Tall Gal Knits and Spins

Frozen, but still Knitting

As is much of the middle of the nation...24 states are being side swiped by this nasty storm stretching all the way from where I am down in northern Texas all the way to the tip of Maine. We had an ice storm Monday night into Tuesday....left somewhere around 2 inches of ice on the roads.  Frigid temps in the teens and grey skies.  This is why I left New England, right??  New England is getting hammered by yet another snow storm, heading for nearly 6' of snow for the year.  Yes I'm glad I'm gone, but really folks I'm done with the teen temps and the ice.  More importantly I'm done with watching people not know how to drive on ice. 

While turning the heat up another notch and donning one of my warm shawls the past few days I finished up a pair of socks over the weekend....Which I should have called frozen lemon rose sherbert, but Lemon Rose will have to suffice.

These are based off of the pattern from knittyspin, Blackrose, found here.  The lace pattern is designed to be on the outer side of your calves and is a really ease lace pattern to memorize.    I used STR Lemongrass lightweight and did 7 repeats of the lace pattern on the leg.  I tend to not do patterning past the legs on socks for me. I find the top of my feet get picky depending on whether I have on shoes or boots, so I generally just do a plain foot.

The bright coloring is definitely brightening my mood while we wade through the cold ick.

I had mentioned last time that I had some knitting resolutions thoughts for the year.  One of them was to do a la Yarn Harlot, a pair of socks a month for myself.  My sock drawer is pitiful and almost all of my handmade socks are years old and starting to wear thin.   So I've made  bag up of patterns paired with sock yarn, mostly randomly, there are 11 sets, 10 now left in there.  The deal with myself is to make at least 10 pairs this year, but all 12 would be great.

Those cast off and ready to warm my frigid toes I pulled the next one out of the bag...

Madelinetosh Sock, Plum Tree.  Pattern:  Spring Forward, from Knitty, found here.  More springy light colors to help keep the mood bright and light till it warms back up...which is hopefully on Saturday!

Off to defrost the fingers and toes a bit....

 

2010 Wrap Up

This year is nearly come and gone, less than 12 hours left in the year.  Where did it go??  Oh wait, I know what happened,  I was buried behind books for most of it.

Well I am happy to say, that I finished my degree program at Harvard!  Now the only books I'll be buried under are those related to knitting, spinning, quilting, and just some good old fun reading.  Its been a a very long 4-1/2 years since I decided to go back to school and many things have changed, some good, some bad, but that's what life is about, right?

As of right now I am not planning on continuing onto a master or graduate degree program.  I am planning on taking most of 2011 to assess things and see what opportunities open up.

For those of you who have been thru the rollercoaster of school with me, thanks for all the support over the years!  It means the world to me.

During this last semester of school I did manage to do some knitting, mainly gifts for the godchildren for Christmas.  Instead of  doing a detailed bit on all of them I'll just do photos.  If you'd like to see more pics or what the patterns are, please go to my Ravelry page and you can see more of them here. 

 

  

 

    

   

 

  

 

  

  


    
Happy New Year Everyone!

Summer Random Ramblings

Two months??  Two Months??  Oh my!

Somehow time slipped away from me again...more to the point the after school let down hit and I just went into an early summer haze/relaxation period.  The realization that I only have one more semester to go hit and the light is at the end of the tunnel.  Not that it has been a bad thing to finish my degree, but its been a very long nearly six years.

I did some traveling at the end of June and went to visit friends back on the East Coast, some of my favorite pictures from the trip

 

I have a thing for New England Coastlines...Gloucester and the area around Newport Rhode Island.  Just make me smile.

Since the end of May I have been doing "fun" reading, I love to read a good book.  I've gone through five so far since the end of school including Tony Bourdain's new book Medium Raw.  I have always liked Tony since day one when he wrote Gone with Bamboo and Bone in the Throat.  Tony has mellowed out much since those days and admits that he has gone through hell and back again several times.  While I am not cut out for serious kitchen life, I appreciate his cynicism and lack of political correctness at times.

