Wendy Knits

Friends of Colombian Orphans Auction

By Wendy on October 18, 2009

Friends of Colombian Orphans, Inc., is a grassroots, non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of life for children in Colombian orphanages. Established in 2007 by parents who adopted Colombian children, the Friends focus on orphanages in need that are open to outside aid. They organize and supervise improvement projects using donated funds. 100% of donations go toward projects.

It was founded after seeing the conditions the girls live in while they’re in orphanages there. They started by cleaning up the buildings, fixing windows and the like, but they’ve moved on to vocational training. Specifically machine knitting as opposed to broom making, which is what they were being taught before.

The organization has established an online auction of mostly hand-made goods in order to do some more fund-raising. The auction is live now, and the items are on eBay, here. There are a lot of lovely handmade items, as well as some knitting kits. This would be a great opportunity to do some holiday shopping while supporting a great cause. I believe the auctions went live yesterday, and are all 10-day auctions, so you have time to browse through the offerings there. I’ve bid on a couple of the items there and I hope you will consider doing so as well.

Book Giveaway!

The Random Number Generator has spoken! The winner of Haiku Knits: 25 Serenely Beautiful Patterns Inspired by Japanese Design by Tanya Alpert is: Angel!

Thank you to everyone who left a comment!

Today

Today I am venturing into the stash room to try to do a bit of much-needed organizing. If you don’t hear from me after, say, three days, send help, okay?

Lucy sez:

“It’s chilly in here and I don’t think Momma’s gonna turn the heat on anytime soon!”

Posted in Wendy Knits | Tagged book giveaway, japanese design, knitting kits, orphanages, random number generator

It’s Wimplicious!

By Wendy on October 15, 2009

Hearty thanks to Gail for coining that phrase in the comments yesterday.

Yesterday evening I sucked it up and finished the wimple I was working on, while watching The Diary of a Chambermaid on television. The film is in French and has English subtitles, but as I was doing mindless stockinette, and I do know some French, I could happily knit and watch at the same time.

I did 4 rows of garter stitch at the edge before binding off, using a Russian bind-off.

In the interests of full disclosure, the wimple is clipped together under the neck of my disembodied head, because it is smaller than an average sized human head. The wimple fits nicely on my head sans binder clip.

I made this wimple using approximately 350 yards of Alchemy Juniper sock yarn and a US size 7 (4.5mm) needle. I started by knitting a lace edging and joined it to make a tube, then picked up stitches along the top edge, and knit a lace pattern up from there, decreasing a bit as I knit. Then I increased a bit after the neck and just knit straight after that.

The pattern will be available at some point. And for now it is called “It’s Wimplicious!”

So now I am concentrating on my Two-Thirds Shawl, being knit from Handmaiden Mini Maiden in the “periwinkle” colorway.

At this point I have approximately 350 stitches in each row so a row takes a whole freaking lot of time to complete. But it is fun to knit, and the pattern is so nicely geometric that not only do I not need stitchmarkers to separate the repeats, but I need only glance at the chart at the beginning of a pattern row (wrong side rows are just purled across) to remember it for the row. It’s close to being mindless knitting, so it came on the train with me today.

And I may need to find another foreign film with subtitles to watch tonight while knitting.

Lucy sez:

“I’m just hanging with my pink mouse. Whatcha doin’?”

Posted in Wendy Knits | Tagged binder clip, diary of a chambermaid, garter stitch, lace edging, lace pattern

Parade of WIPs

By Wendy on October 14, 2009

I currently have an almost-unheard-of-for-me three knitting projects in progress. Let’s review, shall we?

This is my traveling sock which is growing very slowly. (And I don’t seem able to take a non-blurry photo of it.) I started it on my trip to Virginia Beach last month and then stopped working on it when I got back home. It did come with me to Florida last weekend and I managed a few inches of knitting in-between doing classes, etc. And I haven’t touched it since I got back. But it will accompany me to Oklahoma City next weekend (October 22 – 25) so I may actually finish it. Then I need to cast on for the second sock.

Psst! — info on my visit to Oklahoma City is here.

Next up, is the lace cowl/wimple:

This is my current commuter knitting and as you can see, it is almost done. I’m in the boring part of it, so I’m afraid it grows slowly as I am sometimes tempted to sleep on the train instead of knitting mindless stockinette in the round. But I should be able to suck it up and finish it in the next day or so.

And this is my at-home project:

My Two-Thirds Shawl. It stayed home last weekend so I’ve not made a whole lot of progress. I picked it up again yesterday and did some work on it, but I’m at the point where the rows are getting mighty long, so it doesn’t look like too much progress each day.

