Category: Knitting

This is the power of knitters — when faced with a need and a charity suited to meet it, they will rise to the occasion, swiftly donating money in the hopes of winning yarn, but really in the certainty that they can make a difference.  That was what happened when I offered up my first few skeins of yarn today in an effort to raise money for heifer.org, a group that fights hunger.

My plan is to offer several skeins every week between now and the holidays as "Give Back" listings.  Since Heifer lets you donate an animal, my hope was to donate a sheep, at a cost of $120.  I listed my skeins of yarn today in the hopes that I could get part way towards that goal, raffling the yarn for $2 a chance and offering one skein of sock yarn as an auction.  I was really astonished when I saw that the listings — what I thought was a really large number of tickets that might take a week to sell out — sold out in hours.  Winners are drawn, yarn is in the mail, and we raised $200.  The auction is not yet closed, but it is already at $25 with three days left to go.  My original plan was to donate all the money raised, minus paypal fees and shipping costs, but I’m so touched by the speed with which these tickets sold out, that I’ve decided I want to cover those fees myself to maximize the amount of the donation.  We are well past that first sheep, and I’m now dreaming of being able to donate a small flock.

Mark your calendar for next Thursday at noon.  We’ll do it again with new yarns, fun yarns, yarns that will help hungry children eat.  The Judge can make his petty little jokes about "when knitters rule the world"  — I think even he has a sense of what a better place it would be if we did.

Today was the day I got to take a class with Nora Bellows, the wonderful woman behind all of the cool, unique Noni handbags.  Since finishing and sewing are not among my strengths, I was really excited about this class.

When we walked in, we got to see lots of Nora’s sample bags.

They were even prettier in person and a little bit intimidating.  I felt pretty sure I couldn’t make my freshly felted bag like as good as the samples.

Nora wrote down what everyone was looking forward to learning down on the blackboard at the beginning of the class.

Most of the other women wanted to learn how to make a bag the looked like it was professionally made.  Nora characterized the goal as "handmade not homemade." 

Jaime, one of the staff members at In the Making, the store that hosted the class, brought a cool bag.  Like always, she had modified the pattern some herself, using the body from one bag and the flap from another.

Elizabeth made good use of the lecture time in class, picking up some of Nora’s ideas about how to firm up the sides of the bag and line it, while knitting another, really pretty, striped bag.

The first part of the class was devoted to stiffening the sides of the bag.  It’s worth taking one of Nora’s classes sheerly to get the benefit of her advice on how to template the inside of a bag so you can interface and line it.  Here, Frances is working on sewing together a needlepoint canvas framework that will serve as the support for her bag.

My bag, the Noni Adventure bag, is meant to be loose and flopy and doesn’t require any stiffening.  So the first thing I did, gasp, was put in a zipper … with lots of help and gudiance from Nora.

Remember my bag from yesterday?  That huge buttery piece of saffron colored knitting?  I felted it early this morning and after Nora got her hands on it to help me get the zipper in, it looked like this.

I’m pretty proud of that zipper, although it wasn’t much more difficult than putting a zipper into a jacket.

After learning a lot of tips and ideas, along with watching hands on demonstrations, I really did feel ready to conquer the world of embellished bags.  I picked up yarn for a couple more and went on to ballet where I sewed on the hardware and strap and then on home, where I pinned in the lining, although it isn’t sewn in yet.

Isn’t that amazing?  It looks better than I anticipated and I feel like I learned so much, although I’m having a hard time keeping my eyes open as I type.  If you ever have a chance to take a class with Nora, do!

One of my cousins e-mailed me yesterday to complain about  the lack of entries on my blog this week.  I promise, I haven’t been ignoring y’all on purpose!  Technology has been the enemy this week.  But everything seems to be working now, so I’ll play catch up.

I tried to post Tuesday night, while I was in Atlanta for work.  I had an internet connection, but for some reason, the photograph I took of Teddy’s scarf in progress, using my cell phone, didn’t make it onto my computer.  I kept getting a funny little broken square  in my email.  No picture.

The reason I wanted to show you a picture of the scarf was that I was debating about the length.  It didn’t seem quite long enough as I approached the end of the second skein.  Since I couldn’t show you all a picture and ask for opinions, I ended up using most of the third skein and making a long scarf, hopefully long enough for much wrapping around the neck and warming up of my second son.

