Yarns from the Lake

Waffle Weave Towels

Waffle Weave is a weave structure that looks like actual waffles with little indents, usually made with a multi shaft loom. It is commonly used for towels because it is especially absorbent. Before I owned a floor loom, I attempted waffle weave towels on my simpler rigid heddle loom using a pickup stick.

The School of Sweet Georgia recently added an online class for Waffle Weave towels on a multi shaft loom. After returning from snowbirding in Arizona and getting my life in order back home, I was ready to try Waffle Weave again with my floor loom and good instructions.

Waffle Weave towels next to an actual waffle

Last summer when we went on a trip to Michigan, I bought a souvenir tea towel with the idea of hand weaving matching dish towels. Picking out color combinations is not my strongest suit, but I know when I see something I like. Choosing colors that a designer selected is a winner.

I spent some time trying to understand the Waffle Weave towels pattern. I wanted to make it a bit wider, which meant figuring how many more warp yarn ends were needed to make the pattern come out right, and what color distribution to use.

Sometimes I am feeling thrifty and want to use yarn I have on hand. This time I chose to order the exact yarn specified in the pattern, in the colors matching the towel from the trip. Picking out yarn online is risky as sometimes the choices are limited and not exactly what you are looking for, or the colors you get do not end up being what you were expecting. In this case the colors of 8/2 cotton I got were pretty close.

Before I started measuring out yarn for the towels, we made a weekend trip to the Twin Cities for dentist appointments. Since we were going to be in “the Cities”, we bought tickets for a matinee performance of the play “Sleuth” at the Guthrie Theater, using a gift certificate our Son and Daughter-in-law had given us for Christmas.

The Weaver’s Guild is located within blocks of the Guthrie Theater in Downtown Minneapolis. At my request we left early for the play so I could buy some yarn at the Weaver’s Guild for future projects. It is nice to see the colors in person and not have to pay for shipping. I liked the cayenne color I had ordered online, but the Weaver’s Guild had a different orangy color that more closely matched the fish on the towel.

After we were back home, and I felt comfortable that my calculations were right for the warp yarn length, as well as the number and order for each color, I measured out the warp yarn.

Threading 392 warp yarns through the reed and heddles is slow, but I do not mind. That translates to about 16 inches wide on the loom with 24 ends per inch.

There was enough warp yarn for four towels. The pattern includes two different versions of the waffle structure, “big waffles” with eight rows, and “baby waffles” with six rows. The four towels were different combinations of colors, and of big and baby waffles. The first towel was all “big waffles”.

The second towel was baby waffles with a different pattern of colors.

The third towel was back to big waffles.

I was having a small problem with a “smile”, where the edge of the weaving formed a sort of smile shape with the edges not packing in as far as the middle. I tried to fix this by playing around with looser or tighter tension on the warp yarn, but it did not go away. I attended a School of Sweet Georgia virtual weaving meet-up where I got some ideas about this problem from the attendees. It was likely due to tension being tighter on the edges, so there was not much to be done at this point in the project. It was not terrible, and I thought maybe it would even itself out later when I washed the towels. I did not get a good photo showing this problem, but you can just barely tell on the following picture.

Towel four was a mix of big and baby waffles. After giving up on trying to fix the smile problem, I focused on getting the selvedges to be as even as possible and not draw in too much.

Each towel had 24 rows of twill weave at the beginning and end for the hem. The waffle weave is bulky, and will shrink up a lot and be narrower than it is on the loom. The twill is flatter and will shrink in a little more than plain weave. After finishing the fourth towel, there was still warp yarn left, so I wove some plain weave rows to see what that would look like. The photo below shows twill weave hem rows after waffle weave rows and before the plain weave section.

Twill rows for hem, between waffle weave rows and plain weave rows

There was an extra warp yarn on each side for a selvedge. For the first time, I hung an S-hook on each selvedge yarn at the back of the loom to keep the tension on that warp yarn from getting too loose. I cannot say this has been a big problem in the past, but I was interested in trying it. Some people even hang additional weight on the S-hooks. When I reached the end of the warp and removed the S-hook, there was a bunch of slack in the selvedge yarns. Interesting.

Slack in the selvedge end after removing the S-hook

I also noticed that the back beam where the warp ends were tied on was actually bent in the middle. I don’t know how this is even possible with a metal bar, but likely it was a factor in my “smile” issue.

After the weaving was removed from the loom, the back beam was straight.

Following is a photo of the entire weaving off the loom.

I used my serger sewing machine to separate the towels, while also finishing the edges so they would not unravel.

Serging the beginning and end of each towel

Next there were tons of ends to weave in, not my favorite thing. It is possible to weave the ends in as you go. Due to my smile problem I did not want to add even more bulk at the sides, so I left most of them hanging as I went. In a few cases when I was alternating colors I carried one color up the side, which reduced the total number of ends to weave in.

The next two photos show the four towels separated, with different combinations of big and baby waffles and colors.

The following photo shows the plain weave section at the very end of the warp.

I usually make fringe to finish the ends of towels. Hemming looks nicer, but it is a lot more work. The pattern said to weave 24 rows of twill pattern for each hem. With a perfectly balanced weave that would make one inch of weaving, since this project was woven with 24 ends per inch.

In my head I was expecting to have about a one half inch finished hem after the end of the waffle weave. Given the cotton shrinks and you have to fold it over twice, that was not possible. I could have done the math to figure this out before I started weaving. I had to either make a very tiny hem, or fold the hem over on top of the waffle weave. For three of the towels I folded the twill hem rows over the waffle weave rows and hand stitched it down. On the fourth towel I tried to make a narrower hem but there was not enough to avoid overlapping on to the waffle weave. If I make waffle weave towels again I will weave more than 24 twill hem rows. The following photos were taken after the towels went through the washing machine and dryer.

After going through the washer and dryer, the towels went from 16″ wide on the loom to about 12″ wide. In addition to the expected shrinkage from the cotton fiber, the waffle weave scrunches up more than a plain or twill weave would. My selvedges were evenish within each color, but not so much in the places where I carried a second color yarn up the side.

The towels got wrinkly in the dryer, and ended up with some crinkles that I could not get out with the iron. Otherwise, I like how they came out.

The next photo shows one of the waffle weave towels I woven on my rigid heddle loom in 2021, next to one of the current towels made on my 4-shaft floor loom. The yarn used for the towel on the left is 8/4 cotton which is twice as thick as the 8/2 cotton yarn for the towel on the right.

I do not remember where I got the instructions, but here is a link to the blog post I wrote about waffle weave towels on the rigid heddle loom.

If you want to try waffle or similar weaves with a pick up stick on a rigid heddle loom, there are a couple of options. The School of Sweet Georgia has a class called “Weaving Lace on a Rigid Heddle Loom”, with warp and weft floats similar to waffle weave. In November 2026 they will be publishing a new rigid heddle pattern for a waffle-like scarf. There is also a pattern for Rigid Heddle Waffle Weave from Kelly Casanova here.

I left the warp yarn waste on my loom for now, with the yarn ends tied so they will not accidentally get pulled out. I may measure out yarn for another set of waffle weave towels and tie the ends on to the leftover ends from this project. That takes time, but less than starting from scratch threading all the ends through the reed and heddles.

Leftover warp yarn ends waiting for another project to get tied on

All in all I am happy with the way these towels turned out. Even having a few imperfections and wrinkles, they are functional towels, they dry hands or dishes, they look nice.

Cabin Work Weekend 2026

Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, where many families have a cabin. Going “up to the lake” or “up north” is a common summer activity. My mother’s extended family has a cabin was built in 1923 that has been used and loved by multiple generations. When my mom was growing up, they spent the entire summer at the cabin with a large family and no electricity or running water. Today the cabin is an LLC with nine owners, a modern kitchen, a dishwasher, and wifi.

