Happy holiday season! Whatever you celebrate, if anything, I hope you have a good one. It's getting festive here at the House of M.
It's also recital week this week and, for the first time, both girls are dancing. It's kinda neat that Bu's first recital is Nutcracker because it's a special thing at the dance school. Bu's part is pretty small because the littles have short attention spans and are pretty much there to be cute and experience being on stage, but she's super excited and will just randomly start doing parts of her dance.
Bu and some of the Nutcracker Corps dancers
The littles wear Christmas-y pajamas for their costume, which is easy, inexpensive, and comfortable. I had some wintery fabrics on hand, so I thought I'd do up some pajamas for her instead of buying some. I had just enough of this fabric for some jammie pants and the shirt is one she already had. I'm missing some bias tape to finish the other two sets of jammies in the works, but these are delightful and perfect for her first dance on stage. I give you the first FO of this week: Moose Pants!
The moose are my favorite
The second FO this week is a pair of socks for Miss Iris. These are called Pronaia, which means "forethought." This is the Fork in the Road pattern by Lara Neel in Sock it to Me Fair Isle in the Covered Bridge for the main part and Knit Picks Stroll Solid in Fedora for the heels, toes, and cuff.
I'm also doing a fair amount of stash fluffing, which includes washing and measuring some of the handspun, generally taking stock of what there is, and making sure everything is entered properly with pictures into the Ravelry stash. For a taxonomist, this is a walk in the park compared to obscure Andean butterflies, but I'm using many of the same skills. Sort by shared characteristics (in this case, color), label everything, take more notes than you think you need to. That is how you science.
Finally, as part of the upcoming Project Make reboot: A year long along of alongs, I'm announcing the first few months' alongs.
January is for Mending: Visible mending is more than just fixing your clothes. You're applying functional art to garments that would otherwise be tossed in the trash bin or headed to the thrift store. Mending is fun, decorative, and good for the environment.
February is for Finishing: I'm certainly not the first to suggest this, but as a person with DaVinci Disorder*, I always have unfinished projects to attend to and this is a good chance to take stock and give some attention to what might otherwise be abandoned to the depths of the WIP pile.
Weaving in ends
March is for Embroidery: Embroidery is one of my favorite crafts because it's like painting with thread. It's also one of the oldest crafts known to humankind and hasn't changed much since the dawn of time. If you're into socks, mittens, or other things that come in pairs, March will also be for Making Mates, but I'm going to be focusing on embroidery for the purposes of Project Make.
That's it for now! I'm looking forward to the beginning of the year.
I have or had a cold. I'm not sure where we are with that right now, because some of what I'm feeling is a bit "frazzled mom syndrome" and some of it might actually be some rhinovirus shenanigans happening in my face. I spent much of yesterday trying to both take it easy and wrangle a certain little monkey. It was an exercise in patience.
As you can see, I've been doodling and sketching, though nothing spectacular. I'd love to brush up on my more basic drawing skills, but really what I need is to just draw more. I can, I just need to practice.
I finished the hexagons, though. Here they are blocking. I do still need to get a good FO pic of these, but I do rather like it and I think it'll be nice on our holiday table.
That's about 200 yards of deep stash handspun from approximately 2009 and 2011-ish. I can tell I'm a better spinner now than I was then.
And speaking of spinning, I finished the silk singles. They just need to be plied and washed and they're done, but I kind of want to finish the singles for the merino that's next in the queue, so I can ply it all at once.
I'm strongly considering investing in a bobbin winder.
And here's the merino. It's a gradient that fades from black to blue to orange and it's got some sparkle in there, too. I did a good chunk of the blue while I listened to the Cubs play the Pirates in extra innings last night.
You may be able to see some of it there at the top that was spun a little more tightly. It was a bit of a nailbiter of a game, but they did end up winning. Hooray!
The playoffs are a real possibility this season, so I may randomly say things like "...games behind" and "Wild Card standings" and "GO BLUE GUYS!" Just go "Woo!" when I seem happy and pray to your deity or deities of choice (if any) that I'm not back to normal about baseball until November.
I also finished a wee little bear sweater because Ballet Bear needed something to wear when it's not time for his dance class. I'm already working on bear sweater #2, which is a long sleeved fall sweater with an intarsia butterfly on the back. I figure a teeny bear sweater is a good opportunity to practice technique and I'm already contemplating a steeked fair isle cardi.
This one is about 30 yards of Plymouth Yarn Fantasy Naturale Multi in a pattern of my own devising, which is conveniently spelled out on the project page, should I or anyone else so desire to make another wee aran weight bear sweater. The second one is basically the same, but in worsted weight acrylic with about ten or so more stitches at the cast on. I'll tell you more about the second sweater later.
I tried to get a better picture of Iris, but this is the best I could do this week. She's been doing very well en pointe and I'm super proud of her. Bu, on the other hand, could do well, but she's got some work to do on listening skills first.
Sometimes, the FOs are tasty. This is about eight jars of peach nutmeg jelly that I put up this weekend. It's even husband-approved.
