I Dyed a Little.

I finished spinning the last of my fiber a couple of weeks ago. The result was a nice, but very boring silk yarn, so I picked up some kool-aide, and threw it in a pot with the yarn.

I forgot to take a before picture until it was in the pot. The fiber was natural white, though the grey I tried (and failed) to dye a few years ago with food coloring. The grey was okay, just not really what I wanted.

This, naturally, made me think of this:

Which is one of my favorite movies (we won't talk about the books, especially the third one).

(No marmalade was involved in the making of this yarn.)

After about an hour simmering in blue raspberry lemonade, I wound up with this:

It's hard to tell, but the tweedy looking ball actually has some white in it still, so it's not a solid blue/grey. For that matter, the smaller one also has some white in it, but not as much. I haven't figured out what I'm going to do with it, but I can't wait to knit it up.

Shh!!!

You can't tell anyone.

I'm making a present.

I can't tell you who it's for, or what it is yet, because she might be reading this. I don't know.

But oh my god, I love this yarn:

Bernat Mosaic in "Calypso", just for the record.

RAINBOWS!!!

Don't Mind the Ice

Ignore that frost over there in the corner. It's just hell freezing over. Do you know why?

I've got a finished object.

With pictures.

How often does that happen?

I started this super-basic shrug about 2-3 weeks ago at the Ravelry/Pride meetup, and finished it up this afternoon. It was such a lovely, sunny day that I took my mannequin outside for the photoshoot.

The yarn I used is a mystery yarn that I picked up in Italy a few years ago. The ball band is long gone, but I remember that it was 100% linen. To date, this is still the only linen yarn I've ever worked with, but I love it. I bought two or three balls of it (I think it was something like 2-3 euro each; a steal) and used the first one to make a Turkish rib scarf for my mom while I was away. Somehow, it never got entered into Ravelry. :/ I feel like this is a gaping hole, somehow.

At any rate, I do know that it was purchased here, and if I remember correctly, it was the house brand. If you happen to be in Firenze, though, don't go expecting to find this exact yarn--it was on clearance and I grabbed the last two balls, so it's probably discontinued. Do check out some of their other yarns, though. This one was great to work with and I swear each ball has about a billion yards in it. The scarf I made for my mom was rather massive, and a single ball made this shrug--with some leftover.

Oh, did I mention? That yarn shop will also let you buy bulk yarns by weight. I did not take advantage of that when I was there (that would be a dangerous rabbit hole for me) but if I ever go back to Florence, I will.

The shrug itself is extremely easy: yok2tog all the way around the first round, then knit the second round. Repeat those two rows for about an inch, then split and work flat (substituting a purl row for the knit round) and work for 18". Rejoin in the round, and continue for another inch before binding off. For a finishing touch, I picked up stitches to add the ribbing. If I'd had a little more yarn left over, I would have added ribbing around the shoulder/neck/hem area, but I was about two rounds short of what I needed. Missed it by that much.

The conclusion of this project means that I'll be buckling down in earnest to make samples for the book soon--as soon as I nail down the final yarns and relay them to my publisher. At the moment I'm using some of my samples to swatch a couple of patterns that may or may not make their way into CENSORED. Right now the big challenge is that all of my yarn support yarns are much thinner than all of the yarns I worked with originally--by about half, if not more. Writing the patterns with the yarn held double would, I think, make most projects prohibitively expensive for the average knitter (at $32 a pop, who wants to buy eight skeins for a scarf? I feel bad enough asking for four...). At minimum, this means going back and reworking all of my charts and the thus-far-completed patterns...for a third time.

But, considering that last night the cat and I were fighting over who got to use the sample skeins as a teddy bear...I don't mind too much. Hey, when it's THAT soft, who can complain?

