Space Shuttle Discovery

I went down to Old Town Alexandria VA this morning to see the flyby of the space shuttle Discovery on its way to Dulles airport and the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum annex. I chose this location because I knew there was lots of parking down there. Plenty of people showed up and we were treated to two passes. The first was downriver (north to south) and surprised most of us; we were expecting the shuttle to come upriver since it was coming from Florida. The second pass was upriver (south to north). We could also see the passes around the national mall area, to the north of our location, although these were much too far away for me to even attempt a photo.

Needless to say, with my little point-and-shoot camera, my photos were not very good, but I did have a good time and another uniquely Washington DC experience.

March Tag

Late last month, Tim Holtz announce that he was switching from the Twelve Tags of Christmas (12 tags in 12 days) to twelve tags a year, one per month. I didn't have time to do last month's tag, but here is my version of his March tag.

The mosaic technique featured in Tim's March tag was fun. When I didn't have exactly what Tim, used, I substituted what I did have. I used the flowers sizzix die from Tim's sizzix line. The concrete Antiquities embossing powder really makes a nice grout and the Glossy Accents really makes the fake paper tiles shine and elevates the whole mosaic effect. I didn't have a woodgrain rubber stamp for the background, so I used various swirl stamps that I had. I sponged bundled sage distress inks on the tag and spritzed with water to mellow them. Then I stamped the swirls with more bundled sage ink. The sentiment was stamped with walnut stain distress ink. Tim added some metal flowers to the bottom of his tag, but I didn't have any and didn't feel anything further was needed to jazz up the bottom of my tag.

All in all, I am happy with the effect and love the mosaic technique.

Yarn + Bowl

I've been looking at yarn bowls on Etsy (bowls with a hole or notch through which to feed the yarn when knitting or crocheting), but I couldn't find one I liked enough to buy. But I still wanted one. Then I realized that you don't really need a hole for a yarn bowl. I just plopped my bowl of yarn in a nice little bowl I purchased years ago at the Torpedo Factory in Old Town Alexandria, and I was in business without spending a cent! It works great to keep my yarn ball from rolling around when I knit.

Clockwork

A local yarn store -- Fibre Space in Old Town Alexandria -- had a Miss Babs trunk show several weeks ago. One of the samples was Clockwork, by Stephen West, knit in Sojourn. Sojourn is a very soft, heavy fingering weight cashmere & silk blend yarn. I picked skeins of navy (blue) and nori (green), but when I began knitting I saw that the contrast was far too low to show off the stripe pattern. So I sent off for some lighter green (coventry), which worked well. It's finished and blocked, and is even softer now. The pattern is basic garter stitch stripes, with slip stitch contrasting columns of stockinette stitches.

My First Yarn

Recently, I plyed and skeined my first batch of yarn that I spun on a spindle. Three small skeins, probably enough for a hat and maybe a matching cowl, plus some single laceweight left over. The top I spun was some beautiful Miss Babs dyed top -- mixed bluefaced leicester (BFL) if I remember correctly. I like the way the yarn turned out, but I clearly need more practice!

SOS #3

I finally got the third pair of Summer of Socks done. I had a severe case of Second Sock Syndrome with these, but I forced myself to finish by 9/21/11 because I wanted to be in the running for a prize by completing all three pairs within the time allotted. I wanted these to look completely different from last month's pair, even though the two patterns were very similar. As I was casting on, I knew that the dark yarn with a slight fuzz would not show off the lace pattern, but I kept on anyway. I think these will be good winter socks and will go well with all the black that I wear.

Now I can cast on something else!

Learning to Spin

I'm inbetween my two spindle spinning classes, learning to spin. The class is held at Fibre Space in Old Town Alexandria. The teacher, Antonia Bookbinder, taught herself to spin two years ago so that she could teach spinning for boys wanting a Boy Scout merit badge and has been teaching children. Sunday's class at Fibre Space was her first class for adults. Fibre Space generally keeps the class size small -- we had 5 people in the class. A book the teacher suggested is one that I already have: Respect the Spindle by Abby Franquemont. I purchased it when it first came out because I wanted to learn to spin, but it seemed too intimidating to teach myself. I am glad I am taking a class . . . it is easier than I thought, but I am still in the early stages, so my yarn is the thick-and-thin type made by beginners. I spin a little bit each day, in small increments, and already I am learning a lot by trying different things as I practice.A lot of people move on from the spindle to the wheel, but Abby Franquemont does a good job of arguing for the use of a spindle.