posts tagged: meetups

May 3

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15 FOs, babies, finished!, FOs, friends, kid projects, knitting, meetups, toys

put a bird on it!

May 3 | 4 comments

When we found out that one of our own was pregnant, the members of KBC started discussions of what kind of group gift to give. A quilt, sure, but not everyone sews. So we brainstormed an additional knit idea, and we eventually decided a mobile of knit birds would be cute and kind of funny—the parents, recently relocated to the East Coast after years in Portland, would be no strangers to the concept of putting a bird on it.

Finding a bird pattern led to much snickering when we settled on a free Blue Tit bird pattern from Lion Brand. Be warned: It is a finicky knit, and there was much swearing by all involved. The pattern is clear, it’s just a pain to knit. My bad; I am the one who found the pattern and decided it was the one! Ultimately one of us decided to knit the branches instead of wrestling the yarn into a bird (fine by me–finding random branches and ensuring they were bug-free was kind of stressing me out). Another took on the task of quilting and binding the group quilt (more on that separately), so in the end we had 7 unique birds!

Here’s my bird—knit using a random assortment of Cascade 220 from my stash. When I perched it on the branch I made it more “squished” than its natural state, so it got a little chubby. And maybe cuter than it originally was!

I set to perching them either in flight or on the branches so that they made a balanced mobile and oh boy was that a challenge. I used to make mobiles a lot in high school, so I thought it would be sooo easy. But hello, that was 20+ years ago, my skills were rusty, and most of those mobiles involved PAPER ORIGAMI. Not heavy, various-weighted knit birds! I did learn a fishing lure knot tying technique that I think is pretty sturdy and is good to use with filament thread (though I never really succeeded in making it look as taut and neat as in the video), and I feel really good about the finished mobile. I so badly wanted some birds to sit atop branches, but they were so heavy they’d flip right over; thinking to string the vertical supports through the birds was an inspired bit of genius, I thought!

We finally gave the mobile to the family at Maryland Sheep & Wool yesterday. And cutiepie Hazel, knowing it was her flock of birds, set to claiming it immediately—nomming on one right away!

Mar 8

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15 FOs, finished!, FOs, KBC, knitting, meetups, shawl

aranami shawl

Mar 8 | 9 comments

I’ve always loved this shawl, ever since Olga first released it. But I never had the right yarns in my stash, and I knew I wanted something perfect. It took years before I found it! At VK LIVE this year, Tania and I were browsing booths together and the shawl came up—turns out we’ve both been itching to make it. So we started looking at yarns in the booths with it in mind specifically, and what did we find but Neighborhood Fiber Co’s ombre kits. We debated colors, debated the shades within colors, and ultimately decided to split this batch of teals. I took the yarn home with me because I knew I’d likely tackle it first, but I had no idea how fast I’d complete it!

Since each scallop is a single motif (you pick up stitches for each one), this shawl breaks up into small components and is thus entirely addictive. Eventually I timed how long it took to knit one scallop, and I clocked in at something like 28 minutes. Which means it was so easy to say “oh, just one more.”

I didn’t weave in the ends as I went, because the method I was using didn’t seem to be creating the cleanest results. But every few days I’d weave in ends instead of knitting another scallop, and so in the end I didn’t have too many to deal with. I’ve never been so responsible about ends on a project before! But I was savoring every minute working on this shawl. I loved the yarn, and I was sad to be done with it when I finished.

Mine seems to have come out on the small side, height-wise, but it plenty wide. I’m actually not even sure what size needle the pattern calls for—I basically grabbed what seemed right for the yarn and forged ahead. I think it’s perfect.

I shot the shawl on an absolutely freezing, wind-battered Cape Code shore in February, which is part of why the pictures are so random and not very good. I could barely feel my hands and was trying to move quickly! That is ice, and frozen froth, around the shawl. It was a gorgeous landscape, though, and me, Caro, Pam, and Specs took photos (Pam even did an FO shoot for a sweater! She took off her coat!) before dashing back to the car and the fireplace in our rental house.

Aug 10

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14 FOs, finished!, FOs, friends, KBC, meetups, mini quilts, quilting, quilts, string quilts

X marks the spot!

Aug 10 | 9 comments

Last weekend, my knitting best friends and I got together for another weekend away. This was the tenth time we’ve done it! It’s only the fifth time we’ve swapped something—and this round, a crafter’s choice, I got to make for JulieFrick! Because it was our tenth meetup, I chose to make a big “X” mini quilt, in colors that I thought she would like. Well, I thought she would like them after we created a spreadsheet to note favorite colors, and she specified “I like most all colors when they’re a bit “off” of their standard rainbow-bright versions.” This required some serious stash-digging, because when I stopped to think about it, I like colors specifically when they are bright!

It’s just a basic string quilt, but I did it as a quilt as you go, using wavy quilting lines (I neglected to take a close-up shot). This was the first time I’d made an actual quilt using QAYG, so the backing part was a stumbling block. (Every other QAYG I’ve done was a pillow top.) I decided to do a whole cloth backing and stitch in the ditch along the “X” to hold it all together. We liked its flatness so opted not to wash it. The binding is a slightly darker shade of the stone color I used for the X (both Kona cottons, from fat quarter packs, so I have no idea what the color names are).

I decided the piece needed a really great label to commemorate the occasion. I designed this in Photoshop using various fonts, which I then traced onto some Kona and stitched using embroidery floss. “Celebrate” probably could have used a bit of a different treatment, but it feels pretty festive! It was fun to stitch it up. When I have the time to devote to the label, I am always happy with the results. I should start planning the labels first!

I love that I got to give this to Julie in person. She’s one of the most interesting and passionate people I know—I learn so much about how to be a better person from Julie. She makes amazing jams and other preserves, can knit and crochet anything she wants, and works tirelessly in service for the good of the world. How lucky am I to be her friend! I feel that way about every one of these women, actually: They’re my people. I learn from them, maybe I help them learn some things, and I trust them implicitly. We spend these weekends eating amazing meals, knitting/crocheting/stitching, and sharing deep—and truly shallow—conversations (this time, while bobbing in the pool). We are already planning our 11th weekend away, and I cannot wait.

Feb 16

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KBC, knitting, meetups

knitterly retreat

Feb 16 | 5 comments

This long weekend, my best knitter friends and I met up at a former barn-turned-meditation-center-now-airbnb-rental in rural Connecticut—it is our ninth such get together in six years! We played in the picture-perfect snow a little, but we mostly sat in our claimed spots on the couches, knit, and watched the Olympics. Oh, and we ate our weight in cheese and homemade bread. It was nothing short of perfect, except half of our group couldn’t make it this time.

I knit on my Frankenshawl—I mean, my Follow Your Arrow. I finished Clue 4 but had forgotten to bring another ball of the yarn along. We also shot a quilt I finished and brought with me, but I can’t show you that yet!

Oct 20

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crocheting, knitting, meetups, rhinebeck

rhinebeck 2013!

Oct 20 | 7 comments

Last year we didn’t go to Rhinebeck, so this year we were itching to make the journey. As in the past, we opted to do an up-and-back, cramming all the yarny goodness into one day.