Knitter's Weekend Part II: TNNA Designer's Lunch Meetup

One of the things I've been wanting to save up to get for a while are a couple of professional memberships/certification programs. It hasn't happened yet, but this weekend while The National Needlearts Association trade show (TNNA) was in Columbus I crashed the party for an informal lunch meetup with a bunch of fellow designers and writers in the industry. There were so many people that I got a bit of sensory overload trying to listen to four conversations at once. I bounced around from one group to another, listening mostly, but still made some great contacts with other designers and industry professionals.

Next year, I should be able to get into the show itself. Technically, I could have this year, but I didn't get my contract for CENSORED until just before the show, and I didn't want to be asking my publisher for badges when nothing had been signed yet. I caught a few glimpses through the doors as people came and went, and it looked amazing! A few years ago when I was an intern for a yarn company part of my job was setting up the booth and trolling the show floor to take in the competition, and it was the most incredible collection of yarn, publishers, and designers I've ever seen. Between Pride and TNNA, this weekend made me happy to live in Columbus--not an easy feat!

Some of you might have gathered that with all of my out and about over the weekend, I missed Typewriter day, which is true, but in a nice coincidence, one of the conversations I was listening to turned to typewriters at one point! A couple of designers were reminiscing to their early days in the industry, when their submissions were done on a typewriter and some of the challenges it posed. I think that by and large most of them are very pleased to have things like Microsoft Word and Photoshop to make patterns and charts easier to put together!

Hopefully, I will have a typecast up for next week, but I need to get the house to myself first. I also injured my hand last week (nothing serious, just a really bad bruise) so it's somewhat difficult for me to lift all 40 pounds of Prince Henry (the KMM) onto my desk right now. I could use Caffrey, the Sterling, but I need to type up the next installment of the Post Club and Henry produces neater text. Although, his keys are a little stiffer and I'm not sure I could manage them right now, at least not for several pages of text anyway. Hopefully in a few days it will be back to normal or near enough that I can get back to work. Just using the computer keyboard/mouse aggravates it (though knitting doesn't seem to be much of a problem, provided I'm not working cables. I wonder why?).

Oh, and in brighter news, the laptop has finally found it's way home, after two weeks away. According to the tech, there's nothing wrong with it. How accurate that statement is, however, remains to be seen.

Don't forget, you've still got a few days to enter the Birthday Contest!

Knitter's Weekend Part I: Pride Columbus Meetup and Yarn Crawl

It's been a few days, so I'm mostly recovered now from a very busy weekend. It was so much fun though--I seldom go out, let alone with people (because REASONS, mostly involving the fact that I'm a broke hermit). But on Saturday I got to meet a whole slew of Ravelers at Columbus Pride.

We started off at the Columbus Pride Parade, which was just all kinds of fun. Here are a few highlights:

I think this should be my next car. What do you think?

There were some really funny signs in the parade, but I couldn't snap a picture of my favorite: "If we've learned anything from Harry Potter, it's that you can't live in a closet."

These guys just made my day. There was also a Sebastian and an Ursula.

 We had perfect weather for the parade. It was sunny and bright without a cloud in the sky. Even though it was 90+ degrees, High Street had a great breeze going so it felt much cooler and wasn't at all unbearable.

After the parade, we headed up to one of the local yarnshops, where I bought the two center cakes of yarn pictured below. The rest came from our after dinner stop of Michael's.

Back row (L-R): Red Heart Unforgettable in "Parrot" and "Dragonfly."
Middle: Cascade Ultra Pima #9778 and #9781.
Front: Loops and Threads Elegance in "Ocean" and "Smoky Plum."

You can't tell at all that I have a favorite color pallet, can you?

 The Ultra Pima is 100% cotton, but I think it's much nicer to work with than most other cottons. I think it's a little easier on the hands.

I almost swapped this one out for another variegated purple or aqua, but decided that I needed to mix it up a little. Besides, I love the sherbet-like colors in it.

Unfortunately, the others are all 100% acrylic, but they're so pretty that I think it makes up for it. Anyway, I'm not above using acrylic. Unforgettable looks slightly Noro-like in the ball, and since I can't use Noro because of my allergies (and the fact that it feels like a kitchen scrubber to me) I think this is a decent substitute.


