Mar27

Remember The Crack?

Posted on March 27, 2013 by caldwella

About a year ago I wrote this blogentry. It turns out that putting The Crack yarn in the freezer did calm the fibers down and I had no more asthma related knitting incidences! So what did I do with The Crack?

Well, I found a pattern in a book called Boutique Knits. This is a beautiful book with beautiful patterns and I have knit quite a few items out of the book. In the very back of the book is this lovely little pattern called Soft Kid Bubble Tunic. I was at first drawn to this pattern because it was so different but I wasn’t sure if it would look good on me. I decided that I would give it a whirl and by looking just at the picture I got even more excited because it appeared to be knit in The Crack, Kid Silk Haze. However, upon actually reading the pattern it turns out it was knit with a much heavier weight yarn but that was just as fuzzy and soft as The Crack. My advisors and I decided that as long as I was wearing something underneath the garment I could use the lace weight yarn. So I did the appropriate gauge knitting and math to get the correct size since I was using smaller yarn and got started. The first problem with knitting this garment was that it’s a fairly large piece and using such a thin yarn was going to take A LOT longer! Then we had the whole Asthma issue along with many other projects getting thrown in front of this one and then some confusion with the pattern. All in all this project has taken me about a year and a half to finish (that is not straight knitting, simply time on the needles). It had way more headaches than I ever expected and quickly went from one of those projects I just couldn’t wait to finish to the project I avoided at all costs. It’s all done now, except for a tiny bit of crochet edging that a dear friend is doing for me since I don’t crochet and on a coveted project is not the time to learn. However, I’m not super happy with the end result. I don’t know if it’s because I lost my love for the project amidst all the problems or if it’s because I didn’t use the proper yarn and I feel The Crack isn’t very forgiving so it shows some minor glitches and things like that. Or maybe it’s the fact that I put all that work and pain into this piece and after all that it doesn’t fit because I’m pregnant!!! I tried the tunic on in the fall, beginning of the pregnancy, and because it is sort of flowy it seemed I had plenty of room to grow in to the item and wear it at least once before I got too big for it. The night I finished the project up I quickly put it on hoping I could wear it to church the next day. NOPE! Now I have to wait even longer to wear this garment that has become a thorn in my side.

So here are some pictures of the finished item but unfortunately you will have to wait probably another year until I actually fit into it again! Stay tuned for installment 3 of The Crack Yarn!

Did I mention the tunic has pockets? My favorite feature on the garment!

Feb19

Catch Up

Posted on February 19, 2013 by caldwella

Standard

My lack of writing has not been due to a lack of knitting or creating. It’s just been due to my lack of time since there has been so much knitting and sewing going on! It’s been a very busy six months full of new businesses, lots of baby’s being born (not my own) and other various people to knit and sew for. So lets look at what I’ve been creating.

I’ll start with the babies. My daughter has a play group made up of about 7 families. Three of those families had babies in October and they ALL had boys! I also had a friend who gave birth to a baby boy in August. First to be born was Andersson to my friends Steph and Erik. This couple and their extended family are all HUGE Steelers fans. I am really against knitting themed things, specifically for sports teams but this couple is very dear to me so I made an exception. We also had special Steelers themed yarn at the LYS in town. So I decided to knit little Andersson a Baby Surprise Jacket.

I finished this literally 10 minutes before the baby shower and my hands were so cramped up from knitting so fast that I could barely sew the buttons on. It came out a bit small and I actually found myself hoping Andersson came a tad early so the sweater would fit. Andersson did not come early but he was on the smaller side (not dangerously so) and I was able to block the sweater enough that he wore it home from the hospital!

The next friend to be born was Owen! He is one of the boys of October and was the biggest of the three. I decided he should have a hat and little knit shoes. Oddly he received his gift last of the three boys that were born in October but hopefully it was worth the wait to his Mama! I had a hard time picking out his gift. His Mama is an artist as well and very dear to me and I just couldn’t seem to find the perfect pattern. I finally found a cute bootie pattern and created a matching hat to go with it.

