Category: knitting

yarn along

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I took a wee break from knitting on my koivua (so close to finishing! wahh!) when I realized I needed to get on knitting a birthday sweater for Wren pronto. I thought I’d be able to whip out a sweater for a 2 year-old in no time, but it’s taking longer than expected.  I decided to knit her another camilla babe sweater.  I knit this sweater for Wren when she was a newborn and loved it so much on her, found it to be a very wearable knit.  However, I forgot how much purling is involved in this sweater which just makes it go a little slower for me.  Then I realized I didn’t have the proper size DPNs and needed to purchase them so I could work on the sleeves.  Also, I’ve just not had a lot of knitting time lately, but I do think I’ll be able to have this done in time.  I really, really love this very squishy worsted weight wool that I dyed myself last year with marigolds from our garden.  I’ve been hoarding it, planning to make a pair of overalls for wren but felt it would make such a cheery birthday sweater for a March girl.  Also I’m happy to report that Phoebe and Philippa’s sweaters knit with my hand-dyed yarn have held up so beautifully and not faded at all.

Am I really reading another book?  Well, sort of.  This is what happens when I put multiple books on hold at the library and suddenly they all come in at once.  Gilead came in, so I started in on it.  I’ve heard so many recommendations for this series by Marilynne Robinson, but I do have a few other books on the go so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to get through this one before I have to return it.  We shall see!  Can you believe we are in the last few days of February and with next month comes spring?  I cannot!  This winter felt so short, probably because of all the mild weather.  Or the fact that my head is always spinning juggling all that is on my plate.

Sending love and sunny weather wishes to you all!

Joining with Nicole’s weekly Crafting On, where we link up to share what we are making and reading.
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Posted on by MarthaKimball 0

yarn along

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I am nearly done with the first sleeve on my koivua sweater and decided to put it on hold and go ahead and start the second sleeve so that I can try to manage the changing colors on the spincycle yarn to sort of match the first sleeve.  Meanwhile I realized yesterday that Wren’s birthday is in two weeks and I need to get her birthday sweater started!

I became a bit fascinated with the story behind barn quilts last spring when my husband and I were away celebrating our anniversary.  For a few years now we’ve gone to a little cabin in the mountains a couple of hours away and I took notice of all the beautiful old barns in that area.  I couldn’t help noticing the sweet barn quilts on almost all of them and have been wanting to read about it ever since.  I found this book at the library, Following the Barn Quilt Trail, the story of a woman and her husband following the trail of the barn quilts from state to state and sharing the history and stories behind them.  I just began it but I think it will be a good and relaxing read!

Joining in with Nicole’s weekly Crafting On link-up today.
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Also, here are some photos I took of barn quilts last spring when I began to notice them in my area.

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Posted on by MarthaKimball 1

yarn along

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It’s a chilly grey February day here.  We just wrapped up our school morning and soon I’ll get lunch on the table.  I meant to get this post up yesterday, but lately my days are so full I always feel a bit behind on everything.  Not that it matters much at all to be a bit late posting here. 🙂  I wonder how you are and how your February is going wherever you might be in the world as you read this.  I’ve been knitting away on my projects when I find time, usually in the evenings when all the work is done for the day.  Last night I bound off the body of my koivua sweater and am reading to start working on the sleeves.  A few days ago I cast on a simple ribbed hat for myself with this beautiful yarn by Colleen of Little Lionhead Knits in a color way called The Great Smoky Mountains.  I thought it would be tedious to do this much ribbing (because I want a folded brim hat), and the fiddly beginnings were tedious but I am actually really enjoying working on it here and there when I need something totally mindless.  The color is hard to capture.

I’m still reading Fierce Convictions. 🙂

Joining with Nicole’s weekly Crafting On.

Posted on by MarthaKimball 2

yarn along

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After finishing Brandon’s birthday sweater this week (yes, I made it in time!!) I picked back up my Koivua.  I so enjoy knitting for others, but I do ache to get a few projects done for myself that I actually need in my wardrobe! 🙂  It’s early February but it feels like people are rushing into spring already.  I don’t feel like we’ve had a proper winter yet.  So I’m hoping I can finish this sweater soon and have opportunity to wear it before spring! 🙂  At the same time, I’m trying to knit mindfully and make it last because it is lovely to work on.  The yarn is so squishy.  I think rambouillet is one of my favorite fibers to work with!

Also, I’m still reading Fierce Convictions, a biography on the life of Hannah More who was a poet, reformer and abolitionist.  I am quite captivated thus far by this extraordinary woman and just getting into the part of the book where she makes acquaintance with John Newton and begins to become more aware of the atrocities of the slave trade.

