Sesame Seed Designs » lace scarf

A month!

Casey — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 04:42:00 +0000

I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve posted! This is what I’ve been doing.
Vacationing! We spent Christmas at the beach in L.A. this year. My dad lives 2 blocks from the beach and the weather was a nice change from the freezing Portland temperatures! This photo was taken on Christmas Eve. It was so warm! It’s been hard adjusting to Portland again.
All my Christmas gifts were received well. My Aunt Judy loved her scarf and happened to be wearing an outfit that matched it when she opened it! The story is that My Aunt Karen was jealous and wanted one for herself. She was out of town for Christmas so she didn’t open her gift from me until a few days later. She was really excited to find this:I’m happy that my aunts liked the scarves! My mom loved her blanket too. I was so glad to finally finish it that I wrapped it up before taking a picture. Sorry.

Now that Christmas is over, I’ve been knitting for myself. I finally finished my Over-the-Knee Socks, though not by the Christmas deadline I had set for myself. They are so pretty, if I do say so myself! I have also started a new sweater for myself. It’s a maternity sweater from last summer’s IK. I’m using Knitpicks Wool of the Andes and I’m really liking it. The bump in the front is because it has short rows under the bustline to accommodate a baby belly. Here’s a modeled picture of the front. I can’t believe I’m half done with being pregnant! One good thing about being back from my beach vacation is that I get to go to the doctor tomorrow and see if baby Sesame is a boy or a girl! I’m really excited but a little nervous too. We call the baby Sesame because when I first found out I was pregnant, I read that the baby was as big as a sesame seed and the name stuck. It’s a lot bigger than a sesame seed now but my family is starting to think that maybe the baby should actually be named Sesame!

I need to say a great big THANK YOU to my secret pal! She got me a ball winder!! I have already used and I love, love, love it. I don’t know how I went this long without one!

Flock and Fiber and Finished Things

Casey — Sat, 30 Sep 2006 03:20:00 +0000

I finished the trellis scarf! This is the first lace item I’ve knit that looked all bunchy until I blocked it. It came out so pretty that I’m rethinking my plan to give it away. I don’t really need it, though. I want to put some beads on the ends of the points like I did with the wavy scarf I knit last year but I’ll wait to do that until I know who it’ll be for. The picture is shadowy. The true color is the deep purple in the upper right corner.
Last weekend I went to the Flock and Fiber Festival with my friends Lisa and Kirsten. We saw a lot of animals and a lot of fiber! Even Lisa, who’s not a knitter, had fun. At least until she saw people buying really ugly shirts and was disturbed.

We saw a lot of great yarn and a lot of great fiber that made me with I could spin. The highlight, though, was the animals. Alpacas are the cutest!! Just look at this one munching his hay. How could you not want to take him home?

This pretty trio was for sale. Each a different color. I wanted them. I still want them. The weirdest animal was the Jacob Sheep. Look at all the horns! We weren’t allowed to pet them. It was probably so we didn’t get impaled by all the horns. They looked friendly but we followed orders. I got a great deal on some Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece. They were seconds so each skein was only $3! I have been wanting to knit Rusted Root for a while now so I bought some cotton fleece and started knitting. It’s a quick knit so hopefully I’ll get to wear it before the weather gets really cold. I also bought a big skein of organic Inca cotton and knit a quick little washcloth. It’s so soft! I wish you all could feel it! The pattern is from Mason-Dixon Knitting but the pattern is free on the web (that’s how I got it!) here.

Fair Ribbons!

Casey — Mon, 28 Aug 2006 05:07:00 +0000

I have had some really crappy stuff happen in the last few weeks but still . . . I didn’t realize how long it had been since I’ve posted. I apologize and if I haven’t commented on your blogs lately, I will be back soon. I’m doing better now.

So, the fair!! Mike and I went to a concert at the fair lastnight (The Decemberists, Violent Femmes and Cake- So Good!!) but on our way to the concert pavilion, I made him run through the home arts building, looking for our entries. I couldn’t be at the fair and not find out even though we didn’t have much time to get to the concert. Out of 5 knitted items, I got 4 1st places and one 3rd! I also got a blue ribbon for my bread but the judge thought my jam was “sticky.” At least that’s what she wrote on the back of my card. Oh well. Mike got a blue ribbon too! I think I’m more excited than he is. I’m going back next weekend to actually go to the fair so I’ll scope it out better and take pictures then.
I finished knitting my ogee tunic and it’s really pretty and sems like it’ll fit well but I won’t know for sure until I block it and sew it all together. I think I’ve finally cleared enough space in my messy house to block it so hopefully that’ll happen soon.

