Big Sky Yarns & Crafts

Big Day

Yesterday was a big deal around here:

Kate lost her first front tooth (and the other is loose)! This is number three.  "S" words are currently a bit tough. She can't wait to try a straw through the crater-sized hole and if you wait long enough you will see her trying to figure out which finger fits the most comfortably in that spot.

Another pretty little thing:

I want this peony to last forever, so here she is in all of her glory.  I almost want to name her.

I also finished the main knitting for Full Circle, designed by  Sarah Wilson:

 

Once the fiddly part of the provisional cast on and armholes are shaped, this is an easy knit. I was going to say quick, but it is a lot of knitting. Not hard though. In fact, I wanted to add more circles to break up the rest of the stockinette, but I did not.  It is nice that once you create the neckline, the whole sweater is knit in the round.

Today I hope to finish the front neck with the fabulous pleat. The two rows of the circle cables meet in the middle of the center panel of purl stitches. I can't wait. Then I will be adding sleeves to make this sweater as Montana friendly as possible. Although you can't see now (I will try a close up soon), I used an eyeleted I-cord bind off that looks fabulous and I know I will use that on a zillion projects. It has a bit more pizzazz than a regular I-cord and I can't speak highly enough for the edging. Piece o'cake:  CO 2 stitches, *k2, k2tog, replace these 3 stitches back on the left needle.  Repeat from * to last three stitches, k3tog. You can see, however, it is curling a bit. I will wet block this whole project once I add the sleeves and pin the edging so it will play fair.

Other exciting news: I found out that all 5 of my designs made the cut for the 2011 Knitting Calendar (link to the calendar website), so that is a lovely bonus. Barnes & Noble (link to the calendar listing) has it available mid-July. The calendars are all color and for only $14.95 and there are still over 100 patterns! Do I sound like a commercial or what? I bought these long before I ever submitted anything to them. I think the calendar improves every year with both better pictures and patterns and is a rip roaring good deal (even if you only like half the patterns).

Knit on.

Verena Knitting Magazine

Occasionally I would scan Verena Knitting when I was at Barnes & Noble , but it was always too "out there" for me to truly enjoy.

But the the last two issues have hit me like a summer storm and I could not buy them fast enough. To make life easy, I may just have to subscribe. Here is the latest, Summer 2010:

 

I don't know what the change is, but I cannot speak highly enough about this "new" (for me) magazine. Maybe it is because Margery Winter is at the helm as of the last issue (formerly with Berroco as well as tons of other knitterly pursuits -- a Renaissance knitting woman she is).  Or simply because they put models on a beach, which as we know, translates into me wanting to knit it by proxy. So I can vicariously visit sand and ocean and sun and knit. Sublime.

The magazine has 74 patterns -- can you believe that -- 74 patterns for $7.99, less than 11 cents a pattern. Is that staggering or what?

The only draw back, I thought, was that they print the patterns on newsprint in the center of the magazine. I thought this was going to itch my teeth after enjoying the glossy magazine, but it is truly just fine. My eyes adjust right away and since they have black and white pix with the pattern number, it is all very user friendly.  Every pattern is in order so you don't have to look over eleventy thousand pages to find 36 that is by 71. Hooray for that.

There is a wild variation of patterns. Here is a sample:

 

The necklaces are part of the pattern. How fun is that?  

This one reminded me of Wendy's new one:

Here are two of my favorites:

  There is also a plus size section full of designs I thought lovely:

  

Even kids' patterns, which usually I do not give a rip about, but found these charming:

A smorgasbord of delicious knitting. I haven't knit from any of the patterns to see how easy the instructions are to understand, but I enjoy the finished knitting projects so much, I can say I don't even mind. I just think knitting magazines are a treasure: not only do you enjoy all that finished knitting, but they actually tell you how to make them as well. Double bonus!

I am in designer mode for the next spell as I have at least 5 deadlines for proposals in the next couple of weeks. Translation = not much fun personal knitting to show you. I am cruising along on my Full Circle when I have a bit of down time at night, but it looks suspciciously like the other pics, so I didn't take any new ones.

The swatching for Wendy's Jordan has kicked me in the butt. Usually I have to go down one or two needle sizes to get gauge, but since it is a lovely loose fabric (I guess) I think I will have to go up one size from what she stated. The world could be ending, as that has N>E>V>E>R happened before and will probably only happen twice more in my knitting life.

Knit on. 

Half Circle or Happy Purl Party

I am cruising right along on Full Circle by Sarah Wilson.

This was yesterday early:

As of 5 minutes ago:

I didn't feel like it had grown so much, but look at that!  The straps aren't even twisted or anything. Victory! 

What are all those stitch markers doing? The two orange on the right and the two green on the left indicate stitches for the cable chart in the magazine.  The other stitch markers on the left in a gigantic, quite obnoxious pile indicates that every four rows I need to work a cable. In the "regular" stitches a couple before the actual cable (doesn't matter where exactly but too far away and I forget the whole thing which is not the point) I put a stitch marker that says, "I have knit a cable on this row."  Doesn't it say that to you?

