The Setesdal is finished.

I have had a lot of stuff happen in my family this past two months.  But things are settling down again and I'm knitting again.  I finished the black and white Setesdal-style sweater.

It was warm enough out on our deck to sit out here yesterday. This is where I did the picking up of stitches for the placket. The light here was great.  Then I knitted the placket and started on the collar. I finished up weaving in the ends and tacking down the inner facings today and wore the sweater to my yarn shop.  I prefer taking pictures outside, so took this when I got home again.

And I have started a new one.  This one is a kit by KnitPicks. I bought it because the price was right and I liked the sweater. So far I have one cuff and half the sleeve done.  Doing these one after another is helping me hone my skills and remember the things I did wrong the last time. 

Here is the cuff and sleeve so far. Well, actually it's a little longer than this, as I took this yesterday morning.

That's it for this time.

Setesdal pullover and some doodling with paint

I'm going to try to update this blog once a month.  So here goes for February.

KNITTING

I started a Norwegian style pullover early in January.   My knitting group at my local yarn store decided to all do Norwegian sweaters starting in January.  Since this fits right in with my resolution for 2010, I thought this was a good time to start a Setesdal style sweater.  I've wanted to do one of these for a long time, but was waiting until I felt my 2-color knitting was up to the task.

Here is what I have of it so far. It's going pretty quickly.  I'm sticking to the very simple, basic Norwegian shaping, which is very little.  More modern Norwegian and Dale designed sweaters are much more complicated than this, but I decided to see how this would go with very little structure. I'm not adding steek stitches, but will cut at the sides for the armholes and at the neck for the neck opening. It will have a placket.

This is the body and lower part of the sleeve.  I'm ready to start the patterning at the top of the sleeve.  I pulled designs from Setesdal Sweaters, by Annemor Sundbo, and made up my own pattern from there.  The traditional Setesdal sweaters, which are named after the valley of Setes in Norway, were worn by men and had embroidered wool fabric cuffs and plackets.  I'm not going to do the wool fabric.  I want this to be a comfortable everyday sweater to wear in the Duluth winters.  There is some more information on my Ravelry page.

 

ROSEMALING

I signed up for another class in Rosemaling. It meets one day a week for 8 weeks. It started yesterday.  I didn't have a project to work on, so spent the time doodling on paper.  Here is what I did.

And here:

I was just trying to get back into the feel of handling the brushes and thinking about my designs.  I practiced with a round brush, a filbert and a liner.

New Year's Resolutions

I actually made some New Year's Resolutions this year.  I don't do this every year, but when I have done it I've been pretty good about accomplishing those resolutions.  So in 2010 I resolve to:

1.)        Become more proficient at two-color/Fair Isle /Nordic knitting.  This means that I will continue to practice these techniques. When I finish one project I'll start another 2-color project.  Always before when I finish one, I decide to do something different like cables and then much later go back to two-color knitting. I think by doing it this way I'm not getting much better.  I also think one way to improve my stitches is to stop and rest my fingers frequently.

 

2.)        Complete some rosemaling project every month.  If I can't get a plate or bowl or something done I'll try to finish 4 ornaments or small things.  This way by next Christmas I'll have some ornaments to give away.

 

3.)        Get more exercise--hopefully some every day.  I haven't come up with a specific goal for this one, so I don't know how well this will work out. I got lots of exercise yesterday in the house going up and down the stairs. I was cleaning, doing wash, working on the computer and doing the stairs a lot. I was exhausted by dinner time.  This is why I need to get more exercise every day--so I don't get exhausted. 

 

I'm not going to resolve to be a better blogger, because if I do the other things something might have to go and it might end up being the blogging.  But on the other hand I might have more to blog about, so maybe I'll keep it up better than before.

 

I have started my first Nordic sweater of the year, but there's very little to show so far.

 

Instead I'm going to post some belated Christmas pictures.  I put the tree in a new location this year and my two nieces Nina and Laura were here to help decorate it and I think it is one of the prettiest trees I've had, so here are a few pictures of Christmas at my house this year.

 

And here's my dining room table.

Alpaca raglan sweater and a new plate

I've been both knitting and rosemaling this month.  Someone asked me to paint a plate for his wife for Christmas.  I agreed with some reservations, but the plate is finished and I'm glad I did it. It didn't take as long as I thought it would and it got me back into rosemaling again, before I put the paints away for the holidays.  It was good to get that table cleared off finally this morning.

So first, here is the current state of the Alpaca sweater. 

