Rogue SPS

This week's autumnal Self Portrait Sunday is brought to you by my Rogue. This was my NaKniSweMo project last year, and I admit it was what tempted me to consider doing NaKnitSweMo again this year. Unfortunately, life is just too crazy for such a commitment right now, but hopefully I will be able to participate again next year.

I absolutely love this sweater, and despite the fact that I wear it often, it still looks new. The color is great, and it is quite snuggly and warm. Somehow though, this is the only adult-sized sweater I have ever knit. Perhaps after the holidays I should correct that.

Quickie Cell Phone Case

Salvbard is flying out of the country again tonight, but this afternoon we were all out enjoying the unseasonably pleasant weather. The leaves seem to be changing all at once with the suddenly cool nights, and I fear they will be gone before you know it.


As a last minute request Salvbard asked if I could whip out a case for his phone, as the old leather one he had been using kept dropping his phone. So I sent him off to the stash, and then crocheted this while he was getting his hair cut.

Pattern: free form
Hook: I/5.50 mm
Yarn: Red Heart Ltd. Super Saver Solid 0633 Dark Sage
Supplier: Playtime

I just cast on the appropriate number of stitches up and then sc'ed around in a spiral until I got to where I wanted to work the flab back and forth. Then I added a belt loop, as is his preference. I hope it serves you well on your trip love!

Making Strides

This weekend was the Boston Breast Cancer Walk, and I went with my sister and her best-friend. I am not really involved with the fund raising. For me this is more a memorial for the several family members that we have lost to breast cancer. Among them was my paternal grandmother, who died when my dad was just a teen and I never got to know.It was a beautiful day, but a little chilly next to the water on the Boston side of the Charles River. Handknits were essential.And on the knitting front I am making good progress on the Ravenclaw socks that I am working on for my HSS pal. Yay for knitting that travels well.

Self-portrait

Oops, I am a day late and a dollar short for Self-portrait Sunday, but here goes anyways. Remember that I had recently bought a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain at the library book sale? I have been taking my time with it, as I want to do the suggested exercises as I go rather than reading it all the way through first. It just worked out that one of the first ones was something I had been thinking about doing anyways, inspired by Ryan of Ryan Sketchez recent self-portrait.

This was also a chance to try out my new Pigma Brush Pen that I got this weekend as a bit of a treat. Fun!


When I was in elementary school I remember our art teacher, Mrs. F., telling us that it did matter which direction you colored an area in. Glad I retained that one piece of advice, because it adds a lot of fun texture to what would otherwise be lost.

Sunday Picture - Dragon

I suddenly realized that I hadn't done Self Portrait Sunday in a few weeks. Time sure gets away from me.

I am a little behind on my podcasts at the moment as pre-school-year business has been running me ragged. After listening to Amy's Creative Mom Podcast Episode 60 yesterday my thoughts turned to dragons. The prompt from that episode was "collection", and for years I have been collecting small dragon figures.

So I broke out a Conté crayon and a few of the small figurines and got to work. Many thanks to Salvbard for taking the portrait of me at work on one of the sketches. (Note the mini M&M tube, which is perfect for storing Conté crayons and charcoal.)

I had forgotten how good it feels to work big. Most of the drawing I have been doing in the last few months has been ATC sized (2.5"X3.5") or in my Moleskine (5.25" X 8.25"/13 cm x 21 cm). And the Conté crayon has just whetted my appetite for working with charcoal.

Wedding Recap

There have been several requests to see pictures of my sister in her shawl, but I am afraid that I do not have any at the moment. As part of the wedding party I was camera free for most of the day. In the meantime, while we are waiting for photos to come in from the rest of the family I give you a few photo captures of the day.

