Starting and Finnish-ing

To plan for some upcoming travel (coupled with Knitter's Mercantile summer sale) I decided I needed a hipster-jet-set-bandana-scarf-shawl-thingy. I wanted lace, but not frilly. I settled on a pretty simple, geometric pattern called Fifi.

The only catch was that the pattern was written in Finnish. Because the pattern was charted, I really only needed to know what each symbol represented, plus any unique finishing details. Thank goodness for Ravelry, I found someone who'd knit this pattern and seemed to know English. I was able to email her and sort things out. She is my Terhi-godmother.
Nonetheless, I am the proud owner of two skeins of Twisted Sisters Zazu merino in monochromatic variegated gold. I looooooove it. It is precisely the color of marigolds. Or more appropriately mums, I suppose, since it's fall.

Spring cleaning (part 2: the niddy noddy)

Oh boy, was I excited Sunday morning at the prospect of a project that combined knitting and a home improvement store! I recalled from a ravelry forum that a niddy noddy could be constructed cheaply from PVC pipe and fittings. I was referred to the following directions on the doctor dirt blog, which I only now see are accessible from Wikipedia as well.

Armed with no more than an idea of what I wanted, I headed off for the ridiculously hard to get to home improvement store that hides behind the Crew Stadium and Ohio State Fairgrounds. (Sidenote: Kenny Rogers and Blue Oyster Cult will both make appearances at this year's fair - not to be missed.)

I procured 5' of 1" PVC piping and two T-connector-thingies for a grand total of $2.93. Not bad, I thought.
...until I got home and realized I had no way to cut the pipe to the desired lengths. So back to the drawing board, and ultimately back to the home improvement store to get more help which came in the embarrasingly simple form of an employee with a hacksaw. Then- assembly.
Finally, winding a sweater's worth of yarn into skeins.Next weekend: part 3 - washing and dyeing.

Spring cleaning (part 1: Saturday)

The weather this weekend was sunny and lovely. A perfect weekend for a project. Saturday, I chose to peruse two local thrift stores looking for sweaters to frog, dye and recycle. I settled on two men's sweaters, both 100% wool and moderately ugly. Perfect. One sweater I chose was a medium oatmeal men's pullover (originally from J. Crew during a mid-90's lapse in style, I gather). This sweater met my goals for the weekend project best.
I started by ripping the seams and dismantling into the sleeves, front and back. I wound these pieces into odd-sized balls as I ripped, to avoid massive tangling. Below are represented the largest and smallest.The tiny off-colored one is from an unfortunate stripe detail from the chest. I saved it because I think it could be used for color testing when I dye, or stripes (fancy that) for some future project. In fact, dyeing the oatmeal and the off-white with the same dye mix might result in two tones of the same color, which could look really nice.

To dye these balls, I would need to skein them and to properly do this, I felt I needed (yes, needed) a niddy noddy. Hold your breath for part 2: Sunday - niddy noddy day.