Flagel Knitting Files

Help in locating blog post topics can come in many different forms.  This one comes from Tena's husband, Ron who sent this out on Facebook: "For you Knit-Night-ers:  Tena, Pam & Jan! " Along with it came this link . Archaeological work is being done near Cambridge, England in an area called Must Farm referred to as Britain's Pompeii.  It is speculated about 3,000 years ago this site had a small settlement on it.  Something happened that caused homes to collapse into the mushy bog they were built on.  In this swishy mud things were preserved.  Many historical items have been located; you can read about those items here . According to the Guardian    They have already found a trove of incredibly preserved objects from the daily lives of these Bronze   Age people–"jewelry, spears, daggers, giant food storage jars and delicate drinking cups, glass     beads, textiles and a copper spindle with thread still wound around it." On July 29 they posted findi

Friday was a day for beading with turquoise. First an ornament gown had been started in the Spring but left abandoned.  The plan was to use some turquoise beads to accent the otherwise white and silver colour combination.  The project was stopped when the overlapping tiers in what I thought would be turquoise did not match.  So it wallowed in self pity until I located match turquoise seed beads.   The turquoise accent beads are of different colours.  The top seed beads are more blue than turquoise so it is an unhappy ornament.  A few weeks ago I located some turquoise seed beads that match and the ornament is now happy and shining. And I am really liking the change.  (Just as a post script, I had to walk around the house to get the sun to help me with the closeups for this ornament cover.  Perhaps the neighbors wondered what I was up to as I hung the piece in different areas and checked the lighting.) Everyone is satisfied. Since all the turquoise beads wer

I thought I would be so smart and give the proper name of this cactus I just completed knitting, but then I started looking at all the different images of cacti.  There are so many types with so many botanical nomenclatures I gave up.  Either an image would have the fuzzy-like characteristics of the knitted cactus but the flower was bigger or coming out from a different part of the plant or the flower was right and the cactus was wrong.  It is a cactus, clearly so, and I will leave it at that. The inspiration came about after Jami sent me a host of photos of cacti taken by one of her friends.  They were so wonderfully shot they had me thinking about how much I enjoy cacti.  (I am a well-known black-thumb with house plants.  Paul risks losing them all when he leaves house plants alone with me for more than a week!  Cacti on the other hand are really, really hard to kill.  Over-watering is generally not my problem.) When I was looking for a pattern to make the daisy for the Fion

There were two projects spun today.  The failure from last week remains a non-success.  The problems of last week were fixed, but now the final project isn't anything like I hoped it would be.  Perhaps you will see it sometime in the future, not today however. The generally successful project was this: You are looking at 100 grams of Sweet Georgia hand-dyed 100% merino wool.  Anyone who spins can look at this and say, yes she's still a beginner and they are right.  I learned a few things about spinning today, but I need to continue practicing. The hank above started the day in this beautiful braid.  Sorry it is sunny here and the colours are a bit washed out.  There's mauve, golden rod, black, and white in the braid and then all the transitions making it a combination consisting of all my favorite colours. The braid was undone and split in half (or so I thought, more on that later).  Each half was then spun on its own bobbin. See how those lovely colours

Downton Abbey seemed to capture the imaginations of people around the world.  It led to many discussions: Would Mary marry Matthew, Sir Richard and later Henry?  What about Mrs. Hughes and Mr. Carson or Thomas Barrow and Phyllis Baxter?  The sisterly love or lack thereof filled many episodes.  And the repartee between Violet Crawley (the dowager) and Isobel Crawley (Matthew's mother) always spiced up the screen.  Although the last episode seemed a bit too wrapped up for my taste, it did allow closure to the open questions created in the final season. Downton also impacted the knitting world.  One can find no less than 250 Downton-related patterns on Ravelry alone.  There is something charming about the styles from the early twentieth century which caused me to create this hat. A balloon makes the perfect drying mold for a hat and it can easily be adjusted to the perfect size I have had a single 50 gram hank of Noro, The Wonder of Nature in the colourway of Shiraito for a wh

