Purling Sprite

Knittyversary!

March marks my second year knitting with needles. It was 2 years ago that I decided to take the plunge and sign up for a knitting class at my LYS. Little did I know that the teacher was going to be lace guru chica, aka Mim, she waved her magical needles over my head and pronounced some sort of crazy enchantment and I was off knitting like a nut. Since that class in March of 2005, I have been unable to put my needles down. I confess, I love them! I love to knit more than I love to eat chocolate. I prefer to knit than to go out and chat with the neighbors, and I definitely prefer to knit than to do chores. And are you ready for the biggest confession--I pick up my needles more often than I pick up my looms.

I want to take this moment to thank Mim for teaching me how to knit, although I had a vague idea of how to do it, I could not have done it without ya girl! Sometimes all a person needs is a little push and someone to believe in them and she was it! But, I want to also say that not only did she teach me to knit but she also opened doors to me that were closed before her magic-needle-waving. Thanks to her, I am able to understand instructions that I can now translate into loom knitting--so in a huge sense, she is responsible for any "discoveries" that I have made on the knitting looms.

To commemorate my 2 year knittyversary, I have completed Tulips. I have named them Tulips because the top of the sock reminds me of the lovely tulip flowers. I love the pattern, the yarn, the color, it was so hard to say goodbye to them--I really hope my secret recipient likes them.

Stay tune to the Purling Sprite channel: next week we celebrate my 2 year blogiversary. There will be a contest and of course a giftie. Have a great weekend!

A 5 Question Interview

When I saw this over at Mim's I couldn't resist to participate, I asked her to send me some questions and within a few minutes she had sent the five interview questions and today here are my answers.

1. How did you get from New York to Logan, UT?

Well, that is easy, I took a plane! Hahahaha! Okay, I'll stop being a smart a*&!

It was a boy. I liked this boy and he lived in Ogden and I thought that if I lived in Utah that maybe the relationship will lead somewhere other than a telephone relationship. So I packed everything I cared about: my 50+ pairs of shoes and clothes (I have a thing about shoes, I liked them too much!) and I moved to Utah. I registered to school up at Utah State University then I started hanging out with my hubby and the guy from Ogden was forgotten. A year later, I got married and now Utah is my home. Although, I get the urge to get up and move back to NY, my heart now belongs here in Cache Valley.

2. What is your favorite food?

I love Mexican food. Although I don't miss living in Mexico, I do miss the food. Thinking of my Grandma's cooking makes me homesick.  My sister tells me she is a very good cook, so when I go over there, I will be stuffing my face and probably gain an extra 30 pounds.

3. How did the whole book deal go? Did they contact you? Did you contact them?

They contacted me. Apparently they were looking for an expert in the field (yeah, don't roll on the floor laughing!) and they found my patterns, instructions, and tutorials and they thought I was the exact match they were looking for their book. My publisher was a book packager, so they do everything for the book: layout, illustrations, and find an author to fill the pages, then they sell the book to a company interested in the subject, in my case St. Martin's Press won the bid.

Overall, the experience of writing the book was a mix of feelings: overwhelming, exciting, exhausting. Overwhelming in the fact that I had only a very short time to come up with the content and the patterns. Although I knew the subject, it is difficult putting it all into a book that flows. Thankfully, they were able to make it flow from one section to the next. Exciting in the sense that I couldn't believe that they asked me to write it. You are all familiar with my background of learning the language and having my Rosita accent and sometimes (most of the time) that makes me shy away from things and I let others step forward. Exhausting: well, after writing up the content and patterns in about 30 days, I was ready to throw out all my knitting looms. After the book was finished, I packed all my knitting looms and didn't touch them for a month or two.

Would I do it again? I don't know. I think if the right contract came along, I would consider it, but right now, I am okay doing what I am doing--knitting with needles. Having said that though, I would jumpt at the opportunity of writing a combo of loom knitting and needle knitting.

4. What is your favorite yarn?

Do I have to choose only 1? I hate to descriminate, hehehe. I would have to say that I have favorites all around and choosing one is difficult. But hands down, I love the feeling of Rowan Cashsoft DK--it is soft enough to sleep on! But if I could only buy one type of yarn it would be sock yarn.

5. Why have you never gotten a driver's license?

The flat truth: I am afraid. I am afraid of crashing and killing someone--my children, other people in other cars. I don't like the feeling of not being in control. When you get in the car, you are moving the steering wheel and you are making the car go, but you are moving this huge object that has dimension to it and you are inside of it and I am afraid that I won't be able to see and maneuver the entire dimension of the car, or that the car will do something that I don't want it to do.

Although I am scared out of my mind of driving, I am going to have to leave my fear behind this Summer. Wonderboy will be going to school and I am going to have to take him and pick him up. During the warm days, I can walk the mile to school with little Benny, but during the cold days, I am going to have to drive there. I will have to overcome my fear and just do it. Wish me luck!

