Knitting Up a Storm | Deep Fall Edition

What an interesting autumn (or year, rather) it's been! Life is changing like the leaves that are falling everywhere I go. Thankfully I've been up to my ears in projects, whipping up hoodie-scarves, slouchy hats, gloves and embellished baby blankets like no other (picture above.) These particular blankies are probably some of the cutest I've ever made - and there's two of them, to boot! They were a custom order as a gift for a set of twin girls. The flowers are a smidge different and there are variations in the yarn. But otherwise very similar. Just like identical twins :) The yarn was originally gray, so my friend Kaysie helped me dye in the color and it turned out beautifully. I also made a blue/gray pinwheel blanket with the same kind of yarn, so I used some of the leftover yarn from that for the flower shown here.

Other than that, I am preparing my stash for an event this weekend, the Bliss Handmade Holiday Boutique Sale. I just signed up at the last minute on Monday, and I am looking forward to being surrounded by the cool things that people make with their hands. Needless to say, I am pretty excited to show off some of my skills there!

Back in Action

After a long spring/summer it's finally starting to feel like autumn here in the Northwest, and once again I find myself surprisingly enthusiastic about the upcoming season. Not that I haven't made things this summer but knitting just isn't as cozy when I'm not cuddled up in a few blankets. Now I get to hunker down and get serious about it all. I have a good stash of yarn built up and a couple of new fancy tools to acquaint myself with. And it's only mid-September! Well, almost late September now... I'll be getting back to work now! See you next time!

Starting Over

Back in mid-May I discovered that auto-save can do just as much evil as it can do good. I had about four good paragraphs typed out (here on blogger) about my knitting adventures over the spring, confident that I had fulfilled my goal to write a blog entry before a year went by, when I accidentally highlighted and deleted everything. Which was then auto-saved. So here I am again... considering it's only been three months I'm not doing so bad!

This spring has been full of adventure. Back in March I finally made it over to the Eugene Textile Center, where I stumbled upon a gorgeous Italian black yarn at ETC that got turned into a two-toned oversized moebius. I also participated in a spring sale with the group of ladies that I craft with, so now I have a few really nice cotton/kitchen items in my inventory that I made that day at the sale. You can check them out at kimbarelli.etsy.com.

Between all that and my life outside of knitting I had almost forgotten about my Maruyama knitting machine until last weekend, when my dear husband made a saw-horse sort of thing for it. It's beautiful! He also made me a handy stand for cone yarn (the type that works best with a machine), which is also pretty darn snazzy in the way of thingamajigs.

Brioche in the round is my new favorite stitch to hand-knit, it's essentially double-layered and looks great on both sides of the fabric. I finished a super hip manly cowl that will be for sale this fall alongside the (other) moebius loop that is ruffled and surprisingly sassy.

Finally, my website is getting a makeover in the next month or so, I'm looking forward to having a new layout and hopefully a landing page that's a little easier to navigate. I'll keep you posted! 'Til next time!

Loved This Video! - Renate Hiller - "On Handwork"

Spring Feverish

I have been quite the ghost on this blog these last few seasons, I won't even try to catch up on everything that's gone on since last May. Just gonna start fresh! Most everyone who currently (or used to, anyway) follow this blog knows that knitting has more or less taken over my hands and mind lately, but it's my favorite thing in the world, so that's really not much of a sentence :)

Spring is almost here and I am thrilled to see the cherry blossoms beginning to bud, and the daffodils and crocuses beginning to peek out of the ground. Aside from some major spring cleaning around here I have been busy knitting up a few last-minute cozy things and slowly renovating my website, which has been shifted to Etsy for the time being. It was all fine and well the way that I had it, but it wasn't what I had pictured for myself. I was feeling a little impulsive at the time, so I went for it, knowing in the back of my head that I would have to put a little more elbow grease into it. But at the very least I have learned what to do & what not to do, and got myself through a very busy winter of making some very cute stuff! As for now, I have a bit of very addictive moebius knitting to do... Until next time!