Joining with Nicole’s Crafting on and Ginny’s Yarn Along.
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Posted on by MarthaKimball 1

yarn along

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I’ve nearly finished knitting the plain stockinette body portion of Brandon’s riddari sweater, tonight I will probably be joining sleeves and starting the color work yoke.  I have been working on this around Brandon in the evenings, though discreetly.  He hasn’t asked about it but he may suspect it’s for him.  I only have a few more days to finish it before his birthday and I’m not thinking it’s likely, but its definitely possible!  It is amazing how much more we seem to accomplish when we work exclusively on a project, however I much prefer the freedom of having multiple projects on the go and picking up what I feel inspired to work on in the moment.

I checked out Fierce Convictions: The Extraordinary Life of Hannah More  (affiliate link) from the library and have been enjoying it so far.  I can’t remember what inspired me to check it out.  I do remember wanting to read it when it was first published some years ago but never getting around to it.  Glad to do so now.

I hope you all are having a good week so far and do share with me what you’re making and reading lately, if you’d like!

Joining Nicole’s weekly Crafting On.

Posted on by MarthaKimball 0

yarn along

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I’m chuckling at my last post title because for the last few days after writing it, the weather has been gloriously wintry and bitter cold!  We even saw our first snow flurries of the season, though they only lasted a few minutes and were so tiny.  It looked like glitter in sun.

I have been knitting away on Brandon’s birthday sweater and am relieved to have both sleeves done.  It feels good to just have the body left, and since it is bottom up, the anticipation of the funnest part (the color work yoke) will be what fuels me to the end.  Can’t wait.  I cast on for the body this morning.  So far, I am really enjoying this project and definitely think I will knit it again.  There’s just something I love about working with lopi.

This week I also finished up a couple of socks and need to knit their match. I’m knitting these for Brandon and these for another loved one.  I did cast on these for myself on Christmas day but I think I’m going to use a different pattern.  This one is very “hole-y” and I want something a bit warmer I think.  I’m thinking the fir socks by Melody Hoffman.  I don’t know what it is but I just love sock knitting so much lately.  I always have a couple of pairs on the go for when I’m out and about.

As for reading, I’m still plugging away on Little Women (I feel terribly slow) and I’m enjoying it.  I feel that you would be bored seeing it’s cover once again 🙂 so I’m sharing a book the children and I are reading, The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine.

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Posted on by MarthaKimball 2

january mild

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What a mild winter it has been so far.  I feel a bit complain-y but I do miss a good cold/snowy cozy winter.  I hope we still have some of those days ahead.  Yesterday the warm sun felt so good and who could resist sitting out in it and basking in it in the middle of January?  Certainly not me.  I am a firm believer in taking the gifts of each day’s weather.  Still it feels unnatural to move from fall into spring.  I’m missing my old friend winter, the way she makes us crazy toward her end and ready for thawing soil, spring rain, vibrant color, and the smallest glimpses of new life.  It strikes me that maybe we just can’t fully enjoy the glories of spring without the quietude and bleakness of a long winter.

We’ve been back to our usual routines and though there’s always a rub to the mundane parts of life, there is a simplicity to it that feels healing.  Our mornings are full of books, writing, arithmetic, our afternoons full of time spent outdoors, music lessons, tutoring, or running household errands.  We had a fair bit of rain the last few days, and in the glorious sunshine that follows, I find myself wandering about the garden, starting to think about what we will grow this year.  I knit up a pair of baby bloomers for Wren.  They are knit top-down in yarn from local-to-me Bovidae Farm, with a sweet little lateral braid separating the rib and the squishy fisherman’s rib on the body.  They are simple and darling.  Wren seems to love anything I make for her, she loves dressing up and trying things on, so she is always game for new hand knits.  I snapped a few pictures of her this morning in the blustery morning air.  She was very busy tidying up her little house outside, bringing me all sorts of items the older children had left out there and throwing whatever else she didn’t want down the slide.  She is full of big feelings, this little one, one minute ecstatic and the next minute screaming her frustration.  In a little more than a month she will be two and I can hardly believe it.

ps. Wren is wearing the wiksten animal bonnet which I knit in naturally-dyed yarn, and in the earlier pictures she’s wearing her flax light sweater from her first birthday.  Yes, I’m already contemplating what her birthday sweater should be for this year. 🙂  I’m thinking about another Camilla Babe sweater in my own hand-dyed worsted eco yarn dyed with marigold.

Posted on by MarthaKimball 2