The challenge, part 2

Remember this from yesterday?


I started spinning it up yesterday during lunch. It went really well and I kept doing it this morning. Separating the cap was more sticky/difficult than I thought it would be. I originally thought you had to be careful with the silk but you really didn't. Then you pull open a hole in the center and stretch it out into roving. Look at the roving hanging in the air! It is just like a wisp.




I'm really happy with the challenge day. The only problem is that I'm developing a blister on my index finger from pulling the silk into roving!

Now and then

The Tour de Fleece rolls on! First, I started with these . . .

4.2 ounces of merino/alpaca blend

4 oz merino

. . . and then there were these.



I really like the alpaca/merino blend but not so enamored of the Broken Hearts (the pink merino). I 2 plied the alpaca/merino but navajo plied the Broken Hearts. That was probably a mistake because it muddied the colors. I'll probably end up using it for a Christmas gift. A one-row scarf possibly?

Challenge Day

Today, July 23rd is the challenge day for the Tour de Fleece. In the Tour de France, they are climbing 4 different mountains today so the spinners are also challenging themselves. My challenge today is going to be spinning silk from this silk cap I bought in Maryland.

It should definitely be interesting. I'm going to start today during lunch. Wish me luck!

Slacker that I am

I've had this post saved the last couple of days but just haven't worked on it. With the Tour de Fleece, I'm not even spending any time on the computer at home and I don't like posting while at work even on my break.

Anyway, I've also been knitting in the midst of all of the spinning. This is the pair of socks of which I spoke last post. I really like the way my color matching worked out. Call me crazy but I'm not a fan of fraternal socks (aka non matching socks). The recipient absolutely loved them (I just hope the legs fit!). She told her daughter on the way to the airport that maybe she should put the socks in her carry-on. Her daughter asked why and the reply was that someone might break into her bag to steal the socks!


In Tour de Fleece news, I've definitely been meeting my goal of spinning 10 minutes or more. The average seems to be 30 minutes to an hour. On Sunday morning, I sat down to spin up some of the alpaca Mom gave to me at Christmas. Four hours later, I had spun this.


It is the most consistent and thinnest yarn that I have ever done. It was also spun up REALLY quickly. I'm definitely glad that I started learning how to spin using wool.

Next up is some of the Finn roving I bought at Knitter's Connection in June. This was my first lace and I'm really happy with it.

I didn't have much yardage on it because I was learning how to use the lace bobbin and kept tearing off the bad sections. Still, it is 314 yards and I'm happy with it. The niddy noddy it is on is cedar and smells wonderful. Every time I open my spinning bag the smell of cedar hits me.

I finished spinning this skein up before the Tour de Fleece started. I wanted to clear off the bobbins before the big spinning event. It is a merino/tencel blend and has a wonderful shine to it. The color is definitely in my favorite spectrum :)


It is sad that I can't remember when I spun this up. It is white llama a friend gave me when I first started spinning. I think I finished it mid June. Possibly. Maybe. Must take better notes.


I do have more current pictures which I will load and talk about soon!

Itchy with a side of scratched

The wild black raspberries are in full swing and even a little past their peak. This year, our crop has been very nice. So far I've mashed up 6-7 cups of the berries and have more berries waiting to be smooshed and frozen. Mom has made a large and small black raspberry pie (which was wonderful!) and there is still tons left over for jam. Though Mom wants to have jelly so I'm going to have to gather much more in order to have enough. The problems with picking berries are that you get completely scratched up and the mosquitoes love to nibble on me while I am picking. My arms and legs look like I've been climbing through razor wire and that I'm covered in hives. It makes me wonder sometimes if the jam/jelly is really worth it.

Last night, I took benadryl to make the itching stop. Apparently, that drug and I really don't mix. I slept extremely badly and woke up at 3:30 this morning for good. This is going to be a long day, isn't it? Why am I so lucky as to experience non-drowsy side effects when everyone else gets put into a coma by this drug?!

