original pattern describes through Row 44; complete all even rows as described in original pattern

Row 45: K3, yo, K6, *k2tog, yo, k1, yo, ssk, k5* repeat between * and* 9 more times, end last repeat K6, yo, k3 (115 sts)

Row 47: K3, yo, K6, *k2tog, yo, K3, yo, ssk, K3;* repeat between * and * 9 more times, end last repeat K6, yo, K3 (117 sts)

Row 49: K3, yo, K8 *yo, ssk, yo, K3tog, yo, K5;* repeat between * and * 9 more times, end last repeat K8, yo, K3 (119 sts)

Row 51: K3, yo, K10, *yo, slip 1, K2tog, psso, yo, K7;* repeat between * and * 9 more times, end last repeat K10, yo, K3 (121 sts)

In silk, with green raku finished beads

ROMAN STRIPE (substitute for Knotted Openwork Section)

In Tosh "Pashmina," purple

Row 67: K3, yo, K1, *yo, K1;* repeat between * and *, end K1, yo, K3

Row 68: K3, purl across to last 3 stitches, K3

Row 69: K3, yo, K1, *K2tog;* repeat between * and *, end K1, yo, K3

Row 70: K3, P1, *yo, K2tog;* K1, p1, K3

Row 71: K3, yo, K1, *yo, K2tog;* repeat between * and *, end K1, yo, K3

Row 72: K3, purl across to last 3 stitches, K3.

Repeat these 6 rows one more time, then . . . .

Row 79: K3, yo, knit across to last 3 stitches, yo, K3

Continue rest of pattern as described.

Rocky would like you all to know that Summerflies makes a great pug bed . . . .

Rocky the K2Pug

I look forward to making more of these wonderful shoulder shawls, mixing and matching to make each one unique. If you make any, please share them with me here.

Aloha – Part 1

Posted on by

2

After what surely must have been the dreariest, coldest, darkest summer on record for the Bay Area, my husband and I have decamped for a week of belated summer in Maui. We are spending 6 nights at the Aston Kaanapali Shores, which is a bit north of Lahaina Town, in a condo on the beach. We’re on the fifth floor, so we have a lovely view of the complex’s garden, just above its waterfall, and we can see the ocean and the island of Molokai a bit off to the northwest. It is absolutely lovely.

All I wanted from this vacation was sunshine (check), sand (check), ocean (check) and a Mai Tai or two. Or twenty (check, check, check). It is blissful. Each morning I have awoken with the sunshine (!!!!) and been on the beach by 8:30 or earlier. It is the best time – very few idiots are there yet and no screamin’ kids. Every morning, I have brought down my Audieble book, my real book, my knitting and a maybe a postcard to write. And every morning I have done none of those things. I have just lain on my chair and listened to music and gazed out at the water. For hours. Hours of doing nothing. For those who know me, I know this is quite a shock. Here’s proof.

Yeah, baby

Terry and I have rented a car and on the first full day we were here, we got in and drove about 6 miles north, past Kapalua and on to the part of the island that is not well-traveled. Patricia gave us this great book, Maui Revealed, and we were after a two-tiered tidepool described in its pages (actually, we were after the Olivine Pools, but I opened to the wrong page and we ended up here. FANTASTIC mistake.).

"Bark" at your own risk

According to the guidebook, you go to a certain mile marker, park and walk to a yellow gate. Apparently, someone does not want people coming to this tidepool. We ignored the sign (check out how they spelled “Revealed”) and after a couple of wrong turns, we ran into two other couples with a more recent edition of the book, and together we hiked down – an easy hike. Waves against upper tidepool

All I can say is WOW. We got there at high tide, so we could not go in the pools. But what a show the water put on. Crashing waves, white spray, blue-green foam. There was a kind of blowhole just south of the tidepools that kept us quite awed. It was a like a fireworks show.

Hawaiian fireworks

After that – lunch and back for an afternoon of doing nothing very well on the beach. Happy Hour is 3:30 and we were SO THERE.

