No New Knitting

No knitting progress today. Spent hours (literally? 6 1/2 hours) sorting through bins of leftover yarn. I now have two large bags of yarn ready to take to the thrift shop, and another large bag that went into the trash. I have a much clearer vision of what I have and what I can/want to do with it. I didn't get done with this task until almost 5:00, just in time to sit and finish a hilarious YA novel from school, Josh Berk's The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, recommended by 7th-grade student Hannah. It was a hoot! Now I'm starting The Doom Machine by Mark Teague. Yes, it's that time of year again, when I find myself reading nothing but YA novels. How else to recommend them to my middle school readers? It's a bit daunting to think of the 150+/- young adult books that arrived recently. They're ready to go, but don't I first need to read them? ALL OF THEM?  I need a clone. No, I need 10 clones, minimum, to keep up with all the reading.

I love my job.

New Stuff

Felted Flower Tea Cosy

Where does the time go? I think I need to follow the protocol to establish a habit - blog every day for 28 days. Um, maybe not.

Paradoxical Mitten #1

School began on August 30, and it's starting to feel as though we never left. I'm involved in contract negotiations, which means a number of late nights trying to hammer out an agreement that both parties will find acceptable.

Haven't spun any fiber since the summer. I have two pounds of undyed merino fiber, but I want to hold off until I've attended an all-day spinning workshop in October.

Felted Christmas Stocking with Needle-Felted Stars

Meanwhile, knitting continues apace. I've finished several things in the past week or so. The Riverton Fair is coming up (October 9) and I'll be exhibiting a variety of things. I don't care if I win ribbons - I just want to support the fair by exhibiting at least a few items every year.

Ribbed Raglan Pullover

"Strider" Cowl

Red Fox Socks

Face Cloth

3 out of 4 Christmas Stockings knit for the friend of a friend

"Faux is Fair" Socks

Handspun

The Best Yet

I plied the first skein skein of my merino/tussah silk yarn yesterday, and I am in love with it. This is a 3-ply, worsted weight yarn, soft and relaxed. And the colors! Silvery gray with hints of pale pink and green, with occasional bits of white and camel brown. The skein has 182 yards of loveliness. I'm in the middle of plying a second skein, and still have approximately 4 ounces left to spin. That's probably NOT best practice - plying before spinning all the fiber, but I simply couldn't wait.

Here's a closeup of the finished yarn:

And here's what the fiber looks like before spinning:

I purchased one pound of the fiber from Sheepshed Studio/Mountain View Farm at the New York Sheep & Wool Festival last October. The subtlety of the colors, their sheen, and the softness of the fiber drew me in, and that settled it. I was a bit worried that the silk would present a severe shedding problem, but it was not much of a issue at all.

Still using my trusty Louet S15, purchased way back in 1983 or so! It's a simple (some might say unsophisticated and limited) wheel, and sometimes I am tempted to abandon it for a better one. But what would/should that be? Kromski, Ashford, Schacht, Majacraft? What I really need to do is take some lessons, preferably with someone who can provide a number of different wheels to test drive. Perhaps Halcyon Yarn in Bath.

But I do love my plain old S15, which is no longer in production. I'll be lugging it up to Maine on Friday, along with a big basket of fiber!

Catching Up To Myself

I started an intricately cabled sweater in August of 2008. Yes, that's almost 2 years ago - thank you for  pointing that out. It was the second iteration - I gave the first one to my sister Debbie. "Cropped Denim Aran Pullover" by Susan Mills, it's a Classic Elite pattern, but for this version, I chose Rowan Denim, an indigo-dyed cotton. Not for the faint of heart, this sweater has three different cable panels on front and back, two of which have an 18-row repeat. The central panel has a 28-row repeat. Keeping track of rows? Priceless. Oh, and it helps to have MANY stitch markers to hand.

I began the sweater, confident that I would finish it quickly - I had, after all, already knitted one, and the second of anything always goes faster than the first. Somehow, however, I only finished about 1/3 of the back before putting it aside for something else. (Oh, bigamous me.) I had every good intention of getting back to it, but it went from project #2, to #3, to #14...,

Well, this summer I pulled it out from a basket that was buried under more recent projects. Its unfinished state had been pestering me, and I knew I could no longer ignore it. As I write, on Sunday, July 11, 2010, the sweater is nearer to completion than before, though it still has a long way to go before I can wear it. I've finished the back, and have cast on both sleeves, which are approximately 50% done.

These photos don't do the sweater justice - the back looks much too wide, but it's a drop shoulder style, so the width will be mitigated when I put the pieces together. The sleeves will also look ridiculously short before sewing.

Okay, that's enough of that. There's lots more catching up to myself that needs doing (socks, a fair isles swing coat I began in 2006, a twinset [not sure WHEN that was launched], a cotton cardigan [also 2006], another pair of socks, ANOTHER pair of socks), but tomorrow is another day.