Anyway, in Tour de Fleece news, I've been making my goal of spinning at least 10 minutes per day. Sometimes I've been doing much more than 10 minutes. My lace is getting slightly more consistent though it is still really overspun. I'm going to have to tweak things in order to stop that. There is almost 1/32 oz of Finn fiber left so I should be able to ply the lace up really soon. It will kind of be nice to go onto another project. The Finn fiber is white so there isn't even color changes to keep my interest. I keep day dreaming about which fiber to use next. Maybe I will spin up some of the 100% merino that was one of my first purchases.

I have also been knitting whenever I am not spinning. I've picked up a pair of socks that have been languishing since last October (which is when I started spinning. Coincidence?). They are a pair of gift socks so I really needed to get the recipient to try them on before I did much more. I'm glad that I waited because, when she tried them on, the ankles were a little too tight. I ripped back to the heel turn, added 4 additional stitches and started the leg of the sock in a ribbed pattern. The first 2 inches of the leg were knit on 2.5 mm needles (US 1.5s), the plan is to knit the next 2 inches on 2.25 mm (US 1s), and the rest of the leg on 2.0 mm (US 0s). I didn't want the leg of the sock to slouch so decreasing needle sizes should help. These socks need to be finished by the 12th because the recipient is going out of town (on a Scandinavian cruise) on the 13th. I think that she will need warm wool socks, don't you?

Tour de Fleece time!

The Tour de Fleece starts today and, oh yeah, some bike thing does, too. The whole concept of the Tour de Fleece is to set goals for yourself and work to achieve them. If possible, participants try to spin everyday, July 5th - 27th, which is the length of the Tour de France. On the 23rd, the last hard climb of the bike race, the spinning participants are supposed to challenge themselves by doing something difficult. The last day people are supposed to wear yellow, the color of the winning jersey.

I have a few different goals for the Tour. My first goal is to spin at least once a day for 10 minutes or more each day while the Tour lasts. I have plenty of fiber in the stash and am really looking forward to using some of it. Looking through my flickr pictures, I realized that I have about a quarter of the fiber stash not actually recorded in the blog/flickr/ravelry notebook. Ooops.

Another goal for the Tour is to break out my new lace flyer and bobbins. Can I even tell you how excited I am to spin lace? Spinning lace has been a goal since before actually learning how to spin. It happily coincides with my recent lace knitting binge. (I don't think that it is a bad thing that I have a different shawl for every day of the week.) In order to swap bobbins and flyers, I had to finish spinning up the tencel/merino roving I had gotten in Maryland. Yesterday afternoon, I finished plying it and washed it. The weather has been so wet recently that it wasn't dry yet this morning.

Yesterday afternoon, I prepped the Finn roving and started playing around with the lace bobbin. It definitely took me a lot longer to get comfortable with my tension and drafting for lace. I'm still overspinning but hopefully that will even out. This morning, I serious attacked the project and am moderately happy with the first results. It reminds me a lot of my first yarn, very thick and thin (well, as thick as lace gets), but I'm happy with learning a new goal.

The Tour has definitely inspired me to pull out languishing projects and start using up roving. I finished spinning up some merino I got from CJ Copeck a while back in the Cowgirl Chic colorway. I started it on the drop spindle while at the Equine Affair back in April. Now I just need to pull it off the spindle and ply it up.

I also pulled out the other drop spindle I bought while in Maryland and started spinning up the sparkly silver roving I got the same weekend. Let me tell you, this drop spindle is soooo nice. I've decided that I really love working with it. Tuesday, I started spinning the sparkly roving while walking around the July 4th fair seeing what there was to see. (The new low of fair food is fried coke. What will they think of next?!) Yesterday, I was spinning during the entire July 4th parade. It seems to be much easier for me to drop spindle while out and about. At home, I just use the wheel instead.

All of this spinning makes it sound like I haven't been doing any knitting. Well, I've been doing a tiny bit. Mainly while at the bar with high school friends in town for the weekend. That definitely requires simple knitting so I've been working on baby bibs and dishcloths. So far I've done 4 of the Mason-Dixon washcloths and 1 baby bib. I also need to work on a pair of socks which have been languishing since October. The recipient is going on a Scandinavian cruise and I feel like she will need wool socks. So that means finishing them before the 13th. Hmmm, 7 days, I think I can do that.

