My stash runneth over ....

Last Saturday I tried to treat myself by taking a day off and going to the Wool Gathering in Yellowsprings, Ohio. I TRIED. Unfortunately, there was a family "crisis" (with a little c) that only a Mommy could deal with and I didn't get to leave for the 1 1/2 hour drive until about 3:30 -- for an event that ended at 7 p.m. Needless to say, my enjoyment of the fair was limited.

I was able to use my $25 gift certificate from the Weaver's Guild though. I bought a skein of beautiful soft cream colored sportweight alpaca and a laceweight skein of unusual silk/yak yarn. I really love those exotics! I'm planning to make a shawl for the Friendship Spinner's Christmas exchange with the alpaca, but I have no idea what to do with the silk and yak -- I guess that's the purpose of a stash.

Yesterday, my stash grew even more! I went to lunch with Lynne and -- bless her heart -- she brought me a gorgeous skein of mohair from York, England. She carried it home with her in her suitcase for me. It's a dark navy and difficult to see in the picture, but it's beautiful.

Yarns I have loved ...

Today I'm going to show you a few of the yarns I've spun that haven't gotten any air time. First, here's a picture of some sample skeins I spun just to see what they would look like. The vivid blue one is Andy combings dyed with blue Kool-Aid. I think I might use this as a cuff for some black felted mittens. I was surprised to see how even Andy's worst fur could be made into pretty decent yarn. I'm always afraid to experiment with it because it's so costly -- but these were just combings that came off when I brushed him so I felt like I could play.

Sitting beside the angora skein is a small experimental skein of Rambouillet plied with blue merino/silk top. The Rambouillet came from the first raw wool I ever bought. It was from a gray ewe that was a little older and, I gathered, something of a pet. I had no idea what to do with raw wool and everything I tried resulted in a neppy and unsightly mess. One of my friends looked at it and said to just use it as fertilizer. But I perservered. I tried combing some of it with my english wool combs and, lo and behold, there was lovely solf wool in that mess. So I took the rest of the fleece to a wool mill where the owner assured me he could deal with it. It came back to me last spring beautiful soft pale gray and ready to spin. Granted, it still has some neps, but that's in the nature of Rambouillet, and it's not nearly as bad as when I tried to prepare it. Lesson learned: it's very difficult to properly prepare fine soft wools like Rambouillet and Merino at home. In getting all the dirt out, you very likely will tear the wool up a little, creating all those little unwanted neps. For my experimental skein, I thought I'd perk the gray wool up by plying it with a strand of the blue merino/silk blend wool Jeff gave me for Christmas. I think they look good together.

Next is a skein of alpaca with bits of rayon or cotton "confetti" scattered through it. This was sort of fun to spin. All the little bits add interest. I bought the roving at the Wool Gathering. last year.

The next skein is a cautionary tale. It's a beautiful cream color two-ply wool with a melon color running through it. Unfortunately, I didn't put a tag on it and now I have absolutely no idea what it's made of. It has a little sheen, so if I had to guess I'd say it was mostly cream Romney with melon colored merino and silk mixed in. Oh, well, it's still pretty.

On the knitting front, I gratefully accepted the ounce of lace weight qivuit yarn that Mom discovered in her stash. I ripped out the 3 for 4 inches of garter stitch she had done (Shhh, don't tell her I ripped out her work!) and started on a project I've wanted to do for a long time: a lacey Moebius scarf. At the moment it looks like a total mess but I've been told to expect that with lace knitting. I'm just afraid it will STILL look like a total mess when it's washed and blocked. I done a complete pattern repeat and I still don't see a pattern. Well, at least it's a learning experience ... I keep telling myself ...

Go with the brown flow ... wait, that doesn't sound good.

I decided to "lean into" the brown with the turquoise and brown alpaca blend that I won. I spun up about 50 grams of the Ashford alpaca blend and then I rummaged around in my stash and came up with 50 grams of camel down. After spinning up the camel (which was a unique experience ... it's a short fiber but not really that hard to spin), I plied it with the alpaca blend. So, we end up with a 2-ply yarn that is 50% camel down, 35% turquoise corriedale and 15% dark brown alpaca. It looks kind of cool. Although I haven't measured it yet, it should be a sock weight yarn and I'm hoping to make socks.

Speaking of socks: Kate took her new white school socks to Washington, D.C. on her class trip and only one of them came back. The remaining sock is looking forlorn on top of the dryer, hoping against hope that its mate will turn up (and NOT after it's been washed and felted inadvertantly).

