Hippiemommy

Category: Arts/Crafts

  • WIP-a-Day, Day 6 – Piper’s Journey Shawl

    Today’s WIP is a newer project. It’s a Piper’s Journey shawl that I’ve been using as parking lot knitting. My 13yo has a decent number of classes/lessons/rehearsals and some of them are only 45 minutes long, so it isn’t worth driving home. I usually have a pair of socks on the needles at any time, but it’s nice to have a second project in the car that’s a little more interesting.

    At this point in the shawl, I’m working on the applied border. I don’t have it entirely memorized, but I only have to glance at the pattern once or twice and then I remember it. The body of the shawl is just garter stitch with increases, so I didn’t need a pattern at all for that part.

    Piper’s Journey was designed by Paula Emons-Fuessle. I enjoyed Paula’s podcast and I have been wanting to knit this shawl in her memory. Paula’s posts as she dealt with cancer reminded me so much of my mom’s journey, so it was really hard for me to read/listen. I honestly felt really guilty about it, but I guess that’s how unhealed grief goes sometimes. (Is grief ever completely healed? I’m not there yet, if so.)

    For today’s run, I listened to a podcast that was actually quite boring, lol. I did, however, also start Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow on Audible the other day and it’s good so far. I have seen a few spoilers, but nothing too intense. It was a Book of the Month selection a while back and I was very tempted to get it then.

    Alright, back to work on my yoga teacher training assignment. I’m literally dreaming of yoga at this point, lol.

  • WIP-a-Day, Day 5 – Parallelolamb

    Today’s WIP is the Parallelolamb by Stephen West. This is another pattern that I assumed was pretty popular. I tagged it on Instagram and realized that is actually had very few tags. There also aren’t that many projects for it on Ravelry. It’s interesting to see what takes off and what doesn’t.

    I used a bunch of scraps to make this shawl, so it has sat in time out a few times while I waited for scraps. The shawl is knit on 4 long circular needles at once, so you don’t have to pick up stitches. It does make it a bit like fighting a jellyfish, though. I’m often getting poked by a random needle tip or having this strange thing happen where one of the needles stabs through the fabric and kind of ties the shawl in a knot. It has definitely gotten better as the shawl has grown, because the needles are a bit more stretched out.

    The nice thing about this pattern is that you’re just increasing on one side and decreasing on the other, and it’s all in garter stitch. As long as you remember which side to work on next (there’s a handy chart in the pattern too), then you can just knit and knit without thinking. My rows are pretty long now, so it is requiring larger and larger scraps. It’s also getting pretty warm to work on, so I think I’ll probably finish it in the fall. That’s fine, since I’m not going to be wearing this beast when it’s 90+ degrees out anyways.

    For today’s run I had some harder intervals, so I thought I’d like something engaging to listen to. I picked the latest episode of Moonbeaming, where Sarah discussed shady practices within the New Age community. Her guest, Katya Weiss-Andersson, is someone that I feel like I must know, based on where she lives and what she has done. All of the alternative health/wellness circles are small enough that you tend to bump into the same people.

    Overall, I loved the whole discussion. I’m very aware of the way that religious retreats and communities manipulate emotions. A lot of New Age teachers have borrowed some of these unhealthy practices too. It’s good to step back and see the many influences on each movement and the ways that it shapes the community. Even though people like to think that they’re above the influences of patriarchy, capitalism, white supremacy, transphobia, etc… the people with power in society still end up being the same people in power in subcultures. That means a lot of the same problems exist in both places.

    The episode gave me lots of food for thought and made my V02Max intervals go by quickly, so it’s a win-win. I still have about 15 minutes left, which I think I might listen to while my son is getting his teeth cleaned this morning. The sounds at the dentist office aren’t my favorite, so it’ll be a good distraction.

  • WIP-a-Day, Day 4 – Selbu Socks

    Hey, look! A project that isn’t a rainbow, lol.

    Today’s WIP is a pair of Selbu socks that I started several years ago. The actual knitting on these socks is very enjoyable, but the pattern requires a lot of clicking on links and being at my computer. That means I only work on it when I have dedicated time.

    Since I’m knitting them two-at-a-time, they should go pretty quickly once I turn the heels. I’m not in a huge rush, because I have a lot of socks and these are more of a process knit for me.

