Stephen West's Rockefeller

It is finally finished!   Have yet to wash and block the Rockefeller shawl, but so glad to say that it is done, finito, and off the needles. 

Last year shortly after the Stephen West 2012 Mystery KAL, I bought the pattern because, well, who wouldn't want to knit this absolutely stunning shawl.  Knit from the top down and incorporating short rows, color changes, picking up stitches, floats, etc, the Rockefeller kept me so very engrossed.  My version is knit in colors Marine & Chronos using Glammy. 

Unfortunately when finishing the second clue/section, there was a mistake due to operator error. And it wasn't just a simple little mistake. The pattern was off by 20 stitches due to a misplaced stitch marker. Normally I do not use markers, but for some unknown reason opted to use one for this shawl. The naughty little marker was initially placed at the 50 stitch mark with out taking into account the increases. 

Once the realization sunk in, the shawl was relegated to the back burner as I tried my best to imagine a correction that would not end in ripping back to the mistake...... 

Fast forward four months to Stitches South in Atlanta. Imagine a group of knitters in a hotel lobby. One knitter has a drink in one hand and a WIP in the other. Yes, with a little moral support and a bit of liquid courage the shawl was frogged to the original mistake with all live stitches picked up to start anew from before the oopsie-daisy. 

And here it is finished!  And I love it so very much and am so glad I ripped it back to correct my mistake!

It did not take too terribly long to decide what the Elsebeth Lavold Hempathy wanted to be.  There is a longing in the air for stable warm temperatures that do not fluctuate at the drop of a fine cat hair in our neck of the woods.  If you live in Kentucky, you so get what I am trying to say and for those who do not,  in a few short days we have gone from 60 to 19 temperature wise.

So to not beat around the bush, why not shoot for thoughts of Farmer's Markets & long walks on sandy beaches with the sun shining on your back.  And that is why I chose the Ilene bag for my first Hempathy knitting project.

While the pattern is fairly straight forward, I did a wee bit of tweaking.  When knitting the base rectangle, I added several rows so that the edge would be tidier when picking up the side stitches.  What I will do next time is knit a few more rounds after picking up the stitches in blue as I think it might look a little better.  Not saying it isn't cute as it is, I just like to tweak things a little here and there:)

The color was then switched to the two pretty little green chartreuse balls of Hempathy.  As I had never knit an expanding market bag before, I opted to knit a couple of extra rounds in the mesh pattern.    Once happy with the length, the color was changed back to the original blue and a quick switch of the needles for a 1x1 rib which was knit to my desired length after which I followed the pattern to a tee;)

From the photos, it should be quite visible that extra rounds were not necessary, but I opted to err on the side of caution.  To give you a good idea of what I can cram in this bag.... Stuffed with in are: 2 lbs of wool roving, 6 skeins of Noro Kureyon, 1 skein of Noro Silk Garden, 2 huge skeins of handspun yarn (1 pounds worth) and a couple of felted flowers.  Yes, this bag is that huge!!  And the kicker.... I could have crammed in so much more!!!

When switching colors, I knit with the end of the old ball and the beginning of the new ball for a short length of time.  The mesh lace hid this very well.

Next time, I will pay more attention to where the 1x1 rib is placed for the handles.  Would have liked this much better if the join could have been kitchnered.

One ball of blue

Two balls of chartreuse.

And Fred did a great job of over seeing my knitting!

The shop

As it is Valentines day this week, a treat was in order.  We had a great evening filled with laughter and red velvet hightop cupcakes with cream cheese icing centers....... YUM!

There is an awesome array of knitters, crocheters, spinners, and all around fabulous fiber folks who come to the knit night on Monday nights and knit day on Thursday days.  It makes every meeting that much more special!  

One of the more interesting facts about the Sit and Stitch groups currently running is that the majority of knitters who attend are not local.  It really warms the heart to know that something as simple as creating something with a bit of string can bring together so many.

With that said....... I LOVE what I do!  I love how it brings people together.  I love how we sometimes come to find how small our world really is.  I love when we have conversations at knit night about two people living in the same town in another state around the same time, but not meeting one another until they come to the little shop in Nicholasville.  I love how each of us are so different, but still the same!  I love my fiber peeps!  

If you are ever in my neck of the woods, aka Central Kentucky, please stop by the shop, A Tangled Yarn.  We would love to have you on Knit Night or Knit Day!

Fred is of great help assembling afghan squares.

He is also the Mack Daddy of fiber weights and is happy to help keep your fiber from floating away!

The beginning of the second 'Fish Hat

Don't forget to check out our fresh off the carder batts too!

Dead Fish Hat

It's a craze on Ravelry as the hat is sure to bring a smile to the face of young and young at heart alike.  I finally knit the Fish Hat after joining the KAL in the Namaste Farms Ravelry group.  And can you say LOVE!  

It is an easy, fun and quirky knit.  Once over the idea that stripes do not need to necessarily be the ones in the original pattern, knitting was a breeze.  Just wasn't very fish like in my opinion, unless you were in love with Clown Fish or African Cichlids.  I'm more of a Striped Bass or Rainbow Trout kind of girl;)

Enjoyed it so much that we started a KAL on my shop's Ravelry page:  A Tangled Yarn.

Want to know what I did different with my Fish Hat? Well, here you go:

After doing the short row lips…..

K3 from ball A, K3 from ball B Repeat to end of round. Repeat for all rounds.

