But in a good way.
I don’t know how else to describe this past weekend. All the love, the confessions of stalking, the laughter. Oh my, the laughter. The return trips - yes, you - you know who you are. You guys cracked me up all weekend. Thank you! It wouldn’t have been half as entertaining without you guys.

I could link all the people I talked to and all the people I saw but I would undoubtedly forget someone because my memory is that bad or I would give a wrong link and well, I really did see so many that the rest of this post would be all links. You know who you are and you are all fantastic.

Even though I worked the whole weekend it was still good. Although after seeing all the happy yarns and the people getting to spin, I felt a wthdrawal and when I got home I didn’t unpack the truck. I sat at my wheel for a few hours and spun up 8 ounces for my big project. I know I say this every year but I think I mean it this year, NEXT YEAR I’M GETTING A ROOM! I imagine it will be crazy but I really want to stay over. Besides, I can handle crazy.

So now your wondering if I had to stay in the booth the whole time or if I got to do any shopping…..
Of course I had to come home with stuff.

I got this bit of fluff from Friends Folly Farm.

Ok, so maybe it’s more than a bit. Maybe it’s more like 1.5 lbs for a sweater. It’s Wool, mohair and Alpaca. Your eyes didn’t glaze over with beauty. The picture is fuzzy. It showed the colors way better than the clear one.

This was the first thing I got, at about 4 on Friday afternoon (before the vendors opened). I knew if I didnt’ attack Indigo Moon as soon as I could, I wouldn’t have gotten this batt:

I still haven’t spun the one I got at Maryland, but I have done the first one I ever got from SPA#2 (this year was SPA#5). I think this one is moving up and I’m going to spin it after I get the project done that I’m working on.

The most fantastic maybe is this from

Do you want to see that detail better?

I know, you’re thinking, David doesn’t make spindles. I got the poop. He is working on spindles. How exciting it that? For those that don’t know, it’s very exciting. He let me purchase one of the prototypes. I’ve also asked that once they’re in production if I can sell them. The spindles and the hitchikers. Yeah, that’s right. You’ll be able to see the hitchikers and try them out here in Maine if you haven’t been able to make it to a festival. I’m sure it will be a bit before I get my stock but I’m almost patient.

There are some links I keep meaning to share with you but they never seem to fit at the end of a post. I thought I might as well group them all together in one lump.

Finally I have a knitalong blogsite for everyone doing the Spunky Club.

Have fun with it. All the info to register and how it works is on the site. I haven’t done much to make it look really pretty because this week I’m working on my “run around like a one armed paper hanger” impression. If you want to come up with a prettier button for the blog, It would be fantastic. You can never have too many buttons.

Margaux Lange has the most fun jewelry I’ve seen in a while. Take a look around, it’s exquisite. I’m not usually a fan of much jewelry but if I had one of those pieces, I’d wear them everyday.

Black Sheep is not for the faint of heart. Husbeast sent me this. It’s a horror movie with sheep as the main character. I love horror but if you can’t take it, don’t even think about clicking it.

Light hearted and for the 8 year old child in all of us - an oldy but a goodie Colonel Angus. Once a woman is introduce to Colonel Angus, she’ll settle for nothing else.

Music videos for the day:
Metal by Numbers
Baby Got Back
Yatta

This is it for this week folks. I’ll be back on Monday with a recipe, tales, and hopefully pictures (someone needs to remind me to bring the camera). I hope those of you that are getting this big Nor’easter are staying warm and finding time to play with fiber.

I’ve heard lots of people shy away from adding zippers to their knits. Those that have done it, know it’s like steeking (but without the need for a stiff drink). Once you’ve tackled it once, you can do it again and again.

So you have your sweater knit and you have your zipper. You’ve got most of the work done. Make sure your sweater is blocked well. You don’t want to be dealing with curling edges. Unless a curly edge is what you want. In the case of a desired curly edge, I recomend tacking down the edge with a few stitches to keep it in the right place along the whole front. You can’t really just forget about it because sometimes the curled edge will be more or less than in other places. You want a good even straight front edge to put in the zipper.

I start by safety pinning the 2 halves together.

This is the quick way. If the sweater had stripes that needed to be aligned I would tack the front together with a series of stitches, using yarn instead of safety pinning. Tacking should be done with contrasting colors to the sweater so it’s easy to remove later. It is more foolproof than the safety pinning and preferable if you’ve not done this before or you have a sweater that has a pattern that needs to line up. Don’t make wide sweeping stitches, just stitch the edge along the whole front opening.

You only need to grab the first stitch or 2 all the way along the opening.

Next you will pin in the zipper. I pin on both sides of the sweater up and down the length of the zipper. Then I remove the safety pins because I like to sew the sweater when it’s opened. If you did the Tacking stitches instead of safety pins, and you want to sew with the Tacking in place (which can be a good idea with stripes/patterns), you can do that too. Just try not to sew over the Tacking yarn or you’ll be doing a lot more work in the end when you try to remove it.

