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!

Sweet, Sweet Month of May

There are a lot of reasons why I love the month of May. The sun finally makes an appearance again and I spend as much time as I can basking in its warmth, not unlike the kitties shown above. I also love April, not only because it's the month leading up to my (our) birthday, but the month containing what seems like a bizzilion birthdays of people in my life that are super special to me. May Day (no relation to the term pilots use when their plane is nosediving... gonna have to look into how that one came about) fell on a Saturday, and I happened to be on a nice leisurely walk during which I discovered an estate sale just around the corner from our house.

I love estate sales, not only because of all the nifty and (albeit cliche these days) vintagey things I have found in the past, but also because of the fact that I am walking inside this person's house, among this person's beloved treasures that they've held onto for so many years... and carefully selecting things whose true history will remain unknown to me. It's like a little window into the person's life. The serger that I bought last summer, for instance, I found at an estate sale and this woman was extremely crafty; this old (but very sturdy) serger was in a room among three banquet tables that lined the walls, all of which were covered in pieces of fabric selling for $1/yard. I named the serger Doris in her memory, even though I have no idea what the woman's name was; I suppose that's the name that popped into my head as I was wandering around her house looking for the craft room, being very reverent as if she was still there.

I did find a few cones of brightly colored thicker thread that may or may not work out for my knitting machine; it's thinner than I'd like but might be alright if I have a proper spindle to work it from. I also found a very cool piece of upholstery which was mostly orange with chunky gold scroll-ish detailing... much prettier than it sounds in writing! I found a beautiful grape-colored goblet to add to my collection and a beach bag that will be (someday) be perfect for a trip to the coast. I also picked up a couple of old records (Rodgers and Hammerstein's South Pacific and Sounds from the Fabulous Twenties, or something like that) just for good measure.

Knitting to My Heart's Content

That's exactly what I've been doing since my super cool new toy arrived. In March I searched "knitting" on craigslist and found quite a gem, pictured in my previous post, that is now set up in the front bedroom (aka Kim's craft room.) I had never bought anything off craigslist before, and the woman who listed it lives way the hell out in Eastern Oregon, in a town called Lone Rock. We're talking about a town of less than 100... and a retired couple who "can't drive an economy car" because they live so far out in the country. Maybe they have a really gravelly driveway. Who knows. And, she wanted me to pay for her gasoline to make the drive to meet me, even if I decided not to buy the machine.

I spent a lot of time on the internet, pouring over information about knitting machines and didn't find much at all about the Maruyama model 20. I talked it over with some close friends who pointed out the fact that if this worked out, I could make things a lot faster and sell them, and the machine may very well pay for itself. After much deliberation, I decided to take the leap of faith and sent her the cashier's check for $125 + $50 for insured shipping.

I'm not sure I wanted to meet this woman in person anyway, much less spend the gas money to get myself there; I had flashes of that old movie "Nothing But Trouble" where Demi Moore's character and her yuppie friends get trapped in a tiny town in the middle of nowhere. This woman sounded like she smokes about a pack a day and talked my ear off during our initial conversation, telling me all about her knitting and how she just doesn't use the machine because she can knit a sweater in four days. She bought it from somebody "back East" about six years ago and just never used it much.

The thing (which I affectionately named "Suki") and all of its pieces + a nifty book from 1963 all about Ida Thurmans' knitting methods finally arrived in two separate packages, and it was no surprise that both of them reeked of cigarette smoke, even though there seemed to be nothing about the machine that would absorb any smell.

Once I put the thing together, my dear and patient husband helped me find various videos on how to get started, since the manual that came with my knitting machine might as well have been written in Greek! Turns out that starting a project was not near as complicated as I thought, and I practically shrieked with joy when I finally made a little 2" x 2" swatch with a sample yarn.

I did figure out where all the reddish-brown dust (and the smoky smell) was coming from - I took it apart and realized there was foam inside that was seriously deteriorated. The instruction manual also recommended oiling a few key parts, so it operated much more smoothly once that was done.

The first real item I made up was a tiny blanket (actually more of a snuggly) that turned out much skinnier than I expected. I crocheted a white border around it, embroidered a fancy cursive "M" into the corner, and gave it away almost as quickly as I'd finished it. We're still getting to know each other, and I'm starting to learn little tricks that only come to a person once they actually start the trial-and-error process that is knitting. But the question remains, if I made the item on my knitting machine, can I still say that I "knit" it?