Alexis Howell-Kubler

@lexh-k

Avidly knitting science teacher with a sweet tooth and snarky sense of humor.

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Bluesky

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Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· 21h

#knitting WIP Wednesday: starting this out of alpaca silver and sock wool

Small circular needles with two small pieces of work laying on top of an open knitting pattern showing a picture of a knit hat styled as a dwarf helmet from Lord of the Rings. Yarn bowl contains two balls of yarn: one is pale copper and metallic, and one is dark green and brown variegated sock wool.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· 2d

#showmeyourknits Reworked, restored, reimagined Three things that started in my first five years of knitting, and have changed into things still being used decades later: Improved sleeves, recycled yarn, socks to mitts

As a young knitter, I had completely failed to account for drop shoulders, and had comically long sleeves that I just shoved up and lived with on this otherwise comfortable serviceable sweater. Then one day 20 years later, I realized I knew exactly how to fix it and I actually did it! I still wear it regularly.

Briefly, in the mid 80s, knit dresses were so fashionable. And as a very new knitter, I was so pleased with myself for making one. But then it was completely out of style almost instantly and not as much to wear. So eventually I frogged it and turned that carefully selected yarn into a variation of a Baja hoodie that I wear more than I was ever going to wear the dress.

One of the first sets of socks I made eventually were beyond darning and turned into mitts for my son.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· 6d

#showmeyourknits shawl DK weight wool in three shades of cream/cream twill to make a subtle stripe in the main part. Pattern was made up on a long car trip to a wedding, to match a new dress. Finished the shawl as we were arriving! Shawl has outlasted the dress. And tge marriage, for that matter.

Cream moss stitch shawl with red leaf border on one edge.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· 22d

#showmeyourknits tool time! My favorite bags for carrying projects in my purse. Also, these needle gauges are more a jewelry item these days. And I love my carbon fiber, steel tipped double points.

Two knitting bags: larger one is purple with octopus tentacle pattern in pale blue and pink; smaller one reads “critical knit” with a green d20 side die showing “20” with yarn and knitting needles in the background. Also shown: a necklace with three needle gauges as pendants which resemble cross-sections of nautilus shells and one black double point needle with silver tips.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jul 10

Yarn chicken victory! I ended with merely this 1” left after my last stitch of this color. One myst savor the rise and fall of the daily triumphs as they come.

Purple, blue and gray knitting with a 1”tail of gray thread sticking out of the most recent stitch.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jul 6

Birds about town this weekend: sandhill cranes, terns, swans, and a merlin. And I’m not even especially into birds!

Sandhill cranes (one adult with two young) in marshy shoreline alongside a mudflat.

Arctic tern on a railing of the wildlife viewing platform overlooking Westchester lagoon.

Two adult white swans with FIVE signets at Westchester lagoon.

A merlin in a residential area. Not a great picture, but not a common sighting here so beggars can’t be choosers!

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jul 6

What’s on the needles now? #wips this week on #showmeyourknits:

An afghan riffing off of https://ravel.me/optic-blanket. Each square is knit towards the center. Made of some squishy synthetic blends boucle and a “fringey” novelty yarn from deep in the stash.

I’m playing yarn chicken with the purple.

Knit in sections to make it easier to carry on a trip.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jul 4

Week for blue! 🌀🧵 #showmeyourknits #knitsky #knitting

Waterfall vest inspired by a mishmash of patterns. Fingering weight variegated with a rippling texture to really emphasize the “waterfall” theme. It was a great travel project.

Blue and cream sock weight wool, based a pattern in. Vogue Knitting magazine from late the late 90’s (?).

Ashford tepako wool held with Rozetti Alaska alpaca blend. The pattern was my own design, inspired by the show “Only Murders in the Building”.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 23

light and dark theme for #ShowMeYourKnits, I just finished this for my daughter. I started it last November, but have had a few other projects as well in the meantime. www.ravelry.com/projects/aho...

Black cotton, lace Victorian blouse with lace diamond motif and a ruffled V shaped bodice

The back of a black Lacey sweater with a repeating diamond motif for pearl buttons and lousy bishop sleeves

I altered the pattern to include a lace trim on the neck and to make the sleeves, lousy bishop sleeves with wide cuffs and pearl buttons.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 22

I’m out if the boot, and into the fashionable summer recovery wear: the sandal!

An orthopedic sandal on a foot with a red sock and jeans. Taken from above with a beige carpet background.

The benign image signals regaining power, mobility, and freedom so cruelly stolen by fate earlier this summer.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 20

I bought a multipack of general use scissors that migrate around the house. My craft and sewing scissors are off limits!

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 17

I’m just finishing a fox hat for my daughter in law!

Brown knit hat with a red fox and an arctic fox and orange lattice borders

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 14

My “little” Hatsune Miku went to Ren Faire! This kind of thing happens when life requires you skip the closest Comic Con because it happens during finals week.

A medieval take on a cosplay of the character Hatsune Miku: a young woman in a light blue wig in long braids with pink bows wears a blue and black costume in a medieval style (peasant blouse, corset, layered skirts). I’m sorry, it is bit hard to describe -and do it justice.