    In non-knitting news, I got feedback from my latest assignment for my yoga teacher training and it was so nice! I have one section left of assignments and then my final. They were really encouraging about my teaching style, my sequencing and my cueing. That felt very good. I’ve been practicing yoga for most of my life, but I still wasn’t sure how that would transfer to teaching.

    On my run this morning, I listened to an old episode of the Why I Knit podcast. Today’s episode talked a bit about how Instagram might make it seem like knitting projects just fly by and how people should maybe consider sharing more WIP photos. Perfect! LOL. It’s true, though. As someone with a lot of WIPs, I can show a lot of FOs in a short amount of time. That’s not exactly reflective of how quickly a project goes from start-to-finish, though. Some of my WIPs have been on the needles for years, with stitches added in hundreds of tiny sessions.

    I hope you’re having a great start to your week and the weather isn’t too crazy for you. I just let the sheep out and it smelled like smoke, so I’m off to see what that’s about… Climate change is super fun, y’all.

  • WIP-a-Day, Day 3 – Temperature Blanket

    Woohoo! We’ve made it to Day 3. This project is very different from my first two. Not only is it crochet, but it’s a WIP that can’t be finished before the year is done.

    I loved the idea of temperature blankets (where you knit a row for each day of the year), but I didn’t really love the thought of having to knit an entire blanket stripe every day. I came up with this option instead. Each round represents one day, and each color represents a 10-degree range. Depending on where I am in the square, a day can be a relatively small number of stitches, but I will have a really good-sized blanket at the end.

    When I did all of the math, I needed 6 more squares for it to be even. Luckily, we have 6 people in our family, so I added a rainbow square in for each of our birthdays. Our year is kind of front-loaded with birthdays, but I feel like the rainbows melt right in anyways.

    In other news, I am nearing the end of my 200 Hour Yoga Teacher Training and my brain is feeling quite mushy. I’ve been doing a lot of simple knitting and crocheting while watching lectures and reading books. Truth be told, I absolutely love learning and having a project, so I’ll probably be a bit sad when I get to the end. Because I have a few other fitness certifications, I’m lucky that I can double-dip, and any new certifications count as CEUs for my existing ones.

    I’m not exactly sure how I want to implement yoga teaching into my schedule. I attended a lecture on “yoga for athletes” and I was very drawn to the idea of including custom yoga sequences for my run coaching clients. I think that would be really useful. I also miss teaching in-person fitness classes, so I might pursue that. Either way, I’m having a blast and learning lots of new things.

  • WIP-a-Day #2 – Frankenfingers Mitts

    Hey, hey! I’m back for my second day!

    I decided to pull WIPs based on which one is the closest (physically) to me. Today’s winner is this pair of rainbow Frankenfingers. They’re being made out of Knit Picks Felici and I’m knitting them TAAT on magic loop.

    It felt to me like this pattern was super popular a decade ago and then it suddenly disappeared. Now that I’m looking at the Ravelry page, there really aren’t that many projects on there. It must’ve just been popular in my very small circle, and I imagined that it was popular everywhere.

    I feel like what makes the Frankenfingers extra cute is that each finger is done with a different color of yarn. It requires a bit of yarn waste, but the stripes aren’t that big in Felici anyways and it’s well worth it. You can always use the scraps for stitch markers or whatever. (Is that just me?)

    Since the entire pattern is ribbed, plus it’s long, and I’m making them TAAT, this will take me forever to finish. I tend to bring them when my 13yo is performing in shows, because I don’t have to look down and it helps to have other entertainment while knitting these. People always comment on the yarn, but they probably think, “Wow, this lady takes a long time to finish a project”, since I’ve literally been bringing them to shows for more than a year, lol.

    For today’s run entertainment, I decided to listen to Buddha’s Brain. It was the book club pick a few months ago for my Yoga Teacher Training and it sounded interesting. I find meditation to be particularly helpful and I am a science nerd, so I’m hoping it’ll be a fun read. I only ran for 45 minutes this morning, so I think I listened to a preface, the intro and then chapter 1…. so it’s still building. Hopefully it’ll get going soon and I’ll have more info to share.

  • A WIP a day…. until October?!

