A View from Sierra County

Contest! Contest! Contest!

I wanted to alert my last, loyal blog readers (I know it has been pretty thin around here lately!) that I am hosting a promotional contest over at Nature's Cauldron.  You can help me spread the word about my natural dye plant CSA and possibly win some terrific prizes by clicking here.   Hope that helps make your weekend a bit happier:)

A Month of Sock Knitting, Skywatching and a Sweater

Happy Valentine's Day!  It snowed this morning, for the first time all winter, when it really is heading into spring.  I wanted to share the results of my New Year's resolution, and that you really can build a new habit or skill by just spending 20 minutes a day, hee, hee.  I managed to get the hang of my antique circular sock knitting machine, crank out seven pair of socks, and learn to kitchener the toes closed, all in January! 

Here they all are... the long, stripey pair (Knit Picks Simply Stripes) is the first one I finished, and is way too long to fit anyone I know, so I will be unsewing the one toe and ripping both back, putting back on the machine and making new toes.  I successfully mastered ripping and reinstalling with the dark blue (Mega Wool) pair, which I had to shorten to fit DH.  It wasn't that easy to get the socks back on the machine, but not that hard either... remember, just 20 minutes a day.  Then, I made the short, lighter striped pair for myself (Regia Sockotta).  I don't like the yarn, too much cotton to avoid a rather crisp hand that was not stretchy enough on the machine, or to keep from having mock ribbed top that seems too wide.  I might wear them this summer.... I made a long, skinny scarf from a very light fingering yarn, then decided to try all the Canadian coned wool I had set aside for the magical day when I could successfully make socks.  There are two pair of light blue (toes all nicely closed) and two pair of red (still need kitchenering).  The heavier yarn makes a larger sock, maybe better for men, though I have tried on the womens' sized ones and like them.  They are thick and warm, and the women's light blue are for Wooly Daisy, as her pay-it-forward gift that is long overdue.  She has been a staunch supporter and encourager about the CSM, so I can't think of a better person to receive them.  DH gets the other light blue pair.  The two red ones are currently unclaimed, hence the low motivation to sew up the toes.  The CSM makes socks with short row heels, which are very clean-looking, once you do them correctly.  Then, after the foot, you make another short row heel, only this time, it folds over and is sewn closed, looking like those commercial socks you used to wear.  Once my kitchener technique improved, I was impressed by how neat the toes were, and how you didn't need to feel that seam!You can see it on the light blue socks, if you look closely.

I couldn't have made such progress without spending 20 minutes a day, but also without terrific directions on the Internet... which is how I finally got the whole kitchener stitch thing.  Now, it has become an easy process:)  I was so delighted with my progress, that I have already cranked out 2 1/2 pair of socks in February, sending this one (Regia World Ball - very nice yarn) off as a birthday gift.

You can really see the mock rib top on this pair... I do think that the fingering weight yarn works well with that method, but also have to get brave enough to try using my ribber.... 20 minutes a day, right?!

I have been pretty enamored of this process, but have been participating in the Sky Scarf Project since my birthday back in October.... at least, I routinely record my observations daily, then spend an evening about once a week catching up on the knitting.

Several other bloggers I know (Margene, in particular) are doing this project.  My version is in Plymouth Dye 4 Me yarn, which is so scrummy-soft.  I dyed two shades of blue with indigo, and a dark grey with elderberry mordanted with iron, and then used some lovely angora handspun that Amy sent me a few years back for the lighter grey.  I decided to stick with simple garter stitch, helping with a tweedy effect, and have noticed that this year's drought winter has resulted in a lot more blocks of blue than usual... it will be interesting to see what the end result is!

I have also been slowly fitting in a sweater for myself, which I started back before Thanksgiving.  It seemed to get set aside many times, for various other projects, with the sleeves made over Thanksgiving holiday, the body over New Years weekend, and, finally, off the needles last week.  I still need to pick up and knit a button band on each side of the front. 

This sweater, the Rebecca Cardigan, was designed by Heidi Iverson for the Fibershed Year Project, and then Rebecca Burgess used Sally Fox's organic cotton (two color-grown shades and some dyed with Japanese indigo - three strands held together) to put together a kit, one of the early offerings of the Fibershed Marketplace. I can tell already that this will probably be my favorite sweater of the year to wear, much the same way Shalom was last fall!  I have some lovely abalone shell buttons waiting for me to get it together and finish up.