Gearing up for Spring

The socks are almost ready, one is down, except for the grafting of the toes. Wohooo! The colourway is sure looking pretty.

Over the weekend, I was looking at sock patterns and I found the DK Heatwave Socks by Kristi and I immediately hit the Buy button--it looks so beautiful and a bit familiar. Upon closer inspection, I found that the stitch pattern is the same one I used at the top of my sock, hehehe, so I am not that original, hehehe. Anyways, I know some of you liked how my sock was looking so I thought of letting you know that there is a pattern out there, so hop on over and get it from Kristi--she has some other beautiful ones too, like the Spearfish Sock Pattern.

I have also been gearing up for Spring in other ways--we went out this weekend and got some little plants for our yard. Check out my new little trees--they are so small! These are right outside our house--by the front door. Hubby and Wonderboy did all the pre-work, took out all the shrubs that were there before and cleaned everything up and prepared the yard for the new inhabitants. I love to see my two boyz working together and my little Wonderboy just loves to be Dad's big helper.

The other cluster of trees went to the front "landscape" section of the house, we have an oval section with some huge rocks that had a bunch of non-flowering shrubs. We took the shrubs out and we put these little dwarf shrubs.

And all over the place, I planted some of these beauties: white peonies, pink peonies, purple dahlias, white dahlias, pink dahlias, phlox, and cala lilies. I am so excited about my yard--it is going to look so pretty next year. Thank you Norma for helping me out with the Peonies--we are so excited about these beauties!

But since we want our yard to look pretty this year too, Little Benny and I picked up some little seeds (little Benny picked most of them-she loves flowers) and we are going out to the yard this coming Saturday and we'll plant all over the place. So watch out for Gearing up for Spring Part two and part three (planting the vegetable garden). Hope you also had a great weekend.

Friday Happenings...

Where did the time go? Most importantly, what did I do all this week? I remember the week as follows: *wake up, get dressed, go outside and push Little Benny on trike, eat really quick and follow kids outside again, next day repeat from *. 

However, I did manage to get something done. I have been trying to design a pair of lace summery socks. My attempt has brought me to this point on my sock: I am about to pick up stitches for the gusset of the sock.

Here is the close-up detail of the cuff, isn't it just so pretty (nod your head in agreement).

The yarn is of course a combo of pinks and browns--love it! This is my first real sock design on needles and I am enjoying the process. Thinking up of what is coming up next and how to arrange the stitches on the needles is definitely a nice challenge that I'm enjoying quite a bit. Right now, my only concern is to be able to keep the stitch pattern on the instep area--crossing fingers that my "idea" for the instep works out. I think I have worked out the exact number of stitches to keep the same design going on the instep--crossing fingers.

Also, I have been waiting for my mailman to come and drop off a few things for me to begin a few projects (some of them top secret--we are talking CIA top secret, ha). But mainly, I have been waiting for a set of Susan Bates Silverado circular needles. Although I love my Addis, I am at a point where I can't spend so much on needles (saving for that trip to Mexico) and I recently read a review about these needles on Alwen's blog and then I saw an auction on eBay that had size 3-6-on 32" length for a very reasonable price and I couldn't resist getting them. So now, I am ready to start my Rusted Root blouse, no matter what size needles I need to get gauge...as soon as I finish knitting the pair of socks above.

Before I go though, I just want to say a huge thank you to all of you for commenting on my Sheep. I really enjoy drawing and it is one of those talents that I did wish I had. But, I have been reading upon it and it appears that it is something that I can work on and become a bit better at it. So I have a new list of Wishes on my Amazon that has quite a few books on drawing.

 

Speaking of Amazon.com, my book was released on Tuesday and I have been both excited and apprehensive about the entire thing. Excited in one aspect because it is like putting my own son out there into the world. Apprehensive because my son may not please everyone or misbehave. But overall--it is a great feeling of excitement to see it out there. So far, it has been well received (a few 5 star reviews --fuzzy feeling on my tummy) and it has made the #1 Bestseller on Crafter's Choice. Woohhoooo!  Of course, I am prepared to also read some reviews on the opposite direction, but for now, I am concentrating on the positives.

Sheepy for all....

Talents are a funny thing...you either have it within you or you just definitely don't. I am one of those people that have a few talents: I can burn my hands when cooking, I can sleep more than anyone else on earth, I can make 2 cakes out of 1 box of Betty Crocker and 3 cups of flour, I can make sugar cookies taste and feel like little rocks, I can spend many hours in front of the computer and not get bored, and I can skim read about 5 different blog entries in less than 5 minutes. But besides all my glorious talents above, there are a few that I have always wanted to have, one of them has always been to be able to draw.