Speech after long silence ... (Yeats)

It's been a while since I've posted. The girls have gone back to school and I've started my new part-time job. See Stephanie's blog on August 25th for an accurate description of me while I'm working at home. Still, it's sort of fun to be exercising the muscle between my ears a little. I just hope I did a decent job on the memo Joe assigned me this week.

My wool from New Zealand arrived. I chose Lagoon color and I'm not sure it goes too well with the brown alpaca it's mixed with. It look nice and tweedy, though, when it's spun and plied. The alpaca gives it a little halo. I'm thinking of plying it with some soft merino and making socks.

I also finished Kate's school socks. I wish they were superwash -- I'm just sure she's going to toss them in the wash and I'll felt them by accident. I couldn't find any superwash wool in a plain bright white color. And the cotton I found said it needed to be handwashed too. So ... I tried them on and they're very comfortable. Maybe we can avoid shrinking them for at least one winter.

I'm still on the fence about this sweater. Ally thinks the colors don't go well together and I think it's a little garish. I'm not sure I want to spend a lot of time making a sweater I won't wear. Yet, when I pulled it out to take this picture, I thought it looked cheerful and I sort of like it.

Socks on Parade and New Zealand loves me

I finished my "Socks that Rock" socks. They turned out a little large around the foot, but they're fine. I love the colors. As is common with hand painted yarn, one sock is a lot paler than the other. I found this out when I made my "Koigu" socks. For a long time I thought I had accidently bleached one of the socks in the wash -- or some other accident. Then someone on one of my sock lists mentioned that hand painted yarn rarely yields identical socks. Still, they're very pretty.

The Weaver's Guild's next display is all about socks, so I've gathered together all my hand knit socks for the display. I have to take them in by August 15th. Who knew I had so many socks!

Last, but not least, I heard from Elizabeth Ashford this morning. Yes, that Elizabeth Ashford -- Ashford Spinning Wheels in New Zealand. I WON the Shrek 2 challenge! They're going to send me over a pound of their new alpaca blend wool. I'm so excited!

More socks!

I finally got around to knitting up the "Socks the Rock" yarn that I got from Toni Neal of The Fold at the Fleece Fair in 2005! Everyone on my sock list has been talking about how wonderful this sock yarn is, so I had to try it. It's pretty nice. I love the colors.

I've finally become a true sock knitter. I can knit a sock totally without a pattern now. If I ever get stranded on a deserted island, I'll be able to make socks. What a relief that must be for everyone stranded with me.

Well, one sock down. I'd better start the other one before SSS hits.

I'm also getting ready to start my Fair Isle birthday sweater now that all the yarn has arrived and the opinions have been weighed and the colors finally decided. More adventures ahead! STEEKS!

Mom's Dachshund Sweater is finished!

I finally finished the Dachshund Sweater this week. I ordered the last ball of yarn in my order to Knitpicks for my birthday sweater yarn. I just needed about 4 more rows of stockinette to complete the last sleeve ... and now, at last, it's done. I whipstitched the shoulders and sleeves together but I tried the more elegant mattress stitch on the sides. It's amazing how the stitching disappears! This weekend we're planning to go to Jenny Wiley State Park with Mom and Dad and I'll give it to her then. It's a very late birthday present since her birthday was in March!









I took all my birthday sweater yarn to the Guild Bylaws meeting yesterday and got some input about the colors. The general concensus was that the mustardy color could/should be replaced with the carrot orange. The surprise decision, though, was that everyone firmly felt that the light blue was too light (the first color on the far left of the swatch) and didn't fit in at all. So, I'm going to review all the colors again -- and how they are placed with other colors -- and probably end up ordering 2 skeins of a different blue and a second skein of carrot orange. This sweater better be good!!

Do we see a theme developing?

In the continuing theme of wooly footwear, I've started on self-striping socks from Knitpicks. Kate has been begging me for them; she loves the green color. But considering the way she treats her clothes, I don't think hand knit socks are for her. This time I'm going out on a limb and just winging the pattern. It's a simple 2K 2P rib and I adopted a heel flap from another sock pattern.

I got the yarn in for my birthday sweater. Kathryn gave me a gift certificate to KnitPicks for my birthday and it's taken me a year to pick out the yarn and a pattern I like. The pattern is a Fair Isle cardigan from Philosopher's Wool and looks like this (in their wool and colors). Picking out the colors has been a SO DIFFICULT. I dropped their orange and purple colors and put in greens and blue-greens. The only color I'm really concerned about is the brassy gold color. Somehow it just sticks out like a sore thumb. On the other hand, looking at this picture, it looks like the sea green is the culprit. With the Fair Isle pattern, though, they aren't really supposed to blend together so much as provide attractive contrasting patterns. On the other hand, I'd hate to spend hours and weeks working on a sweater that turned out to be hideous. HELP!

