Monday, October 19, 2015

Hooray! I remembered to post!

Aren't you proud of me?  I'm actually posting!  And it's been two weeks as scheduled!

Anyway, I haven't worked on Isobel Stuart again, but I did pick this little lady up for a bit -- the Small Girl 1863 from the Essamplaire.


(Sorry for the poor picture.)  I know a lot of you are sad that I seem to not be into stitching as much anymore.  Somehow that seems to be what happens with me.  I go through cycles.  From stitching to quilting, (with some knitting and weaving thrown in), to stitching, to quilting a bit, to knitting to -- you get the picture.  I'm afraid I'm in a knitting cycle right now, although I hope not to abandon quilting and stitching altogether.

This is the long way of saying that I've been working on knitting a lot the last couple of weeks.  I went to Gauge and Tension in Brooklyn on October 10 for a class taught by Sarah Solomon for the Rowe Sweater by Michele Wang (a Brooklyn Tweed design).  I love this sweater so so much and am so happy there was a class.  Otherwise I would never have gotten up the nerve to knit it!  You saw my gauge swatch or the start of one last time.  Here is a picture of my swatches along with what I believe are the swatches for the original sweater.  So pretty!


Here's a shot of the shop -- such a lovely selection of yarns and wool!


The father type met me after class, and we went off to meet the girl child for dinner.  We went to a yummy ramen place.



(Please note:  DD uses chopsticks.  I do not.  I'm allergic to them.  Hee hee!)

And here is my progress on the Rowe so far.  I've started with the left sleeve.


I started the cap sleeve shaping this afternoon.  So exciting!

The other exciting thing that happened was -- I got to go to Rhinebeck!  What's Rhinebeck, you say?  It's the NY Sheep and Wool Festival -- a huge deal in the knitting world!  40,000 plus people attend, or so I read somewhere.  Can you imagine?  I actually can after being there on Saturday.  lol!  So many people!  It was such fun!  I went with two of my good friends and we had a ball.  I had famous knitters syndrome while I was there -- saw all these knitting celebrities and was gaga about it too.  lol!  Loved sweater watching too -- so many gorgeous sweaters out and about there!  And I bumped into a couple of Instagram friends as well!  So amazing!  I hope they don't mind my posting their pics here.  Here is Tanya Marie, the Sampler Girl.  She does a knitting podcast that is so much fun!  She is @bzmama on Instagram.


And here is Tanya's mother, @lucysyarnpocket!  She has made a few guest appearances on Tanya's podcast and they are so much fun together!  Behind us is @nancydaniels92.  She is a fellow knitter and cross stitcher.  I met her years ago when we sat at the same table at a stitching retreat.


Loved meeting these ladies (and seeing Nancy again) in person!

Here are some other pictures of our day at Rhinebeck.  What a great day it was -- great sweater weather for those Rhinebeck sweaters!

The line to get in.  We were at the end of the line.  The gates opened at precisely 9am and the line went pretty quickly.








The colors are off in this picture - the main color was a lovely green.  I want to knit this swater!  I wonder if there's a pattern for it....

Here is my stash from the day.  I'd say I was pretty restrained!

(The sweatshirt bled in the wash.  I now have pink sheep!  lol!)

Mia was not happy about my absences from home.  She also did not like the cold that hit over the weekend.  I think she has declared it too cold.




Thanks for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great week!

Monday, October 5, 2015

Better late than never....

Ok, maybe this posting every other week thing doesn't work too well.  Not only do I not stick to the schedule, but I lose track of what I've posted about and what I haven't.  Sigh.  Oh well.

I do have some stitching to show.  I've started Isobel Stuart by the Essamplaire.  She's a pretty one!  This is the bottom left corner of the piece.


It is a kit so I'm using the provided linen and threads.  I've finished the green of the border (which meets -- yay!) and at least some of the border flowers.

I also finished the 4th row of my mitered square blanket.


It's such a fun thing to knit!

I've started swatching for a sweater, the Rowe by Michele Wang.  I have always been intimidated by intricate cable sweaters, but have always wanted to knit one.  And lucky for me, there is a class for the sweater down at Michele's shop, Gauge and Tension.  So I am swatching in preparation for the class.  I'm using the color Flannel in the called for Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn.  Loving the cable work so far!  This class has already given me the push I needed to try fancy cabling.  Yay!


Of course, with my luck, the swatch will come out to the wrong size, but I can hope!

What else has happened since I last posted?  Oh all sorts of things, I imagine.  Like, for example, the father type got to go on a Google paid vacation to St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands with his work colleagues.  Google knows how to treat its employees well!


And we've had glimpses of the girl child periodically, at home, and in NYC.  Here she is surprising the father type on his way home from work with a birthday surprise!


And of course, the father type and I have had our own adventures, including a late lunch one day at Michael Jordan's restaurant, The Steak House NYC, in Grand Central Terminal.  Such a view!



Sorry the pictures are so dark.  :(  I wish you could see the beautiful ceiling better.

Mia never likes when we leave her home alone.  If she had her druthers, we would be home with her at all times!


Thanks as always for stopping by and saying hi.  I hope everyone has a great week!