Strange Folk Festival Yarn Bombing Project

In my previous blog post, I mentioned yarn bombing, and this project that a friend is putting together. Instead of finishing the red scarf I've been working on this month, I started on my piece for this project. My tree is "Super Grover" and my piece should be 7ft by 2-ish ft.

Below is the design I currently have which will involve knitting one giant canvas and then crocheting/knitting the bigger pieces and sewing them on. And then doing some type of embroidery I'm thinking. In the end this will be more of a yarn painting or mural than anything, but I'm OK with that as long as I can get it finished in time!

Yarn Bombing!

Ever heard of yarn bombing? It's like graffiti, but less permanent and a LOT more fun. This year, Autumn Wiggins, owner of Upcycle Exchange in St. Louis and organizer of the Strange Folk Festival (held every September in O'Fallon, Illinois) is leading the charge for yarn bombing at the O'Fallon Community Park for the festival this year.

To join in and help with knitting (locally or from a distance!), visit here. If you're in need of yarn, Autumn has a great selection at the Upcycle shop!

A Red Scarf, 70s Yarn, and Unicorns

Back in April I started working on the pattern for this scarf. Unfortunately, the scarf started curving like crazy. Thanks to a fellow knitter on Ravelry, I made a minor adjustment to the pattern, frogged the original scarf and started over. I'm about halfway through now with minimal curving/shape issues. The pattern's pretty simple:

R1 - K
R2 - K
R3 - K
R4 - K2 *y/o, K2tog (repeat 8 times)* K1
R5 - K
R6 - K
R7 - K
R8 - K1, K2tog *y/o, K2tog (repeat 7 times)* y/o, K2

Repeat to desired length. End by knitting 3 rows.

A few weeks ago I went to visit my grandma to help her sort her yarn. This is the stash I came home with. A while back she gave me a couple skeins of the red mohair (on top of the pile) to knit up into a shawl, but my cat destroyed the last skein to finish the project and up until my last visit, neither my grandma or I could find more. I bound it off a couple months ago to turn it into a head wrap not realizing there was more yarn just waiting for me. As soon as I find the right buttons to sew on, I'll finish it up and see how it looks.

I was told most of the yarn is from the 70's and I love the colors but haven't decided what to do with any of it yet. I imagine there will be some fun projects in the future...

And speaking of fun projects, I won a give away from this blog. Can you say Unicorns?! I haven't done cross stitch in a while, but this might give me the perfect excuse.

June already?

June has snuck up me this year. My online class started yesterday (Intro to American Government here I come), and I feel overflowing with ideas and projects. Besides knitting, I also do photography and just last month got in with a local shop whose selling my work. I spent the weekend matting greeting cards and working on my pendant necklaces. The rest of the week will be spent matting prints and trying to get some photos of my products taken.

This has left my knitting sorely neglected. I'm still working on a pattern for that scarf that was curving on me; I think I'm about half way through after frogging it and starting over. I started on a pattern for a fingerless glove and in my disarray of a house right now, I lost the notes half way through and am debating starting over or just moving on for now. Tsk tsk, I know.

The weekend before last was spent at my grandma's down in Tennessee where we went through and organized her yarn stash. While helping sort, I was also given a few additions to my own stash. Most are missing tags, but I think the majority are acrylic yarns so at least they'll be washable. She's starting to work on a weaving, something she hasn't done in a decade or two. As we were talking about it, it reminded me of the shoebox weaving I did in school as some 1st or 2nd grade project. Does anyone else remember doing those? I think mine ended up as little rugs for my mom's flower pots.