Tag Archives: Brooks Farm

A Third Incarnation

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Friday night began the third incarnation of the Brooks Farm Duet shawl. I had to run the yarn through my ball winder twice to get a manageable ball, but it was well mollified. I discovered looking through my shawl books that the Gracie shawl from Stahman’s Shawls and Scarves is the Elfin lace pattern, so I’m using the swatch chart for my shawl. I didn’t want to make a Farosee shawl, and the swatch chart is just the lace pattern in a triangle. Reading the chart is a lot easier than using the written directions from Barbara Walker’s Treasury. I’ve actually gotten a few repeats done, and of course, I’ve forgotten to take a picture.

But that’s okay, because I cast on for another project on Sunday. I got the needles I needed for Ribby Cardi on Saturday. The yarn convinced me to get started, reminding me how cold my cube has been lately (I don’t care what the facilities guys says he’s done, it’s still cold), and how a nice sweater would help to keep me from turning into an icicle at my desk. It’s going really fast… I’ve gotten about 9 inches done so far (I’m knitting the body as a whole), and I’m going to make the underarm length 15 instead of the 13.5 the pattern calls for cause shorter shirts always ride up when I sit down.

I have broken down and purchased Rowan 34 and 3 balls of Kidsilk Haze in Majasty to make Birch. I would blame people, but Cate has already done a fine job. 🙂 I’m trying to look at this as a good thing… it’s my reward for having lost 23 lbs so far on my diet. While I am quite happy to have gotten my 20 lb star at my Weight Watchers meeting yesterday, I needed something a bit more substantial to celebrate, so of course, I bought yarn.

Lacy Frustration

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Apparently, there was yet another earthquake a couple hours ago… which would explain the faint shaking I felt (I thought it was our neighbors at the time… but they were being awfully quiet, which isn’t normal).

As for the title of this post… I went poking around in my lace books trying to find a lace border that would work with the Brooks Farm Duet yarn. I have picked out the elfin lace pattern from Barbara Walker’s 1st Treasury. I even used the outside end of my ball of yarn (cause I didn’t feel up to winding up the second hank just yet) to try it out and see how it looked. It looked pretty good, so that’s what I’m going to go with. So, what’s the problem, you ask? The problem is that the yarn loves it, too. The yarn is now trying to convince me to rip out three weeks of garter stitch (granted, three weeks of only sort of working on it) in order to use the lace pattern on the whole shawl. It feels like such a pain in the ass to even consider ripping out a triangle of garter stitch that’s about a foot long down the center… but I’m finding a part of myself arguing that, if I don’t use the lace pattern on the whole shawl, I’ll be eternally disappointed. I don’t like the idea of being eternally disappointed with the first shawl I make for myself… this yarn deserves better. This yarn knows it deserves better, which is why I’m probably going to rip out all that garter stitch once I finish posting this entry.

I think I’m going to have to reball the yarn before I get started again… maybe that will remind the yarn who’s in charge…

Just in time for the weekend

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We now return you to the regular knitting content…

The shawl with no name continues… slowly… but then I haven’t been devoting a lot of time to it. I’m beginning to think it is upset at me for not having named it yet. I also think it is beginning to lament the fact that the only lace I had planned for it was a lacy edging… it’s now making mutterings about why can’t it have a smaller garter stitch triangle to make room for some lace before the edging. *sigh* So, I’m going to have to hit the books again and see what jumps out at me. Any suggestions?

At least I’m liking the way the variegation is looking.

The only other thing on needles (and getting any attention) is a pair of socks for the Husband. I wanted to call them the Dope Fiend socks cause I worked on this one while loopy on vicodin. I thought it was a funny name… the Husband was not impressed. So, they shall just remain a pair of socks for the Husband.

Aren’t you terribly impressed by my gusset?

Tomorrow, I am planning a short trip to the LYS to pick up needles for making myself a Ribby Cardi. I decided that the very pretty yarn I had picked out for Mariah was not as dark as I would have liked. And the whole goal of this exercise was to procure for me a darker cardigan to be worn over darker shirts (I currently have a light grey/silver cardigan that looks plain silly over a black tee). So, I bought a copy of the pattern… and promptly used it as an excuse to buy more yarn. *grin* I will be using Knitpicks.com Wool of the Andes in Mist (the body) and Hollyberry (the arms and collar). I am also going to try knitting as much of it in the round as I can… hence, the needed trip to the LYS. I don’t seem to own any size 7 circular needles of any length. Thus, me and a ball of yarn will venture forth tomorrow to verify gauge and make a needle purchase. It’ll be an adventure, right?

