theraineysisters knitting and so much more

Hello, fellow knitting peeps.  Today was the first day of school for DD the Younger.   She has three years left of high school.  She just got her learner’s permit.  Pray for us.  Pray for us all.

I have a small FO to share — another Quincy Hat by Jared Flood.   I made several of these last year and enjoyed making them enough to do another — it’s a great take-along project.  Our knitting group is knitting hats for charity this year, so I am knitting hats. 

Quincy Hat by Jared Flood in Katia Azteca (128 yds of a 197 yd skein), US Size 10 Needles

The hat is started as a long, garter stitch strip with built-in i-cord along each edge.  Last year, I ran into several people who had difficulty trying to set up the grafting for the center back (I told them to go ask Jared…well, I told them and then I showed them 🙂 ).

You need to graft the first and last three sts as stockinette and the middle sts in garter stitch.  In order to do this correctly, you need to reposition all the built-in i-cord sts to look like the right side of stockinette on each side.  One side will look like reverse stockinette.  These sts must be turned — not individually, but all three at once.   

The sts appear on the needle like this:

Place all three purl side sts on a dpn and then turn the dpn counterclockwise until the RS of the stockinette sts are facing forward.  Now place them back 0n the needle in this new order:

I won’t even try to show how to do garter grafting (yes, I’m a chicken  &^%$)!  Just make sure the center sts are set up properly (there are many tutorials out there). 

The results:

There will always be a jog where the change from st st to garter takes place because you are grafting two different directions of knitting together (heads of sts being grafted to heads of sts — if that does not make sense, you are normal!).

I’m still deciding on my next bigger project…a couple of ideas are floating around so we’ll see which one lands!

PS: Rox’s comment made me re-think the above and she is correct that you are grafting in the same direction as the knitting, so there shouldn’t be a jog.  The fact that there is is probably due to the built in i-cord (?), not the transition from stockinette to garter and back again.  That shouldn’t cause a jog in and of itself.  Maybe I’ll try it and experiment.  Or maybe not. 😉

The State Fair Countdown!  I spent today at the Minnesota State Fair with some very special friends.  I’ll elaborate on their “specialness” in more detail later.

I always like to get to the fair on the first day to see if my knitting entries fared well in the judging.  This year was a mixed bag, but I am not here to complain!  I did better on some things than I expected and not as well on others.  This pretty much happens every year.  Other peeps I spoke to felt the same way about their items: “Not quite what I was expecting.”  The ribbon distribution is based on many variables and luck is just one of them!!  I always feel pretty lucky to win anything when I see the other beautiful entries. 

I entered eight things this year and received the ribbons listed in the title: 5th, 4th, 3rd, 2nd, first, first, first , first.  The sweepstakes went to one of my favorite people: Shelley Monitor, MKG president, for her Large Lace Collar Bohus Cardigan:

Shelley Monitor’s Bohus, Sweepstakes (on a night-of-the-living-dead mannequin!)

Shelley is an excellent knitter and very deserving of the sweepstakes award!  Congratulations, Shelley!

I took pictures of my knitted items and very few of them turned out.  The glare on the glass coupled with the hopelessly unattractive mannequins made a good shot almost impossible!  All of my pictures have a yellow caste which I was unable to adjust.  Edited to add: Sivani, bless her heart, fixed several of the pictures for me and removed some of the yellow.  Thanks, Sivani!!

Ode to Joy Vest, 2nd Place

Olympic Reindeer Hat — 3rd Place Ribbon

Lace Beret, 4th Place

Whisper Cardigan, 5th Place (my biggest disappointment!)

Sleeping Baby’s Castle Blanket — this was entered in the Garment Category under Afghan less than 42×42

Yes, this is Sally’s design!   The color is off white but here it looks VERY OFF white and is not displayed to its full advantage.  You cannot tell there is a castle on the blanket, but I was excited to get a blue ribbon for Sally’s wonderful pattern.

Alexandria, First Place

Aeolian Shawl, First place and JRB Associates Award (terrible picture — lots of glare!)

Brage/Dragon Sweater, First Place and Three Kittens Award (OMG, the picture is horrid, plus they covered up the dragon with the ribbon)

I really have to give a shout out to a couple of people: my friend, Kim, entered a gorgeous hat that received a second place ribbon.  If I was the judge, she would have gotten a blue, but I’m not so there you go.

Ellen De Silva won the Thursdays at 4 special award for her blue ribbon gloves!  I am so happy that it is going to a friend of mine — yay and congratulations (no picture, though 🙁 ).

Speaking of friends, my peeps (Janet, Deb and Martha) really are fantastic people.  I have known them since college.  We made plans to go to the fair together.  As you may recall, I hurt my heel about 4 weeks ago.  The “heeling” has been slow and so I have been severely limping for three plus weeks.  That in turn caused my bum right knee to flare up in rebellion, due to my crazy gait.  I really can’t walk very well right now.   I went to the fair knowing that I would not be able to stay long and certainly would not be able to partake in all of the fair festivities. 

We arrived early (about 6:30 am) and by 10:30, I was done.  I’m out.  Time to leave.  My dear friends said, “Au contraire, Limpy.  We are going to get you a wheelchair.”  And they did.  They pushed me around the fairgrounds until 5:00 pm.  Then they pushed me all the way to my car.  No complaining at all — they just acted like they were having the time of their lives, this is no big deal, we will always remember this and laugh…you name it!   They are true friends in every sense of the word.  I love you guys!!

One of the great things about going to the fair with four people is that you can share food — we got to eat everything and get just the right amount.  Yum, yum, yum!

One more thing: Sally has been busy getting her son settled into college and so she has not been doing much blogging of late.  She’ll be back this weekend and has a beautiful FO to share.  She is now an empty nester. 

