My give up

... for now anyway.

I am being punished for some previous crime against knitting, I just know it.

After going on and on and on about how much I wanted a dark red heavy cabled sweater I gave in and bought a bunch of Berrocco Inca Gold in Vino on sale and the Vivian pattern.

This yarn is lush. I love it. It makes lovely popping cables and its soft but firm at the same time - Also favorite shade of red ever.

This pattern is gorgeous and flattering and intricate and interesting.

This sweater when its done will be the hotness.

Now, I was doubly good about this. I swatched the yarn before I invested in the sweater's worth and by swatch I mean I knit half a freaking sleeve.

Seriously.

My swatch is over a foot long. I used half a ball of yarn to do it. I used two needles sizes because one looked pretty close but I went down anyway in case it blocked out some (it did).

I washed it.

I blocked it.

I carried it around in my knitting bag for a week and took it out to pet it and reconfirm that yes, the gauge is workable and yes the cables look good, and yes the seed stitch is lovely.

Now - Technically the pattern calls for aran/bulky yarn and Inca Gold is definitely a worsted weight. But this is fine. Other people have successfully made this pattern in worsted yarns and I went through and read all their notes.

I want this to fit with zero ease, but I want that to be zero ease over something more than a cami. So I measure myself with a dress shirt on and then with a light v-neck sweater and a t-shirt and figure that to accommodate the slightly finer yarn and half stitch off of gauge I have that I should go up one size from my bust. Especially since my last sweater was massively too small.

All this sounds reasonable, yes?

One reason I was really feeling this pattern is that its knit in one piece from the bottom up so I can try it on as I go and adjust as necessary. I'm pretty sure while I'm casting on that this is going to work out extra well because *if* for some reason the size I've chosen looks like its going to be a little loose come the end of the shaping I can do some extra decreases in the waist and slim it down a size at the bust line. I am a little on the hippy side anyway so this works perfectly in my head.

I have knit the first 25 rows or so this week which gives me about 5 inches of fabric and I decide that this is a good point to try it on.

I don't really need to tell you how that went do I? (Just for the record this time it was too big. By something like 4 inches - and i tried it on over jeans and with a sweater on)

Thankfully I was only 1 ball in and so I quite un-neurotically (aside from the brief stomping fit and banging of my head against the wall and cussing) pulled it all out and set it aside.

I will try this again in January.

Maybe 2010 will be my sweater year because clearly 2009 is not.

(Thankfully Inca gold frogs well.)

Oh! Shiny!

spindleset2
Originally uploaded by kleighb

One of the women at my Thursday night knitting group has been working on making a line of drop spindles and I've been having entirely too much fun playing with them as she's worked out how to put them together. Tonight she brought in the first finished batch and they are quite lovely.

One of them (made out of a cool sounding wood that I've already forgotten the name of... it starts with a "Ch" sound I think. Its pretty and kind of iridescent) decided that it needed to come home with me. Because it loves me.

Which is good because I love it back.

(It is the smaller of the two in the picture, the big one is an earlier prototype that came home with me awhile ago. It is also very nice but more of a plying weight at a bit over 1.5oz - the little lovely is 5/8oz. which is right in my favorite weight range. And Oh! their cutouts match! Its like having a paired set!)

I sort of lost interests in top whorls after I first learned to spin, but I am rediscovering the appeal here. I have never had one that's done a thigh roll quite so nicely. And she does spin and spin and spin and spin....

Also did I mention the pretty shiny part?

Ugh

You know that sick feeling you get when you start on a fix, get about halfway through it and then finally admit that no, this is not working out and really you need to just kill the insane number of hours you've put into it already and start over?

No?

Perhaps you are not a Type A personality then.

I remember coaching an artist friend of mine about this a few years ago. The conversation was about anatomy and how it was unfortunately very simply wrong on a certain drawing. It could be fudged sure, and maybe it would be overlooked by a casual observer on a single glance but even an untrained eye would notice that something was very simply not right. Maybe they wouldn't be able to pinpoint what exactly was off but they'd know SOMETHING was. And I said (because these words were just doomed to come back and haunt me):

"Sometimes you just have to say its done and wrong and be willing to throw it out and start all over again. I know you've put hours upon hours into working on it. I know you're in love with the idea of it. I know you want to be able to fix it, but sometimes to get what you intended you just have to be willing to throw it all out and start over."

And yeah, my Tempest? My Tempest is there.

Sure the patches would work. But I would never be happy with them. I can see them and I don't like them. I really really don't like them.

The fabric this yarn created is beautiful and I'm ruining it with sloppy attempts to salvage a sweater that doesn't fit.

The idea of tearing this out makes me feel physically ill. For one thing I covet this yarn in a way that's hard to really quantify. Its SPECIAL in a lot of ways and its already been CUT. Which means to undo all my work I'm going to have to pick out a lot of woven in ends, ball up dozens of smaller bits and then reskein them so they can be washed and reknit. When I redo the sweater there will be a dozen times the ends needing to be woven in (And here I thought the first time was miserable).

But the alternative is a sweater I don't love or even necessarily like. One that doesn't fit and that makes me feel sloppy to wear.

And that depresses me even more than the idea of reknitting the whole thing. This yarn and I both deserve better than that.

Tempermental Tempest

I should, by all rights, be finished with my Tempest cardi by now.

Sure I took a few weeks off of regular knitting to play Dragon Age. Sure I have spent most of the time not playing Dragon Age the last week spinning (cashmere - because how can you say wait to cashmere?).

Still! Before my darkspawn filled hiatus I was down to the sleeves. And I do mean JUST THE SLEEVES. The body was done. ends woven end. blocked. DONE. The sleeves were even started, I just needed to get knitting, seam it up and ha! finished sweater!

So I finally cracked down on myself this weekend and finished the sleeves. And today I went to seam it up, happy dreams of wearing it to Thanksgiving dinner dancing in my head.

Clearly its not done.

What happened is this. I went on my merry way, seaming the sleeve in and closing up the armhole. I was all hyped to start the side seams when I got home from work and I went to try it on to show off to my Mom and.... The arms are too snug.

Not just kind of fitted, but circulation inhibiting tight. Seriously these are made for someone with bony anorexic arms.

Closer inspection reveals that really... the whole sweater is a bit too small. Its very bizarre because I totally followed directions. I swatched and then blocked and then swatched again and then blocked again. I got gauge EXACTLY (I never get gauge exactly). I made ZERO modifications. I knit to what seemed like the right size.

My first instinct is that this is all those weeks of sitting on my lazy bum and killing demons coming back to bite me, but the scale and my tape measure assure me that however flabby I feel I should still fit into this sweater.

