robknits

Knitting and spinning

I have been talking to myself about fiber projects again, which is a sign I need to continue blogging.  I finished that pair of socks last night, though I don't yet have a picture of the finished product.  It is the pair pictured in my last post.  I was glad to get them done -- by the time I finished I was finding the yarn felt harsh against my hands, though they felt fine when I tried them on.  The next pair will be made out of some of the expensive, squishy sock yarn in the stash.

I am trying to decide what to knit next.  Another pair of socks, maybe the Nanner pattern. Or a pattern I like for a scarf, that takes one skein of sock yarn.  It is called Fay, and it is knit starting at one end, working side-to-side including the lace border.  It should be fun and quick.

Fun and quick would be good, but I have fallen in love with a big project from the latest Twist Collective. It is a sweater called Brookline, in a lightweight yarn.  Most important, it is knit from the top down, so you can try it on and adjust the fit as you need to, instead of finishing the sweater and then discovering it doesn't fit.  If the moths haven't gotten to it, I have some yarn that has been in the stash for something like 20 years that would work very well.  I am going to check on the condition of the yarn tonight. 

Other things I like about this pattern: the v-neck, the fact that it is shaped at the waist and has the gores near the bottom to add even more shape.  And the stitch pattern should add some interest to the knitting.  I will have to think about how to make the buttonholes.  There are myriad ways to do it, from the simplest (bind off a stitch or two on one row, cast those stitches back on the next), which tends to stretch, to ones that have enough steps to be annoying.  I will have to do some research and then experiment a little to see which results in a look I like.  If I decide to tackle a big project.

This is another pattern I am considering. It is called Fameuse, and is knit in one piece, from one cuff, up the arm, adding stitches for the front and back, and back down the other arm to the second cuff.  I like the look of it, and it is the first pattern I have seen that makes interesting use on an unusual yarn.  Most of the patterns that use this yarn are a bit too out-there for me.

 

I bought the yarn a long time ago. It is made by a Japanese company called Habu.  It is called paper linen, and does in fact feel like a strip of paper.  It softens when you wash it, apparently.  This pattern uses a similar Habu yarn called Shosenshi, knit along with a laceweight strand of merino.  Actually the pattern calls for two strands of cobweb-weight, which is even light than lace, but I think I will try it with one strand of laceweight.  I am not sure what differences there are between the Linen Paper and the Shosenshi -- I bought my cone of LInen Paper so long ago that it is possible it was renamed Shosenshi.  So now I have to shop for a laceweight yarn that will go with this khaki color.  It should be a pretty wearable jacket for the San Antonio climate.

 

 

 

And then there is spinning.  I sat down to start spinning some new fiber yesterday.  I am taking a class on Sunday on spinning rayon, in all its many forms these days -- old rayon, and new rayons like bamboo, tencel, viscose and sea cell.  So I figured I should practice this week.  So I took this small bit of fiber, which was included as a tester when I ordered some silk fiber from this vendor.

The card says it is a combination of a wool called blue-faced leicester and silk.  BFL is a sturdy wool -- folks who spin their own sock yarn like it because it is durable -- and it has a long fiber length. I am finding it a bit rough and scratchy though.

The first thing I did was shake it out a bit, because it felt a bit conpressed.  Shaking it out helps open things up a bit.  It is not uncommon for roving to get compressed either during mailing, or even during dyeing. 

I decided to try to keep some control over how the colors would show up in the yarn.  Often I just start spinning and let the colors fall where they may.  This time I stripped the roving in narrower strips, so that I have several strips in which the colors line up in the same way.  See?

Then I pick up one of the strips and started spinning.  I am a bit frustrated.  My goal was to get a consistent strand -- consistent in size and consistent in spin.  So far no go, and I gave up when the strand drifted apart for the second time in a few minutes.  I do know what I am doing wrong -- I let too few fibers catch the twist.  So I spent some time blaming myself (I am really ready to start making progress in my spinning skills) but I am also, reasonably, blaming the fiber, which does not draft smoothly.  I may start with another fiber, to see if perhaps (part of) the problem is in fact with this sample and not entirely with my skills.  Yeah, that sounds good.  I will give another fiber from the stash a try tonight.