We ended the day with Mexican food and margaritas (well, they had margaritas. I had iced tea, because I am not so fond of the alcohol and suspect that drinking would end very badly for me (also for REASONS).

It was a fabulous day, and also completely exhausting. I can't wait to see everyone again next time!

Birthday Contest!

When I was a kid, I thought it kind of sucked having a summer birthday because it meant I couldn't bring cupcakes in to class to celebrate with all of my friends the way everyone else did (because somehow, out of 115 people in my graduating class, there were only a handful of us with birthdays from June through August). But as I've gotten older, I've liked my birthday better and better. For starters, it occurred to me around third or fourth grade that my birthday was exactly six months away from Christmas, making the distribution of presents through the year more equitable (unlike the poor kids with December or January birthdays, who often got their birthdays rolled into other holidays, or mostly left off in the post-holiday slump).

I don't know about you, but I love presents! Since today is my birthday, I thought I would give all of you lovely people on the internet a chance to get one.

All you have to do is leave a comment on this post by 11:59 PM June 30th (EST) telling me what your favorite birthday memory is. It can be your birthday, or someone else's that you helped make special. Don't forget to leave your name and a way for me to contact you, either through email, Twitter, or a blog.

On July first, I'll draw two winners using a random number generator. First place with get a free PDF download of my pattern, "Charlotte" and some lovely yarn to knit it out of:

Cascade Yarns Luna Paints in Color #9701
100% Peruvian Cotton, 100g

Second place will get the free pattern.

Winners will have until the end of July to redeem the coupon code on Ravelry (if you're not on Ravelry, just let me know and I can email you a copy).

(All of my photos of "Charlotte" are on the laptop, which I still don't have back yet. A preview shot can be found here, however.)

You've Got Mail

About a month ago, I signed up for a swap on Ravelry. Not just any swap, but one through my True Blood group.

For those unfamiliar with the idea, a swap works like this: You put your name on a list, fill out a quick profile (favorite color, any allergies, etc), and the moderator pairs you up with a partner. Each swap has a different set of rules. For this one, we had to spend at least $25 on yarn, and the theme was True Blood. Other than that, the sky is the limit. Meanwhile, someone else will get your name, and put together a package for you.

My package arrive last night, and I was so excited that I completely forgot to take pictures of the packaging. That's a shame since my swap partner went way above and beyond.

Let's take a closer look, shall we?

Since this was a TV/book themed swap, some of the questions in the profile regarded favorite characters and such. My favorite character in TB is Sam, owner of Merlot's Bar and generally just the nicest, most loyal guy you ever wanted to meet (he's also a shapeshifter, but that's another story). My partner put together this cute letter from Sam, about how all the goodies came from various characters in the books:

As you might have gathered, there were smaller packages inside the box. Package #1 contained this:

An anatomical knitted heart, "staked" by a pair of KnitPicks circular needles.

Package number two contained this cute little travel knit kit:

In the first picture, you can see that the cover has a picture of Sam on it, while the back is the "Welcome to Bon Temps" sign.

Inside was a mini crochet hook for fixing mistakes, a stitch holder, a yarn needle, and a collection of stitch markers bearing the character's faces.

In the last mini-package was this, a "faery charm" to ward of vampires:

This is the box the necklace came in:

Of course, there was also yarn, and a few other goodies as well:

Lipstick and matching lip pencil, in a vampy red I haven't tried out yet.

...Not to mention a couple bags of my favorite candies: Reese's miniatures and Sour Patch.

I think I'm set for quite a while! The only problem? I only got yarn and tea for the person who got my package. :( I feel like a lame partner now (though she was very appreciative and seemed to really like what I sent her. Even if I had a "duh" moment and forgot to include a letter. Yes, the typewriter fan forgot to include a letter. The irony is not lost on me).

Thanks, Phantasmagoria!