    I run pretty much every day and I love listening to podcasts while I run. Podcasts kind of make me feel like I’m running with a friend… except I don’t have to work around anyone else’s schedule and I can just run straight out of my front door. 😛

    This morning I was listening to the Pardon My Stash podcast. They were discussing the number of WIPs that each person has and whether or not they’re monogamous knitters.

    First, for anyone who doesn’t know, I am NOT a monogamous knitter. Far from it, I often have 30+ WIPs at a time. I know this number realllllly stresses some people out, but it feels pretty great to me. For my first 10 or so years of knitting, I felt guilty for having so many projects, and I’d work really hard to reduce the total number. As soon as I’d get down to single digits, I’d hate it! I love variety and I love having lots of options to choose from. I also don’t particularly like casting on (although that might not seem very believable with the number of projects that I have.)

    One thing that I’m learning in my 40s is to lean into the natural flow of my life/brain and not fight it so much. For one thing, fighting it never really works… the only real difference is whether my internal chatter is accepting and appreciates the way I work or if my internal chatter is telling me that I’m wrong.

    OK, so back to the title: I was running and listening to the podcast and thinking about how no one on the show had nearly the number of WIPs that I do. It was interesting to hear their individual takes on everything. I love hearing how brains work and I love how fiber arts are so flexible and can be approached in so many different ways.

    This afternoon, I was knitting on my couch and my beautiful pit bull, Layla, was working on a bone beside me. (BTW, Layla has at least 30+ WIPs going at any time too. There’s a reason we’re best buds.) I realized that if I photographed one WIP a day, I think I could make it until October. For some reason, this really cracked me up. I thought it might be fun to write a little more about each one and share why it’s a WIP, because there are a lot of projects that I have NO intention of finishing anytime soon. A lot of them are scrappy and the scraps just don’t exist yet. Plenty of others use funny techniques that I like working on sometimes but also don’t want to do all of the time. Some just get forgotten for a bit or make me bored and then I pick them back up later.

    Today’s WIP that I’ve been focusing on is a Sockhead Hat made out of a beautiful sock blank from Gale’s Art. I let it sit in my stash for way too long. I had started to use this yarn for a pair of socks in this year’s Sock Madness, but they ended up too tight and I liked the yarn too much to waste it. I frogged the socks and decided to make a hat instead. I was actually going to make a Musselburgh Hat (my bajillionth), but my 13yo and I were heading to see Theater Camp in the movie theater earlier this week and I didn’t want to do increases in the dark. I’m pretty good at reading knits and purls by feel, so I figured the ribbed brim would be easier to work on than the crown of the Musselburgh.

    Sure enough, I feel like I’m flying through this one. I mostly just worked on it in the theater and then for a little bit today. It’s fun to watch the color develop and I think it’ll make a really happy hat. It’ll probably be knit night/purse knitting for a few weeks, because I’m almost to the stockinette section and then it’s entirely mindless.

    I’m going to try to photograph and talk about a WIP a day until I get through all of them. I’m not too stressed about being perfect, so I’m ok if I miss a day here or there. I really like seeing older projects from other people, because there are often really good patterns in there that I’ve forgotten about. It’s easy to get swept up in the latest-and-greatest on social media and forget about other gems that are out there. If you want to follow along, I’ll be posting them on Instagram too.

    If you want to share any info about your number of WIPs or your philosophy on WIPs, I’d love to hear it! Feel free to comment, DM or post and tag me. Like I said, I think it’s fascinating to see how brains work.

  • Cold Sheep Update: I haven’t bought yarn for a year!

    After years of following along in the Stash Knit Down group on Ravelry, I decided last November that I’d bite the bullet… I’d go “Cold Sheep” (buy no new yarn) for 1 year. It helped that my dear friend had come to the same conclusion, and we decided to make a friendly wager. The first person who bought yarn would have to buy a skein to give to the “winner”… I love competition, so it was on!

    I feel like I should mention that I have a little bit of an advantage… my “stash” also includes 8 adorable, baa-ing pets that happen to make wool. This means that I have a stash that’s constantly renewing itself. I do not need to buy yarn! If I need yarn that bad, I can always spin it up. Sure, it’ll take a lot longer, but I obviously didn’t get into knitting/spinning because I need instant gratification, LOL.