 Right now I'm working on The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.  The book has a slow start, but is very promising. I have to thank my wonderful friend Thomas for recommending the book to me. He also happens to be a wonderful stylist.  If you are in Cambridge, MA and need one, call Alfred's and ask for Thomas.

Coincidentally, Knitgrrl will be doing a Dragon-Toe KAL on Ravelry in August, using the Karira Pattern.  The colorway that matches the cover of the book comes from BMFA, Lemongrass.  I happen to have a skein of it in Heavyweight so the current debate with myself is whether I go digging in the stash for something of the right weight or I indulge and grab a skein of the lightweight from Blue Moon. Now the problem is...who can just buy one skein from Blue Moon?

Join in the fun, they are planning on doing two more KAL for Steig's other books with colorways to match the covers. I do need to write up the wristlet pattern and I've been puttering around with a few other things too while I've been lounging around the past few months...

 

and this too...

So Tallgal is getting back into her knitting happiness and rambling along this summer. Let's see what I come up with!

Shhh....

She's supposed to be writing a paper and Kant's categorical imperative.....

be back soon....

So what was that pile of yarn doing...brainstorming ideas

That pile of yarn is at least partially M's fault....several weeks ago she started talking about a sweater....this one to be exact.  Yes its an Alice.  It is St. Brigid, one of her more intricate cabled sweaters.  Now I haven't done an Alice Starmore sweater in years....like nearly 10.  I have an Elizabeth I in all silk that I made many many years ago, that I should pull out and put a picture of it on here.  Sadly it is a few sizes to big for me now.  Not because it stretched out of shape, but because I'm no longer a size 16.  But that's another story for another eon.

So M was talking about this, and was tempting me more and more with her wiley yarny ways.  Then she started talking about spinning the yarn for it...now there was a thought.  For about 2 seconds for me.  While I would absolutely love to spin the yarn for a sweater, right now my life is a little to hectic with school to be able to spin consistently.  So we played email tag for a week or so....well what if I do it in commercial yarn and you do it in your hand spun, hand dyed, hand carded yarn and we compare notes.

Now here's an idea!  Few more days pass.  Hey M, you know I'm in the south now, there's no way I'm doing this as a heavy outerwear sweater now.....yeah I know what about modifying it for something lighter...

Now there's another thought.  Hmm...throwing skeins out of their cubbies and discarding the ones that don't meet what I'm thinking of requirement trolling of yarn stash for hours looking at the possibilities.  

First requirement....must have at least 2000 yards in stash.  2nd requirement not be a heavy worsted or worsted if possible.  Okay so what did I come up with out of Tallgal's personal yarn shop??

 This was my first candidate, classic elite portland tweed A nice blend and an aran weight, should work well on 7's with a 4.25/inch gauge.  Stitch definition looks okay, not perfectly crisp but I put that down to the blending with the soft warmth of the alpaca.  Okay let's feel it in the hand,  sadly on 7s it was too loose and floppy for my tastes and with each needle size I brought it down, it did firm up but it lost some of that softness, and I felt this yarn would end up loosing some of its allure in the heavy cabling.  

Next up was another classic elite, one that has been here before, and one of my new favorites I think...

  Classic Elite's Princess.  Another blend a bit softer but I loved the color its a great spring green.  I've used it for another sweater, the February Sweater of EZ's for M's daughter Caterina.  Sigh, notice this swatch is smaller...that is because I realized that softness and the plying just wasn't going to do it here either.  To make it work would have meant turning into chain mail to meet gauge.  Next.

I decided to move away from soft warmth and head for some of my other favorites...Jo Sharp.  This is her DK Classic.  Another yarn I have many colors of and a few I had enough of yardage wise.  This Teal green is a bit brighter than it is in real life, but I like the color.  Jo Sharp yarns have a firm handle on them, have great stitch definition and wear very well.  I highly recommend her yarns...This one nearly made the cut.  But when I got gauge on the 5's it felt stiff.  I set this swatch aside and pulled out the last candidate.  Jaeger's Matchmaker Merino Aran...

