FO: Vintage Knickers

Last summer, I found a pattern on Etsy from a 1930's Vogue Knitting magazine for these cami-knickers:



Have you ever seen anything more adorable?

Of course, they aren't nearly as adorable on me as they are on the gorgeous model, but I love them just the same.



I can't begin to tell you the satisfaction of knitting vintage under-things in alpaca silk yarn, then finishing the garment on an antique sewing machine. And that doesn't even touch the satisfaction of wearing it. Pure luxury, I tell you! Nothing is warmer than alpaca, and nothing is softer than silk. Put them together and it's utter perfection.



Unmentionables were so much more flattering back then. They were made for women who had hips and waists and thighs, not the boyish figures we see modeled nowadays.

I may never wear modern underthings again. To heck with push-up bras and thong underwear, I think we should all demand that vintage under garments come back into style. I guarantee most of us would look better in these than in the underthings that are in style today. ;o)

The details:

Yarn - Blue Sky Alpacas Alpaca Silk, 50% alpaca, 50% silk in color Blush
Needles - size 2
Pattern was one-size, I altered the width just slightly to make it a little slimmer based on the gauge I got with this yarn. Other than that, a perfect, flattering fit.

Hand Dying with Black Walnut Ink

Remember the quill and ink project? Well, we had some (quarts of) leftover black walnut ink, so I used it for another quick project:

I hand dyed some hand spun yarn.



I spun this yarn a couple of years ago and it sat undyed in a basket for two reasons:
a) I was scared of dying yarn
b) It's really, really not very well spun. There's a serious learning curve to spinning. This is only about my third attempt.

I learned that dying isn't really hard at all, doesn't take as much time as I was expecting, and that the satisfaction of having 130 grams of hand spun, hand dyed yarn is worth the effort.


The process was simple: I tied the skeins here and there with scrap yarn and dampened them, then put them in the room temp ink/dye in a large pot, and heated it to nearly boiling. Then I turned off the heat and let it sit overnight, using a wooden spoon to occasionally move it around gently and press on it to get the dye to saturate well. In the morning I rinsed until the water ran clear, then hung them to dry.

I'm thinking I'll knit up a shawl of some kind with it, something to embrace the imperfections (and there are a lot of them!) of my first fingering weight hand spun yarn. I'll let you know what I come up with... might be awhile before there's time for that. :o)

*Note: black walnut ink also works beautifully as a wood stain. I stained the borders of a little Christmas plaque I made, and it has a really beautiful color to it. This stuff is awesome, I tell ya. Sure wish black walnuts grew wild where we live... guess we'll have to go back to Missouri sometime to get more!

Knitting Bits: A Rooster That Won't Attack

The girls still talk about Mr. Tweets almost every day. They really miss him, and will tell anyone who will listen all the happy stories about him. They end with, "Yeah, and then Daddy killed him, 'cuz he got mean." That's usually enough to render a look of mild shock on the face of whomever they are speaking with.

Anyway, I've always wished I could bring him back as he was before he got mean, and as I was surfing Ravelry one day, I found the perfect solution: The Knitted Chicken.



He won't attack. In fact, he'll even cuddle if you want.



I made the tail feathers a bit larger than the pattern called for, and crocheted an edge to make them seem more "rooster-ish."



And I crocheted some poofy feathers on top, since our mean ol' rooster was a Polish show breed.


I'm not sure which girl will get him, but he'll be a Christmas gift they'll likely both get a giggle out of.

Pattern: Spring Chicken by Jacqui Turner
Yarn: Scraps of black and white held together
Needles: size 10, and H crochet hook when needed

FO: The Just Plain Sweater

I suppose for every successful knitting project, there must be at least one unsuccessful one.

I finished The Oldest's "Just Plain" sweater more than a month ago. It's hung on the mirror in my bedroom since then awaiting buttons. After seeing how it came together, I had no motivation to bother with sewing buttons on, but she finally insisted. She selected six mismatched black vintage buttons from the button jar. And now there is a finished product.



Mostly, I hate everything about it. I really don't like purple. I can't stand this flimsy chenille yarn. The sweater doesn't fit nicely at all, being far too wide around. And I even somehow managed to make the buttonholes crooked, because I'm awesome like that.


So it's not the prettiest sweater I've ever made. The up side is that she doesn't seem to notice the awkward fit, or the crooked buttons. She just feels the softness of this wretched yarn, and sees a shade of purple that makes her heart go pitter-pat. So I guess it's not a total failure.

A Love Story: A Girl and her Yarn.

I feel compelled to tell you my happy knitting project story. It's been a long time since I finished a project I was so darn smitten with. This story is far too long, considering it's about yarn. But hey, at least there are pictures.
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When I take a trip now, instead of buying souvenirs that are going to sit on a shelf and collect dust (because I have too many of those already!) I try to buy a ball of yarn. It turns into something useful, and each time I use it, I have a chance to look back on the trip fondly.

So when we were in Birch Tree, Missouri (population 600-something) I found a local yarn store called The Twisted Thread.