Here is my feeble attempt to draw a few little sheepys just for amusement but as you can see, the fluffy fellows were just too much for my stick-drawing capabilities. I was dreaming of a cute little sheepy holding a knitting loom and knitting away half of his coat onto the loom, so half of the sheepy was naked and the other half fluffy but I just couldn't do it. I think I'll leave the sheepy drawings to the experts...but if you want some cute little sheep, here are a few that I found on the internet. Now, I best go and keep polishing one of my truest talents: chore avoidance.

 

 

A teddy bear

Once upon a time, there were 4 little bears. A papa bear, a mama bear and two little cub bears. One afternoon, mama bear found some brown yarn in her knitting basket and she began clicking away. Every now and then, the mama would stop and measure and weighed the yarn she had. The little cubs kept coming back to Mama's chair and asking her if the little toy was ready, the mama would shake her head and say nope, not yet, patience little ones.  During all this knitting time, the Papa bear would smile at the eagerness from the kids and look lovingly at Mama bear.

On the second day, Mama bear stayed up late stitching up the little toy and the two cubs were still up waiting to play with the new toy that Mama was making. At the end, sleep came and hugged one of the little cubs, but the other little cub was still up and eager as ever. As Mama stitched the head to the body, the little cub kept asking if it was for her and telling her Mama how much she loved the new little teddy. Mama bear felt so much joy in her heart when she saw her little cub hug the little toy teddy. 

Mama bear's heart is filled with gratitude for being able to create something with her own hands that brings so much joy to her little cubs.

Pattern details:

Adapted from the Cashmere Teddy Bear from the book Simple Knits for Cherished Baby

Yarn: 1 skein of Blue Sky cotton in dark brown. Little bit of pink yarn for eyes and nose.

Other: Ribbon to tie around neck

Size: 11 inches tall (the teddy in the book is 6 inches tall)

The dilemma of what to knit

It all started because of one skein of yarn. At around 11am this morning, I went down to my stash room--it used to be called my craft room, but I have since realized that it is the room where I house all the stash and nothing else happens in there. I go in and deposit more yarn and then I go back in and take a skein or two out but usually more goes in than goes out. Hubby kindly pointed out the other day that I just keep buying and buying and some of the stuff just keeps being pushed back and further back as I keep adding to my stash. I, of course quickly replied that it was a complete and absolute false statement. I do *sometimes* dig into my stash and create something with it. I really mean to use it and if I don't use it, it is because I really like the yarn and I don't want to ruin it with my craptastic stitches.

Anyways, I went into my stash room this morning and I pulled out a skein of Blue Sky cotton yarn and a skein of Tilli Tomas yarn that I was gifted when I attended Knitty Gritty (yeah, the folks not only had to put up with my terrible acting but they even gifted me with some yummy yarn--tell ya, they are golden!). The Tilli yarn has been calling my name for a long time, but there is not much you can do with one lonely skein--at least nothing that is big enough for me to wear. But I wanted to feel it so I wound the skein into a ball and now it is sitting next to my knitting couch so I can pet it.

The Blue Sky cotton yarn though is another story--I wanted to knit something with it so I swatched just to find out the gauge, then I pulled out books and more books out trying to find inspiration (I rarely look for a pattern, more for inspiration) for a project for this yarn. After thinking about a hat, I realized that a brown hat wouldn't be so good for me--I do have a permanent tan and a brown hat would just make me look bald, and I am too vain for that!  A scarf was out of the question too, a skein is not enough for a good size scarf and the kids have plenty of hats and they don't wear scarves. Only one thing was left to try--a toy. So I pulled out another book and I found the cute cashmere bear from Simple Knits for Cherished Babies, it was love--perfect project for the brown cotton yarn, only one problem--cotton yarn is totally and completely off gauge. But, I am a mule and believed that I could wing it, I threw caution out the window and casted on for the little bear. He is almost done--only have the head to finish but as I sit here with 4 pieces of the bear done and 3 more to go (head and ears), I realize that I have absolutely no idea how to adapt the head to the size bear I am making.

The pattern makes a bear that is about 6 inches tall, my bear is going to be about 10 inches tall if not taller--of course if I leave it headless, it could be a lot smaller, but a child doesn't really like headless toys and my kids have already claimed it and requested a second one--Mom bangs head on the wall. But the problems don't end there, the biggest problem is that I may not have enough yarn to knit the blooming head! Bang head against the wall one more time!  I think I am over my head with this one--or at least over the bear's head.

Moral of the story: I should have knitted a hat!

