Am I Crazy, or What?

I'm so far behind with updates, but I have some valid (or crazy) reasons for that.

It's greenhouse season.  So obviously it's very busy around here.

So I took on a project (actually many projects) for the Citadel Theatre.  I mentioned in a previous post about the chain mail for "Spamalot"--this turned out to be outfits for King Arthur and for four Knights as well as some extra hoods.  Each character got a hood or a cowl, a set of sleeves, and all but one got a set of leggings.  That added up to about 160 hours of knitting, using up 10,120 yards of  metallic cord.   My hands had callouses, which I didn't notice until I tried knitting finer stuff.  I'd get up at 6 am, knit till 9:00, work in the greenhouse till late afternoon, then knit again until 11:00 or so.  Am I crazy or what?

Richard's Green lined mitts and a reversible scarf are also finished, as well as some surgery to shorten his pullover, which I hadn't knit for him.  The mittens were lined with some really nice variegated merino yarn.

Right about the same time as the chain link was started, I signed up to do a test knit of a lovely cardigan.  Am I crazy or what?  Unfortunately I couldn't finish it by the deadline, so it's priority one right now.  This photo is the designer's prototype.  Mine is rust and olive.

I've also been asked to conduct a knitting machine tutorial weekend retreat.  Am I crazy or what?  It's not going to be until late summer, so things will be slower around here by then.  I have some trepidations (will I be able to give a quality workshop?), but am also looking forward to it at the same time.

Greenhouse work takes up most of the day now.  And I haven't done my income tax yet, but have the papers organized and it's a "work in progress".  Deadline is Tuesday. Am I crazy or what?

I discovered a site called "Duolingo" where one can learn languages (for free) online.  I'm brushing up my German--not too tough since it's my mother tongue, but I make a lot of errors due to typing too fast, and overconfidence.  I'm also brushing up my French--going through that quickly and well--I do speak French, but don't practice it much, so this is good.  And to top it all off, I'm learning Spanish.  That's slow going, since it's a new language to me.  Am I crazy or what?  

I've done well with my yarn and pattern buying diet--only bought some sock yarn needed for Christmas gifts and some yarn for the Master Knitter Vest project--the requirements are very specific and I had nothing in my stash that would do. 
Sock yarn (but not for socks).

 Master Knitter Vest yarn:  had to be sportsweight to worsted weight, light color and not heathered.

Weather wise, this is Thursday morning:

And Thursday evening: 

There are still a lot of "Mom" moments.  With spring coming, planting at the hospital will be weird without her.  I'll really miss the walks around the big pond behind the Nursing Home.  Most of all I really miss her welcoming smile when I came through the door to visit her.

And just for a big smile of humor, I found this:

 Keep safe and well, and be a little crazy once in a while.


 

 






Keifer Sutherlans

Master Knitter Level 2 Update and Other (Hopefully) Interesting Stuff

I've been working on the Level 2 of the program.  This level involves 24 swatches(notice the fat binder), involving lots of finishing techniques, lace and cables,  There is a lot more writing in the level: 4 knitting book reviews (middle photo), patterns and instructions, many questions to answer (third photo), and a very long history

report.  The projects are a fair isle wristlet, an argyle sock, and a vest.  I have everything done but the report and the projects.  Report before projects--the ending to the report is done, and most of the research is done.

I had a frustrating experience this past week with an overspun alpaca yarn.  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get a nice stockinette tension--and that's knitting in the round, where no purling is involved.  I saved this piece to show the yarn shop, then to be able to complete the project these liners are intended for, I pinned the strand of yarn to the ball of yarn, stood up, and let it unspin a few yards at a time.  Not much fun for a $20 small skein of yarn.  So all this work went into the orange mittens which had been shown before, but now are nicely lined.  Their owner loves them.
For the same person, a lovely green cabled hat, lined with some really funky yarn that he chose.  The hat is Briggs and Little Heritage, the liner is Mirasol Chirapa.  Here is the Ravelry link.

Same person has a sweater from the same yarn, beautiful workmanship (not by me), but it is too long.  So I have mutilated the sweater in preparation for re-grafting the ribbing onto the shortened sweater.  I chose to graft because some of the ribbing knit columns continued up through the sweater, framing the cables.  If I simply re-knit the ribbing downward, I would lose this continuity, but if the grafting gets too complicated, I can still do the downward ribbing as a last resort.

And now the next big project, the chain mail for the theatre.  This is the prototype on my lovely visage.

And the cording, all dyed, waiting to be rendered into the cowls.

I have a baby shower on Monday, so I whipped up these to go along with the gift.  Someone on Ravelry was having trouble with the pattern, so I offered to help, and in that process I whipped these up.  Parfait!!

And every knitter (aka as stasher) can relate to this image from Facebook.  So instead of some wise saying, this time I will end up with this thought:

Till next time:  keep healthy , keep safe, be happy.