As I said Owen was the biggest (and still is at about 20 pounds at 4 months old) and seemed to grow the fastest of all the kids. So the main reason hi present got done last was because he grew out of it before I finished it so I had to start over! I’m glad I stuck with it though because doesn’t he look handsome?

Tod was born next to my friends Cheri and Joe. I knew right away that I wanted to knit something classy for this little guy. Cheri and Joe are very involved in their church and I knew that Tod would get a lot of use out of a sweater vest and bow tie. Plus, this family already has two little girls so they needed something that screamed “BOY”! I used a pattern from this book, Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders
We altered the pattern a bit so I could use the yarn I wanted and I went with two colors for the vest instead of one to make it POP a little more! I think it came out pretty darn cute!
href=”http://knitandwitdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/20130219-112824.jpg”>

Pretty spiffy, huh?

The last little man to join us was Dylan. We have been friends with Dylan’s family since the Mama’s were preggo with their first kids so it was pretty exciting to see Erick and Sarah adding another little one to their family. Dylan was the only one of the October Boys that we knew before hand was going to be a boy. His Mama has specifically requested a certain pair of baby booties for him. These are also from the Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders book.

NO I did not give him pink booties…these were actually made last spring for another friend who had a girl. Dylan’s were a lovely shade of blue! While his Mama was in labor I had the pleasure of caring for their daughter Clara and I was just so excited about Dylan’s arrival I couldn’t stop myself from knitting him a little hat as well.

Isn’t he yummy?! I could just eat him up!

That’s it for the babies but I also did some other knitting this fall. I was commissioned for a few hats and knit a few hats to sell in a local show. There were a number of knit flower hair clips that were also sold to various customers. Another commissioned piece this fall was for a friend’s daughter-in-law. She wanted this cabled head band for Christmas. It was a nice quick project but a lot of fun with all the different cables.

I made two other gifts for two very special people. The first one was for my husband for our anniversary. We didn’t really do gifts this year but I had extra yarn laying around so I knit him this little cabled neck warmer from the book, One Skein.

The other gift I made was a pair of fingerless for my dearest kindred spirit Barb. Last year when we went away to a sheep farm, Autumn House Farms, Barb came along even though she isn’t a knitter. I had been telling Barb that I would knit her a pair of fingerless gloves so when I was purchasing yarn at the farm I told Barb I would knit her gloves out of the yarn from the farm if she wanted to pick some out. The pattern I used was the Spring Shorties again from Sock Yarn One Skein Wonders (love that book!). I did lengthen the gloves a bit and they were quite the headache but they came out beautifully and Barb loved them so that’s all that matters.

I have a few other projects that I have been working on but they have longer stories and will get a post all of their own. I think we will also save the sewing projects for another day as well since I don’t like reading really long blog posts so I try to keep mine somewhat short. I’m going to try and be better about writing about my projects on a more regular basis, maybe you can keep me accountable to that! It’s been fun writing this entry though, I sort of felt like I hadn’t really produced much of anything in the last few months but I can see now that just wasn’t the case…I just don’t really have the items in my possession anymore. That’s not a bad thing though…I love sharing my knitting with others…it makes my heart happy!

Sep8

Fuzz is a verb…

Posted on September 8, 2012 by caldwella

Standard

My daughter has an obsession with soft things. She especially loves fuzzy things, and items that she can pull bits of fuzz off of. When she was younger she would pick at the sweaters we were wearing or the furry head of a stuffed animal and then rub the fuzz under her nose for a little bit until she then ate the fuzz ball. I use to wear a pair of knit felted slippers and as I wore them they would continue to felt and I would often pull large pieces of wool out of them. One time I pulled a large piece of “fuzz” out of the slippers, it was about the length of an avocado and Ella asked me what it was. I said it was a fuzz ball. She then looks at me and says, “Mommy, you eat you fuzz?” As though, if I wasn’t going to eat it, the fuzz should not be wasted and she would eat it. As a baby Ella had a gorgeous knit blanket made by one of my dearest friends Jill. It’s soft and pretty and the perfect blanket for Ella made in the colors of her bedroom.

