Flagel Knitting Files

There will be no trick or treating for me and there won´t be anyone coming to my door for candy either.  There are very few kids in this building.  But that doesn´t mean Halloween was ignored. One of my sons and his wife are throwing a party tonight and they wanted some cupcakes for it appropriately themed for Halloween.  I was given free range with what to produce.  The canvass was a Bon Appetit recipe for a spiced pumpkin cake.   I made the full recipe and it yielded 60 mini cupcakes with enough leftover to make a small six-inch cake.  My other son took that to work and shared it with his students. Doing an image search provided ideas for decorating.  Before the end results are shown, I have to say my decorating skills are rusty.  There was a struggle to keep the frosting cool enough to give definition to the lines.  Having said that the only way to improve is to keep practicing. Part of the 60 cupcakes A monster that looks a lot like Cookie Monster Pumpkins, a top

At my age it can be hard to be surprised as it seems the phrase: been there, done that, often comes to mind.  But today I have managed to surprise myself. On the quest to make ornaments I decided to give Amalia Samios´,  Christmas Gift ornament a try.  It is so simple, knit six squares, line each with some cardboard and sew them together.  However, if it is going to work out properly all six sides of the square have to be exactly the same size.  This is where the surprise came in. I have been knitting for years and goodness knows how many thousands of hours have been devoted to it.  One would think after all that time a certain consistency of stitch size and gauge would have been developed, but if you know me, really know me, you know precision is not one of my strengths.  So I took on this present ornament as a test to see if all this knitting has done anything to improve my consistency. Each of the six sides was knit separately over a couple of days.  It is true for me that my

Over five years ago Jami and I spent an afternoon decorating cupcakes to look like stilettos.  We managed to laugh throughout the whole time and it was and still remains a happy memory.  I wrote about it  here and posted several photos of that event including the one below. We embellished with some of the candies I had in the house.  My memory of that afternoon was sparked recently when I found both the Pirouline and Milano cookies together in a grocery store  They make the heel and sole of the shoes respectively.  Those cookies lead to an urge to try it again. Today Susan is having a special birthday and what better than several pair of stilettos to celebrate.  The cookies were purchased, the sanding sugar and a bow candy mold were secured at a local cake and candy store so everything was in line to begin a morning of creating.  This is how the starting point looked. On that multicolored plate are pink bows I made last night from pink chips  The frosting had to be made,

So I started making the Christmas Pickle last night and finished it this afternoon.  The pattern is from Pattern Recogknition .  This pattern was selected because it looks less like a cylinder and more like a real pickle, it has curves.  That and the fact I could use my mini crochet hook to add beads to make the spines of the pickle.  The only dynamic was the pattern uses a regular wrap and turn technique to create short rows rather than my preferred German Short Rows technique.  So I went online and found some help to make the conversion. Patty Lyons gives a great tutorial here  to do it.   Should you check out the link you will see it is easy, but nonetheless I wrote it down so not to put myself in the situation of doing it on the fly.  It was simple and gives the extra stitches to the head and at the bottom of the pickle.  See the photos below. The googly eyes were purchased years ago in Seattle at another discount fabric store.  They are the permanent type with a clingy clasp o

Last night Pam, Tena and I used FaceTime for nearly two hours.  We had not ¨talked¨ like this since July and it was so great to catch up with them.  As they called I was about to start making a Christmas Pickle as a part of my ornament collection. Common lore holds the Christmas Pickle is an old German tradition.  Apparently the first child to find the pickle in a decorated tree will get a present.  However, I grew up in a German dominated community and no one placed a pickle on their Xmas tree so when the three of us visited a German Xmas market a few years ago and found crafted pickles the concept was new to me.  The true origin is not so clear either; more can be read about the tradition here .  So Pam, Tena and I talked about the pickle and I promised to put a picture of what I will be knitting on the blog. Photo by Pattern Recogknition The appropriate yarn (at least IMHO) was found and I was about to cast on when we started to talk.  By the time we were done it was my bed

No Knitting Content Today The spinning wheel needs to be protected from Mara´s sharp little teeth.  See the pictures of the damage she inflicted on it  here .  Last night as I went to bed I remembered there is stored an extra cover for a small grill.  Rules changed this summer and the Smokey Joe I had used in the past could no longer be used to grill so a new BBQ was purchased.  The grill came with a cover and either I missed that information or it was not mentioned.  In addition to the grill an inexpensive cover was also purchased and never returned.  That cover was located and pulled over the wheel.  It is too long, but that is a good thing.  The extra length helps make the wheel inaccessible to Mara.  Problem solved. See Mara on the chair behind the wheel.  She had to check things out. Another use for this coverup has been found The cuteness also involves M&M.  When they first moved here they spent all night together in one of the few beds spread around.  However,

Owning a local yarn shop is tough, the hours of work are long (classes have to be taught at night or weekends to accommodate working knitters), the margins are small and some knitters can be very sensitive about the type of service they expect or how quickly they will learn to knit and can write scathing reviews. Depth of Field is a yarn shop I wrote about here  in September 2017.  At that time it was clear the place could use some spiffing up, but the prices were so hard to beat.  This week Susan, my Minneapolis knit buddy, let me know that the shop will be closing in the near future, specifically December 1, 2018 despite being opened since 1938.  She also mentioned everything was half price and there was plenty of roving for spinning to pick from still among the stock. Even though I have put a ban on purchases of roving or yarn for 2018 I made an exception.  One of my purchases made at Depth of Field is shown below: Plymonth Yarn's Galway Super Chunky in Cabernet on the

