Yours 'til Niagara Falls

The Olympics are Coming! The Olympics are Coming!

In just one month we will be watching the Olympics.  Like a lot of people, have very mixed feelings regarding the political aspects of this years' Olympics, but I plan to enjoy the events.  I heard this morning that NBC will have more coverage than ever before by virtue of the fact that they own about 100 cable channels (including Bravo and Oxygen- news to me).  In addition to that coverage, I get to watch the Canadian coverage.  I kind of like the way the Canadian sportscasters are so unabashedly partisan when it comes to their countrymen as they compete in an event. But, you don't have to cope with the "up close and personal stories where you have to listen to how an athlete had to overcome a very bad hangnail to compete.  I digress, however.  Being a month away, we all have time to figure out what our Knitting Olympics project will be.  The rules are simple.  Cast  on during the opening ceremony and work like a fiend for 17 days and finish before the closing ceremonies.  For myself, I'm thinking a pair of socks.  Or maybe a shawl.  Or a baby sweater.  I'm glad I have a month to decide.

Currently on my needles is the February Lady Sweater by Flint Knits (sorry, I'm just too vexed by Typepad's new and unimproved linking procedure to do it).  I'm to the lace pattern bit which I love.  I'm also pleased with the yarn I've chosen.  The second picture shows my thriftstore score for the day.  It's a kokeshi doll I snagged for 49 cents.  It's missing the usual red wooden bow on the top, but I think she's just dandy.

P.S.  Poor little grandson.. He's just 10 months old and has one of those crummy summer viruses.  He's running a temp of 103.  The doctor says he'll be good as new in a day or so.

This Sweater is So Cute it Makes Me Woozy

Smartymags (see blogroll) directed my attention to the cutest sweater on the planet.

http://www.flintknits.com/blog/?p=151 sends you to Flint Knits and the free pattern.  Oh, how I love this pattern.  It's derived from an Elizabeth Zimmerman baby sweater (my personal favorite knitting pattern, by-the-by).  It's been quite a while since I've fallen in love with a pattern.  It just might be the next thing on my needles!

Weaver's Guild Picnic

This afternoon I attended the Buffalo Weaver's Guild annual picnic.  There were, as usual, good eats.  The business meeting was, as usual, a yawn.  The auction of weaving materials, equipment, books and periodicals was right up my alley.  For my $5.00 worth of tickets, I got six 12"x18" cotton quilt batting pieces - just the thing for dolly quilts.  I got a shuttle for my long-unused rigid heddle loom.  I got a binder of weaving magazines datingback to the 1970's.  I leafed through them when I got home.  I was really struck by how challenging it was to get materials back then.  It was all mail-order, purchased for the most part on the basis of a short written description or a line drawing.  I was also pretty shocked at how lackadaisical authors of articles were in regards to documentation.  One article was based  on some ancient textiles the author had seen in a place vaguely described as "a museum in Peru".  That sure wouldn't fly these days.  Anyhoo, the weekend, as usual, flew by.  Just a few more exhausingly busy weeks of school.

Local Shepherd's Market

I spent the day in the company of some very pleasant people at a Shepherd's Market in Rush, New York (90 minutes from home.  It was the first event these folks had ever put together and it was well-organized and had a lot of variety.  So many lovely things to buy, and it felt good to be buying local.

 

I was in a buying mood and treated myself to some wonderful-looking frozen lamb, some heirloom tomato plants and some wool to spin.  Here are some extreme closeups of a couple of the lucious wool rovings and locks on offer:

My favorite buy of the day was some extra-pretty corriedale.  The traditional name for the color is "moorit".  The color is distorted in the picture, it is, in person, a warm milk chocolate color.  Armed with a little better knowlege of fleece than I previously had (and well-versed companions) I have a fairly good idea of where I'm going with this eight ounce portion of yumminess.  It has a crimp which will do best finely spun and plied.  I chose to try Navajo plying this time.  The result - a springy, elastic yarn.  Just the thing for a pair of socks.

P.S.  The Post-a-Day is officially over.  While I'm proud of myself for sticking it out, I think I might slow down the pace for a bit.  As always, I'm grateful that you come visit me.

Dorset Buttons

The picture is dark, but the technique is a lot of fun.  It's especially worth your while to learn how to make Dorset buttons if you can't find the perfect button for a sweater you've knitted.  Sister Diane of aCraftypod has a great tutorial here: http://www.homeofthesampler.com/howtos/craftypod.html

In my internet travels, I was pleased to find that an author I like, Tracy Chevalier has written a novel  entitled Burning Bright wherein the making of Dorset buttons is a subplot.  One more book for the summer reading stack:  http://www.amazon.com/Burning-Bright-Tracy-Chevalier/dp/052594978X  This is the author who wrote The Girl With the Pearl Earring. 

The Moral of the Story Is - Don't Cheap Out at the Fiber Festival

At a local fiber festival two years ago, I bought a pound of a lovely wool and silk blend.  At the very last moment, frugality reared its ugly head.  I ended up buying not the perfectly prepared bag which was a shimmering squiggle of ready-to-spin top, but the bag full of fuzzy chunks of fiber which require a fair amount of gentle teasing in order to get even an approximation of fiber alignment.  It saved me about seven bucks.  I can't say the yarn I'm spinning with it is anything to write home about, either.  It looks like a spinner's first effort.  Lumpy, bumpy and uNevEn.  It is, however, a lovely soft white.  The mix of wool and silk yields the best attributes of each fiber - luster and softness.  I think this yarn might be a good candidate for a summer dye pot.  The color would be absorbed differently by the silk and the wool with very pretty results.  I've finished about two-thirds of the stuff.  I should work up the rest of it tonight as I watch Hell's Kitchen.

World Beach Project

The website for the Victoria & Albert Museum in London is top-notch.  It is has a wealth of information and free patterns.  What caught my eye today is a project devised by Sue Lawty, the museum artist-in-residence.  It is called the World Beach Project.  On the site it is described as a world-wide artproject wherein folks can decorate a beach area with patterns using stones.  Everyone is invited to participate.  Full information can be found at:  World Beach Project  My "beach" on the river measures about twelve feet.  Plenty of room for a project.

Hey! I Own This Book!

I bought this book when it first came out in November.  Have I made one!???!?  No.  Hopefully this weekend.

Making Faces

This is my step-by-step method for making faces on wooden beads.  The beads shown measure half an inch.  Put the bead on a pipe cleaner to make it easier to handle.  Being that they are made of wood, if you look at it, you will see the woodgrain appears as concentric circles.  These circles will aid in your placement of the features.  Imagining an equator on the bead gives you another guideline.  I use pigma micron pens to draw the face.  First the eyes:  Just above the imaginary equator line make dots for the eyes.  You will see that the concentric circles aid in spacing the eyes. Enlarge the dots a little bit at a time taking care to make them match.  Add eyebrows with a brown pen, one stroke for each starting at the inner eye for each one.  The nose starts on the equator line.  It is a 45 degree angle, again, made with one stroke.  With a red pen make a tiny arc for the mouth.  A pink prismacolor pencil adds a hint of a blush.  Simple as that!

As an added bonus, I will now reveal a mystery of life.  Ever have a pencil (particularly a colored pencil) break, you sharpen it, it immediately breaks again and you sharpen it again, it breaks again... ?  Well, what is probably happening is that sometimes in the pencil's life, it has been dropped or has fallen off a table and the lead in the pencil has broken inside the pencil. Now you know.

Sewing Circle Tomorrow

Tomorrow my mother, aunt, cousin and I will be getting together for a sewing bee to do some long-overdue crafting.