Spring Tulips

Yesterday 3 garden club members joined me yesterday at the Library for our gardeners midday meetup. Joyce and I walked the square and checked the beds. The tulips were wonderful. Thank you Rachelle for replanting them last fall. I was surprised to see so many tulips. The ones under the sign on Erie Street were amazing. If you get some time its worth a walk around the square to see the flowers.

For 8 years now I have been growing lettuce, cherry tomatoes, beans and cucumbers in 7 plastic storage boxes grouped together in the center of my little cottage garden. I let the the lettuce go to seed by accident a few years ago and was surprised to find it coming up by it self in March. This year I checked the boxes on St Patrick's Day and sure enough there was little sprouts. I have thinned and thinned the seedlings. I transplanted some but the transplants are not doing as well as the plants that I just thinned out. in a couple days I will thin again and this time the lettuce I thin out will be big enough to put in my salad. Here are a couple pictures. If you want to try this let me know and I would be happy to answer questions. It is so easy. These boxes provide all the lettuce I can eat from spring till late July when it becomes too bitter and goes to seed.

Knitters Fantasy in Ohio

Time is sure flying by. The daffodils are blooming and my lettuce came up again in my boxes in the garden. I thinned it our yesterday and transplanted some to another location. I dug out three small wild cherry trees along my picket fence. I moved some daylilies, dividing and potting them for our annual plant exchange. I was so busy working in the garden I just lost my focus on getting ready for my upcoming workshop at Knitters Fantasy this coming Saturday. It is a good thing that I taught this workshop on Feather and Fan lace several times before and have a lot of samples. However, I really wanted to finish the skirt I have been working on for the past year. The Sasha Euroflax Louet pattern with the three tiers of lace ruffles. One of the tiers is Feather and Fan. I was knitting every evening on my skirt with encouragement from my Friday afternoon knitting group friends that challenged me to finish it and wear to Knitters Fantasy when I teach my workshop.

This skirt was popular last year and I really wanted to wear it before it went out of fashion. I admired it on several folks that I saw wearing it at the various knitting events I attended during the year, including Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, Knitters Fantasy and Pgh Knit and Crochet Festival. I am sure if you attend any of these events you also saw and admired this skirt too.

It is not a difficult pattern but there is a lot of knitting around and around forever on #6 needles. I have the under skirt almost finished and the top lace tier done. I would have had more done if spring hand not sprung and the sun had not come out last week and I could have kept my hands out of my garden. I just could not sit inside and knit with so much to do outside. Then I was so exhausted from working in the garden I could not even hold my knitting needles in the evening to knit. I am no spring chicken and just cannot work like I used to. I will post pictures of my skirt in progress soon. I look forward to seeing many of you at Knitters Fantasy Saturday. If you need info and directions check my links or google Knitters Fantasy.

This Thursday, April 8. Mercer Spinners and Wavers Guild is meeting at Munnell Run Farm for a workshop Knitting Eyelet Cast on and Mobius Join with Barb Wingert. I will be there knitting on my skirt.

Knits in China for fall

I found these photos of China Fashion Week on line. There were lots of really creative knits. Here are a few of the more reasonable ones.

Check out the novelties. Lots of colorful fur yarns. Does this mean fun fur is back? I wonder how long it will be before we see these trends here. Since we are 4th world here in PA it may be years. What do you think? Comments are welcome.

Hand dyed Fingerless gloves

I just finished these fingerless gloves. It took me Friday, Saturday and Sunday to knit these while I watched Mad Man Season 1 disk 4 and the Olympics on TV. I hope the person I knit these for likes them. One never knows how a hand knit gift will go over with someone that does not knit. Often they have no idea how long it takes to knit an item. I did not keep track of my time since I was enjoying the knitting challenge. I knitted the first glove twice because The first time I knit it I did not like the pattern after It was almost done.

