Your Custom Text Here
Here are some small things that are bringing me joy these days:
The labels in my new vintage sweater
Lacey Mitts* to keep my hands warm when I drive
Evening games of Trivial Pursuit with Mr. Cleaver
and a new warm scarf in a special yarn**:
* Wine and Roses Mitts in Malabrigo Lace ** Just Enough Ruffles Scarf in Tess' Designer Yarns' Cultivated Silk and Wool
I don't often knit for Mr. Cleaver because he's not really a hat or scarf kinda guy and after hearing about the "boyfriend curse," he's nervous about the idea of a sweater, even though we've been married for two years.
I do knit things for him from time to time, and Mr. Cleaver is appropriately grateful for the items, case in point - Hubby Socks I.
Long before this blog began, I knit Mr. Cleaver a pair of socks. These were the first pair of socks I ever knitted. I think I did them on size 3 needles or something ridiculously large like that. Mr. Cleaver wears them as house socks/slippers and has been wearing them almost every night for nearly three years.
Unsurprisingly, they've gotten a little worn. Once I saw you could see the tips of his toes through some stretched stitches in the socks I decided it was time for a new pair.
These are were knit toe up on size 1 needles in a k2, p1 rib with a short row heel, which is to say I improvised. The yarn is the particularly lovely-feeling Shibui Sock in stone from Purl Diva. It pooled a bit oddly, but it feels so nice!
Of course Mr. Cleaver let me know that I'd pry his old socks from his cold dead toes, so we've agreed the new pair is for regular day wear.
As for the old socks? I managed to squirrel them away for a half an hour to darned them, so now they're good as new. :)
When Mr. Cleaver and I went apple picking a few weeks back, we came home with 21 pounds of apples. For two people. What did we do with them all?
2 Quarts Apple Sauce and 1.5 Pints Apple Butter;
3 Fat Apple Pies;
3 apples for my mother-in-law and 3 apples for my lunch.
All in all not a bad haul! It took one day to do all the canning and another day for the pies. It was a lot of work, but I'll happily be eating apples until next September!
Though this is my fourth year making apple pies, this is the first year I worked out a recipe that I was totally happy with. In the past, my pies had ended up too watery, but with a few tweaks to some recipes from family and friends, I think we've ended up with something delicious!
Streusel Apple Pie
Crust:
Filling:
Streusel
Preheat oven to 400°F
Make crust by mixing together flour and salt. Cut shortening into flour mixture with a pastry cutter or some forks. Add cold water until dough holds together. Form dough into two flattened balls, wrap in plastic wrap and store in fridge until filling is prepared.
Peel, core, and slice apples. In a large bowl, mix apples, lemon juice, sugar and spices. Add flour until a thin sauce is formed from the juices. Set filling aside.
Removed chilled dough from fridge and roll out into a top and bottom crust.
Place bottom crust in 9 inch round pie pan (metal or glass) and fill with apples, heaping up in center. Cover apples with top crust. Top can be latticed or vented with several cuts through the top.
For streusel, cut together softened butter, flour and brown sugar with a fork until crumbly. Sprinkle streusel over top of pie.
Bake pie at for 40-50 or until filling bubbles and top is brown.
Cool, slice and enjoy!
It's fall in Maine, which means Fair Season and for the even slightly crunchy granola of us, it means the Common Ground Fair hosted by the Maine Organic Farmers and Gardeners Association. When I went last year, I was unemployed and recently arrived from Chicago. I went because I was told there'd be yarn.
This year I went up as part of a group of seven from my Tuesday night knitting group. We left Portland at 7:30 and even getting slightly lost, managed to avoid the long line of traffic that you get after about 10 am. It was cool when we left, but the weather couldn't have been more perfect. We wandered around the fair for about 6 hours seeing all the sights.
And yes, we bought yarn and fiber. I bought lots of fiber because this is my first fair trip as a spinner. The haul, as displayed below is as follows: Llama fiber from Botanical Shades (Orange on spindle and purple), "fudge sundae" wool-bamboo-silk blend from Pleasant Valley Farm (dark multicolor ball), and wool and sparkle blend from Enchanted Knoll. The sheep sculpture is from Maple Lane Pottery.
I spin now, did I mention that yet?
Mr. Cleaver got me a drop spindle for my birthday and I've be happily leaving tufts of wool all over the sofa since July. But really, we all knew it was just a matter of time, right? I look forward to sharing more bits of fibery/handspun goodness here in the coming months.
My first (grey) and second (white) spinning samples, apx 1.1oz each, wool fiber from the Portland Fiber Gallery and Studio.
This finished object round up to you by nearly fall weather, a willing photographer, and the letter 'B.'
This number was completed and worn for the first time yesterday.
The pattern is the Zick Zack Tunic from the Spring 09 issue of Interweave. I was in love with the pattern, but wasn't sure how it'd look on my body type. I can happily say that I love the way it looks.
Obviously I didn't stray too far from the magazine's version here in terms of look, but the yarn used was 1 cone of Valley Yarns 2/10 Merino Tencel in Grey Blue and 1 card of shell buttons. The yarn has a lovely sheen and drape, it was perfect for this project and I'd definitely use it for a laceweight project again. All in - project cost about $25. Not too shabby, considering the results.
And just so ya'll don't think I only work in shades of blue, I've included my "Bumblebee" socks. Just a pair of ribbed socks in knit picks palette (which I don't like and still have another project worth of yarn to knit in).
Because the whole sock is ribbed, it has something around 50% negative ease. When I was working on them, no one believed they would fit, but they do, nice and comfortably snug.
If you're one of my friends on Ravelry, you might have noticed that for the past several months the top half of my project page seemed pretty empty. I had no photos of anything I made in the past 4-5 months - oops!
