Puppies!

It has been some time since I posted anything or even knitted something.  The reason is that we have had a litter of puppies!  Our little girl, Trudy, had a litter of six puppies three weeks ago.  Here is a picture of them on day two.

This picture is of the batch o'puppies at about one and a half weeks.

 This is my favourite picture so far.  These are the only boys.  They are so insanely cute!

On the knitting front I have been working on a baby blanket for a teacher friend.  It's about half way finished....Yeah!

I also had some professional pictures taken on my Tuscan Sunflower Shawl.  The photographer and the model are former students of mine.  One of the benefits of teaching at an arts school is all the talent you can find for really good prices.

Many Irons in the Fire

Well, the school year is winding down.  I have only a month and a half left.  I am so ready for a break.  The greatest reason is that I'm really tired.  This happens to all teachers at this time of year.  It also happens to the students.  Usually, my first two weeks of summer break are spent on my couch sleeping.  It always amazes me how much time it takes to start to relax.

The other big reason for the break is that I have a lot of fiber related projects going on.  I have two big ones that seem to be occupying most of my time and about six small ones that I pick up when I need a break from the other two.

Big project number one:  I am working on another round shawl pattern.  This one is coming together a bit easier than Tuscan Sunflower but it is still quite a bit of work.  I'm hoping to have it finished by the end of the month.

Big project number two:  I have started a yarn business.  This past week I filed all the paper work for WildHorse Fiberworks.  Currently, it is an internet store selling hand painted sock yarn.  I'm hoping that it will grown into an actual yarn store over the coming years.  I have this dream of owning my own yarn store in retirement.  Hopefully, I have just planted the seeds for this to happen.

Anyway here are a few pics of my latest dying experiments.

I'm pretty happy with the way that these guys turned out.  I can tell that dying yarn is going to have about the same learning curve as knitting; it's going to take a lot of practice.

My smaller projects include two sweaters and two baby blankets.  One of the babies was born about a week ago.  Luckily, the mother already has a sweater that I knit for her first son.  Jen was really sweet when I told her that she probably wouldn't get it until summer.

The next blanket is for a new mom; so, I'd like to get it done fairly quickly.  However, I'm not too sure about that one.  My plan is to do a fair isle blanket very similar to this one.  Baby is due in five weeks.  Hmmmm....what do you think?

Anyway, I'm pretty happy with all that's happening in my fiber world.

Three Months of Work and Here it Is....

Tuscan 
Sunflower
 I have been beating my head against the wall on this one for about three months. The biggest challenge was getting the center motif to resemble spiraling sunflower seeds. The easiest way to have done this would have been to start with a star pattern in the middle. I didn't want that though. I wanted spirals from the beginning.


Months down the road and many, many iterations later, I finally came up with what I wanted. I don't know how many times I started this guy and then ripped it out. I'm pretty sick of it now.
I started working it out using white sport weight yarn. Then when I was happy the center, I switched to fingering weight. Then, when I was satisfied how that knitted up, I went and got the good stuff.
The center is definitely not for the novice knitter. There are several double yarn overs as well as interesting things that happen on the plain rounds.
The petals didn't cause me much trouble. When I got to the final version, I didn't even have to rip them out once.

Now that it is finished, I should really get busy on that sweater that I promised my partner. However, I already have an idea for another circular shawl.

I wrote up the pattern complete with charts and everything.  My partner says that I should sell it.  I'm still thinking about that one.  It's seems like such a big step to go from knitting to putting your stuff out there for others.
I'm sure that I'm just being silly.  I guess the only way to get over it is to just jump in and do it.  Hmmm....I'll think about it for another day or two.

Confessions of an Addicted Knitter

It's official; I am addicted to knitting.  At the beginning of this school year, I began bringing my knitting to work.  While the kids are doing their seat work, I walk around the class knitting and helping them out.  Next, I started knitting during meetings.   No big deal there as I can knit and follow the conversations easily.  My problems really started when I began knitting during my plan time, "Oh, I can get to that grading later on.  I'll just knit a few more rows."  I just can't seem to get enough knitting in during my day (or spinning).  It is now at the point where I have to leave my knitting at home so that I can do my job.  What's worse, is that I resent the fact that I have to work and can't pursue my fiber fun.  Maybe I should seek therapy.  

As for my knitting adventures, I'm still stuck in this doily thing.  Actually, I'm thinking about taking my doily concepts and turning them into round shawls.  I'm seriously wanting to do the whole design thing.  I do a ton of knitting and ripping, playing with different stitches and the ripping again.  I'm loving it.

All this practice is actually starting to pay off.  I'm really beginning to understand how to change from stocking stitch to lace.  Making the transition between the two, and having it look good, has been a challenge.

Here is my latest.  It will eventually become a shawl. 

This is just the center motif; however, I am very happy with the transition from stocking stitch to lace.  Adding the next motif is going to be interesting.  I know what I want to do but having the translate to a nicely knitted piece is a different story. 

Hopefully, in a week or two, I'll be able to show the finished product.

Doilies and More!

I'm still stuck on this doily craze.  I am really enjoying playing with the pattern.  Just a few changes in the pattern results in a totally different design.  Here is a modification of of my first design.  To change the center motif, all I did was change the number of pattern repeats and the direction of the decreases. 

I am fairly pleased with how it turned out.  However, there are a few design pieces that I added in that will be removed on the next go round.  These guys here:

I have also been busy spinning this weekend.  My two ply yarns have never impressed me; so, I decided to try my hand at three ply.  OMG!  What a difference three plies makes. 

I can hardly wait to make something with this yarn.  I have about 550 yards at this point.  To really do anything I'll need about 2000 yards.  After I get enough, I'm going to use dye it various shades of purple.  Maybe that will be my task for this next weekend.

Doily Craze III

Well, I have definitely gotten the bug about doilies.  I have spent the past few weeks starting doilies and working about the first 30+ rounds of different patterns to see how they are constructed.  There are lots of little wadded up doily centers about the house.  It resembles the home for coasters in rehab.
Anyway, I decided to jump in and make my own.  Yes, that's correct, design my own doily.  I started of simple with a spiral pattern.  Nothing else but YO, K, YO, K2 K2tog, then YO, K, YO, K3 K2tog, building upon itself.  Well, by row 19 I was really bored.  So, I reversed the direction and added a SSK at the beginning of my motif.  That worked out well but since things were now shrinking in my motif I had to add something in to fill the gap and help the doily grow.
Well, here it is.  I don't know what row I stopped on.  I think somewhere in the 30s.

Since I'm just playing around, I used some left over Baby Ull that I had laying around.
I'm not sure what pattern to add next.  My brain is more focused on how to change the star and make it do different things.  I may just stop here and keep this as an idea and go back and play with the center.  I'm thinking that I would like to see things more curvy and swirly.  I don't know if it can be done but I'm going to give it a go.
All and all, I'm very happy with my first ever knitting design.  Now i just need to transfer the chart from paper to electronic.  I think that will be my project for this weekend.

Doily Craze Continues!

Well, the Hunnicutt Doily design team is hitting several road blocks.  What I thought would be an easy process is turning out to be much more difficult.

Coming up with a pretty design was the easy part.  Translating that to stitches is more difficult.  The problem lies in what look I'm trying to achieve.   For example, I really like the look of a leaf shape outlined in yarn-overs and then that bordered by a single twisted knit stitch.  Well, I'm finding that you can't put in another yarn-over motif next to it.  Or if you can, I haven't figure out a way to make it look good.

Anyway, I have taken to knitting several small sections from various doilies to become familiar with their construction.  I'm hoping that this will help me figure out the best motifs for different geometric designs.

Pictures to come!