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Changing Things Up At The Elliebelly Knitting Blog

Posted on by Joyce Makes Art

As several of you have noticed, thanks to the lovely Kelly at Seventeen Stone, I have a cool new blog design.  Kelly was incredibly patient and seemed to intuitively understand what I wanted.  She was so easy to work with!  Thank you Kelly.

I hope you all like it as much as I do!

To celebrate, I'm going to do several giveaways between now and the end of July.  Yes, there will be yarn.  Possibly some of the Elliebelly "Melted Crayon" on Naiad Organic Merino I'm in the middle of dyeing for myself.  Certainly some crackle-dyed Elliebelly Playsilks.  I'm also planning to write up my Cabled Afghan pattern, and will offer it for free at some point during this time period.  And any other cool stuff I decide to share with my friends.  Maybe some art.  So click the orange RSS feed bottom on the left side of the blog to add me to your reader, or remember to check back in a couple of times a week.  Because of my crazy schedule, there is no predicting when or for how long I'll do this.  Just a little bit of summer fun for y'all and a great way, in fact, the only way to score some Elliebelly this summer.

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Knitting A Scarf: Just Enough Ruffles

Posted on by Joyce Makes Art

I started Just Enough Ruffles yesterday.  Laura Chau is a genius pattern writer, using short rows to curve the scarf inward and on toward the ruffled edge.

Scarfstart

Having read the pattern carefully, though, I'm inclined to think that it was mis-named.  It probably needs to be called Too Many Ruffles.  I've just discovered that I'm going to be increasing three times in each stitch for a total of 600 stitches across the ruffled edge.  600.  Really?

Although I am not looking forward to that cast off, the cashmere is soft and dreamy and the robin's egg blue color is very nice.  Possibly my only real complaint about this one is that at least for now, I'm going to have to crank the air conditioning if I want to wear it.  This scarf is going to have to wait for much cooler weather!

 

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This Morning I Bring You Beautiful Things From The Garden

Posted on by Joyce Makes Art

I was out early, dyeing some yarn, which led to this:

Dyepot528

Early in the morning it's quiet and beautiful and you can hear the birds singing on our street.  And the light is beautiful.  So, despite my best intentions to take pictures of the Dream in Color Shrug that I finished last night, I have a little hijack to show you beautiful things from the garden this morning.  Shrug pictures later — I promise.

My Sister-in-Law gave me daylilies for my birthday about a decade ago.  They are still incredibly beautiful.

Daylily

As is the Echinacea, which I had to replant this year as mine suffered some form of disease that led to mishappen leaves.  It's now back to its prior beauty.

Echinacea

Echtall

I still have a few late Gardenias blooming.  Their perfume always reminds me of my Grandmother who grew them on an enormous, beautiful bush.

Gardenia

Our roses are particularly heavenly right now.

Roses

And I have high expectations for the tomato plants, mostly cherry tomatoes, that I tuck in empty spaces in the border so that playing children in late summer can snack without coming inside.  This is a favorite in our garden every summer.

Tomato

One of the best things we did, besides underground sprinklers, when we worked on our yard early this year is the long stone wall that prevents erosion alongside our driveway.  It is pretty and the cats are incredibly fond of its warm, wide ledge which allows them to perch next to their beloved Catnip.  Hermione has decimated the patch she was particularly fond of, and is now reduced to sleeping on the young Rosemary hedge.

Hermione

This, of course, was the best part of my early morning garden, my faithful helper Ollie, who loves all things outdoors.  Not only does he love to run and jump on the new wall, he thinks the $6 nozzle I bought for the hose at Home Depot last weekend is the most righteous toy ever invented.  As far as Ollie is concerned, the entire garden grows just for him.  I couldn't agree more.

Ollie

 

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Finished: Little Copernicus. Started: Dream in Color

Posted on by Joyce Makes Art

Large finished

Little Copernicus is finished.  Down to the sweet little Mother of Pearl buttons.  Very cute.  All it needs now is a baby!

I have knitting work to do.  I'm about three skeins away from finishing the endless black hole afghan.  And, I should be knitting it over the weekend as it's so big it can only be worked on at home.

But no.  Write it off to knitter's ADHD or spring fever, but I put the afghan down for the weekend.  I also bypassed two charming projects I've purchased pattern and yarn for, Norie and Laar by Gudrun Johnston, but not yet started.  And I even let the hat I'm knitting for my snowbound eldest child in some incredibly soft Eco Alpaca from Cascade Yarns sit swatched, but not started.

Start

Instead I picked up the shrug I've been meaning to knit for my Mom for quite some time.  I have four luscious skeins of Jade Sapphire 6-ply Cashmere in the Blackberry Fudge colorway and I had selected the Dream in Color Shrug Pattern.  I selected that pattern after seeing this Shrug knit up last fall — one of the dancers at my daughter's ballet school was wearing it, and it was beyond-words-amazing.  I always have lace anxiety (really, you keep count with kids chirping about homework, the Judge whining about "where's my dinner," and a Blackberry that goes off incessantly with work) but decided to tackle it and see what happened.

Big bw

Things are always much more manageable after you start, right?  The 30 rows of ribbing zipped by in the dentist's chair (the pattern is knit from cuff to cuff).  The yarn is just fabulous.  It's soft, the knitted fabric is squishy, it's everything I like best in Cashmere.  And the lace is a simple 11 stitch 20 row repeat.  With only five sets of 11 stitches and a few extra on each end to the row, this pattern is very do-able, even for someone tackling their first lace project.  So much for the anxiety!

I'm midway through the second lace repeat and finding this to be lots of fun to knit.  But, I'm going to set it aside to pick up the afghan for the next few evenings.  It now has the benefit of being large enough to snuggle under while knitting.  And it's so soft and inviting that the time has come for me to finish it off and make it available to the whole family.

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Blog Give Away: Some Yarn for the New Year

Posted on by Joyce Makes Art

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If you need a little yarn inspiration to get the new year off to a good start, you've come to the right place!  Leave a comment below and I'll have the kids draw a random name on New Year's Day to send this yarn on to.  Make sure I've got an email contact for you, or come back to check and see if you've won!  (My apologies, but I can only ship to a U.S. address)

This is a very special yarn from Sheila at Wool 2 Dye 4, one of my favorite places to buy luxurious, but well priced, undyed yarn.  In addition to being incredibly nice, Sheila has the knack for sourcing some of the finest base yarns around, and she always seems to be first with new ideas.  This yarn, Sheila's Sparkle, is a blend of Superwash Merino with just enough nylon so your knitted item will hold its shape, and a little bit of Stellina for sparkle.  We aren't talking tinsel bright here — just enough sparkle to give your new pair of socks a little bit of whimsy.  It's perfection and as an added plus, the yarn was lots of fun to dye.  The give away skein is 438 yards of lovely sock weight yarn in Elliebelly's Pink Love colorway.

Thanks Sheila, for giving us another wonderful yarn to place with!  In addition to the give away skein, I dyed a skein for myself, to use for Ellie's Barn Raising Quilt. 

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