She is holding a phone for a mirror-selfie and has a collection of anime style art in the background.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 14

Happy Knit in Public Day! #knitting #knitsky www.daysoftheyear.com/days/worldwi...

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 11

#WipWednesday So close to done! Just need the buttons. And to deal with a few stray bits of fur.

Black lace Victorian-ish sweater with pins in the neckline. Enhanced with a generous sprinkling of dog hair, which will indeed be a time-consuming labor of love to remove. 🤨

The original pattern. But I’ve gone rogue on the sleeves and neckline.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 8

Part 2/2: stripes week on #showmeyourknits

Wool pride flag sweater, my own design. Making the hood lay flat to show the triangle inset of the flag took some design work!

Wool pride flag sweater knit in moss stitch, side to side. I really like the cabled neck creating natural lacing holes.

The hardest part was finding a yarn in a fiber I wanted in all of the appropriate colors!

Striped vest in greens and browns with cap sleeves and lace inset in the back and front. No idea what pattern this was. One-skein wonder! Self-striping wool, sock yarn.

Silk/bamboo blend t-shirt, blending a few patterns together. Aqua and pearl gray bamboo and silk blend (it feels so soft!). The narrow strip is variegated silk, and oh how it bleed on first wash. I nearly cried! It took a half dozen rinse cycles, but finally came clean. I played yarn chicken with the gray and list, so the sleeve striping is “off”, but it works.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 8

Oh boy! Stripes week on #showmeyourknits finds me with time on my hands and I’ve gone diving to the bottom of the cedar chest. Buckle up, stripes incoming! 1/2 First, mostly Icelandic lace-weight wool:

Crop sweater with horizontal stripes and long sleeves, in blacks, blue, cream, and burgundy wools, mostly worked with two strands of lace-weight held together to create marled effect.

My own design from scraps of mostly Icelandic wool inspired by a Lord of the Rings marathon in 2003 when I did not already have a WIP.

Jacket with lace stripes in raspberry, black, pearl gray and purple. May become a vest this summer, as it has never fit anyone well and has been unworn for years.

Icelandic lace wool. No idea what pattern I used.

Skirt, lace-weight wool and cotton. Pattern from Vogue Knitting many years ago. It was knit on a slant and ended up with a crazy long Kitchener stitch join.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 6

Kayaking is great. And I prefer short and easy excursions.

Clear blue summer sky, trees, and lake in the background. Center foreground is a very happy husky mix in a blue dog life jacket that has a shark fin sticking out of the back. The dog is perched across the cockpit of a bright green kayak.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 6

Finished two versions of a honeycomb stitch hat, reversing the yarns. #knitting #knitsky My daughter says they look a bit like morel mushrooms! I think they would be fun for a pair of friends.

Two hand knit hats in a honeycomb stitch with variegated gray and self-striping yarn in pink, green, orange, white and gray. The yarns are reversed on each hat, such that the background yarn of one is the foreground yarn of the other.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 2

Narrow views of knit lace panels arranged in rainbow color order

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Jun 2

Ah! I see! We picture this:

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· May 30

#ShowMeYourKnits - Blankets! I’ll have to dig out pattern information later

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· May 30

#knitting So, the honeycomb texture looks cool. And then I saw someone used some variegated yarn… nice! So, I asked myself, “what if I used variegated yarn *AND* some self-striping stuff?” My motto: anything worth doing, is worth overdoing.

A partway completed hat in a honeycomb pattern of gray variegated yarn, making the cell frames around stripes of pink green and tangerine orange, sets in front of a small bag that reads “critical knit”. Two balls of yarn are sticking out of the top of the bag.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· May 26

Gee, I don’t know why there is always fog hair on my knitting projects… #knitting

Medium-sized dog (with notably light gray and sandy fur) is curled on the edge a chair, using a black lacy knitting project on the side table as a pillow.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· May 24

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· May 17

So close, and yet so far. It is down to the ruffles. Pinning this out is going to take forever! #ShowMeYourKnits

Black Victorian lace front of a sweater with ruffles in progress. Cotton lace weight yarn.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· May 2

#ShowMeYourKnits #MeMadeMay I went to see ice sculptures in my newly completed qiviut DNA cabled hat, qiviut/silk gloves, and (harder to see) intarsia knit sweater from a pattern lost to the decades and self designed socks. (Yarn is all either local sources or old stash.)

Woman on a throne carved of ice wearing winter gear, including hand-knit hat, gloves and sweater, as well as parka and mirror-sunglasses.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Apr 17

The other thing about Teflon: once it’s scratched your chipped, you’re supposed to just let the whole pan go.

Alexis Howell-Kubler@lexh-k· Apr 11

Cable week for #showmeyourknits ? I got this! Yggdrasil afghan in a cotton blend (brand name forgotten, but it ended feeling like a soft sweatshirt!) and a spiral wedding gift blanket of my own design in Lion Scarfie. And a superwarm hat from old stash wool, again my own design #knitsky #knitting