I am pretty excited to tell you all that I am heading into my second season as a natural dye plant farmer.  I just listed the 2012 Natures Cauldron CSA Subscription season there this past weekend and am already getting orders!  You can find out more about my dye work here.

Where's Winter?

Do those of you who knit or pursue other crafts look forward to winter?  I know that for as much as I love the warm time of the year and all the outdoor activities in my life, I also look forward to being forced inside by bad weather.  It gives me the excuse to lay up in a chair and knit to my heart's content!

That just hasn't happened this year... in case you haven't heard, we have been experiencing 'drought-like' weather this winter in California.  That's the phrase you use when still hoping for some good storms and not wanting to confess to a full-on drought.  I can recall several dry Januaries, but not one that was preceded by a dry December.  There's hope for snow at the end of this week.  Please keep your fingers crossed for us!

On the needles:

I am doing the Inspira Cowl, which is a free Ravelry pattern.  I was inspired by the one my knitting buddy Barbara Sue finished in late fall, and by the mushroom dyed yarns I got in December, in preparation for my display at the Fungus Foray.  I have still to blog about that, but it will be on my CSA blog, so check there.

All of the dyes come from mushrooms, except the top two yellow sections, which are from lodgepole pine bark.  The photo is upside down, with the needles at the bottom, though I am working towards the top.  The brown and rosewood are from Dermocybe and the two greens from the Jack O' Lantern mushroom, while the yellow in the bottom is from Sarcodan.  I will have to get some better photos!  This is coming along nicely, even though corrugated ribbing is a slower-moving process, and will probably be the only project on the needles until finished.  After all, this is winter and it is supposed to snow later this week (think snow, think snow!).

On the Circular Sock Machine:

Thanks for the encouragement about getting my antique machine running.  Here's one of the second pair of socks, made for DH from Mega Boots yarn, with needles threaded through the toes so that I can kitchener them closed.  I need to wade back through the CSM list on Ravelry and find that great video, to refresh my memory on what might be the most intimidating part of the process at this point in the game.  I have to say, as humbly as possible, that I am pretty pleased with my progress on the machine.  This yarn was a bit splitty, but I got through the process uneventfully and DH will have a pair of socks to wear.  We think I still might want to make his foot a bit shorter next time....

Since I was doing so well, I decided to try a yarn that had given me trouble while I was still mastering the tension - Regia Sockotta.  I have to say I really don't like this yarn, for the machine and probably even on my feet.  It's a bit stiff, even though close to half wool.  That cotton part really changes the texture.  The colors are great though, and I made myself a short pair of socks for summer hiking.  This photo shows the mock rib hem on the right, the heel, and the foot, with the toe just almost out of view on the left. 

I will be trying out some sport weight yarn this week, before trying to get my nerve up to change to the larger cylinder... can't seem to find a nice, hand-holding video on that process.  The machine's diameter is always the same, so if I want a denser knit, I need to use the cylinder that will hold more needles, to get a closer gauge.  If I can use the sport weight, I can keep going on the 54-needle cylinder rather than switching over.  I'll let you know how that goes!  I am happy to say that all of these projects are coming out of my stash, though here's a project that I will be searching out the perfect yarn to use.  Guess who it's for?

CSM is My New Year's Resolution

Those who have followed my blog for a long time know that I am the owner of an antique circular sock knitting machine (CSM) though not the successful user of one.  My heavens, it's even a category over there on my sidebar!  For all the good that wishful thinking has done me.  Well, as the farm season wound down, then the holiday knitting got wrapped up (yes, I guess I really could do a post on that soon), I started thinking about other ways my small farm could contribute to our regional Fibershed movement.

Socks!  One the machine!  Of course, that would be a perfect small contribution, since so many people need to wear them, especially in our Northern California winters.  I discovered that none of the mills within our region had the capacity to make fine yarns, i.e, fingering or sock weight, from local wools.  That kind of tooling hasn't been needed in a long, long time, what with most of the socks being made in China, and the commercial spinning too, probably.  However, it is a concern that hasn't gone unnoticed.  The Fibershed has become a non-profit organization, continuing to search for the holes in localizing what we wear, and the idea of setting up a small mill that can produce sock yarns is in the works - or, at least, on the list.  Hopefully, within a few years such a mill will exist in Hopland, California, and I can send wool to them.

In the meantime, I thought I better work on my skills.  Now, I didn't always know how to drive, or to spin yarn with a wheel... so the good advice given to me when I was learning to spin, of practicing 20 minutes a day, came back to me during the second half of my two-week winter break.  In that quiet moment between Christmas and New Years travels, I made my one and only New Year's resolution - to master the CSM and crank out socks to sell locally by the end of 2012.