Another great, but sadly discontinued yarn...thankfully one that has a very large home in my stash!  I could meet gauge on 6's, the stitch definition was good, was still pliable but the color was boring.  Argh.

The one thought that was running in the back of my head the entire swatching process was I don't want a chain mail sweater.  I want a sturdy, will wear well sweater, but I want a certain amount of flow.  

None of the yarns in my stash are making me happy, so I went perusing the list of yarns used in the sweater on Ravelry and while I could use the cascade 220 I really didn't want to.  So I went trolling one of my favorite websites, Webs.  My yarn choice that I believe will make me happy should be here Friday.  There will be hopefully only one more round of swatching...

That is what the pile of yarn was doing..something I NEVER DO  swatching!

Where is all this leading....M and I have decided to do a KAL for St Brigid, she will be using her beautiful hand carded, hand spun yarn and I will be using......

Come by over the weekend to see who was the lucky winner....or stop back by sooner for some other fun that she and I are cooking up....

Winter sports...of the knitterly kind

In less than 3 hours the 2010 Olympics will be starting in Vancouver.  In the past 24 hours I've recieved 7+ inches of snow on the ground...in TEXAS!!!  I had thought I had left drifting snow far behind me....sigh.  But I digress.

I did not participate in the knitting olympics last time...I couldn't wrap my head around it.  I had just started back at school and was petrified to think  hesitant to press my luck both with my studies and my  knitting by even flipping through the patterns, websites, ravelry thinking of something to tease and intrigue my brain.  Its now four years later...

Still in school but feeling more at ease with it by now...heck I'm one semester away after this one to completing this part of my journey!

So trolling around the websites the past few days the buzz has been about the Yarn Harlot's Knitting Olympics and ravelympics.  I've been debating and stewing....and flipping through books, checking my queue, looking at yarn....17 days to do something challenging, yet realistic (at least in my book realistic as much as I would love to take on an insanity project i.e. any of my Alice Starmore or Heirloom-Knitting kits, I'm not that at ease with school.) because I do still work insane hours and I am taking 2 classes this semester, one being an ethics writing class....

I entered the Knitting Olympics on Yarn Harlot's site and I entered my project as a pair of color work mittens from one of the scandinavian isles...I think.

These are the thoughts that are running thru my head.

1.  A pair of mittens or gloves as above.

2.  A pair of colorwork socks/stockings

3.  Clapotis

4. February Fitted Sweater

5. February Lady Sweater

6.  Just anything in my queue

I won't be stopping my other knitting entirely but it will slow down a bit for the 17 days.

I have 2-1/2 hours to decide...if I don't cast on tonight I will be with my coffee in the morning.  To all the athletes of every kind, I wish you success, luck and health in the next 17 days.

Return from Paradise and revisiting old friends

Tall gal took a much needed vacation and flew off to Hawaii for a week!   There was much sun, beach and water play time.  I even went snorkeling for the first time ever and had a great time!  So much so that I bought snorkeling gear so I could go again when the opportunity arises.

But now I've returned..been back since Monday and I've had a chance to go through email, really dislike my doctors that I work for again readjust to work, and begun another semester of school via distance ed for Harvard.  But oh how I miss paradise....

 

I had mentioned in the last post I was going to be posting the patterns I had done for Inspiration Yarns a few years ago via Ravelry.   This morning along with my kona coffee (bliss) I've updated the patterns a tiny bit and posted them on Ravelry here. 

Cherry Blossom Socks     Bamboo Weave Socks

They are free and I will be posting a few more patterns both for free and for sale as time allows over the next few months.  I've also added individual pattern links on my side bar on the left (unfortunately its half way down, this darn template won't let me move it up....we'll have to do something about that.)

It's Friday, and my last semi-free weekend before the crunch of school work really begins...think a blue seaman scarf maybe calling my name....

Just a little something I'm working on

Sometimes one finds inspiration out of necessity, sometimes one finds it from a color, a sensory memory....

