Summer Knit-a-Longs

Well it's time for some summer knit-a-longs to throw in with those already in the queue. First up is Bad Cat Designs Summer Sampler Shawl. around 50 rows each week, no pressure and this one is scheduled to end in September.So a nice stress free knit-a-long.

For the second Knit-a-long how about joining the Fingerless Glove Fanatics on Ravelry for a monthly knit of Merletto Mitts. Another fairly easy knit, good for that extra sock yarn that is lying around or the 150 yds of sport weight hand spun that you are looking for something to do with.

So join me and show me what you come up with. :)

It's Raspberry Time

Member of the rose family, red, sweet-but-tart, pick-me-up, eat straight off the cane, chocolate loves it, tarts love it, cheesecake loves it. Berry season is here!

The Garden Journey Continues

New Dawn

When we first moved into this house I came across an arbor that was the exact size I wanted for the stairs leading into the upper meadow. For this arbor I knew I wanted to plant New Dawn which is a Hybrid Wichurana type rose. It is quite fragrant. New Dawn is a sport of Dr. W. Van Fleet which is a once bloomer. It was noted by a grower that a branch of Dr. W. Van Fleet was a remontant bloomer and so cuttings were taken to see if this was a stable sport of the plant. The new cuttings taken from this branch did indeed rebloom as the original so a new rose was entered into the market place. Being a sport this rose can revert back to it's original parentage and so you may have a New Dawn that blooms profusely or one that is more of a once bloomer which describes mine. With all the other roses in the yard that is ok by me. This is one of my few grafted roses.

Growing on the arbor with New Dawn are clematis Etoile de Violettes, clematis Vienetta Evipo006, and Alister Stella Gray.

Souvenir de Madame Leonie Viennot

This is another one of my aggressive tea climbing roses. This one throws 20 foot canes and doesn't look back. It is a once bloomer that begins the first part of April and continues blooming through mid May. It is sweet smelling with beautiful pinks and cream-yellow blooms. This rose comes from the Antique rose Emporium and was an impulse by at the local Botanical Garden sale. It was in bloom, I knew it was a tea and well it said take me home. Little did I know I had bought a once blooming climber at the time, thankfully the arbor was already built for another climber.

Excellenz von Schubert

This rose was acquired from the Antique Rose Emporium in TX and is a mainstay of my garden, blooming profusely in the Spring and then with respectable repeat until frost. This rose is a polyantha/Hybrid Musk type rose and since this rose is not fragrant it has been discussed that it is really Gartendirektor Otto Linne. Both are similar roses and are in the same class. Whichever rose, it is a keeper.

Alister Stella Gray

This rose is a Tea Noisette that I planted maybe 5-6 years ago. It basically replaced a New Dawn own-root that I had planted on the north side of the arbor and since the one on the South had taken over the whole arbor I decided that I wanted some mixed color. The New Dawn that was in this roses place originally went to live at my friend Bonnie's house and it is taking over its space quite nicely. Up until this year Alister Stella Gray has bloomed but not done much else, however, it has recently grown a nice new basal that has quickly shot up to 6 feet. Hopefully this will mean more mingling between it and New Dawn. This rose was acquired from Roses Unlimited in Laurens, SC in a 5 quart pot.

Salet

Salet is one of the more interesting roses I grow, it is a moss rose. Note all the prickles on the buds and on the stem, this is what makes a moss rose a moss. :) The prickles on the buds are flexible and don't hurt at all but the stems now that is another story. This is one of the few moss roses that will grow this far South and the color, rebloom and fragrance is quite outstanding. A worthy rose for the rose garden.

Gloire de Dijon

Have you met Gloire?


She is an apricot blend tea noisette that is currently taking over the North side of my house. Above is a shot from the right side of the Holly facing east.


Here she is from the left.


Yes that is her up in the tree a good 12-15 feet from the ground and probably a 20-foot cane since she is located a good 5-6 feet from the tree.

Gloire has nice arching canes that are quite prickly and produce an outstanding flush in the spring with flowers coming intermittently throughout the growing season. This rose originally came from Ashdown Roses as an own root around 6 years ago, however this is probably not the REAL Gloire de Dijon since the petal count should be higher. Also about this time there was a discussion on the Rose Forum about Gloire not really doing well on own roots that it did better grafted. After this discussion I noted the Gloire was pulled from the Ashdown inventory and I haven't seen it offered since. It is apparently not a rose that is easily found in commerce at this time. This rose has the coloring and size so I am not at all disappointed by this rose and will happily let it continue to take over the North side.

Since it is spring and I have lots of garden shots, expect the blog to turn to the flowers for a while. :)

Cemetery Stroll

Last weekend was the annual Cemetery Stroll in the old section of the cemetery. It's a chance for local groups to reenact past local politicians, prominent city figures, or to tell the story of the Civil War and how it affected the area. In essence a chance to bring ghosts and history to life. Here are some shots from our stroll...

April Spindle Spinning

April Showers brings blue, white,and purple to mind. Blue and white for the rain; flowers in the white, blue and purple shades; and wispy blue and white skies after the storm. My inspiration…

My yarn from start to finish…

Lace weight, spun on a golding antiqued rosette 2” 1oz spindle, for 177yards. I used this as a chance to play with my hand carders and spin rolags. Because of the rain earlier in the month I had time to spin this since I couldn’t do any gardening. :)

Dogwoods

White, Pink, Red
Gracefully arching
illuminatingly beautiful
sweeping up towards the sky
Welcome Spring!