First here is a self-portrait of the photographer herself. I will spare you the 8-year-old images of breakfast, her feet, the pile of shoes, the lamps and anything else that caught her interest.She even thought to take a picture of my "no-brainer" socks that I started just for this occasion. "Blog this, mom," she instructed.
We had our makeup and hair done that morning, and Chiquita was quite impressed by the amount they brought with them.
I am told this is a photo of my earrings. I will include it since I was entirely too exhausted to post a self-portrait for SPS.
Is it just me or do profiles look seem like they look less like you than any other angle?
And this was not taken by Chiquita (in fact you can see her on the far left), but the ceremony was absolutely beautiful.

I'm Back

So much has happened in the few days! I hope no one minds if it takes me a couple days to catch up. First order of business is the copy of Knitting Nature. This time I was aided by Salvbard who chose the number of the winning comment. Congratulations Dame Wendy!

My birthday weekend was fun, if a little hectic. We spent more time than I would have liked driving in circles and getting a flat tire repaired, but over all it was good.

Chiquita got a bunch of water time in at our campground in Myles Standish State Park.
Salvbard got in some hammock time at my grandmother's house.We celebrated my birthday with family with the traditional cake and ice cream. I never have maple walnut ice cream anywhere by my grandmother's house. I got a few things I am really excited about, such as a copy of The Happy Hooker and a set of sock blockers from the Loopy Ewe (which my mom found herself!). [It is late, but I promise this SPS was taken on Sunday.]
There was also much sock knitting. I finished weaving the ends in on my Hogwarts socks. I designed and knit a sock pattern that I will be offering up soon. And I got a good start on a pair of "thank you" socks for Salvbard's aunt. Photos of all these are awaiting a combination of daylight and camera access.

Then to make it even better, I returned from my mini-vacation to find my Ravelry invite!

Dulaan-a-thon

Last night/this morning was the Dulaan-a-thon event at the Knitting Room. Similar to Ryan's Dulaan-a-thon, this ran for 12 hours, in this case from 5 pm to 5 am. We only stayed until 2 since Salvbard wanted to get home to bed (and no I didn't make him stay the whole time beforehand).
The turn out was good, and these ladies were so much fun to be with. I didn't know anyone else previously other than Laura (not shown), whom I had taken a class with once. Some people even teamed up to make coordinating hat and scarf sets.
Many adorable hats were knit.
Almost everyone was knitting, but I broke out a K hook since it was so much faster. I got two adult hats done.
Here I am wearing my "blue cheese hat". This poor yarn was evidently not created with crochet in mind. It had a distinct blue warts/lumps thing going on due to how the crochet truncated the thicker blue lengths. Yet somehow it gives me great joy.

Both the blue cheese hat and a "rasta" hat (which I will show you tomorrow once I get the photo off Salvbard's camera) were done with single crochet in a simple free-form top-down form, though I later added a ribbed edge to the rasta hat.

If you would like to donate items, Jackie has kindly agreed to collect items until closing at 4pm on friday (June 22). Just drop off your Dulaan items to the Knitting Room before then, and you won't have to worry about shipping them out yourself by this year's deadline.

Wedding Shower SPS

So today was the wedding shower. See this is me all dressed up for hostessing duties (though mostly sans makeup since this was taken at the end of the day after I got home).
For those of you following along with the wedding shawl drama, I did not ultimately finish the shawl in time for the shower. Remember when I told you all that I was 85% done with the center panel of my sister's wedding shawl? Well it turns out my memory is failing me. For some reason I kept thinking this shawl had 28 repeats, but really it has 34. Oops!

Despite that I did get the center panel done and picked up all 640 stitches around the edge. Then I knit the several long rows all the way around, increasing for the corners. And now I am knitting on the edging. Woohoo! Actually this part is going on a lot faster and I am finding myself waiting for each next stitch that connects the edge to the body. Furthermore I am currently on the last long side for the edging. At the rate I have been working, there is probably about 8 more hours of knitting ahead of me, so I might possibly be done with the knitting portion by next weekend.
I might possibly have been able to finish for the shower if I dropped everything yesterday, but there was no way I would be able to block it too. And for this sort of project, the presentation is really important to me.

