Let's Help!

For the past 12 years my family and I have traveled to Vermont each summer to relax and soak in the gorgeous scenery and the wonderful spirit that abounds in that lovely green state. Here's what Dot's Restaurant in Wilmington looked like when we were there 3 weeks ago:

And here's what Dot's looked like last week (to put the flooding in perspective, normally the river level below that bridge is a good 20 feet below the street):

There are scenes like this all over Vermont - houses, bridges, roads all washed away.  Many residents lost everything, and winter's right around the corner there. Here's a little way that we knitters can help: Warm Hats, Warm Hearts, an organization run by India Tresselt, is collecting handknit hats, scarves, mittens and sweaters to distribute to northern Vermont and upstate New York flood survivors.

You can donate any knitted item (please include care and washing instructions and please use machine washable yarns for child and baby items.) If you would like to make and donate a child's hat, I will email you a PDF of the Momogus Knits Easy Child's Cap pattern for free. Just leave your email address in a comment below. There is a Warm Hats, Warm Hearts group on Ravelry with lots of information.

Items can be sent to:

Warm Hats, Warm Hearts

c/o India Tresselt

251 Huntley Road

Westford, VT 05494

If you have questions for India, you can email her at warmhearts2ATgmailDOTcom. If you would like to donate knitted items to southern Vermont flood survivors, you can email Kelly Connaughton at kfield16ATyahooDOTcom for an address and more information.

Let's help!!

Spinny Stuff

I don't know if I mentioned it, but I got a spinning wheel (a Kromski Sonata) (spinners like to know those things) in February, and I've very much enjoyed adding to the fiber madness of my life.

Please indulge me as I post some of my recent spinning efforts. When I started, like everyone else starting out, I spun big lumpy yarn. Then I gradually got better at it and spun the teeniest tiniest thinnest yarn I could. That's great, but I was left with really thin, super-over-plied yarn that had the gentle consistency of electrical wire.

Now I know that I can spin yarn a little thicker and looser and ply a little less frantically, and I'll end up with yarn that I actually want to knit with.

Here is some nice yarn spun from fiber from Spunky Eclectic. Merino wool, "Night Owl" colorway:


I knit the Morningside Neckwarmer by Jared Flood from it for my husband. This is the first thing I've ever knit out of handspun yarn. I might cry!!


Here is some nice yarn spun from fiber from Corgi Hill Farm (as the "owner" of several goofball corgis over the years, I love to buy fiber from this farm). 70% Bluefaced Leicester, 30% silk:

This was a dream to spin - my first time spinning anything with silk. I don't know what I'm going to do with it, other than to just gaze at it lovingly.

Finally, here is some nice yarn spun from fiber from Homestead Wool and Gift Farm. I have to give them a shout-out because what they're doing is so awesome. Check out the website and then buy some yarn or fiber from them.

This fiber was a Lincoln cross (sounds like I know what I'm talking about, eh? I don't.) It was fuzzy and fun to spin and the bluey-green color was like sea glass. I also don't know what I'm going to make with it.

Hey, you spinners out there - do you have favorite projects you like to knit with your handspun? I'm still intrigued by the fact that I can make yarn, let alone knit with it. The yarn itself is like the finished object!

Hurricane Giveaway!

So Irene is gone, though her effects are still being felt up and down the East Coast. On this sunny cool morning, I'm feeling so relieved that Irene wasn't more awful that I thought a giveaway was in order to celebrate her passing. I'm giving away some nice nice sock yarn and a free sock pattern.

Here's a beautiful skein of Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn (based in Barton, Vermont! Yee haw! Go, Northeast Kingdom of Vermont!), 420 yards of superwash merino. Colorway is Champlain Sunrise - beautiful deep red, magenta, blue, orange.

I'll also email you a copy of either the Momogus Knits Easy Toe-Up Socks or Momogus Knits Twisty Toe-Up Tube Sock pattern - y0ur choice.

Leave a comment here or on the Facebook page and let me know your most interesting hurricane experience, and I'll pick a winner at random. Mine was not particularly interesting (thank God!) but it was kind of sweet: because our house is surrounded by big old trees (two of which have crashed down and just missed our house already this year), my husband and I decided it would be prudent to all sleep downstairs in the living room. So we blew up an air mattress and my son got in his sleeping bag, and we all got cozy and listened to the rain and fell asleep. It was fun, though we did have to take shelter in the basement once when there was a tornado warning for our area, which was spooky. And for you readers out west who missed all the Irene fun, any interesting weather experience will do!

More Sock Stuff - for the Frugal Sock Knitter!

Have you ever knit a pair of socks and been left with a ton of leftover yarn? I have, for sure, and here's a post about a recent experience I had using up that yarn.

I have been off the sock bandwagon for some time, but after coming across the yarn Indulgence by KFI, I have jumped right back on. The socks are nothing fancy (just my regular toe-up sock pattern), and as I've said before I'm not in love with the colorways of this yarn, but it is a dream to knit. Soft soft soft!!

Anyway, as I vowed, I made my second pair of socks fraternal twins:

It was a little difficult to make myself NOT wind off the yarn to make them match, but I did it! I was a little sad when I finished these because I was done and I wasn't knitting with that yummy yarn anymore. But then I looked at how much I had left from each ball, and I had a revelation!

What if I knit another pair with the leftover yarn?? Here's the thing I've found with most commercial sock yarn - I always have a lot left over. And I have big feet!

