I Take No Credit!

Thank you everyone for the comments on Celia's first sweater. I want to be straight with you all. I take no credit. I did not teach Celia to knit. Her mom, my sister Nancy, did. I try to inspire her and keep her knitting. She is a freshman in college now and has limited time. If I know Celia, she'll be knitting over Christmas break.

Celia has it in her fingers. I think she inherited it from our grandmother (her great-grandmother) Frieda. Hard to believe this is Celia's first sweater, isn't it? She is not daunted by any project. When she was eleven, I asked her and her cousin Olivia who was twelve to knit some mittens for my book Kristin Knits. These are the mittens my nieces made and I named them the "Olivia's and Celia's Mittens". I think their moms may have helped some.

 
My sister Nancy is an amazing knitter, seamstress, crafter, cook and baker. She knits mostly for others.

 

Nancy has three beautiful red headed daughters - Celia, Camille, and Lillian. Last Christmas she made Camille the Hen Party Pullover from Color By Kristin. Camille is a hockey and lacrosse superstar. Camille loves her sweater. It is the perfect style for an athletic girl. The colors Nancy chose look great with her red hair.

Nancy is currently cranking out the Greek Slipper Socks from my Color By Kristin Book. She is making them for the kids of her nieces and nephews. I guess Nancy is a "Great Aunt." Wow. I hope she lives up to our "Great Aunts."

 

This was my version from Color By Kristin. Fair Isle and Garter Stripes. Lots of fun colors.

 

Nancy has to knit a lot of these. She simplified them by leaving out the Fair Isle. She has a lot of "great" nieces and nephews.

Maybe you might like to knit your nieces, nephews, kids and friends some projects from my books. You can purchase them on my website and I will sign them for you if you like. I also ship to husbands and boyfriends if you want to drop any hints. Julia and I love to visit our friend Jim at the Bernardston Post Office. Both Kristin Knits and Color by Kristin are great books - IMHO. Lots of timeless colorful patterns. I hate that people stop buying books once they are a year old. What is it with that? Things get old too fast now, don't they? Check out my books here. And thanks to Nancy, Celia, and Camille for letting me take photos to share with all of you.

 

I'll leave you with a photo of Winston taken this morning on our walk in the orchard. Handsome boy!

 

And one of the sheep running. Did you know sheep can run like the wind? Especially when a Border Collie puppy is behind them.

 

My Sebastian Gloves Are Knitting Along

The Sebastian Glove Knitalong is winding down over on the Webs blog. I'm a bit behind Dena but wanted to share my progress anyway. Here are my gloves after the cabling is completed with the reverse stockinette stitch ridge added. There were decreases made in the ridge to account for the extra stitches needed to compensate for the cable.

The fingers are the trickiest part of the project. I remember the first pair of gloves I made. I was designing them for a CEY pattern back in the early 90's. I had never knit a pair of gloves so I dove in by beginning with a Fair Isle pattern for a pair of gloves.

I am still wearing those gloves almost 20 years later even if they are more relegated to "work glove status - i.e. bringing in firewod for the furnace." I have re-knit the fingers many times as that is where they always wear out. They are in need of some more repair again!

Here's how I start the fingers on the Sebastian Gloves. First I put all the stitches onto a scrap of yarn.

Then I count out the stitches needed for each finger and put them on their own little scrap of yarn. Using different yarn colors makes it easier to keep track of which stitches to pick up. The hard part is now done and I can pick up a "finger" whenever I have some free time to knit it.

From left to right - pinky on pink, ring finger in yellow, middle finger in blue and pointer finger in green.

To knit the fingers, I make believe I am knitting a thumb on a mitten. It makes the chore a little easier. Once I get into the rhythm of the double pointed needles, they go quickly. I use short double pointed needles to make the knitting less cumbersome. Not all yarn stores stock short double pointed needles so when I see them, I grab them.

If you are gifting the gloves, I suggest including a reeling of the finger color yarn. Then the recipient can re-knit the fingers if they wear (or give back to you to re-knit!). 

I'm teaching a class at Webs tonight and the students should be ready for the fingers. I'll try to take some photos to share with you of the colors they chose and their progress too. Check out many of the finished projects here on the Sebastian Gloves Ravelry page. Beautiful job everyone!

You can order the PDF Pattern for the Sebastian Gloves for $6.00 by clicking the button below. It will be immediately sent to your in-box.

Lovely Holiday Weekend

Thanksgiving has come and gone. I hope all of you had a lovely time with family and friends wherever you spent it. We have hosted my family since we first bought our farmhouse back in 1999. 