I happened to find it in a pattern when I was leafing through my books the other day.  Combined with the unseasonable cool winter here in the central southern US, I started playing around with an idea for a scarf Its going to be a seaman's style...there is a provisional cast on and I'm making it out of a silk/alpaca blend I have. Depending on how it comes out I may write up the pattern for everyone.

Speaking of patterns, a few years ago I designed two sock patterns for Inspiration Yarns. The owner of the company has decided to focus on her family for the near future and I will be reposting the patterns on Ravelry soon, as free patterns.  As time allows I may be posting more patterns on Ravelry both has free and some for sale...under Tallgalknits.

As it is a new year, many of us take the time to reevaluate where we are in life and our pursuits.  I generally don't do NY resolutions, as I find them hard to keep, just because life sometimes has a funny way of intervening.  Instead I prefer to look at this brainstorming as "Possibilities"

My thoughts for possibilities for me in the next year knitting and crafting wise in general are to try to do more projects that require a bit of thought and aren't so auto-pilot.  I have many UFOs floating around in the next month or so I plan on either frogging them or queuing them up to be finished this year.  Along that thought, Knitting Daily in November had a post about filling your knitting calendar, that can be seen here. I'm mulling this thought over..maybe not quite as specifically as what Kathleen did, but something that fits me and my schedule.

But for now that schedule is heading back to work ;)

You know its Monday when...

Your desk looks like this....

Yes there really are three monitors on my desk, or more to the point 3 desktop computers, one reliable Imac (although aging and being replaced later this spring) and two POS computers, All in One units from the hospital that I work for. The one old is loud and dying and I've been waiting on a replacement for 2-1/2 months, and one new and not functional... The new one is bigger and quieter, but doesn't want to play fair...so I'm playing tech-tag.  FUN for a Monday.

But for some real fun, I did finish the wonderful little project I was working on, which took longer than expected, see above.

The Celestine from Berocco (Rav Link).  Lots of fun, and relatively easy to do until the last point, which when the toy is 3/4 of the way stuffed is a bugger. A great way to use up sock yarn in some funky colors and there happens to be just enough left on this skein for a certain little princess I know to get socks out of it.

 I suspect I will be making more than one of these....

Now that is done I've started cooking up something new...while I am no longer in the frozen tundra of New England, I'm still experiencing winter-like cold, although not as brutal. 

It involves a silk/alpaca blend, a cable needle and cabling....

Happy New Year everyone...I don't do resolutions as a rule but I have some knitting "thoughts" running around in my head for next time....

A new look and revisiting a well loved yarn

Hi remember me.....the multi craft girl, the one who works a lot, goes to school and tries her hand at various textile and fiber projects.  I fell off the radar for a while, again...let's see if I can get back on the radar. Is there anyone out there?? We're starting with an updated look for the old blog, a minor face lift.  One of these days I'm going to make my own banner, but for now the blue leaves are appealing to me.

Many things have changed for Tall Gal in the past year, mostly all positive, a few not so positive, but from our experiences we grow. 

I'm still in school, two semesters and two weeks away from being done with my bachelors.  It will be a relief to have it completed.  I've worked hard and its been a long road, but it will be worth it in the end. 

My crafty side to a bit of a hiatus for most of the year.  I made those socks in February and then just kinda stopped.  I would knit a row here and there but nothing made it to the finished object pile.  Then one late fall afternoon while talking with M about her knitting projects and what was going on, doing a tabulation of just how many pairs of woolly things would her little munchkins need this winter...the fingers got twitchy and I offered to help, starting with some socks for the little ones.  The first three pairs snuck away without getting photographed.  Maybe if we bug M, she'll post them on her blog.  Poke nicely ;) 

Then the discussion of sweaters came up, several of the ones I had made the godson still fit him or can be passed down to his sister.  But both were going to be looking for new woolly warm things this winter...so we pulled out something definitely very boy colored and made this.

This yarn was last seen in the last post....still Malabrigo, and still a soft squishy favorite. 

This is an extremely easy, quick knit.  I think I did this one in 5 days, just the right spar to get things going.

Once we did this one, we got inspired to do a few more...but we'll save those for another day....one day soon.