Monthly Archives: February 2012

superbowl sunday and other assorted crap

Posted on February 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on superbowl sunday and other assorted crap
Somewhere along the road after joining pinterest, I became domestic.  I still don’t know how it happened and I wonder if it’ll disappear as quickly as it came on.  Being newly domesticated, though, Superbowl was prime time for testing out some new pinterest recipes. First up was the recipe for Cauliflower Poppers. Now by the […]

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What We’ll Carry

Posted on February 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on What We’ll Carry
We're right on schedule to go live by the end of February!

I'm happy to report that our yarn and knitting needle orders have been made!  Some of the yarns I ordered are newer, meaning new lines or new colors so they will take longer to be stocked in the online shop.  Once we get a decent amount of stock in, we will go live!  But here's what you can expect to see coming soon:
  • Noro - Silk Garden and Silk Garden Lite (newer colors, so will take some time to get in).  Noro is a one-of-a-kind type of yarn.  Its lines have unique color combinations, making finished items like a work of art.
  • Louisa Harding - Ondine, Nerissa (new line), Grace Hand Dyed and Grace Silk & Wool. 
  • Sirdar - Baby Bamboo and Smiley Stripes.
  • Juniper Moon Farm - Findley Dappled and Sabine (both are new yarn lines).
  • Ella Rae - Classic Wool and Lace Merino.
  • Debbie Bliss - Rialto Aran.
We'll be sure to carry some of the books that support the yarn lines that we have coming in. 

The knitting needles are Clover.  All needles, including the circulars are bamboo.  The dpns are Takumi Velvet, an excellent bamboo dpn (have a set and LOVE them).  We'll be ordering crochet hooks soon, can't forget you crocheters out there!

I'm also starting what I call the "Wish List".  It'll be a list of the yarn lines I'd like to carry as we grow.  You can always leave comment on the blog, Facebook, Twitter, or Ravelry group for lines to add to the wishlist, which will be kept on the blog and updated as we get recommendations.

Check out Knitting Fever's website for free patterns and for a preview of what we'll have available (or to add items to the wish list).

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Citrus-y

Posted on February 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on Citrus-y

Even though the weather is NOT cooperating (as in, we’re having fall followed by spring) I am still trying to enjoy all the goodness that winter has to offer.

Cozy handknits, warm fires, hot tea…….citrus fruits.

Yup, citrus fruits are in season now, and we have plenty of my favorites: clementines and Meyer lemons.  I’ve never actually been able to find Meyer lemons locally before, so I was surprised to find them at (of all places) our local WalMart.  (I know….I am not a WalMart fan.  But…..when they carry Concord grapes and Meyer lemons, how can you resist?)

Last week I made a lovely Shaker Lemon Pie, and we’ve been snacking steadily on clementines, but as of this morning I still had plenty of both.

So I rooted around a bit on Pinterest until I found what fit the bill for some lovely citrusy fare: recipes for Chinese Orange Chicken and Meyer Lemon Pudding.

Oh yeah.

Neither one was particularly difficult to make, and the results were outstanding.  Seriously.

Paul declared the chicken “The best orange chicken I’ve ever had”.  That’s saying something, because we are quite fond of Chinese food and we’ve tried quite a lot of it.  It was fresh, bold and bright, with a strong orange flavor.  If you like orange chicken, you HAVE to try this recipe.  The only change I made was when frying the chicken, I simply coated the raw chicken pieces in cornstarch (I didn’t use the egg or flours at all).  This was due to simple laziness.  The sauce I made no changes to.

 

We followed the chicken with the Meyer Lemon pudding served on a slice of pound cake (which Paul picked up from the grocery – I didn’t feel like baking any).

After all of this it is a very good thing that I have been following a workout routine for the last week.  SO MANY CALORIES!!!

 

 

 


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Keeping Busy

Posted on February 7, 2012 by | Comments Off on Keeping Busy
Still working away.  The yard got a good layer of mulch last week.  It's amazing how hiring someone else to do a job like that relieves a girls back!  Met with the realtor and the sign should appear this week....

