Renaissance Fair 2012

 I wish the Renaissance Fair was held a little earlier in the year, but it was so horribly hot this year that it wasn't as much fun this year. We have been suffering with temperatures over 100 degree, which is very rare for Colorado, and with the fires about 20 miles away, we occasionally could smell it too. But I survived. I was there for Children's Weekend, but the crowds were small and surprisingly few kids. 

Raven's End

Every now and then, a breeze would fly through the shop and it was like being kissed by a dragon. I also noticed that there are a lot more fairies and pirates than princes and princesses. Interesting about the pirates, they didn't come along until a few centuries after the Renaissance. 

Catnip Mice

Foxy guys

Knitting and Spinning: I'm on the left and Julia, the owner on the right

Friendly Dragon

Scrunchies are in!

My hair braided

The Moods of Knitting



From Kitty Knits by Donna Druchunas.
Yes, those are black cats by the cuff.



In case you didn’t know, I love knitting. I could spend my entire day doing nothing but knit.  However, not all knitting is equal. My knitting has moods.  Not sad or mad knitting – to me all knitting is joyful. My knitting moods are different.

Mindless knitting mood. I always have at least one mindless knitting project going. These are the projects that I can do blindfolded. Yes!  Blindfolded. I do these projects when I am at a movie theater, in committee meetings at church, in conversations with friends, in any situation that my hands work completed separately from my mind. It could be, and usually is, a hat with just a plain stockinette or rib stitch but it can also be a sock in a straight stockinette. Now, mindless does not mean boring. I like to use colorful yarns, usually striped for these projects. I love working on a hat with a red strip, and a few minutes later, I look down and the color has changed to blue.  I don’t like variegate yarns as much because they tend to look too muddy.



My design



Thinking knitting mood. This is a step up from mindless knitting. I like to do these project while watching TV (which is mainly listening), listening to music or books on tape, or even having the radio on. (I am addicted to progressive and liberal talk radio).  This may be a hat or sock with a lace pattern or a sweater with a cable pattern. I have to watch what I am knitting. It is a fairly repetitive pattern so I don’t always have to watch a pattern as I go along, but knitting is not automatic.  I like going through a row reading the lace row below in order to knit the next one.  This is then followed by the ‘resting row,’ which is the all purl row, and a straight knitting row when working in the round.



From 60 More Hats



Concentration knitting mood. Every now and then, I have an overwhelming need to do a complicated lace pattern, intricate cable work, or intarsia.  It’s like my mind needs to be totally immersed into the project, marking each complicated row with a highlighter or a sticky note, multiple markers to break up the pattern, and row counters set up on an app on my phone.  I might work on this for a weekend and then go back to mindless or thinking knitting to let my mind rest. It is better to do smaller projects such as a scarf or hat when I am in this mood, because I flit from project to project too much to make a large project such as a sweater.



Attention-span-of-a-hummingbird knitting mood.  I want to get the project done in a couple of hours, or less. Sometimes, you just want to make a pile of stuff.  My crocheted scrunchies and knitted baby hats fulfill this need.



What? They can't be eaten? What good are they?







JJ Baby Hats for the Renaissance Faire

The Renaissance Faire is just a little over a month away and my fingers are flying making baby hats to sell. I have plenty of adult hats ready but very few kids' hats until this year. I am using the JJ Baby Hat pattern that is posted earlier in my blog. I have a wonderful hat stand made by my husband for my adult hats, but I plan to use baskets to hold the baby and children's hats as well as the scrunchies (pattern also included in this blog).

I purchased some baskets at World Market when they were 50% off. However, as you see, one of my baskets has been confiscated by a little demon who decided that my scrunchies needed a dose of black cat hairs. Don't worry, I took the scrunchies out and replaced them with his blanket. A bright yellow scrunchy is diminished with streaks of black.

Scrunchies may really be out of style. Neko can't figure out what they are for either.



My hat rack



Occupied hat rack at the Renaissance Faire, Summer 2011



The Trouble with Tribbles

My mother and grandmother taught me how to knit and crochet before I could read. I was so young that I don't even remember being taught. Although I am experienced with both, I have always liked knitting better. I will crochet a flower to put on a hat or a bag, but all projects are knitted. I think it might be that I can knit without looking at my work, so I can enter a zen state while knitting.  Nah, that's not it. I just like knitting better.

However for some reason this week, I had an overwhelming desire to crochet scrunchies. It probably happened at a Walgreens when I saw a package of 40 of those thick rubber bands for $2.00. The package jumped into my basket along with my shampoo and eye shadow. On drive home, I made a mental inventory of the small balls of yarn I have at home begging to wrap around this dull rubber bands. I went to my stack of sock yarn -- I could probably knit a pair of socks for an entire army unit with my stash (as long as they don't object to pinks, purples, and teal) -- and pulled out a few to play with. I didn't even try to find a pattern.

Within two days, the colorful crocheted scrunchies multiplied like purring little tribbles on the Star Ship Enterprise. I am still not done. I developed a blister on my my middle finger and a fresh ache in the back of my hand but I can't stop. Obviously, crocheting muscles are different than knitting muscles. My knitting muscles are really buff!

The process is simple and involving no counting.
Round 1: Using a D, E, or F hook, depending on the density of the yarn, I single-crocheted (SC) around the band. I push the stitches together and stretch out the band as I go. Once the band was covered with stitches and I am back at the beginning, I did a slip stitch to join.

Round 2: Chain 3 (I guess you do have to count to three). Double crochet (DC) at the base of the chain 3.
DC 3 in every stitch the entire way around. Once you are back to the beginning, DC 1 in the base of the chain 3 and slip stitch to join.

If you are using a thick yarn, you may not want to do another round. Just cut the yarn and weave in the ends.

If you are using a thinner yarn, you can add another round. DC 3 in every stitch as you did in previous round. This will give you a very ruffly scrunchy. For a less ruffly scrunchy, try only 2 DC in each stitch.

For this scrunchy, I added a round of 1 SC in every stitch in a contrasting color.

This project is perfect for KIP and CIP (knitting/crocheting in public). It is easy to carry with you and you can put it down and pick it up with having to figure out where in the pattern you are.

Experiment with different yarns. Use variegated, sparkly or glittered yarns, fun fur, eyelash yarn, and of course, play with colors.

 Try it! They are very addictive.