Display pictures

I'm gearing up my library for our Book Buffet program on July 19th. It seemed like it was so far away but now it is July somehow. Anyway, this is the display case I set up to show people what edible books actually are (or rather, some examples of what an edible book could be). It is a pretty abstract concept for most people to get. Click on the picture for the title of each "book."

In order to be able to display these "books" for two weeks in the display cakes, I tried to make everything in there non-edible. The "cakes" are actually styrofoam covered in spackle. The "tea" in the cups in the upper right hand corner is actually brown food coloring and water. I'm especially proud of that one.

I did cave and the gummi worms are actual food but I figure that there are so many preservatives in them that it will probably be fine. I think the dog bones will be fine, too. The candy bars are wrapped but I think they should probably be thrown away after 2 weeks in a closed container and lots of spackle.

The display had already encouraged sign-ups. I put it in yesterday and, that night, three people signed up to participate in the program! Yay!

Yes, I'm still here

I've been AWOL for a while with no good reason. Well, I guess my reason is that I am lazy and get distracted easily. So here we go with a little update.

Last weekend, I flew to Maryland and met up with friends in St. Michaels, Maryland.

I can definitely understand why it is a tourist town. It was so beautiful and we had great weather. A highly enjoyable time and it was great to catch up in person with everyone. **ETA: Oh, yeah, I found a yarn shop on the main drag of town. Of course, some yarn came home with me. I'll take a picture of it soon. It's hand-dyed by a woman in town and is a pretty purple with metallic. What is with me and the sparkly stuff?

The only problem with the weekend was that my flight home was delayed so I spent more time than expected waiting in the airport. Luckily, I had my knitting (ha!) and was able to finish a project. This is the Queen Anne's Lace Shawl (rav link). I finished it while waiting in the airport and finally blocked it on Friday. I'm actually wearing it today at work and it has been really well received.


Having finished with it in the airport with 2 more hours of waiting and 1 1/2 hour flight to go, I had to create another knitting project for myself. I had a drop spindle and fiber left but I really wanted to knit. Luckily, I had all of the parts of the QAL pattern, my needles and enough leftover yarn from the first shawl. Of course, that meant I was starting the shawl (with a cast on of 8 stitches) with a 60 inch circular needle. Magic loop anyone? I got pretty far with it and, once I got home, I spliced on another ball of yarn and kept going.


On this second shawl, I did a couple of things differently. The cast on and first 30 rows or so were on US 4s. Then I changed to US 6s. The plan is to then change to US 8s for the last chart or two in order to have a really lacy outer ring. It should be interesting to see the differences in size from one shawl to the other.

In other FO news, I finished a burp bib from Mason-Dixon Knitting. I really liked this pattern. It was so simple to memorize and you could knit it without thinking. It also looks really pretty. I don't know what was going on with this picture but it actually is a rectangle with completely straight sides and top and bottom. Who knows what happened. Crazy camera and grass.



Next up, fiber! (Like I don't have enough!) I saw a note on Yarnzombie's blog about her opening an etsy shop. Well, you can't let something like that pass you by. You have to click "Add to Cart" as soon as possible. Then you get something wonderful like this in the mail the next day.


Ah, WISP, I love you. I thought I liked you in the picture but that was just a lie. In person, you are better. Much better. Your different metallic colors and soft yellow roving are beyond words. I've found another batch of roving which is almost too pretty to use.

I think I am going through a shiny metallic period. Four purchases within the last 2 months have shiny bits. Hmmm. And look what Jacki threw in the package! Cute! I think I love the bronze.

And here are some more pictures of pretty roving.


While I was taking pictures outside, Lily just sat on the brick walkway thinking that I was a foolish, foolish human. Doesn't her expression say just that?

Her left eye looks really strange in this picture. I think my camera was having a very off day.