See my boobs not being interested in fitting in there? This sweater was clearly designed with the less chested in mind. (Also see my stupid squinty face? This is totally why one should not take mirror pictures of oneself)

This is not the end all of the tempest though. I wear most of my cardigans open anyway and the back is close fitting but not hopeless. So it doesn't close over my chest. Neither do a third of the button down shirts I own (I think they mostly did when I bought them - clearly my boobs have a mind of their own.. And also cotton shrinks. Stupid cotton.). That's what layers are for. The trick here is having armholes that I can fit another layer into (also fitting my arm in there without the tourniquet effect would be nice).

I've devised a cunning solution to my problem. I'm proceeding to set in the sleeves and then I'm frogging them back to the armholes. I can cast on a few extra stitches under the arms and knit the sleeves back down - in the round this time to avoid me wanting to stab myself redoing all that seaming again. This leaves a gap under the arms that is going to require a little gusset and really if I have enough yarn knitting a small 1 inch thick panel between the back and side pieces would do wonders for the fit (I am not really counting on having that much yarn).

Either way, it should end up wearable (please, please let it end up wearable), if not exactly what I intended.

I am beginning to wonder if perhaps I am simply not meant to knit garments.

Wynne knits

I got my copy of Dragon Age on the 3rd and it has very seriously been eating into my knitting time. My Tempest, which would totally be finished by now otherwise, is sitting on my desk trying to keep me from killing darkspawn. Unfortunately for it, the darkspawn are winning. I do however find it amusing to imagine throwing sweaters at ogres whenever I cast a Tempest spell.

I haven't quite crawled into a hole and died yet. I've still been making it out of my apartment to forage and collect a paycheck and I even refused to skip my knitting groups for the game... though that was partly because they fell during periods where I was either tired of being killed by tentacle monsters or annoyed with Alister for being a soul crushing evil man and abandoning me and so far too depressed to carry on with ending the blight.

I eventually solved this by killing myself heroically, which was rather less satisfactory than I'd hoped (The bastard didn't even come and cry on my grave). And then afterward I reloaded and let him have his way and we lived happily (demon babies notwithstanding) ever after.

Maybe.

Um anyway, my point is knitting is everywhere.

Even in my video games.

Because I was walking around a village and Wynne turns to Sten and she goes "You must get cold, I suppose we can't find a cloak in your size but maybe if I can just find some good wool yarn..."

My life is very circular.

Its always what you can't have...

My stash and I are in a pretty good place with each other. It owns my living room and I try to keep its weight down to around a point where I can still fit in there too.

The past few months its been on a little bit of a diet. Somehow before I moved to Austin it had managed to put on a lot of concealed weight. I didn't realize the bloat was at the level it was until I got here and started unpacking and then kept unpacking and kept unpacking and kept unpacking...

It kicked out my books you know. They're all still in storage somewhere in Kentucky because the yarn wouldn't let them in the car for fear some of it might have to sit in storage instead.

Anyway, once the glut was revealed I sat down with it and we had a little talk about its problems with emotional eating, and how this really wasn't healthy and there were bills that had to take priority sometimes. And it agreed that it would try to cut back some. Maybe not try to drop the weight but at least try and manage it some and we've been in a pretty good place, the two of us, since then.

I've given it some sock yarn and a lace cardigan when its been good for the month, and I even bought it a second wheel to help it burn off some fiber.

I've been keeping busy with my knitting, using up some gems its been hiding in its depths for awhile and I've been pretty happy all around with this arrangement. I think we both have.

My tempest is on the last front panel though and I can see it being finished in the next few weeks. And I've been looking through the stash for my next larger project. There's lots of choices - I have more Wollmeise in red for a lace shrug or cropped cardi, there's some gold cotton I chose for a Whisper cardi awhile back. There's an awful lot of Ella Rae Merino Lace if I want to make a second tempest, and I have that blue zephyr that I want to do an Aeolian shawl with.

The problem is - and this is really hard and contrary for me to say - I don't want to knit another lightweight sweater. I want to knit something sturdy. With cables. Lots of intricate cables. Like the Vivian hoodie or maybe a Twist. Or even the Central Park Hoodie, which I acutally already have the pattern for and have for years now and just never get around to finding appropriate yarn for. I want to knit it out of wool. A soft plushie wool. In a very deep red. Berroco Inca Gold in Vino, or maybe Kashmir Aran in Red or Ember.

And I do not have any yarn like that in the stash.

And I do not have any money to buy the yarn like that to put in the stash.

And all I can think is - you couldn't have started craving this two months ago? When there was money to feed you?

Uber Productive

I have finished an insane amount of stuff in the past month. The biggest thing from start to finish is the Revontuli shawl I did out of Kauni. The yarn was pretty interesting. I was expecting not to like it because there are so many complaints about it being scratchy. I did re-skein the ball and wash it several times before use, which seemed to make a pretty big difference. I think there is some kind of spinning oil or sizing on the yarn from the factory, since the first two washes were pretty grimy. I tossed it into a vinegar rinse afterwards and it came out much nicer. Its not merino soft by any stretch but its actually quite nice for a Shetland yarn.

And damn but you can't beat those colors.


I also finally finished the dead-mitts. They've really been done for about three months now, which makes me feel a little (a lot) like a slug. All that I did to complete them was finally get around to sewing in all the ends. They are extremely badass even if to date no one has gotten the reference, and shame - SHAME on my fellow knitters for not being sufficiently geeky. Also shame on everyone else in the wide universe that has seen me wearing these and hasn't been sufficiently geeky. And also shame on Disney. You touch my mouthy merc I will so gouge that mouse's eyes out with crochet hooks.

Seriously.

Just try me.

My second pair of hand spun socks from the red/orange/fuschia yarn I spun up early this year are finished. Yes, with contrasting heel/toes on the second pair 6oz ended up being enough for two pairs of socks. In hindsight it was enough for the first pair to have been knee-highs or if I'd made them shorter (they're quite tall anyway) for both pairs to be completely of handspun.

I do rather like the contrast of the black though. It makes me want to dye up something similar and do some kind of witchy stripe thing.

In less successful, but still finished knitting I finally completed the red sweater I started earlier this year. While I feel sort of accomplished over the finishing it part I have to say....

Its pretty wretched.

Its too big. The yarn is too heavy. The shoulders sag, and even if they didn't there are too many ragalan increases and the arm holes are too large. The sleeves are enormous, the yellow yarn is not remotely the same weight as the red and it shows.

