Oogyknitter

Yet another pair of self-striping socks off the needles and at the ready: (I'm still no brilliant photographer, but hopefully you get the idea!) My latest chain mail success - very pretty, and not very difficult at all: Last, but not least - bear legs! You'll see the rest of the bear before too much longer.  The pattern is written for flat knitting, and I'm trying to change it up to do most of it in the round (why not, and skip all that unnecessary seaming?).  This is our Thing A Month for September, which I feel has "bearly" started.  Hah!

(Me, rummaging around in the attic.) Mr. Oogy (from downstairs):  What are you doing up there? Me:  Looking for bear eyes. Mr. Oogy: Oh, OK. (seeming to lose interest) Only the husband of a yarn person would remain undisturbed by this sort of conversation.

Dear Neuro, You'll just have to take my word for it, I've been working on lots of things over the past few weeks, and I will (eventually) have something to show for it, just not at the moment... In the meantime, in an attempt to burst through (or at least meander over) the logjam, here is a photo of one of the pairs of self-striping socks: Meanwhile, we're 9 days into September and I barely (haha) have anything started for this month's Thing! Could be worse - at least I've survived my first full week of coursework. I'm sure you could live without seeing a picture of that :) Stay tuned for more pics! Love, Oogy

Dear Neuro, Forgetting for the moment that I've yet to provide an update for our July Thing A Month, I wanted to let you know that I've been embracing our August theme, Take A Craftsy Course.  The course I chose is Shuttle Tatting ; first, because I've got a big bag of supplies, pattern books, and other things related to shuttle and/or needle tatting that have been mocking and intimidating me for years; and second, it was on sale.  (I'm all for supporting our brothers and sisters in crafts - but it seems like we all go away happy when things are on sale!) I'm trying very hard to take my time and work through the various exercises and techniques to ensure I get this right.  Here is the first practice strip of "double stitches" that is worthy of sharing publicly: (I'm practicing in two different colors because there is some funky stuff that goes on with the way the yarn/thread is wrapped - I'm actually holding the green yarn in my right han...

We went out to the cottage this past Friday so we could take care of this: (Fortunately nothing else was damaged, except for the purple martin house (the neighbors swapped in an unused one, much to the surprise of the displaced birds); this wall is 60 feet long so you can get a sense of the size of the tree. I appear giant in the setting sun.) I needed to bring enough yarn to last for 3 days.  My first panic set in when I realized I'd grabbed my current socks-in-progress but managed to leave one size 0 needle behind.  Not wanting to soldier on with only 4, I started a second pair on #1s: Then I finished the knitting of one of those new twirly yarns.  Panic increased. Then I moved on to one of the crochet afghan projects; surely this would occupy me for the rest of the weekend! That is, of course, until I realized that I'd brought too much of the red, and not enough of the black!  Sheer panic. Then, I realized - my loom is here!  I can weave a sca...

Dear Neuro, I've been hiding indoors in the air conditioning for most of the holiday weekend due to the Florida-like weather we've been having in this state that is quite far away from Florida.  As such, I've kept busy with several UFOs. I finally broke out my new sewing machine to cover a white pillow form.  It was almost too nice to cover up. But this is the intended pillow cover - it matches an afghan I finished quite some time ago, they can finally be together at last. A way-less-wrinkled-than-it-looks wool/silk woven scarf from last year needed fringing and finishing: For some reason I had to make this sweater; I wanted it to be just the one light purple but then I kept running out of yarn.  Then it sat for several months awaiting seaming and the construction of the yarn frog: You're right about the Ruana yarn, I'll think about its repurposing some more.  In the meantime, I'm swatching this humongous cone of blue/gray wool to see if it mig...

Dear Neuro, I've known all along that I wanted to reverse engineer this sweater: I love it for so many reasons, and wear it practically all winter long (and a little bit before and after too!).  It's comfy, it's the perfect size, it's warm, it has pockets, and being wool it's not exactly waterproof but it keeps me warm even when it's damp. It is also starting to show some wear, so before it completely dissolves, I wanted to memorialize it in measurements, and attempt to re-create it as well. Neuro, you will remember our Great New England Yarn Adventure years ago, when I was on a quest to find the perfect yarn for Ruana .  I found it at Green Mountain Spinnery  (where they had to toss down extra cones from the loft so I could have enough yardage).  I knitted it furiously (all garter stitch), and have not worn it one single time.  In about 10 years. It's awesome yarn - wool and mohair.  Yes, it's way thicker than the yarn in the original sweate...