SomerKnits

Fiber Christmas is awesome this year. Even more and even better pretty stuff than last year, I love it. I finished knitting a hat with some thick and thin stuff Bridgette spun when we were out at the Brush Creek Barn thing. Its a pattern written by a friend of mine that is available free on Ravelry. I'll post pictures soon. The pattern name is Scarlet if you go looking for it. I figured since there were places where this "art yarn" got pretty darn thick i had better use a pattern written for pretty thick yarn. Anyway, like I said, it can out perfect and I will post pictures soon. I hope if you live in the north eastern part of Oklahoma that you make it out to Fiber Christmas today. Yesterday was absolutely fantastic and today is the dirty santa gift exchange and judging of the ornament contest. They also have food this year and its pretty darn good food, very awesome. See you there!

I'm so excited to Fiber Christmas! Its this friday and saturday at the Creek Count Fairgrounds and if you lie in Oklahoma, you should make an effort to go. The people who run it are great and the vendors and classes are many. I get to put on my Farm Girl Fiber shirt and encourage people to pet the pretty yarns and then give them a good home. :-) If I could finish my honeymoon shawl then Bridg would have a really nice display sample. But the asymmetrical shawl I took to the Brush Creek Barn thing is her dyeing as well, so I suppose I will just take that. I am hoping over the two day event to see and learn a lot of things and meet cool people and, of course, have time to knit, knit, knit. :-) Maybe I'll even spin a little. I haven't spun much since I learned last year at Fiber Christmas. Its not that I don't enjoy it, its just that knitting gives me a finished product and spinning gives me something with which to make a finished product. Anyhow, it shawl be a ...

I decided that my second ever project on the loom I got last christmas would be a baby blanket. I spent quite a lot of time last january warping the loom with beige and brown yarn. A couple of times the peg let loose and it all fell down, it was quite the trying process. But once I got past the hours of frustration that is warping (which I am sure will get better in time but will still be tedious) I began weaving with blue and brown yarn. Boy was I lucky when we found out Derek was a boy! I love how quickly the weaving grows. Despite the rapid growth though, the blanket sat more than 3/4 done dormant for many months. Planning a wedding and getting married will do that to a craft project. If Derek had turned out to be a girl, I'm not sure the poor kid would have gotten a blanket on time. Or she would have still gotten a brown and blue blanket, cause what does it really matter anyway. Necessity eventually broke the spell that was keeping the poor blanket laying dormant and I ...

A good friend I've known since high school got married yesterday. I actually made all of these for her shower in June, which I missed to be at another wedding, so I am just now getting around to posting. I hadn't made picture cloths in a while and had forgotten how cool it is to watch the picture grow. Not to mention the gratification of finishing a bunch of things in one week instead of slogging through what feels like a never ending project. As you can see above, I made 3 cloths and 3 scrubbies. Two of the scrubbies are acrylic for things like dishes and counters and serious scrubbing. The turquoise and yellow and blue, however is cotton for bathiness or gentle cleaning. The double heart cloth was a cool one to make. I think its funny that a CA friend actually made me the same one as a wedding present. Who knows, we might have been working on them at the same time. :-) I made this wedding cake cloth because it was a personal favorite of the ones I made my sister in law...

So I didn't knit much in Fiji, but I did knit a little bit. I started the Anne Lace Shawl from the Knitting Pattern a Day Calendar, I forget which year. Anyway, I had this beautiful sock yarn that Bridgette (Farm Girl Fiber) dyed and I decided it really needed to be a shawl. The colors were perfect for knitting in Fiji. They matched everything! The water, the pool, the trees, the chairs, my outfits -- it was actually kind of funny. See? The pattern knits up really pretty and the whole center section is just a one row repeat, so it was really easy to memorize. It made for a great carrying around project and its easy to either knit for a long time or just pull out and do a row. I'm determined to try and stick with it until the end and I have worked on it since I got back. In fact, I spent quite a bit of time knitting on it waiting to change my name, since I am a married woman now. Those places are not quick, so I was glad to have something to do. Everyone else there looke...

But it's pretty! Ok, we will now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

I admit it, I didn't end up doing a lot of knitting in Fiji. (Fiji was fabulous, by the way) I did manage to get m craft on anyway, despite the knitting lull. There was a basket weaving class on sunday while we were at the resort. You have to pull the coconut leaves really tight if you don't want there to be any gaps in our basket. The handles are just french braided (you pick up one leave from each side every time you twist) The center of the leaf is cut out to create the opening. And there you have a basket, to hold my-not-that-much-done-yet knitting.