Had a nice weekend in Fredericksburg.  It was the monthly First Friday Art Open House, so spent Friday and Friday evening working on my latest weaving project (wool, to be felted into a nice heavy wrap) and talking.  There was ALOT of talking and visiting.






Came home today (Monday) and hit the studio.  I've got alot of work to accomplish in the next month or two.  A special project for a friend in Vermont (more on that later as it transpires!) as well as stock for Fall.



I'm reading a great book by Kate Morton, "The Distant Hours".  Think that will be the evening for me!

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Hay for Breakfast

Posted on February 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on Hay for Breakfast

FIFO - Fiber In, Fiber Out.  That's how we grow wool around here.  Hay goes in the front, and fleece comes out the sides.  (You thought I was going somewhere else, didn't you?)  And our sheep love their jobs.  Here they are, clocking in on a Monday morning for another week of quality wool production.

Can't you see how much they enjoy their work?


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Winter TNNA

Posted on February 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on Winter TNNA

Winter TNNA was good!  Tiring, fun, all that.  I left my house early Friday morning (5am) to meet Jeane De Coster (Elemental Affects) at her home in Desert Hot Springs.  I tossed my stuff into her car, then we headed to Phoenix.  The 4 hour drive went quickly — we talked nonstop the entire way.

I’d not really been back to Phoenix since graduating high school.  I’ve driven through it once or twice, but that’s about it.  It was basically unrecognizable.

Once we got to the convention center, we grabbed lunch at the food court (overpriced, but serviceable, and hey, at least there were options other than burgers & fries) then went into booth set up mode.  We both knew if we didn’t eat…we wouldn’t.  The convention center is apparently new;  it was very nice, nicer than the one at Long Beach (though I much prefer being able to stay at home!).

Jeane made up kits for my Peacock Mitts for Sample It (exhibitors can elect to sell a few items (samples of their wares) at wholesale prices to attendees).  I’m so happy about how excited people were by them!  Jeane will continue doing kits, so if you’re wanting a kit, check with Jeane.

I met up with Audrey (check out her upcoming book, Reversible Scarves, from Cooperative Press — it’s gorgeous!).

That night, Jeane dropped me off at the  airbnb I was staying at.  If I had to live in Phoenix, I would want a house just like this!  Kate, the home owner, is an absolute sweetheart — smart and funny and generous.  Plus she shared her pets with me — I got lots of cuddles from her adorable dogs & kittehs.  I finally got to meet Lindsey, who also stayed at the house;  we had a nice walk to the Convention Center on Saturday.

Stacey, Steph & Audrey

Over the weekend, I met Stacey from the Knit Picks IDP in person.  She’s fantastic & very funny.  I was interviewed for the Knit Picks TNNA podcast.  I also was able to hang out a bit with Michelle (Fickleknitter) and Holly.  I met Johnny Vasquez from Fiberstory TV.  Carl & Eileen & Marly Bird from Bijou Basin were there as well.

I visited various booths, listed in no particular order:  Imperial Ranch, Baah Yarn, Dream in Color, Lorna’s Laces, Shibui.    I also met the people at Namaste – and proudly showed off my go-to bag, my red Namaste Monroe bag.   I didn’t realize how local they were to me!  They’re in the Los Angeles area.

Felicia of Sweet Georgia & Steph

The Craftsy folks had a booth, too — it was great to meet them.  I got a t-shirt, great for bumming around the house (working on my projects for the Craftsy BOM class, lol).

I’m planning on (finally) going to the summer TNNA in Ohio — already looking forward to it!

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Five Years’ Time: Endpaper Mitts

Posted on February 6, 2012 by | Comments Off on Five Years’ Time: Endpaper Mitts

I think it can be fun to look back and talk about what I was knitting a long time ago. I consider five years to be an acceptable buffer zone of embarrassment (both in knitting and in most other things) and so, like last month, I think I’ll show you what I was working on five years ago, in the winter of 2007.

I had recently gotten very excited about knitting after discovering Eunny Jang’s fantastic blog. I seriously don’t think I would have remained a knitter if I hadn’t found it– I knew about Knitty, but not yet about Ravelry, and, although I didn’t know it, was looking for someone to talk to me intelligently about knitting: technique, design, materials, the whole thing.