When it came to the decreases, I either K2tog or SSK depending on which stripe I wanted to decrease on that round. On the knit rounds, I made sure that if I decreased a stripe from 3 stitches to 2 , that I only knit 2 on the knit only rounds when I came to that section of stranded knitting…. and so on and so forth:)

Let me tell you, I would not recommend using all of the same color way for the striped like I did. At one point, the stripes were VERY similar in color during the last couple of decrease rounds and it was pretty hard to keep up with the strands.

The eyes were easy peasey even from someone like me who can crochet, but would never claim to be more than able to follow only the very simplest of crochet directions.  Using worsted weight (#4) black wool yarn, I did a slip ring and crocheted about 9 single crochets into the slip ring and joined using a slip stitch.  On the next round change to  white worsted weight yarn chain 1, do a single crochet in the previous round's single crochet, do 2 single crochet into the next single crochet of the previous round, repeat to end and join with a slip stitch.  Very sorry if these directions are not very easy to follow, I'm a Knitwit not a fabulous hooker:)

GGAF

Have no idea how I totally forgot to post about GGAF last year!  For those who don't know, GGAF is the Great Gulfcoast Arts Festival and it is absolutely AWESOMENESS!  2012 was no exception!  Met new fiber/yarn people, sold some yarns I miss, and managed to pack and load before the rain hit.  That in itself is a great hit in my book.

Have I every told you....  I love my yarns.  Now don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying that my yarns are better than everyone else's yarn.  What I am saying is that a little bit of me goes into every yarn/fiber dyed and spun, so it is like saying goodbye to a little piece of myself every time I sell one.  That definitely is not a bad thing, especially when my fabulous customers show off the lovelies they made.  It makes my heart warm inside.

This is the long stretch on Johnson Beach and is also where we were married.

My booth behind the rainbow adorned 'Wool Girl'.

Finally had a chance to finish spinning some very lovely hand dyed teeswater locks!

Don't you just love this knit hat!  Traded with a friend, yarn for knitting me this lovely hat using my Glammy yarn.  I seriously think I got the better end of the deal.

Very appropriate colors set up in the booth as the festival was in Florida!

Loved the Teeswater spun locks so much that they had to be shown again:)

Met a few Floridian friend for Pho (pronounced foe).  LOVED the fish sauce too!!!

Another Florida friend gifted me eggs, delicious, home-raised EGGS!  The little yolks come from eggs called and I kid you not.... 'Farters', a very technical term for the very first egg a chicken ever lays...hehehe

Had to show off some spindle spun yarn at the Barnes & Noble Knit Night...  PS, it is every Monday night at the Barnes and Noble by the airport in Pensacola.  Fabulous group of knitters and I LOVE THEM DEARLY!!!

A sand dune shot, just because I could.

Did anyone ever tell you they grow cotton in Florida!?! Well they do and in Alabama too!  This field of cotton was near Floamaton.

And why is there a picture of a room here?  Well, as chance would have it, these were my lodgings for the return trip through Georgia.  It was a darling room and I was a terrible guest... I broke part of the coffee table... Sigh, when will I ever learn!

Taught classes in Georgia on Carding and Core Spinning underneath this gorgeous chandelier.  This is one of those lovely places that one wishes they never had to leave.  Oh, I was so depressed leaving Georgia to go home!

Wonder if this sweet little guy missed me.  Probably not for long...lol

Luckily the fall foliage in it's gloriously colorful autumn splendor will cheer even the glummest of outlooks.

Seriously, I drove through this on the interstate.  Gorgeous no?

Digitabulum Fingerless Mittens

It has been quite some time since I posted and thought it would be a good idea to start out the new year with a free pattern!  Hope you enjoy it!!

Digitabulum

A Free pattern by Stephanie Stratton of LunabudKnits

Yarns:
1 skein Silky Flamme by Elsebeth Lavold. 
1 small 20 yard skein of Handspun yarn with approximately 6 wraps per inch or WPI which is the same as the Silky Flamme used.

Needles:
US 10 DPNS

Notions:
Darning needle, scrap yarn and stitch marker to mark beginning of rounds.

*NOTES* If you do not want to use handspun, there should be enough yardage to the Silky Flamme to knit both pair of gloves.

Wrist
Using the Longtail method, cast on 21 stitches using handspun yarn. Rounds 1-11: K2 p1 ribbing for 11 rounds 

Rounds 12-13: Change to commercial yarn and do 2 rounds of k2p1 ribbing. 

Rounds 14-16: Knit all.

Thumb Gusset
Round 1. K1 m1 to last stitch m1 k1. 

Round 2. K all 

Repeat 1 & 2 until there are 31 total stitches. 

K 7 rounds. 

Knit to the last 4 stitches and slip them onto waste yarn. Slip the first 4 of the next round to the waste yarn as well.

Fingerless Fingers 

Re-join in the round. 

Rounds 1-5: Knit all. 

Round 6: K2 p1 to the last 2 stitches and purl 2 together. (21 stitches) Rounds 7-12: Switch to handspun. K2 P1 ribbing on every round. 
Bind Off.

Thumb 

Pick up the 8 stitches held on waste yarn. In the corner pick up two stitches of the previous row and knit them tog. There should be 9 stitches. 

Rounds 1-5: K2,p1 ribbing. 

Bind Off all.

A Free pattern by Stephanie Stratton of LunabudKnits

Copyright 2012 Stephanie Stratton.  May not be sold, but can be freely givenJ

Fingers crossed, Here is the PDF!