At a young age Ella started picking at this blanket and trying to pull pieces of fuzz off. She use to wake up in the morning with bits of brown fuzz glued to her face with drool. The blanket is made with nice yarn so it didn’t pill real easily and thus did not produce the best fuzz. For some reason the green squares did not release any fuzz and Ella started complaining that it didn’t work, that the green squares wouldn’t “fuzz”. She wanted Aunt Jill to fix the green squares. We all sort of laughed off her little obsession and I secretly worried that one day we would be on a reality show about weird obsessions because Ella would have a ball of fuzz lodged in her stomach.

This past Christmas my Mom got Ella a bed for her dolls and decided to crochet a blanket for Ella’s dolls. My Mom is a novice crocheter and just used a cheap brand of yarn that seemed very soft and fuzzy. The blanket was meant for the dolls but it’s REALLY fuzzy and so Ella adopted it as her blankey and my life has never been the same since.

Ella picks at the fuzz on this blanket whenever she is holding it. She has perfected her technique and can show you exactly how to properly “fuzz” a piece of fuzz. She no longer eats the fuzz (thankfully) and I don’t even see her rub it under her nose that much any more. What she does now is rubs it in between her fingers for a while and then discards it on the floor. The rubbing technique looks a lot like the motion spinners use to spin fleece into yarn (if she becomes a spinner we could be a pretty amazing mother/daughter team) and when she is done the piece of fuzz almost looks felted.

She gets quite obsessive with this process and really can’t be interrupted during this process. If you ask her to do something while she is in the process of working on a piece of fuzz she will tell you, “Hold on I have to finish fuzzing this”. When she is in her bed she fuzzes her fuzz and then discards the finished pieces on either side of her bed.
This is what the front of her bed looks like if I don’t vacuum every day (which I don’t, we are sort of learning to live with the fuzz):

This is the epicenter of the fuzz but it is literally all over our house. My poor husband often leaves for work in the morning with a sheath of red fuzz stuck in his stubble. Where ever we travel we leave a trail of red fuzz behind us. This morning I had to move Ella’s bed to get something she dropped behind it and I found this sight:

I just had no words when I saw it!

Ella and I went camping with my Dad a few weeks ago in his motorhome. Ella was put to bed on a king size bed and could not reach the edge of the bed to drop the fuzz on the floor so my always inventive little girl took the cup holder from the side of the bed and laid it on her pillow to act as a fuzz receptacle.

The fuzz situation can get frustrating at times. Even if I vacuumed everyday there would still be red residue around. My mother has humbly apologized several times for bringing this mess into our house. There was really no way of knowing the fuzz would grow to such a huge problem. Making her a new blanket will not make a difference because she will discard it for it’s lack of fuzzing abilities as she did with her Aunt Jill blanket. She is such a sweet, funny little love and this is her one vice so I will continue to walk through the house and shove fuzz balls in my pockets as I go and shake my fist in the air and curse the soft, fuzzy, acrylic crap that is Lion Brand Homespun Yarn!

