Flagel Knitting Files

I am so lucky to have people in my life who seem to enjoy my obsession with knitting about as much as I do.  For example,  I received a wonderful gift from one of my daughter-in-laws, Suzanne, relating to this obsession. A while back I yammered  about the great work of Christine Grant from Mad Monkey Knits, a knitting designer from the UK.  Suzanne meticulously went through Grant's  site  then purchased and printed in colour (yea, I love having patterns printed in colour) no less than six different fun animal knitting patterns.  I'll list the names of the patterns here, and if you wish, feel free to go to MadMonkeyKnits.com  to see all of them using the search function:           *Lottie Lobster                                                   *Pet Baby Chimpanzee           *Bobby the Boxing Kangaroo           *Eddie the Nursery White Elephant           *The Meerkat Family                                           *Tracy Triceratops and Baby Pictured here is Lottie

I acted on my decision to frog the wall flower project.  As I imagined it, the process should have been relatively easy, but in actuality it was more like an ordeal. The size was about double this by the time I decided there was a need to change. Intarsia knitting refers to a type of knitting that creates coloured blocks rather than smaller changes in colour done every stitch or two.  In order to create the blocks separate balls of yarn are needed (see above).  To insure there are no holes in the end results the knitter needs to twist one colour around the other on the wrong side of the work (Apparently this was something I seemed to have struggled with causing me to have to frog the thing in the first place.~~Who me upset by this, no I'm not upset~~ well maybe a little bit.)  At any rate these tiny twists mean if you wish to rip your previously knitted intarsia work out, the twists need to be undone.  This causes a great deal of stopping to twist the yarn every time there a

On Saturday at Black Sheep Yarn they gave away instructions on how to make a quick cup cozy.  I liked the idea of making a coffee cozy in brown and decided it needed to be dressed up with a happy little sheep. The entire project took about 2 hours to complete, so if you're in a hurry to knit something for the coffee lover in your life, this is an excellent project to keep in mind. The design is a simple k3, p1 (knit 3, purl 1) ribbing.  I used a knitted cast on so that the top remained stretchy and a k2 tog (knit 2 together) bind off that is much more stable.  This means the cozy will stretch and yet stay in place over a tapered cup. The directions on how to knit the sheep came from the book 20 to Make:  Knitted Mug Hugs by Val Pierce.  I had just the right amount of boucle' leftover from another project to make the fuzzy body of the sheep.  (I do save all my excess yarn for just this purpose.)  It had to be sewn on in such a way that the cozy didn't lose its stretch

Saturday was a busy day for me considering my mobility issue.  I headed out to Black Sheep Yarns, my LYS, where two events were taking place simultaneously.  First there was Yarn Harvest, a yarn crawl held in connection with Fraser Valley Knitting Guild.  No less than 14 regional yarn shops were involved with the addition to ten other participating artists.  Since I was at the shop I can attest to the fact it did increase traffic.  And it was great to see fellow knitters from the region enjoying the selection found in my LYS. Helen, the owner of Black Sheep, and Alexa, my teacher, with her new baby boy Emily, in a sweater from Pacific Knits ,   and Alexa taking a quick coffee break Also on Saturday the shop sponsored a book signing for  Pacific Knits , a new book containing 18 new knit designs by Emily Wessel and Alexa Ludeman.   I so admire these two, both local designers, who have taken inspiration from our Pacific Northwest surroundings to create lovely knit items.  Cli

So I returned to work on Monday and have spent the last few days spending 8 hours at work and then 8 hours resting at home.  Paul has been fantastic making sure all my needs are being met here at home.  However, I have not had enough energy at the end of the day to write here, until today. Knitting nirvana has not and will not materialize in the wistful way I imagined.  So now that I have that behind me I can spend efforts thinking about more realistic things.  This leads me to one decision.  I plan to frog the wall flower because the connections between the colour changes are not good enough.  What I will do is knit the entire thing in white and then go back and double stitch the flower in black.  The double stitch approach is much more controlled and will yield a more professional looking finished product.   Although I have yet acted on the decision, I feel as if this change in technique is the way to go.  (There is often a rather obvious reason why I'm not finishing a WIP, it