Little Ruffle Seed Stitch Scarf

I came home from the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival with a skein of ACE 150 yards of 90% Suri Alpaca /10% Tencel . I knit this little scarf knitting from both ends of the ball at the same time. Beginning with the lace ends and knitting both at the same time till I ran out of yarn. I then grafted the two ends together with the Kitchner Stitch. This was fun to knit but I wish I would have made the lace wider and the seed stitch part of the scarf about an inch narrower so it would have come out a little longer. here is a picture. My pattern will be given away with the purchase of this yarn from PA Preferred , 100% Pennsylvania Grown Alpaca Yarn from Wini Labrecque/Star Weaver Farm, email: strwvr@zoominternet.net. www.starweaverfarm.com I shared Wini's booth at the Pgh. Knit Festival. I sold a lot of Valetines and enough yarn to cover my expenses for the week end. I had a really nice time. I enjoyed meeting Noro Bellows from Noni Knits. Her Felted bags are really worth seeing. I took a workshop from Daniel Yuhas Lace and Loop scarf. I will post a picture of my scarf soon. I am knitting the lace and loops I have 17 loops finished. There are 23 I cord loops on one end of the scarf. This is fun to knit but I am only getting few inches finished a day so it will take me a while to finish.

Knitting Valentines and writing patterns

I have been knitting hearts for over a week. It all started when I decided to donate my knit Valentine pattern to the Ravelry Goodie Bags at the Pgh. Knit & Crochet Festival.

My Knit Your Heart Out Pattern was posted here Wed. Feb. 14 2007. You can check it out in the archives. I designed this heart to sell at the Pittsburgh Knit and Crochet Festival. The Festival happens around Valentines Day every year. There are workshops by famous knitters and amazing yarn to inspire you. There is a link to the Knit Fest. web pages on the right under links. Sometimes the sun comes out here in February and the snow stops and melts off for awhile. This event is a wonderful place to escape into the world of yarn and fibers after a difficult winter.

About a week ago, I got our my old pattern and knit the heart. I wanted to revise the pattern, using other stitches than the Kf&B increase in the center. This increase came out uneven and I wanted to edit the pattern to make it easier to follow. I also wanted to add rows to the pattern to make the heart to come out a little bigger and better shaped.

I became completely consumed by this task. Knitting before breakfast and doing almost nothing else all day till late into the night. I am ever dreaming of knitting hearts and variations that I am anxious to try.

The lavender heart pictured below is the basic pattern. Very easy to knit, all the stitches are knit stitches, resulting in a simple garter stitch heart. I am happy with this basic pattern. It creates in nice round heart shape. The size is about 20% larger than my old patten. It takes about 22 - 25 gms. of knitting cotton. You can knit two hearts from a 50 gm. ball of yarn.
















Experienced knitters can experiment with alternating knit and purl stitches to create an endless combination of patterns that make the heart look interesting. Beginning knitters can use this simple design to improve basic skills and experiment with new stitch patterns. Seed Stitch, Double Moss, Ribbing and other combinations look good in alternating rows to make the heart look fancy and complex. It is much easier to knit the complex combinations of stitches and just make them up as you knit than it is to write it down as a pattern so someone else can reproduce the design. I gave up on trying write a complex pattern variations. Maybe next year.



Below are two of the hearts with stitch combinations that I did not write down. The pink heart was fun to knit. I love the way the stripes of k1,p1 ribbing make this heart more interesting to look at. It makes the heart look more like a Valentine Heart. I get bored just knitting every stitch. I have knitted 15 of these in the past 5 days while I was revising the pattern. Each one is different and I could not wait to finish each one so I can begin another one trying another combination of stitches. The ideas just keep on coming. I am really having fun knitting these.

Little red Christmas Sweater

Christmas eve and still knitting.

I was inspired by a workshop I took at the Knitting Retreat last November at Bedford Springs Resort. Kathy Zimmerman had us knit three lace edges for scarves and shawls. We started with the lace edge and went from there. This is the bell ruffle knitted in reverse on the edge of a little sweater. I am knitting it out of worsted weight washable merino, #8 ndls. It is for a one year old little girl.