Yesterday we celebrated my DH's birthday. He's so exhausted from the neverending conflicts of litigation that he didn't really enjoy it. We were going to a baseball game but then he didn't really feel well enough -- then we were going to go out to dinner -- and, finally, I ended up cooking steaks at home so he could relax in front of the T.V. with the girls. Kate made him a Red Velvet cake and Ally wrapped all the presents (nothing really exciting but several small thoughtful gifts). We usually don't bother to put the right number of candles on a grown up's cake, but we thought it would be funny since it's his 49th. It took us so long to light all the candles (with all three of us working at it) that we ended up having to pick a lot of blue wax out of our cake. I assured everyone that it wouldn't hurt them if they ate some. I hope I'm right!

By the way, Andy had his summer haircut a couple of weeks ago. So, an Andy before and after should be presented:









Before: Regal Rabbit; After: Bare Bunny

Making Lemonade

Well, in lieu of going to England, I've been busy knitting and spinning. I spun some silk very finely from a silk cap (each cocoon is a layer in the cap) and then plied it with a very fine strand of Andy's angora fur. It feels lovely, but I still need some more twist in it. Next time I'll use the electric spinner. I think it also needs a better color. I wonder how it would look dyed? Ah, an experiment ...

I've also been at work on my favorite type of project: felting. I had heard about a great pattern from Patternworks for felted clogs, so I tried it. Here is the unfelted slipper next to my pink clog slipper. To the left is a close up of the unfelted slipper.

Next is the felted slipper beside my pink slipper for comparison. What a change! And, last, is the felted slipper on its own. Where is the mate, you say? I was so anxious to see what it would look like that I threw the first slipper into the wash before I made the second one. It didn't occur to me until later that they might not felt the same if they aren't treated exactly the same. So, they may not turn out to be matching slippers at all!

Some finished projects

I finished my entry for Ashford's Shrek II contest. The challenge was to make something with wool from the runaway sheep, Shrek II. I bought 2 ounces of raw wool, but I didn't end up with a lot of usable yarn, so I decided to make Shrek's wool a "design feature" in a larger work. I made a pillow and the white sheep on it is made from Shrek's wool.

I also finished my Fair Isle socks. These were really fun to make. I love Fair Isle and the self striping yarn makes changing colors unnecessary ... so you just have to worry about two balls of yarn instead of a dozen.

Miracle of miracles, I can actually wear them. I thought the Fair Isle around my calves would be too tight, but they fit!

Finishing these knitting projects is a ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy world. The combination of Jeff's work demands and Ally's broken leg made us cancel our summer vacation to England -- for the second year in a row. After all the time I spent making all the reservations, it was very disheartening to cancel all of them.

Then, this afternoon, Jeff blew a tire on his way to his after-Sunday-mass meeting. He didn't have time to deal with it, so he limped the car into his office parking lot and called me to deal with it. Now, at 11:30 p.m., I have to go to his office and pick him up -- since he doesn't have a car.

The girls and I recently saw the movie "Click" and I think Jeff would be very hurt to know how strongly the girls identify him with the father in the movie who loves his family, but always puts his job first.

It's too hot to think ...

I really goofed up. I thought I was doing a GOOD thing -- installing a new programmable thermostat so we could keep the house warm during the day and cool at night. Unfortunately, I fried the thermostat transformer and we were without air all last night. Jeff was not amused. The HVAC guy came first thing this morning, though, and fixed my mistake for $325. I'm not saying it wasn't worth it or that he charged more than he should ... but, golly, I didn't expect this minor household thermostat upgrade to cost us $400 (thermostat plus repairman). At least it's working now and the house is starting to cool.

I'm halfway through my second sock of the Knitpicks Fair Isle pattern. I'm getting ready to turn the heel. Online I found some instructions for wrapping the yarn so that I don't get such big holes in the heel. I'm still not sure I like the short row heel. It looks sort of like a thumb, doesn't it?

I'm planning a project to submit in an Ashford contest. It seems that these sheep ran away and got lost and were out in the wilderness for 6 or 7 years, far from the sheep shears. When they were found, they were huge puff balls and the largest, named "Shrek II," yielded a record 68 pounds of wool (avg. fleece is about 8 pounds). Elizabeth Ashford sold some of the wool in 1 oz. lots and I bought 2 ounces, just to see what it was like. Ashford is having a contest for whoever makes something out of the wool. All you have to do is send in a picture of your item by July 31st.

I'm planning a little pillow that says "Run Shrek II Run!" I'll post pictures later.