Next weekend in the Yellow Rose Fiber Fiesta in the town of Seguin, not far out of San Antonio, where I will be taking that spinning class and spending too much money on more fiber.  Any maybe finding a laceweight yarn that will look good with the Paper Linen.

Decisions, decisions...

Having finished the socks I had been knitting monogamously for a while, I found myself sitting on the couch, the tv on, a cat snuggled up against my leg... and empty hands.  Surely I had something I could just pick up and knit?  Surely?

No.

I looked at the WIPs (works in progress, for the uninitiated) that live next to the couch.  I even took the Featherweight cardi out of its zippered plastic pouch.  But before I could knit any more of it, I had to make decisions: was the lace front band wide enough?  What lace pattern had I used?  Should I try it on before deciding to widen the band?

Too much thinking involved.  I put it back in its zippered bag.

I have a long list of cardigans I want to make, from yarn tumbling out of the yarn closet.  I could have started the Every Last Yard sweater but I have to admit, I was suffering from lazy brain syndrome last night.  That would have required thought.

I could have started a sweater that only recently appealed to me -- it is Harriet by Elsebeth Lavold.  I thought it would work in some heavy wool that has been in the stash for years and work as an outdoor jacket here in San Antonio.  That wouldn't have required as much thought, but it would be a huge project.  And the fact that it has gotten very warm again here kind of militated against this project.

So I guiltily thought of starting another pair of socks.  But I needed to actually wind some yarn to do that -- the sock yarn I wanted to use was either in hanks, and needed to be wound into center pull balls, or it came in one big ball and I like to wind two separate ones, so I can knit both socks at the same time.  But this is occupying the ball winder.

 
 

 

Sigh.

I have finished spinning the Jacaranda merino and silk roving.  After filling a spindle, I had cleverly wound the single-ply yarn onto paper towel tubes as I worked my way through a lot of the fiber.  I thought I could just put the tubes on the lazy kate I have (that's the lazy kate, on the right -- it holds spinning wheel bobbins full of single ply yarn for plying, though mine is dark red to match my wheel) and ply the singles into a two ply yarn from there.  But the paper towel tubes are longer than the rods on the lazy kate, so that wasn't going to work.  So I logically began to wind the singles off the tubes and into center pull balls.  But the singles at the end of this particular tube slid off the end.  The singles have a high twist, and singles with high twist WANT to tangle.  They are DRIVEN to tangle. 

I may cry.

After getting close to sucking my thumb, I took two small balls of the singles that I had managed to wind successfully and took myself off to ply them.  The actual plying has been easy and fun.  The singles I spun are VERY uneven, thicker in some spots and extremely thin in others, but honestly -- I don't care.  We will see how the plying might even it out a bit, but there are going to be uneven spots.  That's fine.  We will also have to see how much yardage I end up with, and I think I will look for a scarf pattern that will let me just keep knitting til the yarn runs out. 

Meanwhile, I am still spinning the lovely pink silk roving that I have been spinning for years.  That too is wound on to paper towel rolls.  I think before I start unwinding those I will fashion some kind of barrier on the ends of the rolls to prevent this same disaster.  And then I have to invent some way to wind the singles right off the spindle onto the ball winder.  There are some spindle lazy kates -- designed to hold the spindle upright while you wind the single off -- but they are very expensive and might not be universal in size.  That is, some of my spindles might not fit.  I could try winding the the cop (the bunch of yarn on the spindle) onto a bobbin of a spinning wheel, and then using the lazy kate that matches those spindles, but that seems like a very silly thing to do -- I might as well spin on the spinning wheel.  Some folks have invented DIY spindle kates (well, that one shows bobbins, but you get the point), and I may do the same.