The sweater is knit top down without reading pattern, just making it up as I knit, the beginning is similar to a sweater I knit several years ago as a store sample. I had to rip it back a couple times but I enjoyed the knitting. I like how this ruffle edge looks. Thank you Kathy for the inspiration. We talked about the possibility of knitting this on an edge in reverse and I was happy to find that it was not hard to figure it out by just knitting backwards. I decreased the purls to two between the bells to get the bells to stand out more in the last row before casting off.

Now I need to pick up and finish the sleeves. I am considering a few bells on the sleeves edges. What do you think? Email me if you want to help me decide. I have to stop knitting and wrap gifts for tomorrow morning so I will not work on this again till Sunday.


Have a great holiday!

May everything you knit and give as a gift this season find a home with someone that appreciates your efforts and enjoys wearing lovely hand knitted things.

Nancy

Hats at the Pottery Dome

My hand knit hats are at The Pottery Dome just 2 miles West of the Grove City Outlets. Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10 - 5 and Sunday 1 - 5 phone 724-748-5001 www.PotteryDome.com
This is a wonderful gallery with beautiful handmade pottery and glass by talented local craftsman. I will have my handspun knitted items displayed there thru the winter. This is a great opportunity for me to get my stuff out were folks can find it. I have been making and selling hand knit hats and handspun yarn for over 20 years in the Mercer - Grove City community and I know some folks will be happy to know that they can still purchase these items from me. I still love making them and am grateful to Lois Hamilton for letting me put them out at the Pottery Dome.

Knitting another Tie Shawl

I started another Danish style Tie Shawl over the Holidays. It is a perfect project to carry along to knit in the car. This one is on #9 needles, the yarn is a soft rose pink, Merino Frappe from Crystal Palace. I cast on 12 sts and knit 10 rows then picked up 5 on each edge to begin the shawl. This shawl has a wider panel down the middle (12 sts. ) with a cable chain running down the center panel. My previous versions had only 4-6 stitches in the center. This is my 6th tie shawl and it is for me to wear over the Holidays. The #9 needles will knit up quickly. This pattern will work with any size needle or weight of yarn. My first version was knit on a size 2 needles with fingering weight yarn. It is still my favorite. The key to the pattern is to increase 6 stitches every other row to create the wide round shape that will wrap around your body. There are two increases on each edge and two in the center one on each side of a center panel. I love knitting this shape of shawl. My next tie shawl might be knit with lace weight yarn and mostly seed stitch with perhaps a lace border. I have a lot of lace weight kid mohair yarn in my stash that is waiting to be knit. I will wait till after Christmas to knit it. I like to plan my next projects while I am finishing the one I am knitting. The possibilities are endless. Making the right choices takes time and l lot of planning. Some project will remain in the planning stage for months before I find the right yarn and stitch pattern to proceed.

I love knitting and wearing this type of shawl. It is perfect for keeping the chill off my shoulders around the house. Once the shawl is tied on it feel like a vest and is very comfortable to wear in the kitchen and doing chores around the house. I can see why it was popular with working women a hundred years ago. You will see ladies wearing these shawls in kitchens and in the market place in old period movies like Weathering Heights and Jane Austin films.


Below is the sample version of the Traditional Tie Shawl I knit for my workshop at Knitters Fantasy in OHIO last April. It fits perfectly on this doll. I will knit a couple more of these for Teddy Bears. This would make a nice gift for a little friend.


Well Thanksgiving is over and I have a lot knitting to finish for the Holiday Gift Season. I finished three pair of socks and have a forth pair with both socks on circular needles knit past the heels so they will be done soon.

