Tag Archives: lace

cashmere and lace

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lace

and cashmere

in the same sentence have been,

up until this point, a combo that causes me to back quickly away

in a frantic search for oversized circular needles and weightier yarns.

that was before i met june cashmere’s lace weight.

if you remember, i adored their dk cashmere

and i continue to be excited about their business model

which involves teaching kyrgyz shepherds living on small family farms

how to how to properly collect and sort their fiber by quality grades.

warms my heart that june cashmere is

supporting the families who raise the animals

whose fibers make their lovely yarns!

when my skein of scarlet june cashmere lace weight arrived

my curiosity quickly overcame my trepidation about lace weight yarns.

look, the color is gorgeous, no?

i could see immediately

that they’ve got the twist just right

as it easily keeps the yarn from being sticky or frail

(which is the downfall i’ve experienced with other lace weight yarns).

i cast on

almost immediately

to start a pair of elegant ‘the woman’ gloves

(from ‘sherlock knits‘ by joanna johnson).

their lace stitch is easy to remember, so i can sit back and really enjoy the knitting

and the feel of the sweet cashmere softness

between my fingertips knowing it was

grown on the backs of well cared for goats

in the vast mountains of kyrgyzstan.

‘shepherds’ taken from 46:32 of genesis.

note: now for just a little of the nitty-gritty.

i was given this skein of june cashmere lace to review,

but, you know me, a free skein of yarn (even if it’s cashmere)

isn’t ever going to make me say i like what i don’t.

i’m much too stubborn and pig-headed for things like that.

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connecting

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i continue to be surprised

in this day and age that holds such a plethora of ways

to connect.

by all the different ways getting to know people

happens.

i ‘met’ margaret

of little gidding farm suris via instagram.

she was posting pics of such vibrant yarn!

i commented and we started a little conversation…

that pretty quickly led to

gorgeous yarn in the mail headed my way.

this stuff is so soft and yet manages to have excellent stitch definition.

i started knitting with it and hardly put it down

until two new hat patterns were born.

szlak & szlakow, in ‘suri delight’

szlak and szlakow collagespeaking of ‘born’,

check out ‘lgfsuris’ on instagram to see the farm

and to ooh & aah over the adorable little baby suris.

i’m talking about seriously adorable here.

‘talking’ taken from 29:9 of genesis.

photo of ‘szlakow’ by blueeyedcrafty photography.

leslie of blueeyedcrafty photography wears ‘szlak’ above. 

a heathered hunt

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fill in the blanks.

‘i really like ________’

‘i find lace knitting ________’

and ‘i approach knitting lace with a great amount of ________’.

my answers would be ‘buttons‘, ‘daunting‘, and ‘trepidation akin to fear‘,

but it’s a good guess

that heather zoppetti would be likely to say

‘lace‘, ‘exciting‘, and ‘enthusiasm‘.

Everyday_Lace_-_Strasburg_Arm_Warmers_beauty_shot_medium2i agreed to

review her new book,

‘everyday lace‘

with high hopes

that i might

learn something

and i did,

while also

unexpectedly gaining

a growing interest

in exploring

the fascinating realm of lace myself.

heather lays things out so clearly

that i found myself wondering ‘what am i so afraid of?’.

i mean why am i willing to rip out 12 rows to fix a cable,

but terrified of having to pull out 3 rows to a lifeline

for correcting a lace mistake?

i fear that my own misplaced paranoia is to blame.

picking a lace pattern isEveryday_Lace_-_Christiana_Headband_beauty_shot_medium2

my next step.

heather offers up

so many great options.

the strasburg

arm warmers are

just beautiful,

and i have

the perfect button for

the cristiana headband.

ah, back to buttons.

i love them.  i have my grandmother’s old button tin

and can dig through it endlessly

which always makes me smile as i remember

these buttons which she eagerly sewed onto knit sweaters and handmade blouses.

some of the ‘everyday lace’ patterns require buttons.

official scavenger hunt question:

just how many of heather’s patterns in ‘everyday lace’ call for buttons?

huntImageand along those lines:

which pattern of mine has the most buttons?