So here's what you need:

A "food" scale (ha ha - seriously, all I ever weigh on this scale is fiber and yarn), a ball winder (or your own two hands), the yarn, a toe-up sock pattern, and your noggin.

I weighed one of my finished socks. It weighed 35 grams. I weighed the leftover yarn from one of the socks. It weighed 35 grams. I weighed the leftover yarn from the other socks. It weighed 35 grams. Hallelujah! So I knew I had enough leftover yarn to make two 35 gram socks. I put the leftover yarn from one sock on the scale and wound off yarn onto the ball winder until the scale read 17.5 grams. I did the same thing with the other leftover yarn.

So I was left with four 17.5 gram balls of yarn - two each from the leftover yarn from each sock. Are you still with me? So now I was ready to cast on. Here's how far I got with one of the little balls of leftover yarn:

I got all the way up the foot and beyond the turned heel! Phew. I felt comfortable knitting with the leftover yarn because I was knitting these socks toe-up. I'll make the leg as long as the leftover yarn allows me - just knit till it runs out. If I were coming cuff-down, I wouldn't know how long to make the leg and still have enough yarn to finish the foot down to the toe.


Done and done! Frankenstein socks!!

Now I know that someone is out there thinking, "If she had enough leftover yarn to knit one sock, why did she split it into two balls? Why not just make a third sock from each yarn?" Good question, person out there! The answer is that I wanted to make a third pair of unique socks. Also I wanted to try out my fancy-pants calculating and stuff. Now I just happened to have enough leftover from two similar yarns to make a whole pair of socks, but you could use this method to use up odds and ends of sock yarn from many socks.

My Nutsy

Holey schmoley, it's already August!! I had very good intentions about posting regularly this summer, but they disappeared in the wind. I have a lot of knitting to post and talk about, but first please indulge me a moment while I go all crazy cat-lady on you.

We just got back from a nice vacation in northern Vermont. Unfortunately, the morning we were coming back I got a call from the vet that our beloved cat Nuts had died that morning.

Listen, I was a dog person all my life. The cats I knew growing up were aloof and bitey. I never understood why people liked cats at all. Then I got married and my husband (a devout cat person) convinced me to adopt two kittens from the SPCA. My son (3 yrs old at the time) named them Funny and Silly. And they were awesome. Sweet, affectionate, cuddly - I got it! I became a cat person.

Then a stray I named Smokey adopted us and had a litter of kittens which she deposited under the wisteria tree in our backyard. We caught and placed all but two, which we adopted. Nuts and Caroline. Caroline is very independent and funny, but Nuts..... Ah my Nutsy....

Nuts was 100% pure love and contentment. He would walk into a room and start purring. He loved the other cats (and they tolerated him). He loved the three of us. He loved visitors. He loved shrimp. He loved a squishy pillow. He loved to get a "tour", where I would pick him up and point out various objects around the house, which he would reach out and touch gently.

He had very severe asthma, which meant he took steroids daily and had to take puffs from an inhaler, believe it or not. He tolerated all this with patience and the good nature that was inherent in him. And finally, though he was only 4, his body gave out, and he died. And we weren't there, which I'm struggling with. We always boarded him at the vet's, so that he could get his medicine, and I know they took good care of him.

But I wish we had been with him. I wish I could have given his big orange lovey body one last hug. My Nutsy......

Toe-Up Socks Done!

I started these socks last week as I was teaching a Toe-Up Socks class at The Tangled Web. I love toe-up socks. And this yarn (Indulgence by KFI) is smoochy - very enjoyable experience. Here's the pattern: Easy Toe-Up Socks.

And now, some thoughts on how matchy-matchy these are. Whenever I used self-striping yarn in the past, I seemed to be able to just start the 2nd sock at wherever the yarn from the first sock left off. I (silently and gently) tsk-tsked students of mine who insisted on making the stripes line up. But of course as always happens when you mock someone or something, you end up doing exactly that thing. My last few pairs of self-striping socks are identical twins. I wind off yarn at the beginning of the 2nd sock so I'm starting at the same place. Like a crazy person!!

And then, look what happened to these socks. I had them all lined up and as I was nearing the end of the 2nd sock, there was a knot! The color pattern was broken up and so the cuffs of these socks are, GASP, different!!! Let it go, Diana!!


I've started a 2nd pair in this yarn and I shall grit my teeth and make the 2nd sock a fraternal twin. I shall not wind off until I come to the same starting point. It will be good for me.

Summer Shell Patterns on Sale!

Whoa, where did I go?! Sorry everyone, local community baseball (my husband's a coach, my son's a player) completely overwhelmed me for the last month. BUT, baseball's done, and now it's back to knitting!

I'm usually gearing up for the TNNA (National Needle Arts) Show this time of year, but we're staying home this year because my son has an important graduation ceremony (from Lower to Middle School - gulp!) that we don't want to miss. BUT as a nod to TNNA, I'm putting all three of my Easy Summer Shell patterns on sale (20% off) for the month of June. Click on the titles to go straight to the website to buy yours now!

V-Neck:

Scoopneck:

Boatneck:

These are the definition of easy summer knitting - knit in the round up to the armholes, easy edging, simple shaping. These shell patterns are written for worsted or dk weight, have a choice of seed stitch or ribbed edging, and have optional waist shaping instructions. And they're all 20% off for the month of June. Go here (they're at the bottom of the page.)