Be*mused

Tulips in snow*

Are you getting tired of these yet?  I'm not, and thank goodness.  These crazy weeks are testing my patience and the mittens are soothing my frazzled nerves.  It's a dreary day here, lacking the best light for good photos, but since I have to be away tomorrow and I wanted to post, I'm going with what I could get and will try to re-shoot these on a brighter day. 

Believe it or not, I'm still learning things on these mittens.  I have the major issues all worked out, but each separate mitten has presented at least one new challenge, some unanticipated, so the experience has not yet become rote.  I particularly like the colors in this one...three greens, three purples and two heathery grays...none of which are showing to their best advantage in these shots.  However (I know, *picky, picky*,) I think the cuff design is a little thick and would have been more successful if I had done one row of tulips and added in several narrow contrasting design rows.  I was *this close* to frogging it while on our drive to our Easter destination, but when I tried it on for a last look, at least half of the cuff extended under the sleeve of the black wool jacket I was wearing and it looked quite nice so I continued knitting.

We had a wonderful Easter with family in Ohio.  One of the highlights of the visit was being tutored by my two young teen nieces on how to use my (Christmas gift) iPod.  Easy peasy!  We had a lot of laughs as I peppered them with inquiries but soon I'll be bopping with the best of them. 

*Title dedicated to KathieB in Wisconsin.  Has it melted yet, Kathie?

Happy Easter!

We're dashing out of town to spend Easter with family...a much needed change of pace this week!  Wishing you and yours a wonderful holiday weekend.

Barnum & Bailey

It's been a three ring circus around here the past week and as a result, I've been spinning my wheels a bit.  In the past 4 days, we've had 8 house showings, an atmosphere not conducive to digging into a new project.  But I'm itching to do just that! 

On the weekend, I satisfied myself by finishing the thumb on poor Latvian mitten #2, who'd been languishing in the bottom of the knitting basket.  This mitten blocked out to be a perfect fit and now I'm questioning my plan to go up a needle size to #1 dpns on the next ones.  Some new Finullgarn skeins arrived yesterday, including some duplicate colors to knit mates for my so-far-single mittens.  This afternoon I plan to sketch out the next design, if I can only put my hands on my colored pencils, which apparently were shoved under a chair or bed at an impending showing (staging!) since they don't seem to be in the usual spot(s). 

I've been resisting the siren call of quilting because of its mess factor while showing the house but have been drooling over some recent work on the blogs.  Sarah posted a mouth-watering selection of quilts last week, several of which got my creative juices flowing, especially (but not exclusively) the Odette Tolksdorf quilt and Sarah's in-progess piece from her workshop.  And call me *nearly insane* but I've loved the Salinda Rupp quilt for years and have jealously been following several bloggers as they attempt to replicate it.  Yesterday found me veering off the beaten track to fondle some new fabrics at my local quilt shop, which I've carefully avoided since the holidays.  Just as I entered, my cell phone rang...showing in an hour!...and I had to dash home to turn on lights during the dark, dreary afternoon.

Nordic Knit Accessories
ISBN4-529-04140-9   

So today I'm washing and ironing fabric (of course there was time enough to purchase a few quick half yard cuts) and playing with new Finullgarn combos and mitten graphs.  I found this (forgotten) book while sorting my bookshelves last week and while small, it has some nice graphs in it.  I picked it up in Japan while visiting Molly two years ago, but it was new then and I'm pretty sure it's still available.  A few sneak peeks:

Well, this post has been a bit scattered, not unlike my recent days.  Here's hoping things fall into place soon around here!

The never-ending mitten

I was starting to think that this mitten might never get done.  Last night, however, I finally got the ends woven in and blocked it before heading to bed.  There's nothing nicer than to start the day admiring your handwork from the evening before.  (Because we all know how many times it doesn't look as good as we remembered it when we put it down!) 

This piece is another version of my picot-edged, 72 stitch on #0 Inox dpns Latvian mittens.  Happily, I seem to have found my rhythm and this one is almost identical in size to its twin, my last blue & white mitten.  From reading the blogs, it seems that knitters often have a problem getting the first pair to match, size wise, which was one of the reasons I decided to knit a few singles first.  That and of course, I couldn't wait to try a bunch of different pattern and color combos.