Anyway, before I can wind any yarn, I have to free up the ball winder.  I may have to decide what to knit next based on what yarn comes already wound into pull skeins!  So with no knitting in sight last night, instead, I found the beginnings of a jacket I had decided was not a good idea, and instead of knitting I unknitted, freeing up some lovely verdigris yarn (Lavold Silky Wool) that I can now use for another project.  I have one that has been on my to-do list for quite some time (this one).  It would be a good choice:

• At least some of the yarn is already wound and usable :>
• It is a great weight and a good yarn for San Antonio
• It is knit top-down, which I wanted to do for the next project.
• I bought the pattern a while ago, and it came as a downloadable pdf file, so I even know where it is.

Sounds like a winner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Which one?

I have had 4 skeins of Dream in Color Classy yarn sitting in the stash since last year's Texas Yarn Crawl.  It is worsted weight in their gorgeous Deep Seaflower colorway.  4 skeins = 1000 yds, which was all of that color Hill Country Weavers had in stock.  Since then I have been struggling to decide what to use it for, and even listed it for sale on Ravelry.

Now... 

(yes, it's teal)

Now, I have 3 possible projects for it.  The first is an unusual sort of vest thingy, or a circular shawl with armholes.  It is a free pattern on  elann. com called the Short Circular Vest.  I think it would be fun to make and very usable here in San Antonio.  that's it on the left.

But then again, I had decided to use the Classy for Ella.   A shawl, and I have to say I am not always comfortable wearing a shawl, but the shape of this one makes it a possibility.  You can click on the thumbnail for a bigger picture if you want.

But then, spending way too much time on Ravelry, I found a cardigan called the Waterlily Rib Waist cardigan.  A low v-neck, ribbing at the waist, 3/4 sleeves.   It is from a Classic Elite brochure called Curvy Knits, and the second (second to the smallest, I hasten to add) size says it only calls for 1000 yds of yarn.  I looked again, and it turns out that is for yarn that is knit at 4 stitches to the inch.  The Classy's suggest gauge is 4.5 stitches to the inch.  But I could at least experiment with knitting it to a loose gauge.

 Today anyway I am taken with the thingy on the left.  A circular shawl with armholes.  It is lacy, and should be quick.  It may turn into yet another project I don't wear, but I could always frog and recycle the yarn.

Kick off

OK, now there are 4 projects in the queue.  I just have to pick one to start.  

Possibility #1: The Featherweight cardigan. 

   Successfully swatched on a size 4 needle, but that size 4 needle was an Addi.  Once beloved, now unbearable.  I am NOT struggling with that cable for an entire sweater.  But I could not find a single #4 Harmony needle.  Now I know I have size 4 needles, and I know that the knitting corollary of Murphy's Law dictates not finding it until I have bought new ones.  So I went to the Knit Picks site and ordered 3 sets of size 4 needle tips: one set in the Harmony wood (although I found that too distracting under the dark lace yarn when I tested a larger size), one set in metal (which is like the Addis I used to swatch, though I found it a bit too slippery with the lace), and one set in their new acrylic tips.  THEN I went to Yarnivore to pick up the book I won during the 3rd Annual Best Little Yarncrawl in Texas and bought a KA brand size 4 circular needle.  Whaddya MEAN I don't have a size 4 needle??????

Overreaction?  What means this overreaction of which you speak?

Anyway, I was just wearing myself out jumping from one possible project to the next (the most efficient of all forms of procrastinating) so I think I am going to jump in with Featherweight.  I also found the pattern for Sausalito, so I will go back to working on that as well.  So I am not going to list #2, #3 or #4.

The swatch above, which is much lighter in color than the actual yarn, by the way, also shows the need for me to slip the first stitch of each row, as the sweater calls for.  Some of the folks who made this cardigan commented that it made it harder for them to pick up the stithces for the front band.  I may do some research on that, but I found it hard to get neat edges with this yarn.  At the very least, I will need to pay attention to the edges.  I am also going to make the front panels a little wider, to make sure this does not end up a shrug-like framing of the boobs.

The book I won was A Knitter's Template by Laura Militzer Bryant and Barry Klein.  It is subtitled "Easy Steps to Great-Fitting Garments" and provides instructions on how to get accurate measurements, make swatches, and calculate sweaters that fit.  I am not sure how useful it will be, but might be a good reference.  It includes patterns, though none appeals to me and I don't think they fit the models all that well!  But the charts will probably come in handy.  

