Labor Day Weekend Labors

Spinning:



















2 oz of Spring Baby Green superwash merino from Sereknity for Evie's dress. I thought to weight out the roving ahead of time so I'd be reasonably sure that each spool would contain half of the yarn so when I ply it I won't have much/any leftover singles. As uneven as my spinning is, this is a pretty big stretch, but it will get me closer at least... don't you think??

Knitting:
























The back of Edgar's Cambridge Jacket. I also cast on for both front panels at once and have gotten about 1/4 of the way up on that as well. The photo doesn't do the pattern justice - the ribbing that appears suddenly in the shoulder area is simple and elegant. I'm still unconvinced that the enormous rolling that's happening at the hem can be fixed with the single crochet edge specified in the pattern, but I'm going to give it a try anyways. What do I know, after all? ;-)

The yarn is Di'Ve superwash and it's a lovely, soft, squishy yarn but very splitty, so you have to keep a close eye on it. Which is a little unfortunate since the pattern is so simple. The other unfortunate thing is that it's so simple and attractive of a pattern that The Mister now wants one too. *sigh* Gotta keep an eye out for a cotton/cashmere blend for him, I think. Maybe a chocolate brown or a real reddish brown. Mmmmm!

We also walked about 5 miles this weekend, which is a good start to our renewed exercise/weight loss program. Another season, another shot at it. lol! ;-)

For those interested in such things, we also spent a couple of hours down at the river watching the boats and the birds and we saw: the usual mallard ducks and cormorants, two bald eagles, an osprey (unusual, as we're a little upriver from their usual fishing spots down closer to the mouth of the river), a great blue heron, and a large white egret. The eagles were there circling and hunting over the river the whole time we were there, which was a real treat. I'm assuming this is the pair that set up housekeeping a bit upriver from us in the spring. It was definately the two adults as the white head and tail were clearly visible, even from across the river. They never did come to our side for a visit, but the osprey flew right overhead and the white egret was no more than 15 feet from us as he flew up the Merrimac and turned right up the Powwow. So cool!

Now back to the usual work week... blargh!

Road trip = HAPPY HAT!!

Eight days from roving to finished hat. I present to you...

Happy Hat
"Making the world a happier place, one hat at a time..."

































































Pattern: Amanda Hat
4 oz of Wild Side superwash merino roving by Sereknity spun up to about 144 yards of dk weight yarn
US8 circs (magic loop)
one road trip to PA/NJ

We had a lovely trip, fabulous weather, and I got to travel my favorite road, the Taconic Parkway in NY. We saw deer, eagles, loads of scenery, and most of The Mister's old crew from his childhood in NJ. What a crowd! :-) When I wasn't sharing the driving, I was knitting and the Happy Hat was born. I finished it Sunday afternoon just as we were pulling into our last stop in South River, NJ. All the time I was knitting it I had a song in my head. I love show tunes, but I tend to change the lyrics to fit the circumstances. Who can name this tune?

"Knit a little, drive a little, knit a little, drive a little, knit, knit, knit, drive a lot, knit a little more..."

...heh...

Fiber Obsession Strikes!

Fiber Revival Part Deux was held this past Saturday at the Spencer Pierce Little Farm in Newbury MA. The weather was incredibly beautiful and the place was packed! We had alpacas courtesy of Alpaca Kathy (the little guy in the center is just 3 weeks old!!)















Fiber, of course (that's Heather's booth in the front with Amy Boogie's on the left)















We even had a Turkey-In-Residence (turkeys love spinning)















I had every intention of taking more pictures, but I got enthralled with spinning some of Heather's awesome fiber on my new wheel, and when I finaly looked up, I saw this















As lovely as it is, this does not bode well. We delayed as long as we could but eventually we knew it was time to act, (possibly it was the distant thunder) so the crowd scattered to their cars to put away their own toys then came running back to help the vendors pack up their trucks before the rain started. That was quite a site I can tell you! People packing goods, breaking down tents and tables, packing everything into trucks - I think half of us had no idea who we were helping, but I tell you it went so smoothly we'd have made an army drill team proud. It certainly looked to me as thought we got done just in time - the sky opened up just as I was walking back to my own car with my last minute fiber purchases! ;-)

The obsession part of this post is all Heather's fault. She's the devil, truly. I adore her fiber and yarn (just look in my Ravelry stash - good heavens!) and I just can't seem to get enough. In this case, it was fiber. I had been watching Kelly and Cheryl spin her Wild Side colorway for months, and was intrigued. So I finally dove in and bought a hank for myself in a superwash merino, along with a hank of a gorgeous merino/tencel blend in Gothic Rose. It's a lovely rose/hydrangea blue/lilac color that I was just unable to capture well, so you'll just have to trust me when I tell you how entrancing it is in person. I loved it so much, in fact, that I went back at the last minute and bought a skein of laceweight merino/silk in the same color so I could knit it sooner! There's plenty in a skein to make a shawl and the price is fantastic. You just can't go wrong in Heather's shop!













