It's pretty!

My mother has noticed a) the amount of spinning I have undertaken lately and b) the amount of fiber that has been arriving at the house... She asked me "Do you have a purpose for all this stuff?" and I told her "It's pretty!"

She asked "But what are you going to do with it?" and I said "It's pretty!"

She gave up asking.

Don't you thin it's pretty? It so is. And I actually planned ahead while spinning it! Split it into 3 equal-ish sized chunks, 3-plied the final product. Very exciting, very pretty, and it's probably the most consistent product I've made myself. So yes, it's pretty. Pretty awesome, that is! It's Rue, on merino 64, from Storied Yarns.

In complete contrast, I also dredged up an art batt that I purchased (also from Storied Yarns) last fall. I think it was fall, anyway. Probably. I get confused.
Peter, Peter Pumpkin Eater, on a variety of fibers. Only 2.8 ounces, so in less than an hour, I had some singles, and then I let it rest for a few hours (I know, you're supposed to wait overnight... whatever. I'm impatient), and voila!

Pretty! If not terribly practical. I'm not sure what it's gonna be, other than decoration, like the other art yarn I spun. Whatever, sometimes you just need to not care about drafting or even-ness, or... well, anything. It's nice to just let it all go.





And for my final stunt, the first test skein for Mariah's chuppah. The yarn arrived in the mail yesterday (2 skeins of different yarn, so she can decide what she wants), and I cast them on, and now I'm out of the first skein.

I'm going to throw that bad boy on a life line and block it, just to see what it looks like all stretched out, and whether the color ends up being any different, and then I'm gonna drape it over something chuppah-like, so I can figure out if it grows, and then I can help Mariah decide which one of these yarns to use. Tomorrow, perhaps I can finish the other one?

We shall see.

The stash is getting out of control

I have to confess to a fiber-buying binge recently... I don't know what happened, but last weekend I fell hard off the fiber diet wagon. It started at the store where Caitlin works. They had this brightly colored bump of BFL from Mountain Colors. And they were having spin-in that night... and I'd magically brought my spinning wheel without being asked. Man. It was just serendipitous all the way. So I bought it, finished the alpaca that I'd been fighting with, and started spinning the new bump of fiber, even though I had brought a different braid with me, just in case. Anyway, I finished that bump this week.

Pretty, right? It's gorgeous, and it's BFL, which I adore, and I'm trying really hard to think of something luscious to knit with this. Something that will really show off the colors. Otherwise, it might have to be some kind of yarn art for a while. The colorway is called Springtime, which I think is pretty perfect, since the weather is acting pretty spring-like lately...

Then, Caitlin and I spent Saturday on a button hunt. I required buttons for the February Lady sweater that I intended (and did!) finish last weekend. Well, we ended up going to the Fancy Tiger, in Denver, which has a great selection of fibers. I may have fallen down in there, and accidentally purchased 2 braids of fiber from them.

As I mentioned, the alpaca fiber is done. It was a labor of love. You know how much I love alpaca. It's one of my favorite fibers, and it feels so pretty, and this bump of fiber had been taunting me from the top of my yarn bureau (yes, I have a yarn bureau, you don't?) since November, when I lost the battle to not purchase it in the face of a massive sale.





Alas, I fear that I'm not quite ready for non-sheep fibers. I just haven't had enough practice. By the end of the bump, I think I was doing pretty well, but starting out was painful. Anyway, the finished yarn is luscious and wonderful, but I'm not ready to get back on the alpaca for a while. (See what I did there? Like getting back on a horse, but with a fiber animal. Hahaha, I'm hilarious, I know. You don't have to tell me.) I'm thinking of turning the alpaca handspun into a cowl or hat or something that I wear next to my skin, it's so soft and pretty. I love that it's kind of an oatmeal color, and looks a little rough. We'll see what it wants to be next winter. I can't knit alpaca in the summer.

Finally, this week I found myself tempted by several braids of fiber by various online sellers. I bought a braid of merino/silk from a destash on Ravelry, and some merino/bamboo from Etsy... well, it just got me in the mood to make an effort to restrain the spinning stash. So I've made a new resolution: when at home, I'm going to spin spin spin spin spin. I finished the sweater, and haven't really got any knitting that I want/need to do until the test yarn for Mariah's chuppah (did I tell you that I'm knitting a chuppah for a Jewish wedding next summer?) comes in. Since I'm feeling uninspired on the knitting front, I shall apply my efforts to spinning. Already I've made a pretty good start, I finished the Mountain colors bump, and have started a new braid of merino.