When I open up the zipper, I add more pins to be assured that it’s in there good. I don’t want the zipper slipping on me when I’m sewing. Sweaters also have a tendency to stretch under that heavy foot and a zipper doesn’t, so pinning tons helps assure that it’s not going to do that. Even if you’re hand stitching, a few extra pins can save you a bit of trouble in the end.

I baste the zipper in before I sew the final stitches. Basting helps to hold it all in place better than pins and I usually have to redo at least one side when I baste, basting stitches are much easier to remove than the final titght stitches I will use when I sew the zipper in place. If you left in your tacking yarn to keep your sweater closed, you want to be sure NOT to sew those stitches in. After you’ve basted the zipper you want to make sure to remove that tacking yarn that held the sweater shut.

If your basting comes out good, remove the pins and you can do the final sewing of the zipper. Once you’ve done the final sewing trim all ends of threads and take a look at it. Does your original basting of the zipper to the cardi show, does it look awful? Sometimes the stitches and good thread matching the colors will mean that the basting doesn’t show. You can leave it in, what are a few extra stitches going to hurt right? If it looks awful or you used a really wide stitch to baste the zipper, you need to remove that as part of your finishing.

My model here is a lot smaller than I am so unfortunately the sweater looks a little sloppy on her but very fitted on me.
Happy little Zipper Cardi
STATS:
Yarn: Spunky Eclectic Big Ball Chunky in Walkabout colorway - 2 Skeins!
Pattern: Boogie - Free with a purchase of this yarn at SPA this weekend.
Needles: US9
Size: 40 inch chest with a 22 inch zipper - the back measures at 24 inches
Special Features: Raglan shaping. Short row neck. Waist shaping.
I could make this sweater again and again. It took me 2 weeks to make it. Not bad for a good sized sweater.

I’m sure there are several tutorials like this out on the web. Do a search if this one doesn’t feel right to you. As in knitting the pieces itself, there are many ways to tackle a zipper. Don’t ignore the zipper just because the tutotial doesn’t make sense, you can do it, you just need to find the right path for you

The Sandwich can be a work of art. Sure it’s a quick lunch, an easy meal. Sometimes though, the sandwich is magnificent and well worth the extra time you spent on it. I have several different sandwiches I regularly like to make. All start with the base of homemade bread. Without the homemade bread, they simply wouldn’t be as good.

The Grilled Cheese.
If you use the soy vegan cheese or you use the regular dairy kind, the key is the homemade white bread.
I do this one in several different combinations. My favorite by far is the Jalapeno cheddar vegan cheese. It’s probably my favorite because it has a ton of flavor and it’s quick. If I make a grilled cheese for myself with other cheese, I try to combine a couple of cheese or I’ll add ina slice or two of tomato.

You know how to make a grilled cheese right? I probably don’t need to write this out but someone will ask… heat up the skillet, Butter one side of each of the bread slices, put on the skillet a slice of bread (buttered side down), place your fillings on that piece, top with the other slice of bread, buttered side up. When one side is done, flip over.

The Ultimate Tomato Sandwich

Doesn’t it look good up there.
You start with the Rye bread I had the recipe for last week. I give it a toasting in the toaster before it hits the broiler, just to make sure the bread is crunchy underneath. Saute onions and garlic, place these on the bread, place a large tomato slice over the onions, top with Feta or Soy substitute. Broil til it starts to get melty and brown.

Talk about a good sandwich.

These Monday recipes really make me hungry all over again. you can bet I’ll be baking some bread later so I can make sandwiches all week. Plus bread is good to bring to SPA in case I get stuck in my booth.

Have you heard??

Rebekka is making a crazy afghan. All shapes and all sizes of squares in wool are needed. Go check out her blog for more info. I’m going to do my best to put together a few bright squares.

Little FO’s
I found 2 little projects that had been sitting in my closet for a while.
Booties:

These had been knitted before Boogie Baby was born, I jsut never sewed them up and crocheted an edging. Bad of me I know. They’re done now. They don’t fit boogie baby of course but I’m sure someone will have a baby soon that will need booties. I probably should make a sweater to match, then I’ll really be ahead of the game for the next friend that gets knocked up.

Kidlet Tank:

This is the saddest of the 2. This was knit all but the I cord edge and straps way back when I first created the Kidlet tank pattern. I think the pattern was made in 2003 or 4. I’m hoping for 2004, three years of languishing is a tad better than 4. I love this tank. I think I need to make an adult version for myself this year. If I do, you’ll be the first to know.

I put the zipper into my sweater over the weekend and took photographs of the process. As soon as I get the tutorial written out, I’ll put it up here.

I know this is Saturday and it’s supposed to be Saturday Sky but Friday’s sky was spectacular.

Just after posting I looked and this is what I saw:

Storm clouds moving in.
The rest of the sky to the right looked like this:

I love that I can see storms moving like this.