It is my favorite holiday full of family, food, and friendship. I feel so fortunate - I guess that is what the holiday is about! With the animals outside grazing and the fire blazing in the fireplace inside, the setting couldn't be any more perfect. Thank goodness my mom and sister Lynn arrive a couple days early - it gives us a great chance to catch up, relax before the big day, and do some last minute shopping. This year we hosted 21 people - I think it was the largest group that has ever been at our house. 

We made these little cornhusk dolls as napkin rings the day before. Fun craft seen on Martha's site that goes quickly and is easy for kids. Hardest thing was finding the cornhusks.

With many of Julia's cousins away at college now, we were able to introduce their foreign friends to the American Thanksgiving tradition. We had guests from Norway, Sweden, and Australia. I conceded to throwaway plates as I couldn't stand the thought of washing all those dishes. Big decision on my part but it made clean-up so much easier.

Every year The Farmer hooks up his tractor to a haywagon and we take an old-fashioned hayride on our dirt road. This year, we were treated to a flock of wild turkeys. Totally surreal experience considering the bird cooking in the oven back at the house. 

We rode up the big hill and then the turkeys lifted off. Man, can those birds fly. 

The wagon had quite a load of people, didn't it? 

Turkey was delicious - carved meticulously by brother-in-law David. Sides contributed by all the guests.

Several years ago we formed our own kind of Black Friday tradition with no shopping involved. Whoever can extend the Thanksgiving Holiday travels to my sister Nancy's home in New Hampshire and we do some kind of communal craft activity. I must say this has become one of the nicest traditions our family does and probably one of my favorite days of the year. Time to sit around Nancy's dining room table, catch up with everyone's busy lives, eat leftovers (although this year there was barely a scrap of turkey left), and not stress out too much. 

This year we did not have a real craft theme. It was a mish-mosh of crafts we have done in the past. From needle-felting.....

Anna from Australia had never felted before but caught on quickly

to knitting......

Niece Celia casting on.

to Mom building one of my favorite crafts - the Birch Holiday houses (tutorial here). She made a church to add to her little collection.

Niece Olivia is a master and can make anything with wool. Here she is working on a nativity scene.

My niece Celia had just finished a Color by Kristin Fair Isle Pullover that she proudly modeled for me. She used French Roast 3276 and Natural 3216 to make my design that was featured in last fall's Vogue Knitting 2011 issue. 

 

 

Remember the design? 

 

The pattern is not available on-line at the moment but VK still is selling the back issues of the magazine here. This was Celia's first sweater! What a knitter! I hope she keeps it up. Amazing job Celia!

The holiday is all over now and the dining room will go back to its normal life as shipping room and catch-all for our farmer's market supplies. It will be ready and waiting for next year though. I hope you all enjoyed your American holiday too!

 

A Beautiful Thanksgiving Morning at the Farm

 

As we celebrate the Thanksgiving Holiday here at our farm, I want to take this moment to thank all of you for your support of this little slice of my world. Your generous comments and readership brighten up my days and keep me taking photos, writing and creating projects to share with you all. I wish you all a warm and cozy day full of friends and family and conversation. 

Eat on! May you enjoy the turkey and sides..... and pie. Or if you are a sheep, some hay.

Sebastian Gloves Knitalong Week Two

I've been a busy little bee trying to keep up with everyone on the Sebastian Glove Knitalong. As I was knitting the glove, I added a few of my own little tricks I use for personal knitting. When you write for publication, you usually don't add your own tricks because word space is so limited with yarn company and magazine publications and the tricks get cut - so seriously, why bother! That's why my PDF patterns are so great because there is room, when I self-publish, to add whatever I want!

At any rate, I worked on my gloves, almost reaching the fingers last night while watching the people trying to survive the Dust Bowl on PBS. I am using Color 3257 Cornflower in my Color By Kristin Wool/Mohair/Alpaca for my main color. This yarn is so gorgeous to work with - it flies off the needles so silkily.

To begin, I am making the Sebastian Glove with the Flared Gauntlet Border. (There are 2 versions included in the pattern.) I cast on using a 16" circular needle and to make it flare more, I used the larger size 7's. It is not written that way in the pattern and for my first sample, I didn't do it that way either so I thought I would give it a try. It may be a bit too loose and sloppy when finished so I do not think I will repeat my experiment. (I will not rip it out though!) 

It is my personal preference to work a row back and forth before joining any project that will be worked in the round. That way, I have a little edge to help make the joining easier (see photo above). As it was I goofed and had to rip! The cable pattern is established in Row/Round 1 for the Flared Edge. I mark the sections with plastic markers and keep them on the needles for the first few rounds until the pattern becomes visible. Then I drop the markers off the needles.