I love the cabin and am one of the owners. The other owners live farther away, so Wayne does many chores at the cabin. He does most of the mowing, in addition to mowing our own large yarn. I do the bookkeeping and manage the reservations, among other things. We both do a lot.

When one family owns a cabin by themselves they can make all the decisions, but also bear all the cost, and must do or hire out all the work. Going to the cabin for the weekend often ends up being 90% mowing the lawn and doing chores, following by 10% relaxing. Having nine owners spreads out the cost and work, but also involves getting everyone to participate.

We usually have a cabin work weekend to knock off some big projects, and do spring cleaning and yard work. The last couple of years Memorial Weekend has been chosen so that we can work on Saturday and Sunday, and then relax on Monday. Some years more people are able to participate than others. We had a good crowd this year of close to 20 people, including friends who have spent more time at the cabin than some of the LLC members. We had a full house with my sister and her husband, our friends, our niece, and a cousin. Other participants stayed at the cabin, and at second homes near the cabin owned by my cousin and by my uncle.

On Friday of Memorial Weekend my uncle texted me a photo of a new resident in the neighborhood. This guy was photographed around the corner from the cabin property. Later he was seen along the lakeshore north of us, and in the woods next to the road on the north side of the lake.

I am not much of a spring cleaning person, but sorting and purging in our house is an ongoing process. We moved into my parents house in 2019, adding our stuff to their completely furnished home. We have come a long way, but it seems like a never ending process. Things that belonged to my parents need to be reviewed with my sister. Living under the basement stairs is a life size gnome that my mom made years ago. Many people consider it on the creepy side, and Wayne was pressuring me to get rid of it, possibly even throwing it in the trash. That seemed sad and extreme, but I agreed to review it with Betsy and get some feedback during Work Weekend. The reaction was very strong that we were not to get rid of the gnome. He went back under the stairs for now, to be dealt with in the future.

Mr gnome enjoyed a few hours in the kitchen before going back under the stairs

Spring cleaning inside the cabin is one of the work weekend tasks. My cousin, his wife, and their daughter and son-in-law were lodging there, so not as much cleaning was done as a normal year. However Erika vacuumed the mounted deer head! I did not think it had ever been cleaned before, but my cousin told me that last year she vacuumed off spider webs that had probably been there for over 70 years.

One of the big tasks for this year was to replace the flooring and railings of a deck overlooking the lake. A neighbor friend who is a very capable handyman had already removed the original decking and ordered replacement materials, so a team of workers made quick work of completing this project.

The other big task was adding skirting boards around the base of the cabin, to protect the bottom edges from rotting. That project was just barely finished by the end of the weekend.

We all know there are many different variations of every color. Red is no exception. Somehow the red paint color used for the skirting did not match the red on the rest of the cabin. And in fact there were already two different colors of red used. This will be remedied the next time the entire cabin is repainted. The color is supposed to be a very specific shade of red, called Falu or Falun, used on Swedish barns.

Another big task during work weekend was weeding. It is endless. No matter what method is used to try to keep them at bay, rocks, mulch, a layer of plastic, it doesn’t matter, the weeds are back in a matter of weeks.

My assignment for the weekend was to provide lunches for the group, as well as part of the dinner on Saturday, paid for with cabin LLC funds. This involved a trip to Fergus Falls on Friday with stops at three different stores. Unfortunately, I had a fender bender with another driver when we were both trying to back out of the Aldi parking lot. No one was hurt, the damage was minimal, our car is old and still drivable. We will not be making a claim. Later Wayne was able to fix up the bumper and make the dent pop back out using a blow dryer.

Before lunch on Saturday, someone had to go get the picnic tables that had been stored for the winter in the syrup shed.

Lunch consisted of a sandwich bar, chips, veggies, hummus, and fruit.

I made some cookies for the group. My cousin provided brownies that were amazing, and that she is going to be selling as a side gig in the Twin Cities. Check out the Facebook page for Sky Brownies. Or if you live in the area, she will be selling them at her first market at Daytons Bluff Community Center in St. Paul on Friday, June 26th from 3 – 6 PM.

My uncle cooked steak and salmon on the grill for the dinner main course. Providing excellent food for the group is a way to entice people to come to cabin events with the word “work” in them.

There was a bird nest on top of an outside light fixture on the side of the cabin.

The nest was taken down as part of cabin cleaning, but returned when we realized there were four eggs inside!

There is a cupboard at the cabin stuffed with random life jackets. My sister brought two more from her home, so I pulled them all outside to sort and inventory. It was like one of those scenes with more and more things coming out of a Volkswagen Bug. I don’t know how they all fit in the space. The pile in the photo below are rejects that were old and more than needed.

The dock was set up in the water, a challenging task involving hauling it over rocks using rope attached to a truck. Sometimes Wayne ends up doing this at a different time with whatever helper he can rustle up. The swim raft also got put in the water. It was nice that both of these tasks were out of the way and we did not have to bribe friends to come and help later.

Everyone thought the weekend was a success. My niece, who traveled from Michigan, even thought it was more fun than the annual family reunion in July.

After they left, my sister reminded me to pull the seed stalks off the rhubarb plants in our yard. What? It seemed like just a few days earlier there was nothing growing yet. Now there were rhubarb stalks big enough to pick, buried in tons of weeds.

Our friends who had come for work weekend stayed over another night after everyone else went home. Steven and Wayne wanted to take advantage of the excellent fishing conditions. Mary Lou is a knitter and is now learning to weave. She finished an adorable knitted duck, and I started knitting a sheep, both from the Mouche & Friends book. I helped her warp a rigid heddle loom weaving project that she could finish at home. I sold my 15″ Schacht Cricket Rigid Heddle loom with all the accessories to Mary Lou, and will be buying myself a wider rigid heddle loom.

We do not have any big plans for this summer. There will be a few short runs to the Twin Cities, the annual family reunion at the cabin in July, and several groups of people coming here to our house and the cabin. I am looking forward to being where we are, and having time to work on my projects in between hosting guests.

Novus Knit Pouch

In December I was looking for knitting projects to work on in Arizona over the winter. The Novus Knit Pouch by Laura Nelkin looked like a fun and portable project involving some new techniques, resulting in a 3-D functional item with no seaming or picking up of stitches.

The pattern called for some cotton and wool blend DK weight yarn. I did not have anything like that on hand, but figured the pattern would work with any type of yarn. I found some thicker worsted weight 100% Ella Rae Classic Wool yarn leftover from another project.

The pattern comes with a detailed very helpful video tutorial explaining each step of the project. From the video I learned that while other types of yarn can work, the key is to have a very dense gauge.

I ended up being busy with other projects during our time in Arizona, but assembled supplies for knitting the pouch in the car on the way back home to Minnesota at the beginning of April. After starting the project I realized that a smaller needle would have been better, but my other needles were buried somewhere under the RV. I went ahead, thinking that if it was too floppy I might be able to felt the pouch to make it more dense.

This pattern uses stitch holder cords, which are slightly stretchy silicone tubes that come in different thicknesses and lengths. I have some stitch holder cords from Twice Sheared Sheep. They come in three thicknesses in a little metal box. Laura Nelkin, the designer of the pouch pattern, has a blog post about ways to use these clever tools, that she refers to as stitch savers.

Silicone stitch savers or holders can be used for temporarily holding stitches while a project is in the works. I have used them to hold stitches taken off the needles when I wanted to try something on or check measurements. That can be done with a piece of waste yarn, but the beauty of the stitch savers is that you can stick a knitting needle tip in the hollow end and slide the stitches directly off of or on to a knitting needle. I also used a stitch saver for doing a provisional cast on, used at the beginning of a tubular cast on for a hat.

For the pouch pattern, the working yarn is wrapped around the stitch saver at the beginning of each row, so you end up with a stitch saver cord running up each side of the knitting. Later when you need to pick up stitches at the end of each row, you just slide the loops from the stitch saver onto the needle. It is very slick. The pattern can be made without stitch savers by picking up the stitches from the end of each row the old fashioned way.