First, I spent some time viewing the vast information now available on the web, especially some videos on YouTube and posts by the Soxophone Player.  It is truly amazing how much more help there is now than when I first bought my machine back in 2005!  I cleaned it up, fiddled around with the tension, and finally produced two scarves, one for me and one for Hubby Dear, in time to take with us to visit relatives at Lake Tahoe on New Years Eve.  While the ball dropped in Times Square, I was closing the ends on the two tubes...

The manly-looking scarf on the left is Wooly Wonka's blue-faced leicester sock yarn, and was finished by a simple three-needle bindoff technique.  You see, manly men don't wear fringe.  The green one on the right is Austermann Step, which was a dream to work with on my sensitive machine, and was closed with delicate fringe.  I was just sooo very pleased to finally have made something with this fabulous technology from a past era.  Plus, the machine just looks so steampunk!

When we returned home from New Years revelries, I started a real sock, using some Knit Picks Simply Stripes that has been in my stash for years (I don't think they even carry this any longer!).  Sock making involves heels and toes, and I carefully followed some printed directions, resulting in a lightbulb moment, where I caught on and realized that short row toes were just short row heels, but at the end of the foot!  I know, not brilliant, but it did make it possible to finish a sock.  However, it turned out that sock is probably for a men's size 10 or larger foot... and the yarn is just too girly for DH, and too wooly for eldest son, who actually needs long socks for snowboarding.  I carried on valiantly, in the face of a beginner's mistakes, and the knowledge that my family testers had bailed on me.

Let me take a moment to describe the photo at left.  The machine shows half the needles up - that is because I am about to do the short row toe... you can see how the yarn is fed to the needles, but not the stand behind it that elevates the yarn coming off the ball (in my case, rolling around in a bowl, though many people use cones and cone holders).  That metal on the cylinder to the left of the yarn carriage, that looks like an arrow pointing left, is the tension marker, and the knob to adjust tension is just above it.  You can see the crank handle at the bottom right and how the sock comes out the bottom.  The fishing weight is attached to a bent fork that can be placed in the sock and moved around to add weight where needed.  The wood clamp on the already-worked section holds the main weight, not visible in the picture.  The entire contraption is clamped onto a stool, making a nice and somewhat portable workstation.

This second picture gives a better view of the striping pattern, the fishing weight and clamp arrangements, and DH's banjo in the background.  Also grandbaby's pink rocking chair and a sock monkey.  Maybe I should try a little harder at photo composition so they won't come out so random.

I kept on watching videos, and started a second pair of socks, this time using Mega Boots... splitty, though makes a nicer fabric than the Knit Picks yarn (which went through the machine in an well-behaved manner).  Things were going too smoothly... thought I could try to follow a video that showed a supposedly easier way to make heels with less fiddling with the needles.  Unfortunately, it led to more fiddling with dropped stitches, and swear words not usually heard in my house.  I decided my beloved would wear them no matter what, and charged ahead to make a second that wouldn't entirely match the first, but would go back to the short row heel method I do understand!  Sock #2 is now all the way to the foot, just needing the toe section completed.  I will wait to photograph it until I have the toes closed and a few cosmetic flaws cleaned up... I am beginning to understand what it means when you run across the terms 'seconds' or 'irregular' on clothing in the stores.  He, he.

I am off to a good start with my resolution.. how are you doing with yours?

Happy Thanksgiving

Prayer for the Great Family

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—
        and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing, light-changing leaf
        and fine root-hairs; standing still through wind
        and rain; their dance is in the flowering spiral grain
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and silent
        Owl at dawn. Breath of our song
        clear spirit breeze
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,
        freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;
        self-complete, brave and aware
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;
        holding or releasing; streaming through all
        our bodies salty seas
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through
        trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where
        bears and snakes sleep— he who wakes us—
                            in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Great Sky
        who holds billions of stars— and goes yet beyond that—
        beyond all powers, and thoughts
        and yet is within us—
        Grandfather Space.
        The Mind is his Wife.
                            so be it.