Brimming with ideas

After hoping for quite some time for some renewed direction in my knitting, I am now flooded with ideas about what I want to start next.  And yes, I still have projects to finish, but I have decided to let myself start new projects.  My current requirement: that the cardigans be knit top-down, even if it requires conversion on my part.  So my first step this evening will be to reload Sweater Wizard, the knitting software I have used for years to recalibrate and recalculate patterns.  But... Sweater Wizard's top-down patterns are for raglan-style sleeves only.  And the main recalibration I want to do is to redesign Amelia, not only to knit from the top down but for set in sleeves.  Raglan shoulder lines are not my friends.  So I don't really need to load Sweater Wizard to start recalculating Amelia.  Well, actually, what I can do is redesign Amelia on Sweater Wizard to have set in sleeves, and use the numbers from the Sweater Wizard pattern to rewrite it from the top down.

So, Amelia is one possibility.  Last night I swatched the cobweb-weight (!) Centolavaggi yarn.  As I said last time, this is the laceweight member of the Zara yarn family.  I also know enough Italian to understand that Centolavaggi can be translated as 100 washes -- this laceweight is superwash yarn (to you nonknitters, that means it can be machine washed).  Anyway, the yarn is soooo fine I went back to Yarnivore and bought another skein, and swatched it doubled -- holding two strands together.  I also had the store owner wind both skeins for me, to avoid tangle disasters.  When swatching, I remembered to NOT pull the yarn from the center (when I tried and immediately got a yarn tangle) and instead am working from the outer strand on both yarn "cakes."  As usual I had to go down two needle sizes, and got gauge (6 stitches to the inch) with two strands with size 4 needles.  I had to use my metal needles, though, since the dark blue yarn was hard to see on the wildly colored wood Harmony needles.

That swatch is for the Featherweight Cardigan, a simple, top down, buttonless cardigan.  The pattern is for a cropped sweater -- mine will NOT be cropped.  The wide front band is written in stockinette, which will roll like crazy, so I have been looking on Ravelry at the variations folks have used for the band.  A potential spot for creativity, there. 

And, after a year and a half of avoiding it, I figured out how to put the drive band back on the Columbine spinning wheel.  And wiped off a year and a half of dust.  I want to go back to using it.  I have to admit to not liking the yarns I have tried spinning from fleece I have washed, dyed and either combed or carded -- it is all very hairy.  I do like the yarn I was spinning from a lot of the Confetti roving I bought from The Copper Moose when I first got the Columbine.  So for the moment I am going to stick with commercially prepared top and roving.

By the way, you can see the Confetti spun into yarn by better spinners than I here. Mine does not yet look like that.

Fall, San Antonio style

People here are talking about the cool fall weather.  I try not to giggle.  Granted, it was in the 60s the other day but the temperature has gone back up into the 80s.  It is gorgeous!!!!!  Mornings are definitely brisk, though, and it is probably the cooler weather in the mornings that has me thinking about sweaters and now that the knitting mojo is back I want to knit with everything in the yarn closet.  (I see that the Harlot is also wanting to knit everything). And I need sweaters!  They will serve mostly as light jackets, but it certainly provides impetus to knit.  So, while I speed through the kid's sweater and will start Sausalito this weekend, I am also trying to decide what to do with the heavier wool yarns in the stash. 

First, the kid's sweater.  The back is done.  I am going to try to power through the front, being careful to duplicate the error in the stripes on the back so that I can claim it as a design feature, not a mistake.  There is no reason for this to take much time to finish, since slip stitch in an aran weight yarn for a size 2 sweater should actually take about 5 minutes. OK, OK, I can hear I don't know how many people grumbling about reasonable expectations, but I really feel like finishing things too!  Way too many projects discussed in this blog were frogged, or never finished, or never even started.  The 2007 and 2008 albums of finished items are pretty minimal.  So current goal #1 for my knitting: finish the kid's sweater fast.  I have already gotten the ribbing for the front done and am into the stripe pattern.

