Had knitting last night at the dome. Katie finally got done with her sweater and is working on another Clapotis.

I got the Secret Gift #3 2007 finished last night. Here’s my last progress picture. I should be able to post a finished picture next week. Click through for a larger picture!

Here is the first in a series of embroidery by my great-grandmother Valeria Kielian (according to my mother):

The first one has some unfinished tree, but shows the edging detail. The second is more finished, but there is no edging detail in the picture.

With my Spring/Summer gift crafting almost over, it is time to figure out projects for summer.

Lately, I’ve been very attracted to uber-large knitting needles.  Garth over at Extreme Craft recently posted a link about a knitter who creates oversided cableknit rugs.  Christien Meindertma makes me want to do the same sort of stuff, but using recycling techniques.  Bust out the 50s (needle size).

As far as knitting projects or development, I really wanted to write a pattern using a new corn-blend yarn.  Yarn Market has one type of yarn, but I’d really like to use the yarn to make a Cornhusker Red sweater or Broncos Blue/Orange sweater.  They seem to only have pastels.

Speaking of bold colors, Vickie Howell’s CRAFT*ROCK*LOVE line is out.  I could only find one place selling it online: showersofflowers.com.  I’m digging the ROCK, but the CRAFT looks good for summer knitting.

Finally, with this dabble in embroidery/creweling, it was fun to go home for Easter to be exposed to all of this wonderful needlework done by my maternal great-grandmother, Valeria.  She was bedridden at the end of her life, and completely stitched up a storm, not only embroidering dresser scarves, but doing the lace tatting on the edges too.  I hope to be putting up a few of those images soon.

Got some bad knitting news today. The patterns I submitted to knitty.com aren’t really their style. Rejection is good for the soul, so says my short-story-writer-husband. At least this helps me get in touch with his rejection letters.

This means some good news for you, loyal readers. These patterns do not really fit into any of the other cool pattern sites either, so I’ll have some more free patterns up in the next few weeks.

Let’s take a look at the holiday armwarmer (VogueKnitting, Spring 2006). It is great for those days in the winter when you want to wear a T-shirt, but you don’t want to waste money keeping the house warm enough to wear just a T-shirt.

I call it my holiday armarmer because I have worn it to a number of holidays to also “dress up” whatever T-shirt I am wearing at that time.

In non-knitting news, it was a very social weekend. Tyrone had a number of UNL English department events and parties to attend. We had a few friends have some other parties (one was a cheese pizza and beer and teaching-5-year-olds-how-to-armwrestle-party, the other was a yay-you’re-pregnant-so-let’s-have-crepes-party).

One of the events we attended was the last Clean Part reading for the 2006-07 season @ the Sheldon. I met Zach Schomberg, who blogged about the event so you can read about it here. We got to see the lovely Hadara Bar-Nadav read from her new book _A_Glass_of_Milk_To_Kiss_Goodnight_.

Other: Clean Part Reading Series Website

Started this one Monday night. It’s progressing:

The pinks of the recycled sweater will go with the pattern well. Remember, secret gift projects are not always oriented in the proper direction!

We’ve got a crazy weekend ahead of us, with so many friends. I’m not sure how much I’ll get to work on it. At least the crafting isn’t competing with the yard work.

Need to move on to a knitting project soon.

The Indiana Review has a podcast up (a podcast is like a downloadable piece of radio) of Tyrone reading his poem “Specter”.

Click on the link, and press play right underneath where it says “Bluecast” on the side.

Also, meet Frank, our new tomato plant:

My dad started a bunch of seeds in February, including tomatoes, peppers, and hedge trees (aka hedge apple trees, aka, osage orange, aka horseapples)

I have a tough time following crochet patterns. This hat was my first attempt to to follow one all of the way through. I found I do not crochet tightly. The pattern is from Debbie Stoller’s _The_Happy_Hooker_.

(It is on the cover of the book!)

I decreased my needle size twice, and it still turned out a big. It was made with Lion Brand Cotton, held doubled.