I have a mind to do some apple cinnamon jelly as well, but I want to get some apple pie filling done first so that I can have the peels and cores.
Jelly is kind of magical in that I feel like I'm getting something from practically nothing.
The spinning queue is moving along, too. Most of the time, I try to spin while listening to the Cubs play. At this point, I'm 3/4 of the way through the silk. I've got one more not-for-me spinning project to do, then it's on to spinning my own stash again.
I've also been working on some mending this week. When you have a pair of jeans you like, it's really hard to let them go. I'm liking the different sashiko stitch patterns and I feel like I get a sturdier patch this way, since no fabric is lost by cutting away the old fabric for the new.
With other kinds of mending, the patch tends to pull on the old fabric in such a way that often results in even more holes, so you get caught in an endless spiral of patching or you just give up on the garment altogether. Because sashiko patches are quilted to the old fabric, there's no significant pulling at stress points like corners. The whole patch moves with the rest of the fabric.
Next up is some embroidery for some of the smaller/more difficult holes on the side seam.
I've been wearing my plaid shirt this week, especially in the cooler early hours of the morning and, as Bu has also observed, it is so comfy. This is a sewing win.
And I did manage to get a picture of Iris in her natural habitat. The other pictures are a bit more flaily, but I thought this one was nice (garbage can notwithstanding).
Last week was my birthday and, of course, there had to be cake. Cake season has officially begun at our house. Between late August and early November, there's a pretty good chance there's going to be cake in the house of some kind or another. I spend a lot of time trying new recipes or decorating so that each person gets a really special cake. This year, I made Hershey's especially dark chocolate cake and some jam-based frosting as follows:
Jess's Jam-based Frosting
Ingredients:
1 stick of butter (4 oz), at room temperature
1 brick cream cheese (8oz), at room temperature
1 lb. confectioner's sugar
1/3 cup jam
Combine all ingredients and mix with a hand mixer or stand mixer on medium speed until thoroughly combined. Try not to eat it out of the bowl.
Have a taste anyway.
Frost when cake is cool. Share cake with friends and family.
This year, mom gave me a jar of black raspberry jam that she made out of berries from her garden and it made amazing frosting. The pink is strawberry from my own stash. I think this counts as this week's technique. I'm gonna count it.
I also finished a couple of those dish towels and used up some kitchen cotton stash. This is Lemon, Tan, and Green, which includes the Ballband Dishcloth by Peaches and Cream via Mason Dixon Knitting and a simple towel of my own design. All that is is linen stitch with a moss stitch border, which I didn't have to think about too much.
I've also been working on Leto, which looks about the same as it did last week, but with a little bit more brown on it.
Amazingly, I've even been spinning! I think the back to school blahs are about done. This is a 100% silk top dyed by Rain's Obsessive Stitchery in a beautiful coppery color. I'm spinning woolen, which makes for a smooth, shiny single and I'm very excited to see how it turns out.
It's a shame I don't get to keep this one.
And here's a little something in Crayola crayon based on a pysanka design that I did this week. It's a little wobbly and squeewonked in places, but I wasn't aiming for precision. Crayon is a highly under-appreciated medium, I feel. Just because we've been using them since Kindergarten doesn't mean it's an inferior medium at all. This guy "paints" with plastic bags and his work is amazing.
And here's a picture for mom. Here, Bu is coloring with a little friend at dance school while she waits on Big Sister to finish her class. Bu started her first class this week and loves it so far. I keep trying to get pictures of Iris, but she's about as easy to photograph as Bigfoot. I'll keep trying.
With school and dance starting up again, I don't have the brains for much else.
Well, not all the time. I did finish one end of Leto and picked up the other end. It's not as long as I'd hoped it would be, but I think it'll be alright.
My schedule is kicking my butt, you guys, seriously.
But at least I'm knitting.
Knitting helps.
I've done two ballband dishcloths from Mason Dixon knitting and I'm on a third one that's more towel-like than scrubbie-like in linen stitch with a moss stitch border.
And that's all she wrote this week. Tomorrow is my birthday and I plan to make a cake.
Knitting is not all that exciting this week. I'm plugging away at the BFF cowl and Leto gets some attention while I'm out, but other than that, there's nothing to write home about. The BFF should be done by next week, if I continue at this pace, so that'll be another 400 or so yards toward Stash Amble.
I've made a little bit of progress on the sewing queue, having moved the project bags on a little bit, but I haven't got all the way to cutting out my t-shirt yet. It's harder to find time to sew than anything else because the sewing machine is in the room where the Husband sleeps before going to his job in the afternoon and a certain toddler person likes to hug my elbows and will sometimes refuse a nap.
And Iris got her pointe shoes. This is my favorite picture because there's Iris en pointe like a brand new fawn trying out her legs and there's her teacher holding her arm and the lady from the store holding her foot and leg all together in a way that expresses the idea of "support" both literally and figuratively. The knee brace is for a kind of tendonitis common in young athletes (it's a minor thing she'll probably grow out of) and shows another, more behind-the-scenes kind of support.