Also its really really hot. Sweaty, WhyDidIPutThisOnILiveInTexas?, hot.

I haven't decided yet what to do with it. I think... either frog it and weave a throw blanket or weave in the ends and give it to charity... Or maybe stuff it in the back of the closet and pretend it doesn't exist.

Something like that.

On a more positive sweater note, I've since cast on for a Tempest out of Wollmeise. Its lightweight and soft and pretty. It will be awesome.

Or I will swear off sweater knitting for another three years... one of the two.

We had the yarn crawl a few weeks back and it was quite fun. I was pretty restrained with my stash acquisition but I did come back with some more sea silk in a charcoal silver and some other small goodies (lace & sock yarn... because what I really need in my stash is more lace & sock yarn). My favorite new shop we stopped at was the Tinsmith's Wife in Comfort. The people there were great and the yarn selection was very impressive (its where the sea silk came from). They do have shop cats, which is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but they were at least very sweet clean cats.

We had lunch down the road from the shop at a cafe called High's (which was very nifty, they had quite good food and we sat outside at tables with plush blankets to wrap up in and watched the rain) and then went on to get lost in the hill country for about an hour when one of the main roads was closed.

The only shop on the crawl I don't really need to go back to was Ewe and Eye, which felt less like a yarn shop to me and more like this toy store my grandmother took me to once as a child where the owner yelled at me for touching one of the toys.

I think my favorite giveaways were from Hill Country Weavers (a hank of Happy Feet), Yarnivore (a knitting tool & a Yarn Calc booklet) and Old Oaks Ranch (a ball of Sugar Rush) and most of the goodies were nice and reflected the shop that gave them away in some way.

Coming up next month I'm hoping to check out the Fiber Festival out in Bourne (Kid & Ewe). Perhaps I will even manage to wear my Tempest there...

Yaaaaarrrrrrrnnnn

I totally missed out on talk like a pirate day. Again.

*sigh*

Instead I finally pulled the slightly more than 3 oz of organic cotton off the CPW. This is what that much handspun cotton looks like:

I assure you that however impressed you might be, its not enough. That is a crazy amount of cotton. Seriously. Do you know how long that much cotton takes to spin?

Anyway, I wound it off onto one of these nifty weaver's spools that I got so I can a) get stuff off the single bobbin antique and b) actually be able to find an empty bobbin for the sonata once and awhile. They were quite handy, very cheap and they hold a lot of yarn singles. Also they fit a cheapo ashford lazy kate.

I am still experimenting with the best way to wind them. I rigged up a makeshift quill thing attached the sonata flyer to get the cotton off but I suspect this is not a real good idea long term. I did locate my mini-dremel, which would be a pretty good solution, but the battery charger is MIA. I distantly remember going "Oh hey! I've been looking for this for three years!" back when I was packing in Kentucky, and then immediately stuffing it into a random box of crap so...

Yeah, its possible at this point I just need to get another dremel.


I also finished my experimental merino this weekend. I was trying to work on spinning thicker singles, which I think I was moderately successful at, but by the end of it there was all this really pretty yarn and I just knew plying was going to ruin all the colors.

So I dawdled for awhile and angst for awhile more and then someone at a knit group pointed out that the colors were kind of mardi gras and I should do something with gold beads.

Yes, well.

After three hours of cussing at seed beads that idea was scrapped, but I did ply with a gold thread.

I rather like it.

Weight varies between a light fingering to a dk and its quite light and soft and lofty. 320 yds to the larger skein, 230 to the smaller. A little over four & a half ounces total. The roving was from allspunup on etsy and I want more. No idea what it will become yet, but the nice thing about making yarn is that sometimes the yarn can just be the end project and sit around looking pretty and impressive until you come up with a pattern for it.

Less sucessful this week was dyeing.

When I first dyed this it was a sunny yellow. It was a quite pretty color actually, very bright and vibrant. And not at all the warm ambery yellow-gold I was going for. So I, in my infinite wisdom, thought I'd just pop it back in the pot, add some reddish browns and a bit of selective green. Tone it down, warm it up, mellow it out...

And I'm not sure I like it.

Actually I'm not sure I hate it.

Its muddy. The colors bleed everywhere instead of staying in the nice distinct areas I put them. The greens just give a greyish tinge to the roving, and the browns split a bit and there's more orange and less gold than I wanted.

Its wet still, and so I'm reserving final judgement for daylight and dry wool... but its not looking good. I suppose worst case this becomes sampling fiber and I get another batch for the finished yarn... but I'm bummed out.

Maybe I should have just been happy with my sunny yellow.

Also, my orange dye stock has taken on a disturbingly gelatinous texture. Its freaking me out a bit.

Also, also. I got my Kauni today. But it deserves its own post so I'll save it for later.

Gotta hit em all!

I have my map all laid out here:


View 2009 Yarn Crawl in a larger map

It is still a work in progress but you are very impressed, no?

Game plan as of today (subject to change, overtime and the chaos that runs my life):

I am factoring about an hour time spent at each shop, with an attempt at a half hour of buffer where possible to account for traffic and getting lost.

Friday - get off work at 3. Get to Bluebonnet and Gauge before they close (both at 6pm). Make it to HCW if there is time, but don't strain it (also to close at 6pm).

Saturday - hit a line of stuff towards San Antonio. The Yarn Barn Opens first on Saturday so get there before ten (this means leaving North Austin by about 8am). Work back to Yarnivore (11:30). Stop somewhere interesting in San Antinio for lunch(12:30-1:30). Drive back out to Old Oaks Ranch in Wimberly (3:30). Final Stop of the day is the Knitting Nest (5:30) &/or HCW if I didn't get to them Friday. HCW might be a smarter choice since the Knitting Nest will be open Monday until 9pm. Have a celebratory dinner somewhere in Central Austin and gloat proudly over all the yarn I didn't mean to buy.

Sunday - hit the way out there shops. Start at Stonehill in Fredricksburg (10am - once again this is an 8am leave time morning). Loop back to the Tinsmith's Wife in Comfort (11:30). Stop for lunch somewhere in Comfort or Boerne(12:15-1:15). Hit Rosewood Yarns (1:30) and Ewe & Eye (2:30). Go home and take a nap. Or alternately hit the Knitting Nest or HCW if they are still missing from the passport and then go take a nap. Wonder over dinner why I thought this was such a good idea. Snuggle up with pretty yarn and try to get some sleep before the weekend is over.

Monday - get out of work by 4. Get out to Yarnorama. Since I work out in Taylor even if I have to stay late this should be achievable and, unless I'm still missing the Knitting Nest, my last shop. Go home and stare at the new stash. Resolve not to buy any more yarn for at least three months (well... resolve for six and then fail to last more than 2).

