musindigo

I invested in a new camera.

The one I was using did the job but it’s five years old and a little shaky and flaky at times.

So, as luck would have it (but these days, it’s not terribly hard to find some suitable deal, I find), a company I like to deal with had a deal on the camera brand I like (Fujifilm) when I started looking for a new one.  I’ve had it for a little while and really appreciate some of the features like the anti-shake and fairly decent video capabilities, as well as its ability to to function in lower light situations than my old camera which did its best work in natural light.

I first bought my previous digital to capture still life shots, mostly of florals, and because we were expecting the little guy.  I used to do watercolours back then, and coloured pencil work, but I haven’t really done any at all since the birth of Sam.  However, he is going to be in school full time this fall so I’m hoping I can put my typical knitting startitis aside every once in a while and maybe sit still long enough to produce a few watercolours or other paintings now and again.  Having the new camera  has also woken up a little spark in me sort of aiming in such a direction as well.

So while I haven’t taken gardening shots, really, for years (it’s hard to think about photography when you have your eyeballs thinking about different colourways of hand-dyed yarn every waking minute), today and recently I’ve captured a few shots from the garden which some day might become some sort of floral still-life paintings.

But even if they don’t, I’m sure I will quite enjoy the photos on their own.  I haven’t really done photography seriously since university when my old Pentax ME was still working.  I like how the shots come out nicely clear and detailed and I really like the brilliant colour.

And, I’m pretty impressed with my garden this year, and what I’ve managed, considering I’m not always feeling like gardening but it really has come together nicely enough.   Sometimes I think gardening is more about have time to really think about it than anything.  And with this year being a little on the tough side at times, the little crisp spots of colour go a long way.

I’m happy to report some knitting has made it off the needles.

A little lacey shoulder shawl I’m pleased to have knitted out of one skein of the Asherah alpaca-merino lace.  I’m working on a beaded version and a pattern will be available soon.

Back to gardening…

The roses are nearly finished.  They took a beating the other day when we had downpours, but a few are still showing off nice punchy colour:

I didn’t count the blossoms but I’m betting on around a hundred or so.

And, the Silver Lace is going absolutely nuts this year:

I know vines are not everyone’s cup of tea but I really appreciate the extra shade this one allows.

And, my prized white hydrangea.  A few weeks back, it looked like this:

Today it looks like this, slightly mangled.  Yesterday it was sprawled all over the steps to the right due to heavy rain.  :(  It’s now held in place by a little netting at the bottom and I hope it’s enough to help it stay upright.

Unfortunately, there were a few broken stems.  Several blossoms have come into the house with me where I can enjoy them.

This one resides in a anniversary glass gifted in honour of my parents’ silver anniversary.  I thought it was a pretty combination.

And, no, it’s not my anniversary (that was last month).  But, it’s June.  It’s bound to be someone’s anniversary.  Happy Anniversary.

Tags: finished, gallery, knitting, lace, life, patterns

Sometimes, when you blog, you get what you wish for.

Katherine, with her laceweight sitting in front of her, spun from a merino roving I provided for the spin-to-scarf exchange, decided to grant me a wish (we were informed who we were spinning for late in June so she had the privilege of fine-tuning her contribution to the exchange). 

See this post.

I am so tickled at her thoughtfulness.

It is really the perfect little oasis.

The end of summer is also providing me with a tiny little holiday (it’s been a busy time over the last several months, with many curves thrown in for variety).  Hubby and I are taking off over the weekend - not very far, but one doesn’t need to go terribly far when you live next door to Lake Huron.  The goal is a nice dinner out, some quiet motel knitting time which doesn’t involve one eye on the three or four other ‘boy’ things going on peripherally, and breakfast - I scored up a restaurant with Benedict on the menu (which is up there on my list of very favourite eats).

Simple things but sometimes, the simplest of things make the crazy feel, well, not so crazy.

It won’t be a long holiday - I’m now committed on Sunday mornings.  I never would have thought it, but I’ve been convinced (by another local knitting blog reader) to return to the bench of a Casavant Freres.  Who’da thought.

Tags: knits, knitting, lace, life

I’m not really sure how it got to be August, but it is.  It happened.

Lately the days just fill up and flow together.

This is not necessarily a bad thing (I can be heard remarking that one of my biggest fears in life is being bored;  I certainly don’t need to be concerned about it at all these days).

