Earthwhisper Fiber Arts

I need to update you about Madeleine’s birthday and provide you with pictures.  I have been so busy, I just haven’t had time.  I don’t know if I shared this tidbit, but I became a Girl Scout leader in April.  I am leading my daughter’s Brownie troop.  It is a blast.  This month we are making paperbag scrapbooks.

So, that is where I have been…sorry.

I did have a little crafty/crochet question for you…

If a pattern suggests using 1 ball of yarn, however then says to hold 4 strands together.

a.  Do you buy 4 balls and only use 1/4 of each ball?

b.  Do you buy 1 ball and then wind it into 4 balls?

c.  Some other variation (liking working 2 balls from each end…)

Just curious…

Oh, and Netter, the birthday banner was a hit.  I am going to cut out the 4th and have it laminated so I can use it every year!  It is truly awesome.  Hopefully I will upload some pictures this weekend.

Today was my birthday.   It was better then last year. A friend of mine (non-yarn friend) gave me a basket full of yarn, knitting needles, coffee and a cheesecake. Coming from someone who is not a yarnie, it was an incredible thoughtful gift.

Tony made me a lemon cake. It was good, but not as good as my mom’s. I told him not to feel bad. Not many people can live up to my mom.

The girls gave me cards and then the girls and I went out to dinner. Sierra, of course, made sure everyone know it was my birthday. She even tried to make me wear her princess crown (she wore it the entire time in the restaurant.) I told her, “you know your mom, Sierra…she ain’t no princess.” When I was a little girl, I didn’t dream to be a princess. I wanted to be a cowgirl.

Madeleine’s birthday is Monday. I am hoping to be able to take her and a friend to Build a Bear. She is going to be 4 years old.

I knit a sock, with Noro Kureyon sock yarn. I just knit a generic sock, with a CO 64 st, size 1 needles.

The yarn had a problem though…the colors went from brown to a blazing pink! There was no gradual change and I started to question my ball of Noro yarn. I finally frogged back to the brown and cut the yarn. I then wound the yarn until I went through all of the colors to the next brown and lo and behold…it did not go right into a bright pink. So I joined the yarn there and went on with my knitting.

Here you can see the lovely blue that was cut out of the yarn in the above picture. The sock below looks much better.

I am trying to get Madeleine’s doll done. It hasn’t been easy making clothes for it. You think it would. However, I really gave the doll too much hair. She is top heavy and her head likes to flop around. It makes putting on doll sweaters difficult. Maybe she will leave it on? Or is that not much fun? I was hoping to be able to make the doll more clothes, but I think as long as she isn’t naked, it will be fine. Then I can make doll clothes at my convenience this summer, right?

Thanks all for the nice comments about her face.  This doll has been very challenging for me.  Seriously!  Please let’s hope that all the work I put into giving the doll hair isn’t for naught.  I spent hours giving that doll too much hair.  It would only take seconds for scissors to take it away.  Maybe this is too much doll for a 4 year old?

I finally gave the doll a face. It took me a couple of times to get the eyes right and the nose. The mouth was the hardest. I first started in red, but didn’t like it. I was trying to make them look like lips. Then, I finally gave that up and went with a pink smile. I am not good at embroidery, this is as good as it gets.

So, what do you think? Does she need eyebrows? Is the nose okay as just a poof?

Her hair is Patons Allure. It seemed to work well for hair and gave it a funky curly look without me having to curl yarn. I crocheted it on, just like you would fringe. I did the bangs and then around the scalp. Then, I worked from the back of the top of the head to the front. It got so thick that after awhile, I lost place where I was. The very back, I embroidered the the allure to make it appear there was hair on the back of her head, but hair doesn’t acutally hang from there. It is so thick, I just couldn’t add hair back there.

Plus, I don’t think Madeleine is going to care.

I attempted to make her a skirt, but goofed on the gauge and well, it looks more like a baby hat then a skirt. That is what I get for guessing if a worsted weight wool yarn doubled is equivalent to ggh davos.

Today, we went on a nice bike ride.  It is the first time I have ridden my bike (besides in my small neighborhood.)  The trail was short, but it was perfect.  It had a fun hill, a cool bridge, and then a small straight away.  Of course, going back up the “fun” hill, was not so fun and the small straight away was really, really long when riding back into the wind.

Sierra had a blast and couldn’t get off her bike.  So I rode with her around the neighborhood by the trail.  I should have gone back down the hill, but I have to admit, the thought of trying to go back up it scared me.  At one time, I was pedaling so slow, I thought a person could walk faster then me.  Sierra pedaled up and down the hill like it was nothing…KIDS!!

It was really nice that we all got to do that.  I am bummed I forgot my camera.  It won’t happen again, though riding a bike with a camera doesn’t seem too fun.  Maybe I need a way to attach my camera to my bike.

I finally finished these! They took forever. I had single sock syndrome for awhile, but finally decided I need to be able to wear these.

I love them!

Patten: Rockin’ Socks! by Gail Marracci. - Cast on 72.  This is a generic sock pattern, which consists of a 2×2 rib cuff and a short row heel.  I have memorized the pattern.