When I see 3 rows of stitches after that marker, I know it is time to work another cable row when I come around again (the fourth row). The green ones tell me I have to work the increase as well. It is hard to see there are four in a row, but I just pick up the bottom one and move it up to the current row so all 4 are on a continual journey up (or down if you consider which way is up) the sweater. I don't have to keep track of the already worked cables too far back if all is well which is why you don't see a zillion stitch markers.  Nor do I have a zillion stitch markers. It is amazing how fast I lose those.

I so love the little circle cables on this baby. I knew you would want a close up, they can handle it, so here you have it:

 

The two columns of cables meet at the center (pin them in place) and then you pick up stitches through all 3 layers of fabric to make the box pleat. How cool is that? I can't wait.

If you look closely, you can see the little "tick" marks of the increases. Every 8 rows I have two increases in the middle purled panel. For the first increase, after the first cable, I put my left needle two purl bumps down from the end stitch on my right hand needle (from the wrong side) and place that stitch on my left needle to purl. Same thing for the second increase, but only go down one purl bump because I haven't knit that side yet. Very, very clever. Into the arsenal of knitting tricks it went. 

I did change the pattern just a bit because the way it was written, that very top circle didn't match the other circles and I don't know if that was intentional, but I wanted my circles all to be matchy-matchy.

In case it matters to you and you will want all your circles to be matchy-matchy, here it is.

In the SHAPES ARMHOLES section:

Row 1 (WS) -- same, I didn’t change anything

Row 2 (RS) -- same, I didn’t change anything and figured out it was a “row 3” of the chart because of how the cables crossed.

Row 3 (WS) -- I moved to “row 4” of the chart. This meant that instead of the “p8” of the “k2, p8, k2”, I instead knit “p2, k4, p2” so that the inside 4 stitches of the cable had purl stitches on the RS.

Row 4 (RS)-- I moved to “row 5” of the chart. The “k8” of the “p2, k8, p2” turns into “k2, p4, k2” so, again, those middle 4 stitches are purl stitches on the RS.

So, now my little stitches inside the first circle are all purl stitches like their friends and not knit stitches. Happy, happy purl party, I tell you.

Knit on.
   

Woodbine

With a little extra time at the beginning of the week we went camping in Woodbine (near Nye, Montana):

The drive there is just gorgeous. Here are the mighty Beartooths:

We stopped at the great Mickey D's for lunch. This looks like a regular truck, but look closely:

 

For those of you who have not known me pre-1993, my maiden name is Robinson. This trucking company was KSR Trucking.  My full name is Kimberly Sue Robinson. How outrightly cool is that? I didn't even know I owned a trucking company. Just my color. Dave, are you jealous it wasn't DPR trucking? I knew it.

Back to Woodbine.  Our friends let us borrow their camper and truck. The only way to camp, as far as I am concerned.

 

We really like the truck. I can't believe how nice trucks are now. I just remember my grandpa's truck on the farm. Not this truck. The kids filled up the back seat and Dan and I had ample room in the front. We almost kept the truck and gave them our mini van. Not quite the same, however, and we are back to the mini van. They even washed it for us because that's what he does on the weekend. Can you believe that? The van didn't know what hit it. It almost couldn't run it was so clean. 

Here's the view from our site:

There was even a river:

To hear the water the whole time was heavenly.

Here is the cutest kid ever, found also at the river:

 
   

I enjoyed knitting by the river while the kids and Dan went on a small hike to see a waterfall:

 

My action shot from the camp site:

That is the beginning of Full Circle , trying to kick my butt, which it did successfully for quite some time. More on that later.

Have you ever played Quiddler?  So fun! Like Scrabble, but with cards.

So, so fun. I heartily recommend it. How appropriate for the occasion I had "gear", don't you think?  Once when we all played (you would be amazed at the words Kate can come up with on her own), Dan rigged the deck so I got the letters for "yarn" and "knit" and all I made with it was "train" until everyone started laughing. I will never live that down, as you can well imagine.  

My knitting still smells like smoke, but it was a small price to pay for s'mores.

Since we chatted last, I also finished the last (for now) Skye Tweed Vest:

Back to Full Circle. So, you start with the back with a provisional cast on:

 

In what seems like the same breath, you continually add more stitches for the armholes and knit the straps with more stitches put on waste yarn:

That is the right and left front just prior to casting on more stitches for the center and armholes.  I love the design, though I had to concentrate so hard I had smoke coming out my ears. Of course I twisted one of the straps once so I had to rip a couple rounds and tried again.

All is going well now and I will show an updated picture hopefully tomorrow if it stops raining.  Eventually you cast on enough stitches to complete the armholes and then join in the round to the bitter end of 9,456 rounds, or something close to that since this seems like a long sweater to me. Or maybe it is because my brain hurts. It takes so little to hurt it now since the knee mishap that I don't trust myself quite totally yet. The Sublime Soya DK is most lovely to work with. 

As if that is not enough, today was the last day of school. Here is the greatest kindergarten teacher in the world:

She has loved on all three of my kids and you couldn't ask for a finer teacher.  I was almost sad for a brief (oh, so very brief) moment I didn't have another wee one waiting in the wings for her next year.

Here is a powerful trio:

This is one to bring out when they graduate from high school and college and are mortified I even took it. I will then remind Kate she had her new High School Musical tennies on. I will love it more than I should admit.

I leave you with a pic of the Stillwater River (different than the other river):

Knit on.