Yarn and needles used for each project are listed in the “Work in Progress” box at the top of the page.

Lucy sez:

“May I have some more of that totally awesome fresh catnip, please?”

Posted in Wendy Knits | Tagged blurry photo, catnip, knitting projects, shawl, stockinette

I Can Haz Coffee Cozee

By Wendy on October 13, 2009

My morning cup of coffee got all dressed up!

Sorry for the blurry pic — I took it before I had any coffee.

My coffee cup is wearing a Coffee Cozee. My friend Aimee makes these and sells them in her etsy shop. Isn’t mine cute?

It’s adjustable, with an elastic loop and button, so it fits pretty much any size cup.

Aimee was with me in Florida this past weekend. Aimee is also my event planner and she very kindly drove down to Florida from North Carolina the night before I arrived so she could pick me up at the airport and drive me around for the weekend. (How’s that for a great friend?) She stayed at the hotel with me — we had adjoining rooms — and showed me a stack of these cute coffee cozees she had brought along to sew the buttons on. Because I was squeeing over all the cute fabrics, she very kindly gave me my favorite one — pink and white bunnies! Now I don’t have to use those paper sleeves for my coffee.

I had a lovely time at Sip n’ Knit this past weekend. If you are in the vicinity of Maitland Florida, you must stop by. The shop is located in a building that used to be a house, so there are several different rooms to explore. There is lots of lovely, lovely yarn there, and the room where we held classes was great — large enough for me to move comfortably around to help (and pester) all the students, and comfy and well-lit. And the shop is just so darn cute!

(Speaking of event planning, we’ll start scheduling events for 2010 in November. So if you want me to come to your shop to teach, you can contact her starting next month at the addy over in the left sidebar. )

Last week I received another great knitting book to review . . .

Haiku Knits

This is Haiku Knits: 25 Serenely Beautiful Patterns Inspired by Japanese Design by Tanya Alpert. It’s hardcover, 144 pages long, and will be released on October 20, 2009.

The title says it all — the patterns are all inspired by Japanese design. Here are a few of my favorites.

This is a lovely long scarf/stole knit from Louet Sales KidLin Lace:

This cute cropped jacket is knit from Blue Heron Rayon Metallic and Habu Textiles A-60 Linen Paper:

The pattern is available in two sizes — a small/medium and a medium/large.

This long sleeve pullover is my favorite in the book:

It’s knit from Habu Textiles A-60 Linen Paper and A-20 Stainless Steel Silk. The pattern is in 3 sizes.

There is beautiful photography all through the book:

See?

And there is a Haiku at the beginning of each of the 5 pattern sections.

Who’d like my review copy? It’s a lovely book and I am sorely tempted to keep it for myself, but it’s really not my style (I’m leaning more towards “Aging Hippie”) so I’ll pass it along to one of you.

Leave a comment on this blog post by Sunday October 18th at noon Eastern Time, and the Random Number Generator will select one of you to receive the book.

(Don’t know how to leave a comment? It you are on the main blog page, look at the end of this post to see a link that says “x Responses” and click on that to take you to the page for this post. At the bottom of this page there will be a form for you to fill out to leave a comment.)

I have done some knitting, but I’ll save that to talk about tomorrow!

Lucy sez:

“It’s good to have Momma home!”

Posted in Wendy Knits | Tagged coffee cup, elastic loop, japanese design, maitland florida, paper sleeves

Hot Hot Hot

By Wendy on October 12, 2009

Today is Columbus Day and I have spent the day reclining on the couch, one hand trailing on the floor, a la Greta Garbo Camille. I have done no knitting and very little else that can be even remotely considered productive.

But I did have a great, action-packed weekend at Sip n’ Knit in Maitland Florida.

Gotta love a shop that has a giant sheep standing outside.

And here is my very favorite employee at Sip n’ Knit:

This is Tucker and he is adorable. Period.

What I will not miss about Florida: the heat and humidity.

What I will miss about Florida: the wee tiny lizards that are everywhere.

While I realize that this blog post is a pretty lame weekend wrap-up, it is the best I can muster today.

Except a heads-up — I hear that Stacy put the kits for the Stacy Shawl up for sale over the weekend. Just sayin’.

Lucy sez:

“Hey! Who is that dog in your blog post?”

Posted in Wendy Knits | Tagged columbus day, giant sheep, greta garbo, maitland florida, shawl

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Friends of Colombian Orphans Auction

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Parade of WIPs

I Can Haz Coffee Cozee

Hot Hot Hot

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