On Friday, we decided to go snorkeling (thank you for the equipment, Karen and Chris) at Honolua Bay. This is just short of the tidepools we visited the day before. This was quite interesting – you walk through this kind of primeval jungle to get to the bay, which has a rocky beach. All around you unseen birds are chirping. Everything is damp and there are salamanders on the rocks. All you hear are birds and surf. Great Tarzan vines hang from the trees. And then the road opens onto the beautiful blue water.

[I am having trouble upload pictures on the hotel's internet, so I can't add Honolua here. Trust me - gorgeous.]

We snorkeled here for a couple of hours. I saw so many fish that could have come right out of “Finding Nemo.” The neatest part, tho, is the sound. When you snorkel you hear all this crackle, crackle sound when your head is in the water. It’s the sound of the coral and the fish eating stuff off the coral. So cool. They say in season you can hear whales call to each other in the sound just beyond the bay. I’d like to hear that. We did not see any sea turtles here, tho.

Honolua is an interesting place. It was the site of a small fishing village until a tsunami wiped it out in 1946. All that’s left are the cement and coral steps of a church and some old Hawaiian graves. Very moving, really.  Someone lives in a shack – and I mean shack – on the beach, but I’ve seen better homesteads in Haiti and the Domincan Republic. I don’t think this is this guy’s home away from home, if ya know what I mean. Third world squalor just a walk away from the Ritz-Carlton’s resort. What a country.

Yesterday, Terry woke up feeling sick. He has the beginnings of a cold. This is so not fair. No one should get a cold on vacation. But then, if you have to get a cold, there are worse places to get one. He felt the need for a day of doing nothing, so after a morning of lying on the beach, I got into the car and drove into Lahaina. I was in search of a yarn store. Actually, there is nothing on this island that could qualify for that name. But there is a needlework shop – and how interesting, it’s called The Needlework Shop – and I found by googling “yarn” and “Maui” that it carries hand-dyed yarn produced by someone who lives over near Hana. She sells on etsy under the store www.mauiyarns.etsy.com. I bought two skeins!

Then on into a Catholic Church built in 1858 which had stations of the cross made by locals that made it look as tho the passion of Christ took place on Hawaii. Very cool. Even cooler was the graveyard, which had all kinds of headstones from the 1800s and early 1900s. Here what I took away from that experience – lots of babies died. Lots. Very sad. I did not take pictures of these places out of respect, but you can see them at the links above.

In the center of town, there was a craft show going on under the massive banyan tree. Nothing here I wanted to couldn’t make myself. So I watched a group of young hula dancers performing. They were lovely.

I was back at the hotel for Happy Hour, which we had in the beachside bar with a couple of Mai Tais. We watched the end of Game 6 of the NCLS and saw the Giants win. YEAH!!!!!! Then we took a sunset stroll down Kaanapali Beach. As we came back, the moon – a full moon – was rising over the mountain behind the hotel. I love this place.

Terry is feeling much better today, I am happy to say, and we are going to Paia and then to Mama’s Fishhouse for dinner. YUM.

Italian Food Fest

Posted on by

1

Last Saturday evening, my Friday morning knitting group, which has been meeting for at least 6 years, first at Skein

Around Karen's Table

Lane and now at Skein Lane Studio, carried the Friday morning festivities over into Saturday night for the first of what we hope will be a regular international food themed meeting complete with knitting and adult beverages. For our first gala, we met at the home of Karen King for a table-groaning array of Italian goodies.

I drank it before I could take the pic

We started with some drinkipoos – my favorite – with Merle mixing up some Campari cocktails. I had two (2!!!!!) of these beauties as I was making the marinara sauce and heating up the bolognese. Merle’s recipe is an equal mix of Campari, orange juice and sparkling water or club soda served on the rocks with a slice of lime. YUMMA. They were light and refreshing – never mind that Cameron thinks Campari tastes like chalk -  and made me think of Italy. Actually, everything makes me think of Italy these days as May will make it 1 year since Terry and I were there. I’d kill to go again. Thus, I think, I wanted to make Italian food for my friends.