In choosing my patterns, I've tried to vary them to learn something new on each project.  This time, my cuff motif was pretty large, repeating 5 times around the circumference.  I centered the pattern so that almost three flowers would be featured on the back of the mitten and two on the inside.  (See photos above.)  I think it worked pretty well. 

What didn't work well were several attempts to pair a pattern for the hand with the busy cuff.  I tried (and frogged) several designs in different color combinations before settling on this intertwining graph.  Its simple repeat in the maroon and raspberry colors allowed the cuff design to shine.  I laugh as I type *simple*, because I also had to frog the thumb once when I realized I had messed up the pattern. 

I'm planning one more trial mitten, on size #1 dpns.  I knit pretty tightly and am wondering if just one size up will allow a bit more room in the fit.  I don't want them loose, but I've had to block these a bit to get a comfortable fit and I don't want to add stitches to my cast on number, as 72 is *perfect*.  Why?  Because it's divisible by 4, 6, 8, 9, 12, 18 and 24, all common numbers of repeats in cuff patterns, which allows one to just plug them in without fiddling to figure out how to integrate designs where the match abruptly stops.  I'm lazy like that.

A few people wondered where I'd been last week.  I had mentioned that we relisted our house but I didn't add that we hired a new realtor, one who takes a decidedly pro-active approach to sales.  Translation: staging.  Not extreme, but we were here such a short time that we hadn't furnished this house as we had planned, and have been using a mish-mash of family pieces that desperately need to be replaced.  I couldn't see past it, but over several days we added some accent pieces and mostly just changed things around, so much so that I almost hate to leave the place now.  I thought I had a pretty good eye but I learned some things last week and was pretty tuckered out by the time we finished up.  The house finally listed on Thursday.  Friday, at 9:00 am, we had our first showing.  When I returned to the house after the prospective buyers had left, I found this note on the kitchen counter:

Congratulations!!  You have even a bigger stash than I do!!  Happy quilting!!
Signed:  Another quilter

Smocking, too

My first effort, a toddler Christmas dress.

I had been wondering when smocking was going to make its appearance on the blogs and sure enough, Alicia has recently fallen under its spell.  When Molly was little, I had a friend who taught hand smocking so of course, I jumped right in. 

I revisited the same pattern on a later Easter dress.

Considering how impressive hand smocking looks, it's actually a very simple craft, something akin to counted cross stitch.  After a couple of easy projects, I invested in a pleater, which gathers fabric into even pleats as you feed it through multiple threaded needles.  Very quick and precise, providing the perfect ground for smocking.  (I was surprised at the prices of pleaters while looking for a link...three times the price I paid *way back when*.)  You don't need to purchase a pleater, however.  Most shops that carry smocking supplies will pleat a fabric piece for a small price.

This type of pinafore is a perfect first project because it will showcase even a simple beginner smocking design and its construction is uncomplicated.  Now's the time to try it, with summer just around the corner!  (Tell me that summer is just around the corner...please.)

Sadly, by some weird quirk of nature, I couldn't continue smocking.  Despite being able to quilt, knit, cross stitch and crochet with abandon, something in the repetitive nature of smocking caused repeated flareups of tendonitis in my wrist and I sold my pleater after several years of use.  If I hadn't, it probably would've gotten carted out of here this week.  Our house was relisted yesterday and I've been totally engaged in yet more cleaning out.  What I've parted with would have seemed unimaginable just months ago but is feeling wonderful today.  I'm exhausted from it, physically and mentally, but with each boxful that I load in the back of the car, I remind myself that that's one less to unpack in Chicago.  It's made me even more excited about the move.  I did not, however, get rid of any of Molly's smocked dresses.  There is a limit.

This was my favorite of all of the dresses I made for her, maybe because it was different in tone from the cupcake-y dresses that I'd see in the children's shops.  I had a difficult time getting a nice photo of it in this winter week light, so I did a little digging while I was in the photo closet and found a better shot.  Really, how did I think I could beat this one?

The Christmas card photo, 1988