    3/8ths of the reason that I have no excuse for buying yarn

    In this past year, I’ve completed 54 projects for a total of 17,131 yards(!!!) but my stash still has a LONG way to go. I have quite a few sweater-quantities of yarn that I want to use up, including one that I spun during Spinzilla this year. (Pictured in the top photo.)

    I thought for sure that when I hit the 1-year mark, I’d be ready to go on a buying spree, but the reality is that this year has taught me that I’m really content with my stash. There are so many skeins in my stash that I love, and they’re still waiting for me to get around to them. Knitting from stash has forced me to be more creative with yarn substitutions and patterns. It has taught me that there will always be more yarn, and I don’t need to get sucked into the fear of scarcity just because I see a pretty skein. If I don’t get that one, there will be plenty of others.

    This week my friend broke her streak and bought some yarn. She sent me a gorgeous skein of Must Stash Yarn as my prize. I contemplated if I wanted to end my streak too, but I still don’t feel ready. I thought the Black Friday sales would be too much to resist, but they just weren’t that tempting.  

    I don’t know how much longer I’ll go, but I’d like to get my yarn to at least fit in my small set of IKEA cubes. With the fact that I keep making yarn from my wool, I don’t know if that’s even an attainable goal. I might need to start selling the stuff that I spin (or other yarn from stash) in order to make that happen. The good news is that my stash is 17K yards lighter than it was this time last year, and I feel really happy about reducing my consumerism at least a little.

    If you’re thinking about Cold Sheeping in the new year, I say “Go for it!” You might realize that it’s not for you, but I bet you’ll learn some new things about yourself during the process. I definitely did!

  • Spring on the farm

    I know, I know… It is still winter, but it is almost feeling like Spring around here. 🙂 Colorado has a weird way of teasing you. Today it is 80 degrees out, but tomorrow we’re expecting snow.

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    PeanutButter and Laurel

    Still, here on the farm, we’re in full “Spring” mode. We’re clearing the garden and getting it ready, growing veggie and dye plants under lights in our sunroom, our sheep are pregnant(!), and plans have been made for incubating our Spring chicks.

    Our rented ram, PeanutButter, just went back to his home after 2 months here on the farm. He is less than a year old, but he approached his job as a stud with MUCH enthusiasm. For the first few weeks, he hardly ate or slept because he was so focused on his task. Once his work was done, PeanutButter calmed down and spent lots of time in the pasture snuggling with the ewes and hanging out with our guard llamas. He learned that he really loves to be scratched, and the kids were so sad to have to send him home.

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    Some of my finished objects and WIPs for this year

    Now that PeanutButter is gone, things are a little quieter around here. I’ve been working on decluttering a bit. As I organized my craft supplies, I realized that I had an embarrassing number of knitting WIPs on my needles. Now I am trying to clear at least one project off of my needles each week. So far I’m keeping up with my goal, which feels awesome. I’ve also cast on a bunch of new stuff, but we won’t talk about that for now. 😉

    Finally, I’m getting back into the swing of training for my races this year. After finishing a 50-miler in December, I lost my running mojo for a while. Although I felt better than expected after the race, I just needed a mental break. The long hours of training in the months leading up to the race had left me a bit burnt out, and I needed to rediscover my love of running.

    Now that it has been 2 months, I’m ready to get back into the groove of training. I signed up to run Leadville again, and my official workouts started on the 1st of February. My training runs have felt awesome, and it is so nice to have a fresh start.

    In everything, I’m really enjoying the shift of seasons. The quiet that came in the darkest months, and the new growth that is starting as Spring draws nearer.

  • Glorious summer!

    This summer has been absolutely dreamy so far. We’ve been building forts, soaking up the sun and salty air, playing board games for hours at a time, reading amazing books, and crafting our hearts out. The weather here has been absolutely gorgeous, and we have finally been here long enough that we are finding our “clan” and have plenty of like-minded friends to hang out with.

    Some of our current favorites are:

    Bird Bingo

    Bird Bingo – This game has been getting hours of play each day. My oldest is a passionate birder, and it has been great to see everyone else (including the adults) expand our bird-identification skills and have fun at the same time. I also love that reading is not required, so all of my kids can play together.