Little Bit got new dance shoes, too. She starts in just a couple of weeks, though she's been informally joining other kids' classes and practicing with her big sister for a year already. She knew the dance they did at Disney as well as some of the kids that were in the show because she'd practiced with them almost every time.
In other creative news, I did a short series of drawings with quotes from Captain America, Spiderman, and Thor using Paper by 53. I think I could be a little more precise if I had a stylus or pencil, but it's not bad for what amounts to digital fingerpainting.
I'm also spinning a few minutes before bedtime and even ::gasp:: reading fiction books (aside from comics). It turns out that a romance story appeals to me more when the protagonists are two ladies in the South who also happen to be biologists. One is an entomologist who studied moths. This is not a book I deliberately looked for. I just picked it up at our very tiny library and it happened to have a lady entomologist in it. Coincidence? I think not. I've been writing some, too, and working on theological ideas.
Between all of those things, I'm still studying on Khan Academy for the GRE on Sunday. I was going to sit here and complain about how I didn't finish all my July goals, but really I'm doing quite a lot. I've just not finished anything this week, which is fine. Some weeks are like that.
For August, I'd like to:
Post a new technique here on the blog
Make that t-shirt! Really!
Move the spinning queue
Do the carrot dye test
Start an embroidery project
So far, my Project Make goals seem to be all over the map. I don't really have a schedule or even an understanding of what creative projects I tend to work on when. It's partly seasonal, mostly because quilting in July is just not going to happen, but things like Tour de Fleece and the Outfit-a-long are contributing factors, too. One thing that regular blogging has taught me is that there is an ebb and flow to my creative projects, even though I'm not certain of what its whole shape of it is. Perhaps next year, I'll have a better understanding of it so that I can use that to my advantage.
For of all virtue, I say, and I repeat it, the beginning is understanding and the fulfillment is courage; by the one it is judged what ought to be done and by the other this is carried to success -Demosthenes, Funeral Speech 60.17
Iris gets her pointe shoes this Saturday. This is a big deal for a dancer, like getting your wand before you go to your first year at Hogwarts. The shoes and the dancer's feet have to be just exactly right for each other or disaster follows. She could be injured or worse-- expelled!* At any rate, I'm proud of how hard she's worked to get to the place where she has the opportunity to work even harder. Here are some Australian dancers explaining this a little better than I can:
The best way I know how to express my joy for her is with knitwear, so a pair of rainbow socks seemed like just the thing. The socks pictured above are called Beautiful Feet and it's Lara Neel's Fork in the Road socks, toe up version of my own devising, in Knit Picks Felici: Rainbow and Studio Avenue Six Self Striping sock yarn: 2 light blue, 2 dark blue (discontinued).
I made some headway on the second link to the BFF cowl as well and I seem to be hitting my stride. The first part of the cabling is a little wonky and I'm going to leave it because I'm a little wonky and my BFF knows it.
Leto, on the other hand is stuck in the black hole of being made out of lace weight and longer than is strictly necessary, but I love the drape of a finely knit fabric and, frankly, kind of want to have a big wide chunk of that border pattern. It's a process knit, anyway, and not a product knit. Its lesson is patience and persistence.
The black alpaca got a little bit of attention this week, too, and finally got carded and spun a little. Tour de Fleece wasn't going to happen this year, but I'm glad to move the fiber queue up a little.
In ballet, to be en pointe is representative of skill, persistence, dedication, and strength. Taking point in the military means to be up front (where the danger is). Being on point in other contexts could mean to be at the forefront of an issue or to be someone who exhibits competence and style.
Sometimes I feel like I'm running to stand still, but I've had a good week. I feel on point/en pointe myself, and you can take any of those meanings you like except for the one where I'm literally standing on my toes.
Because that's really Iris' thing.
I only do it to reach things on tall shelves.
Which, frankly, is kind of often.
This is this year's Colors of FallOutfit-a-long all finished. One plaid casual men's shirt from stash flannel and one Trillian by Martina Behm in Silky B Cashmere in a navy sparkle, bringing my Stash Dash total meterage up to 1,462, about halfway to the 3k line. I deviated from the official OAL patterns, but I'm going to get a lot of wear out of both of these, so that's a definite win. I feel competent, in front of things, skillful, and maybe even a little stylish.
Iris is definitely all of those things and more. I'm proud of her. Good job, kiddo.**
*no one is getting expelled. Chill, Hermione. ** I also realize that the only picture of Iris in this post is the one of her feet. She's elusive and difficult to photograph, like Bigfoot, but more graceful and with better eyeshadow. She's certainly less hairy. I'm also very proud of Bu, who is full of so much potential energy and deserves much more than a footnote.
I also finished a wee little bear sweater because Ballet Bear needed something to wear when it's not time for his dance class. I'm already working on bear sweater #2, which is a long sleeved fall sweater with an intarsia butterfly on the back. I figure a teeny bear sweater is a good opportunity to practice technique and I'm already contemplating a steeked fair isle cardi.