Knitter's Connection

I was debating with myself about going to the Knitter's Connection market this year. Recently I've been trying to buy less and use my stash more. So going to a market wouldn't really be helpful in this. Today was my day off and, this morning, I made a last minute decision to go.

I checked the website before going and did a little bit of research about some of the merchants there. One of them, Misty Mountain Farms, is a Majacraft dealer. I decided to stop by their booth to see what they had. I've been wanting to order a lace kit which includes 2 bobbins and a special flyer for lace but hadn't done it yet. When I stopped by the booth, I didn't see any Majacraft items (though they did have roving) and kind of lost hope, not that I really expected them to have anything. When I asked if they had a lace kit, the lady running the booth thought about it for a second and rummaged in a basket full of various spinning items. And what should she pull out?

A lace kit! Talk about a huge coincidence! I can't believe they a) had one b) had it with them and c) that I didn't have to order it from them and wait weeks to get it. At the same time, I bought 4 ounces of roving from a Finn sheep with which to practice my lace spinning.


It is a very nice white roving that should spin up very well. Now the next step is to finish spinning up the llama roving Martha gave me and to ply up the tencel blend from Maryland.

I stopped by the Waters Edge Jewelry booth and bought some stitch markers for Mom. She also had some horse charms so I bought 2 for myself. Mom has been getting back into knitting slowly. I sent her off on vacation with some cotton yarn, a circular needle and a pattern for a simple baby bib. Hopefully she will enjoy these stitch markers.


Then I had a slight falling down. By slight, I mean approximately 850 yards of fingering weight yarn.

Do you see that silver sparkle in it? Well, it actually is a strand of sterling silver. It is going to be a shawl instead of a couple of pairs of socks. I can't wait! See, this is why you don't go to markets when you are trying not to buy yarn. Must. Knit. Faster.

Then, I ran over to the North Market (no, I'm not obsessed. I can stop any time) and bought a pint of Jeni's Cherry Lambert sorbet. I had gotten a cone of it last Thursday when I was at TNNA but bought a pint of Pear Riesling instead. Today, I wasn't going to miss out on a pint of this sorbet. It tastes exactly like the Cherry Belgium beer. Yummmmm.

I got home around 4 pm and what should be waiting there to greet me?



This is the best day off ever.

Random Wednesday

What do I spy lurking above me?


Ferocious hunter kitty!

(I know, pretty weak blog post today but you'll get some knitting talk later.)

Birthday, FOs, and TNNA. Oh, my!

My work is nice because it gives you your birthday off. So Wednesday I basically did nothing except knit and spin. I'm not big on birthday celebrations but I think Mom felt guilty because she didn't have anything planned. So she threw together a small thing after riding last night.

We had been having heavy, heavy rain all morning but, miraculously, it cleared up in the afternoon and I was able to go riding. The horse was so thrilled about that :) Because the arena didn't have much time to drain, there were huge puddles that I made him go through. It was a little too hot for the full Grand Prix-style trot (knees up to his chin and very collected) but Java did a huge extended canter through the puddles. I love making him work through puddles even though he really hates it. But he loves going through the "pond" (oversized puddle) in the back and loves going through creeks. Go figure.

I finished spinning up a tencel blend that I got at Maryland Sheep and Wool and started up on some llama a friend gave me. It is really interesting to spin llama. I think I might make a hat from it.

I was also knitting up some more baby bibs. My reserves of baby gifts were getting a little low and I wanted to get rid of some more yarn from the stash.
I've now finished up 2 bibs and am on the strap section of another one right now. I still have enough yarn to make up another bib so I might do that in the next couple of days. They only take about 2 hours (at most) to make so it is a really simple and fast knit.

In other FO news, I made some more cat toys but these ones weren't knit. Instead they were needle felted balls with blended roving. The right one I blended some darker wool with lighter to get nice dark brown streaks. The left one I blended some dyed roving with the light colored wool. These are going to be gifts along with 5 catnip mousies in exchange for a couple of raw Jacob sheep fleeces (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!).