    Qwirkle – Another great board game that is great for all ages. This one allows kids (and adults) to work on strategy, matching, and simple math. We all love it!

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    Creativebug (and their awesome summer series for kids!) – Creativebug has been a favorite site of mine for months, and we are loving it even MORE since they are offering a ton of great workshops for kids. I have the monthly subscription, and I have taken workshops on embroidery, quilting, dress making, soap making, stamping, upcycling, you name it… They are taught by some of the best teachers (Natalie (Alabama) Chanin, Anna Maria Horner, Amy Karol, Kaffe Fassett, Rebecca Ringquist, Rad Megan, and so many more.) This week the kids and I worked on a quilt, an embroidery sampler, a table runner, and a teepee all inspired by Creativebug.

    The picture above is of a wholecloth quilt that I am making, based on one of Anna Maria Horner’s Creativebug classes. The long orange stitches are basting stitches which will come out when I’m all done. 🙂 On the front you can see how I’m quilting around the motif, and the back shows just my stitches in my cotton thread.

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    The glorious beaches! – We’ve been spending at least one day a week unplugged, feet-in-the-sand, enjoying the beautiful Pacific Ocean. We usually go with friends, and often have the beach to ourselves for at least a good part of our day. Summer camps are incredibly popular in this area, which means that there still aren’t many families out and about, even though school is out. We’re happy that it isn’t crowded, but I feel a little sad that so few people around us are getting to enjoy all of the natural beauty of our area. Soon the fog will be rolling in, and these sunny days will be few and far between on the coast.

    Project Based Homeschooling – We’ve always loved project-based learning, and Lori’s book and blog have been a long-time source of inspiration. I signed up for her upcoming master class, and I can’t wait to dig deeper.

    This summer, my 11-year-old has decided to focus on an astronomy project. He is reading a ton of books on astronomy, mapping the night sky, and writing about what he sees each evening, inspired by websites like earthsky. We’ve been learning so much!

    My 9-year-old is working on version 3 of her dog encyclopedia project. She has worked for several years on compiling information on breeds, illustrating, and writing a book. Each version of her book has been more refined and used additional sources. This year’s book is already looking amazing! I can’t wait to see the end result.

    My 5-year-old decided that her project will be learning all about sewing. We’ve been reading lots of books and getting even more time with hands-on learning. It has been great.

    So what are you and your family doing this summer? I’d love to hear more. Feel free to drop me an email or comment below. I always enjoy being inspired by other families!

  • Growing my craft

    I love making New Year’s resolutions. This year, I felt really stuck, though. I just couldn’t figure out how to put my hopes for the year into words.

    Last year, I focused on quantity — I wanted to get 12 different groups of 12 things done. The year before that, I also focused on quantity — knitting up at least 50 items. This year I wanted something more meaningful, not just a numeric goal.

    Over the past few weeks, I finally figured out what exactly it is that I want to work on: I want to get back to being more of a do-er. In the crises mode of the past two years, through my mom’s diagnosis with leukemia, her treatment, our big move to a new state, and my mom’s death, I feel like I’ve been treading water in terms of the things I am able to do for my household. I was able to maintain the skills that I already knew, and continue to do those things for my family, but I haven’t been able to grow my skill set. This year, I decided that I really want to learn new things and continue to find ways to be more of a producer rather than more of a consumer.

    I’ve found so many fun projects to work on this year that are growing my skills, and I am loving it. I’ve started working on reverse applique and hand-sewing my own clothes. I bought my supplies through Alabama Chanin, and I have found the process so relaxing and fun. Here is one of the shirts that I’ve been working on. Once I finish backstitching around the stencils, I’ll cut out the top layer on the inside, to reveal the cream material underneath. I can’t wait to model it!

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    I was also inspired by French Kids Eat Everything to really dress up my table and have a nice tablecloth. I looked on etsy, and found so many beautiful ones, but decided to give it a try myself. I’m currently working on hand-stitching a border around the oilcloth that I bought, and I am loving it.

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    Also, I was inspired by the doll blanket that I made my daughter for Christmas to try to make a king-sized version. I know, it is crazy, but it is the perfect project when I just need some mindless crochet.

    The doll version
    The doll version

    The "grown-up" version
    The “grown-up” version

    So, are you working on anything new? I love inspiration!

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