I found homes for two of my kittens. I placed posters with pictures in several stores around Mercer and Grove City. We still have three kittens that need a home. One black female and two grey males. The kittens were born on Sept.3 and are ready to go. Please if you know anyone that would like a free kitten please call me. my cell: 724-877-1082 The kittens are litter trained and very sweet and loving. They purr all the time. I wish I could keep them but 4 inside cats is really two more than I should have. I hope I can find a home for these little guys I would hate to have to put them back outside with the strays for the winter. The kittens are confined to my bathroom for the time being. I posted pictures on my previous post. I will email pictures if you want to see more. my email: spinningotter@gmail.com I will even deliver them to your home if its within 20 miles of Mercer.

5 Kittens looking for a home

I have 5 lovely kittens that need a home before winter. I cannot keep them I have way too many to care for. I have cared for them and played with them every day so they will make someone a loving pet. call my cell: 724-877-1082 or 724-662-0271

Knittreat at Bedford Springs Nov.5-8 2009

I am still unpacking from the Knittreat at Bedford Springs Resort. Above is the hall outside of the classroom where I taught spinning.
This is a view of one of the cozy areas in the lobby where knitters gathered to knit after dinner.

What a wonderful experience. Great food, an elegant environment, beautiful weather and four days of spinning and knitting with inspiring teachers. I had a wonderful time. Below is a view of knitting friends in the lobby from the stairs above. I wish I had more pictures of the exterior of the beautiful historic hotel.

Knitting and gardening

This is a detail of a scarf patten I am designing for a friend to make kits for selling her alpaca yarn.

I am still out here. I have not posted in awhile. I completed two pair of socks, two scarves, 10 hats, Three felted cat beds, a shawl and several skeins of handspun yarn in the past couple months. I did a program for the Butler spinners and weavers last wednesday, Friday I met with my knitting group and yesterday I met with knitting and weaving friends at Munnell Run Farm for our Mercer Guild meeting. So why have I not taken the time to post pictures of my work? I keep meaning to do it but the time just flies by.

October has been cooler than normal and the cool rainy days do not inspire me to go outside and finish up cleaning up my garden to get ready for winter. I am still picking a cup of red raspberries every day. We may have a frost tonight. A frost may stop the raspberries if it is severe. The raspberries can handle a light frost. I have several house plants that will need to come inside tonight. I just looked at the weather forcast and there will be only one day without rain with partial sun and a high of 50 in the next 10 days. This is discouraging. I need more good sunny days in the 60s to get outside and work in my garden.

Chautauqua-Lecture-RobertTherman

Garden Club Picnic at DJ's

Last night the Mercer Garden Club had their summer picnic in DJ's Garden. We had a heavy rain storm that quit just before the picnic. The air was fresh smelling and the flowers were beautiful. The temp cooled down and the sun came thru briefly. It was an enchanted evening in a beautiful garden with friends and way toooo much excellent food. I am glad I was there to be in the moment. I love being out in a garden after a rain. This was a perfect evening and everyone seemed to enjoy being there.

Mercer Spinners and Weavers Guild August 8 2009

Yesterday our Buy, Sell, Swap or Trade Meeting turned out to be a huge success. We only had 5 members of our guild show up but we had lots and lots of folks come from other Knitting and Weaving groups. We had a full house. It was so exciting to see so many people. There was a group of knitters that work together in Grove City. There were a couple car loads of knitters from the Cranberry Knitters Group. A Weavers Group from Erie, Edinboro and Greenville stopped by to visit. There were knitters from Mercer, Sharon and Hermitage that used to shop at Otter Creek. There was a couple folks that Judy met at a recent show where she was spinning. I wish I had counted or taken some pictures but I was too busy talking to think about it. We probably had 40 to 50 people come.

There was wonderful food for the pot luck picnic lunch. I really enjoyed meeting new fiber arts folks and making new friends. Several folks join our club. Everyone had a great time sharing good food and there was lots of laughter. I hope we see some of these folks again. If you were there and happen to read this. Thank you for coming. Please come again. Email me and I will send you our next guild newsletter.