So... the Wild Side Obsession...

I bought the fiber and immediately went back over to my wheel and started in. It's addicting - the colors are so bright and the superwash merino so spinable - I just couldn't stop. I chatted here and there, waved to Julia and other friends passing by, stopped to chat with Blogless Sarah and Mister Onion, spotted a few famous knitters (I'm not sure, but I think most of the TwistCollective brain trust was there, yes?), went for a couple of wanderings around the grounds to say "hey", but mostly I just sat and spun. And spun. And spun! Joined the collective hive mind to get everyone packed up before the rain, went home, trundled my goodies into the house, and sat and spun some more. Gave up when it got too dark to see (we have serious lighting issues in our home. Bah!). Woke up at 6am Sunday morning still thinking about that fiber. Crept out of bed, fed the cat, and sat down to spin some more. By the time The Mister got up I was plying. By the time we'd finished coffee, I had the yarn in a hank and soaking in the sink. By noon it was hanging on the front porch in the sun to dry, and by evening,... I had this




















It's awesome. Approx 144 yards of awesome.

I tried so hard to split the roving lengthwise just so and to join the strips just so so that the colors would line up when I plied... but I guess I'm just not there yet. I got long stretches where they did match, or close enough, but then there's at least as many long stretches of random barber pole-ing (is that a word??). It's lovely and squishy and I totally adore it. I was cooing over it so much that the Mister finally looked over with a grin and said "well - you have to swatch, don't you?"

Isn't he marvelous?

So swatch I did. I didn't save the result as I was off by 2 needle sizes from the fabric I think I want, but it felt good and looked really intense. I'm pawing through Rav now looking for hat patterns that might do. Maybe something with a herringbone pattern like My So Called Scarf would show off the colors nicely. What do you think?

A very Spinnery Weekend!

After what feels like years of rain, we had a perfectly lovely, sunny, DRY, weekend... so things got a little... fibery ... around here.

There was something fiber-y in a pot in the kitchen sink
















(Trevor's BSJ being coffee-dyed!)

There was handspun drying on the porch



















There was handspun hanging from the mailbox



















There was yarn from the Portsmouth Farmer's Market



















(If you are every near Portsmouth, NH on a Saturday morning you MUST go to the Farmer's Market up by the Police Station and you MUST stop in and say hello to Ingrid. Her yarn is amazing and she is a delight to talk to.)

And... there was something amazing in the back yarn

















Yes, it is. It's a wheel of mine very own. It's an old kit traditional, made in Finland (that's what it says on the bottom) but no maker's name I can figure out. It was a gift from the every-thoughtful and ever-generous Blogless Alpaca Kathy, the same wonderful fiber enabler who has let me borrow her Fricke for all these months. This gem was apparently sitting in someone's garage for aeons when Kathy got it, so it needed a little love, to say the least. I took it to spinning where the every-patient and helpful Seedstitch Cheryl puzzled over it for a good portion of the evening, trying to figure out why the drive band kept jumping the track. We finally decided that a new driveband from Cheryl's bottomless bag o' goodies and a shim under the axle would likely set it right enough. This morning I got up early, took the wheel all apart and laid her in the sun to warm up. After about 3-4 coats of Butcher's Wax, a touch of tinted wax, and a little bit of wood glue, there she sits in all her glory in the flower gardens. Not only is she now looking much happier, but I spent some time fiddling with her and watching how she moved and I made a couple of adjustments that's got the mechanism running much more smoothly! Yay me! ;-)

I spun on her a little bit this afternoon and she treadles like a dream. I'm still fiddling with the whole direct drive equation, but it's a very cool little wheel and I'm just thrilled. This actually all came about at the perfect time, because something else fascinating arrived this weekend...




















My first installment of Fleece Study!

