Flagel Knitting Files

The YouTube video below showed up recently on one of my knitting groups from Facebook.  It is simply hilarious.  A young man by the name of Brandon Farris is bored and decides to use a video to teach himself how to knit.  The video he selects is well done giving him all the details he needs to cast on and knit.  Like any of us learning a new skill, he struggles to keep up and has to stop and start the video several times,  But it is the narrative he adds to the instructions that makes the whole thing so precious.  I laughed out loud a number of times while I watched.  Please invest 13 minutes in watching this guy.  If you don´t knit his accent and quirky comments about the process will be your reward.  If you do knit it will remind you how far your knitting has come because this is how we all looked as we began our own knitting adventures. Brandon Farris vlog Here are a few photos of more advent calendar ornaments.  Bluebir...

In 2017 I made a Clapotis  by Kate Gilbert and I loved it, but then so did Mom so it lives in Wisconsin with her. Mom in said Clapotis and Rachel, my niece at her graduation Just as a reminder, that Clapotis was made as I travelled through Australia and New Zealand.  The pattern lends itself to travel because the rows are easy to remember, one generally needs only a couple of cakes of yarn and it will keep a knitter busy for a long time.   As I planned what to take to knit on the Northern Isles cruise another Clapotis was what I settled upon. This time one of my favorite yarns would be used:  Isager Hojlandsgarn 100% wool fingering weight from the stash.  I had both Thistle and Curry colors, leftovers from my Summer Shawl .  A start had been made on the flight from Vancouver to Copenhagen, but not much had been completed.  On a walking tour we located a wonderful yarn shop in downtown Copenhagen called Sommerfuglen (translated it means But...

As was mentioned earlier my souvenir purchases during the Northern Isle cruise were basically all patterns with the biggest expenditure on this book. My photo of the cover of the book, which was published in 2011 It contains 15 patterns created by some well known designers using Jamieson & Smith wool.  Examples of a few of the projects include, Feathercrest mittens by Jared Flood, Peat Hill Waistcoat by Hazel Tindall, and Muckleberry gloves and hat by Mary Jane Mucklestone.  For my first project from this book I was inspired by Osaka tea cozy designed by Masami Yokoyama. Again my photos of the photos in the book I wanted the colors in my version to reflect colors of a beautiful tea pot my neighbor purchased for me as a housewarming gift.   Since my new cozy will be sitting in proximity of this pot I wanted the two to complement each other and not clash.  This kitty tea pot is just too happy and precious to clash with anything. The oth...

My oldest son and his wife have two apple trees in their yard.  One is an eating apple and the other is a soft, tart cooking apple.  Each fall there are more apples than they know what to do with so they share.  These are organic apples, meaning they are never sprayed with chemical; however, they have been snacked upon by all sorts of bugs.  The apples are ugly, but the favor is very good; one just needs to work with them. See all the spots, yup these are organic apples Approximately 30 years ago I was inundated each fall with too many ugly apples.  Over time I figured out two things to do with them that the family enjoyed.  Applesauce was a hit, but I cut corners in making it.  Instead of all the peeling, coring and slicing they were merely quartered and then put on the stove to slowly cook until soft. So easy to prepare Partially cooked Ready to separte the good from the pulp After the mixture cooled in the past it was put thr...

Well that is an overstatement, a bell is ringing.  The making of tiny ornaments has taken over my knitting and there is so much satisfaction in putting the proper yarn color and weight with the right project.  I´ve been using up those silly bits of yarn that have been stored away for years and there is the happiness that comes when within a few hours a project is complete!  And the best part is no new yarn is needed since it is all stored right here at home. My version of the bell uses Tuula Maaria´s Knitted Bell Christmas Tree Decoration  pattern (are those adjectives in the wrong order or is it just me).  Since this bell is being made for little girls, a pinkish red color of yarn seemed appropriate, even though I cannot ever remember seeing a red bell in my life.  As you will see there was more than just a girly color that motivated my selection of this particular color. Here´s a look at the finished bell: The bow is supposed to make it...

The first post of 2017 declared it the Year of the Shawl, at least for me.  In that post there were three different attempts at creating an Abalone shawl  by Carle Dehning. Here is a look at the designer´s vision of it. Photo credit - Nurturing Fibres The earth-tone colors and open loops are two components of this shawl that drew me to it.  I was determined to make one in 2017.  So I started the year making three samples.  Just as a refresher here are photos of the three attempts made to find a proper combination of yarns to make my own Abalone. In the end none of these were used.  First the contrasts between the colors weren´t working.  More importantly in all the selections the yarns were too small, lace weight instead of sock or DK weight.  All three were frogged and the yarn will live on until it finds another use. In the stash was a stunning white, gray and black yarn, DK weight yarn.  Since I made this shawl a ...

I am such a lucky duck, while I was away from blogging I took two 2-week cruises.  (So I was actually in distant lands for over a month of my not writing here!)  In February I cruised from Miami through the Panama Canal and then up the west coast of Central America and Mexico, disembarking in Los Angeles.  It was perfectly timed to get out of the cold and gloom and into sunny, hot parts of the world.  Additionally I was fortunate to have Tena, one of my knitting buddies, join me. It will be a trip we talk about for years to come. This post, however, will focus on the second cruise that embarked and disembarked in Copenhagen, Denmark.  It was booked with Craft Cruises  so although all the travel was with Holland America Lines, and one could take advantage of all HAL's excursions, Craft Cruises also booked excursions specifically designed for knitters. It was like a dream come true for me.  On past travel adventures when I wanted to pick up some knitti...

Can´t tell which is the camel, which the alpaca and which is the Romeldale At last year´s Shepherd´s Harvest event in Minnesota, I picked up 4.2 ounces/120 grams of a roving made up of 1/3 camel, 1/3 alpaca and 1/3 Romeldale.  Romeldale is a breed of sheep created by crossing a Romney ram with a Rambouillet ewe.  They appear to come in all three of the colors in the roving so I don´t know which of the three colors it might be. This roving had such a cloud-like feel, I knew it would be wonderful to spin; I was not disappointed.  It was an easy spin because I decided to allow the colors to blend rather than manipulate it. The interesting effect of the color combination surprised and pleased me.  The roving was name Mocha Dream and it does look like coffee with cream.  The white/cream third of the blend all but disappeared during the spinning process.  After plying and putting it into a cake the yarn looked like this. The weight of the ya...

Things have been changing for me in the last several months.  It has all been for the better, but choices had to be made about what should stay and what had to go.   The blog was one thing that could wait for a while before it would return.  Yesterday, though, on my walk in the park I saw the albino squirre l again and it told me the time had come to start blogging.  Seeing it means, at least to me, good things are about to come to me. Just because the writing here on the blog went away doesn't mean the same happened to knitting.  It did slow down some for part of the year, but it never completely stopped.  Nor did any of the wooly things I usually do, so there will be some catching up to do as we move forward. Let's start with Miss M and Miss A shall we.  They have been busy growing up so quickly while I've been away.  On a recent morning together we found a (dead) butterfly and they both wanted to take a close look at it.  Here the...