Silly again

So silly... I made a quick little headband out of scraps to give to my friend Grant for his birthday. I think he'll get a kick out of it.
Thanks, Sooz, for this pic from knitting group.

Knitting Rockstar!

Jared Flood came to Seattle! He's from this area originally, which was fun to find out. I went with Sooz to see him speak at the Knitters' Guild.
The setting was a Wedgewood neighborhood church. Here we are, all worshipping our knitting while Jared showed slides of his inspirations and his work.













I cast on a Koolhaas hat on the drive there and worked on it during Jared's talk.

After speaking Jared signed books for all of us and was very charming. He was in town for the whole weekend teaching classes over at Churchmouse, but I couldn't make it to any of them. I would have loved to have taken a class from Jared. I think he'd be a very good teacher.

Alright, and here are some nuggets for the scrapbook. Kids, this is a picture of the time Auntie Turbo met Jared Flood.
And look, could I be anymore flustered? Could I gush more profusely? Note, the hand upon my breast -- I'm sooo taken. Do you see? Jared Flood is knitting some stitches on my Koolhaas. Isn't he nice?



My face is so red, I can't think of another time I've blushed like that. I swear, I thought I wasn't the blushing type.
For comparison, I've met an actual rock star. Yes, I have. Dave Matthews actually lives in my neighborhood, and I've met him on several occasions. I did not blush. No! I did not! I really think I was totally cool. No blushing.
Apparently it takes a really good knitter to color my cheeks.

Here is my Koolhaas pattern -- signed by knitting rock star Jared Flood.

Projects finished in San Pedro

I've been knitting like a sweat-shop in Guatemala. I made a present for the little girl at the hotel where I first stayed, a present for my Spanish teacher, and several gifts for the family who is hosting me. First I made a hat for their son. Then I made a sweater for their youngest daughter. Then they started to request things...

Here is the Foliage hat I made for my Spanish teacher, Josefa. It's modeled first by the adorable Adamari, youngest daughter of my host family. Then you can see Josefa in the last picture, but the lighting is not very good. Sorry, I'm not a great photographer.

You can see that Adamari is knitting. Yeah! She's very sweet and wants to do everything I do, so I've been teaching her to knit.


Next up: the little hat I made for the little girl at the hotel where I stayed. I used up odds and ends because she said she wanted 'rosa' and I wanted to use some of this pink for another hat idea. It's two colors of 220, and the gray is that great yarn from the market back in Patzcuaro. The two skeins of 220 were gifts from a very kind ex-pat lady living in the hills near a river near Puerto Vallerta. Here's a photo and my attempt at a chart (it's hard to use the 'puters down here).

	6	5	4	3	2	1
6			O		O
5			O	O	O
4	X		O	O	O
3		X	O	O	O	X
2		X	X	O	X	X
1			X	X	X

Ok, next....

I made a hat for my family's son, Juan. He's a great kid. My whole family is very affectionate.

Again, it's some of the gifted 220 and the organic, barely spun wool from Patzcuaro, MX. I generaly knit this on size 7s at about 4 st per inch.

Cast on 80 stitches and K2, P2 around for about 7 inches. Then move your marker one stitch over so that it's between two knit stitches. Knit 16 stitches and place another marker, repeat around (5 markers placed). Next time you come to a marker, K2tog on the 2 stitches before it and SSk on the two stitches after it. Repeat this around until there are 10 stitches left, K2tog around, and thread your yarn through the remaining stitches to tie it off.

Next in my knitting adventures I made a little blouse for Adamari. She's just adorable, and she asked for blue. There's a whole jumble of photos coming. I should work on my formating skills, yes. In no particular order you can see the shop where I bought the yarn, which is the crappiest possible acrylic. It cost less than 12Q for the whole sweater, which is less than $2, and acrylic was all I could find at the time. You can see Adamari and I both working on her sweater. She's adorable! And you can see some very bad shots of the nearly finished project. I promise to get some nice pictures of it on Adamari.

To make this sweater I cast on 110 stitches. That's 50 for the front and the back and 5 for each side. The sides are kept in P1, K1, P1, K1, P1 until the armpits. After 3 rows in the body I started the clover leaf lace pattern. The repeat is 10 stitches, and I started it 1 stitch in from the side stitches.
So, K1, YO, DVD (double vertical decrease), YO, knit 6, repeat until you get to the side stitches, work those, and then do the pattern across the other side. Knit a round. The K2, K2tog, YO, K7, repeat across patterned sections. Then knit 5 rounds plain and repeat the pattern but offset by 5 stitches. I'm completely making this up without looking at the thing, so it could be totally wrong. I'll try to check.





More projects to come...