Following is a photo of the pouch in progress, showing the bottom and sides complete, with the stitch savers going up each side. The rectangle section in the middle will be the bottom of the pouch. The triangular shaped sections on each side will be folded up, with most of that forming the sides, and the tips forming the handles. The front and back will be filled in with knitting, connecting the sides together. It is hard to understand how this will happen, you have to trust the pattern.

Ready to start knitting the front and back

I did not have two stitch savers in the same circumference, so there was a thinner one on one side. This was not ideal, but I attempted to wrap less tight around on the side with the thinner cord, and I hoped it would not be a noticeable problem later.

The front and back are made by putting the stitches from the stitch saver on the needle and knitting back and forth with linen stitch, doing a decrease in each corner. While reading the pattern before actually knitting this part, it was hard to understand what is going to happen to fill in the front and back. It is hard to explain here but it works. The front is complete in the next photo.

The following photos are showing two different angles, with the stitches from the stitch saver on the other side transferred to the knitting needle and ready to knit the back of the pouch. Very hard to see what is going on.

And voila in the next photo the back panel is filled in, and the handles are laying across the top.

My pouch was floppier than what I think it is supposed to be. It was hard to get it to stand up for photos.

I thought about options for making the bag less floppy, possibly sewing a lining for the bag. I did not really want to sew a liner, so it seemed like the next best option was felting it. This is scary, because felting can be unpredictable. And once it has felted, you cannot get it back to the original condition. I ran it through the washing machine with a load of laundry on warm, and thankfully, it came out beautifully. The fabric felted enough to give it some body, but still retain the stitch definition of the original knitting. Yay! I put a wadded up towel inside the bag while it was drying.

After running through one load of wash in the washing machine

According to the pattern, with their gauge, the finished pouch measurements are supposed to be 4 1/4″ tall, 5 1/2″ wide, and 4 1/4″ deep. My bag was bigger since I used thicker yarn and probably too big of a needle. Of course I forgot to measure it before felting, which caused it to shrink some. After felting it was close to the size of their bag at 5″ tall, 5 1/2″ wide, and 4 3/4″ deep.

The pattern suggests using a specific set of leather clasps to connect the handles at the top. They are nice and can be purchased here. Since I own a zillion buttons, that seemed like the easiest closure. I checked in several drawers where I have thread stored, looking for the right color to sew the button on. I think the spool of thread for 30 cents in the photo below is left from about 1970, when my mom and my grandma bought the inventory from a stretch and sew store that went out of business. We had entire cases of thread in the basement after that, just like at the fabric store. From that time until today I have rarely had to buy thread.

I fiddled around trying to figure out how to make a button hole after the fact. After a few attempts that I did not like and ripped out, I crocheted a chain stitch loop at end of the handle.

The completed project is shown from different angles in several photos below. For photography purposes, I put some yarn in the pouch that I dyed at Fiber Day last weekend. That will be featured in a future blog post.

I like the way this pouch turned out. It is a cute size and I hope will actually get used for something. I may have to try it again with the recommended yarn, or at least a tighter gauge.

Malabrigo Spin

Three years ago when we were in St. Paul I bought a Malabrigo braid of Merino Wool fiber. Following is a photo I found from October 2023 showing the braid laid out on the floor with some yarn in coordinating colorways. Not sure what I was thinking at that time. Yes, I do like purple.

Malabrigo braid with other assorted yarns

Fiber prepared this way is very densely packed. When I was a new spinner 20 years ago I had little formal instruction in how to spin, especially as it related to the different ways fiber can be prepared. More recently I have learned there is a whole category of instruction called “Fiber Prep”. There are entire classes at the School of Sweet Georgia on this topic.

Trying to spin directly off a tightly packed braid is possible, but the experience will be more pleasant and the results more consistent if it has been through some kind of process to loosen up the fiber. My method has been to peel off narrow strips and then do some pre-drafting (kind of like stretching it out) before spinning. I had heard that another method is to card the fiber. At Fiber Day in the fall of 2024 I tried doing this with the Ellison’s big electric drum carder.

Getting ready to card some of the Malabrigo fiber

I learned quickly that carding this braid was not the right method if one wants to preserve all the pretty colors.

All the colors mixed together turn into a shade of gray.

Following is a photo showing two bobbins of the fiber spun up with all the colors preserved, and part of a third one with the blended gray fiber. I have been working on spinning thinner singles, with the goal of creating yarn that can be used on my flat knitting machine, or even for knitting socks on my circular sock machine. It looked thin enough on the bobbins before plying.

Plying the two colorful singles yarn resulted in a jumble of colors.

I gently washed the plied yarn to set the twist and hung it up to dry.

After washing and drying, the yarn “bloomed”. It was more like worsted weight or even bulky, thicker than I expected it would be. Also, the overall effect was more greenish gray looking than the original braid.

The part of the braid that I had blended on the drum carder looked very grayish when plied. It is nice too, but the original bright colors are lost.

Following is another photo of the more colorful plied yarn in a basket.

I was hoping I could use this yarn for the School of Sweet Georgia Machine Knitting Hats class, but it may be too thick for the LK-150 machine. I will try it, to see what happens. This yarn may end up in a tub with other hand spun yarn that I do not know what to do with from the last 20 years.

Since starting this project, I have worked through a School of Sweet Georgia Spinning up a Level class where I learned more about controlling the thickness of the final yarn. With that knowledge, I hope that my next spin will end up thin enough for one of the knitting machines.

Bunny Odile

My friend knitted an adorable little stuffed animal bear. She got the pattern from the book Mouche & Friends by Cinthia Vallet, which includes instructions for knitting multiple different animals, all starting at the nose and completed without any seaming at the end.

I knit a much simpler version of a stuffed bear, many years ago. I dug it out after our first granddaughter was born, and found that moths had attacked it on the back. I patched it up and put it with the toys to have on hand when she visits.

I wanted to try making one of the cute seamless animals in the Mouche & Friends book, but I was not sure about buying the entire book. It turns out Cinthia has a pattern for a bunny that can be purchased as a single PDF. The Bunny Odile pattern includes instructions for a little dress or sweater, sleep suit, and tiny socks.

This small and portable project seemed like a good activity for the multiple day car ride from Minnesota to Arizona at the end of December, and for working on while we were there. The pattern uses fingering weight yarn, which is what I use for socks. I have a lot of that. I had one skein of Patons Kroy Sock yarn in a natural color that was only enough for one sock, and was a good color for a bunny. This brand of sock yarn is on the thick side. When I tried cranking a sock using this type of yarn, it came out very dense. However it is perfect for a stuffed animal.

When I tried to find the yarn end from the middle of the ball, I got a giant yarn barf. Ugg.

The pattern uses size zero needles, the smaller than I have used before. Casting on at the nose with double pointed needles was fiddly, but once there were some increases it went smoothly. The yarn does not slip on the bamboo needles.

The ears were knitted on to the head by picking up four stitches and then increasing, while the stitches at the neck were on hold. I switched to a magic loop needle in the middle of the first ear, since all those double pointed needles every which way were annoying. After knitting most of the head and part of an ear, the face looked more like a dolphin than a rabbit. I thought (hoped?) that once it was blocked and stuffed, the face would smooth out and not have such a big bump above the nose.

The second ear came out longer than the first ear. Oops. I think I know what happened, but I was not going to fix it.

There are suggestions for stuffing as you go, or waiting until the end so you can block the project first. I decided to soak just the head in water and let it dry, so I could smooth out the bump and stuff the head. I stretched out the shorter ear some while the yarn was wet. Everything looked better after it was dry.

The head looked more like a bunny after it was blocked and stuffed.

The arms were knitted on next, followed by the main part of the body and then the tail.

After completing the body, I soaked it from the neck down so I could put the stuffing in the arms and upper body. The legs were knitted on after that. The last steps were blocking the legs, adding the stuffing, and then closing up the final opening between the legs.