Yarn: Trekking XXL 110

Needles: Size 1

• We are all feeling better.
• After sleeping for days straight with the flu, then not sleeping two nights ago.  I went to bed last night at 9pm and  woke up at 5am.  So now I am a morning person?
• I bombed my test.  I don’t know the grade, just know it is bad.
• We did blood sugar lab in my school.  Everyone’s was in low or normal range.  Mine was high.  I ate 2 hours before taking the test.  Now I am embarrassed, scared, and worried about it.  I think I am fine.
• My job at Michael’s as a knitting teacher has been terminated.  It wasn’t a personal thing.  All teaching positions (except Wilton’s) is being term’d.  I am going to tell my ladies this Friday.  This makes me sad.  I have grown to love them as my “grandma’s.”  (I was getting use to the money, too.)
• I feel like cleaning the house.
• I had a dream I was on survivor. However, we slept in cabins, with bedding, ate normal food (even with desserts) and I think we even had tv.  We had winter boots and jackets.  It was the “winter version” of survivor, so it seemed prudent we had the amenities we did.  I found the immunity idol, actually…I found four of them.  I didn’t know where to hide them.  I played hackey sack.  I had an ally.  Then, when I was caught moving the immunity idol, I tried to make another ally.  One girl tried to talk about plus-sized people and they all looked at me.  I told them my life story, and they all cried.  I just looked tough.  Then, I had this realization I was being filmed and tried to remember if I picked my nose or if I pulled the underwear out of my butt.  I became self conscious of standing in on place and decided I would look better outside the cabin.  I found it weird that people would drive up to our wooded area in cars, but I just needed to ignore them.  Family members would show up, too.
• Thankfully, I woke up and am not on any type of reality tv show.
• I can’t believe it is 6:30am and I have been enjoying the house while everyone sleeps and am well rested.
• I need coffee.  (I should give it up, but don’t want to.)
• This is just twilight zone like…normal just isn’t my, well…normal.

Sorry to have left you hanging with the last post.  I was going to come back and post about my wonderful valentine weekend at the beach.  Tony took Thursday, Friday and Monday off work, so we thought we would have a nice time looking for shells, riding our bikes (I got a new one)(thanks to the recommendation of Claudia)(and…yes, I will blog with a picture of it when I am feeling better)  and all of those fun things we love to do when we ge free babysitting.  We were even planning on having a date night at a fancy schmancy restaurant.

Except for one little thing.

Madeleine got the flu.  Then Sierra.  Then me.  Fever, chills, aches pains, cough.

We are all recovering, but we didn’t go anywhere over the weekend and Tony spent his vacation taking care of the family.  The next time he gets sick (the weekend before,) I am sleeping on the couch as I swear he must have coughed in his sleep and I got it.

Also, next year I am getting a flu shot.  I would much rather deal with being slightly sick from the flu vaccine then getting the flu again.   I have read online a lot of people are out with the flu now.  It is a bad year for ye ole influenza bug.

Tony’s boss said to him last week, “Tony, when I look in your eyes, I see the flu bug.”

It is our big joke, since it happened around valentine’s day.  “When I look into your eyes hunny…”  Said all lovingly.  “I see the flu virus.”

Sadly, that has left zero time to study for big, looming test on Wednesday.  Can someone please prepare me for Membrane Potentials, how vision works, and other sensory physiology information.   Sorry again, my knit and fiber blog has nothing related to that…  I am hoping to feel better by this weekend so I can get to Stitches West. 

If you are in Cali, get out and vote!

I am sorry for the absence from my blog.  I guess it is one of those things that after you stop posting for a period of time, it is hard to get back into it.  An interesting post on ravelry caught my eye.  I have been following it the past few days, and even put in my two cents worth.

May I direct you to the blog post on how to knit a $94 tube…er…I mean neckwarmer.

I haven’t had much time to blog about the knitting I have been doing. So I took a picture of some of the finished and in progress knits. Also in the back of the picture is a crocheted baby sweater and hat in Patons SWS. I made this in the spring time and didn’t have time to take a picture of it. It became a store sample. I decided to bring it home, though since I am not teaching crochet right now.

1.  Top Left - Ribbed Wristwarmers (and next to it hat) in Manos

2.   Snowflake Hat from Newton’s Knitting, I added some additional colorwork on the top and used the third color for the top of the hat.  I am going to teach this in my December’s knitting class.    I love how it turned out.

3.  Mosaic Knitting hat - I attempted the endless knot pattern on this sock, but did it on this hat.   It turned out “neat” but there isn’t enough contrast between the variegated yarn and the gray yarn to show the endless knot.

4.  Light Blue top is a top down pullover I was making for a knitting class I have been thinking about teaching.  I didn’t finish it because I panicked thinking the neckline would be too small.  I think I need a little person (ie. baby) to try this on for me.  Maybe when I have more time next spring I will finish this.   Oh, and you probably can’t tell, but it has a row of beads on it. 

5.   Trekking Sock - pretty November colors…very orangy!

6.  Top right - Doll head and part of body.  I thought about making my girls dolls for Christmas.  I need to pick this back up.

7.  Austermann sock (the one with the Aloe in it…)

8.  Blue hat - Iceland wool.  I made this for when Sierra went to Brownie camp.  She wore it twice, maybe.  It was definitely a warm hat, though.

The snowflake hat deserves its own picture, so I will try to take a picture of it tonight.

So I went to the bookstore today (Border’s) and saw the book my pattern was in.  I wanted to buy it, but Tony told me not to since I should be getting my copy in a few weeks.  They only had one copy at the bookstore.  Besides my pattern being in there, it looks like a good book.  It is the Son of a Stitch n Bitch book.  My pattern is the Wheel on Fire steering wheel cover.   If you buy the book and make the steering wheel cover, let me know.  

By the way, I thought by going to the bookstore and seeing my name in print that I would have this “famous for a day” type moment.  Then, as I looked around, I noticed that no one in the bookstore seem to notice or care, Ha Ha Ha Ha…

I “almost” walked around the store with the book, saying…”see that name…it is me…”  Ha ha ha ha ha…

Okay, I wouldn’t really do that, but I had to laugh in my head about how obnoxious that would be.

Maybe this weekend I will do a quick recap about all of the things I have been working on and finished, since I have been so lazy with my blog.