crackerjack prizes

This month hasn't been good for a lot, except for mail. The mail has been absolutely phenomenal, thanks to Andrea Lyn Van Benschoten.

If you don't know who Andrea Lyn Van Benschoten is, then it is high time that you check out her blog, The Fiber Forum. Andrea is a fiber artist extraordinarie and her blog is full of all sorts of fiber related stuff. She does great book reviews.

Even better, she gives away the books to her readers once she is done reviewing them. She even pays the postage!

Contest rules can be found on her blog, or on her facebook page.

So what have I won? My first great prize was Vintage Design Workshop: Knitting Techniques for Modern Style by Geraldine Warner, at the beginning of the month.

This book's focus is translating vintage patterns for modern use. For someone whose vintage pattern collection looks like this (OK, you got me, this is only a fraction of my collection):

it will no doubt come in very handy. I can't wait until I finish my current project, which happens to be inspired by a vintage pattern, so I can really delve into it.

The second book, 150 Scandinavian Motifs: The Knitter's Directory by Mary Jane Mucklestone (that name is awesome on all sorts of levels) arrived yesterday. I should note that this book was released mid-August, and it is already in my hot little hands.

The organization and photographs of the beautiful classic designs promise to make it one of those books that are referenced again and again. (Come to think of it, guess that's why they call them reference books.) I am thrilled to have it join the collection on my workroom shelves.

What are you waiting for? Like Andrea's page, or follow her blog! Who knows what great prizes will find their way to your mailbox as a result.

finally fall

Seen from the back porch this morning, as the first morning sun hit the trees behind the house:

Even more spectacular color next to the house.

What is so magical about those first rays of sunshine? An hour later, the same trees were a pale shadow of their early-morning selves, barely hinting at these fiery hues.

stringing beads

Boy, when a blogger says "post tomorrow" then she'd better do that post as promised or she takes all kinds of heat. Lesson learned. Next time I will say "in the next post." Whenever that may be will be implied.

So, onto the secret of how to string a bazillion beads! I am not using the term bazillion lightly. The metal-looking purse takes approximately 8,000 beads, despite its dimunitive finished size of 4½ by 3½ inches, and all of the beads have to be pre-strung on the silk cording before starting to knit.

Enter the answer to prayer bead stringer, or spinner—it goes by a variety of names, but the technology, such as it is, is the same.

A bead stringer can be purchased at most large crafting chains. It costs about $25, so it is the perfect item to use one of those coupons on. No matter what you spend, it is worth its weight in gold if you have to pre-string thousands of beads. Or hundreds. Or even 34.

In addition to the bead stringer, you will also need a J-hook. Buy a few extra, they are cheap and have a distressing tendency to get easily misplaced.

Pour an ample supply of beads into the bead stringer, place your hook in the bowl, and...

Never mind. Pictures don't do the process justice, so I made a video. Not particularly polished, because I was using my iPhone and filming myself without any help, but it should give you the general idea.



I made an error when giving the directions on the video. Make sure and thread your yarn or string into the slit at the bottom of the J-hook before you start adding the beads, because otherwise you might have trouble balancing the beads on that flimsy wire and getting the yarn through that tiny little orifice at the same time, and end up flinging the beads all over the floor when things take a wrong turn. I will leave it up to your imagination to figure out how I learned this, but the hard way is always a tough mistress.

dream job

I had a dream job earlier this year... and I couldn't say a peep about it. I was designing and knitting two items for The Unofficial Downton Abbey Knits, which was just released by Interweave. Huzzah!

If you go to today's blog entry for Knitting Daily, and scroll down, you will see my beaded purses. All that beading was quite a different skill set and tremendous fun, once I managed to find the right beads.

Excuse the crappy iPhone photos; I didn't take any better ones

before I shipped off the finished items.

The pictures on the Knitting Daily website are much nicer!

The first one, which looks and feels like chain mail, is an almost-exact duplicate of a pattern from 1912. Almost exact, because I discovered a large error in the pattern. The chain-mail effect is the result of stringing ever larger numbers of beads between knit stitches. All of my boys were fascinated by the feel of it, and the little one wants it to store "little things in, like maybe Legos" once it is returned to me.

Needless to say, he will not be getting it for those purposes. As a matter of fact, one of my friends has already called dibs on it. It is a surprisingly quick and easy knit, once you string all those beads. More on how I did that tomorrow.

The second one was inspired by a crocheted bead purse, also from 1912. The size was altered slightly so it can be used as a cell phone case; it was originally intended for opera glasses, but not too much demand for that these days. Whenever I do something remotely historical, I am caught in a bind. Make something that is a faithful recreation of a pattern? Or make something that would be useful to a non-reenacting member of contemporary society? Having two patterns chosen for the issue meant that I got to do one of each.