Spend the following week in a state of yarn shock, eating out because there was no time to go grocery shopping or do the dishes over the weekend and sniffing clothes because usually laundry is a weekend task as well. Pass in and outer of hyperactive yarn crazy and fits of frantic startitis.

Indeed. It shall be a great thing.

I should know better

Rather than hunt down some Kauni I, in my infinite wisdom, decided to dye up some KP sock blanks for a Revontuli shawl. This is for my Grandmother for Christmas and she wanted a rainbow of colors. So I painted on the colors and ran it through the dye pot (twice because I wanted to make sure the color took all the way through) and... its crap.

Okay, its not crap exactly. Its more or less rainbow colored, but despite my best efforts white spots remain and so my reds knit up splotchy pink and the Kelly Green, which incidently was the ONLY color to dye all the way through, came out pretty well neon due to what I'm guessing is some yellow splitting (at least... its never dyed up quite this neon green for me before).

Also, I seem to have forgotten that I hate KP essential. HATE. Somewhat unsurprisingly the yarn was not improved any by being pre-knit into a sheet. It still makes my teeth hurt to knit with it.

So.

Dyed yarn is getting tossed (or RAKd or something... there are people in the universe that would probably like this yarn... if I didn't hate the base so much I think the end result would make some pretty badass knee-high socks) and I've found a couple of skeins of Kauni in the EQ colorway on a ravelry destash.

Odds are good I won't like working with the Kauni either, but at least the colors will be good and it won't make that awful squeaky noise when I knit.

Knitter's Log 09.05-08

Yarn Date: 09.08.09

Encountered dangerously powerful yarn fumes in Paige. Crew eventually escaped but not without casualties.

Damage Report includes: 1 laceweight cardigan pattern with yarn

Estimated time to recovery: determination pending science team reports

Incoming fiber is already integrating into the system, long term affects of the species are not yet determined.

Issues with engineering resulted in two failed cast ons. Further study uncovered lack of processing power at fault. Am assured that new mathematical models will correct the problem.

Shipment of incoming fiber is predicted for this week. Containment procedures are in place and I am cautiosly optimistic to begin processing gift knits.

Total Hours logged this period:
Knit: 14.5
Spin: 2.5
Dye: 3

My newest love

I've been keeping one eye open the past month or so for a big saxony.

I've known I wanted one, but I live in reality (sometimes) and reality says I'm not buying the Jenson out at Yarnorama not matter how lovely it is. Still, I want a big saxony and I figured I was willing to do some rehab if one came up.

So when a lady out in Georgetown posted a Borduas - style CPW on craigslist for a steal I saw the posting the same day and called to ask to come check it out. I was trying really hard not to hold my breath on this one, because honestly wheels this age aren't always spinable anymore. But I asked around for what to look for and figured if it seemed at all repairable then it was worth a shot. When I went to have a look I knew this was a find... the wheel's in very good repair and in spinning condition straight after a good cleaning and oiling.

I managed to get the drive band sorted (for today its cotton rug warp - I'd very much like to spin a hemp band for it soon) and put her through her paces. She's a very solid wheel.

There's a small wobble to the drive wheel, though not enough to affect the spinning any, and she needs a real footman (I'm using a nylon cord at the moment). There is also a crack in the flyer that will need to be dealt with eventually. Someone patched it with wire but I'm not sure I trust that long term.

She has two ratios and my math puts them at about 18.5 to 1 and 20 to 1. I'm going off how Alden Amos says to calculate that, but I'm not 100% sure I follow it. Regardless she is at least as fast as my Sonata's top speed, and I'd say a bit faster. The feel of the double drive draw in is going to take some getting used to, but it liked the ounce or two of corriedale I spun up to test it and seemed to accommodate my longdraw pretty darn well.

She has no maker's marks that I can find and a sketchy history so its hard to tell much about her beyond the obvious. Whatever her past I'm happy to give her a good home and get her back to spinning.

Less dramatic in this weeks spinning is the BFL/Silk/Seacell blend that I plyed over the weekend. I tried something new with this - winding off the bobbin onto two TP rolls and then plying from those.

It took me a bit to find a good way to get the yarn wound back off the balls, but it eventually occured to me that I have a paper towel holder that would work. Its a handy magnetic thing that it turns out clamps just great to the underside of my desk and holds the rolls sufficiently level.

Its a good makeshift system though I think before I do it again I'd prefer to see if I can find some cardboard weaver's spools and a winder for them instead. Using the ball winder worked OK, but the feed off the balls just wasn't what it could be.

Still, the finished yarn is lovely:


It came out to be about 400yds to 2 oz. Not sure yet what to do with it, but its soft and squishy to pet in the mean time.

Good Day

Went to the Yarn Swap down at Central Market this afternoon.

My haul:

I am particularly excited to score the Lonco multi, though I haven't the foggiest what I'll do with it yet. The teal lace is awesome as well - 1400yds that needs to be something big & fancy. The bamboo in the back is not really my color, but I've been wanting to try dyeing the stuff and this seemed like a good opportunity.

After the swap I wandered down to Hill Country Weavers (I know - I KNOW! BUT I WAS GOOD!) mostly for inspiration and they had in some of the sock size KnitPro bags again.

I have had one of these for about nine or ten months and it is practically a permanent growth on my person. They're great bags - made of ripstop nylon so they're both waterproof and weigh virtually nothing, they can hold a pair of socks, or a scarf, or the first half of a lightweight sweater, or a lace shawl or a 4-oz braid of roving and a small drop spindle (If you drop spindle you need one of these - they make great fiber pouches and I prefer them to wrist distaffs). They have a little loop that you can snap around a bag strap, a belt loop, your wrist, the steering wheel of your car (possibly an unwise one if you're driving... but I have done it... hooked it on the wheel i mean, while the car was parked... not knit while driving - Don't Knit and Drive people, its not safe... Always bring a designated driver along to steer the car when you want to knit while in motion). In short - They're awesome.

I have wanted... nay! NEEDED a second one for some time. It just drives me nuts to always be tossing projects in and out of the one I have. These bags however are perpetually out of stock.

Sure... knitpicks carries them. But they only have three colors and I don't want one in Hot Pink or Lime Green or Turquoise. So I was really excited to see them back in stock at HCW. I got a bright (Scoobie) blue one and its just as awesome as its sibling.

If you're in the area and want one I'd get out there quick since they seem to go fast. They are a little pricey - about 20$, but they're also pretty well indestructible. Theoretically you could make one of these for around 5 bucks, but like I comiserated with the shop lady... who ever gets around to it?