Aug14

Closing Ceramony

Posted on August 14, 2012 by caldwella

Standard

As I wrote a few weeks ago (Let the Games Begin) I participated in the knitting olympics team at my LYS, Team Stitch Your Art Out. I was planning on knitting The Cedar Leaf Shawlette. The Friday the Olympics started I was so excited to cast on I could barely contain myself. I was going to have to wait all morning until it was time for Ella’s nap to get started. Fortunately we had a very fun morning planned so I figured it would go by quick. While we were out that morning Ella was acting a little off and was complaining of her belly hurting. I started to realize that she must have a bit of a stomach bug that I had earlier in the week. I decided to take her home from our activities, sad that my baby was sick but excited about the prospect of an early nap and the rest of the afternoon spent on the couch once she woke up snuggling, watching movies and of course knitting. She fell asleep on the way home which is normally not a big deal, I can just carry her into her room and she goes back to sleep or stays asleep just fine. This was not the case today. She woke up and was not having anything to do with going back to sleep. I begged, pleaded and maybe even tried to bribe her to take even a short nap. She would not work with me. I usually try not to knit too much when she is awake unless we are in the car. I don’t want her to ever feel like I didn’t have enough time for her or give her enough attention because I was knitting, and I know myself and know that I could easily get sucked into that. I also just can’t always concentrate as well when she is around so harder projects are out of the question because I have to stop so much to tend to her. I made an exception this afternoon….I put a movie on and cast on! There was a lot of stop and start knitting going on as I got her juice or a snack or whatever she needed but I was at least able to get a taste of the new project, get a feel for the yarn in my hands, get the knitting fever out of my blood a bit.

My thoughts on the project before I cast on was that the main body of the shawlette was going to be long and tedious. It was just short rows of knit and purl, easy knitting that was going to be great for watching the Olympics but I was still going to have to pay attention because of the wraps for the short rows, which would be kind of annoying. What I was really excited for was to get to the lace leaf edging. I thought it would be a lot of fun and much more interesting. I was right, it was fun and interesting for about three leaves…the twenty-seven other leaves were torture. The rest of the them were tedious and got very boring and took all my focus so watching anything was almost impossible. It turned out that the project was the exact opposite of what I thought it would be. The project turned out nice although I’m not head over heals in love with it like I have been with other projects I knit. I’m excited for the cooler weather so I can wear it and I’m excited that I took the time to make something for myself but my love for the finished project is just sort of ho-hum.

I am glad that I participated in this little event. I’m not sure how much of the Olympics I would have watched if I hadn’t been working on it. But as I sat down to knit every day I found myself turning it on and getting really into the various competitions. I was rooting on Gabby Douglas and the rest of the Fab Five, I was in awe of Michael Phelps and his record breaking career and moved at watching Oscar Pistorius run his race despite his disability. It brought my family together as my husband and I excitedly showed our daughter different events and watched her face light up with awe as she watched the synchronized divers, watched her tumbling around the house like the gymnasts and say she wanted to watch the swimming “forever and ever”. I am looking forward to the next Olympics as I think we have started a fun family tradition of watching them together.

As far as the knitting olympics go, I did not win a prize. There were about eleven entries of knitting, crochet and quilting at the shop. People brought beautiful projects, some of them brought multiple projects (clearly they don’t have young children). It was fun to come together and hear about the trials and triumphs of their projects and see all the beautiful work and talent we have wandering around our little shop. The games gave everyone a goal, something to work toward, together. It doesn’t matter who won, what matters is that we set goals, we met our goals or came close and we cheered on our country as we did it. I’m looking forward to knitting with these woman during the next games…they were feirce competators!

Incase you were curious what my end product looks like:

Jul27

Let the Games Begin!