(hint: it has more than 20…)

have you not yet heard about heather’s clever scavenger hunt

(which could win you yarny prizes)?

check out all the scheduled stops here.

the first questions were posted yesterday on amanda’s blog.

the third set will go up on stephannie’s blog on the 27th.

have fun hunting!

i’m off to find fabulous fingering weight yarn

to match this perfect button…

photos by joe hancock.

courtesy of h. zoppetti & interweave.

‘eager(ly)’ taken from 31:13 of the proverbs.

good, bad and just because

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short hair is

so great, except when it’s not.

those of you with short hair know exactly what i mean.

for those of you who don’t,

i’ll give a quick review on ‘bedhead’.

the more short strands of hair on any given head,

the more likely that in the simple act of sleeping

these strands will meet the pillow in an off-kilter way

producing what my kids lovingly call

‘mama’s morning hair’.

when i had longer hair, the sheer weight of the length of it

would pull sleep related quirkiness straight after a short time awake and vertical.

with short hair, this is not the case.

some times (emphasis on ‘some’), a little water and

a brush will smooth things out,

but my hair is nothing if not stubborn

so more often throwing on a great knit hat

is the best way to go.

but, in the warmer weather, a hat is too much.

irregardless, bad hair days persist through the summer months.'asheville' (1) courtesy of feel good yarn company‘asheville‘ is my cure

for turning every warm and sunny day

into a good hair day

or for adding that added extra touch of pizazz

for any old day that the mood strikes me.

the lycra in the silverspun pulls the stitches in just enough

to keep your bad hair secret safe

and the cotton is dreamy soft.

for those of you who have enviably good hair days consistently:

first, don’t tell me who you are

because it will make it hard for me to continue to like you.

second, the ‘asheville’ pattern includes a longer version

that can be worn as a breezy scarf.

because, although i am

a bit jealous,

people with good hair should have nice knit things, too.

‘envy’ taken from 14:30 of proverbs.

photo courtesy of feel good yarn company.  photographer: caro sheridan

cey & i: nothing is safe

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i was only gone for a minute.

just long enough to blow my nose and

wash the sick germs off of my hands.  then i was back

to find my youngest’s train set ambulance

being driven by a cocky looking blond brio man.

he seemed to have been

considering a little off roading while eyeing the ‘field of lace’

that is currently pinned to the blocking board.

IMG_3468urbanit appears that after revving the engine and hitting the gas,

he got his tire hung up at the last moment

on a t-pin

(whew, that was close)

before he was able to leave even one

skid mark across all that work done up in the silky ‘magnolia’

which is so close to being the first finished piece

of ‘artistic differences’ at this point.

how thankful am i

for such a well placed

blocking pin?  so thankful!

‘first’ taken from 18:17 in proverbs.

cey & i: ‘bossy’ is misunderstood

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“i’m the boss of my knitting”.

i am, although today the knitting doesn’t seem to know it.

working on the math for the first sweater in the collection.

using a lace stitch pattern

that repeats every 4″.

this is a designing challenge,

because if it’s not adjusted in some way

the only chest circumferences available would be

28 (36, 44, 52, 60) inches around.

not gonna work for way too many shapes and sizes of knittahs.

hence,IMG_2588urban

today

finds me

currently

hunkered

down

at this

little desk

in my little

workroom,

a #2 pencil

 and

a back-up

at my side

(oh, how it annoys me to have to stop mid-way thru a math equation to sharpen a tip).

IMG_2567colorwarpi’m hacking away at

my brainstormed

list of

possible solutions.

and one of them

is going to

work.

my new pin from

lys ‘in the loop’ is here on the desktop reminding me

that “i’m the boss of my knitting”.

take that you wiley lace stitches!

‘sharpen’ taken from 27:17 of proverbs.

(this is part of an ongoing series of posts

chronicling my collaboration with classic elite yarns on an

indie collection.  all posts tagged with ‘artistic differences‘ and titled ‘cey & i‘.)

double take

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this is

my 6 yr old’s take

on my latest design.

he tells me

the person he drew

is singing (as in caroling),

not screaming as it appears.

i think perhaps is is me

wearing the look of shock

that covered my face

when i found that

spud and chloe had

renamed this scarf after me.

such a total surprise!

their pretty model

looks much happier

to be wearing the real thing.

happy and warm

for it is cold out there,

but really,

nobody said

grabbing a new year

by the horns

was for the faint of heart.

so look out 2012,

we’re here!

‘warm’ taken from 44:16 in isaiah.