While I was cooking, we opened up the appetizers folks brought. These were just delicious – very filling and could have

Sheri's Arancini

been a meal on their own just because of the quality, never mind the quantity. Sheri made a savory arancini – a ball of risotto filled with a dollop of melted mozzarella cheese. These were GREAT!!!! She also made a yummy plate of asparagus spears

asparagus

wrapped in prosciutto and baked in the oven – a really nice gesture from a vegetarian! They were also delicious. Hell wrap bacon around a pencil and I’d probably eat it. Janie Rose brought a plate of phylo dough stars with a spoonful of sundried tomato yumminess in the center. YEAH BABY. But as her

Janie Rose's phylos

husband made them (keep that guy, Janie), I don’t have the recipe. And Jean made a dish called “Deviled Shrimp” that several us felt was like a shrimp ceviche.

Jean's Deviled Shrimp

To make it, you will need:

2 lbs medium raw shrimp (Jean bought hers cooked at Tokyo Fish Market)

1 lemon, thinly sliced

1 medium red onion, thinly sliced

2 small cans black olives

2 T chopped pimiento

1/4 C vegetable oil

Merle and the drinkipoos

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 T dry mustard

1 T salt

1/2 C lemon juice

1 ! red wine vinegar

1 bay leaf, crumbled

dash of cayenne

chopped parsley

Shell and devein shrimp. Bring 1 qt salted water to a boil, add shrimp and cook for 3 minutes. Drain, rinse in cold water, drain and set aside. In bowl, combine lemon, onion, olives and pimiento and toss well. Combine oil, garlic, mustard, salt, lemon juice, vinegar, bay leaf, cayenne and parsley and add to bowl with lemon mixture. Arrange shrimp on a plate and pour marinade over. Cover and chill no longer than 3 hours.

I was responsible for the main course, a pasta bolognese and a smaller pot of marinara sauce for the 2 vegetarians in our group. Whatever! I made the bolognese 3 days ahead so its flavors could sit and meld and mingle, and I made the marinara at Karen’s house because I don’t think that gets better with age.  The marinara recipe came out of Lidia Cooks from the Heart Of Italy, a cookbook I got for Christmas last year.

The finished meal

Now, as for the bolognese. I combined two or three different recipes, taking things from each that I thought sounded good. Here is my best approximation of  what I made – and I doubled the amounts below.

Bolognese Sauca

1.5 lbs ground meat, preferably organic, grass-fed. Mine comes from Marin Sun Farms

1.5  lbs ground pork, preferably organic. Ditto above.

2 T olive oil

8 cloves garlic, preferably fresh

4 ounces pancetta, housemade if you can get it. Mine comes from A.G. Ferrari

2 C white wine

Sheri

1 yellow onion, finely chopped

1 celery stalk, finely chopped

2 carrots, finely chopped

2 28-ounce cans of whole Italian tomatoes, preferably San Marzano, passed through a food processor to crush

2 bay leaves

Drunkipoos

2 C red wine, preferably Chianti

1/2 C tomato paste

Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese rind

red pepper flakes

sea salt

pepper

1 C milk

fresh oregano

fresh basil

1. Combine meats and white wine. Cover and chill overnight.

2. Heat oil in Dutch oven or other large, deep pot. Add pancetta, garlic and veggies. Saute until onion is translucent

Sheri, Sarah, Janie Rose

and pancetta is browned.

3. Add meat. Cook until meat is browned and almost all liquid has evaporated. If there is a lot of liquid, you may drain it off.

4. Add tomato paste, tomatoes, red wine, cheese rind, red pepper flakes and bay leaves. Cook over low-medium heat for a good while – several hours if you can. Let the liquid reduce. It is good if you can store it in fridge overnight and heat up again the next day.