In (weirdly) my very first college all-nighter, I read the entire backlog of her blog (…while listening to The Earth is Not A Cold Dead Place on loop? Remember what I said about 5 years erasing all shame?). My memory has crystallized the whole experience into a sort of magical movie-montage that, to quote Michael Chabon, does indeed glisten with epiphanic dew. It was absolutely transformative. I don’t think I’ve ever read another blog that’s enchanted me as much, save Kate’s, which I think I found two years later.

All of which is to say, I was thoroughly enticed by the Endpaper Mitts, and so rode my bike down to Yarns Etc (it was still in Carrboro!) and looked around. I found 4 prim balls of Rowan Wool Cotton (not exactly suited to the task at hand, but what did I know?) and took them home.

These mitts have been my winter companions for the past five years, and I think it’s time to let them go. For one thing– and this is the main thing– they’re not particularly warm, thanks to the cotton. Therefore, they’ve biased me against mitts as a rule. I know I may well be wrong about them, and so am asking– are mitts actually warm? I’m always reading that they’re practical, and the woolen ones I’ve made and given as gifts have seen years of use, but I am still unconvinced (and know there’s only one way to remedy this). They also, again thanks to the cotton, are very drying and inelastic– not exactly something one wants to jam onto cold hands.

I think the only reason I’ve held on to them for so long is that they’re very beautiful. Which is certainly the case.


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Block of the Month: February

Posted on February 5, 2012 by | Comments Off on Block of the Month: February

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Progress Report: January Aran

Posted on February 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on Progress Report: January Aran

Here is an admission. I haven’t shown much of my January Aran sweater, because, frankly, there hasn’t been too much to show. I am knitting at what is, for me, a positively glacial pace. I have just about 12″ to show for a month of work.

There are so many other irons in the fire– both knitting-related and not– that I haven’t found the time to devote to this.

I’m still pleased with it, of course. It’s just so much easier to crank away at a project when the pattern’s laid out in front of you, instead of waiting to be invented.

It doesn’t help that the weather’s so wretchedly warm, and that I recently re-inherited about 10 of my old machine-knit sweaters from middle and high school (hand-me-back-ups, I guess they are). I’m certainly not motivated to want another sweater, beautiful and handmade or not.

I haven’t given up yet. But this one’s definitely on the back burner, and may very well spend most of the spring there.


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Forks And Friendships …

Posted on February 4, 2012 by | Comments Off on Forks And Friendships …

 My friend Will Jones and I were always looking for things to keep us busy and out of trouble during our summers on MV.  Someone showed me how to make little flowers by using yarn and forks… I immediately showed Will.   We set about our tasks, me at my house, he at his.

The next morning Will’s mom called my mom asking if he was at my house ?  Seems she went looking for a fork and couldn’t find any !!!  A few moment later Will was at my door, and yes, he had all his mother’s forks with him and they were filled with yarn.  Seems I had neglected to show him how to get the yarn off the forks to make the little flowers…

                  

 Will had carried those forks from his house way on the other side of Oak Bluffs …

  up Circuit Ave …

 … to my house where we freed his mother’s forks of their yarn.  I have no recollection of what we did with the yarn flowers.
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(Will’s mom – my mom)

Our moms were childhood friends, as were Will and I.  Our moms graduated from Oak Bluffs High School together (long before the regional high school was built).  Our moms moved to Newark, NJ after graduation and it was there that they met their future husbands, our dads, who were also childhood friends. ( In 1907 Will’s mom, Bertha Carter, was the first child born in Oak Bluffs after its name change from Cottage City.)

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(my dad – Will’s dad)

Will and I spent every day of the summer together. We went swimming, rode the Flying Horses, read, drove our parents crazy and were inseparable. For many years his parents owned a bowling alley in Oak Bluffs across from the Flying Horses.  Long before automation the pins had to be set by hand, I even did it from time to time myself.

Being a summer kid on the Vineyard was the best thing in the world… it still is.

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Will is older than I am by 18 days and I never let him forget it.  We still see each other from time to time and talk a lot about our childhoods on the Vineyard.


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