The green, purple and white colors were inspired by Sybil and Edith's interest in the suffragette movement; to learn why those particular colors are significant, you'll have to buy the magazine. Or just ask me the next time you see me. Or google it.

a few hundred miles

Whoosh... I am in Ohio today, to attend the funeral of my great-aunt. I drove out with my father yesterday. Aunt L. was his aunt as well as his godmother. The last time he saw her, she whispered in his ear that she wanted orchids at her funeral. So he brought a beautiful purple spray from his greenhouse.

My dear Aunt P. (my father's sister) on the left, Aunt L. in the middle, 

my father on the right, a little over 15 years ago.

Hopefully Aunt P. will forgive me for posting it.

On one hand, I keep wondering when is this streak going to stop. On the other hand, I feel that I am exactly where I need to be right now, with beloved family that I don't get to see nearly often enough due to time and distance. The post-funeral luncheon, at a cousin's house as it always is, brought back memories of similar times with extended family so many years ago, when the pleasure of being with all those relatives made a young me giddy with excitement no matter what the occasion. Even with today's overlay of sadness, there was still a sweetness in reconnecting with everyone thanks to all those memories. Maybe that's why I am supposed to be here.

found

Remember the garden that Secondo planted in a rush, and almost too late? It turns out that we were in such a hurry that we forgot a key component: newspapers to keep down the weeds. My friend Val uses paper feed sacks, an even better idea because they are thicker and larger. I will be saving ours this winter, because the poor garden now looks like this:

Yes, there is a garden in there, though only barely. On closer inspection though, lots of gems were apparent.

The tomatoes finally decided to ripen. Yay! Not enough to make sauce this year, but enough to give a bit of fresh flavor to the store-bought sauce tonight.

I was particularly excited about this discovery, because I had given up on them. This variety of cherry tomatoes, Super Sweet 100, is my very favorite. I will confess to pigging out on them while I continued the search.

Not one but two eggplant. I predict a batch of ratatouille in our near future.

Blackberries are the only thing that were produced in abundance this summer. Unusual for them to still be on the bush this late in the season. Maybe the cool weather in August? I have been enjoying them in my breakfast smoothy for weeks now.

A completely different find: this tiny purple feather in the chicken coop this morning. No, not an exotic breed of chicken, this is not a color generally found in nature... If you guessed Woundkote, you would be correct. One of our chickens suffered a leg injury back in June, and I applied liberal shots of the stuff to keep the wound clean and healing. Must have overshot a bit onto her feathers.

looming

Not referring to impending deadlines. Those are just breathing down my neck, though I did make some serious progress the last couple of days.

Instead I am referring to these bracelets. If you are wearing one on your wrist, chances are you are well loved by an elementary school-aged child. The one I am sporting in the picture was made especially for Primo, because they are his school colors, but I borrowed it for good luck today to cheer him and Secondo on in their first cross country meet.

Completely gratuitious picture, but I am a proud mama and this is my blog

It is amazing how the popularity of these bracelets, made using a device called a Rainbow Loom, has exploded seemingly overnight, in a way that leaves one wishing she had come up with the idea herself, and dreaming of how the real innovator must be taking baths in money at this point. The little bands are reminiscent of those colored rubber bands that orthodontists use to make braces more appealing to the wearer. Come to think of it, that's probably where the idea originated.

What is fascinating is how it has been embraced by boys as well as girls, unusual for a crafting craze. (I have yet to know a boy who likes to make duct tape wallets, for example.) Terzo attending a slumber party two weeks ago and the boys were asked to "bring their looms"—necessitating an emergency trip to the local craft store to buy a loom, since we were unaware of the craze up until that point. What can I say, school hadn't started yet and we live on a farm-shaped island. Luckily, they were in stock.

To be fair, he hasn't stopped making bracelets since.

He asked me to help him figure out the instructions for a "starburst" pattern yesterday, and I quickly grew frustrated with the giant plastic crochet-like hook that comes with the kit. I grabbed a No. 5 metal crochet hook, which made it much easier for me to grab those little bands from one plastic peg and loop them around another peg as directed by the impossibly perky woman in the "how-to" video posted on, you guessed it, youtube.

"Wow!" exclaimed Terzo. "It's a good thing you have professional tools!"

Words cannot explain how thrilled I am that someone considers a hand-me-down crochet hook from my mother a professional tool. Now, back to the work for those deadlines, because I am a professional, dang it.