And, I quite like when there is concrete physical evidence of productivity.  As of late, it’s been pretty good around here on that level.

A few notables:

For the past year, we’ve been anticipating some sort of diagnosis for the youngest, given his development is not typical for his age level and hasn’t been for some time.  In July, we received a diagnosis of high level autism.  This is good.  It allows all of us to move forward with confidence we’ve been practicing activities and setting up programs which are going to be helpful for him and have been helpful.  We are on the right track.

In the knitting arena, I’ve gotten a few things off the needles in good time (I can’t show you one of them because it’s the design for the September installment of the ETL Club via Woolgirl).  I am also dyeing the yarn (still a work in progress) for the same installment.  This has been a little challenging this summer (as has been dyeing in general) with our weather patterns in southwestern Ontario leaning towards high humidity and more rain than normal.  But, we’re managing.

This, however, I can show you, now that it’s in the hands of its intended:

Earlier in the year, I was invited to participate in this year’s Handspun Scarf Exchange.  Basically, the premise is to entice spinners to knit with their handspun.  This was good incentive for me; it is the first FO knitted out of my handspun.  I have dabbled and dreamed and prospected with my handspun but have never achieved and full, in the flesh, completed knitted item.

I think it came out fairly well.

I really enjoyed the whole process, as well.  You receive fibre to spin from the intended owner, and likewise, someone else in the group receives your fibre.  You have no idea who you’re spinning/knitting for until the end of the alotted timeframe.

So, I’m not sure who dyed this fibre; I know only it is a merino silk.  Very nice to work with.  It was spun on the Ladybug at 9:1.  My intention was laceweight/light fingering, but with a little bit of bounce, not too drapey but with some ability to show lace patterning.  Larkin requested a wider scarf, and not too long and skinny.  I found Anne’s Butternut Scarf pattern and it seemed to fit the bill.  I think I was also attracted to that pattern in particular because the Anne’s sample was knitted with handspun as well.

Other yarn specs:

Plied 9:1; the roving was divided into 32 smaller ‘nests’ before spinning to spread the colouring around and shorten some of the longer colour runs.  Resulting yardage:  skein #1 - 2.8 oz/80g/405 yds; skein #2 - 1.3 oz/38g/195 yds.  I was hoping for around 600 yds and in the end, that’s exactly what I wound up with.

It really all came together perfectly.

Of course, now I would like one just like this for myself.  :)

Anyhow, finally got around to blogging!  I have more knitting/spinning to share but my hopes are I will be able to squeeze in another blog post fairly soon.

Tags: finished, knitting, lace, life, projects, spinning, yarn

Feels like I’ve been on another planet for the last week or so (the Frolic seems to have that effect on me, never mind acquiring a bit of a cold afterwards). However, here we have two new ladies, now available:

Ms. Lutea

and,

Ms. Tilia

(click title links to be taken to more info about either pattern).

Watch for more new goodies as the week progresses.

Happy Spring!

Tags: finished, knit design, knitting, lace, oceanwind knits, patterns, projects

Are these not just the cutest?

They are like little pets.  Colorful bits of hand-dyed, hand-carded mulberry silk, in several colourful flavours.  :)  I would like to keep them all for my personal little pet collection but I will be carding them with some hand-dyed alpaca and merino and bringing them to the Frolic next weekend.  Time is flying.  It will be here fast!

Now that the weather is finally getting nice - yesterday was the first day since last fall I felt was balmy enough to hang freshly dyed out to dry.   And the warmer weather is adding a bit of energy that’s been lacking around here - all the long snowy days kind of get to you after a while.  Now it’s spring!  I’m hoping officially here since I have mosquitoes instead of snowflakes dancing around the front porch (yes, this is Ontario - from snowflakes to black flies in less than a week).

Today I saw a butterfly which I also feel bodes well.

I can see my dad putting his snow-blower away for the winter across the road… I think that’s a good sign, too.

I am really looking forward to the Frolic.  Many new vendors this year, too, although I don’t really get to shop (which is probably not a bad thing for my pocketbook since the takings are usually phenomenal).

The last several months have been spent putting things together.  I’ve got several new designs and lots of spinning goodies this year.

I thought I would share a few tastes of the new lotus shawl (still not officially named… it will come to me sometime soon in the middle of the nigh, I’m sure).