And now for something completely different, a photo of the orchid given to me by Abe, in its second flowering of the year:

Oh, you should know that I don't spend ALL my time knitting (or spinning). I read, too! Just finished Laura Simonson's Major Pettigrew's Last Stand which was absolutely delightful. A sweet story, but not drivel - the book challenges racial stereotyping, protests greed and avarice, and renounces progress for progress' sake. And the setting? A small village in Southern England. Can't get much better than that! Now I'm reading Katherine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane. I think I'm about a year behind - apparently this was last summer's "cool read". Better late than never.

Golf Socks, Anyone?

Mice attacked Zig's golf club socks. I know, mice in MY HOUSE??? How dare they??? However, their incessant nibbling provided the perfect opportunity for some stash-busting. I went into the closet, pulled out some charcoal gray and cherry red alpaca (hmmm...reminds me of my high school....) and started knitting. Working from the old socks (what was left of them), I worked up my own pattern, with the "feet" being much smaller than the originals. Technically, these won't be complete until I finish the 3-stitch i-cord, but who cares? Zig doesn't leave for his golf/business trip until tomorrow. Plenty of time, right? Right?

Now that summer vacation is here (YAY!!!!!), I have even more time for spinning...witness the two (count 'em) TWO skeins of yarn pictured here. The pink/white/gray is "Istanbul Sunset" from - you guessed it - Spunky Eclectic.

The green/pink/purple is also from Spunky Eclectic, in the lovely colorway "Field of Screams". Love that name...Amy King, S. E.'s dyeing genius, explains that the colors reminded her of a field of Venus Fly Traps!

Next up in the spinning arena is a full pound of a GORGEOUS merino/tussah silk blend, purchased last October at Rhinebeck. Silvery gray, pale pink, chartreuse green. I'm already in love, and I haven't even met the yarn!

More Handspun

This is a closeup of a skein of Organic Merino I just finished plying...the fiber came from Spunky Eclectic in Lisbon, Maine. When I received the package, I wasn't too happy with the colorway - "Storms of Jupiter" - a mix of red, blue, brown, and white. Not my favorites, at all. But spinning it was a delight, and once I started plying it, I loved the subtlety of the colors. I think this is meant to be a scarf - just not sure what pattern it wants.

Here's the entire skein. So soft. 222 yards in all, sport weight.

Here's another Spunky Eclectic skein, SWBFL, in the colorway "Ooh-La-La Tropi-Cal". This fiber didn't please me either, but I like the finished product a little better. This is a 3-ply, worsted weight. I thought the barber-pole effect would diminish through a 3-ply, but that, obviously, is not the case.

Now I'm working on yet another Spunky Eclectic - wool top I received way back in October 2009. The colorway is "Ribbons" - yup, lots and lots of red, with some blue thrown in for variety. I don't like the color, but it's pleasant to spin.

By the way, Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there!

Where Did The Time Go?

Wow...almost four months have passed since my last post. Bad me. But it's not for lack of activity - rather, too MUCH activity. I've been knitting and spinning quite a lot, and then there's the job, the family, the house, travel....

Here's some 2-ply Polwarth I just finished spinning up. The fiber came from FatCatKnits . It was a joy to work with, and the colorway, "Lotus", delighted my eye. I managed to eke out 446 yards from 8 ounces.
The blue handspun seen to the right is a 2-ply from fiber purchased last October at the fabulous New York Sheep & Wool Festival in Rhinebeck. The booth was Carolina Homespun, and the fiber is from A Verb For Keeping Warm. I wish I'd had the foresight to purchase more - the 4 ounces yielded just 160 yards. This fiber is Blue Faced Leicester.


My first attempt at a 3-ply came out rather well, or at least I THINK it did, looking at it from my novice perspective. I have just 3 bobbins, so I filled all three and then wound off one of them into a center-pull ball. Yield was 610 yards of a DK/light worsted weight. I purchased the fiber last October from the Tintagel Farm booth at New York Sheep & Wool. I love the finished product, a 50/50 wool-mohair blend, in the "Tide Pool" colorway.

As for knitting, socks have been the focus, with the occasional bolero and tank thrown in to alleviate boredom. Not that socks ever bore me! I've been trying some toe-up patterns from the Rockin' Sock Club at Blue Moon Fiber Arts, as well as some stellar Janel Laidman treasures, inspired by epic fantasy, legend, and folklore.
To the left, Tristan and Isolde by Janel Laidman. To the right, a not-very-good photo of Laidman's Secret Garden socks, the March 2010 Rockin' Sock Club shipment. The close-up does a better job at doing justice to the colors - pinks, greens, and soft blue.




More socks! Yes, I know they are my addiction. This is a photo of Nancy Bush's Canada sock. I've been wanting to knit these for YEARS...finally got to it this May. Well, that's it for now - thought I had photos of my Lothlorien socks, but they're on another computer. Next time! And the next time will be sooner than this was, for sure!