I’m never one to make an in-your-face statement about the fact that I’m a proud knitter, but I did take my knitting along to court the following morning, and knit through the cases ahead of us on the docket.  I find it is a huge aid to my concentration, although I have never developed the self-confidence to knit during my own cases.  I took along my Handmaiden Sea Silk scarf — the only piece of lace I’m working on at the moment and one of the oldest of my unfinished objects.  No matter how much I knit, it seems to drag along, but it’s far enough along that I can see how the colors are going to switch back and forth, and that seems to have been enough motivation to have gotten me going again.

I got home from Atlanta in time for trick or treating.  The Judge yet again demonstrated his ability to come through on the important things — taking Ellie and Ollie and two of their closest friends ALL over the neighborhood, while the two mamas passed out candy and, erm, one of us knitted.

Thursday I was back out of town for work again, this time without an internet connection.  But with knitting.  I finished off the Be Sweet Tea Cozy.

I love how it looks with the ribbon tied through the top!  Sadly, it isn’t quite big enough.  I’m begging an extra skein off of Jennifer in exchange for a silk yarn to be designated in the future.  Go look at her blog if you want to see some really amazing batik!

This weekend I’m working on some organic merino yarn — the colorways are new and I love this yarn.  Here’s a little taste.  This is "Metro."

Make sure you remember to stop in when Elliebelly Yarns stock this Thursday at noon.  I’ll have some fun little yarns for you to look at and some new playsilks!  I’m working on cleaning up the Main Elliebelly Site
and getting it restocked.  Thanks to those of you who have wandered through all the sold items to shop.  I promise there will be fresh new items by next weekend.  Also, please consider signing up for my announcement list if you aren’t already on it.  I am planning on dyeing up some special yarns and selling them to benefit Heifer.Org.  If you aren’t familiar with this charitable organization, they provide farm animals to families in need and do wonderful work.  I’m hoping to raise enough money to donate a sheep this year.  I’ll fill you in on the details of how you can buy yarn and help people become self-sufficient on the announcement list later this month.

Finally, I want to talk about art.  I still can’t show you any art because of issues involving the Judge, our oldest son, and a total inability to understand that if you screw up the computer that Mom’s scanner is hooked up to you are obligated to fix it, instead of spending all of your waking hours playing Morrowind.  That is sort of frustrating, because I have lots going on.  I’ve been making time for my own art — doing lots of dyeing and fabric collage and also working on a round robin book.  I’ve also been doing a fun little mail art round robin, hosted by Kathy McElroy.  I’m about to break down and get everything fixed so I can share some artwork again — I’ve really missed participating in the Wednesday Stamper.

For those of you, who like me, are art retreat addicts, you will know that tomorrow, Monday the 5th, is the day the class listings for Art & Soul in Hampton Virginia next May go up here.  Although I haven’t mentioned it before, I’ll be teaching a class called Dyeing To Collage, which will involve dyeing and surface designing cotton and silk fabric for incorporation in fabric collage.  I hope some of you will sign up for the class, or stop by to say "hi" during the retreat.  I’m really looking forward to it!

Dear Ellie:

I’m really sorry about the socks.  Despite my best efforts, my gauge was off.

I’m feel terrible that they are way too big for you.  I used the child-sized pattern and everything seemed like it was going along perfectly.  And I know that this was some of your favorite yarn ever — unfortunately it was a one of a kind skein I dyed without making notes.

The socks were very fun to knit and I feel so bad, my darling daughter, that you won’t be wearing them.  I am, however, going to enjoy wearing them myself.  Gauge can be a bad thing that way.  I hope you will learn from my bad ways and not repeat my mistakes when you are a grown knitter.

Love,

Mommy

Some yarn is so good that it rolls into my house and immediately goes onto the needles without becoming part of the stash.  And, some really really amazing yarn gets knit up immediately, without distraction.

Be Sweet’s Bollywood Magic Ball did me like that.  It came with a veddy, veddy simple tea cozy pattern and it was simply irresistable.

Here it is.

It would be done but for the fact that either my gauge is off or their tea pot is smaller than mine, so I’m awaiting a second ball to add a few inches to the top before I finish it off.  Isn’t it cute?

There must be good knitting karma in my universe this week because I’ve finished knitting my Noni Adventure Bag (pictures forthcoming) and am making lots of progress on Teddy’s Alpaca garter stitch scarf (although it puts me to sleep in the same way that reading a Kafka novel late at night does).

I’m also going to share a new banner I had done for Elliebelly.  The idea was mine, but it really helps to have a good graphic designer to execute it!  I confess to being way too silly to have a serious business, but I love doing things like this.

In case the banner isn’t going through all the screens for you, you can see it directly by clicking here.