Waiting for the legs to dry before adding stuffing

This project (and all of Cindy’s animals) are designed to have minimal yarn ends, which are woven in as you go. Once the final opening was closed up the project was completely done. I finished the bunny on our last day in Arizona. I took photos of the bunny sitting on the RV sofa and kitchen counter as we prepared for the journey home.

Riding in the car for three days (plus an extra day in Omaha waiting for a storm in Minnesota to be over) was a good time to start knitting a dress for the bunny.

I had some leftover sock yarn for bunny clothes. I neglected to notice that the pattern says how many grams are needed for the dress, and that according to a note on the yarn label documenting how many grams were left, I did not have enough for the dress. It turned out that the bunny clothes are supposed to be knit with size two needles. I did not have any size two needles with me, so I went ahead with size one, and not realizing I was not going to have enough yarn.

I got the yoke and a shorter version of the sleeves done before I determined there was no way I would be able to finish either the dress or the shorter shirt version of the pattern. I considered finishing the skirt part of the dress with some other yarn, possibly the rest of the gray yarn I used for the bunny.

As far as I got with the leftover Supersocke yarn

Later after we got home, I decided to order another skein of the Supersocke 4-fach Highway Color yarn. I would only use a bit of it to finish the dress, and there would be plenty left after that to crank a pair of socks. I took a photo of the bunny with the bear from years ago.

While waiting for the yarn to finish the dress, I started another dress using some other leftover sock yarn that had enough left.

The dress has a fancy pattern that is supposed to be near the hem, as shown in the photo below. I was not sure I liked it or that it was worth the bother, and also I realized that if I followed the instructions exactly the dress would be pretty short. That may have been because I was using size one needles instead of size two.

I ripped out the rows of fancy pattern and continued knitting plain rows, many more than the pattern indicated, until I thought it was long enough. It is snug (due to using smaller needles than recommended) but it fits.

Following is a photo of the bunny with the dress that matches the pair of socks I cranked on my circular sock machine with the same yarn. The socks have faded some.

When the other yarn came I continued knitting the first dress. This yarn is thinner than the blue yarn. I skipped the fancy pattern near the hem on this dress too, as the self striping yarn provides enough interest, and I was too lazy.

This dress is even more snug due to the smaller needles and thinner yarn, but it just barely fits.

This bunny might be a good gift for granddaughter Blair’s third birthday in June. Or maybe given her habit of removing all doll clothes, I will just keep it for myself until she is older.

Arizona 2026

This was our seventh winter snowbirding in Arizona, at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort. We rented for one month the first year, and then two months the second year. By year three we had our 5th wheel trailer, and we have been staying for three months. That first year it felt like a vacation. Over the years with the RV it has felt more like a second home.

Growing up in Minnesota, my family never went anywhere during the winter. My parents never considered snowbirding. My mom was always busy with her activities at home. The idea of several months of “leisure” time was foreign to her. You should be doing something productive.

Being raised that way and by nature, I also have trouble with the idea of many hours of relaxing and recreation. However, I do appreciate getting away from the cold, and being somewhere where you can go outside without worrying about slipping and falling, and do other things like walking, hiking, swimming, and bike riding that we do not do in the winter at home. The free exercise classes a five minute walk away are a no brainer. Many of the things I do at home I do here too, like hand knitting and sock machine knitting.

Each year has been a little different. Wayne’s sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Steve, did not come until March. We spent quite a bit of time with friends we know from home who rented an Airbnb for two months in Mesa, about 20 minutes from us. Two other couples we are close to in Minnesota came to the area on vacation. Our kids visited for an entire week.

The weather was much warmer than average. Our usual experience has been high temperatures in the 60’s in January and February, and up to the 70’s Fahrenheit in March. This year it was in the 70’s in January, and we used the air conditioner in the RV when daytime highs were above 90 degrees Fahrenheit for all of March. There was a stretch of about five or six days with highs above 100. It was too hot for hiking or bike riding, but we used the pool more than other years, and went to two movies. Wayne got up very early for golfing or a bike ride to get some exercise before the heat of the day. There were tons of grasshoppers all over during the hot weather, and reports of people seeing rattle snakes out earlier than normal.

Our friends Mary Lou and Steven have spent part of winter in Florida for the past couple of years. After listening to us talk about Arizona, they decided to try it out this winter. They really enjoyed the mountain views and dry weather, lack of bugs, hiking, and variety of other things to do. They are considering coming back next winter.

We never get tired of taking visitors on the Apache Trail Scenic Drive. I wrote about it in 2024, you can read that post here. We had an adventure with Mary Lou and Steven this year on the Apache Trail, with the intention of seeing the cliff dwellings at Tonto National Monument near Roosevelt Lake and dam. We got a late start due to roads being closed for the Lost Dutchman Marathon, near where we had agreed to leave their car at the Superstition Mountain Museum. As we were going past Tortilla Flat, there happened to be a free parking spot, so we pulled in. This place was a stagecoach stop in the early 1900’s, but is currently a tourist “town” one block long with a permanent population of six. We stopped and had a bite to eat and used the goofy bathroom.

After stopping at several other scenic points, we arrived late in the afternoon at Tonto National Monument, only to find that the trail up to the cliff dwellings was closed for the day. By the time we got all the way back to the Superstition Mountain Museum to get Mary Lou and Steven’s car, it was getting dark out. The gate was closed and locked. Their car was towed. We stopped at a restaurant for a late dinner, only to find a 45 minute wait time. At this point everyone was ready to go back home and eat leftovers for dinner.

We also took some other friends from home, Steve and Sally, on the Apache Trail scenic drive, getting this photo at the Canyon Lake overlook.

With Steve and Sally, at the Canyon Lake Overlook on the Apache Trail

Our friends Kris and Dave visited for a few days. They enjoyed hanging out at the pool at our resort, and we went to an event at the Mesa Arts Center that included artist vendors, music, demonstrations, and a drone light show.

There is a gift shop at Gold Canyon Golf & RV Resort where residents sell their hand crafted products. There is a good selection of practical, fun and creative items for sale at reasonable prices.

Over the last year I had collected a big bag of socks and accessories I cranked out on my circular sock machine. They were for practice, rather than for anyone in particular. I decided to try selling them at the gift shop at the resort. The items were already made, so minimal effort was involved. There is no sales commission, so there was nothing to loose. I was not sure if wool socks would be in demand in Arizona, however they are perfect for hiking which is a popular activity. Following are photos of some of the socks ready to go on sale at the gift shop.

I had a limited supply of sock yarn to make more socks, so I ordered some Cascade yarn and some Aktiv yarn. Aktiv yarn is popular with crankers who sell many socks because it is good quality, reasonably priced, and comes on big cones. Even with the shipping cost, it came out cheaper on a per sock basis ordering directly from the company in Germany. It also arrived faster than the Cascade yarn. Following is a photo of the Aktiv yarn I bought in a variety of fun but not too wild colorways. I will be set for sock yarn for a long time (although that has never stopped me from buying more yarn haha).

I did not want to crank out dozens of socks in every size and style and yarn option. I did make a limited number of new pairs, and then put up a sign offering to knit custom socks in the specific size, style, and yarn requested.

My socks were displayed in baskets at the gift shop. I had to work in the gift shop once per month, for a total of three times in my case. The whole thing is well organized and runs smoothly with a cash only system.

By the end of the season, I had sold enough socks to pay for the yarn I purchased. One person requested a custom pair of socks. There was still a lot yarn left for future sock making. I felt like it was a successful experiment and I will consider doing it again next season.

In addition to using my circular sock machine in the RV, I worked on some hand knitting projects this year in Arizona. I hand knitted four red resistance hats, plus a preemie size red hat for my friend’s new granddaughter, and a mini red hat ornament. I wrote about the red hats in this post. I finished knitting and posted here about a colorwork sweater.