Making progress

I'm making progress on the patterned sock. The heel was the strangest thing. I think it's called a short row heel and it produces a bunch of big holes on one side. I had to frog it once and redo it but I guess it'll do.

I really love doing this patterned work. It really keeps your interest. Unfortunately, the fabric it creates doesn't have much give, so I'm not very optimistic that I'll be able to actually wear these socks. They'll make a nice gift though.

I am so darn clever!

I finally got my act together and made the electric spinning wheel I've been thinking about for so long. I had an old flyer that originally came with my wheel. Then I bought an old sewing machine at St. Vincent DePaul for $5 and cannibalized it for the variable speed motor and foot pedal. The other parts, the wood and the Ashford bearings, cost about $12. So, I figure I've got about $17 invested in this baby. Check out what electronic spinners normally cost.

The unenlightened at my house -- that would be everyone but me -- say "doesn't an electric spinner defeat the whole purpose of hand spinning the yarn like in the old days?" Well, yes ... but I sometimes like to spin very fine yarns that require a lot of twist and, frankly, it takes too long to pedal the traditional wheel if you're going to do much very fine yarn. I COULD get a high speed flyer for my wheel -- but they cost $165, so you see my difficulty.

So far, I only see two problems with my $17 solution. First, the thick rubber band that I used for a drive band sheds rubber like crazy when you rev it up to high speeds. I'll probably have to invest $10 or so in a real drive band. Second, making the speed consistent is a problem since I'm just stepping on the foot pedal. I can keep a pretty uniform speed at one time, but if I go away and come back to it I'm not sure I would be running it at the same speed. I think I could solve that, though, by placing a shim under the pedal so it would only go one speed when the pedal is fully pressed.

In addition to my mechanical creation, I've started on a sock from the Knit Picks pattern. Kathryn is also doing this sock, but mine will be MUCH prettier (I hope she's reading this!). So far, it looks pretty cool. I hope it will fit me when it's done!

I won the challenge with illusion!

I'm thrilled! I won the Weaver's Guild challenge "Black, White and Red All Over" with my black and white illusion scarf with the word "RED" in it. The members voted on which project was the best and MINE WON!

Everyone thought it was very clever and a few are even clamoring for an illusion knitting workshop.

I got a $25 gift certificate from the Weaver's Loft as a prize and I can't decide what to buy with it. There are so many options ... a some great roving or a lace flyer for my wheel. I may just hang on to it for a while and savor the moment.

I'm working on a rare wools vest that I'm just faking as I knit ... I figured out the rough perameters and cast on letting the devil take the hindmost.

I knit one side of the front in garter stitch and decided I didn't like it and pulled it out. So now I've finished one side out of stockinette and I'm wondering why I didn't use moss stitch.

This is why people use patterns ... so they don't keep changing their minds.

Anyway, the grey to the left is CVM and, starting with the black line, the wool is three colors of Jacob sheep. It's all my bulky handspun and it looks a little rough, but I think I'll live with the stockinette. I'm hoping to get this done so I can wear it on our trip to England in July. Stop laughing!

Ally got Andy out today and gave him a good grooming. She collected a good bit of fur, so I hauled my wheel out into the sunshine and made angora yarn. Later, when I was giving him a pedicure, he escaped. I've never seen him run so fast!!! He took off like a grey streak! Ally and I stalked him for a while but she finally caught him. Of course, after we captured him we had to groom him all over again because he was littered with leaves and sticks. He's a rascal!

But I have to forgive him -- he's so soft and gorgeous. Look at all this silky fiber!

Four Finished Felted "(F)ittens"?

I got the ribbed wrist bands done and sewed them into the felted mittens. I'm not actually sure they're necessary because the mittens seem warm enough and tight enough to the wrist without them -- but I wanted to follow the pattern, at least the first time out. I had a little trouble because I ran out of yarn for the ribbing, but I just put the last bits of colored yarn at the edges where they would be seen and substituted white yarn to complete the rest of the ribbing. Well, that's probably WAY more than anyone wanted to know about this project.

I like the way these mittens look and feel. They would make a great Christmas present with a felted hat. Look out, everyone! Let me know if you DON'T want felted mittens for Christmas.

I'm thinking of making a rare wools vest. I've got 8 oz. of California Variegated Mutant (CVM) spun into a bulky weight yarn (seen at right) and I'm spinning 4 oz. of Jacob Sheep wool into a bulky weight (seen below). I think I'll have enough for a vest front at least and I think the wools will look good together. The natural colors are a little drab ... mostly grey and greyish brown ... but these are the natural colors and the whole point of CVM is that is it colored. So, I suppose I'll leave them natural. Now I need to find a good vest pattern for bulky yarn!