Dear AB,

I know that you won’t make this face forever, but for awhile, maybe even for a little while longer, it is the face that you make when you want to play and want to see if someone will play with you. According to your folks, this is because your grandmother plays with you very enthusiastically and makes piggie snorty sounds to you, to which you make that adorable face in return. Because we love this face so much, your uncle and I make it to each other and at random on a pretty regular basis, complete with piggie sounds. I hope that you make this face forever; but when you’re 16 you may not see the humor in it, so I promise that we won’t pester you about it. When I saw this pattern, it just seemed so fitting. Her name is ChiChi Piggie, and I hope you enjoy her nearly as much as I enjoyed making her. You are dearly loved, and we are dearly blessed to have you in our lives. We can’t wait to see you again, hopefully sometime over the summer.

Love, Aunt Mel

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Dear readers,

ChiChi was incredibly fun (and incredibly QUICK) to knit! Tanya at IndigoMuse bills this as a great skill-builder pattern, and she is right on the money - it utilizes a provisional cast on, shortrows, I-cord, a three-needle bind off, etc. and it took me no more than an hour and a half to knit, sight unseen - I didn’t even read the pattern before I started. It is very clear and well written, and Tanya was very accesible and supportive via email both when I had trouble with the download and when I had trouble felting. For some unknown and unexplainable reason, I really wanted to felt ChiChi by hand - which didn’t work out so hot! I even boiled her on the stovetop (boiled ham - yuck!) and had a stupid moment when I dumped a bit of baking soda into the boiling water - which promptly exploded all over my stovetop - oops. I came to my senses after talking to Tanya and threw her in the wash, upon which she promptly felted
Pattern: ChiChi, By IndigoMuse

Benefits: Heifer International - a GREAT pattern, for a GREAT cause, go buy it!!

Yarn: Manos Del Uraguay in Pink - She faded a great deal on the stovetop, but not in the wash. I’m not sure if this was due to the baking soda or due to the high heat, but something to note if you are working with Manos.

Needles: US10.5 Bamboo DPNs (note, I didn’t need any other needles, even for the portion that was knit straight. Because she is so small, she fit nicely on the DPNs)

Gauge: Didn’t bother checking - woo-hoo!

Time to completion: 1 week, but only because of timing. Time to knit was about an hour - an hour and a half, finishing would take an hour or two after she dries. Very quick project - instant gratification!!

Verdict: Love her! I hope the recipient does as well!

One Piggie Body. Four Piggie Legs. Two Piggie Ears. One Piggie Tail.

The weekends have been crazy! Two weekends back, Dad’s retirement party in NH (family & friends, or just if you care to see, pics are here); last weekend a family wedding in Atlanta. Dad flew in to RDU and I drove (Poor Tad stayed home to dogsit), so not much time for knitting - but in little bits of time at the hotel, I knitted up ChiChi pieces (all told, a little over an hour of knitting!) A little felting will happen tonight, then we’ll see how she comes together. I’ll save pattern details for when she is complete, but in the meantime, go see what the author is doing to support her alma mater and help out if you can.

This weekend, a concert in DC, and the following? SHEEP & WOOL!! We are not usually so busy, but things just kept coming up - this weekend I’ll have my partner in crime again though Been missing him.

Got a workout tonight at the spinning guild Woo-hoo! It has been a few weeks since I gave poor Suzie some attention, but I caved and ordered this stunning Merino/Tencel blend from Zen Mama (her shop is here), and it was just the inspiration that I needed!! I love the spinning guild - it’s a kind and diverse group of people, tons of fun & tips being shared all around, and I came home with farm fresh eggs & goat cheese. You can’t beat it! One of these times I need to take some pictures to post - this weekend two of the members are shearing (shetland sheep for one and alpaca for the other) and the event at the following meeting is a fleece sale, that would be fun to document. In the meantime, pics of the fiber and spinning in progress:

A touch of Spring first - even though it we’ve had frost the past two nights, the flowers seem to be surviving the sudden cold snap - These were taken at Foster’s Market (Wisteria) and the Duke Gardens (Helleborus & some kind of cherry, I think) earlier today. It was brilliant and sunny, if a little chilly!

And now for the latest installment of Maya’s Exhibitionist challenge - A WIP Roundup!

This mess is Nicky Epstein’s Floral Felted Bag from Interweave Knits Fall 2004 - the intarsia was killing me and it’s been sitting in a drawer since Winter 2005. Whether it will ever be finished remains to be seen if not this fall, then probably never - perhaps I should have gone Eunny’s route on this - beautiful, elegant, and EASIER!

Please excuse the terrible picture, it is very hard to photograph black, and very hard to spread this one out when it barely fits on the circular needle anymore! This is Vanille by Blue Alvarez Designs - for Tad. Started just prior to Christmas, it has been languishing… I work on it in fits and starts - unfortunately all that black stockinette is a little dull, but hopefully the result will be a great, classic sweater in a great yarn (Blue Sky Alpacas Organic Cotton) - sometime this year.