Linda Williamson Hodgkins of the Genesee Valley Handspinners Guild in NY has come up with this great program for learning all about the fleeces of as many sheep breeds as she can gather up. My first package came with all you see her - study guide (which I'm revamping with color photos - pm me if you are interested and I'll share the PDF with you when I'm done), all sorts of samples of wool washes, a little lingerie bag for keeping the fleece segregated while you wash, and TWELVE one-ounce samples of fleece to play with. I've talked about wanting to do this since I started knitting, nevermind spinning. There are so many breeds out there, I've always wondered what they each feel/smell/spin/knit like and now I'm going to know! Part one has the following breeds: Cormo, Texel, Polworth, Columbia, Rambouillet, Corriedale, Black Welsh Mountain, Cheviot, Shetland, Lincoln, Romney (my personal favorite sheep), and California Variegated Mutant (CVM). I like that the samples run the gamut from fine to coarse and include breeds that I've never heard of before like Texel, which weren't even bred for their fleece. I do realize that I have to go out now and get a set of hand carders which are dismayingly pricey ($50/pr and up), but I know it will be worth it to go from raw wool to finished yarn for each of these breeds. I'll be posting here as I run through them, so stay tuned! If you're interested in playing along, you can reach Linda on Ravelry as fleecestudy and order your very own Kit One for about $35 (postage costs vary). Linda has said that she will continue providing more breeds as long as interest keeps up.. which means she'll be selling me little packets of fleece for the next, oh, 40 years or so. ;-) Hooray!

I've designed.... a sock?!

Yes, my first foray into designing and it's a sock... you can stop laughing now. ;-)

I am no sock knitter, although I love sock yarn and handknit socks. It's just that, well, I get one finished and I'm so excited and proud and then... I realize I have to do it again. Exactly the same.

BORING!

So I don't usually knit socks. But I ran across Flippant by Sivia Harding while wandering aimlessly through the patterns on Ravelry and it's just the greatest idea ever. So I sat down with it and thought a bit. I knew I loved the idea, but the execution was not my thing. The pattern would bug the top of my foot and I'm pretty sure that a band protecting the bit between my toes was not going to be enough (hey, I'm a delicate flower, alright?). So I started from scratch and last night I ended up with this.




















I got the yarn (a partial skein of TOFUtsie) from Grumperina (thanks Kathy!), figured out my gauge and did a tubular cast on for 62 stitches, 1/2 " of 1x1 rib then switched to 2.5" of 3x1 rib. Put 17 stitches or so onto a holder to be worked later for the big toe cuff. Knit in pattern until you get to where you put the stitches on the holder. Using a provisional cast on, cast on 5 stitches, then carry on in pattern once around. Now's the part I need to write up better but, in essence, I built a ramp so that there would be more material on the side of the second toe without making the sock longer overall so it would cover up my little toe. To do this I knit in pattern to 6 stitches past my last cast on stitch, or to the third knit stitch after a purl. Wrap and turn. Knit back in pattern to approximately the same place on the other side of your cast on stitches. Wrap and turn. Go back to one stitch before your wrapped stitch. Wrap and turn. Do this back and forth, working one less stitch each time, until you have three wrapped stitches on each side (more if you want a higher "ramp"). Knit one row in pattern, picking up and knitting the wrapped stitches as you go (there's a better explanation of this in the Lizard Ridge pattern on Knitty). Switch to 1x1 rib for 2-3 rounds. Use the kitchener bind off.

Now for the toe cuff. Pick up your stitches off the holder. Carefully pull out the provisional crochet chain and put those live stitches on a needle. Knit one round in 3x1 rib pattern, picking up stitches as necessary to close the gap between the picked up stitches and the cast on ones, and to maintain the pattern. I was not fussy here when I knit it - it's a sock for heaven's sake, half of it will never be seen. ;-) Carry on until you have enough cuff - I did about 1/2". Switch to 1x1 rib for the same number of rows you used for the "ramp". Kitchener bind off.

Using the provisional cast on for those stitches between the toes means no seam to irritate, so I went with that. The tubular cast on and kitchener bind off are just the nicest looking finishing techniques I've seen, so I used those to make it prettier, but you certainly can use any cast on and bind off you prefer, so long as it's stretchy.

So there! A pattern from me to you! TAH-DA!!!

*insert applause here*



In other knitting I have made good progress on the front panel of The Mister's sweater. He's completely thrilled with the colors... which is a good thing since he picked the colorway out himself. What a guy! This is going to be the Entrelac Sweater (WS 105) from Sarah James. So far the only thing I've changed is to use the entrelac instructions from Alison LoCicero's Entrelac Scarf because they're easier to understand, I like the slipped stitch along the edges, and the 8 stitch square just looks better, imho.



