                                                        after a Mohawk prayer

Gary Snyder, Turtle Island
New Directions, New York, 1974, pp. 24-25

 

Interlude with a Hat

I have been crazy busy getting all of the plants gathered, dried and packaged for my dye plant CSA, and just finished boxing up Shipment #2!  There are still more plants to be gathered before the snow flies, and cuts off my access to the high country, but I have been on vacation from my 'regular' job this week - fall break in our district at the end of the first quarter.  That has helped me get many small steps accomplished, so DH and I took off Tuesday afternoon and headed to our Forest City cabin.  25 miles can be a world away!

Autumn is definitely present there, with black locust and aspen leaves in various shades of yellows, though the black oaks haven't turned color yet.  The weather has warmed back up during the day, but is chilly at night.  I decided it was time to make a new hat for the coming cold season, and spent much of my time knitting.

I finished my hat by midafternoon yesterday, tried it on and then didn't want to take it off!  It was just the extra warmth I needed while still getting to wear my crop pants and short sleeved shirt.  I am especially pleased with this hat, an adaptation of the Slouchy Hat pattern in Harvesting Color.  The yarn is some of the wonderfully squooshy Rambouillet I have been spinning at many public spin-ins for the past few years.  I used a lot of my yarns to dye with this summer, and ended up with plenty of colors for the striping.  The orange is from madder roots, the blue is indigo-dyed, the purple from logwood, and the gold is from a boiled-up pomegranate someone threw in a dyepot while we were working at Anni Redding's back in May. 

The light olive color is a bit more complicated... I wanted to be able to demonstrate some dye processes while giving a talk at Ridgestock in August, so I set up a jar of zinnias and black-eyed susans in my solar oven.  Meanwhile, I had yarn soaking in my rusty-object mordant jar.  Later, when I got back home, I simmered the sun-mordanted yarn in the flower water.

As you can tell, my pre-dawn photo taken by myself with my phone won't win any photography awards, but you can see a detail I decided to add to the original pattern.  I have been admiring the hats in the knitting mags that are trimmed with cute little buttons, and as I was knitting, I made a reverse stockinette placket for the buttons.  This hat is worn inside-out, so that portion is flat stockinette.  When we got home last night, I had a pot of elderberry dye to simmer and time to paw through my button collection and find five small wood buttons.  Then, I used a nickel as a template and cut five circles from some felted wool that I threw into the last of the pokeberry dye baths a few weeks ago.  The berry red is a bit different from the rest of the hat, but looks good against the light olive and with the wood.  I am so delighted with this local hat, made by me from start to finish!

Now, to head off for a quickie vacation visiting the in-laws in Lake Tahoe for a few days... I've earned the rest and have a cozy, stylin' hat to wear too.  Happy autumn weekend, dear ones!

Moving Into Fall

  I have had a very hard time letting go of summer.  All September, I kept pretending it was still August, even as we restarted our early childhood program and the school was full of people.  I watched my tomatoes ripen and ate them.  I cut my plants for the natural dye CSA and dried them.  I even took a small rainstorm in mid-September in stride, hurrying off to harvest sage, lichen and lodgepole pine bark in the high country on a damp day, knowing that vacationers were all back home and winter was coming. But look... it warmed back up!  I was happy.

However, this week just ending brought an early but cold and very wet storm system through, and I finally had to concede defeat.  Now, I am searching out the best place to go in search of glorious color in mid-October, when we have fall break.

The highlight of the past few weeks has been spinning all of last weekend at the annual Celtic Festival put on by my favorite public radio station, KVMR. 

This photo was taken from the grand parade that officially opens the fair each day.

The music is grand, there's a wide variety of yummy food, and we all end up seeing old friends and wondering how another year snuck by.

 

I particularly liked listening to Molly's Revenge, Old Blind Dogs and The Young Dubliners this year.  If you haven't heard any of them, be prepared for traditional tunes that have been electrified and make you want to get up and dance.  Celtic music just warms my heart!

 

Our fiber guild sets up a double booth, dons our Renaissance-era costumes and talks fiber to the public. We also get a lot of yarn out of it!

This next photo shows Susan on the left and Mardi on the right... happily spinning away.  I delight in the interest that spinning at the wheel generates.  Young children come running up and have to be warned off sticking their fingers right into the spokes (ouch!), then stay and beg for a bit of soft roving to carry around with them, or ask if they can give it a try.  We are on the lookout for a 'learner's wheel' that we can set up at such demonstrations, one that nobody minds if a beginner works on with instruction, as frequently a spinner is right in the middle of something and doesn't feel comfortable having a novice fiddle with their wheel.

We are also researching buying our own pop-ups so that we don't need to beg and borrow in the future.  We make more public contacts at this event than all others combined, even our County Fair, where there are so many things to see that many pass us by.

