Happy Memorial Day

Hanging Mitered Towel from Mason-Dixon Knitting Outside the Lines. Needs a button so it can hang off a stove handle or towel rack.



The Dodger!

Stash Documentation

If you'd like to see my entire yarn stash, become my friend on Ravelry! My name is lookeehere.

I like how you can estimate a percentage of the skein you have left and Ravelry calculates how many yards that is. Very handy if you want to use leftover yarn for a specific project. You can also see what projects other people have made with specific yarns.

The catalog of patterns is incredible and it's so much fun browsing and adding them to my queue to refer to later. I joined Ravelry in August but only recently became active on it.

Baby Merino, Baby

Thsi weekend I did something I haven't done in a long time--I bought yarn. Hard to believe I've gone a long time without buying any (six months? longer?), but true. This is Malabrigo lace yarn in damask rose, 100% baby merino yarn. It's very soft. The color is very subtly varigated and I think it will make beautiful lace.



On Saturday I went to Haus of Yarn to browse the yarn and say hello to Ann Shayne of Mason-Dixon Knitting who was having a one-woman trunk show and signing her excellent books. I got to chat a little while with Ann. She and Kay are just so down-to-earth and approchable. I also got to finally meet knitting-blog friend, Erin, in person. I've been reading her blog for a couple of years now. Hoorah for new/old knitting friends!



I bought this yarn with a specific pattern in mind for a specific event--the Icarus Shawl for my wedding! (Wedding date to be determined.)



This is Sheldon's shell in progress. Ann Shayne told me she's never knit a toy! Sadly, I didn't think to bring my knitting to the store to work on with Ann and others.

Buttons and Bags

The last weekend in April I went to a small workshop with my mom on how to make dorset buttons, which are made from thread. This was a cottage industry in the nineteenth century and people made them for men's shirts and other clothing items. I'd like to use them on toys someday.

We learned to make dorset buttons with plastic hoops (the originals would have been made of bone or brass), and also without hoops, just thread! The tiny ones are only made of thread. You wind thread around a knitting needle several times and then pull the thread hoop off and start tying knots around it to make it solid--wild. And so simple! I'm amazed by the ingenuity of crafts.



I was on such a roll sewing old sewing projects that I made a go at the Sock Monkey fabric purse I've been meaning to make for a couple of years. This is the last sewing project for which I already have all the materials.

The pattern is Butterick 4821. The red monkey fabric is the main fabric (pink fabric on the purse the model is holding), and I have some fabric that is printed with bananas on a lime green background for the contrast fabric (stripes) and lining.