Posted on July 27, 2012 by caldwella

Standard

I’ve never been very interested in the Olympics. I usually watch a little bit of the gymnastics in the summer and in the winter games I watch a little ice skating but I’m not much of a sports fan. The only sport that I really watch is Penn State Football (and I still plan to watch)! So up until a few weeks ago I really wasn’t all that interested in the 2012 Summer Olympics other than to show Ella a little bit of the gymnastics since she takes gymnastics and I figured she would like to watch probably about 5 months of it. But then a few weeks ago Stitch Your Art Out announced that they were going to have a team in the Ravellenic Games this year. What is that you ask? If you are not a knitter you may not know about Ravelry….it’s a social media site for knitters and crocheters. During the Olympics Ravelry holds a sort of knitting olympics where people form teams and can compete in different knitting competitions. So our local shop, Stitch Your Art Out formed Team Stitch, we had to state ahead of time what project we would knit during the 17 days that the olympics are held. The project should be something that is a bit of a challenge to you. You are to cast on during the opening ceremony or there after and you must have the project completed (pieced together, ends woven in and blocked) by the end of the games on August12, 2012. We will then head up to the shop to share our accomplishments. Everyone will get to vote and gold, silver and bronze “medals” (baskets of knitting goodies) will be awarded. So for weeks I have been going back and forth about what I would knit. I’ve been searching for patterns on Ravelry and trying to decide what would be enough of a challenge for the time frame but not too challenging that it wasn’t fun or that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish the project within the time frame. I have many projects at home that need to be finished and many projects that have been waiting to be knit up for a long time (many of them for other people) but I decided I wanted to pick out a completely new pattern and that I wanted to knit something for myself which I don’t do very often. So what did I decide on? I’m going to knit this shawlette, The Cedar Leaf Shawlette. I’m using some beautiful green yarn I got last year when I went to The Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. It’s a sportweight Alpaca from Delly’s Delights Farm.

I made my final decision on this shawlette about a week ago and since then I’ve been dying to cast on and I am even more excited to wrap up in what I hope turns out to be a beautiful piece in the fall. I will be sure to let you know how it turns out and if I become a Ravellenic medalist!

The other activity that has gotten me more in the season is the Expand Your Taste luncheon that I have with three other friends and their kids once a month. We started doing a once a month luncheon back in the fall to try different types of ethnic food. So far we have had Korean, Chinese, Spanish, Indian and Polish food. When we planned July’s even we really didn’t have a plan other than what day we were going to meet and I don’t think that any of us realized it was the day the olympics started. So this week we threw together high tea in honor of the olympics being held in London. We had a lovely morning, Ella and I enjoyed dressing up in hats that propers ladies wear to tea.

(I need to my pinky lifting skills)

Our hostess Melinda, went all out making everything delicate and fancy:

She even set up a picnic on the floor for all the little ones to have tea:

At our luncheons, the older kids have started making little presentations about whatever country we are dining from. We have had informative and humorous songs performed, flags made, and today was no exception. Wendy and her kids Emily and Ryan made flags, and book marks and presented us with lots of facts about The United Kingdom.

Melinda had olympic torches for the kids to create and even Baby Judah got dressed up in his formal onsie for the occasion.

My contribution to the day was the blooming tea flower that the kids all really seemed to enjoy and of course even though we were honoring the United Kingdom, we were still also celebrating the olympics so we couldn’t leave out the wonderful United States of America, so I made a flag fruit pizza!

A few pictures of my lovely lady friends who join me each month in exploring another part of the world, Wendy, Melinda and Paige:

After all this I’m sitting here now watching the opening ceremony and I can safely say that I think I’m now full of the Olympic spirit. Best of luck to all of the athletes representing all their countries proudly but especially the American athletes. Thank you for representing our country so wonderfully! Now if you’ll excuse me, I must go knit!

Jun15

In the good old summertime…

Posted on June 15, 2012 by caldwella

Standard

Yesterday was one of those summer days that I think I will always remember. It was a day spent with my daughter that I will always cherish even though in a year she wont remember it because she’s too young. It’s the kind of day I use to have quite often in the summer when I was a kid, the kind of day your parents and grandparents talk about having everyday of the sumer, the kind that may have died out with my generation and the prevalence of computers, cell phones and video games in the home. A day spent outside playing and enjoying the fresh air, the grass and the simple things in life. Don’t get me wrong….Ella and I often have fun and enjoy our days together but usually we are running around doing a million activities, with a whole bunch of other kids or I’m just feeling preoccupied by other projects I need to get done and pining away for Ella’s nap time so I can relax.

Yesterday other than going out to breakfast with some friends we didn’t go anywhere. We stayed at home and outside all day. We planted a special flower for Ella.

We drew our friends in chalk on the driveway.