It's very pretty, very easy to spin, and I'm enjoying it. The colorway is Rue (from the Hunger Games), and it's from Storied Yarns. Pretty awesome.

Wish me luck in keeping the new resolution. I'm really hoping I can make a dent in the stash before I run out of oomph. We'll see. Next time I'll post a picture of the new sweater, and hopefully something newly spun.

Sleeves are the devil

I hate sleeves. They're worse than second sock syndrome, for me. A sock is a finite object, and kinda small, and there's not usually very many pattern repeats needed to make the socks match in size. Sleeves, on the other hand, are pretty much infinite. They feel like they go on forever, anyway. Especially since I have excessively long arms. 

That's the amount of sleeve I've gotten done in the last 3 days. Admittedly, I haven't really made that much of an effort. But you'd think it would be going faster. Especially since I'm doing them one at a time. 

Originally, I had planned to do them two at a time, so that they would definitely be the same length, and I wouldn't have to power through the second one. Unfortunately, it turns out that it's much harder to make sleeves two at a time when they are attached to the sweater, not waiting to be seamed. 

On the bright side, it allows me to use the fancy square double points that I got for the colorwork sweater again. I really dig these needles. They're really pretty, and they're wood, so my stitches don't slide off so easily (let's not talk about how often I try to extricate the fifth needle from the rest of the knitting and it turns out I've pulled out the wrong needle.), and I find the shape just fascinating. It's great. You should try them, they're from Knitter's Pride, so they're not terribly expensive. Definitely super bueno.

Also super bueno: finishing the body of the sweater while getting a pedicure! The guy who was doing the pedicure kept staring at me. He was real cute about it. He and one of the nail ladies were very impressed with how quickly I was knitting, and by the seeming complexity and size of the project.

He also did a very nice job on my toes. I always like to have nice looking toes when it's sandal weather. I can't keep a manicure looking nice, but my toes don't get a whole lot of action, so I like to have those done. Plus, who doesn't love a free leg massage?

In addition to the lovely sweater, and the equally lovely toes, I have some lovely spinning to share with you. It's the alpaca that I started last week. The spinning is still not as simple as I might like it to be, but it's going better. I hope it looks nice when it's plied. We shall see.

Spring Break

Hey Y'all! I hope everyone has been enjoying the warming weather, and maybe some time off? I did. Well, not the warming weather bit, until the end of last week. But I had quite a bit of time off. I went to see Shelby! It was lovely to see her and where she lives. We did some fun stuff, and I had a LOT of knitting time.

I started a February Lady sweater in Berroco Weekend, which I picked up at Jimmy Beans Wool! Yes, that Jimmy Beans. I flew in to Reno, so Shelby and I made Chase take us to the yarn store. He was unamused. And kind of judgy about the fact that I bought an entire sweater's worth of yarn. But he's a boy and doesn't really get it. Anyway, I got a fair amount of sweater done. Which is impressive, considering the lackluster amount I've finished since I returned home.

I can't help it, I've been busy. I helped my mom paint the trim in the living room (turns out the fireplace has been the wrong color for 17 years, who knew?), and then we did yard work, and then I came down with a monster cold and I had to go back to work. Buncha crap. And this cold is kicking my butt.

Since I returned, I have managed to finish a blanket.

 I did most of the work while my parents were out of town 2 weeks ago, but I didn't quite manage to finish before I left for Winnemucca. So I finished on Saturday, after doing yard work. Whew! Just in time for a cold snap, surprisingly.

I also tried spinning a little bit of alpaca roving the other night, but it didn't go well, so I'm not gonna dwell on that. I am, however, going to take some Nyquil and go to bed. In the hopes that tomorrow I will have kicked this cold to the curb. Good night!

Confessions

I may not have mentioned before that there are some knitting projects of which my mother disapproves. She is frankly worried about my obsession with fingerless gloves, she wants to know why I have so many hats, and she has forbidden me to knit anymore blankets until I get my own place, at which time it is no longer her concern where I stash the profusion of blankets that I am driven, as a knitter, to create. 

Oooops.