I did take some time to work on my current favorite bit of knitting, And So Are You.  Mine is made from Wooly Wonka Celestial (a blend of 60%alpaca, 30% wool and 10% silk) in Milky Way, a silvery-grey, that I overdyed with lodgepole pine bark.  The photo doesn't quite capture the silvery-green of pine needles that resulted, but I was awestruck (expecting a deeper brown than if dyeing on white), and everyone that saw my project loved that it still smelled like the piney woods.!

 

I only have four more rows to complete before starting the lovely pleated section, and just got an update notice from Rose, ahead of tackling that section, which makes some corrections. Before I started tearing my hair out! Life is sweet, even if summer is behind us.

The Girl Who Loved OD

As in 'olive drab', or army-blanket green... actually, I think of this color with the same feeling of love and goodwill that I approach diving into a bowl of olives... I love it!  Long-time followers will already know that green, in all of its shades, is one of my favorite colors.  Just look around you... I can't vouch for it but green may possibly have the widest variation of shades available out there in the natural world.

All summer, my 'big' project has been working on the Daisy Skirt, in a lovely Classic Elite yarn called Firefly, which is a blend of viscose and linen... I started at the end of June and now with the end of summer approaching, am close to the finish line.

I have let the fabric 'hang' for a few days, as instructed, and determined that it is the length I was aiming for, so now will begin with a cotton yarn to make a waistband casing for elastic.  I plan to make my skirt more versatile by adding a silk lining, but may wear it without a few times, as I acquire and dye the silk (with either fennel or comfrey roots) to get a similar shade.

I can feel and see the end of summer looming here in the Sierra foothills, with cooler overnight temps, shorter days on both ends, and an abundance of plants, just past their prime, telling me harvest time is now.  I have lots of some things this year, and little of others, thanks to the long, wet spring.  I will be harvesting berries, overdyeing some grey yarn for a new lacy project, and making refrigerator pickles from my pepperocini peppers over the long weekend, as well as spending lots of time outside.  A strong, hot wind hit the house at about 11:30 last night, awakening me and keeping me from sleep... while trying to return to slumber, I found myself reviewing my fall/winter wardrobe, stash and knitting project list! I will be trying to squeeze as much summer as I can out of early fall, and will also be busy gathering and drying plants for the natural dye CSA.  You can follow my progress here.

Have a great end-of-summer weekend, dear ones!

5 Knitterly Things

Sheesh... it has been six weeks since I last posted!  My excuse is that I am going in lots of directions, many of them outdoors and most fun.  Work has been steady, but I am still only working half time for someone else, so I don't really feel like I can use that as an excuse. Getting enough computer time is really the biggest issue; my time spent elsewhere leads to far less screen time and these cute little posts just won't write themselves!

I do get up at dawn every morning, and have all summer, tending my Natural Dye Plant CSA... you can read more about that project here.  Dear eldest son says he has stopped referring people to this blog since I only write over there, so I am going to try and correct that.  The good news on the CSA front is that the first shipment was packaged and mailed last week, and lots of other harvesting and drying going on, including another trip to the high Sierras this weekend.

I also have a bit of knitting success to share.

This is  my version of 198 yards of Heaven, using some my handspun yarn, made from Wooly Daisy's hand-dyed Blue Faced Leicester roving.

It is the only of my three entries to the Nevada County Fair that I managed to get finished in time to leave with Stephanie, who took it on project admission day, while DH and I took a mini-vacation.  Guess you can tell what my priorities are!  Actually, I was pretty delighted to win a third place ribbon for this.  The handspun I produce is still really only intermediate in quality, and I didn't actually have 198 yards, more like about 150, so that I finished with a picot bind off instead of the edging called for.  Amazing what blocking pins and wires can do to improve the appearance of that edge.

I have been working on the same Daisy skirt all summer, and do need to post an update photo; I also cast on for another Two-Summer Sundress for my dear little granddaughter, who will be turning 2 (?!) in mid-September.  However, these just aren't exciting objects to share at this point, so I blatently stole this meme from Margene as blog filler, and to remind you I DO still care about knitting!

My Five Knitterly Things

1. My favorite things to knit – lace!  I already have way too many shawls, so tend to be on the lookout for a nice, wraparound bit that wears easily.  This Woolen Rabbit pattern fits the bill and may well be my next project, even though it isn't lacy!  Oh well, they are my rules and made to be broken.

