KnitWerk

Blood sugar rush

Sara — Tue, 01 Nov 2005 01:06:19 +0000

Husband and brother have October birthdays. We hosted the big joint celebration last weekend with a house full of overnight guests. While both have a fondness for sweets, their tastes are distinctly different, so we had two separate birthday cakes. Husband prefers lemon-y, coconut-y desserts—a bit mystifying for my family of chocoholics, but they love him, and choose to overlook this eccentricity.

With house guests returned home, and no hope for late trick-or-treaters, we’ve got a house full of sweets:

2 bags of leftover Halloween candy. There was a big drop off in kiddie numbers this year.
3/4 of Chocolate Potato Cake (great, great grandmother’s cherished family recipe—it may sound gross to the uninitiated, but it is fabulous)
One entire homemade coconut cream pie. We’ve already eaten the other one.

Someone, please, take the sugar away.

Feet of happy mom

I really have knit three pairs of socks this month—honest! Here’s the most recently finished, shown first, since they were the first gifted.

It was an experiment; one of Mom’s feet swells, so I wasn’t sure that I could make a sock that fit well. Super-stretchy sock yarn plus a pretty lace pattern equaled success.

Halloween accessory, or true identity revealed?

Younger, dreadlocked stepdaughter made it down from the redwoods for the weekend. Her Halloween costume has clarified something that I think we already knew. She picked up some ears for her costume yesterday, and hasn’t taken them off since… there’s something about them that’s just right somehow.

Normal California hippy, or actual woodland elf?

Short rows for socks: links and tutorials

Sara — Fri, 28 Oct 2005 11:33:37 +0000

While Husband is "very happy with his new socks,":http://www.knitwerk.com/archives/2005/09/10/happy-husband-points/ he complains that they're "Socks With Rules." The knitters I know will understand this, since the new socks are alpaca. For him, "hand wash only" is a rare and foreign concept. The first pair that I started for Husband (in hardy Lana Grossa sock yarn) was my [...]

Dad, don’t read the following entry

Sara — Tue, 18 Oct 2005 19:59:47 +0000

Seriously, Dad, I'm going to talk in this brief entry about something I found to make for you that's just about perfect, so don't read on. ... ... (Does it ever work, by the way, to make this request? If *I* were asked specifically not to read something, I think I'd get all itchy, worry about [...]

Busy, busy

Sara — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 19:05:02 +0000

Well, it's been a while! I've been out a *lot* in the last month. Despite all, life has been pretty balanced, with tons accomplished on the knitting and BackTack front. The two things that have suffered most have been the knit blog, and my nutrition. I choose to turn my attention back to these items. [...]

Beaded knitting in my future

Sara — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 19:37:38 +0000

Got back from vacation to a lovely surprise from a "grumpy friend:":http://www.grumperina.com/knitblog/ Pretty beads for knitting: And some really beautiful beads for jewelry or stitch markers. The pink quartz ones will need to be made into earrings immediately... there are some gorgeous carnelian beads, as well as glass and stone beads in other blue and pink shades. [...]

Happy husband points

Sara — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 16:48:34 +0000

Confession: I originally started a different pair for my Sockapal2za exchange using the Alpaca gifted me by last winter's awesome secret pal, "Chrissie.":http://thesmallestoceans.blogs.com/ I loved the Cable Rib Socks from Spring '05 Interweave Knits, and was able to squeeze gauge out of the alpaca - it was awfully dense, but it worked. For some leg/ankle [...]

Sockapal2za finished

Sara — Sat, 10 Sep 2005 16:07:51 +0000

We took a nice, long car trip up the coast over the extended holiday, so I had lots of knitting time. I finished two pairs of socks: the new "Sockapal2za":http://alison.knitsmiths.us/sockapal2za.html socks, as well as a pair for my husband. First, for my pal, Errant Ankles by Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer of Heartstrings, in a pretty, denim-colored Koigu [...]

Bag from felted sweater: the prototype

Sara — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:55:32 +0000

This is the first in my series of knitting bags from felted sweaters (the "ALP bag from previous post":http://www.knitwerk.com/archives/2005/08/11/backtack-complete/ was the second bag). Designed for a redheaded friend with feminine tastes, it's from a rosy brown women's sweater, felted to make a small-to-medium-sized bag. I needlefelted a rose on each side patterned loosely after the [...]

Backtack complete

Sara — Thu, 11 Aug 2005 17:38:16 +0000

This was a fun and challenging project. You've probably heard about "Backtack,":http://backtack.blogspot.com/ a exchange for crafty types. You send fabric to someone anonymously, who then makes things to hold notions for another anonymous blogger using the fabric they received. Since you're basing your project on fabric that someone else sent you, there's a huge loss [...]

Celebrity sighting

Sara — Wed, 10 Aug 2005 20:47:23 +0000

What a fun evening — last Tuesday I enjoyed a lovely room full of yarn, knitters, and the "Yarn Harlot":http://yarnharlot.ca/blog/ : The Draw If you get a chance to see her, go. You won't regret it. Stephanie is everything charming and funny, just as you would expect. Still chuckling about "bacon powder." [...]