See? Doesn't that look like an accident? It totally was. I blame Caitlin's plethora of Lacy Chunky Throws that she has churned out for various family members. They made me lust after blankets again (even if they are strictly prohibited). This time, I'm just making the suggested size. No more of the monstrous blanket indiscretions. I swear. 

Incidentally, I hate the needles I bought for this throw. I didn't have any size 19s, and you can't get them at the regular craft store. I was scouring the local yarn shops for size 19s with a cable long enough for a blanket (one owner suggested that I should try straights. I tried not to laugh at her), but apparently they like to make fixed circs in size 19. 

Or maybe yarn shops just don't like to stock them. 

Either way, I wasn't having any luck. I was talking to the lady who thought I should try straights, and her friend asked me if I had tried a particular brand of interchangeables. I hadn't, because I'm pretty happy with my KnitPicks ones, but apparently they stocked this other brand in the shop, and they had 19s in them, and a long enough cable. I promptly purchased them, because I just couldn't bear having to wait to cast on this blanket. I don't really like acrylic needles in general, and I especially dislike these since the yarn is Bernat Roving and it's snagging on the slightly rough surface of the needles. And the needles are too short for my taste, which might just be a failing of all circs of larger than average girth. (I can tell you that certain people who read this blog are giggling right now). 

Anyway, I'm annoyed with these circs, and the blanket isn't going as quickly as it might, probably because I'm annoyed with the needles. But the blanket will be just lovely, even if I kind of have to work on it when my mother isn't around. 

Oooops.

And now we return to our regularly scheduled program

It's official. I'm done with the long paper for my European seminar. Thank goodness, it was really starting to get on my nerves. Long, boring, difficult to format because I added pictures to make it look longer. I'm sneaky that way. Whatever. It's done, and now I can go back to what I like doing.

Tres fortunate that Caitlin imparted her newly gleaned spinning knowledge to me, non? I've been making great use of it. Well, using it, anyway.

This is some mystery carded fiber that Caitlin had me bring to practice on. It's kind of a pale green. But not mint green. Just... subdued. I bought it a long time ago, and I'm not sure that I ever knew exactly what it was. All I know is that there was a great deal of it. I thought I'd never be finished spinning it. Not unlike my paper. But voila! It is done. Again, not unlike my paper.

I'm a little elated, can you tell?









This was some "sliver" that I purchased at last year's Wool Market. I don't know what was wrong with the camera when I took this picture, but the flash wouldn't go on. The colors are much brighter in person. I'm not wild about the finished product, but it was really fun, and super quick, to spin.





I would show you what I'm currently spinning, but I'm too lazy to go move things around so I can take an appropriate picture. It's some kind of merino roving, I'm pretty sure. I'm spinning it "from the fold," which is an exciting new technique for me, and is making quite a lovely single. I've got quite a bit of the fiber (apparently I have a hard time purchasing just a little bit of fiber), and the color is nice, so hopefully I'll think of something lovely to make with it. We shall see.

In terms of my knitting, not much has been going on. I've been so enthused by the new spinning techniques, or so absorbed in my paper that I haven't made much progress at all. I did, however, manage to finish a thrummed hat. Just in time for the warm weather!

In case you are curious about why I didn't model the hat for this picture, I will just say that the hat is ludicrously puffy, due to my misapprehension about thrums when I started the hat. The top has significantly less volume than the bottom. I'm hoping that it will deflate a bit over time. Next winter, since it's certainly too toasty to wear with the weather starting to turn warmer. Until then, it can reside with the pile of knitted items that are starting to be too warm to wear.

Greetings

It's been a while since I last wrote, I know. I haven't been getting much done. I've been trying to correct my inability to get my homework done before the last minute. Which hasn't left much time for crafting, since I have a fairly long paper due this month, and it's not done... yeah, working on that.

Anyway, this last weekend I had some fun. I went to Golden to see Caitlin, who has been taking a technical spinning class. I brought my fancy wheel (Caitlin says we're supposed to name our wheels, so I'm calling her Tanya), and Caitlin gave me some samples of stuff that she had tried, and showed me the different techniques she had learned. I'm glad she took the class, I'd wanted to learn more about wheel spinning for a while now. It's pretty cool.

I also finished a pair of mitts. They're pretty wonderful, and I needed another set of dark, semi-plain mitts. Let's go with that as an excuse. 

I don't wanna hear it, Caitlin.