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day everyone! In the past year I have been exposed to so many great creative moms (and dads), who make everyday creativity a goal whether it be in scrapbooking, knitting or drawing. As a busy mom myself, it has been really inspirational to hear and see what you all are working on.

Additionally I have known many bloggers who are currently trying to get pregnant, who are pregnant, who have adopted, or have had children in the past year (sometimes not for the first time). To all of you new parents, here is to remembering that the best way to encourage creativity in your children is to let them see you being active in creative pursuits as well.

Elbe SPS

This weekend we went with Salvbard's family to the Elbe River. There we got to take a boat to see the sites from the water. Somehow this is the only photo of me from this day, but at least you can see how beautiful the area was. Plus I was wearing on the wonderful hand-knit sweaters and my great sunglasses we picked up at some gas station on the Autobahn.
As an added bonus you even get a photo of "fiber on the hoof" that we saw on the way there.
Yes it does look already shorn, but they are still sources of potential fiber right?

HK SPS

This week's rather dark SPS is brought to you by Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong. In the back ground you can see the skyline of Hong Kong Island from the Kowloon side. Notice the giant backpack and gortex coat strapped to it. Since we were changing islands this day, we had to take all of our luggage with us.

SPS: Easter Egg Dye

Like many of you, our Sunday was filled with lots of eggs and dyeing.
Here is Chiquita working on her eggs. The key to this process is lots of newspaper to protect the table! Can you spot my Project Spectrum striped egg in the back?
Then after the little one was in bed I broke out the fiber. Here I used the leftover pink, green and yellow to dye some of Misty's correidale roving and then steam set the dye.
How great are these colors? I know a lot of people look down on "non-professional dyes" for their lack of many shades and color intensities, but I am absolutely loving the brights at the moment.
I know I won't get to spin this before April is over, but I hope to get to it in May.

SPS at the Museum

Sorry that this SPS is a little bit late. I had to get them off my partner's camera.
Yesterday we went to the Boston Museum of Science. Among other attractions, the museum has an amazing view of the Charles River and Boston skyline.

SPS: Buoys & Childhood Haunts

I grew up in a lobstering village, and spring was always associated with painting. You need to repaint all your buoys for the lobster traps before the season starts. Each lobsterman has his own unique way of painting his buoys that identify his traps. This weekend while I was down visiting family, my uncle was out painting for the guy he works with.
Can you believe that view? This is my grandmother's backyard that stands on a bluff overlooking the ocean, and growing up with it I can't say that I appreciated it as much as I do now. Coming back to the ocean always feels like home though. The sound of the surf is still one of the most comforting sounds I know.
My mom was kind enough to take a picture of myself and my very grumpy daughter. (Look at that face, she kept complaining that the sun was too bright and in her eyes.) Definitely not my favorite photo of her, but I don't have enough of the two of us together. Too often I am on the wrong side of the camera.

SPS: Looking Out on the Snow

If you are anything like me, you will find you have tons (tonnes even) of pictures of your kids and family, but very few of yourself. So when I found out about Rosemary's idea for Self-portrait Sundays (here after abbreviated as SPS) I thought, aha! The perfect way to ensure that I will have a record of myself as well.

So I talked to Salvbard about helping me out a bit. He kindly agreed, and immediately after that we kept forgetting for several weeks. Well no more! I emailed Rosemary to get added to the list, and I was going to do it. So here is my first SPS contribution.
It is funny that I almost feel my profile doesn't look a ton like me. I guess that is because I never get to see myself from such an angle. That little "elf ear" is all me though. It is a favorite story in my family that when I was born it was the very first thing that my dad noticed.

When I went to go upload this image I realized that we had once again had hit upon Project Spectrum colors. Outside has once again been reduced to grey and white with the snow we got Friday, and I am wearing blue as I often do.