It is a secret we tend to keep only to ourselves, but we are all friends here, right?  Spinning one's own yarn does not save on the overall cost of wool.  In fact, just the opposite is true, unless you get your fleece for free.  Roving, that wool that is already cleaned and carded making it ready to spin is not cheap.  One can easily spent $20 on four ounces/113 grams and if it is spun poorly that four ounces might yield as little as 100 yards/91.5 meters.  Should it be spun well, the numbers improve.  If that wool is hand dyed the expense can be even more.  And a hundred yards is just about enough to knit one hat, cap or toque. So imagine my happiness when I found an acrylic yarn at Michael's for $9.99 that contained 10.5 ounces/ 300 grams. It is called  Chunky Grande Big! by Loops and Threads .   I picked out my favorite color combinations and began to prepare it. This yarn comes with two large strands rather simply plied together and my intention was to spin only one

This post will be number 701 .  That is a tribute to all the different aspects one can discuss when working with wool.  Knitting, crocheting, spinning and felting are uses one can put to wool and there is so very much to learn about each of these wooly activities. Since I do spin there is a far amount of wool roving in my stash and it can be used to needle felt. "Needle felting is a process which uses barbed needles to interlock wool fibers to form a more condensed material. Wool fibers have scales which when rubbed against each other catch and lock into place to create this denser material called felt. Felting needles are used to entangle the fibers. As the felting needle is moved up and down, the barbs on the needles catch the scales of the wool and entangle them into place ."  (From https://www.wistyria.com)    Today's post looks into a recent adventure into that realm of wooliness. I have become enamored with the Sarafina Fiber Arts, Inc videos. Check out s

November 2017 I had completed my first Burnished by Tin Can Knits from their Mad Colour book .  Just in case you may have had a million important things happen since then below is a picture of my version. Burnished #1 The three yarns used were a variegated Arne and Carlos' sock yarns, Regia, from Schachebmayr in color 02460, a solid turquoise Lion Brand, Sock Ease, color 178, Snow Cone; and an unknown tan yarn also in sock weight.  This Burnished #1 lives in Wisconsin with one of my aunts.  Mom really liked it and because there was so much of all three yarns leftover I made a second version for her this past spring. Burnished #2 All three yarns used in #2 are the same as #1, but because the tan yarn was running out faster than the other two, it was switched with the variegated and then the turquoise had to become the edging lace.  IMHO the second takes better advantage of the three colors.  Whatever your opinion about the color usage you should know Burnished #2 live

Let´s start with the cat thing.  About four years ago a video trending topic was cats jumping into circles and staying there.  Just last Sunday my oldest son, his wife and I were talking about this.  Actually they were talking about how a dog will put their nose in a circle  made with your hands and I was talking about the cats.  So imagine my surprise when on Tuesday after I emptied my clothes basket Mike, the cat, jumped into it and stayed for about 30 minutes.  Here he is at the start of that self-imposed entrapment. Perhaps it seemed like a circle and box combined.   On a cuter note, the reason I was doing laundry in part was that Mike decided to take a snuggle in my unmade bed covers.  It is unclear to me how without working thumbs he managed to get the covers pulled over himself so well, maybe Mara stepped in to help, but I did not.  He is a very good snuggler and is adorable, two great qualities for a small gray cat.  Oh, and he is handsome too! He likes my bed as w

On October 2 this blog became seven years old.  That is simply incredible.  With nearly 185,000 views it is impossible for me to believe there have been attempts by me to keep this going for that long.  Through ups and downs, travels and challenges, this blog has been a constant for over 7 years of my life. There continue to be readers from around the world, even when no new content is being produced.  This blogiversary will not bring new changes to the background or the overall look of the blog.  It is relatively new and frankly I like it. The new pattern book purchased this year, however, have been added to the list of books I own and is highlighted in yellow. Instead this year I want to introduce you to a set of videos created by the Craft Yarn Council. These are the folks who set the standards for knitting needle and crochet hook sizes as well as yarn weights. They also have a WPI (wrap per inch) guide that helps a spinner determine the size of their hand spun yarn.

The Advent Calendar continues to take up my knitting time and other times as well.  One of the most important acquisitions to complete this project is the white background and green tree and pockets to hold the ornaments. This is the Yarn Harlot´s version so you have a clue what I am talking about. Yarn Harlot´s Advent Calendar; photo credit Stephanie Pearle-McPhee The downtown Vancouver store called Dressew has always been my go to shop for making these types of purchases in the past, but I am in the Twin Cities.  After asking around I found a store called SR Harris , another discount fabric store.  Where Dressew is a department store, SR Harris is a warehouse.  That means it was huge with bolts and bolts of all types of fabric.  It also carries buttons, ribbons, thread and decals, but boy finding just exactly what one needs without help is a challenge.  But within an hour I located the green and white felt I needed, plus all the other accessories. Photo credit:  SR Harri