Did you see the Little Acorn Project Bag pattern? It is a crochet pattern. I saw it the other day and pulled some yarn out of my stash to get a start on it. This acorn bottom doesn't look like much until it is paired with the top and then it looks much more like an acorn. I need to tweak the top because my crocheting abilities kind of make it look rippled and I want to make it look more acorn-y.

Today (Thursday), I was able to go to a sock class taught by Cat Bordhi (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) at TNNA. Kim wasn't able to use her ticket so she generously gave it to me. The class was soooo interesting. You can definitely tell that Cat is thinking all of the time and her brain is definitely working differently than everyone else's. It was fascinating to hear her explaining how to design your own socks. She was really funny, very helpful and a really good teacher.
Here are the baby socks that I made yesterday during class. They are made from a Panda Silk something or other, doubled because even though it says it is DK weight, it is really fingering. The class was 6 hours long but it felt like it just flew right by. Such a fun late birthday gift!

Look! Look! Look!

Pretty.

Soysilk roving in the Rainbow Fleece by Earthly Hues.

It seriously is all of the colors of the rainbow from purple to pink. Tricia still has some merino in Rainbow Fleece if you hurry. . . .

Cute!

My friend was married last weekend and luckily it was the perfect weather for an outdoor wedding. We've been having unusually cold temperatures but on Saturday it was nice and warm with the sun shining. Isn't her wedding cake adorable?!



They got married on a farm (complete with a tractor ride down to the reception!) so all of the cookies surrounding the cake are farm animals and tractors. Adorable!

In knitting news, I've still been working on the Stash and Burn challenge of reducing my stash. Currently, I've been working on the Queen Anne's Lace shawl though I put it aside temporarily for another project. And that project is the Hemlock Ring Blanket by brooklyntweed. I had some 2400 yards of thick and thin Cherry Tree Hill in the color, Green Mountain Madness in the stash from a yard sale last year.

It has quickly knit up to this blob.


If you want a fast blanket pattern, I highly recommend this one. I started it on May 25th and am already close to being finished. I think though, I am going to add a number of plain knit rows to the bottom just to use up some more yarn. So far I've probably used 600 yards so I am definitely not going to run out anytime soon. It is a perfect mindless project but with a little bit of lace to keep it interesting. I'm expecting to be able to finish it in the next day or two.

Where does time go?

I can't believe it was the 12th when I last posted. Between then and now, I've a) cast on for a new pair of socks, b) put the socks aside because I fell in love with another lace shawl, c) blocked a different shawl which I haven't posted about here because it is a surprise, d) had tons of people stay in the house over the weekend, e) cast on for that new shawl, and f) rode the horse a bunch (he's thrilled about that one). Here is some pictures of the new shawl.


The pattern is called Queen Anne's Lace (ravelry link) and is by MMario. Now, I absolutely love the flower, Queen Anne's Lace (my horse loves it too but I think that is because the plant is a cousin of the wild carrot). The delicateness of the flower is so pretty and I like the legend of it. There is a red flower in the center of all of the white flowers and, supposedly, that red flower is a droplet of blood from when Queen Anne pricked her finger while making the lace.

This is the first circular shawl that I have made. Other than the fiddly-ness of the center and making sure that I didn't twist those stitches, I'm enjoying it. This pattern sometimes has things happening on both even and odd rows. Because it is in the round, you don't have to purl at all. It's definitely a different type of shawl for me and I'm definitely going to have to do more of this designer's patterns. Someday I'll get back to those socks. . . .

When I was taking pictures outside, Lily tried "helping" again. There is something about knitting that she really loves and, of course, she loves being in the way. She prefers any blankets made out of yarn (though polar fleece does have a strong appeal for her) to those made out of cloth. The little cat will also spend hours curled up on a shawl or, while I was organizing my stash, on top of skeins of yarn. She found that she REALLY liked alpaca yarn. I would come into the room and find her with each paw on a separate ball of alpaca, kneading it and looking very zoned out.


In closing, the Dame's Rocket are coming out! I love this time of year because the hedgerow and the woods behind the house are filled with it.