Also I just want it on record. I did actually leave HCW without yarn.

So there.

I make a point of stopping in at the big Half Price on north Lamar whenever I'm in the area and so on the way back home I popped in and found a whole shelf of vintage Vogue Knits. I picked up one for fun. Just so we all appreciate our patterns, back in the day a 12 was a 32 bust and 36 is the top written size on any of these patterns (It probably didn't help that in 57 they were still apparently wearing the pointy-boob corsets everywhere). There are no charts. The patterns are written in long congested run on sentences.

Shawl collars seemed to be in back then, and there's actually some pretty nice shapes in there... some v-neck pull overs and lace cardigans. Lots of finer yarns and simpler cuts.

Its interesting how much of this would be in fashion again today.

The only downside to my day is that my washing machine is not here. It was supposed to be here, but someone didn't show up for work and they rescheduled it for tomorrow. Which means I'm still stuck doing laundry Sunday afternoon, but at least I have new yarn and stuff to play with.

Sartitis &Wollmeise

See how totally justified I was in getting more Wollmesie?

See?

It helps that the skein on the far right is just about the perfect shade of Subaru Blue....

ehem.

I am kind of on a casting on frenzy right now. I've been pulling out all my large quantities of yarn and picking patterns for them to become. I have some silvery grey shine sport that I got in swap that I've started an Aleita Shell with and I've been swatching for a Hey Teach! out of the bag of 2nd time cotton that I've been ignoring forever (The pattern in this case isn't exactly my usual style, but I've been looking for things I could wear to work and I can kind of see doing this over a cami or a t-shirt and having it look reasonably put together).

I have come to the ultimate conclusion that the 4 skeins of Misti Alpaca Pim & Silk DK that I have look absolutely horrid with my skin (much more so now that I've got some color back from all this sunlight and am not a walking pasteboard) and am trying to figure out if I can't overdye it to a darker orange and mute out the peachy undertones. In which case I think it would make a nice short sleeved Decimal or Buttercup.

I've still got some undecided sport weight gold rayon (about 800yds) and dk-lightworsted weight black bamboo (about 900yds) that I haven't decided what to do with as well. I sort of have it in my head that if I keep busy knitting all my big quanities that a) I can justify buying more garment yarn quantities and b) I can managed to spin a garment amount of something to knit (my current dream is to spin up enough off-white organic cotton to knit a Delphine).

In contrast I'm hiding all my partially finished projects to avoid frogging everything I've touched in the past two months. I'm not sure why, but I don't like ANY of it right now and I'd really like the bulk of it to just go away.

And also I'm trying to talk myself out of looking at spinning wheels. Because I really really want a second one and I'm a little bit in love with a big saxony production wheel I saw a few weeks ago that I probably can't justify right now (maybe in a few months... especially if all my overtime keeps up because damnit - I am spending some of that money on something fun and not just paying off bills with it. I had to sit through the extra hours every week and its not fun and I don't like and I WILL GET SOMETHING I WANT OUT OF THE DEAL. So there).

Must stay busy or wheel will win.

Need for speed

Guess who's got a new washer & dryer coming?

Yes! finally I will not be a slave to laundry day. There will be no more hauling of clothes up and down the three flights of stairs to the apartment. There will be no more planning my weekends around washing. There will be no more "Oh crap that shirt I wanted to wear is dirty" scrambling at 5am to get dressed.

There will be NO MORE WASHING SOCKS IN THE SINK.

Ha! (and you thought I wouldn't relate this to knitting somehow). Yes, I've splurged and bought a washer with a handwash cycle. I'm not sure yet if I will trust it with the really super delicate stuff, but I'm pretty sure the most aggressive handwash cycle will be good enough for my socks. I hate washing socks in the sink. It makes me think about everything I've stepped on for weeks. Also, it requires I compulsively scrub out the sink before hand (because after I've thought of everything I've stepped on, I think of everything that's been in the sink). Its a nuisance.

So yay! Awesome washer! (Its also energy star and high efficiency so it will be good for my electric & water bills - every penny saved is a penny to put towards yarn & fiber)

I did, in total contrast, buy the cheapest dryer ever made (this seemed to baffle the salesman somewhat). But the stuff that I put in the dryer I'm not worried about, and it does at least have an air fluff setting. Beyond that - none of the Energy Star dryers were in my price range and all they do regardless of price up to that point is blow hot air on stuff. A cheap one isn't going to felt my socks or shred my dress shirts.

In spinning news I finally (FINALLY) finished that sock yarn.

Its just over 350yds and on the light side of fingering (I'm too lazy to take a WPI right now, but think averaging Heritage sock or panda silk). Its quite nice stuff.

I am however under no circumstances doing another cabled sock yarn unless there is a wheel in my care that goes AT LEAST twice as fast as my top ratio on the sonata (seriously at least. 3 or 4 times would be nice). Spinning this wasn't so bad but plying it took me forever and by the end I vaguely wanted to throw something out a window. Myself. The yarn. Possibly the wheel... no, no... I love my wheel. She just needs a big brother to do this sort of thing for her.

Seriously I'm thinking of putting aside all my other major fiber desires for the second half of the year in favor of a second wheel. A fast one. Maybe a production saxony or something with an accelerated head. As long as its really REALLY fast.

Anyhow. Sock yarn from hell is done. The color gradients aren't as clean as I'd like but that's largely due to some sloppy dyeing on my part (I did dye this up in a rush...) I do like the overall colors a lot though and I'm interested to see how it knits up and wears.

Having finally completed that massive time sink I've started working on a BFL/Silk/Seacell blend that I got a few weeks ago from thethylacine on Etsy.


It lushious.

I'm guessing based on the overall texture and quality that this is a local custom blend. There are some small slubs and nupps, but they're easy to pick out and pretty minor if it is indeed a small mill product. The colors are great too and it spins effortlessly. The fiber bundle was a little compacted (from dyeing or shipping or both) but it lofts back up with a gentle fluff and predraft and then drafts very easily.

I've worked up about a quarter of it so far. It's going to be a lace yarn, but beyond that I don't know. And yes, it is that glossy in person. :)

I got babies!

(you totally had a heart palpitation reading that title from me didn't you?)

They are living under the stairs. There are three of them, though the littlest guy ducked down when I came by with the camera. Mom & Dad are black with distinctive pointed wings and tails and some white & yellow markings around their necks. I'm not sure what they are, and I haven't gotten a good picture since they seem to only be around in the evenings.