Fiber Color Fun Workshop

On this past Saturday I took a class in how to spin color roving and how to plan for what you want to get in the end for your knitting projects. The above yarn was made with the fiber below, which was in jewel tones. We split the fiber in half (2oz length) and then split it lengthwise into four pieces. For the above yarn we then took 1 of the four pieces and split it in half lengthwise turning the end 180 degrees so it continued in the same end color back to the beginning color. Theoretically if we spun at the same rate then when we Andean plied it back the colors should for the most part match perfectly, thus getting a two ply that followed the roving colors.

For those that don't know what Andean plying is, it is where you hold the end of the single spun yarn and then wrap it in a way around your hand that when you get to the other end. You can take both ends at that point and ply the single into a two ply that meets at the middle.

This is the fiber I picked from the table of many. It is jewel tones of blue, green, and amethyst. I was having trouble getting the colors to pick up true in some of the photos with the camera.

The second exercise was to take another quarter section and split it lengthwise, this time turning one end of the fiber to place next to the beginning. You then pre-draft the sections side by side and spin then Andean ply to get the above effect.

The third exercise was to work in color sections using another quarter of fiber and spinning while using the 'in the fold' technique while minimizing the color transition sections. To spin in the fold you pull of a section fiber in the same color-way and in the approximate size of the fiber length, around 3.5 - 4 inches. You then fold the fiber in half and place around the index finger on the hand that holds the fiber and then spin the fiber. To ply we used the Navajo plying technique. The easy way to explain this is to do finger crochet and then spin the opposite direction of the single ply. Doing this keeps the colors in line so you don't get a lot of color changes. It follows the roving and makes a 3-ply yarn.

For the final exercise we split our final quarter in half and then traded one section with another spinner. This is the fiber I traded for.

With both fibers you decide the best way to place the colors side by side and then repeat exercise 2.

This class was a lot of fun and was taught by the talented Lynne Vogel. It gave me the chance to see different ways to mix and match a roving and put aside time to actually spin and try new spinning techniques or improve on ones I already knew. I also learned how to Andean ply and that was just plain cool. :)

Time

Now there is a great conundrum for all, how to manage it and how to get the most from it, when most of us feel like we are stuck on the gerbil wheel going full force but not seeing much for our efforts. Such has been the way lately as work is in feast mode and it is now time for the next round of Cotton Row Run entries, so lots of time on the computer just no time to organize all the photos I have taken lately or time for blogging. Oh and we lost an hour recently, not to be found till next fall.

As we approach Spring Time…
In the past week the forsythia actually waited along with the Tulip trees (a type of magnolia) to bloom. The winter has actually been cold (not frigid thankfully) with very few warm spells so the easy to fool and quick to herald in spring survived to put on a great show. This past weekend the Bradford Pears are all cloaked in white and some of the white azaleas are starting to peak out. We have hit the white and yellow time of the year. The star of Bethlehem should be in bloom soon and so too shall the white dogwood trees. In another 3 weeks we should hit the blue/purple and yellow stage, followed by the pink stage and onto summer. It goes by so quickly so take it in and savor the moments before the mercury hits 90 and it’s all over.

The Rain Time of the year arrived for a change this year and so we have the wonderful spring flowers and newly green leaves cast on the dark grey clouds of the season. Makes for some wonderful shots, but why do I never have the camera with me on those moments.

This is Merike Saarniit

This is what I spun

It’s also been Time to spin and knit, not much but I have taken bits and pieces as they come. Last Friday, I took the day off to take a spinning class with Merike Saarniit and learned some new techniques that I have read of but being a visual person they now make more sense. We learned how to spin worsted for fluffy yarns and how to draft from the fold. I still need lots of work on these techniques but I have a start now. These techniques are extremely useful for spinning cotton, cashmere, NZ possum, and other short fibers. Spinning from the fold is also useful with long fibered combed top and for some color spinning. Yes the class materials bag had lots of really cool fibers, some I have never seen before and look forward to playing with again in the future. It was one of the fastest 8 hour classes I have attended, but well worth it.

Now it’s time to go play with the cats.

Dashing

Dashing
Yarn - My own hand-spun in worsted weight denim
Guage - 6st = 1 inch
Needles and size - Clover Bamboo dps 7

This is a quick knit, 2 days total, and I used some denim colored 2-ply yarn that I spun up in January. The fiber blend is wool/nylon and was for socks but I didn’t have the yardage and I’m not a big hat wearer so fingerless mitts seemed the obvious choice for this beautiful yarn.

My current project is Josephine from Interweave Knits Summer 2007. I’m using Louet Gems with size 3 needles. The starlight needs to have one more sleeve sewn on, some stitches picked up for edging and the lace edging applied and it is done. It’s not a difficult knit; in fact it’s not a slow knit either so why is it spending so much time in time-out? Well because I need about 60 minutes to sew the final sleeve in and hide all the loose ends; I need another 60 minutes to pick up stitches along the right/neck/left edge to do edging (the knitting of the edging will go quickly); and I want to do each of these items in a sitting at home of which 60 minutes here and there have been elusive recently. The mitts I did while doing annual doctor’s office visits where you might get a row done or a project, you just never know and 30 minutes here and there. The current knit needs only 25 minutes to complete two rows. Which means slow going but it’s a time thing.