I will have kits for this at the Frolic in hand-dyed laceweight merino in lots of spring colourways.

So, I’d better get back to knitting, dyeing and carding… still lots to do!

I may, a little later, park on the front porch with the laptop for a change of scene… always a sure sign of spring around here.  :)

Tags: dyeing, finished, knit design, knitting, lace, oceanwind knits, patterns, projects, roving, spinning, yarn

Just a few new things posted to Oceanwind Knits today.  More soon!

Check out what’s new.

Tags: dyeing, lace, oceanwind knits, wool, yarn

So it’s nearly the end of March.

Yup, occurs to me today.

I guess time flies when you’re busy. I should know that by now!

OK. So, since last time, I’ve (obviously) been rebuilding websites but, what else? When I try to analyze, it’s all a blur so it’s hard to say, specifically.

We’ve had our share of bugs (again - I think working from home has lowered our resistance to some bugs now that Sam is in JK - poor Sammy had pneumonia + ear infection a little while back).

Boys finished hockey last weekend. It wasn’t a stellar year for Ben’s Bantam team but I guess every year is different.

But I do know there was a usual flurry of dyeing and designing and knitting and spinning.

This is the first skein off the Ladybug, hand-dyed merino, 2-ply, about fingering weight.

It’s fairly even but there are a few spots where it’s a little oddly plied since I am still getting used to the wheel.  But, getting used to it is fun.  :)

This is the first (still unfinished) skein of 50/30/20 alpaca/mohair/wool from Wellington Fibres, spun on the Victoria.  It comes pin-drafted so it practically spins itself!  It’s awesome.  I love it.  188 yds/70g, light fingering.  I have a lot of it.  I am pretty sure I will have enough for a large lace project once it’s all spun up.

Then there is this stuff (which is as amazing as it looks, believe me)- Australian Merino, intense deep colours, soft and smooth.  Just perfect (really).  It’s from Spiraldyed by Jacinta Leishman.

It doesn’t really show up well in this photo, but spun up, it’s just gorgeous.  I have one skein plied, 320 yds/96gs.  I’m hoping to knit a rectangular wrap of some sort from it.

So, how are all those sweaters coming, you ask?  Believe it or not, I have buttons in hand for the Tangled.  I do not know what the hold-up is, other than I like to be in a certain mood (calm is always good!) to place and sew on buttons and I haven’t felt that lately.  But, one of these days, there will be buttons.

I’ve finished the body of Wisteria and am working on the sleeves.

And, I’ve managed to sneak in a Noro sweater (in soothing stockinette) which is nearly off the needles.  With any luck it won’t take me too long to finish off the bands and sew on buttons.  ;)

I am working on a few new designs, too:

This one, above, is nearly off the needles already.  I may actually get it published before my deadline (which is the DKC Frolic in Toronto, the last week of April).  In any event, I hope to have them both debuting at the Frolic with kits available, along with a few other goodies.

Hopefully I will have at least one shop update before then, too.

Hope everyone is well.  Happy spring!

Tags: dyeing, finished, knit design, knitting, lace, oceanwind knits, patterns, projects, roving, spinning, sweater, wool, work in progress, yarn

… well not in a creepy invasive way. ;)

Moments like these (priceless, according to the Mastercard commercials) make my world go round. Given my two boys are 9 years apart in age, I sometimes feel like I am in a sort of second parenthood with the elder being fairly self-sufficient and and younger just starting out.

There are benefits, however, with Ben taking on more a mentoring role to his little brother, not always available to siblings closer in age.

So far, hockey is a hit with Sam. Once he got used to the mouth-guard and realized he had to learn to skate more efficiently before he could whip across the ice to score in the net at the other end of the rink, things went fairly well. (Yay. This is not always black and white with Sam who is being assessed for ASD and has quite a noisy personality about things).

I still have fantasy ideas that I will actually be able to knit at hockey games (I obviously haven’t learned anything from last season). We will see.

It has been a busy fall around here (I feel like an echo of myself, sometimes - it is ALWAYS busy around here, nevermind the season). MrBear had some relatively unexpected surgery last month which kind of threw a wrench in things but it went very well in the end. School started, hockey started and it has just been generally a lot of activity. Sam turned 4. I totally gutted and re-organized the office. I had a booth a the KW Knitters Fair which was a blast but exhausting to get ready for - being the dyer of several hundred skeins/bumps for a one-day event takes a lot of planning and doing. My stock was late arriving, too, which made it a little more intense than expected. It was a very good day, however, and a lot of fun.