After the first back and forth row, I joined the sts working Round 2. I'll weave the 1st round together when I'm finished and it will not be visible. Luckily all the stitches fit on the 16" circular needle. The pattern does not state that and perhaps if I was using the smaller size 5 needles, they would not have fit.

I immediately began working on the cable. For the flared edge, you use a larger cable chart and work it for 16 rounds. 

 

Above are the 16 rounds complete and the decreases within the cables have been made. I then had to move the stitches to double pointed needles. (If you are a fan of the magic loop, you could easily do the main part of the hand using a long circular.)

Here is my almost complete thumb gusset. (Why do I always want to spell gusset with an extra "t"?)

I'm almost up to the fingers and ready to go back to my class to show them how to set up for the fingers. That isn't until the 29th so I guess I am ahead, for once! Maybe I will work a different version. No - I probably should not - I should be planning more new designs.

You can check out all the projects over on the Ravelry page that the Webs folks have set up. They have linked to some awesome how-to videos on their blog too! If you have questions, please post in the comments section or over on the Ravelry page.

Cable on! You can order the PDF Pattern for the Sebastian Gloves for $6.00 by clicking the button below. It will be immediately sent to your in-box.

Four Days Last Week with Creativebug

Last week there was a film crew here - Pierre from San Francisco, Jesse from Holyoke, 

and Maggie from Burlington VT. Yes - Maggie Pace - designer and creator of PickUpSticks. She's a internet film producer/artist coach now along with all the other hats she wears including being one of the Creativebug instructors.

They were filming here at the farm for "Creativebug". Do you know Creativebug? I didn't either but as of this summer, I learned about it. Creativebug is an internet based streaming video craft teaching website. 

 

I've got lots to tell you about this past week. I'll tell you a little more about the filming as my classes come closer to release. I taped five classes for them over the 4 days. They were long days - really long. We started at 9 a.m. and didn't finish until 8 or 9 at night. I learned alot about how films are made. It was fascinating for me, a woman who has loved to make things since she was young, to actually see how a film is made. Very cool.

I am really excited to be affiliated with Creativebug. Just check out their instructor roster! Can't believe I will be included too! More later on the classes I will be teaching on-line. Just wanted to let the cat out of the bag before everyone flies away for the holidays. You can listen to a very informative interview with Jeanne Lewis, the Founder and President of Creativebug by Kathy Elkins on the Webs Podcast here.

Don't forget the Sebastian Gloves Knitalong. I'll be posting my progress tomorrow. You can buy the pattern from me for $6.00 by clicking the button below. And of course you can also purchase a hard copy of the booklet from your LYS. It will be automatically delivered to your email inbox. Now onto the big turkey eating holiday.

Your Stories and What's Up at the Farm

I have read all your beautiful stories of the women and men who have held special places in your lives in the comments section for the Color By Kristin Yarn Giveaway. How nice to have learned how all of you have been inspired by your families and friends. Each comment is a little look inside your own lives. The internet can be a wonderful place, can it not? If you haven't yet entered the big giveaway, you have until just before midnight tonight (November 16) to enter the giveaway.  

For the past FOUR days, our farmhouse has been invaded by three strangers. 

I must say that by the end of the day Thursday, these people were no longer strangers. 

Interest piqued? Next week I'll let you in on what's been going on.

Now it's onward to the next big project - our big Nicholas Family Thanksgiving celebration here at the farm. Thanksgiving has got to be one of the highlights of the year for our family. The cooking and prep and anticipation of seeing my sisters, brothers-in-laws, and Julia's cousins is starting to build. We make it as easy as possible with everyone bringing a part of the meal potluck style. It's always a great meal. I can't wait to hear what the kids have been up to. Luckily Mom and sister Lynn come a day ahead of time. I'm wondering if I should break out my pretty Felted Potholders to christen with turkey gravy or if I should just keep them hanging on my studio wall.

Last year I made all the girls my Felted Flower Zinnias. I knit and felted them and then attached a pin back to each.

Then I made napkin rings out of some old wool fabric that I also felted. You can see that some of the zinnias have knit-in bobbles and some have French knots. The table looked so pretty and colorful. I fear I cannot top that party favor. In fact I'm not going to try. But I do have something up my sleeve for fun.

The Felted Zinnia and Sunflower Pattern is a great project for holiday presents. You can knit these up quickly and I don't know anyone who doesn't like a pretty flower. I knit them in Julia last year but my new Color By Kristin will work too. The PDF pattern is available on my shop page here, on Ravelry here, or click the button below for instant delivery. The cost is $6.00 and the PDF is loaded with great ideas. Have a great weekend everyone!