Wayne’s sister and brother-in-law, Marlene and Steve, arrived for the month of March at Gold Canyon Golf and RV Resort. Our kids came for a week at the beginning of March, overlapping with Wayne’s other sister and husband, Yvonne and Gayle, plus some nieces and a fiance. Our son and daughter-in-law, James and Kelsey, rented a large Airbnb in Mesa with a heated swimming pool. Kelsey’s parents and sister stayed with them. Our daughter and her boyfriend, Britta and Isaac, came for part of the week. There was a lot of driving back and forth between Gold Canyon and Mesa.

I went to Goodwill and spent a total of $10 on two dolls, four board books, and a bucket of Duplo to make sure the two granddaughters would have something to play with.

The dolls are around 15″, bigger than they look in the photo. They are both having a bad hair day. The smaller doll did not have any clothes so I made her a sun dress with the sock machine. Blair immediately took the dress off the doll.

I also bought a beach ball and water squirter that both turned out to be popular. The swimming pool at the Airbnb got a lot of use.

The backyard at the Airbnb was a great hang out location for all the various relatives.

Nora liked sucking on a lime, but not a lemon, while at a restaurant.

Some of the cousins went on a hike.

Blair learned how to play foosball.

James and Kelsey got some golf in, but otherwise focused on toddler friendly activities. We took Britta and Isaac to Boyce Thompson Arboretum for a walk around the landscaped areas and an easy hike.

Many cactuses were blooming earlier than usual with the warm weather.

After James and Kelsey went back home, the other young and old adults enjoyed a relaxing day at our resort swimming and playing pickleball.

On Yvonne and Gayle’s last day we went to the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, before they had to leave for the airport. We happened to run into friends from Minnesota, who own a place in Florence, Arizona, about 30 miles south of Gold Canyon.

I participated in my first ever protest at a No Kings event on March 28. The flagship march and protest were held in my home state of Minnesota, but there were protests all over the country on the same day. We attended an event near Florence with our friends there. There were about 200 people participating, which seemed like a good turnout considering we were in the middle of nowhere. Participants held up signs along a busy road. Many people honked and gave us a thumbs up or waved their support as they drove by. Other people gave us a thumbs down or middle finger up, but it was all peaceful.

It feels more like a second home in Gold Canyon each winter, and I really like small living in the RV. However I had had enough of the extreme hot weather and was ready to go back to Minnesota by the end of March.

Because of the warmer than usual weather, unlike other years, we slept in the RV for two nights on the way home. We used the bedroom and bathroom without opening the slides or having any water, electricity or sewer services. The RV battery was enough to power the lights, and we dumped water from a jug into the toilet when flushing. The first night we stayed in the parking lot at Junkyard on 66 Brewery in Grants, New Mexico, after eating dinner there. The tables were made out of old car parts. We had mixed feelings about staying in this town after our truck broke down there on the way home last year. You can read about that adventure here.

The second night we stayed at a truck stop at a very busy highway intersection on the north side of Oklahoma City. There was a lot of loud truck noise for most of the night. On the third day there were high winds and thunderstorms forecast in Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. At one point we hung out at a McDonalds for a couple of hours to wait for the wind to die down, and then stayed west of the storms. We would have driven the last stretch home to West Central Minnesota on Saturday after night three, but there was a winter storm developing there.

In order to not drive into a snowstorm we stayed overnight in Omaha for two nights. This time we used a free night at a Marriott hotel, and then paid for a second night. It was quite nice and a huge step up from the noisy truck stop. Wayne got this screen shot on Saturday from a camera looking out over our driveway.

We drove the last stretch home on Sunday after the storm was over. There was about four or five inches of snow in our yard when we got home, but more importantly a big ridge of snow and dirt at the end of the driveway from the snowplow.

Wayne removed the ridge enough to pull the truck and RV off the road. He did not want to bother shoveling the entire driveway, as he figured the snow would melt soon with warmer weather in a few days. In the meantime, it was cold, the wet snow crusted over, and we could not get out for several days due to hard snow and the RV blocking the way. It was OK, there were plenty of things to do getting things back in order in the house.

I am looking forward to weaving, spinning, and flatbed knitting that I was not able to do in Arizona. Meanwhile, we will be on the road again soon to the Twin Cities for Nora’s first birthday party (assuming we can get out of the driveway!).

Colorwork Sweater

I used to wear sweaters to work all winter in Minnesota. Since I retired, moved to a rural area, went through the pandemic, and have been spending three months of winter in Arizona, I hardly ever wear a sweater (or make up, haha). In cooler weather, I usually wear a sweatshirt or a polar fleece top for maximum comfort

Lately I have been seeing colorwork sweaters all over. I dug out my Norwegian Sweater that I bought in Norway in 1988 to wear on Christmas Eve.

Me on the right end of the bench wearing my Norwegian sweater.

I have knit several sweaters in my life, including two when I was in college. Sweaters are a big project that take time and use a lot of yarn. Of course I like the expensive stuff, so it has not been a regular thing.

The only colorwork experience I have are knitting some Arne & Carlos Christmas balls. At the time, I did not have any instructions on how to do colorwork, other than googling what to do with the floats on the back.

This fall there was a School of Sweet Georgia online class for designing and knitting a colorwork sweater. I was intrigued but not ready to dive in at that time, being a little intimidated and also busy with other projects.

The sweater pattern included for the colorwork class is written for hand knitting from the bottom up, with the body and sleeves completed first, and then joined together on a long circular needle to continue knitting the yoke in the round. I wanted to try making the main body and sleeves on my LK150 flat knitting machine. The pattern is ideal for that, and this project would involve learning new colorwork and machine knitting skills.

I ordered the Sweet Georgia BFL+Silk DK yarn used in the pattern. I had a hard time justifying the cost, given that I hardly wear the sweaters I already have. Whenever I discuss having trouble spending money on expensive yarn or knitting tools, people always remind me how much money Wayne spends on golf. I also have to remind myself that this is the cost of my hobby. It is a learning experience, and not necessarily about how many times I will use the thing I am making.

The Sweet Georgia yarn was on sale, and I decided it could be a Christmas gift to myself. They did not have enough skeins in stock of the color I wanted, but I was able to place the order. Later I found out Sweet Georgia Yarns dyed the additional skeins to fulfil my order, or maybe in any case to refill their stock. When the yarn arrived, I gave the box directly to Wayne without opening it, to wrap up for Christmas. It was hard not to look at it right away! Later I wound one skein into ball so I could knit a swatch.

I decided to try making the sweater with some cheaper yarn before using the Sweet Georgia yarn. The Valley Yarns Worthington Wool/Alpaca/Viscose yarn I bought was not cheap either. It has quite a different feel, but I like both of the yarns.

I made swatches on the knitting machine using different combinations of tension and stitch length settings to see what would result in a gauge closest to the pattern. The color in the following photo is too dark and too blue. The photo above of the ball of yarn is more accurate.

Swatches knit on the machine with different settings

I was not able to match the exact gauge specified in the pattern. I settled on tension and stitch gauge settings that were close. Based on the stitches per inch I was getting, I picked the sweater size in the pattern that resulted in the correct final measurements for me. Knitting the front and back panels went quickly. They were the same size each, approximately a big square.

Knitting the front and back sweater pieces on the machine

The knitting is very stretched out while it is on the machine. The panel for the front of the sweater looked huge. When removed, it takes some time to relax into the natural density. Even after sitting overnight and a steaming, the front panel was 20″ wide instead of 18.75″, and it was an inch shorter than I expected. I considered doing the panel over again the next size down, but I was worried that would be too small.

I had been using my knitting machine in our three season porch. That room is not heated in the winter, and it was freezing in there. My work table in the basement is round which does not work, so I moved it temporarily to our kitchen table. I went ahead and knitted the panels for the back and the two sleeves. The sleeves started at the cuff and had some increases going up to the underarm.