5. About an hour before serving, add in chopped fresh basil and oregano to taste. Add in milk and let cook. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve over a good quality, meaty pasta. We used Rustichella d’Abruzzo pappardelle, which can be bought at The Pasta Shop or Andronico’s. YUM.

When we finally sat down to dinner we had two delicious, crisp salads provided by Carolyn and ????? YOUR NAME

Cheers

HERE! And Karen made – MADE – Italian bread. For me, this was incredibly good – even better than some from the excellent bakeries we have in the East Bay. Karen, too, has been non-responsive in sending the recipe, so I’ll kick her butt when I see her Friday and try and re-post.

About halfway thru dinner, we decided our nest food fest would be Mexican, would be in July, and would be at Cameron’s house (MARGARITAS!!!!). About then, Karen’s husband Chris came in and just stopped dead at the table,  aghast at the bounty before him . . .

We took pity and fed him

Sarah's Lemon Bars

The Ellen Vest

Just before dessert, Karen surprised Ellen with a birthday present – an original design called the Ellen Vest she had knit up for her. It is beautiful! As soon as Karen published it, I will post a link.

For dessert, we had lemon bars (Sarah), cream puffs (Jan) and chocolate hazelnut torte (Cameron). Everyone worried that their dessert had not set properly, or was too gooey – AS IF THAT COULD EVER BE A PROBLEM WITH DESSERT – and I think we all had a piece of each. Cameron did not make hers, so I can’t give you the recipe, but here’s a link to Jan’s (and a link to the vanilla custard she filled them with)  and here’s a copy of Sarah’s . . . .

Lemon Bars:

1 cup flour
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup butter

Mix together with hands until crumbly. Pack into 8"x8" glass pan. Bake at 350 for 20 min.

2 eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
2 T lemon juice (or 3/4 T with 1/4 t lemon rind)
(I used more because I used meyer lemons and I did include some rind too).

Beat together for 5 min. Pour over baked bottom layer. Bake at 300-350 for 20-25 min until set.
Don't overbake. The topping puffs during baking and falls away upon cooking.
Sprinkle top with confectioner's sugar.




Jan's Cream Puff



 



Cameron's Torte

The Yarn Overdose that is Known as Stitches

Posted on by

1

Oh boy. We did it. We gals in the Skein Lane Friday morning group went to Santa Clara to attend Stitches and we

Jan and Sheri, after one bloody mary

survived. Barely. It was wonderful! A few highlights – bloody marys in the hotel bar at noon; bloody marys in the hotel bar at 5; wine in our rooms, dinner at Piatti‘s and more yarn and fun than should be legal for adult women to have without a license. It was great. Here’s my very subjective recap of some of the great things I saw and bought.

Miss Purl

I have a lot of yarn. And I work in a yarn store. So I don’t necessarily go to Stitches to buy, buy, buy. I do go to get inspired. And I go to admire the creative minds of vendors and other knitters. That said, the first place I opened my wallet was a little tiny booth – a half of a booth – taken by “Miss Purl,” a young lady named Danielle Dowhaniuk who makes and sells stitch markers. Now, lots of people make and sell stitch markers. I could make and sell stitch markers. But what separated her from the pack was her packaging – each set came with a tin, coordinating decoupaged tin, many of them decorated with pretty washi and other handmade papers. Some also had pin-up girls from the 1940s on them. They were DARLING. And, you could buy just the tins, which I did – three of

I gave one away

them!

Another half-booth I was very impressed with was Feltz Etc, where designer Carol Galasso was featuring her spectacular knitted and felted bags. Now, again, you can’t swing a 32″ circular needle with a dead cat on the end at Stitches without hitting a felted bag. But these were different. For one thing, they did not look like a knitter raided the bottom of her stash for old bits of sparkly crap that may or may not match. These things had design. They had shape. They had thought behind them. And they were very reasonably priced. The bag I liked best was a heathered teal blue number that came with lining fabric, feet, buckles, etc and was only $50. Carol sells her completed bags and her kits on her Etsy store, which I have linked to above. Go and take a look. She’s also on Ravelry, and her name is FeltzEtc.