Fleece as White as Snow. Almost.

 

But not quite.

This isn't actually fleece. It's milk fiber. Yes, milk. Like what you drink and put in your cereal. Or tea. 

Some people have shawls of shame. Others have sweaters that have sat in their PhD piles (Projects Half Done) for months...or years *cough*London Calling sweater*cough*. Me, I have spinning shame.

 

This fiber has been on my wheel since before we moved. Well, not quite this fiber exactly. I have several ounces of it, divided into thirds to make a three-ply yarn. The first third went on the wheel sometime last year. The second third went on last month (you can see it above). I have a bout a 1/4 or 1/3 of that third left to spin before I can start the final bump of fiber. I am determined that it will be completed before we move again at the end of November, which is coming up much faster than I would like, considering we still haven't found a new place to live, my NaNo plans aren't coming together, and I have a knitting book to write. 

I'd better get back to work. 

Or possibly watching anime. One of the two. 

Stash Enhancement

The suitcase full of yarn got a few additions this week. My check for the Joann's Knitting and crochet booklet (due out in December) came this week, so I promptly deposited it and bought food, followed in short order by yarn (see? I have my priorities straight. Sometimes).

First, my Knitpicks order came in. I can't show you all of that, since I don't know if my swap partner reads this blog (I highly doubt it, but better safe than sorry). I can, however, show you this yarn:

I love the color. This is partially for me--I get to knit something out of it, and that's great because it's my favorite color and I'm in the mood to knit socks after those illusion projects--and partially a gift, since the finished object is going to someone else. Which, you know, completely justifies the purchase of yarn.

KnitPicks "Comfy Fingering" color B979

Speaking of those illusion projects, though, I'm about to cast on for the next pattern (which I will actually have to work out by hand before I can write it down, unlike the others). The pink was on a super clearance at The Yarn Shop. I got three balls for $6. The white was a little pricier. I'm not completely sold on either, even though they are the pallet I wanted. The yarn I wanted to use would have been about $40 all told, and was a little out of the budget. I'll try this and see how it works out. Swatching for that project will commence later tonight.

It amuses me that the name of the yarn is "Dazed."
Feza "Dazed," color 46.

Cascade "Ultra Pima," color 3728

  Those color names sure are descriptive, aren't they?

I was able to cast off the Super Secret Project #1 earlier, and it is blocking on the floor in front of my closet as I write this. A note for anyone who wants to buy me a Christmas present: I want a Steam Buddy. It's a little gadget meant for steaming wrinkles out of clothing, but knitters use it for blocking--especially blocking acrylic, since it doesn't wet-block very well.

Now if you will excuse me, I have a book proposal to write.

Window Shopping

Rawr, why must I be tormented when I'm broke?

I have about thirty things I want to purchase this week, but I've had to put them on hold thanks to bills. And then I get an email that KnitPicks is having a sale--not just a 50% off sale, but there's free yarn involved, too! Arg!

Oh, and have I mentioned lately that season 4 of the Murdoch Mysteries has finally come out on DVD? It was actually released on the 25th, but I haven't been able to purchase it yet. Another (fairly) recent release (at least, one I only recently found out about) is the region 1 edition of The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sec has finally worked it's way down to a semi-reasonable price on Amazon. I've wanted to see this movie since before it came out in theaters in France, but have yet to find a way to watch it here in the states. As soon as funds allow, both of these DVDs will be coming home.

In the meantime, I'm satisfying my urge to watch period film with Netflix. I finished up the BBC's Wives and Daughters last night, and it was quite good, though I liked their North and South better. Right now I'm watching Bramwell, which is something like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman meets Murdoch. Actually, it's got me wanting to watch Dr. Quinn, too. I loved that show when I was a kid, and it was Mom's favorite (though I was always perplexed about why though thought it was a good idea to drastically change the actress who played Colleen in the middle of the series the way they did, and for such a different actress. It wasn't exactly a seamless transition. But I digress). I love watching period films/tv when I'm knitting. I guess it's the whole history meets ancient craft thing. But it's always engrossing, and period dramas tend to age so much better than their contemporary counterparts. Also, costumes! Typewriters! What could be better?