Following is a photo of the four pieces knit on the machine. The taller narrower front piece was steamed some. The back and two sleeves shown below had not been steamed or blocked.

I did not have any more time to spend on this project in December, as I was very busy getting ready for a full house of guests for the Solstice weekend, a trip to the Twin Cities for Christmas a few days after that, and driving to Arizona with our 5th Wheel Trailer at the end of the month. After I finished machine knitting the sweater panels, I put the knitting machine and all the accessories back in the box until spring.

I was worried about what would happen when I hand knitted the ribbing and yoke on to the machine knitted panels. It could look bad if my hand knitting looked a lot different than the machine knitted parts. I had not thought about this before. Should I block the machine knit panels first and then join them together for the hand knitting? Or should I wait for the all the knitting to be complete and then block the entire thing at the same time?

During those last busy days of December, I was able to hand knit a swatch in the evenings while watching TV, when I would not have been doing anything else anyway. I made the swatch with the same number of stitches and rows as the machine knit swatches, using what I thought was a size 4 needle as suggested by the pattern. The gauge seemed too loose and big, so I knit another swatch using a size 3 needle. That one came out closer to the gauge of my machine knit panels.

Later I realized that the reason the first swatch was so much bigger was because it was a size 6 needle, not a size 4 needle. I knit another swatch using a size 4 needle while we were in the car on the way to Arizona.

Knitting a swatch with size four needle in the car

I stressed about the gauge differences between my machine knit panels, my hand knit swatches, how they compared to the gauge expected by the pattern, and when and how to do the blocking. Eventually I felt better after realizing that this was a practice sweater, that did not have to be perfect, and I could do some blocking after it was complete to make small adjustments. Really the only decision was what size needle to use for hand knitting the yoke. Following is a photo of the swatches knit in needle sizes 3, 4, and 6.

Before we left for Arizona, I made time to steam the machine knit panels to get the sides to lay flatter, so I would be at a good stopping point. The next photo shows all four panels looking much better, after more steaming in the laundromat at the RV park in Arizona.

The next step was mattress stitching the sleeve seams together, and mattress stitching the front and back panels together at the side seams. The instructions I found for mattress stitching the baby sweater I made earlier said to go under one stitch at a time on each side. The instructions I found in a School of Sweet Georgia machine knitting hat class said to go under two stitches at a time on each side. I liked that better as it would get done twice as fast.

After seaming the side seams and the sleeves, all the parts were joined on a long circular needle to begin the yoke. It looked very wide and short, but seemed about right compared to one of my sweaters.

The colorwork design of leaves on the pattern is nice, and there are instructions for knitting that exactly as shown. There are also instructions for designing your own colorwork. I wanted to do a different pattern for the colorwork on the yoke of the sweater. I found some ideas on Pinterest including a snowflake looking design that had the same repeat count as the design in the pattern, so it would be easy to substitute.

In the designing your sweater workbook there was a chart to fill in your own pattern.

After joining the body and sleeves there were 10 even rows of knitting followed by one row with some decreases, and then it was time to start the colorwork. I had not had a chance to get white yarn for the snowflake colorwork while we were still in Minnesota. In January, we went to Prescott, Arizona, for a sock machine crank-in that was held at a Fiber Creek LLC, a very big nice yarn shop. I was able to buy the white yarn there.

We also had an early dinner with a couple we know who live in Prescott. It is not a big town, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. While we were eating, an acquaintance of theirs stopped by to say hi. After he left, we were told that he was the nephew of Don Knotts, on his way to do comedy shows on a cruise ship.

I watched another School of Sweet Georgia class on Stranded Colorwork before I started the first colorwork row. Included are instructions for several ways to hold two different yarns so that the floats on the back stay tidy and the tension stays right.

There are tips on how to make sure the knitting does not pucker where the big floats are tacked on the back. I thought I was doing a decent job as I was going along. The knitting was going pretty fast, and soon I was on the last decrease row of the yoke. There are stitch markers to easily mark the pattern repeats. When I got to one section, there should have been nine stitches in between the markers but instead there were 10 stitches. I could have just knitted another two stitches together and problem solved. I like to know where I made the mistake, so I spent some time examining the knitting. I found the mistake about 6 rows down, where I must have forgotten to do one of the decreases on that row. ARGGGHHHH.

Colorwork done, but there was a missed decrease six rows down

I was now thinking that the upper part of the colorwork should be symmetrical with the bottom, with the zig zag pattern repeated above the snowflakes. Also, I was not very happy with the puckering that was obvious where the floats were tacked on the back. I had not done as good a job on that as I thought.

With all of these issues, I made a big decision to rip out all the rows of the snowflakes and try again. It was a bummer to do that, but it is part of learning and I knew I would be happier with the end result.

The following photo shows where I started picking up stitches just below the snowflakes with an extra long circular needle. Doing that allowed me to quickly rip out all the stitches above that point, and then be ready to continue on without dropping any stitches.

The next photo shows all the stitches picked up below the colorwork, with the repeats marked.

Stitches picked up above bottom row of colorwork, in preparation for ripping out knitting above that

One suggestion for successful colorwork is to use a bigger needle size which I had not done the first time, so I tried that on the second try. The next photo shows the sweater after I ripped out the colorwork and redid it with the revised pattern and larger needle size. The zig zag above the snowflakes does not match exactly due to having an odd number of stitches in each repeat instead of an even number.

Colorwork redone with a slightly different pattern

After the colorwork and continuing to the neck are some decrease rows, some short rows on the back, and one inch of ribbing.

When I started knitting the ribbing at the bottom, I thought the sweater was maybe too long. Earlier when it was the pieces off the knitting machine, I thought it was too short. This is a mystery.

I considered finishing the ribbing and wearing the sweater as is for a time, knowing I could rip it back later. After knitting a couple more rows and trying it on again, I decided that I really did not like the long length and went ahead with frogging it back. First I picked up stitches three inches back, where I wanted to restart the ribbing.

Stitched picked up for ripping out the ribbing and three inches of ribbing.

Ripping out the ribbing knit in the round was easy. Frogging the main body of the sweater was not easy. First I had to undo three inches of mattress stitch on each side seam. When starting to rip out the rows of flat knitting done on the knitting machine, I realized that each row was somehow looped so that you could not just rip it out back and forth the way you would if it had been hand knitted. I had to cut the yarn a bunch of times.

Once the extra rows of knitting were removed back to where I had picked up stitches, there were some adjustments needed. I had unintentionally picked up stitches from different rows. In the process of fixing that, I ended up with a bit of a gap on one side where the front and back panels met. I thought it would be ok, but after knitting an inch or so of ribbing, I decided it was not ok. I pulled out the needle and picked up the stitches a row up, got it lined up correctly at the sides, and started the ribbing again, for the third time. Following are photos of the sweater with the ribbing just about done. I worked on the last couple of rows in the car while out and about, and while working in the gift shop at the resort.

Knitting while working in the resort gift shop

As written for hand knitting, the pattern starts at the bottom with a tubular cast on, followed by the ribbing and then the main body. Instead, I added the ribbing on last, after using my knitting machine to make the front and back panels. I used a normal bind off for the neck ribbing, but I was worried that might not be stretchy enough for the bottom. I happened to get a link with instructions for Ruke bind off that is stretchy, works for two by two ribbing, and has a similar look to tubular cast on used in the pattern. I went with that and it worked out well.

Ruke bind off for bottom of sweater and sleeves

I knitted three inches of ribbing and the Ruke bind off at the bottom, and at the end of the sleeves. Following is a photo of the sweater completed, but before blocking.

