Yarn School!

Back in October 2014, two friends of mine from my knitting group and I went to Kansas to attend Yarn School. More specifically The Harveyville Project Yarn School. It is such a neat concept and definitely an interesting experience.

Basically the set up is the weekend event is held at an old high school in Harveyville, Kansas that has been converted to hold all types of creative workshops. Yarn School consisted of learning all about fibers, learning how to use a spinning wheel, learning how to dye fibers in various methods, visiting an alpaca farm and just meeting good people and having a fun weekend.

The school itself had a run down hipster feel to it with all sorts of knickknacks everywhere, old school lockers, and we slept in classrooms next to chalkboards. While I understand this concept is still a work in progress and for the most part manageable, the bathrooms could use a bit of an update.

I was super excited to learn how to dye yarn with Adrian from Hello Yarn. That was one of my favorite parts of the whole weekend and wish we had more time devoted to that lesson. Or more opportunities to do additional dying in the down time.

Spinning is hard work. Finding the right wheel, the right fiber, the right rhythm. It's a lot to think about and figure out how to coordinate all at once. I am not the best learner. I get frustrated quickly if I don't pick something up quickly. So I struggled with this part of the lessons. But I did enjoy it once I got the hang of it and one day hope to buy a spinning wheel to better learn this art.

Another favorite part of the weekend was the visit to the Alpaca farm. I think alpacas are my spirit animals. They love me and I love them back. Some days I daydream about living off the grid and owning a few alpacas.

Additionally, the food was fantastic all weekend long. I really wish they would put out a cookbook because I still think of some of the dishes. It was all made from scratch every day which isn't easy to do for over 20 people at each meal.

The school

Our beds

Lockers!

Beautiful sunrise

Sunrise from the men's bathroom. I liked the windows.

Crockpot dying

Trying to be creative with the dying

Colors!

Look at all the pretty colors drying

Adrian teaching us how to hand dye

Learning how to use a drop spindle

One of the spinning wheels I tried

Spinning in Action

Look, I made yarn!

Not bad yarn for the first time.

Alpacas!

I totally want an angora rabbit now

Look at the cuteness!

These sheep were scaredy cats and preferred hanging out behind the bush

Of course I had to take a picture of my Jayne hat next to Firefly Rd

Kansas was surprisingly pretty

All my finished yarns and fibers

Boneyard Shawl

In the beginning of February, I was going on a trip to Mexico (I will blog about the actual trip separately). I decided I need something easy to knit to bring along on the trip. A project that was easy enough to memorize so I could knit on the plane, in the airport, or anywhere else. After a lot of stash diving, I decided it was appropriate to use yarn that I bought a few years back for my birthday considering the trip to Mexico was a birthday trip for me. The yarn is called Aquarius by Wollmeise. Fitting for a February birthday and a February vacation by the beach, no? It is a gorgeous teal green blue color and knitting it up is so easy. The pattern I picked is Boneyard Shawl by Stephen West. This is a great pattern because although it is a simple pattern, it really allows for the great color saturation to show off and with this specific yarn it is coming out very squishy and comfy. I have quite a bit of yarn, 2 skeins worth of the DK weight, so I plan to make it a large shawl (or until I run out of patience). While I am not done with the shawl yet, I have been Instagramming the progress in various stages and in various settings. So I wanted to show off a bit and let you all know that I am being crafty in 2015, albeit a slow crafter.

Decided to do some knitting by the pool in Mexico while waiting for my room to be ready

Knitting on the beach in Mexico

Knitting is a good waiting room activity

Knitting is also a good coffee shop activity

Some knitting at lunch with a knitter friend

Knitting while binge watching House of Cards

Knitting at my Sunday Morning Knitting Group

Jayne Hat

A few years back I watched a television show called Firefly. Unfortunately it had already been cancelled by Fox by the time I watched it but those 14 episodes had such an impact on me that I continue to rewatch the dvds every year and started my love affair for all things Joss Whedon. It's a real shame it was cancelled because it had so much potential with the great cast, witty dialogue and good plot development. It was a good science fiction show that delved into deeper issues. And I'm not alone in feeling this way. Firefly became a cult classic with such a gathering that Fox ended up developing a movie called Serenity to help provide some closure to the abruptly cancelled series. Even to this day, Firefly has a huge following, as noted at various comic and scifi conventions. Fellow fans refer to themselves as Browncoats.  And the best part is the cast still reminisces about their great time on the show and provide Firefly references in their current projects (aka Nathan Fillion in Castle with his Malcom Reynolds Halloween costume).

One of the more common unifying symbol is the Jayne hat. This is a specific knitted hat that a character named Jayne wore in one of the episodes. It is a kind of ridiculous looking hat, knitted in bright orange, red and yellow but it works because Jayne is this gun toting manly man and loves this hat because his mother knitted it for him. Ever since I watched that episode, I knew I had to knit that hat. Too bad it took me around seven years to do so. 


I ended up using the My Jayne Hat Pattern by Erika Barcott. The actual pattern can be downloaded for free on Ravelry. I ended up making a few changes to better fit my head:.
1. For the body, I knitted 13 rounds in both the orange and yellow versus the 12 rounds recommended for XL hats.
2. For the decrease rounds of the body, I did an extra K2tog, k2 and 2 more knit arounds before binding off.
3. For the ear flaps, I did 14 rows of stockinette.
4. The decrease of the ear flaps is where I made the most modifications.
           a. K1, K2tog, K6, K2tog, K1
           b. Purl across
           c. K1, K2tog, K4, K2tog, K1
           d. Purl across
           e. K1, K2tog, K2, K2tog, K1
           f. K1, K2tog, K2tog, K1
           g. Bind off purl wise

In progress

 For the yarn, I used Knit Picks Brava Worsted with the size 10 and 11 circular needles as the pattern recommended. The yarn is super squishy and really doesn't feel like acrylic. The only negative is I wish it wasn't so shiny but it works.

Lastly, this was my first time making a pom pom. Who knew it was so hard. I tried using a pom pom maker that my mom had from the 80s but that was a big failure. After watching a few YouTube videos, I made one using my fingers. It's not exactly the nicest or poofiest pom pom but I kind of like the way it flops around and is a bit uneven. 

Seed Stitch Cowl

My first finished knitting project in 2014! Very exciting because I am the slowest knitter in the world. I don't watch much TV and that's the only time I would really knit outside of my weekly knitting group. And I'm not that good at knitting and watching shows I want to pay attention to. So it'll take me months to finish a project. However, this was a super easy project because it was seed stitch in bulky yarn. I decided to knit it when we got a very cold front back in January which is unusual for Texas, but then it warmed up by the time I finished. So maybe I'll use it next winter?

I got the inspiration for the cowl from this pattern on Pinterest: Seed Stitch Cowl (Yay for finally using a pin that I pinned months ago!)

I bought the yarn at the Dallas Fiber Fest in 2013. Brooks Farm Yarn from Lancaster, Texas (brooksfarmyarn.com). The yarn was called Macho, 7.8oz/206 yards, fine wool bulky.

(P.S. It is hard trying to photograph a cowl)