I had no idea

So this weekend was spent cleaning desperately. Recently, my room has just been a depository for stuff and sleeping. That is it. Clean clothes were everywhere. The fiber/yarn corner kind of took over the room. The desk was completely covered with papers which were stacked precariously. The chairs were covered in laundry and general stuff. Basically it looked like someone set off a bomb of yarn and clothes in the middle of the room. It is still in the disaster stage of cleaning but it is a better disaster than it was before. The next major project is to switch out the winter and the summer clothes. This requires lifting the mattresses off my bed because there is storage under it. That, of course, couldn't be done before because there was no room for the mattress to be put anywhere.

One huge advantage of this cleaning is that I've now taken pictures of my yarn and fiber stash and added most of it to Ravelry. I've also finally taken out that crap yarn that you buy when you are a beginner and don't know any better. (Red Heart?! What was I thinking?) The plan is to donate 3 grocery bags stuffed full to the local thrift shop or Goodwill. It's freed up a little more space so that is definitely a good thing.

I didn't think I had that much yarn until I started taking pictures of it. Now I realized that was just denial. So far, with all but 6 skeins of yarn (2 50g balls of sock yarn and 4 small skeins of dishcloth cotton so it really isn't that much) entered into Ravelry, I've found out that I have 24,345.5 yards (approximately) of yarn. A few of those yards are being used in a project right now so the figure isn't entirely accurate but then again, I don't quite have everything entered. I guess it balances out. Before this massive cleaning and picture taking, I only had 15,000 yards worth entered. A 9,000 yard increase is slightly astounding. Then this morning I found another skein of sock yarn when I was putting something away in the closet. What they say is true, the stash breeds and produces little skeins!

This stash counting has definitely made me want to knit it down a little (read: a LOT). On the Stash 'n Burn Ravelry group, there is contest with the goal of knitting up (or getting rid of) at least 1,000 yards in the month of May. I haven't really signed up yet but I think it is a good personal goal for me. There are some really great yarns in the stash (I wouldn't have bought them if they weren't (don't judge me by the Red Heart)) and now I want to use them again. It's fun to dream up the projects you could make. I'm thinking some shawls/stoles with some of the sock yarn. I have one skein of Cidermoon that I LOVE and am not willing to make it into socks that no one else will see. I also am thinking of knitting up the DK yarn I bought in England last July for Basic Black.

Another advantage of all the cleaning is getting my knitting and spinning books all in one place. Within the last couple of months, I suddenly have a ton more of both of these types of books. Strange how that happens. I wonder if they are breeding too. . . .

Some more spinning and lace

First off, awwwwwwww, isn't she cute?


Yesterday, I washed and set all of these skeins of yarn that I spun up. The brown yarn is from a gift of roving I received in November (or was it October?). It was a trash bag full of roving and I made approximately 858 yards of worsted weight yarn from it.


I'm trying to finish all of the spinning I started on my borrowed wheel. There was a bit of a time crunch because I'm returning it this week. I'm happy to say that everything is finally off of the bobbins, set, and stored in archival photo boxes on one of my shelves. I would have it hanging all over the place but the amount of yarn might scare my cousins and aunt who are coming to visit this week.

Next, instead of cleaning my room for the impending guests, I blocked a shawl. This is the Swallowtail Shawl from Interweave Knits. I made it out of fingering weight rather than laceweight so this shawl is HUGE.



I ended up having major problems with this simple pattern because I kept running out of yarn. On the last chart, I eliminated the first half of it so there would be enough yarn to make the ends into tips. Then, on the bind off, I ran out of yarn again so I ripped back a few rows and tried again. It was a fast knit but all of the issues I created made it take much longer to finish.

And finally, here is the fingering weight yarn I bought at Maryland Sheep and Wool. Isn't it pretty? Those colors are pretty true to life.


Yesterday, while closing the yarn store, I cast on and, by the end of the evening, had this much.


I can definitely understand why so many people have made this pattern. It is a completely thought-free knit which will look great when finished.