Summer Knitting and Natural Dyed Yarn

Every year the Mercer Spinners and Weavers Guild gets together at the end of the summer for a natural dye workshop. It is an exciting day. Everyone brings a pot of some natural dye they have cooked up. Folks bring yarn, roving and loose fibers for spinning. We usually have a variety of pots to choose from. Last year I put rubber bands on skeins of natural undyed wool sock yarn and dipped this yarn into three different pots. The last pot was indigo and that is how I got the blue green spots along with the yellow and orange. The yellow was marigold and the orange jewelweed. If you would like to join us in dyeing this year check out our Guild Newsletter by clicking on the link on the right of this page.

I started another Danish Tie shawl. This is the 4th one. I am using #6 needles and a sock weight yarn that I had dyed at our Natural Dye Workshop August 2008. I really enjoy knitting and wearing these tie shawls. This one will be machine washable and light enough for a summer evening. I will post a picture of it when I finish. I am using a contrasting blue green sock yarn to add narrow stripes. The color matched the blue green indigo spots and I love to use up leftovers so I could not resist using these two yarns together. I don't know how many stripes I will get before I run out of this yarn. I may have to add another yarn to continue the stripes when I run out of this one. I am just going to go with it and see how it turns out.

Below is a picture of booties knit from the sole up. Beginning with tan suede yarn cast on 12 sts and knit a rectangle. Pick up stitches around the rectangle and knit 3 rows switch to the blue bunny hop yarn for the rest of the bootie The baby sweater under the booties was knit from Rowans All Seasons cotton a couple years ago and was used as a sample in my shop. A friend emailed me that her daughter just had a baby boy and I thought this little sweater would make a perfect gift. I made the booties to match. Now I need to locate some buttons before I mail this to Claire in Chicago.

Strawberries, Blueberries & Cherries

Its been a beautiful summer. I solved several problems I had been having in my garden by adding nutrients to my soil in the spring. I just finished picking strawberries and my freezer is filled with plenty for winter smoothies. I am so tired of them that I do not care to see another berry till next June. The berries lasted a whole month. Every day I was able to pick a quart or two. Now my sour cherries are ripe and next will be the blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. I found several ripe blueberries yesterday. So I will having berries for breakfast the rest of the summer. The raspberries will continue till late frost in October. I am still picking and giving lettuce away.

My roses were amazing this year. I have 20 Antique Cottage Garden Varieties.

Knitting continues also. I have one more sock to finish. I am about 1/2 was done with the underskirt of my Sasha Lace skirt. I hope to finish it by Christmas. There is a lot of knitting. With 4 lace pannels it is quite a challenge. I am knitting mine out of Sojabama instead of the Euro Flax Linen. I had the Sojabama left from store inventory. I am not about to go out and buy yarn. I wish I had saved some EuroFlax for this project but I sold all I had when I closed my shop. We have 24 knitters coming to the Friday afternoon knit in at Lake Latonka. Usually there are a dozen folks coming to a meet up.

My Cottage Garden 2009

I am trying to find homes for 6 kittens. Below is a picture on one kitten with Black Magic Woman. We call her Madge. She brought us one Mougie Main Coon Style Kitten about a month ago. This kitten is very shy.

Flowers and strawberries and kittens.

My Favorite Flowers for cut flowers Sweet Williams in my garden June 2009

Growing Lettuce in plastic storage boxes

For the past 7 years I have grown my salad greens in large storage boxes. The picture above is from last August with the mint growing up around the boxes.
The boxes have holes drilled into the bottom and about 4 inches up the side of the box.
I used foam peanuts on the bottom to save on potting soil. I filled the rest of the container with commercial soil for containers. Every year I add a little more compost and soil to the boxes.
One year I was so busy I did not pull out all my lettuce and let it go to seed. In the spring I found that little lettuce plants came up really early in March. All I needed to do was thin them out a bit and I had wonderful greens from May thru August. I let the lettuce seed itself on purpose the last two seasons. Here is a picture I just took o with my I phone. Notice the little red and green lettuce plants. Pictures below are from other years.

Last Summer


May 2008 the Strawberries are blooming.