At the same time, ignoring other WIPS, I really really want to cast on for Sausalito.  I did another swatch with the O Wool Balance, this time with a size 2 needle.  The stitch shows up better on a 2, though the gauge is still larger than the manufacturer predicts.  I think I will let myself start it this weekend.  It is the first time I will get to click on the Cast On button for a project on my Ravelry queue.  And even though this is going to be knit on size 2 needles, I will be getting about 5.25 stitches to the inch.  So goal #2: finish what I am about to start.

   But I really really want to cast on for about a zillion sweaters using stash yarns, in particular two Froehlich yarns that have been aging in my hoard -- Swiss Chalet in red and black  and Bergschaf in blue and black.  The red & black and the blue & black look best in stockinette, so the pattern itself has to be interesting -- that is, the shaping.  Any stitch pattern gets lost.  I had mentioned years ago, when I got this yarn at the annual sale at my former LYS, that I thought I would do a simple Adrienne Vittadini coat and I still that that would work.  I will shorten it, though that is the sort of decision that generally slows down my projects.  The bottom hem has some ribbing, which won't pull in but will keep the edge from rolling, and the front edge has a knit-as-you-go i-cord finish.   I might add an i-cord after the coat is done in a smoother black yarn. Yeah, that's it.  That'd work. That would look really nice, in fact. I think I have a skein of Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride Bulky in black.  

I assuaged some stash guilt by finding buyers for three batches of yarn.  The color-based groups on Ravelry are really good for that, and I led two purple-lovers into temptation.  The destash forum on Knitters Review found a home for some other yarn.  And as you can see from the musings above, I have a definite yen to use stuff that I bought a long time ago and still love.

So I am not going to feel guilty about buying the absolutely gorgeous Mas Acero yarn from Brook Farm Yarns. (I know, completely contradictory.  But I released three batches of yarn into the wild, thus compensating for buying 3 batches of yarn this past month.  The sock yarn, of course, doesn't count.  So I have zero population growth in the yarn closet.)  This yarn is worsted weight, a wool, silk and viscose blend.  And get this -- it is not teal. Instead, as you can see, it is a gorgeous warm forest green with brown.  The plan is to use it for this pattern, which I have loved since I first saw it.  I get to wind that yarn and swatch the pattern soon. 

Yarns that have found new homes include some plum Dale Sisik (a sweater's worth), a sweater's worth of some violet Lana Grossa Lambswool, and 5 skeins of Rowan's Designer DK wool in Old Gold.  I am going to continue the destashing.  And I am going to swatch the above yarns, and then decide if Sausalito, the Vittadini coat or the Drops jacket is next.  Oh, did I forget to mention the Drops jacket?  I am in love.  And I have some alpaca boucle paired with a mohair, recovered from a failed project, that would be just great for that one.  A perfect jacket for San Antonio.

P.S. A note on being really pleased I now live in San Antonio.  There was a staff talent show this afternoon on campus as part of the United Way fundraiser.  It started with Dr. Ricardo Romo, the president of UTSA, singing love songs with the university's student mariachi band.  Very cool.

Conundrum, with short rows

The picture is not the conundrum.  It is a piece of stained glass that I bought a couple of weeks ago at the Texas State Arts and Crafts sale in Kerrville.  There was almost no fiber-based art at the fair at all, but I kept running into women who use blow torches and work with glass and metal   The artist who created this, Jan whose-last-name-Ijust-forgot, will be at next week's Texas Folk Life festival too.  I will make sure to pick up another of her cards.

The conundrum is about the Pearl Buck Swing jacket from Interweave Knits's Winter 2005 issue.  There are actually two conundrums.  The first involved my idea about lengthening it a bit.  I didn't think of that til I had already completed one side of the front up to the beginning of the armhole.  So if I want to lengthen it, I need to go straight up for a bit, though I don't think I would do it for more than 2 inches.  This blog entry by Bluestocking Knits, in what was apparently a knitalong for this jacket, mentions some concerns about lengthening a jacket that has a yoke and a pleat in back.  I still think it would be possible to lengthen it below the armholes and the yoke, but that pleat would need to be taken into account.  So then I thought, I don't need to lengthen it, I need to do some shortrows on the fronts of the cardigan so that the front will hang at the same length of the back despite my much curvier front.