Janelle at Snicklefritz

Another place I stopped was Snicklefritz Yarns where designer Janelle Gunther hand dyes her yarns. Again, there is more hand-dyed sock yarn at Stitches than a whole league of knitters chould work through in their lifetimes. But to my eye, there was something special about Janelle’s. Plus I liked that she’s a local gal – she dyes in Pleasanton, Calif., – and she has a set of gnomes she travels with.  This guy in the picture has been to such hots spots as Utah and Norway, Janelle reported. Here’s a picture of the yarn I bought from her in colorway “Diesel Gnome.” It is a blend of merino, bamboo and nylon and is superwash, of couse. I love it. Janelle also has a blog and her Ravelry name is Nannyknits.

my Snicklefritz

Where to next? I must tell you about a wonderful experience I had at Stitches which reinforced my belief that knitters can save the world. Last year, I bought myself a rather expensive set of handmade wooden cocobolo needles from Asciano Fiberarts Tools. I utterly loved them – a size 5 lace-point set of circulars that felt like sex when you knit with them. I am not kidding. I made several things with them – and then broke the needle at the join. I can’t remember what I was trying to do with them at the time – manipulate a bobble? force a slipped stitch over something? But I remember I was really forcing it and when they snapped, I thought, Oh, Kimberly, why did you do that with a wooden needle? Now, Deborah Doyle, the brains and artistry behind Asciano,  guarantees her needles. But I really felt it was my fault they broke. So I wandered into her booth, picked up a pair of the demo needles and began knitting, trying to work out whether I wanted to buy another pair or wait til next year. While I was knitting, a customer came up and asked if I liked them. I said, yes, I liked them – they felt as good as sex. She bought a pair. Another person asked me the same question, similar answer and I think she bought a pair, too. Then Deborah told a customer she was helping to ask me if I liked them because I had said I owned a pair, right? I said, well, sort of right. I did own a pair but I broke them. And I told her I thought it was completely my fault. And do you know what she did? She asked me what size, what tips, and she gave me a new set of needles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! People, this is how you run a small business. This is how you make customers for life. I hugged and kissed her, told her I’d blog about her and her fabulous needles, and now I want to tell you all that you should buy these needles. They are the only wooden needles I like (and I way more than like them) and I plan to buy myself a pair every year. AND her needles are made by a small family group in Mexico, so it’s a good thing to do! She also has spindles, crochet hooks and straight needles. Go and check out Asciano – and tell Deborah Kimberly and her size 5s say hello.

Who else did I buy from? OH! I loved the buttons – the kind you pin on, with a slogan, not the kind you use to close a sweater – offered by Laura Lundy of Slipped Stitch Studios. Here are some examples of her work:

“I knit because I am smarter than you.”

“Yes, I am a knitter, No, you may not touch me.”

“Yarn Ho.”

“Yes, I sniff yarn.”

I bought all of those! Laura has an Etsy store, too, so go and buy a couple of these and some cool project bags, which I also admired.

Jan and Sheri and I dropped into BagSmith‘s booth, where we admired their, ahem, bags. I was particularly taken with

Becca Smith of BagSmith!

a travel bag they had – not really for knitting, but you know how you can never find the right purse/travel bag? Well, they had one. I hope you can find it in their online store – it was called The Travellers Bag and sold for $35. It had two separate places for currency – one for your bucks and one for your Euros, or whatever. Wish I had this when I went to Italy. Jan and Sheri each bought another of their knitting bags, beautiful shoulder bags in metallic pink and purple. Lovely – and at $20 the steal of the show! BagSmith is very into big-needle knitting and crochet and we got a private Tunisian crochet demo. Which was very cool because Becca Smith, who is BagSmith, gave us the demo, just as she did on Knitting Daily TV – so we were in the presence of a knitting celebrity! HI BECCA!!!!