Speaking of knitting, I finally got the paperwork for that knitting pattern I'm getting published (this month has been so exciting, professionally!) so I cast on for Northman #3 at last. I was putting it off until I had final confirmation from the publisher, but now that it's here I should be able to whip it out rather quickly. It usually doesn't take me more than a weekend to make a hat, and I love this pattern. It's so much fun to do colorwork. It's probably my favorite technique after entrelac.

Which reminds me, I should get back to work.

Knitting and Typewriters

If you have been following this blog for any period of time, then by now you've probably figured out that I tend to do things in phases. Sometimes, this blog is all about writing, or typewriters. Sometimes it's all about what I'm reading or drawing, sometimes sewing. It seems that lately, it's knitting.

As promised, I have pictures of some recent acquisitions:

This is the Malibrigo Lace I picked up last week at The Yarn Shop in Clintonville (I would link to their site, but it seems to be down for a revamp). I don't go up that way too often, since I have a difference of opinion with both the owner and most of the regulars, but the last time Missouri and I went in, there were several new people sitting around the work table and they were all very lovely to talk to--enough that I'd love to make another trip in the near future.

I do apologize for the poor photographs. My camera is driving me up a wall right now, but a new one is not in the budget. I have no idea where the glare keeps coming from, but it seems my camera has a very low tolerance for imperfect light.

The colors are Whales Road and Saphire Magenta, though honestly, I'm not sure which is which since one has blue (saphire) and the other has the magenta. I'll have to look that one up.

My second yarny purchase in the last couple of weeks was some spinning fiber from Fiber Optic Yarns. I wanted something brightly colored and easy to spin to take with me to Steampunk Symposium, and decided that as much as I prefer to use fibers like silk, I wanted something a bit grippier and easier to work with while at the busy convention, so I settled on some superwash merino. I usually don't spin or knit with wool unless it's in a blend that is at least 50% something else, but I can use superwash. I suspect that whatever chemical treatment makes it superwash (i.e. removes or "glues" down the follicles on the individual fibers so that it can't felt) also removes the lanolin or whatever it is that gives me problems with it. I might not be able to rub my belly and pat my head at the same time, but it is a very good thing to be able to spin and breathe at the same time.

Again, the colors didn't come out as true in the photograph as I would like--it's much brighter and leans more on the red/orange side of the fence than shown. The colorway is "Hot and Spicy."

I've been meaning to write more about typewriters on here (since it's been so long since I have), but since I live in something of a typewriter vacuum, that hasn't happened. Budget cuts have prevented new machines from coming home, as well as the purchase of the supplies I need to continue working on the Royalite. I've also been attempting to come up with a way to combine knitting and typewriters, and ended up resorting to Google, where I found this, a typewriter that knits, and then I found this page, which is a collection of knitted/sewn/crafted retrotech.

While I haven't gotten that ambitious yet, I have been combining typewriters with my knitting in another way:

I've got the ribbon color selector, caps lock, and (on my right hand, which did not photograph as well) the tab and semi-colon keys. In retrospect, I realized it would have been cool to use Magic Margin instead of the caps or tab keys, but maybe for next time. This is more of a dry run, anyway. I'm not crazy about the base color, and I need a larger color pallet before I can attempt the glass keys I originally wanted to do. I also had to redo the lettering. The first time, I asked Missouri to do it but it rubbed off before I could apply the clear coat. Once I get the chrome/metalic I need, I'll try again in more detail.

2KCBW: DAY 3

How do you keep your yarn wrangling organised? It seems like an easy to answer question at first, but in fact organisation exists on many levels. Maybe you are truly not organised at all, in which case I am personally daring you to try and photograph your stash in whatever locations you can find the individual skeins. However, if you are organised, blog about an aspect of that organisation process, whether that be a particularly neat and tidy knitting bag, a decorative display of your crochet hooks, your organised stash or your project and stash pages on Ravelry.