Have you ever googled your name?  Some other Susan Rainey goes by the stage (?) name Sparkles the Clown for kids’ parties — IT IS NOT ME!!  But there are some sparkles in my knitting life!

I usually opt for very traditional yarn and colors.  I have tried to branch out from time to time, but I seldom stray.  When I went to The Yarn Garage last Wednesday, I saw some gorgeous yarn.  They had variations of it kitted up with a sequined yarn for a simple shawlette (price: a mere $89).  I am all about the shawlette lately and I love the yarn, so here I be.  The proud owner of sparkly yarn!

The kits come is a very cute and functional bag.

I want to start this NOW, but I have a couple of things to wrap up.

This looks like something my alter ego, Sparkles the Clown, might be interested in! 😉

PS: A couple of you have asked about the pattern I will use.  The kit came with a pattern, and I am using the pattern they provided because it looked great and is made for this yarn.  It is the Zephyr Shawl by Lauren Scarpo.  The Rav pics do NOT do it justice!!!  It apparently was in the June 2010 issue of Knit ‘n Style.

Yesterday I had to drive to the far side of the moon for me for a work related event — way on the south side of the Twin Cities.  SO, I thought I should stop by Steven B.’s Yarn Garage, since I rarely get down that direction.   First off, I was no where near Yarn Garage!  I was southwest and YG is southeast!   Oh well.  My lack of knowledge got me there because I may have changed my mind otherwise.  I live northwest, so the drive home was 1.5 hours 🙁 .

They are so nice at YG.  And an announcement: they now sell Madeline Tosh yarns!  I’m not sure that it’s available in too many places in town.  They opened the box just for me and it was swoon worthy! 

I did buy a LITTLE something, but no time for a picture now.

I am sure that most of you are familiar with Rosemary Hill, aka Romi Hill. 

She is the talented designer of beautiful lace, such as the Ice Queen Cowl, Brandywine Shawl, Maia Shawlette, and many other incredible designs.  She is well known for her stunning shawl pins and knitting-inspired jewelry.   She is the author of Elements of Style (fabulous knitted jewelry).  Her designs and  jewelry have been featured in Vogue Knitting, Interweave Knits and more.

Romi is also my friend.  I met her through blogging and then in person at Yarnover.  She is a sweet, lovely, generous person; talented beyond description and truly creative and original.

Romi lives in the breathtaking wine country of California with a husband and two growing boys.  Both Romi and her husband work from home and also home school their kids, so “close knit” really applies to their household.  Romi agreed to be subjected to an informal phone interview with me as I attempted to find out what makes her tick as a designer.

S: Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed for our blog!  Sally and I both admire your work tremendously.

R: My pleasure!

S: When did you really start to feel like your design career was taking off?  Was there a moment when you thought, “I have arrived?”

R: Have I arrived?  I live in my myopic little world and am unaware of what’s going on out there [in the knitting world].  There are a lot of people who don’t know who I am, but then someone will come up to me and recognize me!  I think things started to take off at the end of 2009.   I was asked to design for a few magazines and then Brandywine came out.  I don’t know if it was the combination of it being a quick, one-skein shawl and the charitable aspect of it [Help for Haiti], but things seemed to take off then.

S: I always thought of Ice Queen as a turning point [Ice Queen appeared in Knitty in Winter 2007 and there are over 1400 projects in Ravelry]. 

S: And seeing  your shawl pins discussed in Vogue!  How much time do you spend a day on your jewelry and designing?

R: I spend probably more time per day than people with regular jobs — at least 8-10 hours a day, and also one or both weekend days.  I kind of pick away at it all the time.

S: I associate your work with lace.  Is that your focal area?

R: I love lace, I really do.  I love the negative space.  Before I started designing shawls I did a lot of texture and sweaters.  I would love to combine cables and lace into something.

S: Sally and I are both making Leyfi (pronounced Lie-Fee, shown above).  What inspired that particular design?

R: It started when I saw a lace cowl and thought, “That type of thing would look great as the neck of a sweater.”  Then the concept of a doily and a round yoke took shape.  I wanted to make an Icelandic-type sweater with lace.  Eunny [Yang, Interweave Knits editor] thought something softer would be better and suggested Tinka [Merino Roving by Tahki] mixed with cobweb weight cashmere and silk [Superior by Filatura Di Crosa] would be softer next to the skin.

S: Ya think?  It is very pricey yarn!

R: True!  But I needed something chunky to achieve the look I wanted. 

S: How do you come up with appropriate sizes?

R: I use standard guidelines and reference books.  Plus, I check the fit along the way.

S: My Leyfi appears to be fitting perfectly, so something is working! 

S: Sally and I are also making your Maia Shawlette (above).  It, too, is an extremely clever design!  We love the variation you came up with on the garter tab cast on [incorporating a large leaf].  I also love the fact that the border works with any number of repeats.

R: I have started doing that with all my shawls.  People have different amounts of yardage and want different sized shawls.  This way they can make it the size they want.

S: I love your shawlettes: they make use of one skein of sock yarn.

R: I like that, too.  I love sock yarn but do not like to knit socks.  This way I can use the sock yarn I have accumulated!

S: I’m with you there!  I love sock yarn and don’t like knitting socks either!  What inspires you?

R: Taking walks [in the wine country] inspires me.  It is beautiful!

S: What’s next for you?

R: I have three secret projects going, the 2011 Pins & Lace Club is coming up, and I am continuing to work on my Seven Shawls to Knit E-Book.

S: I’m going to have to knit faster to keep up!

R: I’ll try to design faster to give you something to knit!

I want to thank Romi for taking the time to talk to me today.  My next Romi project will be the stunningly beautiful Fiori di Sole:

Stop, Romi!  I’m way behind already!