I finished this wool sweater just in time for the 104 degree Fahrenheit record high temperature for March in Arizona. We had never used the air conditioning in our RV until this year. We are grateful it works. I was planning on having Wayne take a photo of me wearing the sweater in the community building at our resort, where the the lighting is good, the air conditioning is on, and there are nice background options. He did not want to walk over there in the middle of the day in the extreme heat. He said he could get a good photo inside the RV despite the poor lighting, with some editing. Following are the before and after photo taken inside the RV. I am not really a fan of photoshopping in a different background, but it was fun for Wayne to try.

My sister-in-law Marlene took a couple more photos in natural light outside, with more focus on the sweater.

I am very pleased with how the sweater turned out. I will wait until we are back home in April to block it. I had a bad experience blocking a sweater once by getting it completely wet, so I am hesitant to do that. I need to do more research on best methods of blocking for different types of yarn.

I plan on making another combination hand and machine knit sweater with the same pattern, using the more expensive Sweet Georgia yarn. I will probably use the colorwork design of leaves as written in the pattern. In the meantime, for something different, I am knitting a stuffed animal bunny.

Sock Machine Experiments

After owning my Erlbacher Circular Sock Machine (CSM) for more than a year, I am comfortable knitting a basic sock without looking at any instructions. I have cranked quite a few pairs of socks for myself and for others. Following is a photo of seven pairs I made for myself .

Over the fall and winter I tried some new things with the sock machine.

I wanted to make socks for my son’s mother-in-law, Mary Jo, who has small feet. First I cranked a pair using the cylinder that I use for ladies socks, with the right number of foot rows for a size six shoe. I was not surprised that it was a little big around. I tried again adding a strand of Lycra yarn with the regular sock yarn. This makes the fabric gather in more than the plain sock yarn, and the sock stretches out as needed on the foot. Some people do this for every pair of socks. This was my first try using Lycra, and although it accomplished the purpose, I am not sure I like the way it changes the color of the sock. It comes in different colors, but I only have one cone of an off white as shown in the photo below.

When I bought my sock machine, I ordered two cylinders with different numbers of needles. The 64 needle cylinder works for most women’s socks, and the 72 needle cylinder is right for men’s socks or a bigger circumference sock. At this point I decided to order a 54 needle cylinder for a smaller adult sock or a child size sock.

54 needle cylinder and ribber for my circular sock machine

Once I had the 54 needle cylinder, I cranked a third pair of socks for Mary Jo to see how that would fit compared to the others. She sent me a photo of the three pairs of socks next to each other. They all have the same number of leg and foot rows. The pair on the right has Lycra. She reported that the socks with the Lycra fit the best. This is good information.

I experimented with making Yoga Socks. I do not know if anyone actually wears yoga socks, which have an opening where the heel and toe would normally be. There are CSM patterns for making the heel opening. I tried one but was not happy with the result. I tried again using an afterthought heel concept where you knit past the place where the heel will be, and then add the heel later, or in this case a slit. It was easy to crank a tube with the hung hem at the top. I picked up stitches on two rows above and below where the heel opening would be, removed the stitches on the row between, and then hand knitted a couple of rows of ribbing instead of a complete heel.

Stitches picked up for afterthought heel or slot

Ready to hand knit a few rows of ribbing for the heel slot

I hand knitted four rows of ribbing at the toe end. This method involves more hand work than the pattern, but I do not mind and I like the result better.

Yoga socks complete with hand knit ribbing at heel and toe openings

I also tried making variations of fingerless mittens with and without a ribbed wrist, with and without a thumb gusset, with and without added Lycra, and using cylinders with different numbers of needles. It was an opportunity to practice using the ribbing attachment. I know how to use it, but it is intimidating. It is harder to see what is going on and harder to fix mistakes. The next photo shows the CSM cranking out a ribbed cuff for a fingerless mitten.

The next photo shows an incomplete fingerless mitten with a thumb. I tried several versions of this. The mitt in the photo has a dropped stitch on the ribbed cuff. The end of the thumb and hand are not finished.

I tried another pattern with mock ribbing that had every forth needle removed. It is much easier than actual ribbing with the CSM, but I did like the look of it. There is another way to do a fingerless mitten with a slot instead of an actual thumb. I modified the pattern to add a crochet border around the slot and at the end of the hand. The pair in the photo below has a hung hem at the wrist. The same concept could have a ribbed cuff. I may try more variations, but honestly I am not very motivated to make more fingerless gloves.

Fingerless gloves with a slot for the thumb and crochet trim

In February, I sponsored a crank-in at our 55+ resort in Arizona. Several people expressed interest on the AZ Crank-Ins Facebook page. Only one person came, but it worked out well. She had owned her beautiful periwinkle blue Erlbacher for two years, but had not ever actually made a sock. We worked together to get her tension at a good setting and made a couple of other adjustments to the machine. Then I guided her in cranking a sock step by step. A couple of non fatal mistakes were made, but it was a functional sock. The tension was a bit loose, but she will be able to try again with the tension a little tighter. I gave her the very detailed step by step instructions that I had written out for myself, that I no longer need.

Crank-in attendee’s periwinkle blue sock machine

Our children and grandchildren were visiting in Arizona for a week. Before they got here, I went to Goodwill and bought some toys and books so the toddlers would have some things to play with. One purchase was a doll that did not have any clothes on. She seemed like the right size for a sun dress made with the sock machine. I cranked a tube with a hung hem, and a sort of mini heel at the top that was tacked down. I braided some yarn for straps.

I used a looser tension than for socks so it would be big enough around. The back of the dress is shown in the following photo, next to one of my CSM socks for comparison.

Blair likes to play with dolls. She always takes the clothes off. I found she had taken the CSM dress off this doll too LOL. After they left I put it back on. We will bring it back home to Minnesota, along with the other toys I bought.

I am always keeping an eye out for other non sock things to make with the sock machine. In the meantime, I will keep cranking more socks.

Baby Yoga Pants

I am always looking for a knitting pattern that is not too complicated, not too big, and that someone will actually use or wear. I can figure out complicated, but I prefer projects that do not take forever to finish, and that I can do while watching TV.

The teacher of the machine knitting class at the School of Sweet Georgia, Barb Barone, told me about a Baby Yoga Pants pattern. She suggested it could be adapted for machine knitting, but I thought it was a good hand knitting project to make for my granddaughter.

Nora doesn’t do yoga LOL, but I thought they were cute, and a fun knitting project that would not take too long to complete.

I wanted to make the baby pants in yarn that would be practical, comfortable and washable. I didn’t have anything on hand, so I ordered two skeins of machine washable Berroco Vintage, a wool, acrylic, and nylon blend worsted weight yarn. The color is “rhubarb”, like the color of the skein below, rather than the purple in some of the other photos.

The pattern starts at the waist. For the girls version you can add a row of picot edging at the place where the top is folded over for the waistband. After knitting the right number of rows, you knit the cast on row in with the current row, making a seamless join with a casing for a tie or elastic around the waist. This is the same as a hung hem at the top of circular sock machine socks. It is easier on the CSM.

The number of stitches around stays the same as you knit the waistband. When I was ready to join the cast on edge to make the casing, I ended up with fewer cast on stitches picked up than the live stitches on the needles. I figured I could fudge it and it would be OK. Also, I was not sure that the picot edge was coming out in the right place exactly at the top, even though I had carefully counted rows. I forged ahead despite these concerns. The photo below shows the gap where the cast on edge is folded over and joined, with fewer cast on stitches.

The pants were knitting up pretty fast. After getting about an inch past the join, I changed my mind and decided to rip that part out and do it over again, making sure my cast on stitches matched up. I picked up stitches from a row before the picot edge and ripped everything out to that row.

Picking up stitches before the picot edge to get ready for frogging

I decided not to do the picot edge at the top on the re-do, because then it did not matter exactly how many rows there were for the casing. I was in the Twin Cities over the Thanksgiving weekend while working on this, so I had some time in the car and sitting around to work on it that I would not have had at home. It did not take long to catch up to where I had been, and get even farther along in the pattern.

After the waistband and a few more rows, there were some short rows to add shaping in the bum to make room for a diaper.