I don't think my stash is so much organized as it is contained. This is mostly due to space constrains, but also my budget and my desire to move into a mostly stash-free zone.

My working stash (stuff for projects I'm using right now) is in a milk crate tucked into a shelf by my bed, since that's where I do most of my knitting. My odd balls are tucked away on a shelf and held in place by my two cones of yarn.

The Good Stash is located in a kitty-proof otoman. This is my "fancy" yarn (for me, anyway, the nice stuff like my Claudia Handpaint) and my handspun are kept. Deep Stash is, unfortunately, in the garage, but before you get all worked up about the mistreatment of yarn, let me specify that deep stash is the stash is the stash I'm trying to get rid of and consists mostly of cheap acrylics that I bought when I was first learning to knit. Also, most of those are half skeins that have been wound into cakes, or are horribly tangled, or are just generally undesirable.

Oh, and I also have an offshoot of Deep Stash located in an empty gig bag in the gap between my bed and the wall. That's also where I keep my stuffing.

I have three places I keep my needles--I have a collection of circulars and DPNs that I don't use very often in a hat box with my crochet hooks. My most used straights and circs are in a roll-up case I made a few years ago, and that is inside a basket quiver I made a camp a few years ago, hanging on my wall for easy access. My most used DPNs are in a needle case just below it.

Pattern books and knitting magazines are on the shelf right next to the milk crate of Working Stash.

So there isn't a whole lot, but it's divided up into small, manageable chunks that fit into the tiny spaces I can find in my tiny room.

2KCBW--DAY 2

In the DVD Player: Firefly
Currently Reading: Torchwood: Consequences


I had to work this morning, and almost didn't get a blog post in at all. I thought about just putting it off until tomorrow, but Alice and I and some friends are going to an early movie, and I still have to do the Nerd Wars blog tomorrow, which is going to take a while because the dozens of submissions turned in for our little Tribble takeover.

The day two prompt for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week is as follows:

Look back over your last year of projects and compare where you are in terms of skill and knowledge of your craft to this time last year. Have you learned any new skills or forms of knitting/crochet (can you crochet cable stitches now where you didn’t even know such things existed last year? Have you recently put a foot in the tiled world of entrelac? Had you even picked up a pair of needles or crochet hook this time last year?

Let's see, according to my Ravelry, I've completed 14 projects (roughly) in the last twelve months, if you count a handful of hats that I donated as a single project and a trouble of tribbles as a single object (the Nerdwarsians decided that "trouble" was the proper term for a gathering of tribbles. I think it's perfect).

Last year, I was just starting to learn how to knit socks. I'd made a few very basic ones, but that was about it.

Last year, I'd done very little cabling. I've done quite a lot with cables now (mostly in the London Calling sweater, which needs and updated photo), and taught myself how to drop down to fix an incorrectly twisted cable (my tutorial on it can be found here).

I am now more adept at reading patterns. I also have learned the way NOT to make a beret, and how to make one properly.

I also took a great step in conquering lace, which is something I've always found elusive, when I made my feather and fan jazzpunk shawl. Oh, and I learned how to put a pocket into a sweater.

All of that, before you even get into the textile stuff and the historical stuff I learned for my thesis. Wow. That seems like a lot for a year! I want to learn more this year--I want to try another lace pattern. I want to challenge my design skills and start incorporating more techniques into the things I design myself, and increase my skill base.

I have two other goals, too: I want to knit through at least 3/4 of my stash, to get rid of the budget (i.e. Redheart) yarn that I got as a broke college student, and start using nicer yarns whenever possible. I still want to observe my budget, but I want to operate 90% stash free, meaning that I don't just go out and buy yarn because I want it. Purchased yarn must have a purpose, though I'm going to keep my handspun and still have some really basic yarns on hand--you know the kind, the ones that are so terribly useful that you're always going to them. Since this requires a shift of budget and of thinking, I'm going to count this as a new skill to learn in 2011.