We blew bubbles and chased them. We used an entire giant bottle of bubbles in one day.
We laid in the grass together listening to music, dancing, singing and snuggling.
We chased the ice cream truck in our wagon and when we caught it we enjoyed a lovely snack on our walk home.

Ella and I play together a lot and we spend a lot of time outside. We are very active so I’m not sure what made yesterday different. I think it was my mind set maybe. I was completely content just playing whatever she wanted to play. For some reason I was delivered for the day of feeling like I should be or wanting to do a million other things. Ella was also in such a good and compliant mood…could it have been my undivided attention? None of her friends around for her to play with? None of my friends around to distract me from her? Could it have been the two of us just completely focused on each other?

I’m sure if I tried to “plan” another day like that it would not turn out to be even near as wonderful as yesterday. There would probably be tantrums, crying, fighting, and foot stomping….Ella would probably act that way as well. So for now, until another perfect day naturally comes along I will just enjoy the memories I made yesterday with my daughter and look forward to when she’s older and I can tell her about the day she wanted to take her shoes off so she could feel the grass in her toes, tell her about her first ice cream from an ice cream truck, tell her about her first very own flower she planted and how she named all the flowers in the garden Pinkalicious. I will hold those memories in my heart, share them with my friends and family and be thankful that I was blessed with the most simple and perfect day.

Jun14

A Rare Species of Bug

Posted on June 14, 2012 by caldwella

Standard

Yesterday was the third anniversary of the discovery of a rare bug most commonly known as The Ella-Bug. The Bug was discovered in Central PA and requires about 9 months of growing in a sack of water before entering into the world. Once the 18.5 hour birthing process is complete The Bug relies on MaMa Bug for everything but as The Bug grows extremely fast the first year and then slower each following year she relies on the Mama Bug less and less. If encountered by The Bug you will probably be entertained by a song and dance that is unique to The Bug or hugged and giggled at as this species of bug is extremely affectionate. The Ella-Bug mainly feeds on various types of cheese however this species will also devour grilled cheese, mac-n-cheese, yogurt, pizza, blueberries and ice cream.

There are a lot of unique characteristics about the Ella-Bug. A few are listed below:
1. The Bug is an avid bird watcher.
2. The Bug can often been found under a pile of books.
3. The Bug likes to use camouflage to cover her natural appearance. Her camo of choice is often pink tutus, tiaras, glitter, temporary tattoos and fancy shoes.
4. The Ella-Bug enjoys feeling the grass in between her toes and rubbing pieces of fuzz on her face. (This type of bug has been known to eat fuzz as well.)
5. If The Bug is difficult to find within her habitat she often can be found pretending to be a doctor or chef or blasting off in her rocket ship.
6. The Ella-Bug has been known to eat other bugs such as slugs but often is quite afraid of bugs and will release a loud ear piercing squeal if she sees one.
7. A recent discovery was made that Ella-Bugs enjoy camping and feeding on marshmallows.
8. Ella-Bugs travel in packs that she refers to as a “Team” and enjoys being with her “Team” quite often.
9. The Ella-Bug species enjoys music and loves to sing. If one listens carefully Ella-Bugs can often be heard singing late into the night.
10. The Bug has an amazing imagination and will often welcome you into her world as long as you follow her rules and do what she says.

If you keep your eyes open this beautiful blonde haired, blue eyed bug is often easy to spot with her bright pink attire and loud personality. There is no need to be afraid of this free spirited whimsical, fairy like Bug as they are really only violent when provoked and usually Mama Bug is right there to swoop in and control the situation. The Ella-Bug instead loves to love on and snuggle with all people and animals. She is one of the rarest and most loved creatures in God’s kingdom and will bless your day if you are lucky enough to spot her!

Knit & Wit:

Tales of Fiber, Motherhood and Life

Remember The Crack?

Catch Up

Fuzz is a verb…

Closing Ceramony

Let the Games Begin!

In the good old summertime…

A Rare Species of Bug

Follow “Knit & Wit:”