It sneaks up on you

When did a full third of my possessions turn into yarn?

Okay, so some of my books and media and stuff are still located up north, but my stash is here (YAY FINALLY WOOT!) and I'm not kidding when I say it makes up at least a third of my belongings. Possibly more if you count that the books I do have are almost exclusively knitting related and one of my two not-folding-chairs is my spinning chair.

It is largely unpacked now, though still pretty much in chaos. Organizing it will have to wait since that's a pretty big undertaking, but I have managed to dig out some yarn and fiber that I've been wanting to work with for awhile now.

I did get new shelves just to house the stash. They are courtesy of Lowes who, if you're looking, has some Container Store InterMetro clone shelves for something like a quarter of the price. They are shiny and sort of post modern industrial looking and fit all my apartment furniture criteria (can be easily moved by one person, come apart into their individual parts and weigh very little). Also I can hang spindles from the sides.

I'll post a pic when it doesn't just look like a rainbow threw up in the corner of my apartment (assuming that ever happens).

Of course, the only logical thing to do when you realize that your stash has gotten well out of hand?

Buy more yarn.

In my defense, I've been abstaining for oh... at least three weeks and it was a Wollmeise update.

Somehow I'm pretty sure that last part forgives everything.

Spinning tools that you don't appreciate enough

I have officially finished half of my sock yarn. I'm going to be cable plying this (don't ask why I thought that was a good idea. There were reasons like "conserving bobbins" and "it sounds cool" and you know what? They're all shit because it took me FOREVER to ply this first bobbin and if this is the best sock yarn in the world its really going to suck because doing sock yarn this way will at least double my production time.)

Anyway. I'm quite proud of how the color repeats lined up. Not perfect - but I wasn't looking for perfect. I also made my first successful andean bracelet to finish off the end. Nice thing about 4-ply is there is very little waste singles.

Something I keep forgetting to blog about is my spinning chair. Because you don't appreciate a good spinning chair until you've both had one and then not had one for awhile. Nobody really thinks about having a spinning chair when they're looking for a wheel, but they should. A good chair is comfortable for long periods, encourages good posture and puts you at just the right treadle height. If you're really lucky it can do double duty as a distaff or toolbox as well.

My spinning chair kind of found me.

It is very old. It belonged to my great-grandmother at one point and wound up at my grandparent's house where it was being used to set boxes on for a long time. I commandeered it when I needed a chair to sit the wheel in front of during the last holiday vacation and when I found out how perfect it was (height - back - seat) I begged a little and was told I was welcome to have it.

Its not in the best of shape - several of the beams are loose and I've had to hammer them back into place and someday when I can stand to part with it for awhile it could benefit from a real repair job with nails & wood glue done by someone who knows what they're doing (not me in other words). It probably started life around a dining table of some kind and considering its age is also probably handmade.

It has really made me appreciate a good spinning chair.

It makes me sit up. It keeps my legs lined up just right. I can treadle for hours before I start wanting a break. It lets me lean back. Just enough that my shoulder's don't get tired, about as far as I want to be from the orifice, but not any farther. It has good places to drape fiber. Someday I'd like to attach some little tool boxes to the sides or maybe the back.

So yeah, its awesome. And people just don't think about that kind of thing.

Respect your spinning chair, peeps.

Stash Deprivation

Moving is hard.

Ignore the trauma of packing yourself up or saying goodbye to friends or in my case the enormous stress of just going somewhere, no job lined up or anything and basically hoping for the best (in my defense - the situation isn't any worse than it was in Kentucky, and at least there are more than Zero job postings in my field here in a given month).

My stash is in storage.

Guh.

I did justify bringing a small bit of yarn with me - two or three rovings, a couple of socks worth and I still have the Feathweight to finish. But still...

MY STASH IS IN STORAGE.

I can't begin to describe how traumatic that is. If I want something and its not something I brought with me I can't just go get it. Its not THERE. Its in a box. Somewhere that is not here. Somewhere that I cannot reach it.

Sure - I could go buy more yarn (if I ignore that budget thing), but its not MY yarn. Its not MY stash. Its new yarn. Its not the same.

I am trying to cope. Yesterday was hard, because I was going down to bookpeople to see the Yarn Harlot and was trying to think what I wanted to take to work on. I wasn't working on any socks, my Deadpool mitts are down to the fingers of mitt #2 (or redoing the duplicate stitching on mitt #1) and my Featherweight is a row or two away from moving the arm stitches to somewhere else. So nothing in a nice position of relative mindlessness that was also easily portable.

Solution is easy: cast on some socks. Nice easy stockinette socks. Toe up. I can knit them in my sleep (or while laughing like a maniac - whatever). And I know just the yarn - there is 45g or so leftover from my first pair of handspun socks and I'm done with the black section on my DP mitts so I can use that for the heels & toes. Awesome. I go to get the Handspun.

Which isn't there.

Because its in a box somewhere other than where I am.

ARGH.

I settled for casting on with the Wollmeise I had left over from my Porphyria mitts. To console myself the lack of handspun I also took along my longterm spindle project and got about a third of my fourth cop of that spun when my hands needed a break.

Bad camera phone picture of the Yarn Harlot ^

The talk was awesome in spite of my stash-crisis, and the WM sock that got most of a foot finished is pretty (its not handspun but WM is my next favorite sock yarn thing). I'm thinking that its going to end up being a toe-up version of the Flame Thrower Socks, since I have some Campari Orange left from my Rick socks that would look good for that I think (and also so I don't feel bad for doing something boring with my WM). The Yarn Harlot is as funny in person as everyone says she is. And I felt much less OMG WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH ME after the event than I have all week. Panic has been something of the order of the week for me.

Possibly it was the knitting, possibly it was the laughing. Probably a bit of both.

Anyway, fun stuff. The group that showed up was an eclectic bunch. Old, young, male, female... you name it. We pretty much overran the upstairs of Bookpeople. I don't think they realized how many knitters would show up. I didn't get a chance to talk with many people, but it seemed like a fun bunch. Maybe I'll run into some of them on my quest to find a knitting group in the area.

I got enough spun on the spindle sock yarn to finally start plying some of it:

That's my loverly Kingwood Turkish there. I was originally planning to wait and spin the whole braid of singles before I started in on the finished yarn, but I am slow with the drop spindle and I've been wanting to use this baby for MONTHS. So I wound a plying ball and started. It makes me feel accomplished.

