Ugliest. Yarn. Cakes. Ever.

Yarn Love.  Elizabeth Bennet. Nirvana.  Not so much.

I make the ugliest yarn cakes.  They fall apart.  They sometimes come flying OFF the winder as I'm making it.  And I buy good yarn.  Beautiful yarn.  I'm so sad to see it go from the lovely hanks all twisted in their beautiful figure eights into my loose, sloppy, cakes.

The first time I saw the umbrella/winder in action was when I was in my early twenties.  I was a high school English teacher then and single.  I was lucky enough to spend the entire month of July at my parents cabin in northeastern VT.  The woman who runs the store up the road (where I spent my childhood getting fireballs and Cokes) took up spinning at some point. So I bought some of her lovely hanks of handspun yarn to make a baby sweater.  She showed me the beauty of the umbrella and ball winder.  She made me gorgeous yarn cakes.

This past year, I purchased my own umbrella and winder from knitpicks.com.  They have these handy tutorials on how to use both the umbrella and the winder.  I appear to be doing everything right.  Here are some examples of my ugly specimens:

Blue Sky Worsted Dyed Cotton-Pumpkin.  See how I had to hand roll that last bit?  I think this was one that went flying off the winder..

Blue Sky Trio of ugly cakes.  Pumpkin. Honeydew. Lemonade.

Quince Yarn.  Gorgeous.  Until I get it.

Actually, this one doesn't look so bad to me anymore...Madeline Tosh DK, Mare.

And, did I mention that I try to pull from the inside of the yarn cake (although recently I read an article about perhaps that's NOT the best way to do it).  Often this means big chunks of tangled yarn come along.  My cakes are bad inside and out.

At least this appears to have no reflection, I don't think, on my projects.  I'm particularly proud of this little guy:

A headless Mama Duck using the Blue Sky Worsted Dyed Cotton. I'm making a series of ducks for a baby present from Susan B. Anderson's Itty Bitty Toys  It is knitted all in one piece and this back was kitchener stitched together.  So cool.  On Susan's blog she has a great great kitchener stitch video.  Using that and the directions in the book I feel like a fabulous kitchener...can't wait to make socks!

Let the blogging begin...

I mean, this isn't my first time blogging. Four years ago I started a photography business www.lizmonroe.com and so I blog there about photo sessions and pictures.

But now I want to join the land of knitting bloggers. Do you all know about knitting and blogs? It's out of control...it started (for me) almost a year ago when I stumbled on my favorite knitting designer's blog- http://susanbanderson.blogspot.com/ and now I'm hooked (no pun intended b/c in fact, knitting does not require hooks, unless you drop a stitch, but that's another topic...anyway, using a hook to create fibrous objects is crocheting...)

Susan wrote these books Itty Bitty Hats, Itty Bitty Nursery, Itty Bitty Toys (I own them all) and she's on FB and she's really, really nice (or seems to be since I don't actually know her at all) and so talented. I don't know that I could ever be a knitting designer. I don't know when to decrease left or right; I don't take risks with stitches. Knitting and cooking are the two areas of my life where I need to have all the exact right tools (and ingredients) and make it just the way the pattern (recipe) tells me. In fact, I made Susan's Elephante and the pattern specifically says "this is the yarn I used but you'll only be using a little so don't go out and buy it" and what did I do? Bought all the yarn that she specifically used...and now I can make at least 4 Elephantes! Here's a picture of my finished one....




I gave him to a little baby named Maya whose nursery theme was... elephants! A few years back I got into knitting teddy bears, from a book called The Knitted Teddy Bear I made one for my daughter, which was a slight disaster-- it was a really big one and I had to use plastic joints and I don't know, in general, I wasn't pleased with it. I gave it to Goodwill, I think. I also made one for my son, smaller-- like 9 inches, with much better results. We still have that one. I'll take a picture and share it another day. In general, knitting toys is so satisfying. You can't stop thinking while you are doing it "how is this going to look like an elephant?" and also about the person you are giving it to. Maybe that's what I love about knitting in general, and, why designing is out of the question. I love how, for me, at least, I just follow the pattern step-by-step trusting the author of the pattern knows what he/she is doing and then I am amazed that it all comes together just like it's supposed to. Huh...that is a lesson I have only learned in knitting and cannot seem to apply it to my life; I guess because in knitting you have a picture you are starting from-- you know what the final product is you are aiming for, you just have to trust how to get there following someone else's lead. I want to open a knitting store in Tucson. I have a picture of it in my head-- a classic Tucson home with a front porch and inside couches and work tables and tons of boutique yarn all around. That's the picture I need to hold on to as my final product and trust life will get me there....