March 01, 2015

Almost Yarn Crawl Time!

March 01, 2015/ Crystal Van Dyken

It's March, and that can only mean that it's almost time for the Rose City Yarn Crawl here in Portland! This is the 3rd year that I will have lived in Portland for the yarn crawl and I look forward to it every year. I had a good time at my first crawl in 2013 and had a fun time last year, too.

This year the crawl is extra special for 2 reasons:

1) My mother-in-law is coming down from Alaska and will be doing the crawl with me! (And probably my poor husband who will end up being dragged along. He's generally ok with this as long as we stop at some good places for food.). She is a knitter too and every year I mention that she should come. This year she is and I can't wait!

2) I will be having a trunk show at Black Sheep! I am so excited and a little nervous. I have never done anything like this before. I will be selling my Lilliput Yarn on Thursday and Friday (March 5th and 6th) from 10-6. If you're local I'd love if you come by and say "Hi"!

I've been working on knitting up some of my yarn so that I have samples to show at my table. The first thing is the super popular Sockhead Hat by Kelly McClure knit in the "Barking up a Tree" colorway.

I really like how it turned out, but there was what seemed to be some never-ending stockinette stitch involved.

I also made a sock in my "Lady" colorway. No pattern used, just a toe-up sock with a short row heel. I try to make all of my yarn in a way that it won't pool and it turned out well in this case. It really drives me crazy when I get pooling in socks so I do all that I can to avoid that from happening in my own yarns.

Lastly, I finished up the Rose City mystery shawl aka the Washington Park Shawl by Debbi Stone. This was my first year doing the mystery shawl that they release as part of the yarn crawl and I really enjoyed it.

The light color is Cascade Heritage Sock in the "Limestone" colorway and the blue is Lilliput Yarn in the "Salty Dog" colorway. I almost did the shawl out of two colors of my own yarn but thought that might be too busy and went with a neutral instead.

Now that those projects are done I have spent most of the weekend re-skeining and labeling yarn in anticipation of the yarn crawl. It's been a lot of work, and I think I may have tired out my little helpers.

January 05, 2014

The Post Christmas Post

January 05, 2014/ Crystal Van Dyken

Hope everyone had a happy holiday season! While we missed our families in Alaska we had a good, quiet Christmas and New Years. Lily and Rudy especially enjoyed having a tree in the house although it was a constant battle keeping them from tearing off branches to chew on (good thing they're cute!)

Last Christmas I made Lily her own little stocking so this year I thought that I should make Rudy a matching one.

He wanted to eat it and run around with it in his mouth so I guess he approves of it.

Other than the stocking my main Christmas knitting project was a pair of felted clogs for all the parents. The pattern is Felted Clogs by Bev Galeskas. I knit them in worsted weight Wool of the Andes on size 13 needles and then felted them in the washing machine. Before felting they were huge. This picture has one of my shoes on the left for comparison.

After felting they looked like this: ( I forgot to take post-felting pics of the pairs for my dad and my father-in-law)

The maroon colored pair was for my mom and the teal color for my mother-in-law. The black and orange was for my dad who is a Flyer's fan and the green and gold pair was for my father-in-law the Packer fan.

Happy New Year everyone!

November 28, 2013

Rudy!

November 28, 2013/ Crystal Van Dyken

I'm very far behind in posts, but earlier this month my husband and I acquired a new family member. Meet Rudy:

Rudy is a Cardigan Welsh Corgi just like our other dog, Lily. If you recall from Lily's post she got a hand-knit blanket, so of course Rudy needed one too!

It's all made with scraps of worsted weight yarn held double on size 13 needles which made it a relatively quick knit. The pattern is based on the Log Cabin blanket from Mason Dixon Knits with an i-cord added to the edge.

He is much calmer than Lily (which isn't hard to do as she is quite a spaz!) and likes to just chill out.

He and Lily have become best buddies. They love to hang out together and she is a pretty good babysitter. She always keeps track of where he is and what he's doing.