I bought several skeins of Alpaca in April 2008. The seller had a lovely scarf done in grey, tan and natural.  I wanted to use those colors, but for some reason I bought black, two shades of grey, 2 shades of brown and the tan and natural. Then the next year I bought some more, because I didn't think I had enough to do a complete sweater and it was too much for a scarf and hat.  (These are undyed. They are the color of the animal.)

I did a gauge swatch last year thinking I might use it for the Ivy League vest, but decided not to. When I started again this fall, I did another gauge swatch, and this time tried a color pattern I found in a book by Alice Starmore.  I liked that, so started the sweater out that way.  The part that is below the armholes is the pattern from her book with a wider area of natural.  But at that point I realized I didn't have enough of those colors to finish the sweater and would have to incorporate at least one more color. So I added in the brownish-grey. At this point I used the construction method of the Dale of Norway Sapporo raglan sweater that I did a few years ago. I liked how easily that one went together and it is comfortable.  It's a bit tricky getting the first rows and the decreases going right, so it's easier if the pattern is simple-thus the plain stripes. Now I am hoping I'll have enough of the light tan/beige to finish the yoke. If I do it will be just plain from here on. If I have to add in another color--well I'll cross that bridge when I get there-if I have to.

And second, here is the plate I just painted.  It's 18", so one of the biggest I've done.  I needed to talk to my teacher about pricing and discovered Friday that she was teaching that day, so I went in to the class. I've missed several classes over the years I've taken from her and she has always said I could make them up any time, so I knew it would be okay to show up for the last class of the year. 

It was helpful to have her advice for finishing the plate and she also helped with some of the outer linework. I really need to practice that more, so I can do it myself.  I'm going to make a New Year's resolution to paint more next year.  The design in this plate is inspired by one by Marlys Hammer, from whom I took a class last year.

This is probably my last post here before the holidays.

 

So Happy Holidays to all!! 

 

See you in 2010!  We are going to have to think when we write the date next year and stop before we put 2 zeros down.  I'll bet most people will be writing 200 and then squeezing a 1 in between the 00's. 

I went to Angora

Clearly, the process we started in Michael's back yard is going to take a very long time to produce wearable results.  (See previous post)

 

So I decided to go to the source and skip the part where I do it myself.  I went to Angora.  You may or may not be aware that Angora is the old name for Ankara, the capital of Turkey. The Angora goats, cats and rabbits all originally came from this part of Turkey.

 

I went there with my husband and have some pictures I plan to put on the web, but that part hasn't been done yet.  You can see some of them on my other blog. Ceci's Travel blog 

 

Our hostess took us to a village about an hour and a half outside of Ankara. It's called Bey Pazari and resembles an Alpine village. We did lots of shopping there buying things made right there in the shops by the people selling them. I took pictures and even a video of weavers operating looms. We also saw hand-made jewelry. And in one shop there were some dolls. Since I collect dolls I had to take a look and bought one more. This one is helping to wind a ball of yarn from a skein of Angora.  I think she needs a partner. She is wearing a shalwar, a loose fitting baggy pant.  I was told this was a traditional costume and later saw some women demonstrating in a restaurant wearing this type of garment.

And in the same shop I found this beautiful shawl made of Angora.

It's not knitted, but I'm not sure what the technique is. I need to do some research.

 

And I finished the sweater that I started in September.

This was a free Ravelry download. It's called Mystique and was written by Patrizia Steadman.  I had to shorten the sleeves, as I would have run out of yarn, but I think the shorter sleeves work fine with this sweater, which is designed to be worn by itself. 

The blind leading the blind

If you have come here looking either for information about the visually impaired, or about washing fleece, go back to your search results. This site won't help you with either one.

 

Truly none of us knew what we were doing. We are competent knitters who have never processed fleece before. We meet every Tuesday for knitting and fun. This Tuesday we had been "invited" by one of our members, Michael to partake in the fun of washing some fleece. Most of us had never even seen raw fleece before. Some years before Michael had acquired two Angora goats, who live in Montana and are tended by her nephew. Once or twice a year she gets the fleece from the two goats "Scruffy" and "Mr. Clean."  We were soon to learn how they got their names. Though I'm not so sure about Mr. Clean.

After a some fortifying coffee and yummy home-made cinnamon rolls we headed out to the back yard to get started. We were met there by piles and bags of dirty fleece.

Here's a close-up. Lovely, hunh?

Michael's husband had set things up for us. (We were told he had to work that day. Likely story!)

We donned gloves and started by pulling the vegetable matter out of the fleece. This was a bit tedious. We threw piles of matted fleece in the trash bin, thinking it was beyond hopeless. Here Iris, Jody and Ann are diligently working at the piles of fleece.

When we had a pile ready, we put it in a bin and added hot water and a squirt of soap.