And here is the latest, the Cocktail Capelet from Interweave Knits, Spring 2007. I had 3 lovely skeins of Debbie Bliss Alpaca Silk from a former SP swap (bless you Stick Chick - it’s beautiful stuff), and I was convinced that there was enough, but unfortunately I was incorrect. I’m not quite ready to frog this, as I think it would be wonderful if I could modify it - I love it in this yarn:

And there is this one that I still intend to modify, so we’ll continue to call it a WIP in the meantime.

ChiChi is on deck now - so I think these will be on the back burner, at least for a bit.

Pattern: Pam Allen’s Reading in Bed Shrug from Interweave Knits Spring 2007

Yarn: Spirit Trail Fiberworks 100% Silk - @ 275 yds - 3 skeins

Needles: US9

Gauge: 16 stitches and 26 rows over 4 inches; unstretched

Finished Size (before stitching sleeves): 24 inch x 10 inch rectangle w/out added body edging

Modifications: Added 1×1 ribbing around the body opening. When finished with the pattern as written, I thought it could use a bit more structure - so I decided to add a ribbed edging to the body to match the sleeve edging. I picked up 1 stitch for every existing stitch and knit 1×1 ribbing for 5 rows, decreasing on Row 6 on the back in pattern (beginning with a knit stitch, Slip 1, K2tog, PSSO - this leaves one knit stitch in the center of two purls, keeping the 1×1 rib) 6 times evenly across (12 stitches decreased). Knit 4 more rows in pattern (Rows 7-10). Yarnover, K2tog for Row 11, decreasing on the back again by K3tog 6 times, following the placement of the prior decreases. Bind off in purl stitch, which created a nice beaded edging. This created an eyelet edge to mirror the sleeve edging. I put the edging on waste yarn a couple of times during the process to test the fit and determine how much to decrease the back - this worked out pretty well, at first the edging was much to loose in the back.

Time to complete: just over 1 week - and could feasibly have been done with more concentrated effort in a couple of days - I worked on this on the way home from work a few days, and a couple of hours off and on aside from that.

Verdict: Love it - This is a perfect pretty summer shrug. The edging added just the right amount of fabric, as written without the edging, it looked a little too teeny for my broad shoulders. I think it might even be worthy of wear at an upcoming wedding, but we will see.

I needed a few “comfort” projects to smooth things over following the spectacular failure of Chuck’s Cabled Socks and this fit the bill completely. The silk was soft and smooth in my hands, the pattern simple and practically mindless (yet pretty!), the colors beautiful and very precisely applied with regular repeats. Isn’t the knitted fabric just lovely?

The subtle striping of green and gold is so soothing. I have not forayed into dyeing yet, but this color balance and application is something that I would aspire to. I purchased the yarn last year at the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival - I understand that they will be there again this Spring, and I will certainly be on the lookout for them!

A valuable lesson that I learned in knitting this piece is that silk yarn + rough hands = lots of snags. It felt wonderful in my rough fingers, but even though they don’t look too beat up, I kept catching the yarn on them. In the future I would give my hands a good exfoliation before working with this type of yarn. As it is, we have a lot of work yet to do on the house, and I didn’t feel it was worthwhile just for them to get roughed up again.

Ahh - a successful FO, and on to the next small project:

The very special project for the very special little girl? Bubby is adorable, no doubt, but this is just perfect for the Beasta (aka “hamslice”) - see the link below. Tim and Martha, if you happen to have time amongst all the Beasta-rearing, schoolwork, work-work and homework and are seeing this, please DON’T click. Thanks!

ChiChi

This pattern is very special for another reason as well, which I’ll let you read about over at IndigoMuse. Just great stuff.

To market, to market to buy a fat skein ;)  Let’s hope I have better luck with ChiChi than the Bubster.

Well, the house is still in disarray and I am still a bit behind on everything, but making progress in small increments on both points!

Exhibitionist 3 - Where do you knit?

Ironically - week three was the week where I did not pick up my knitting, not once. These pictures were taken over the last week of me with faithful needles back in hand (phew!)

I knit on my favorite spot on the couch (though the couch isn’t currently where it belongs so the actual location is off - did I mention that the house is still in disarray?)

I knit in the car whenever Tad drives (which is most of the time, especially since I became a knitter!):

And I knit at the Borders coffeeshop - we go here almost weekly to sit, read, chat (and knit!):

Exhibitionist 4 - What (besides needles & yarn) is your most useful knitting tool?

This is probably not an original response, but here they are; without them I could not cast on, knit, purl, wind the next skein of yarn as I’m doing here, push-pull-poke-prod the knitted fabric as I’m blocking a piece, etc, etc. My hands are my most essential tool, and I am much more conscious of them now that I knit - at the moment they are in drastic need of some help, they are so rough from working on the house that I had little bits of fiber caught on my fingertips when I was done winding!

Isn’t this yarn beautiful? It’s a 100% silk single, dyed by Spirit Trail Fiberworks. I picked this up at the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival last spring and it’s almost that time again - I can’t wait!! Finally, here’s a taste of my current WIP, also at the bookstore, where I viewed the new Spin-Off (yum!):