And there's the conundrum.  I have quite a library of directions and instructions and explanations about short rows but I don't think a single item mentions doing this for cardigans. Usually when using short rows to create bust darts, the instructions talk about knitting them across the front piece of the sweater.  You work the extra rows from point to point, so to speak.  So, in a cardigan, do you make a separate pouch for each side of the cardigan?  Somehow divide the short row section in half so that it actually does continue across the entire front of the cardigan?  Does anyone know?

In addition, the band of the cardigan is knit along with the fronts, and has a charming design knit into it that is worked, of course, across a predetermined number of rows.  I could certainly incorporate the design of the bands if I were working separate short row sections for each side of the cardi -- basically the band would be put on hold as the short rows were being worked, and in the row when I return to working all the way across the piece I would work the next row of the design.  Right? 

I love this design, but think I especially need those short row sections on a short swing jacket.  So please chime in with recommendations.

And on the shawl/stole front, I have decided to use the purple copper novelty yarn for something other than the Lattice lace shawl.  Bascially because I found a stockinette swatch I did with this yarn and it is stunning.  So I am going to develop a stole pattern that uses a lot of stockinette for this particular yarn, and go back to the lattice lace stole some other time.  I also fell in love with Knitty's Jeanie, a wrap that uses fingering weight yarn, cables and drop stitches, but I am trying to resist buying 3 skeins of Dream in Color Smooshy.  Though I think it is a perfect yarn for that pattern.  I can feel my resistance dropping, oozing from my pores.  The only fingering weight I have enough of for this pattern is the self-striping Jojoland Melody, which I bought for another shawl.  And I don't think self striping is right for Jeanie.  I also have enough of Knitpicks Gloss in burgundy.  A gorgeous yarn, but I want something with subtle color changes or a heathery look.  OK.  I think I'll try to find the pattern I bought to use with the Jojoland.  That way, I can start something cool, use yarn I have already bought, and put off the purchase of the Smooshy for a bit.  Anyone taking bets on the odds of my actually doing this?  I might, because that would mean working on this intriguing stole:

You can see it at the Jojoland site, at knittingsoftware.com where Carol Wulster also has some notes about knitting it, and at the Knitting Zone, where I bought the yarn and the pattern.  All I have to do is find the pattern, which gives me some much needed motivation to tackle more organizational tasks here at the house.

Two steps forward...

     Lots of unpacking in the craft room took place last night chez Rob.  As usual, once I gave myself permission not to do what had to be done, I was able to motivate myself to do it.  It is too weird that I respond to my own urges by saying, "Hey, you're not the boss of me!"  But hey, whatever works.

     The heaviest yarn is piled up in bags at one end of the ginormous walk-in closet, waiting for clear plastic bins.  After living here for a year, I will determine if I will ever again be able to touch aran weight wool and mohair, or if it has to be redistributed throughout the fiber world.   The sock yarn is being stored, appropriately, in a hanging shoe bag on the garment rack.  While at the moment even the sock yarn feels too woolly to touch, I don't want to give up making socks.  I could happily live in sandals and clogs for the rest of my life, but I found myself cooing over the handknit socks as they emerged from suitcases and laundry bags.  So I am holding off on the sock-yarn afghan idea.

     Bookshelves and cubby units are now holding books, spinning and weaving equipment, weaving stash, and fabric.  Another storage unit thingie is awaiting assembly.  Then I have to decide where the work tables go.  There are still boxes left to unpack, but a very manageable number of them.

     You may have notice that no pictures accompany this entry.  My computer suddenly decided it does not recognize my camera.  After a number of attempts at correcting this (turning things off and on again, using a different USB port), it occurred to me that perhaps the problem was the cable.  But get this: buying the official replacement cable will cost over $40, while other folks insist they have the equivalent for about, oh, $5.  Hmmm.  I am going to shop locally and then, hissing in frustration when I drive all over town with gasoline at $3.45 per gallon without being able to find it, I will have to decide which to order online. 