Possibly also spurned by the Stash Deprivation I started spinning some other sock yarn this evening - its from this roving that I dyed:

I've divied it up into fourths and then again in fourths and I'm spinning the spingles now. I may cable ply in two sections to conserve bobbins (some of them seem to have wandered off to join my stored stash). The singles are clocking in at about 40WPI so it will be 4ply one way or another. It is going to stripe in long repeats:

Its not my stash... but its helping.

Supergeek wins over Reason

You ever work on something that just doesn't want to happen?

Or maybe this is just the way designing something from scratch always works.

Deadpool Mitts version 0.9 - the left hand is DONE. okay it needs the ends woven (of which there are a crapload) but the knitting is finished which is a big freaking deal because this is ALL I'VE WORKED ON THIS WEEK. The idea was floating around last weekend, and I ran out on Saturday to get a reasonably correct shade of red and let me tell you there is nothing like hunting down a particular solid color sock yarn at 4:30pm on a saturday when all the yarn shops around here close at 5 >.<

I ended up getting it at Stitche Niche and wound up overpaying for it, but at that point I was so damn happy that someone had it AND was open when I got there I would have paid twice MSRP just to not have to wait until monday or tuesday or god forbid to have it SHIPPED HERE.

Anyway, I started with a pretty basic plan and two shades of Heritage sock and by sunday evening I had most of a mitt done and OK it was like for a men's X-large, but still. Proof of concept, right? I redid some math and my color chart and started again. I was working on the fingers when a friend pointed out that my black yarn? Not black. Crazy dark navy. Not black.

ARGH.

Yeah, not gonna fly.

So I gave the evil unfinished mit away to be lost so I could forget about it and started again.

About 10 hours of knitting today later:


Its not perfect. I wound up duplicate stitching the design because the two yarns I'm using are slightly different gauges and trying to do intarsia kept ending up with ugly holes and uneven stitches. The fit is so-so. They're not my Porphyria that hug my hands all perfect like, but the slightly looser wrist section is kind of nice. Roomy-like. It warants further fiddling, but its not bad for a first (third) try.

I am sort of on the fence about where I ended the black section as well - on the one hand when I make a fist it falls right above the knuckles and looks BADASS, on the other when i have my hand straightened out it looks a little clunky. That's the problem with interpreting comic book stuff I guess. Those guys aren't fashion designers - they don't have to worry about if it looks dorky when the guy isn't standing heroicly because comic book characters ALWAY POSE THAT WAY.

Anyway - there will undoubtably be a version 1.5 or 2.0 or 1.89213 or whatever. Probably around when the movie gets released.

In the meantime I think I deserve special Uber-nerd consideration.

I outgeek you.

Srsly.

Geekout

Its a slow day. Slow enough that I actually got tired of knitting and had to go find something else to do for awhile.

Because I am wacky, and because I have access to Excel I gave into the dubious urge to whip up a Deadpool Colorwork chart (yeah - new level of crazy there). its 23sts x23rows and might need some adjusting for gauge (I need to like... find yarn and stuff first).

I'm thinking black fingerless gloves. >D

And also :


crappy camera phone picture of what I'm knitting on today. I love this. Its lovely. Its a lot of stockinette. I need to go start something that's not stockinette soon. Maybe this afternoon.

Surprise!

Wow - okay. So last night was my last time going to the Thursday night knitting group (Needles & Angels) and everyone surprised me with a party and presents. I don't know how my Mom kept it from me - she's usually a bad lier. Of course - I probably should have guessed something was up when she was stalling last night before we left... but oh well, clearly off my game.

This is the group that we did the Dye days with and I've really loved knitting with them and hanging out. I'm going to miss everyone when I leave. I got yarn & cards and a t-shirt and dye and rubber gloves and candy and gift certificates for yarn and pie and cookies and...

Anyway - it was awesome. I am a little embarrassed and a lot honored and flattered... And yeah.

I'll miss you guys. Thanks so much for everything!

Something Old & Something New

I am pretty well a slug when it comes to taking pictures of things, but since I'm sort of involved in packing up a lot of stuff (especially things that qualify as winter wear... like... say scarfs) I managed to snag pictures of some older FOs that I'd never gotten around to photographing.

First that Clapotis Scarf I was working on in WM yarn. I loooooooveee it. Its prettier in person. Seriously. And completely my colors. On the downside, wearing it like a scarf around my neck activates my "AAAAHHHH WOOL GET IT OFF GET IT OFF" instincts somewhat (somewhat equaling - I can last with it for about fifteen minutes before I start scratching). Which sucks. A lot. But its wide enough to wear like a mini-shawl and pretty that way. Proof all over again that animal fibers that touch my neck are bad, m'kay? So no, self, even if the rest of you is just fine with it you're still not making any wool sweaters.

Not that I could wear one in Austin anyway.

My most favoritest scarf that I made is this one - it was the first thing to ever come off the loom and its the awesomeness. Also, desipte being made from panda silk (which does contain a percentage of wool) it doesn't inspire my "GAH WOOL!" reaction. I am not sure if its the low amount or the nature of woven fabric but there you are. Its full of mistakes and has ugly, crappy selvages, but the color matches everything and its soft and warm.

There is also more recent stuff to show & tell:

My Kai Mei socks from last month. These won me free yarn in the April Sock Innovation KAL which is so awesome. Also, the socks are pretty nifty too. I'm passing on this month's KAL since they're doing the Kai Mei pattern (or Pomatomas... which I actually want to do but don't have the presence of mind of deal with this month), but I'll probably do one of the KALs next month with the prize yarn. :)

And finally, I finished this scarf just last week! It was my Mom's present for Mother's Day. It is crazy soft & delicious - bamboo & malabrigo lace merino. Mmm.... I hemstitched the ends, which was new and probably not done correctly (it is holding together just lovely and looks fine to me though... so whatever. Its a design feature).

Steam pressing made a world of difference on this one also. So far I've just been pulling stuff off the flip and giving it a wash, but I pulled out the iron on this one and it really cleaned up the selvages and evened out the weave. Even before that it was a pretty big improvement over what I've been weaving, but the pressing... really polished it up. I will have to do this for all my woven stuff now.

There is a bunch of stuff on the needles right now also - two sweaters (because I'm weird and yeah I've been afraid of starting one so of course rather than just doing a sweater I'm working on two of them now) some socks that I'm not completely sure about (Panda Soy is... interesting yarn, shall we say... more on that when I've gotten far enough to decide if I'm finishing or frogging) and I'm working on a woven band for my laptop bag.

Also there is carbonized bamboo on the wheel that may want to become a Whisper cardigan and yellow blended superwash merino that I am sort of not loving as much as I want to that was going to be socks. It may be going into the pause file soon. Perhaps I will get around to finishing that SW Merino/Tencel finally instead. Or else I will ignore both projects and go dye up some more Brown Sheep superwash. Because that makes awesome sock yarn. Seriously. And I like spinning it.