Blocked, this panel will be about 16" wide, which should be just fine. This sweater is knit so modularly that just about anything goes. You knit the front and back center panels of entrelac, join them at the shoulder, then pick up stitches all along the edge and just knit in seedstitch until it's wide enough to fit. Easy peasy! And the entrelac is so easy to pick up and put down, it's an ideal "in between" project, so I can keep on with this and maybe finally cast on for Edgar's jacket in time for fall...

... hey, hope spring eternal. Back off...

;-)

Brought to you by the letter S

Since I had the whole day Sunday to myself, and a crappy rainy thundery day at that, I decided to make the best of it and get a bunch of knitterly chores done.

• I Swatched for The Mister's Uber Cool Sweater in Jojoland Rhythm:

I'm getting gauge but I'm not thrilled with how it looks. So, since the sweater is built pretty modularly to begin with, I think I'll use the instructions for Allison LoCicero's Entrelac Scarf instead, then just wing it until I end up with something that's the right size and shape. See how cocky I've become since Spring Vines? ;-)

• I Swatched for my Katherine Hepburn Cardigan in Debbie Bliss Cathay (once in US 5 which wasn't even close, and now in US 4)

I think I'm happy with this, too. I thought my gauge was off but after washing in cold and *horrors!* drying in the dryer, I find I'm right on target! Huzzah! Im also in the process of ordering some fabulous lime green handmade glass buttons from Thistle Hill Glass. Her stuff is brilliant - check it out!

• And in between, there was Spinning.

I finally, FINALLY got the next to last bump of Apple Butter spun and plied. Side note: in an emergency, it is possible to McGyver a drive band out of leftover Linen Isle yarn and a cake of bees wax. Also side note: do not, DO NOT, under any circumstance, attempt to transfer your enormous spool of yarn from the wheel onto the swift while watching a movie. I didn't take any photos of the train wreck that ensued because it was just too traumatic, but the swift wasn't adjusted tightly enough, so over the course of the movie it slowly loosened and fell, and I ended up with an enormous pile of yarn barf that took me a good three hours and two knots in my perfect skein (grrrr) to sort out. Not pretty and very bad words were said.

In the end the yarn did come out terrific, but I was dismayed to find that the skein I just plied is quite a bit finer than the previous three skeins. Probably not a shock, since I am a new spinner, but it may throw off my plans for the yarn. I'll have to wash all four hanks and see what happens to them when they've dried. I do have one bump left of this roving as a backup if I need it, so no need to panic (yet). I can't tell you what my plans are, since the intended recipient reads my blog, but if you look at the yarn in my Ravelry stash, you'll see the pattern mentioned in the comments. I think she'll love it.

And because y'all asked for it, a photo of Spring Vines modeled by me. Forgive the conformational flaws - I'm 42 - cut the bitch some slack. ;-)




















That is one damn fine top. Yessir, one damn fine top.

Free at last, free at last!

It took me all day, but it's done. Not washed or blocked, due to incompatible weather, but it's seamed, neckline done, all ends woven in... I mean this puppy is DONE!
























Pattern: Spring Vines by DaoBot
Yarn: 5 skeins (710 yds) of Rowan Cashsoft Baby DK in "imp"
Needles: US5 and US3

If you've read my previous posts on this, or my notes on Ravelry, you'll know that this pattern was... challenging. It's in a pretty raw form, IMHO, but the design is just lovely.

• Where I deviated: I added a proper hem at the bottom and a kitchener bindoff for the neckline. The waist decreases were cut in half. I also had to sort of wing the whole neckline and raglan decreasing to maintain the pattern the way I wanted it and also to give me a little more... coverage..., but I think it came out well.

• What I learned: kitchener bindoff, hem (I'd done that on Rogue but got a chance to do it again here with more confidence), and that you can't always trust the pattern. :-(

I'm madly in love with this top. It's sexy and beautiful and very flattering. I adore it. And with this super soft yarn it is just incredible. I love the color, I love the fit, I love the cabling, I mean I just LOVE this little top!

I apologize for the less than perfect fit on My Girl, but she's a 1902 dress form, so she's completely the wrong shape and size for a modern female. But I love her and she looks smashing wearing my collection of Japanese kimonos so she'll just have to do until The Mister gets home and I can get a picture of it on the intended, properly shaped, wearer. ;-)

Now... what's next?