     Meanwhile the creative ideas keep bubbling up.  Once I can find everything (more or less) I want to get started on a number of projects, lots of them experiments for decorative or art pieces.  Ideas keep exploding for:

• lace or modular pieces done with the small bits of weird Habu yarns that I have
• an art quilt done with two beautiful pillow tops I bought, some gorgeous and emotionally resonant fabric that used to be window treatments in my mother's bedroom, and some other designer fat quarters in the pretty-much-never-used quilt fabric stash
• finding and resuming work on Campanula.
• Some small weaving projects from Time to Weave and Handwoven's March Bag of the Month.

All, of course, while I continue to work on the house and learn my new job and meet new people and take Pilates classes. 

Sounds good to me.

Musings, and an astonishing splurge

     You know that quote from Elizabeth Zimmermann, the "Knit on through the crisis" or something like that?  Apparently, I don't.  If I had a crisis that had me sitting in a waiting room, I guess I would, or had me housebound.  But crises that require action ... I don't knit at all.  I am in constant "go" mode at the moment, and have not knit anything on the Winter Eclipse second sock since my last blog entry.  I did do another 10 rows on the Free and Easy Pie-Wedge shawl but that was days ago. 

     But that situation has me thinking a lot about fiber arts.  Instead of focusing on minutiae of WIPs, or even on the next pattern-in-waiting, I have been thinking more creatively.  Packing meant touching every skein of yarn and every batch of fiber and every bit of fabric in the house.  And not in tandem with looking at published patterns.  My urge to spin has revived and I see more clearly the kinds of yarn I want to spin, and what I want to do with color, and even more importantly, I have gotten some glimpses of how I am going to do it.  And that brings me to the incredible splurge.

     Just as the move was becoming a reality, I got an unexpected refund.  I had enrolled in an ASL class this fall, that I had to drop, late enough, I thought, where I really didn't expect a refund, or not much of one.  Then a check appeared in the mail.  A check that had not been factored into planned expenses.  I could have just dropped it into the general funds -- we all know how expensive moving is, even with a moving budget from my new employers.  I kept deciding to do that... and then undeciding.  Because I have been drooling over a Majacraft Suzie Pro spinning wheel at my LYS for the past year or so.  And when I let Molly know, she said she had bought it before the dollar tanked.  'Cause the Majacraft wheels are more expensive now, because of the exchange rate.  And she could let me have it at the pre-tanking rate.  And with an additional price break, since she had been using it in the shop for demonstrations (and obviously with her shoes on.  Spinners will know what I mean.)

     I talked myself out of it twice.  Then I drove out there and bought it.  I brought it home and immediately packed it for the move.  But now, of course, I can't wait to unpack it and start spinning. 

     My first wheel, the Columbine, is a direct drive spinning wheel. That means one long band goes in a  figure-8 loop over both the flyer and the bobbin  to move flyer and the bobbin and create the tension AND pull the fiber onto the bobbin.  The Suzie Pro has what is called a Scotch tension -- two bands are used.  One goes from the wheel to the flyer, and another to the bobbin.  So adjusting the tension is different and there will be a learning curve.  From what I understand, the Scotch tension lets you separate "twist from pull" as they say on this very useful page.  For the non-spinners, that means that on the Columbine, the same mechanism that helps me put a twist into the fiber also pulls the fiber onto the bobbin.  The spinner can modify how quickly the fiber is taken up onto the bobbin, but I always feel I am battling the wheel's desire to pull it on!  On the Scotch tension wheels, those functions are mechanically separate, theoretically giving the spinner more control.  Theoretically. There will definitely be a learning curve before anything like control will be found.

     The wheel shows signs of use but not much.  There is some gunk on the pedals, from the bottom of shoes.  Like a lot of spinners, I tend to spin in my socks.  That didn't develop out of any concern about preserving the wheel (the Columbine is made of metal), but because it gives me a better feel of the wheel.  There is a rub on the wood where the top part of the Suzie folds down.  Otherwise, perfect. 