Knitting is not a profession for most of us who pick up needles these day.  It is something we do, a hobby, or past time.  However, that has not always been the case. Knitting was an essential skill well into the mid-20th century.  Before the Industrial Revolution, knitting was a true cottage industry, with every member of a family making knitted goods.  The two World Wars encouraged those at home to knit scarves, sock, sweaters and gloves for those fighting the war thus providing a way for mothers, sisters, and girlfriends to contribute to the war effort.   Even as late as the 1960's handmade knit- or crochet-wears were seen on the runways.  During the late 20th century knitting did become something out of vogue and generally only something older people did.  Scarves, gloves, sweaters and socks all became so much more affordable at the local department store there seemed little need to make your own.  Then in the early 21st century with the advent of new types of yarns and an in

The doctors (when you're at the ER 13 hours you see more than one doctor) told me at approximately 48 hours after the fall the full brunt of the pain would hit; they were right.  Last night both feet had that achy, nagging pain, and I did take more Tylenol 3 than I had up to that point.  Good thing, Paul was home and doted on me which was a welcome change from having Mike, the cat, try to help. Today we were able to get to the shop that sells the boots.  Here's my next new look Fully equipped for healing now. It is amazing the amount of stability this moon boot gives.  The crutches were OK, but when you don't really have one good foot, using them is a challenge.  Now with the boot, I can walk around pretty well, in comparison to what I have been doing up to this point.  So with the prescription of Tylenol 3 renewing my supply, the boot, and a 2-hour nap this afternoon, I'm doing pretty well. It's not yet knitting nirvana, but I did pick up my needles today

So now on day two of limited mobility, I have not yet struck knitting nirvana.  The Tylenol 3 helps with pain but it also makes me sleepy/dopey, and knitting is just not yet very appealing.  In the meantime I have gotten an interesting new outlook about our home. The swelling is down on the left foot, but it is still much bigger than the right. Let me start by saying I really love our home here in British Columbia.  It is built on a mountain, overlooks beautiful  Burrard Inlet , a body of salt water that is 13 kilometres (about 8 miles) from the ocean, making the inlet more a fjord than lake.  Our view is always good rain or shine, and I remain mesmerized by that view still after having spent 20 years of looking over the flat prairies of North Dakota.  The key characteristic in my current, barely mobile stage is we live on a mountain.  That means lots, and I mean lots of stairs. Never knew 14 steps could cause so much anxiety. Right now, a daunting view for me. These

I have for some time secretly dreamed of having minor surgery on both my legs, knees or feet, something that wasn't very painful that immobilize me.  (Yeah, I know I am that weird.)  I would need to be waited on by someone and could rest by sitting all day to recuperate.  Without much effort I could see this as a knitting nirvana, time carved out of my life that I could devote singularly to me, my recovery and knitting.  Last night I managed to make at least part of that dream come true. Wednesday was a busy work day for me chucked full of important meeting after meeting, all requiring that I pay close attention to what was going on or contributing to the goings on.  By the end of the day I was exhausted from all the extroversion required throughout the day.  I came home, made dinner and crashed for awhile before deciding it was necessary to go upstairs to get something.  It was there the trap I had inadvertently set for myself sprung. As I entered the door I had kicked off the

I am a self-professed knitting nerd.  I follow all kinds of knitting blogs, chat rooms, use Pinterest and StumbleUpon to find interesting projects, and talk to all kinds of knitters.  In thinking about all these different venues I've come to one conclusion:  We knitters generally have one thing in common, a love of cats.  I try not to be too obnoxious about it here, but Mike, my Tonkinese cat , is quite the buddy.  He's there to calm me when I've made some stupid knitting mistake, is more than willing to offer a helpful paw or two as I frog things, and remains attentive as I knit over his head while he sits on my lap.  (See the photo to the right.)  So yes, yes, yes, I am a cat person and have been for over 13 years.  Before Mike, I was a dog person for about 15 years when Kashina, a pure-bred golden retriever, was not only my buddy, but also a real friend to my sons.  She's long since gone to dog heaven, but she was quite the girl.  (So does that make me a bi-polar pet

Last week is behind me.  I worked hard and played over the weekend.  Now the new week is upon me and I need a plan, including my knitting. A starry green kimono sweater The green kimono is done.  Instead of doing the spider webs again (that would be so August for me) I decided to do something else.  Not being all that good at embroidery at the moment, I thought I'd be able to do stars.  I made a pattern, outlined the stars and thought I'd be able to figure out how to fill the space with some kind of embroidery stitch.  After several unsuccessful attempts, the stars were left unfilled, except for the orange button stars I found at Mom's recently.  I added to them the tiny stars I found this weekend, and viola a sweater is finished. See on the right?  The black colour block has a problem.  Now it is back to finishing the other WIPs waiting for me to pick them up.  It is time to get the flower wall hanging done.  As I pick it up to see where in the project I had le

