The Hollyhock Blog

What did I do?

In a heap

I recently finished the above.   What is it?  If been reading my blog for a while, this post might give you a clue.  Except that this is much smaller.

Bag for Mom's treasures

It will hold the purchases of my favorite Red Hat Lady – my mother.   Now when her Red Hat group goes on outings, she will have the perfect Red Hat bag to be the greenest Red Hatter!  I almost followed the same pattern as for my big bag, except for smaller needles and a shorter handle.   It is a quick and easy knit, so I started another to donate to our church festival on July 4.   I’m using up the crochet cotton!

There’s still time to get in on the give away at ‘A Handmade Revolution’.  Leave a comment there to be entered to win a Bird Nesting Material Cage from me.

And look to the right sidebar – Hollyhock Farm Alpacas is on facebook.  Click to see my page and become a fan!

I have managed to knit another 2 pair of mittens for charity. 

Two of blue

It seems a little a odd to be making mittens when the temperatures are rising and the snow is melting quickly.   But my knitting group will stock pile them until next winter.  They are always needed and it is something that I can do.  These pairs finished off one more skein of worsted weight acrylic yarn that was donated to our group.  I’ve learned of a couple gals from the local food shelf  who gather the donated dolls, take them home for a beauty bath and make them a new set of clothes.  I’m hoping to knit a few things for their dolls soon – not that I’m tired of mittens……   Just saying….

Here are this week’s mittens:

Mittens, again...

3 pair in brown.  While knitting these, the sun was shining on this yarn and there is a sparkly-ness to it.  It didn’t come out in the picture at all, but they are actually kinda pretty – for brown mittens.  

After friends stopped by, I noticed this:

Cool tracks!

Their tires tracks had formed these hearts in the snow/mud.  I suppose it is a common pattern to make, but I had never seen it quite like this.  Darryl must have snapped the pictures as I found them on the camera!

I got crazy and knit up a whole bunch of wrist warmers.  About 1800 yards of yarn, 27 pair of wrist warmers !  I’m slowly in the process of steaming and seaming!  I hope to get some posted on Etsy soon.  

Last night was the first Knitting Night Out at the Delightful Day Boutique in Becker.   The group was small – only 3 of us knitters – but we enjoyed each others company and made progress on knitting projects.

I’ve completely finished the remaining custom  order sets.  The blue and brown set:

Completed!

And the brown set:

Also done!

All boxed and ready to go.

It's in the box!

All I have left to complete this order is one more hat.  It is on the needles.  Then I will move on….  I want to do some multi-color dyeing for a scarves.  I MUST work on getting a felted hat perfected!  And knit a hat from that yarn I spun at the retreat (there is lots if you would like some!)  And I got a bunch of yarn and roving back from Rach-Al-Paca…..yummy!  Want some???? DK and worsted yarn, dark brown from Chestina and Jose.  Way too many ideas and never enough time. 

It is snowing like mad here!  I’m refaining from showing pictures as snow pictures seem to be on every news channel and blog lately.  But it is lovely – from inside looking out!

First – I knit these 2 pair of mittens. 

Mittens for charity

They will be finished by another gal in my knitting group.  I have a total of 7 pair to turn over to her tomorrow at our monthly meeting. 

Last weekend was my spinning guild’s retreat at the Linden Hills mansion.  I spun and knit and ate and relaxed.  It was awesome.  I spun this huge skein from the fiber of Ruby.

Hand spun alpaca yarnThis set was started before the retreat, but I finished the scarf and got the hat to the point of steaming. Brown set of alpaca yarn

After steaming, the hat will get ear flaps added.  The mittens need to be felted yet.