The fact that there was a local yarn store at all in a teeny little Ozark town thrilled me. Mostly, she carried Cascade products, which I can easily buy at home, and aren't all that exciting to me. But! There was this shelf! A shelf of gorgeous, hand dyed (and even some hand spun) yarns! Colors galore, I tell you. But I knew just what I was after. I wanted a ball of hand dyed yarn that was going to remind me of the amazing fall colors of the Ozarks.



And lo and behold, there it was, the "Fall" colorway. Sumac red, Sassafras orange, the gold of hickory and dogwood. It had all the colors of the fall I was so enthralled with there in Missouri. And it was hand dyed by someone local to the Ozark region. And it was cashmere.

So anyway. Enough about the yarn, with it's gorgeous drape and ultra-soft feel and.... Right. So anyway.

I bought my ball of yarn, finished enjoying the fall in Missouri with my sweet grandmother, and came home to start looking for the right pattern. I knew I wanted a shawlette/kerchief. You can't do too much fancy lace work with hand painted yarn, so I was looking for something simple to show off the pretty colors. I looked for over two hours at Ravelry's options, was about to shut off the computer and give up completely, when I saw Simple Things.

The name hooked me first - Simple Things are what I live for. I looked at the pattern some more. It was named after a quote from Laura Ingalls Wilder! Our trip included our stop at Laura's home! It was clear to me then, this project was meant to be.

And so I knitted it. And lemme tell ya, knitting with cashmere (even just 10% cashmere) is a pleasure every knitter should experience at least once. This yarn is like butter, I tell you. It took a couple of weeks, but now I have this piece I am just utterly tickled with.


Oh my. Just look how those colors melt together, and yet still stand out from one another. I am completely sold on hand-dyed.

The shawl is hanging in my hallway, when I'm not wearing it. I get a lot more satisfaction out of it when I walk by it forty times a day than I would if it were hanging in my closet. It won't stay there forever, but at least for awhile. I'm calling it part of my "fall decor".



And so goes the story of a girl and the yarn she fell in love with. I love stories with happy endings. :-)

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**Note: The picture above the pegs is the painting of Laura's house that my grandmother gifted me. Isn't it so pretty?

**Another note: check out Morandia's MIB Fibers if you want your own ultra-soft skein of cashmere/merino yarn. I'm sure she can help you out.

Rawr!

I'm loving that it's getting dark so early these days. There's no time for gardening after dinner any more. Instead, there's an hour of dark before bed, time spent in the living room with my girls. Last night they ate popcorn and colored, while I read a story out loud and knitted. An evening like that affords its own sense of peace.

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I keep seeing dinosaur hats on Ravelry and in friends' blogs, and decided it was time to go ahead and make one.

Chloe is modeling it, but I made it for a friend of Cora's for his fourth birthday. No pattern used, one wasn't really needed. More details on my Ravelry if you want to make one.

After Chloe saw it she asked, "Do you think there might have been pink and purple dinosaurs, too?" Add a pink and purple dino hat to my list of things to make. :-)

Knitting Bits: Yarn Shopping with the Oldest

With the cooler weather we've been having, I've been struggling with my desire to ignore the garden and knit instead. I gave in. The garden is in sad disarray as I sit cheerfully in the shade and knit to my heart's content.

I took Chloe yarn shopping for her winter sweater today. I learned a few years ago, after I spent two weeks knitting an adorable sweater for her, that she is not the type of girl to overlook comfort for the sake of cuteness. It was a bit scratchy, that cute little sweater, and so I had to beg her and bribe her every time I put it on her. She wants a sweater that is loose fitting, with sleeves long enough to cover her hands, a hood, and the softest yarn one could possibly find.

So we spent half an hour scouring the yarn aisles at Hobby Lobby this afternoon. We were after something worsted weight, and purple... unless she changed her mind on the color once we got there. After years of watching me in a yarn store, she's mastered the art of fondling yarn. She walks along, hands out, squeezing skein after skein of purple yarn. If one feels like it may be soft enough, it must endure the next test: she rubs it on the inside of her forearm, and then on her cheek. That's enough to make most of the yarn go right back into the bin. Of all the yarn varieties that Hobby Lobby had to offer, only two passed the cheek-rubbing test. And of those, only one had a shade of purple she thought was suitable.

And so I am now knitting a top-down raglan cardigan out of plum-colored velveteen plush yarn. Top-down allows me to make the sleeves just the right length, and I've altered the pattern to include a hood. No lace, no cables, not even appliqued flowers - "just plain", said my Little Girl who is clearly growing up. I did convince her to let me use mismatched antique buttons down the front, because "just plain" isn't in my vocabulary.

I'm happy to be knitting again. :-)

FO - Flowers of Fall

This whole homeschooling-homesteading mom thing is really putting a damper on my love for making things. I vaguely remember having time to knit, once upon a time ago, but it hasn't happened any time lately.

With the cooler fall weather settling in, I finally put my foot down and made some time to do a bit of knitting. I rebelled against the housework, even threw the to-do list in the trash. Then I poured myself a glass of wine (at 3:00 in the afternoon) and camped out in my favorite Adirondack chair beneath the shade of the elm tree in the front yard. It was lovely, and so very needed for my sanity.

And the product of my relaxing afternoon made it all the more satisfying:

Flowers of Fall hat by Brownie Knits



I love giant flowers on Little Girl heads. Makes me wish I was four so I could rock the giant flower look.