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Once again, life somewhat got away from me, but for a good reason. Last weekend I went to a knitting retreat in Madison WI and had some great classes, two of which were with Native Knitter Jennifer Berg ! The retreat was organized by The Sow’s Ear yarn shop, which I have written about a few times. It is a great shop with lots of fabulous yarn and notions, an attached cafe, and a lively event calendar. The event was held at a hotel near the shop, which happens to be where DH and I stayed on our first exploratory visit to Wisconsin. Saturday I had a class on fiber arts and community, taught by one of the shop staff members. It was a lot more fun than it sounds like from that description. We learned some fiber arts history, had plenty of time for discussion, and learned a Scottish wauking song ! That link will take you to some YouTube videos of people singing wauking songs, if you are interested. Below is our cheat sheet – Scottish Gaelic on the left and p...

It’s that time of year – time to put regular crafting on hold and switch over to all Halloween all the time! One current project is a sweater started earlier this year, and I have also started a cross stitch project for the first time in many years. The sweater is the Half Moon tee that I set aside a few months ago. I’m most of the way through the colorwork and will be separating out the sleeves pretty shortly. Still really like this sweater and hoping I can get it done by Halloween! The other project is the Here Lyes the Body stitchalong, which I am doing along with Alissa of AlissaMakes . I haven’t done counted cross-stitch in decades, so I’m relearning somewhat. The designer sent the pattern for the frame to complete in September, then in October we will get one little motif to do each day. I’m pretty excited for this – it should be cool! And it’s fun to do a different craft every once in a while. How ab...

Earlier this week I finally finished my Mostly Ghostly sweater, which was started around this time last year and put on hold for quite a while. The pattern is Fall Favorites Collection by Meghan Regan and is the Mostly Ghostly pattern option. I have made this sweater 3 other times so far, twice for myself and once for my Mom. So if it looks kind of familiar, that is why. I normally steek it and make it a cardigan, as I do wear cardigans more often. However, this time I decided to try it as a pullover. It fits really well and is very comfortable! My only modifications this time were adding the pattern band to the bottom and shortening the sleeves. I always shove long sleeves up to my elbows anyway, unless it’s really cold, so that just made sense. The main yarn is Berroco Fiora, the orange is Knit Circus Greatest of Ease DK in the Safety Dance colorway, and Cascade 22 Sport in Jasmine. I used a combination of yarns for the ghosts, a sparkly white mohair, blue s...

Earlier this month DH and I went on a road trip through Michigan and north Wisconsin, in a trip that involved a surprising number of boats. We started out by taking the car ferry ( the SS Badger ) from Wisconsin to Michigan, which was a fun trip! It takes about 4 hours to cross Lake Michigan, and the ferry people try to make it a good time. There are cafes, a bingo room and a gift shop on board, though of course you can just lounge and look out at the water and scenery. Then we drove up the west coast of Michigan, stopping for some delicious cherry pie and to do a little rockhounding on the beach for Petosky stones. We did find a few petosky stones, though that is not what’s in the picture. I just thought that grouping looked interesting Then we crossed the massive and kind of scary bridge to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and spent a few days in Sault St. Marie. The big attractions there for us were the museum ship Valley Camp and a boat t...

Whew! It’s been a while since I posted. DH and I were on a road trip through Michigan and north Wisconsin last week. More about that after I organize my pictures. However, I do have some knit-related things to share from the trip. First, I got to just one yarn shop on the trip – Moonspun Wool in Marquette MI, which is in the upper peninsula. If you are ever in the area, I do recommend a stop. They have lots of yarns, tools, and books for knit and crochet, and also some felting and embroidery kits as well. You can see Mr. QuiteaYarn in the husband chair up at the front, patiently playing on his phone I came away with two of their house yarns! The other knitty news is that I finished a pair of socks I have been working on in calls and in the car for some time now. I didn’t use a pattern, just my usual two at a time, toe up recipe. The yarn is a Hobbii self-striping from their Halloween colors – Scary Sock Wool in the Poisoned...

I finished two different projects over the last couple of days, one I have been working on for a while and one very quick one. First, the big one. My argyle sweater is done! The sleeves are even, it’s just hanging on the hangar goofy. The back and sleeves are plain, so the front is the only patterned part. But that is enough! The pattern is Peggy Sue cardigan, designed by Anne Berk. The yarn is from the kit for the pattern from Craftsy (or Blueprint or whatever it was calling itself at the time). It is Cloudborn Highland Sport. My only modification is I changed it to a V-neck, as I don’t really like round or close necklines and it is an easy fix. My second FO is a Mithrola necklace , design and kit by Laura Nelkin. You can’t tell it from this picture, but it is very flashy and sparkly, because it is knitted out of chain! Unfortunately you can’t block chain (LOL) so the draped bits with the bead shift around quite a bit. I’m still wran...