Bigger and Better Things to Come

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Many thanks to Deb! I’m going to rip back the few inches of the Beginner’s Triangle Shawl and start on an adventure… my own shawl. 🙂 Not like I’m doing anything fancy. I’m going to look around and see what lace edgings I like and figure out the base number of stitches for the edging of my choice. That will probably affect whether I start with an odd number of stitches or even. Deb told me she just did a garter stitch triangle, then a lace edging. This is the basic construction of the Wool Peddler’s Shawl I just completed, so this should be pretty straightforward. Nifty. 🙂

I’m also thinking of starting a pair of socks for the Husband since he has managed to wear holes right through the bottoms of both socks in the last pair I made him, now they were a little bit over a year old and he wore them a lot whenever it was cold out. I think they ran into the problem of the carpet in our apartment being rougher stuff than the wool they were made out of. I picked up a couple different colors of a washable wool yarn that looks to be sport weight, so it should work nicely.

I’m also hoping to get the drum carder out of the box sometime this weekend. I got it a month ago, and it’s just been sitting in its box the whole time. I had been so busy with school stuff that I had to ignore it to get assignments done. But, the long weekend should afford me some time to play.

Now for some peppermint tea… and some painkillers… for the kink in my neck is giving me a righteous headache.

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday

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Okay, I know I said socks… which is why I cast-on a felted kitty bed Monday night. I had the front and back of a sweater that was the second try at getting some Peace Fleece I bought back when I first started knitting a couple years ago into a sweater, but it just wasn’t happening… the front and back have been laying around for several months, and I had no compulsion to knit arms. So, I ripped the back out and started a felted kitty bed for my sister’s new kitten. I think the socks will come next.

This morning I made my way to the post office to send off a RAOK package, a Secret Pal package, and finally my best friend’s birthday and Christmas gifts (his birthday was at the beginnning of Nov., so I’m a little late). This is my first actual RAOK to go out; it was kind of fun to put together. I found a cute stuffed, floppy sheep on sale (sales are great), some candy, and some yarn from my stash that was languishing… all off to a new home. I hope it helps to cheer up the recipent.

I keep thinking about what kind of shawl I want to make out of my Brooks Farm acquisition… I’d love to do something top down, but I’ve only got 1000 yds; I’d hate to run out before I got to the bottom. I could do a basic triangle from the bottom up but I don’t know what sort of design I’d want to use. All of the patterns I’ve found that I like either use lace weight instead of worsted, or call for more yarn than I have. I will have to think on this more…

My Stitches West adventure

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Oy! The humanity! The Stitches West market was insane when I went on Saturday. People everywhere, most of them not paying attention to what was going on around them and stopping right in the middle of a busy walkway. The worst part was the people with the stupid pull-along suitcases. The place was so packed there was no hope of seeing the floor… or the stupid suitcases being pulled along behind someone… perfect for tripping over. Geez. Amazingly enough I did the circuit in about 2 hours. How did I manage that? I avoid all the stores that are within driving distance of my apt (it’s not like I was going to get a discount buying from them at Stitches), and I avoid places like Webs and the Yarn Barn (both of which have websites). I went around and made notes of the things I liked… I only decided what I was buying for sure after I’d seen everything. (I went to a few conventions before I developed this strategy only to find something near the end I really wanted and have no money for it.) If something seems to be going quickly I might get it when I first see it, but usually my motto at these things tends to be “If it’s not there when I go back, I wasn’t meant to buy it.” The only place with a long line that I contemplated buying something from was Carolina Homespun cause their winter hours suck, I don’t drive up to SF all that often, and I’m not fond of the navigation of their website…. and they had glow-in-the-dark yarn. But, I had a budget.

So, I present “The Haul”:


Doesn’t look like much does it? But that represents all $100 of the budget I set for myself. The nifty item I picked up for my secret pal (not shown, obviously) went on the plastic card so that I could utilize all $100 for myself. *grin* So, what is it you’re looking at? On the left is 2 ounces of cashmere fiber…. mmmmmmm. On the right is 2 skeins of Brooks Farm Duet (55% mohair/45% wool) that is currently destined to be a shawl pour moi. (I think it is highly evil of Brooks Farm to have opened a website… because now I want more… so soft. Unfortunately, a quick perusal of their new website does not have that particular color of 100% mohair I was drooling over but was $5 short of being able to get. *sigh*)