Stitches are added in the middle on the front and back for a crotch gusset. Each leg is knit in the round.

I checked the pattern for how many leg rows to knit. It said to knit for 14 inches from the top of the waist. With my gauge of six rows per inch, 14 inches came out to 84 rows. Somehow I got mixed up (me?) and got in my head that the leg would be 84 rows long. When the leg was about eight inches long, something did not seem right. The entire thing was supposed to be 14″, not just the leg. I had a couple of extra inches of leg, according to the pattern. It would not be very hard to frog off the extra leg rows, but at this point I wanted to do a little research. I put the project aside until I could figure it out.

At Walmart a few days later I looked at three different size 12 month pants to get measurements of the circumference, the bum section and the legs. Back at home I compared those measurements to the pants in progress. Lucky me, I was actually pretty close after all. Nora was long at birth, so it seemed like the pants would work as is.

The next step was knitting an optional ruffly border at the bottom of the first leg, and then casting off.

After knitting the second leg, the last step was grafting together the gusset area in the crotch.

The pants looked nice after adding elastic in the waist and steaming.

The pants were supposed to be size 12 months. Nora was about 8 months at the time of the following photo. They stretched up into a costume for an ABBA concert.

Later Kelsey sent me the following photos of Blair, age 2 1/2, wearing the pants. She is large for her age. The bum part fit better, but they were capris on her. Not sure if she just got out of the bathtub or what!

Maybe the pants will fit Nora in a couple of months. They were fun to knit, and I hope someone can wear them some time. I would knit this pattern again, but maybe make the legs longer in proportion to the rest, or the waist part shorter, or at least compare the measurements to the recipient while the project was in process.

I was working on this project in December which seems like ages ago now. We have been in Arizona since the beginning of January. James and Kelsey and the granddaughters, plus Britta and Isaac, are coming to visit soon. I doubt the yoga pants will be in the suitcase. The weather here has been much warmer than what we have experienced before, so I expect the swimming pool at their Airbnb will get a lot of use.

Melt the ICE

The colorwork sweater I am making is on hold while I knit a couple of red hats.

Needle & Skein, a local yarn shop in the Twin Cities, advertised a knitting pattern for a red hat, similar to red protest hats made during the Nazi occupation in Norway. All proceeds from sale of the pattern were to be donated to local charities. This has gone viral, and now people all over the country and in foreign countries are knitting red hats. Red yarn is out of stock everywhere. The Melt the ICE Hat pattern by Paul Neary is available on Ravelry here.

From the pattern: “In the 1940’s, Norwegians made and wore red pointed hats with a tassel as a form of visual protest against Nazi occupation of their country. Within two years, the Nazis made these protest hats illegal and punishable by law to wear, make, or distribute. As purveyors of traditional craft, we felt it appropriate to revisit this design”.

I have generally shied away from posting about politics on social media, and have kept this blog politics free. Until now. What has been going on in my hometown of Minneapolis and the state of Minnesota is not OK. For most of the people I know, I am speaking to the choir. For the others, please listen from someone who grew up there and has family and friends with first hand experience.

I support undocumented violent criminals being deported, but that is not what is happening. What is happening is poorly trained ICE agents roaming around randomly grabbing people off the street, breaking windows and dragging people out of cars, throwing people on the ground, spraying chemicals inside cars containing infants, sending children off to Texas, shooting people in the street.

In proportion to the population of the Twin Cities, the number of undocumented immigrants is low compared to southern border states. Most brown people in Minnesota are citizens or here legally, working and providing needed services. When have legal citizens had to carry around “documents” to prove it?

I am not in favor of any kind of violence on either side. There have been some protesters getting out of control, but the vast majority of the 1000’s of people out in the streets are behaving peacefully.

If you think that the “protestors” you see on TV are paid or backed by some organization, that is just not true. I know many people personally who have been out on the streets “protesting”, or helping out their neighbors. They are doing it because they are outraged, they care and want to help people in need. They are not getting recruited or paid, it just happens, even when it is below zero outside. I know a couple who cancelled a road trip so they could be home to support their community. They and other people I know personally are packing meals at local churches for families afraid to leave their house, driving people to and from work, escorting children to school, buying and dropping off groceries. A friend participated in collecting winter coats for detainees who have been released from the detention center in January with no jacket.

My granddaughters attend a Spanish immersion day care. It is wonderful to think they will be bilingual. The caregivers are native Spanish speakers who are all documented. Regardless, my son reported that ICE knocked on the door of the daycare, during the day while children were there. They did not have any warrants or a reason to go there, they were just looking to round up any Brown person they could. No one let them in and they left.

I heard a story in the media about a young adult in Duluth, Minnesota, home on break from college. She had a load of clothes in her car to drop off at the Goodwill. She happens to be African. ICE stopped her and interrogated her for a long time, asking for papers and implying that she was trying to “escape” the country with all the clothes. Some of the things in the media are exaggerated, have inaccuracies, or are just wrong. You don’t always know what to believe, so at the time I took this with a grain of salt. Later I was talking to a friend who went to school with my sister. It turns out that the young woman in the news story is the adopted daughter of another classmate of theirs. Not fake news. It happened.

Likely you have seen news reports showing the thousands of people out marching on a couple of occasions in below zero Fahrenheit temperatures. The following image of a rally in downtown Minneapolis on January 23 was widely published by news media.

There have been other quieter things happening spontaneously in Minneapolis on frozen city lakes.

There was a memorial bike ride in Minneapolis to honor Alex Pretti, who was shot while aiding a woman who had been thrown to the ground. Alex was an avid biker. 1000’s of bike riders turned out on a cold January day. The following image is from CBS News. There is an article from Minnesota Public Radio (MPR) News about the bike ride you can read here.

I have seen a couple of comments online that knitting red hats does not help, and it just makes people think they are helping, that you should be donating money to local aid funds. I disagree. I have donated to multiple local aid funds, and sales of the pattern are all donated. You can do both. Knitting red hats is a form of solidarity and a way to visibly communicate your position. People in Minnesota need warm hats to be out in person protesting or helping their neighbors in the cold weather. It is a way to stand out and be counted. Also noting that the activity of knitting is calming when you feel stressed or anxious whether you are sitting in your home by yourself, or knitting together with a group sharing the same purpose.

National Public Radio (NPR) wrote a good article about the red hat phenomenon that you can read here.

Being a knitter, and not in Minneapolis to help in person, buying the pattern and knitting a hat was a way I could contribute (in addition to money I had already donated to several funds). I texted a friend about finding red yarn, and she happened to be at a yarn shop right then. She was able to get me three skeins of Cascade 220 Superwash worsted weight wool yarn.

I asked a few people at home who I thought might want a hat. One person responded right away, so I started a hat for her using her head circumference, with the gauge information, to determine how many stitches to cast on. I have a few requests from other people for a hat.

I am not going to share all the steps of making the hat like I usually do, other than a couple of comments. The hat pattern is pretty basic, but uses a kind of cast-on I have never done before called tubular cast on. I found some instructions on YouTube by Laura Nelkin. It took a couple of tries to get it right. At one point I was trying to knit a few rows in the dark in the car (what could go wrong?). I started knitting the wrong direction and ended up with a hole that I noticed right away when I got back around to that spot. I only had to undo one row, no big deal. I changed the pattern up a little so the ribbing was shorter and there were some plain stockinette rows in the main part of the hat. The plain knitting goes faster, and I also liked the look better. I knitted enough rows for the cuff to fold over more than the original pattern shows.

It has been fun to see all the different variations of red hats being made, including a tiny hat that can be used as a pin or ornament.

In only a few weeks, $650,000 has been raised from hat pattern sales, and over 7,000 red hats have been posted on Ravelry. The following was posted by Needle & Skein yarn shop.

News media is reporting that some of the ICE agents have been or are going to be removed from Minnesota. I really hope that is the case.