The flower on the side is crocheted too! I got the pattern from stitchdivastudios.com.

I have toyed with the thought of just crocheting a horse and putting that on my head, but as the days slowly draw closer, and I’m working on Secret Gift 2007 #3, my time is running out.

My sister’s SO, Ivan could not make it to Easter. We sorta expected him, sorta didn’t.

This picture was meant to show him what he was missing: a bottle of mudslide, a customized egg, my sister, my mother, and I.
Tyrone and I dyed the eggs on Saturday night. When it came to applying the crayon, I used the “invisible” crayon, leaving behind white splotches. White-on-white is hard to write, and my egg looked like I my signature when I was six years old. On the other hand, Tyrone was very precise: straight lines, filled-in polygons, and painstaking attention to detail.

Then, when it came to the dyeing, I had different combinations of colors: base colors, ombre-effects, and hold-the-egg-in-halfway-for-two-minutes-to-gradually achieve breathtaking results. Mid-way through, Tyrone started mixing colors, adding extra dye tables, and throwing caution to the wind. I guess we all have our standards.

Only 30 hat-making days left before Derby Day on May 5th.

I have no idea what type of hat I’m going to make but I’m searching for options.

The Sewist talks about Amy Butler’s new hat making book.

Maggie Mae Designs has some inspiration. The gal who won at the track last year had a hat like these (in pink).

Genaconti has some younger + hipper takes.

More Kentucky Derby Hats

Last year I crocheted the red cowboy hat from Debbie Stoller’s _The_Happy_Hooker_ crochet book.  Then I put a crocheted flower on the side from the Stich Diva Studio’s Flower Patterns.  I was going to have a picture up today, but I’ll put one up tomorrow.

Thanks to Diana for correctly identifiying the mystery flower from this entry! With my allergies, I tend to stay as far away from flowers as I can, but spring doesn’t bother me that much.  Almost all of plants outside of the dome came with the dome, I didn’t plant any of them.  I transplanted some vinca minor last week, but that is about it.  I mostly just cut it all back when it dies or dries out, or as with the trumpet vine: THREATEN TO KILL IT with a big bottle of BRUSH-B-GON.

Interesting other fact: My co-worker Amy said that Roundup-based herbicide doesn’t work until it is 70 C for a good portion of the day, and there is no rain for 6 hours.  This is despite the packaging listing a 2 hour window between application and shower.  In retrospect, my experience agrees with hers, and gives me a weed-fighting vacation during the next two weeks of cold snap.

Amy also shared a GREAT tip: apply Roundup to weeds with a paintbrush instead of spraying on windy Nebraska afternoons.

Finally the great haircut controversy of 2007: bangs or no bangs?

It’s BANGS, dear Watson.

In the 4-5 years I’ve been reading knitting/craft blogs, it gets super annoying when the author doesn’t update the site. Of course, this is only second to, “I’ve been working on ultra-cool project X for the past three weeks and I can’t show you any of it.” The only remedy is to show a picture of a portion of the craft taken out of context.

There are any number of reasons why a project may be secretive. The best reason is because it will be gift, and the crafter doesn’t want to spoil the surprise. The other reason is because the recipe/pattern has been submitted for publishing to a site that has a strict secretive content provision.

On my site, the only way you’ll see 100% of a non-given gift, is if I’m 100% sure the recipient isn’t on the internet, AKA Grandma Shirley or Grandpa Dave. That’s it really. SOOOO….If you are a friend and/or relative trolling for gifts, you can be sure this site is safe for you to view. If you are a craft publisher (haha), I’ve got an entire backlog I’m holding back.

That being said, let’s move on to Secret Gift 2007 #2!

another view






Secret Gift 2007 #2 is 100% wool creweling on fuzzy ribbed and felted base of 40% silk and 60% wool. Still looking for the perfect device to transfer patterns with. So far, taylor’s chalk is supplying straight lines that only last for a day. Otherwise, I hate to say it, but I use fine-tipped sharpie on dark mediums like this.