Yesterday was a day completely devoted to doing solely what I wanted to do from 10 am to 6:30 pm.  I had been a good little worker all week and this was my reward:  Dressew, lunch at the Water Street Cafe, and Jersey Boys. I've sung the praises of the low-cost craft store, Dressew, in the past.  Tena was not able to find the leather buttons she wanted for one of her sweaters and I knew I'd be visiting Dressew on Saturday.   I offered to check out their buttons for her giving me a mission as I walked into the store.  Here's the two sets of buttons I picked up for her. Tena's Leather-look and Hot Pink Buttons Tena was quite clear she wanted dark coloured leather buttons for one of her Gramps sweater.  So selecting from the multiple options was easy; I just picked the darkest colour I could find.  Although these are leather-look buttons, (Tena said it was fine for this baby sweater to not necessarily be real) the most impressive part is they came to a total of $1.2

My Knit Nite buddy, Tena is busy working on her second Gramps sweater.  And she has really selected some beautiful colours for both sweaters.  When they're done, Tena's agreed to let me photograph them. Trust me it will be well worth the wait. I mentioned before but it worth reiterating, Tena's knitting is very precise.  It is just beautiful work to behold; her tension is perfect and standards are high.  Additionally, Tena takes stitch counts deadly seriously whereas I see them as guidelines or signposts not absolutes. So a week or so ago when Tena came to a point in the sweater where she should have 173 stitches and had only 141 she was understandably concerned.  (Even I would find a shortfall of over 30 stitches a  problem.) She spent considerable time recounting to determine if the mistake had to do with counting (it did not), she reviewed the instructions to make sure she was actually at the point she should be (she was). We then started trying to problem solve toge

Yes, it is a happy new year for me today, I didn't get that wrong.  Post secondary institutions of higher education have been my workplace for over 35 years so the day after Labour Day has always represented a new beginning, a new year and today was no different. Summers on university campuses, and I've been on seven of them in my lifetime, can be relatively quiet, always hot and a bit dull.  Students are off-campus at home and working, making universities feel empty and not very lively.  But each fall the place comes alive with new faces, new excitement and new energy.  Maybe it's the cool nights, maybe its the promise of potential or perhaps it is just young restless energy.  How can anyone not feel enlivened and stimulated by it.  That energy does often require some shaping and long workdays, but I'm so lucky to be able to experience this renewal every September.  So for those of us in education, there are two happy new years every year, January 1 and the day afte

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee in the foreword to her book, The Secret Life of a Knitter:  Yarn Harlot, said "Each knitted gift holds hours of my life."  And today while I laboured on Labour Day that statement really struck me.  Let me clarify. Some of those hours are spent finding the right yarn.  Every yarn I purchase brings with it an inspiration.  It could be the colour as it often is when knitting food, or it can be the feel of the yarn, some being so soft you know you'll enjoy the entire time you work with it.  Or it might be that you can "see" the final product done up in this yarn.  So the yarn already carries certain power over me before I pick up the needles. Some of those hours are spent locating the right pattern.  Patterns speak to me in much the same way as yarn does.  The intrigue of trying a new technique, or the pure simplicity of the technique, or finding that perfect substitute yarn for a beloved pattern or knowing the way the final product will m

Sometimes I struggle to figure out what kind of gift to give friends for special occasions.  Now that I am an active crafter my ability to find something special that might also be interesting has improved. Here's a birthday gift I recently gave Karen to ensure she would never run out of fruit to look at: Amirugumi Fruit Bowl All the fruit is crocheted and not knitted; why you might ask?  Because crocheting is more conducive to making spherical shapes than knitting.  A single crochet stitch is used almost exclusively to make amigurumi , a Japanese crocheting technique, used to create small toys . I followed a free pattern for the banana , and added the little dark brown marks a banana gets when it matures, and the red delicious  apple  with its brown stem and green leaf attached.  The rest of the fruit bowl was made up/designed on my own.  Under the grapes is a lemon with the tiny bumps on each end.  The orange was a simple sphere with an embroidered stem (hidden).  The