Thrumming, and cutesy kid knitting

Last week one of the Knitting Daily posts was about thrumming.  When I read about it, I realized it's what I want to do to make slippers for my mom, who has diabetes and needs warm foot coverings.  If you haven't heard of thrumming, it's a very pioneer concept -- using all of what you have and not wasting anything.  Thrums are the trimmed ends off of weaving.  The wool was looped and knitted into the stitch on the inside of mittens, and provides extra warmth.  The technique was also used with the locks of wool from sheep shearings, when the lock was not acceptable to go into the carding to be spun.  I decided to try the technique with some roving I had on hand, and this is how it is turning out:

I think I got a little carried away with the fleece!  Luckily, what I've read says that the wool will felt with wearing, so it won't look like a wooly mess forever.


I think I'll save my first effort for myself, and make my mom another pair.  I'll put some puff paint on the bottom, and have some no-skid snuggy slippers for myself.  I live in Wyoming, in a house that my husband likes to "comfort" to temperatures he likes: 65 degrees in the daytime, and 55 degrees at night, so I'm always cold.

Grab bag

I've been working on a lot of fun and new (to me) techniques, so I decided I would just put the projects in a grab bag for my kids to go through at Thanksgiving.  If they like them, they can take them.  If not, I can donate them or give them to somebody I know who would like them.

I have been learning fair isle knitting with two hands at once (how lucky that I learned how to continental knit, as well as English knit that I have always done).  Two hands at once is a huge time saver, rather than dropping and picking up strands.  I love snowflake patterns, but couldn't find a fair isle snowflake hat that I liked, so I designed one myself. 

 

 

 

This cowl was the October KAL from knitpurlhunter.  I didn't have any Simpliworsted when I got the itch to start the mystery KAL, so I grabbed a skein of Bamboo Ewe that was in my stash, and got to work.  Luckily the yarn lasted just long enough (it called for 2 skeins of Simpliworsted and I only had one skein of Bamboo Ewe in Grape, but there was more yardage in one skein of Bamboo Ewe than in Simpliworsted.  I don't know what I would have done if I had run out!)  It was a quick knit and I liked the two pattern stitches it used.

 

On a lighter note, I think I need to take this head to an art student I know and get her to draw features on the face!



 

 

This scarf is the Pioneer Braid pattern in Crystal Palace MiniMochi (at least I think it was MiniMochi).  There is a young woman in our neighborhood who is learning to knit, and decided she didn't like the yarn for what she had bought it for.  Karessa is a sweet girl who comes over once every couple of weeks and I teach her something new about knitting.  She gave me two balls of the yarn as a thank you, so I went to the LYS where she got it and got another ball to try this scarf.

 

 

 

I wanted to try the Susie's Reading Fingerless Mitts pattern, so I grabbed a ball of Paton's Lace out of my stash and got busy.   There's a lot of yardage in one ball of that stuff, I can tell you!  So I had a lot left over after the mitts, and wanted a project to learn provisional cast-on with a circular needle cable, so I did the slanted stitch in an infinity scarf with the 3-needle bind off.  Karessa liked the slanted row stitch so much that she decided to do one herself.  Hers is coming along very nicely.

(The head looks a little less creepy when covered, don't you think?)

Wow, has it been that long?

Just realized it has been almost 8 weeks since I last posted.  Since then I have been working on lots of projects, and doing a bit of spinning.  I'll give a quick update tonight on what I've been up to, and more updates tomorrow.

Halloween day my LYS had a sale -- 40% off all merchandise between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m.; 30% off from 7:30-8:30; 20% off between 8:30 and 10 a.m.; and 10% off the rest of the day.  There were about 15 of us in the store between 6:30 when I got there and 7:15 when I left.  The shop owner said her husband wanted to know if she thought there'd be anybody there.  I told her it was Black Friday for yarnies!  Here's the picture of my haul -- $87 at 40% off.  John knows the credit card showed $87 -- I just don't think he knew how small a bag would hold the $87 purchase! (Maybe I should try to impress him with my wise spending, since the bill would have been $215 without the discount!) For some reason, I was drawn to muted and neutral shades. Maybe it was the hour of the morning, and I didn't want strong "wake me up" colors

The variegated colorway is Ella Rae Lace Merino (2 skeins I've been coveting for a while).  I don't know what lace I will knit with it, but I'll hold onto it for something special.  The 3 balls of beige are Sublime baby cashmere merino silk.  I'm thinking a very elegant style of scarf for that, maybe an infinity scarf, because I love those.  The 3 hanks of lavender are Kollage Corntastic.  I couldn't resist knitting with corn!  I've got some socks on needles right now from a corn/elastic blend that I can't wait to try on!

And for another update -- a few months ago I posted a picture of the football baby cocoon and hat that I knitted for a friend to give to her younger brother and his wife for their newborn.  The anticipated delivery has arrived, and they sent a picture to me today.  So here is Warrick in his cocoon.