I blame this on two things - one: I didn't feel like putting on woolly things in the middle of the summer to take pictures of them and two: something I affectionately call That D@#n Sweater.
That D@#n Sweater is the achingly lovely Joy pattern from Rowan's vintage knits - my second and not last project from that book. It's a perfect lightweight cardigan that goes with anything and I wear it probably three times a week these days.
So why the name? Three reasons, it's black, textured and involves the following US needle sizes: 1, 2, 3. All of this is to say, I started it January 28 and finished around July 5th. A nearly six month labor of love. That said, I'm a huge fan of the finished product, my only caveat is that I wish I had used better quality yarn, it's made from Knit Pick's Palette, which doesn't feel as nice as I'd like and it's already doing some serious pilling, but in any case I'm sure I will wear this cardigan to the bone.
To make myself feel better, this is a project I completed from start to finish in about three days, one which involved a marathon session of watching The West Wing.
The project was inspired by a similar pillow pictured in SouleMama's book Handmade Home, which I picked up at a local book signing a few weeks back. The "bluework" pattern is free on a site called Pattern Bee (which as of 9/10/09 appears to be down for maintenance - the link should be re-activated around 9/16). The fabric is from a fat quarter pack I picked up at Z Fabrics a while back. The whole thing looks very nice on my sofa.
This one you've seen a lot of, but here's me actually wearing that scarf I wove earlier this summer (June). The ladies in my knitting group like to mock me for my consistency in color selection. Looking at the items in this post and my current (unpictured) knitting project, I'd be the last one to deny it. What can I say? I like the colors of the ocean!
Another scarf photo, in a long tradition of what I like to call the"Book Jacket Photo."
This is Ysolda's Ishbel shawl from Whimsical Little Knits, which I picked up back here and knit in some hand-dyed lace weight from Pine Star Studio that I got at the Maine Fiber Frolic. I knit it in about 10 days and took about 2 months before I got around to blocking it, which really does make all the difference in the world.
This is my new favorite picture of myself. All of the knitting/weaving photos were graciously taken by Mr. Cleaver while we took a walk around Mackworth Island this Labor Day. Mr. Cleaver joined me in creating the final FO ofthe post, of contribution to Mackworth's village of Fairy Houses.
A little over a month ago now, I took that pattern-making class at the local art college and in the weeks leading up to our Philly trip I tried my hand at my first pattern-drafting project. As one might expect for a first go, this one had its ups and downs and a number of changes along the way.
Big change #1 - this started out as a dress. I'd carefully drafted and sewed together a bodice and had started doing some draping with a skirt when I realized that this pattern was waaaaayyy to busy for a head to toe garment, at least for me. As
just a top I wasn't digging it, so I turned my focus to skirt portion. (As I side note, I wouldn't recommend using a heavily patterned/directional fabric like this for your first drafting project, but then again I never did anything the easy way).
Over all it's a pretty basic high-waisted a-line skirt, but it's rather fitted. The most major design feature in it's construction is the inverse pleats at the waist.
Big Change #2 - the pleats were originally mirrored on the reverse side for shaping, but that made the posterior region look terrrrrible. So again, we adapt. I ended up moving the shaping into the zipper seam and let me say that it's an interesting experience trying to put tailoring/pins marks on the backside of something that you are wearing and then trying to take it off. That said, it only took three round of basing stitches to get a well fitting seam that didn't make me look like I was wearing a bustle.
After that it was just finishing, which was easy. In honor of clean lines and hand-sewing month at Sew Mam Sew! I handstitched both the waist band and hem, which looks really sleek.
Overall, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. It fits really well, though in hindsight, I think I would have added an additional inch of ease in the hips (is that a pun?). But not too bad for a first try. I'm looking forward to doing more of this in the future!
We had a whole weekend of sun which meant I finally got to wear a new summer top I made on Saturday.
It's loosely based on Maryy's Hot Hot Heat top tutorial, and was made before a) Burdastyle made an actual pattern of it and b) I took the pattern-making class, so it was a lot of trial and error to get something that looks right. There was a time in the middle when I thought it was hopeless, but I think it turned out pretty well in the end. The fabric came from a bag of stuff from a friend of m mother-in-law's, so it was nice to have some free fabric to experiment with.
But really this post is about Sunday, which involved soft-serve with sprinkles and several hours at Fort Williams Park taking it all in.
Summer is finally here! Hooray!
For national weather watchers, and New England blog-readers, you may have heard that it was a damp June here in Maine. We pretty much had mist, fog, or rain every day for the last three weeks of the month. A little fog didn't keep six brave knitting souls from attempting a stitch n' pitch at Hadlock Field this past Tuesday.
By the middle of the first inning we had seven runs against us, one out and a reliever pitcher, we never rallyed as hoped (I've yet to ever see the Seadogs win a game), but despite the weather I had a great time. It's July now and it looks like we'll be getting more sun, and there are more plans to knit outside, so fingers crossed!
I finished weaving my scarf this past week, which means my weaving class is sadly over, but it doesn't mean I'm done learning.
The first thing I did after Lent when I had use of my credit card again, was to register for a pattern-making class at the Maine College of Art (MECA). Since then I've been eagerly awaiting this weekend for the two-day intensive workshop.
It was well-worth the wait. Over the 12 course hours, my 12 classmates and I learned how to make a fitted sloper, how to adapt commercial patterns to fit better, how to recreate existing clothing and a teensy bit of draping.
Obviously we couldn't cover everything in such a short amount of time, but I felt I was solidly introduced to each of the methods and am hungry to do some research and practice and learn some more on my own.
I'm eagerly waiting for college to publish the fall continuing studies catalogue to I can pick up some more art/design skills. But hopefully we may be seeing some Ms. Cleaver original designs gracing these pages soon!