Now about that Tilli Tomas, I have 1 skein of Asteroid Moroccan Blue (it is the one with the pretty European glass beads), I have this crazy idea going in my head. I tend to wear a lot of those Wonder-Ts and they are simple tops and I enjoy wearing them with everything. But maybe I could add a little something to one of them to spice it up a bit to wear on those special occasions (you know, when I have to go grocery shopping). Follow me through this train of thought and tell me what you think and if you honestly think that it will be a waste of good yarn, please tell me. Stitch some running stitches with yarn and tapestry needle at the bottom hem of the Wonder-T and then pick up stitches (the running stitches) and knit a lace edging. I think the 1 skein of the Moroccan blue would be enough for a 2 inch edging. What do you think? Do you think it would look pretty or should I just save the yarn and adopt it as my pet yarn.

A Quicky Hat...and the pattern

The hat is finito. I gave it a quick bath in Eucalan Woolwash and it soften up a bit but it is still scratchy but not so much that it is uncomfortable especially if I leave my locks down.  I love the colourway of this Noro yarn--stripes without any effort. 

Quicky Noro Silk Garden Hat

Material

Yarn: 140 yards of worsted weight yarn. 1.5 skeins of Noro Silk Garden was used in sample.

Needles: Set of 5 dpns size 7 (4.5mm). Crystal palace dpns were used in sample.

Gauge: 20 sts and 26 rows = 4 inches

Abbreviations

p=purl

k=knit

k2tog=knit 2 stitches together

p2tog=purl 2 stitches together

k3tog=knit 3 stitches together

p3tog=purl 3 stitches together

Instructions

Cast on 104 stitches. Join in the round, be careful to not twist the stitches. Divide onto 4 dpns (28 stitches on needles, 1, 2, 3, and 20sts on 4th needle). Place a stitch marker to mark the beginning of a round.

Round 1: *k4, p4; rep from * to the end of round.

Repeat Round 1 until item measures 6.75 inches from cast on edge.

Crown shaping

Next round: *k1, k2tog, k1, p4; rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k3, p4; rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k3, p1, p2tog, p1; rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k3, p3: rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k3tog, p3: rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k1, p3: rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k1, p3tog: rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k1, p1: rep from * to the end of round

Next round: *k2tog: rep from * to the end of round

Next round: k to the end of round

Next round: k1, *k2tog: rep from * to the end of round.

Cut yarn leaving a 8 inch tail. Thread the yarn tail end through tapestry needle and pass it through the remaining stitches. Cinch the top close. Weave all yarn tail ends.

Wash the hat in warm Eucalan Woolwash and allow to dry.

Interested in a PDF file, click here: Download NoroSilkGardenHat.pdf

I leave you with this picture of what happens at the end of the day around my house....it makes the day worth it! 

Spring finally cometh...

Or does it? These brave little flowers are under the impression that Spring is finally here but I know that we are being tricked into a false Spring arrival. The same thing happened 6 years ago when I was planning my wedding--it was my first Winter in Utah and thus I believed in nature. I looked through countless brides catalogs and finally settled on a beautiful short-sleeve beauty, thinking that by April the weather was going to be Spring-perfection but instead I was gifted with a speckled white wedding and with cold arms! Since then, I have learned that Spring doesn't really come early, it comes and visits to alleviate us from the winter blues but Winter wins out and lady Spring has to go for a little while longer, but she leaves behind some of her beauty so that we can last a little longer until she finally comes.

We all love her, she brings beauty to the gardens and brings hope to those of us who like warm weather, and it allows the little tykes to go out and work-out some of that energy that they have stored for the past few months.

My little tykes have received the warm weather with open arms and they have spent it outside riding bikes, playing ball, killing spiders....oh yeah--did I tell you that we have a gazillion spiders in our backyard? Wonderboy came inside yesterday thrilled to announce that Spring was really here--the proof: a gazillion little spiders in the backyard. He tried coercing me into going out there and checking it out in person, I happily declined and instead went to do the dishes.  Little Benny went instead of me and she happily started stomping over the little critters--all the while screaming her head off--gotta love kids!

In knitting related news, well, I haven't found a way to knit while pushing a little one on the tricycle so knitting has been purshed back a bit--to a few minutes every night. I am working on a hat with Noro Silk Garden #201, it is my own pattern, don't be impressed, it is only a 4 x 4 rib pattern but I really wanted a pattern that would allow the beauty of the yarn to come through-so the simpler the better. I am concerned though, although I love the yarn, I don't know if I will be able to wear this hat--it seems a bit on the scratchy side. I am thinking that if the yarn doesn't soften up after a wash, I will knit a cotton liner. Have any of you tried this yarn? Does it soften up after a washing or two?

I am almost famous....I could swoon!

Alert the media--I am almost a star! The great and fab Knitty has published an article by me. It is on loom knitting...I am just so psyched! I know it is not the fever seeing things, it is real...really. Go on over and check it out--and of course, the wonderful beautiful patterns too--but first see my article.

Did you see the Clessidra Socks....they so rock and they are sooooo me! I must knit them!

Okay, now back to the couch to work out this fever.