After a measured (not) amount of soaking Michael and Jody dumped it out on the grass, thus assuring a soggy wet spot in the middle of the yard.

Can you tell from the photo above who is the smartest in the group?  Yeah the one who knew to wear rubber boots.  On the other hand perhaps it is me. I had the foresight to bring a camera and designate myself the official photographer, thus keeping a safe distance from the mud.

Second or third washing. It's getting cleaner.

Half an hour and more washings later. Still cleaner.

Add another 2 Tablespoons of soap, Iris.  Perfect!

Ann and me, transferring the fleece to a clean bin.  "Hey give me back my camera!"  By this time we had several bins going. We had decided to skip the first tedious step and just throw the unpicked fleece in the hot water.

At this point someone suggested we should let it soak longer.

Time for lunch!

Now we are in familiar territory.

Michael knows how to cook and the rest of us knew just what to do with her lovely buffet.

Squash bisque, grapes, chicken salad, croissants, cheese, crackers and tapenade.  (Now you know why we agreed to do this.)

All too soon, it was time to return to the fleece.

When it looked like this we decided it was done.

Here is what the first batch looked like spread out on a screen to dry.

We had several batches going by this time. Michael spinning the fleece before setting it out to dry.

Michael and Jody are pleased with the day's accomplishment.

Would you have thought it would come out this white?

Michael's husband showed up later, no doubt feeling guilty about having been "at work" all day and set up some window screens because the one we had set up wasn't anywhere near enough space.

And for comparison, this is what we started with. Actually this is one of the piles we didn't process.  Michael is already planning another "luncheon" for next spring.

Michael and Jody carded some of the cleaned fleece and they say it is beautiful. I don't have pictures, so you'll just have to take their word for it. I'm interested in finding out how it spins up, because I came home and looked up websites that gave detailed instructions and exact temperatures necessary to process Angora. It sounded very complicated and I doubt I would have had the confidence to try if I'd read those first. So--I hope to have an update some day on what happens to this fleece next.

 

And Michael, check with me before you schedule the next "luncheon."  I want to be there. I'll bring my camera again.

Three more finished projects and a new one.

I think I need to come up with better titles for my posts--next time.

So it's been a busy month. I've been working on a number of things, but I do have some photos of finished knitting projects, so I'll start with those.

Here's a shawl I started in Indiana in July. Jim dropped me off in West Lafayette at my mom's after the family reunion and drove home. I forgot to get my knitting bag out of his car, so had to buy a new project. I bought this at River Knits, the yarn shop in Lafayette. The repetitive nature of this pattern made it a good one for traveling.

Then I picked up this twisted rib and cable pullover that I had started last winter and put aside for most of the summer. I had the back and sleeves done, so did the front and put it together and here it is.

It hasn't been cool enough to wear it yet. We've had a very pleasant and warmer than normal month of September. Today it is cooling off though, so perhaps soon. I did wear the shawl once.

 

And this one is finally almost finished. I am putting on the 5 coats of polyurethane now. I'm using the same stuff we used on our floor earlier in the year. I did the border and then "antiqued" it by wiping a little yellow ochre all over it. I'm pretty happy with how this turned out and am trying to decide where I can use it.

And I am currently working on a new pullover using yarn I bought in St. Paul in April. I got 8 balls of this Sublime on sale at Borealis Yarns. It is so soft. It's merino and silk, I think. I should check that I guess. I just love working with this yarn. This pattern is going very quickly. I now have 7 1/2 diamonds finished, but I took the picture a few days ago when it wasn't so far along. It will have long sleeves.

It's a top-down design (obviously). I found the free pattern on Ravelry. It has a little lace pattern at the side seams and the diamonds down the center. The rest is a 3 X 1 rib. The lace designs break up the monotony of the rib. I do the rib for a bit, then pay attention and do the lace pattern, then more rib, etc. It makes the rows seem to go by quickly. Also this is the first time in a long time that I have worked with yarn this heavy. It's a DK weight, which is a bit heavier than the sport wt, that I did the twisted cable sweater in.  Although I think all of these were done on #6 needles. 

You can find more details about these projects on my Ravelry projects pages.

I have also completed a sock, but since it's only one, it doesn't count as a finished project.

We are headed to Ghana October 20, so I may update my travel blog next with photos from Africa!

Well, that's my September update.

 

Oh wait, I was at our Scandinavian Fest on Saturday. I wore the merging colors vest and got lots of compliments on it, which was nice. But One woman looked at my nametag and recognized me from Ravelry!!  That's the first time that has happened. I know people in real life who are also on Ravelry, but this is the first time anyone at a non-knitting event recognized my name (and possibly the vest) as someone she'd seen on Ravelry.