Friday, March 18, 2011

A note on Franny...


A while back I brought all of the monster and animals I knitted into my German 2 class. My students were supposed to give their monster a name, describe the way it looks and talk about what it likes to do in its free time. The exercise was a huge success. My college (!!!) class had a blast with it, they were super creative and spoke German. Mission accomplished!

On Wednesday, I was talking to my students before class and one of them told me that she dreamed about me leaving to go to Switzerland. They got a new teacher and that teacher was super mean and would not belief her that I had an owl that I brought to class and that that owl was super colorful and that her name was Franny.... The student said she was super upset about the dream and was glad it was only a dream.

I guess teaching with my knitted creations had some kind of a lasting impact ;) That lesson also had an impact on me since I liked the name my student gave the owl so much I decided to keep it. So my rainbow owl has been called Franny ever since ...

Thursday, March 17, 2011

It feels like spring

Today for the first time this year it really felt like spring outside. How fitting than that I got around to blocking my Echo Flower shawl. It is knit in Knit Picks Gloss lace yarn in a wonderful bright yellow called Dandeline. The shawl sure looks like spring. And I cannot wait to wear it. But see for yourself:



Sunday, March 13, 2011

Birthday Yarn

So my birthday was a couple of weeks ago... and just last week I finally decided on what to order from KnitPicks with the wonderful gift card I got for them. Well, I did not so much decide as just finally click on the send-order-button. Otherwise I probably would have changed my mind a million more times. Anyway, the result of my shopping spree came in the mail and here is a picture of what I got!


So as you can see one of the things I got is a ball winder... which is great for all those hanks of lace yarn you see on the top... Winding 440 yards of super thin flimsy lace yarn by hand is definitely not fun so I am hopping the ball winder will make the process less painful. Ok, so the top row, except for the one ball of gray, is all lace yarn ranging from 100% baby alpaca "Alpaca Cloud" in Tide Pool Heather and Raspberry Heather to Shimmer in Eucalyptus which is 70% Baby Alpaca and 30% Silk to 2 Hanks of Oregon Coast Heather and Forest Heather Shadow Lace Yarn (100% Merino Wool). My birthday also brought me 4 more hanks of Bordeaux Gloss Fingering Yarn (70% Merino Wool and 30% Silk)of which I already had 2 hanks. One half of a Bordeaux hank has already transformed into a beautiful fingerless glove. I also designed my own Butterfly Fingerless glove with the rest of the Kenai from my Haruni. Pictures soon to follow. The rest of the lace weight yarns are probably going to transform into lace shawls of various different styles to test-knit some patterns for a wedding shawl. The first hank I knit into something will probably be one of the baby alpaca blends... I keep taking them out to touch them. They are sooooooooooo wonderfully soft!

The bottom row of this picture is for a big special late birthday/possibly Christmas birthday present that had been on hold due to a lack of feltable yarn and time to go to the Local Yarn store to pick some up. So now there are plenty of browns and great ball of Onyx Heather (super dark gray) plus a nice light green called Green Tea Heather and tiny 50 grams ball of Shine Worsted Yarn called Robot. I can already envision Yoda in the Green Tea Heather and Maple Syrup Brown...

I also got 5 balls of City Tweed in Tahitian Pearl.... that are going to be a cardigan....

So I will be busy. Stay tuned

Saturday, March 5, 2011

The Magic of Blocking

Finally, I took the time and blocked the Haruni Shawl. And I could not be more pleased with the end-result of all the work. The shawl is absolutely beautiful. Well, of course, I am a little biased ;) So see for yourself. The first picture is the unfinished, unblocked shawl in progress. The rest shows the wet but pinned into shape end-result. Enjoy!