2. My least favorite thing about knitting – Lack of TIME to get to that huge list on my Ravelry queue.  I have finally gotten interested in proper finishing techniques, which used to annoy me, so even that has become another joy of knitting for me.

3. My first finished object – I think it was a simple pair of slippers, made from garter stitch rectangles sewn with the toe side overlapping and the heel side sewn together upright.  I was five at the time, so please forgive my less-than-perfect recollection.  Barbie clothes knitting occupied a good portion of my childhood.

4. If I could take only one yarn brand to my desert island it would be – I'm going to cheat here... enough roving to spin as long as I was there... gives me three times the pleasure.  First creating and dyeing the yarn, then knitting from it.  I guess that's cheating, though, so I would have to say a beautiful, cushy fingering weight yarn.

5. My current knitting obsession is getting my Daisy skirt done so that I can start on my Knit Swirl coat for the coming winter.  I have both weights of yarn dyed with madder root and ready to go, though I don't mind waiting a bit if it means I get to enjoy a few more weeks of summer.

Please feel free to copy this meme or let me know below what your 5 Knitterly Things are.

July Gift Knitting

Does that sound incongruous? Maybe if you are a heavy-duty Christmas gift knitter; November and December would be the months when you featured posts heavy with gift knitting.  Personally, I have sworn off the stress of knitting every single gift at Christmas, and pared back that sort of deadline-heavy construction.

However, June had me working diligently on three gifts for family members, which I finished up and sent off last week.  The first was a blanket for my first great-nephew, who will arrive sometime in August.  Long-time readers might remember this post, about his mother, several years ago, and be happy to hear what a delighted mama-to-be she is today.  

This photo, taken at the end of our spinning retreat weekend the last weekend in June (I know... where are the pictures?!), shows the blanket underneath the shawlette I finished up and all the wool I spun...

Unfortunately, I had it off the needles, washed and almost ready to go, when MIL and FIL called to say they wanted to meet for lunch as they passed through Grass Valley.  I spent the drive down weaving in the last few ends and tucking the blanket into a gift bag, but no final photograph got taken!

MIL took it along with their gift to the baby shower for our newest family member on Saturday, where his mama loved it!  The yarn is Jarbo Garn Duo,a soft and eminently machine washable (and dryable) acrylic from Sweden, a bulky weight. The pattern is my own, using 6-row, 4-stitch cables and bordered by single and double crochet bands.

You can also see a Forest Canopy shawl hanging from the back of the chair, made in Noro Silk Garden for my MIL.  She and I had gone shopping at the Mendocino Yarn Shop, back in April, to find a suitable baby gift yarn, and she fell in love with the way the colors unwound in the various Noro projects on display.  She was so delighted with her gift, and I delighted to get to give it to her right after the blocking was finished! 

The close up shows all of the beautiful colors, which were just perfect for a white-haired woman with a peaches and cream complexion.

 

I blocked this shawl over the 4th weekend, and also finished up the details for the cutest granddaughter dress, the Two Summer Sundress.  The yarn is a hot pink Schulana cotton worsted with a bit of lycra, leftover from this tank top I made several years ago, and the delicate, flowery fabric was purchased at A Verb for Keeping Warm, on the same spring vacation as these two yarns (what? a theme post from Birdsong?)

That baby girl just keeps on growing, and actually may only get one summer out of this dress... I had to crochet a buttonhole extension on the back of the yoke after I had finished the sewing as she barely fits it around the ribcage!

First, a front view... I love how one of my vintage, crochet-covered hangars was such a perfect match!

Then, of course, the back... one of the best features of this pattern is that the straps and the join between knitting and fabric are reinforced by sewing grosgrain ribbon over them.  It keeps the straps from stretching and protects the knitting and seaming at the point of most contact.  The straps can be buttoned to the high waist in either a criss-crossed or straight position to extend the life of the dress as the child grows, and there are two buttonholes on each strap for further adjustment.  The back photo probably doesn't make it easy to tell, but I added two more buttonholes, making four adjustments around.

I need to get a photo of Lil' Miss wearing it next.

Now that all of this gift knitting has been finished off and gifted away, I am back to knitting for myself... I have two projects to get to for the fiber guild's booth at the county fair, both made from my handspun yarns (though not the ones pictured above), and a special project for myself.  Here's a hint...

My dye gardens are keeping me busy, but I do plan to get back to this blog with a post of my dye and knitting adventures soon... in the meantime, you can check out the CSA progress here....see ya soon!