It has been six months since Mike, the cat's, passing.  I think of him every day and miss him especially when Paul is away.  Mike was a being in the house with me and we were close.  Grieving his death has been muddled with my Dad's passing and sometimes I feel guilty about that happening.  As time passes the ache becomes less hurtful for both and I am starting to get mostly good memories in its place. Recently I helped celebrate Pablo Neruda's birthday with Jami, my poet and overall very creative friend.  Guests were asked to select one poem written by Neruda to read to the small group who gathered for the celebration.  I picked this one: Ode To The Cat -- Pablo Neruda There was something wrong with the animals: their tails were too long, and they had unfortunate heads. Then they started coming together, little by little fitting together to make a landscape, developing birthmarks, grace, flight. But the cat, only the cat turned out finished, and

Shawl #1 - Birch Leaf The photo above was taken in Minneapolis on a rather sprinkly, cloudy day.  It is of a shawl created by Susan Gutperl named Birch Leaf Shawl  aka Bottom Up Birch.  Susan, my Minneapolis knit buddy (not to be confused with the designer), showed me the pattern and the one she made.  I fell in love with it for a couple of reasons.  First the pattern is relatively easy but the effect is impressive.  Second the pattern lets the knitter use up every possible bit of yarn because of the bottom up construction. My Birch Leaf is made with three 50 gram skeins of Bella Lino by Classic Elite Yarns in the colourway of Patio.  This yarn is 58% linen, 26% viscose and 16% cotton meaning it was a bit stiff to knit with but softens up nicely once it is blocked and worn.  It ". . . is a lightweight yarn that creates an airy fabric with long, harmonious stripes".   You can clearly see the long stripes in the photo above.  To avoid bad pooling I used two different cake

I didn't forget about Spinning Wednesday, quite the opposite.  What I did try  to spin on Wednesday was such a complete failure I decided not to share it. (This might not come as a surprise but there are many failures that are kept quiet.  It's one of the perks of being the editor.)  Never fear, I will attempt again and be back next Wednesday with spinning to share.  It might be the fixed thing from last Wednesday or something new. As for Beading Friday I liked the wrapped bracelet so well from last week I decided to make two more, one in shades of blue, the other in shades of brown.  As you can see they look very much like the first and  I continue to be very satisfied with them.  These wrap bracelets are great for using up smaller amounts of beads and are quick to make, thumbs up and thumbs up. The most exciting thing I did in the past couple of days was to find this website.  It is called ChartGen, a free chart generating tool for knitters.  Although some of

There are threes things I am writing about today and then I will show you what I do have completed on the Gramps.  But before that a quick photo of the last of this year's pink roses in a lovely purple hydrangea blossom. 1.   Mammogram   My doctor has put me on a five year schedule for mammograms, which is just fine with me.  I am low risk of breast cancer and the procedure is annoying. (Yes, you're right it is also necessary).  Over a five year period though, things changed at the medical lab where the mammogram is done.  It is now in a separate location, meaning only women enter and exit the X-Ray area, I like that.  In the past we were given a scant gown and asked to wait for our turn in an area where both genders sat.  In a new process, I was asked to remove my bra and deodorant and put my shirt back on.  Ok, I thought this was pretty efficient.   I left the dressing room and the female technician was waiting for me, no waiting, great.  As I walked into the room

I showed you the buttons I thought would be used for the Fiona Baby Sundress .  They matched and were the right size, but inspiring, not so much.  There was too much overall matching to be even the least bit exciting. So on one of my trips downtown last week, I stopped at Button Button .   My hope was I'd be able to find buttons that not only would do the job of holding straps in place but would also serve as an inspiration for the design to go on the front of the dress.  Of course Button Button did not let me down.  Truth be told two sets of buttons were brought home but these are the ones that in the end won my heart.  These little daisy buttons were just the muse I needed to select what to put on the front of the dress. The pattern for the daisy came from 20 to Make - Knitted Flowers by Susie Johns.  This book has been used by me several times in the past to knit tulips, grape hyacinth, and roses.  I had the white cotton on hand and used the contrasting var