And I bought some lovely undyed silk from AffectionKnit, who came from Canada for the show. This was the day

AffectionKnit yarn

before the US-Canada hockey final, and I sad “GO CANADA” as I left as a way of expressing my joy in the Olympics. What can I say? I am an idiot. I plan to use this to make another version of the Lead or Follow scarf I purchased at the Beehive Wool Store when I was in Victoria, B.C. last year. Maybe I just had Canada on the brain. Anyway, Affectionknit had some lovely yarn and they were giving away a free pattern with a purchase of some. I got this really nice “Silky Twizzle Scarf” pattern, which I will use with a different yarn. Nice! Thanks, Canada!

Socks that Rock!

What else? I bought some Socks that Rock  from because, quite frankly, they do. I got a skein of lightweight in the colorway “Grimm’s Willow Wren.” I also ducked into Margit Sage’s Fiber Fiend booth, as I said I would in my previous post, and picked up that lovely Colette pattern. I also bought her Multnomah Falls pattern, which I can’t show you here because it will be mailed to me March 9. But you can go to Fiber Fiend’s online store and check it out – it is listed in the left column. I think it is interesting that I bought 3 patterns at the show and two of them were from Margit. She does good work.

Okay. That’s a long blog entry. I gotta go knit. I will blog later this week about the fun we had.

Deco-Stardust Evening Bag

Posted on by

1

Deco-Stardust Evening Bag

Here’s a quick, shiny, sparkly gift to make and give for the holidays – an evening clutch purse made from Crystal Palace‘s super shiny Deco-Stardust. This is a great project for beginners, as it features garter and stockinette stitch and minimum of shaping. It’s given shape by a lining of plastic canvas – DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THE PLASTIC CANVAS, PEOPLE! We are featuring this pattern at K2Tog’s “30 Under $30″ event the Friday after Thanksgiving from 1-4. We will have 30+ items you can make and give for less than $30, exclusive of needles. Here’s what you need to make this Deco-Stardust Evening Bag

YOU WILL NEED:

1 skein Crystal Palace Deco-Stardust, 119 yds (shown in Lime Glow, #4438) (Deco-Ribbon and Party are also suitable)

Size 8 needles

1 sheet plastic canvas, approx. 9 inches by 12 inches

1 large snap

1 decorative button

Gauge: 16 sts, 28 rows is approx. 4 inches square. Finished purse measures approximately 8 inches wide and 4.5 inches tall when closed.

ABBREVIATIONS:

Deco-Stardust, interior

k2tog – knit two together

kwise – knitwise

LH – left-handed

p2tog – purl two together

pwise – purlwise

RH – right-handed

RS – right side

ssk – slip two sts kwise one at a time to RH needle, knit both tbl with LH needle

tbl – through the back loop

WS – wrong side

Make body: Cast on 38 sts. Work in garter stitch (knit all rows) for 10 inches.

Make flap: (RS) Purl (p) 1 row. (WS) Knit (k) 1 row. Work in stockinette stitch (knit the front, purl the back) for 1 inch. End with a WS row. Begin decreases: Next row (RS) – k2, ssk, k across all sts until 4 sts remain on LH needle, k2tog, k2. Next row (WS) – p2, p2tog, p across all sts until 4 sts remain on LH needle, p2tog tbl, p2. Repeat these two rows until 12 sts remain on needle, ending with a RS row. Bind off all sts pwise.

Assembly: Lay purse out flat. Cut plastic canvas to same measurements as purse – it will look like the outline of a house. Bring bottom of purse up to beginning of flap, whipstitch sides together with yarn. Fold plastic canvas to fit inside purse. With needle and thread, baste plastic canvas to inside of purse, stretching purse fabric to fit. Sew snap to inside of flap and outside of body. Sew decorative button on outside of flap over snap. Line with fabric if desired.

Options: This is a very versatile bag. You can incorporate beads, use a contrasting yarn to sew up the sides, add a crochet trim around the flap, etc.

Deco-Stardust detail