This fine piece of knitting is the trellis scarf from the spring IK. It’s Shadow from knitpicks that my fabulous secret pal sent me a while back. The color is called vineyard and it’s more of an eggplant color than the picture shows. I started this on the plane back from El Salvador and didn’t think I was going to continue knitting it because of the K7tog! But, I got past that and knitting 7 stitches together really isn’t that bad. It helps that it makes a pretty pattern.

I hope you all had a great weekend. This is my last weekend ever of having to work both Saturdays and Sundays, so that helped get me through it!

Green knitting

Casey — Wed, 10 May 2006 04:43:00 +0000

Last month, I didn’t do any Project Spectrum-themed knitting. This month, by accident I already have!

When I realized last weekend that Mother’s Day is coming up soon, I decided to knit something for my mom and my mom-in-law. I needed something quick, since I have to send it early enough for it to get there on time, and easy and pretty so I decided on the Airy scarf from Last-Minute Knitted gifts. Mike helped me pick out the color and it’s kid silk haze in a pretty seafoam green. I didn’t even think about it being a project spectrum color until today. I finished the second tonight and there’s enough yarn left over that I can probably knit a 3rd and have a matching scarf too! I followed the pattern almost exactly. I added a selvedge stitch on each edge and I did a few extra repeats because it was shorter than the pattern said it should be. I haven’t blocked them yet but they’re about 6″ wide and 34″ long. Still 2 inches shorter than the pattern says to knit it but they’re long enough.

I know this because I tried one on.
I hope my moms like them! I know I do. I’ll knit one for me in a while. After cranking out 2 of them in only 3 days, I’m not really in a hurry to knit a 3rd right away. Besides, I have my corset pullover to get back to. I had about 4″ of a sleeve done but then I ripped it out and started over because I didn’t like it. Now I only have less that an inch done. The scarves were a nice interlude but back to the sleeves I go.

The olympics have started!

Casey — Sat, 11 Feb 2006 20:22:00 +0000

Oh, the fun has begun! Mike and I went to an opening ceremonies party last night hosted by the lovely Lisa and Kirsten and I made a great start on River. You can’t tell in this picture (Mike, the photographer, stood in the wrong spot but that’s okay) but there were two other knitters and a crocheter present as well as Kirsten who didn’t actually knit anything but tormented us fiber lovers by sharing the new and fabulous yarn she has gotten recently. Mike even played the part of a good knitter’s husband and tried to steal Kirsten’s beautiful Vesper sock yarn for me. Unfortunately he was unsuccessful. I may have to buy my own. It was a fun night and Kirsten and Lisa painted flags and we all got to pick one to cheer for. I picked Japan and am pleased that they have a fair number of athletes so I will probably get to see some of them compete. That’s probably not the case for Amber who is rooting for Kenya- they only have 1 guy but I do hope he wins something (although winning isn’t everything). Julie was disappointed in Germany-her chosen country-because their opening ceremony outfits were so ugly. Hopefully their athletic skills will make up for their outfits. I was hoping that Japan, with all their uber-trendy fashion would be wearing something interesting but they went with boring white with a splash of white. (Speaking of outfits-did anyone else notice Belarus’ scarves? They were so pretty! I want to knit one.) It was really fun and I loved having the flags. It really made us all pay attention to more than just the US. There are those commercials that say that during the olympics we are all rooting for the same team-the US- but we are a country that has people of all races. As Kirsten put it- Go team world!

Back to the knitting- check out my River! It’s looking good and even though I had two drinks last night, I found no mistakes this morning. It was kind of daring of me to try to watch the opening ceremonies, knit lace and drink at the same time but I’m here to tell you that it can be done.

Lat night we all thought the opening ceremonies were too long and we were almost asleep by the time they ended but I must say that the lighting of the torch was really worth staying up. It was really cool looking and there’s something so great about the tradition.

Is anyone even reading this or are you all too busy knitting?