Yarn Along

Whew, haven’t played this game in a while.

Joining Ginny of Small Things and her sweet Yarn Along, here’s what I have going on in the reading and knitting department this week: a copy of Watership Down that my mum sent me, randomly, in a care package from the home land. It has the flawless, flowing script of her signature in the upper right corner of the front page, and it just so happens that I’ve never read this book, so it’s a Very Nice Thing all around. I happen to be enjoying it very much.

I am also beginning to enjoy my Turmeric Sweater after a brief falling out. Somehow, tinking back 370+ stitches takes about ten times longer than knitting them, but now, the sleeves are separated and the going is simple and steady. The yarn was dyed by the fabulous Adrian of Knittink, and the colorful fabric growing in my hands is playful and happy-making. It’s a nice, seasonal transition piece that will warm me up for the next project, for which I’ll be leading a Knit-Along for the Wonderland Yarns Ravelry group (if you didn’t know, I’m the fiber division at Wonderland/Frabjous Fibers, which is why The Spun Monkey has taken a bit of a back seat).

Even though TSM has been on the backburner, there are several things of note coming up:

On September 5th, I’m teaching a class at Fiber College of Maine called Spinning Your Story. There’s a plethora of amazing workshops, and the whole event is sure to be a blast, so come check it out if you’re near!

On September 6th, and for the rest of the month of September, my work will be on display with other talented area artists at the Crowell Gallery in the Moore Free Library of Newfane, VT for the Windham County Sampler of Weavers and Felters exhibit.

On November 1st-2nd, I’ll be repping the aforementioned fantastically awesome Adrian of Knittink at the Fiber Festival of New England. I’ll have some Spun Monkey goodies there, too, but if you’re worried that she moved away and took Knittink with her, I’ll be ensuring her presence at the FFNE, don’t you fret!

Also, I’ll be scheduling some classes in felting and spinning at Madison Wool this fall, so stay tuned for that.

Heh. Well, that almost looks like a schedule of events! Whew.

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Yarn Along: 2 (and shop news! and a class! and another class!)

I’m still working on a Christmas present, and I can see in the photo where I need to tighten up a join, but both of those things are okay. 12 stripes down, 7 to go, and the boy can probably wear it without dragging it on the ground in about…6 years. Even so, I’m determined to finish it this weekend just to have one more project down so I can start something else. Now that the sock yarn club is up and rolling and I’m saving at least one skein for myself every month, I think we can all safely guess I’ll be obsessed with knitting socks for the remainder of the year.

The January colorway, btw, is now available as dyed-to-order, and there are a few ready-to-ship on a delightful bamboo blend sock yarn (and handspun and fiber, as well) available in the shop.

Clicking the pic will transport you to the listing.

February’s colorway found its way into a sweet tutorial I wrote up for this week’s installment of Sparkle Craft on the Sparkle Stories blog, and will soon also be available as a regular dyed-to-order colorway. In the meantime, club members are enjoying it first, and a few extras found their way to Madison Wool.

Speaking of Madison Wool, I’ll be the instructor/MC at this year’s Snowball…a spinning technique/80s dance party/costume shindig where we’ll spin up some neon shoelaces, cut up fabric scraps and spin them while watching Pretty in Pink, and corespin our way to a pair of mismatched fingerless gloves. You in? Call Dayna at MadWool for details and to sign up!

And since this post seems to be all business, I’m scouting out spots to teach on a whirlwind trip late Spring/early Summer…Austin, Denver, Bay Area, Portland…please be in touch if we can make it happen for my new one-day workshop, Spinning Your Story (details soon…keeping it mysterious for now). If you have an idea for a venue or just want to say, YES, I’d love to take your class, drop me a note!

I pretty much derailed my own Yarn Along post with news and such, but I think the book stack speaks for itself. A little Spring planning, a little for-pleasure, a little oooh-the-new-Granta-just-came-in-the-mail, and a little psychology about raising boys. Oh, and Jane Austen knitting patterns. A pretty accurate slice of mid-Winter life, right there, I guess…if you add a cup of chai and the fact that I have really no time to read any of this right now, but try to manage a couple pages here and there in odd moments of breathing space.

Happy Thursday!

xoxo

Yarn Along, and…

It’s been ages since I played along with Ginny of Small Things, to share what I’m knitting and reading right now. Of course, this time of year I have several bazillion projects on the needles, but this is the one I’m most likely to finish in the next couple of days. It’s kind of a little hilarious that the last time I played, almost a year ago, I was also reading a book in the Horatio Hornblower series. Ha! This is book number 10, but I accidentally read the 11th and final book before this one. I thought it was a nice, tidy ending and wondered what would happen in the last book…until I figured out I’d just read it. Oh, well. My 19th century seafaring boyfriend is back to his madly brilliant calculating magic in this volume, so it’s no disappointment to go backwards. There have been many books in between reading the stories in this series (again), but I’m sure I’ll still feel empty when I finish this up.

Oh, and the project is my third, or maybe fourth, Ripley Hat in Manos Clasica yarn.

And, just for the heck of it, here’s a recent off-the-needles project: the Parlor Cat. As yet, there is no face, but you can just pretend this is some typical I’m Ignoring You cat behavior.

Did I promise you a recipe? Like, two days ago? Ahem. My apologies. Here ’tis:

Chia Berry Awesomeness (or something like that, inspired by Pam of Never Get Eaten)

This is so easy, it’s silly, and the formula is simple to increase:

Blend this: 1 cup coconut milk, 1 cup fruit (fresh or frozen), 1 tsp of cinnamon (optional), 1 tsp vanilla (optional), and/or 1 tbsp honey (or whatever sweetener you like; also optional)

I used a hand/stick blender, but you could also use a food processor or whatever high-powered blender that will crush fruit into a puree.

Then, simply stir in 1/3 chia seeds and let set up in the fridge overnight. The texture reminds me of tapioca pudding, but the result is lighter, and I love that it’s raw and not-too-sweet.

You can easily double, triple, infinitely increase this recipe. We used strawberries and raspberries, which was delicious, but I found the little seeds annoying. Next up: mango/blueberry.

Yarn Along: 1

Playing along with Ginny of Small Things, here’s what I’m reading and knitting right now:

Horatio Hornblower, my fictional boyfriend, is keeping me company while I knit on some Trilobite Socks from this fantastic book, with some of my hand dyed Monkeysuit tweed sock yarn. I’ve been dyeing sock yarn for a while, but this is my first pair of socks. I tried to knit socks once before, but I only ended up with…sock. Singular. It’s pretty and perfect, but very lonely. I decided then that I really liked the idea of knitting socks, but that my KAS (Knitting Attention Span) was not adequate for the completion of an entire pair. Besides, I had dropped the beginning of the second sock (likely because I was walking and talking and knitting at the same time…ahem), and stepped on it, breaking all the tiny double-pointed needles.

Lo, I saw Amanda was knitting two socks at the same time on one long circular. There are a bazillion tutorials online, but this was super-easy to understand. Now, I’m doing it! And, I have to say, it’s pretty much the most awesome thing ever to know that both socks will be done at the same time, not to mention my needles are not likely to break if I step on them, nor my stitches to fall off when I shove the project into a bag. Win, win, win.

So, there you have it. Play along!