     A completely irrelevant aside:  three of the Majacraft wheels are named, respectively, the Millie, the Rose and the Suzie.  My grandmother's name was Rose, my mother's name is Millicent though she hates being called Millie, and my sister-in-law's name is Sue and she hates being called Suzie.  The most interesting (to me) of the electric spinners is called the Roberta (my full name).  And, hey, sis, the newest yarn from Schaefer is called Judith, and it is alpaca!  My sister Judy loves alpaca.  They haven't yet named anything after the dog.

     Moving timeline: The moving van comes Monday or Tuesday.  It would be nice to have an address in San Antonio by then. 

Another one off the needles

     There is a difference between an FO -- finished object -- and an OF -- off the needles project.  The difference is blocking.  The project that went off the needles yesterday or the day before, the Pacific Grove pullover shown in my last entry, is not an FO because I have to redo the sleeves.  But Ostrich Plumes is off the needles, waiting to be blocked, as is a narrow alpaca lace scarf I finished in the spring.  Also now off the needles and ready to be blocked: the neverending vest for my mother.

     This was knit from a novelty yarn I bought at Stitches West one year, from Newton's.  Those of you who have attended Stitches and other knitting conventions know the Newtons booth -- long tables full of hanks of their own yarns.  I took one look at it and knew my mother would love the colors.  It is made of everything.  I lost the label but there were at least 5 or 6 fibers -- the ones I remember are mohair, cotton, and rayon.  So I designed a cardigan vest to her very specific specifications (not a redundancy when you are dealing with my mom) using Sweater Wizard.  It is all in stockinette, with a seed stitch border at the bottom.  I finished the front edges and armhole edges with two rows of single crochet.  Making things for other people, especially when they have such strong likes and dislikes, makes me very anxious.  Now I am worried that it will stretch, and I don't know how to block this yarn.  But I have some swatches, and some yarn left over, and I am just going to have to experiment.  I am tempted to just take it to the dry cleaners. I do like how the crocheted edges look.  I always thought of crocheted edges as fussy, but this single crochet edge actually looks rather tailored.

     So, I tackled two longterm UFOs.  One still needs work but I am interested in it again, though sleeves do seem to go on forever.  I also pulled out two other WIPs, that I put away when it got hot.  One is the Bamboozled lace panel tunic, which I am making with Rowan's Kid Classic.  Remember this?  The weather finally broke here in Pennsylvania, wearing socks is once more a delight, and I can once again work in aran-weight wool and mohair.  So I am going to go back to work on this.  You can see the very nice lace panel in the pic on the right.

     The other WIP was the Garden Gate cardigan.  It is an Ann Norling pattern that I am making using a mystery yarn that I had had in my stash for about 20 years.  I was disappointed that there isn't enough yarn for the sleeve, I think.  The body of the vest is done, and I am going to finish the neck and button band trim and see what's left.  On the left is an early picture that shows off the yarn.  I don't know that I love the results but I keep reminding myself to make no judgements until it is blocked.

Amazing, huh, that I am pulling out WIPs instead of starting a new sweater.  I did swatch for one but this finishing stuff feels good.  Who knew?

     And despite all my doubts about Ravelry, I spent hours on the site adding stash yarns.  My earlier attempts at keeping an inventory have all died miserable deaths -- lost files, random notebooks lost for months under piles of other paper...  So while I am not going to enter every single skein of sock yarn, the entire painter's palette of Lamb's Pride, all the random skeins of worsted weight wool, I am entering the stuff I still find interesting, stuff for which I am always searching for ideas.   And the pretty new stuff.  I have also joined 5 groups -- the Chatters group, Stranded Knitting, Lace, and the Norah Gaughan group.  Hmm, that leaves one out.  Can't think now what it is. I was absolutely gobsmacked by some of the groups that have formed.  Knitters of blue yarn who watch particular TV shows while eating certain brands of microwave popcorn.  Knitters who use one brand of yarn.     Knitting accountants.  Knitters who like kittens. Knitters who like the same book (singular).  Knitters who share the same astrological sign.  Oh yeah, my 5th knitting group is the I Make Mittens, because the pictures are amazing.  The benefits of the Norah Gaughan group is that she participates, and answers questions about her patterns.   Great idea.