And, I do have some FOs, which, given the sheer number of UFOs I discovered floating around the office when I re-organized (oh, what a difference cubed shelving makes in a knitting studio, yippee), I am awfully excited to have (the UFOs always outnumber FOs, but I always hope, against hope eternal? to narrow the gap) FOs!

Sleepy Hollow Socks

These were for the August sock club. I love them. Seriously. The arches are knit at the same time as the heel flap with no gusset stitches to pick up. As a result they fit more snugly along the bottom of the foot and hug the arches.

And, the jumbled bit of lace from my last blog post turned into this:

Gothik Scarf

I seriously need to update the shop in general, however. Hopefully over the next few weeks… in the works: new fibre and a couple of new clubs will be posted for ‘09 very shortly.

Mercury retrograde notwithstanding (two more days… good grief, it isn’t over yet?) I will have more new designs shortly, as well (as I take a deep breath and cast on yet AGAIN - 5th time, I think - I just keep repeating, there is more to be learned the nth time around which you missed the last time….). Keeping the mercury retrograde in mind it should be quite an interesting election tomorrow with a few unexpected somethings arising… I guess it’s all subjective. I am also interested to see exactly what comes out of all this economic upheaval and reality-checking (gee, is there any uncredited cash, I mean, good old clear un-owed-to-anyone cash left on the planet? I wonder…) given the timing. Nothing is as it seems is the frame of mind for mercury retrograde periods and it has been exceptionally enlightening lately.

And if pmharper (following me on Twitter, no idea why) buys yarn from me, I shall be really elightened. :P

Happy knitting

Tags: boys, hockey, knit design, knitting, lace, life, socks

I thought, since I tend to be kind of AWOL lately, I would share a few photos of my WIPs and nearly FOs.

They are mostly sort of ’secret’ (ie. unpublished) at the moment but most of them should be available by the end of the month (with any luck some should be available at the KW show in a few weeks - x your fingers - it’s been challenging to keep the pace lately and as is typical when I’m dyeing like a madwoman for a show, I’ve come down with a chest cold… ick). Today I should make decent progress (now that the deck is finally stained - I’ve been wanting to do so for a year or so but last summer came and went and this year there have not been many stretches of dry days in a row - I jumped on the bandwagon this weekend, not wanting to think another summer would go by without completing the task. I am hoping to park in my usual spot with the laptop and spend a good chunk of the day fighting this cold and knitting productively.

My back deck is kind of my oasis (even when shared with a 3-year-old lining up trains and crashing them loudly surrounding items it has a certain peacefulness LOL).

This is the view from my chair if you look up:

This tree is one of the things I love about our property. I’m not sure what kind of maple it is; it’s huge, with large leaves that last well into the fall. Sometimes the snow comes before it turns on its fall colours.

I am really grateful to have this little spot to work.

This motif is one I’ve been working on for years… finally getting knitted into a shawl. Swatches have been floating around my desk for what seems like forever. Can you see what I see? I’m not sure how apparent it will be to the viewer… but I also love the idea of someone thinking ‘oh, pretty lace’ and then realizing the shawl is covered in dancing dragonflies.

This one is taking a long time to complete but I’m getting to the lower edge. It is very gratifying to near the finish line on this one (someone is waiting on this design with wonderful patience).

I wanted also to share a few feathers in my cap (I know, probably too many photos but who knows when I will find a moment to blog again…):

I never got a photo of the competition (there was lots) because my batteries were pooping out. The Laminaria shawl was also chosen to go to an Ontario regional fair in February. It’s nice to be recognized online, but also very nice at the local level. The ladies at the local knitting group had been urging me to enter for a while and I finally did.

And so, you can see I’ve (as usual) got my work cut out for me. ;)

When my eyeballs are tired of manipulating lace stitches and fitzing around with spreadsheets making and checking charts, I have this:

It’s great for baseball and movies, and, unfortunately, days like today spent watching the track of a nasty storm on CNN. :( My thoughts are with everyone affected. I can’t imagine.

Tags: lace