What goals do you have?

A day late...but at least I'm not a dollar short

So I was over on the Major Knitter blog, and lo and behold, it's the annual knitting and crochet blog week. Whadya know? I didn't know there was such a thing, but I figured I'd give it a shot...since really, I don't have anything else to talk about, really.

I'm starting a day lay, but I'm going to go ahead and answer all of the blog prompts, anyway.

The one from yesterday is:

Part of any fibre enthusiast’s hobby is an appreciation of yarn. Choose two yarns that you have either used, are in your stash or which you yearn after and capture what it is you love or loathe about them.

Tips: It is a good idea, if possible, to choose a yarn that you adore and a yarn that just didn’t work for you. You do not need to be critical of any yarn if you do not feel comfortable in doing so, but perhaps you came to realise that one yarn wasn’t suitable for a particular project, if possible you could blog about what you have come to learn about choosing the right yarn, or your love of experimenting with fibres.

My current favorite yarn is Claudia Handpaints sock yarn. It's squishy, soft, pretty, and comes in all kinds of different colors (sadly, my LYS never carries more than two at a time, so I think I'm going to have to switch to buying it online). It also has the added benefit of not making me itch like crazy. It was the first superwash wool I found that didn't make me sneeze, break out, or scratch like someone had filled my socks with itching powder. I don't know what the base yarn is, but it appears to be the wool processed in such a way that I can wear it next to my skin without a problem.

My least favorite yarn, I'm sad to say, was a very well intentioned gift. I like the yarn when it was in hank form, but as soon as I tried to use it, it turned into clown barf. The background was a really bright turquoise, and it had noils of orange, yellow, purple, green and red in it. I tried crocheting it. I tried knitting it. I tried large needles, I tried small needles. I tried working it flat and in the round. I tried long rows, I tried short rows. No matter what I did with this yarn, it was awful. It looked like someone had stuck Bozo the clown through a pastamaker and tried to spin the noodles. The only halfway success solution I found was to hold it together with one strand of a a solid turquoise yarn of about the same shade. I had less than half a ball, though, and when I discovered the yarn had been discontinued, I gave up. Frustrated, I believe I donated it to a 4-H group or a nursing home or somesuch group that is always looking for craft supplies. I felt horrible doing it, since it was an artyarn and rather expensive, but there simply wasn't anything I could do with it.

And there you have it. My best and worst yarn experiences.

Teaser

Well, it’s not the picture I promised.

But it still makes me really, really happy.

I’ve spent the last couple of days dying. I had to remind myself of some of the process, since it’s been about a year or a little more since I last got the dye pot out. I’ve got eight ounces of wool ready to be spun, just waiting on some bamboo to come in and then I’ll be able to spin/dye both it and some silk I’ve got. Then I can start setting up the shop. :) I’m very pleased. (The yarn you see in this picture, by the way, is mine. MINE. Not for sale. The roving, however, will get spun and end up in the shop.)

Stick around. I've still got more to do.

Teaser

I would like to take a second and ask that people please not spam my comments anymore. I appreciate the feedback I get from people, but I really dislike having to go through and delete the trash that people have tried to post that is completely unrelated. I'm already moderating my comments; please don't make me have to stop allowing anonymous comments, too.

----



One thing that completely boggles me about Florence is the number of master painters who lived and worked in this city and yet the lighting is so terrible. Maybe things were different back in the 1500s, when there were fewer buildings, but it's hard to imagine this city as anything other than tightly packed stone buildings.

Please pardon my poor photography. My camera cord is MIA, so I used the webcam on my laptop. It's actually not a bad photo, considering I had to tilt the screen to a 45 degree angle just to get the yarn into the shot.