As promised I spent a chunk of time today creating two items using beads. The first idea was co-opted from Jami, who has been wearing a lovely beaded wrap bracelet lately in metallic tones.  I thought I'd duplicate it as best as I could.  While in the States I purchased a blend of seed beads with metallic finishes in gold and polished hematite, as well as a few crystal and smoky quartz beads.  Left over from another project were brushed brass bugle beads in a quantity too small for most projects, but the perfect amount for this task.  Want to see what I made? The brass closure can be seen in the third loop from the bottom of the photo The bracelet was made to the perfect length for my wrist and wraps around it six times.  I know magnetic closures aren't the safest bracelet clasps, but I happen to like them, so one was added in a brass colour.  (It is visible in the photo above.) Glad no one saw me taking this photo; it was a juggling act Hopefully the close up all

It has been months since I used my Lendrum spinning wheel, and I have missed the mostly meditative purring of its miraculous ability to change fuzz to yarn.  There is no excuse for this absence other than I was concerned it would not be like getting back on a bicycle after being away, but to my surprise I was wrong.  Sure I strained to get the foot action working to keep the wheel moving at a constant pace, I was straining with the new wheel when I last used it.  But the feeding of the roving, that had not left me.  It was much more pleasurable than I expected it would be. The white alpaca roving What did I pick to spin?  A lovely local alpaca from NW Handspun Yarns in Bellingham, Washington.  This was such a joy to spin, so soft, luxurious and fuzzy; a sensory overload. A real closeup on the wheel It doesn't look like much but there is an 1.5 hours of spinning showing on that spool.  I am curious to see just what comes next for this lovely alpaca.  As I continue to p

The small jumper I have been working on is almost complete.  (From Very.Pink.com - Fiona Baby Sundress , designed by Staci Perry, cotton yarn in pink and variegated pink.)  Note the little pleats between the body and the bodice.  They are created by putting four stitches on a separate needle and then knitting in pairs each of the next four stitches together.  It is a simple, yet effective, trick.  Once the dress is blocked those pleats will become more obvious. There remains an inch more stockinette stitch on the bodice, the top edging and straps.  I am going with straps that can be buttoned in the back because little hands will be able to untie the icord straps.  Below is an example of what I am thinking of doing with those straps.  My buttons will be smaller, but it gives you an idea of what I intend to do.  (BTW I am so happy to be almost done with what seems like an endless sea of stockinette stitches. Although some find this mindless knitting soothing, it is just boring an

I have made some minor changes here to the blog.  From time to time I tire of the stitch repeat in the background and put in something new.  The stitch is called, spring stitch, even though you might think it looks like a bobble.  The spring stitch is created in a very different way; check out the video here .  The hyperlinks are now in a more prominent salmon colour and the header bar and date flag colours have also been changed to salmon.  Small differences in hopes of making the enterprise easier to use and read. My lonely Lendrum There will also be a more regularized way things are presented.  Wednesdays for at least the next month or so are going to contain my own personal spinning news.  It has been far too long since I sat down and enjoyed my wheel making now a great time to get back up to speed in operating it. Fridays, again for the near future, will be used to update regarding my personal beading.  Beads seem to continue to find their way into the house, there ar

When I saw there was a movie called  Yarn on Facebook recently, you know I had to check into it.  For starters  Yarn , the movie, is a documentary; no shock there, it is hard to imagine it a RomCom or Drama. Image from Yarn Director Una Lorenzen and co-directors/producers Heather Millard and Thordur Jonsson have put together a film about yarn with snippets of history about it, but the focus is put squarely on four fiber artists:  ". . . Icelandic wool graffiti artist Tinna Thorudottir Thorvaldar as she engages in political protest by way of crochet, Brooklyn-based Polish artist  Olek  whose site-specific work is, in part, a resistance to the 'really sexist chauvinistic f@#$ing art world,' Canada-based Japanese artist Toshiko Horiuchi MacAdam of  Net Play Works  whose 'textile playgrounds' are a source of beauty and visceral pleasure, and Tilde Björfors, the founder of the contemporary Swedish circus company  Cirkus Cirkör , for whom yarn serves as a symbol fo