If you're wondering why that yarn is on toilet paper tubes (yes, you're not mistaken) it's because both of those are my handspun. I've been doing a ton of spinning. I actually used up the last of my fiber that I brought with me the other night (that would be the purple and blue ball. It's tussuh silk). Thankfully, Alice brought her entire, untouched stash of fiber, so I have probably two to three pounds of bamboo, silk, and I think some corn fiber to play around with. It's a great deal--I get to spin her yarn (a task she isn't too crazy about), and she gets pretty yarn to play with. Lately I've been in more of a spinning mood than a knitting on, so I don't even mind that I won't get to use what I've made.

What I have made, however...Well, obviously, this isn't all of it. The solid blue is Navajo plied bamboo. I've tried plying before on my spindle, and it always ended badly, usually with tangled, dirty yarn. So I started winding the singles off onto tp tubes, and then Navajo plying, which means I can turn a single into a three ply. Only one strand to deal with! I am in love with this technique. Because there are more plies, the yarn is more even and stronger. The only problem I'm having is that it can be difficult to prevent tangles if I have to stop in the middle. I have to be very careful about how I put it away and how I pick it back up again. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, here is a youtube video that shows it pretty well. Actually, I think it might be the video I originally learned from. I start out a little differently--make a slipknot from both the leader and the single together, then just cut the knot off when I'm done.

Meet Vanyel

Remember that Major Purchase I mentioned about a month ago that I didn't want to jinx? Well, this is it.

Vanyel is a Kromski Mazurka, which I purchased second hand from someone on Ravelry. I'm still learning, but here is the first bobbin I spun last night.


It took me about an hour and a half. I spun a second bobbin right away in natural white, and this morning I started plying them together.I've got about half a bobbin on the wheel right now.

Treadling is different. I originally wanted a double treadle, but I just couldn't say no to all of the wood turning. I try to use my left foot as often as possible, since I use my right for driving and my sewing machine. It's pretty smooth, and my biggest problem is that the wheel "travels" as I work. I'm going to get one of those no-slide mats and sew myself a little rug for it.

I've been doing a lot of dying when I'm not working on my thesis show, but not pictures yet. I've got a bit more to work on.

And in case you were wondering, yes, my new years resolutions/goals have gone out the window.

The End is Near

The end of the semester, that is. I won't bore you will all of the gory details, but here are some of the crafty/arty things I've been working on:

1. I had to buy wool for a class project. I only needed a little out of the 1 lb package, so the rest has been dyed and turned into roving (or is waiting to become roving). It's for sale in my etsy shop.
Here's a sample of one of them:


2. I started my Christmas presents. I'll post pictures when I'm done with all of them, but I have about 1 and a half sets finished.

3. I made a shirt for my construction class. Pictures of that and the stuff I've been dying will come shortly--I've been meaning to take pictures for over two weeks, but things have been really crazy with finals, so it hasn't happened yet. Maybe tonight.

4. I've really been enjoying working with paper, especially embroidering and embellishing it. Here are two of my latest pieces. As you can see, my photography skills have not improved. (In my defense, the lighting in our school studios is terrible.)


5. The student art sale was last weekend. I made $85, double what I would have made at work in the same amount of time (more, actually). I also sold some scarves and things that I've been trying to get rid of for a couple of years. I'll be back in the spring, with loads of silk to sell, hopefully.

Well, I think that's all the really major stuff. The Peace Project is coming along, but not as quickly as I'd hoped. I'm revising the construction (again) so that I can use my machine for at least part of the work and speed things up.

Changing colors

I dyed the alpaca yarn yesterday using two packets of black cherry kool-aide and some instructions I found on Knitty. The alpaca didn't take the dye as well as I had hoped, especially considering the concentration of the dye and the fact that I nuked it three times. Maybe it didn't soak long enough? But in was sitting in the water for several minutes before I added it to the dye bath.

Oh well, it's not bad. I don't think the lack of saturation ruined it, or anything. Either way, I'll have to blend it with something else in order to make anything out of it.