One track knitting

So the really good thing about being in a rut is that I seem to be accomplishing a lot within that rut. Last week I finished a pair of "Rick" socks (from Sock Innovation) in Campari Orange Wollmeise (80/20). They're pretty awesome. Very nice and loud. I am into loud socks right now.

The 80/20 is a little thicker than the 100% WM I've used before but it wasn't that noticeable until I tried to stuff the finished socks into my clogs and they bunched a little. -1 for finishing these just in time for the weather to warm up at last as well. Full length wool socks... even lacey ones, kinda much for summer.

I am 85% done with a pair of ankle high "Kai-Mei" socks (also from Sock innovation) in Panda Silk and they're looking to be a bit more weather appropriate. Panda Silk is yummy. It is all I can do not to go out and grab up more of it, because working with the stuff always make me want more of it. But really... I have at least six or seven balls of the stuff at home already that I should probably use first... We'll see how long my resolve lasts on that. Especially seeing as there are some new colors out....

When those are done my sock count for the year will be up to 5 pairs... 6 if you count as one the two singles that I gave up on getting pairs out of in January.

Did finally swipe a pic of puddle's Art School socks that I finished in February (I think it was February), which is only a month late and honestly pretty timely for something I was knitting for a gift (lousy gift knitter me).

A variation of the Bellatrix sock pattern in Cascade Heritage Paints which is a loverly yarn also. I have a couple of skeins in red and blue that I need to use soon. It was very pleasant to knit with, nicely squooshy and I'm told it wears pretty well (other people will need to be the judge on that one until I get a pair finished for myself to abuse).

The wheel has been kind of idle still. I'm able to spin again after the knee injury but not for really long periods of time. I did finally finish the soysilk I started sometime last year and its nice and soft and drapey.

Bled like all hell when I went to finish it, but I think that's somewhat the nature of the beast with soy. I do have some undyed roving I picked up at the Woolery to try my hand at next so maybe I can work out some way to limit the rivers of excess dye from seeping out of the finished yarn. The final yardage is a bit over 400 and its closer to a light fingering than a true laceweight. I'm guessing a lot of the added fluff is due to spinning it from the fold.

Not yet sure what it will be - if I got up over 500yds I was going to make an Aeolian Shawl, but its not quite enough for me to feel comfortable with that. I may weave with it instead.

There's some other things on the table right now - some yellow bling-y sock yarn being worked up on the wheel and another attempt and a first sweater, but I'll save those for when I have pictures and progress to show.

Woolery

Sometime around the start of the year it came to my attention that The Woolery was moving to Frankfort (Frankfort being the little known capitol of Kentucky where there is pretty much a grand total of nothing). This meant that there would be a major source of wheels/looms/fibers within a 30 minute drive of me - no more having to special order bobbins or spare wheel parts (which reminds me that I need to pick up a spare drive band and some wheel oil come to think of it).

Anyway, for a few months the opening day has been "sometime this spring" so I was pretty surprised when a ravelry post this week highlighted an ad in the Frankfort paper proclaiming they were now open. Since I had a free afternoon Monday I drove out to check it out.

The shop is located in downtown off of main street - you basically take 64 or Leestown (to 60/Versailles) all the way out and then get on Main until it turns into a one way street. The shop is the second one from the corner at the intersection of St Claire & Main. I got a little turned around finding it - the shop sign is pretty small but its fairly obvious when you've gone too far and it wasn't a big deal to loop around.

Inside is a big display of drop spindles and wheels along with some specialty goodies - I noticed they had some lux fiber samplers and some more unusual spindles - Navajo and kick plus some bowls for smaller support style spindles.

Most of the sample wheels were set up in the window - but there were also a couple of Lendrums on a table in the back. There was a pretty substantial supply of needlefelting stuff over there as well.

I didn't take any pictures of the knitting yarn they had - the selection there was pretty basic - I saw some heritage sock and the usual Cascade 220 but it in terms of knitting supplies it was just the basics - CP needles and general notions but nothing especially expansive or unusual. They did still have some empty shelves up around that part of the shop, however, so its possible they plan to expand on that.

Most of the best stuff was spinning or weaving though - the back half of the shop is shelves and shelves of weaving yarns with books lining the walls - there are bobbins and flyers in the area behind that and shuttles, hand cards and smaller tools (swifts, rigid heddle looms, ball & bobbin winders) between the back half and the front.

Separating the shop from the offices are a wall of mesh shelves stuffed to overflowing with spinning fiber. Spinner's paradise there - bags of just about anything you might want - there is some colored cotton in this pic, along with yak, cashmere, soysilk...

Anyway - grand sum being that its awesome. I managed to escape with only a spinner's control card (YES! Finally!) and some soysilk, but it was a close thing. I can see it being very easy to get carried away there.

I'm a little unsure as to how much longer I will be in Lexington - now that I'm done with school I'm worrying about working and there just isn't much here (not to mention I really want a job I can be at for 4+ years and I'm just not sure I want to stay this far north that long). But its a nice resource to have for however long I have it.

And I'm trying to keep all my options open for as long as possible - on way or another.

Otherwise - I finished my Misti Alpaca socks:

They're quite soft and comphy but I think I'll stay away from this yarn for socks in the future - ignoring my annoyance with all the breaks in my skein its handwash only and I'm probably too lazy for that most days. Gotta love how neatly they striped though :)

socks, socks, spindles and more socks

So pretty much what I've been working on since January is socks.

I kind of got off on a knitting jag where all I wanted to do was stockinette. Just plain, non-complex stockinette. No thinking, no counting, no charts.

The upside to this is that I had some very pretty handspun that I had been working on that was finally finished (oh and how fabulous was it - 4ply fingering weight superwash wool. Dyed by me, spun by me, and finally knit by me and let me tell you do I feel accomplished when I put these lovlies on!) and nothing shows off handspun like good old stockinette.

^ - Mmm, pretty handspun

I think some of my desire for brainless knitting stemmed from being in my last quarter of school and between work and 5 classes and then my knee...

Oh yes, my knee. I have not been able to spin in TWO MONTHS because of my knee (I have not been able to walk particularly either), this past week is the first one since the beginning of February where I have been able to sit at my wheel and work (the walking without a limp will hopefully come soon also). I won't go into the whole drama of what happened, but basically Ice + Me = Torn Collateral Ligament.

I suppose this should have been a knitter's dream injury, but mostly it was just an injury and it adversely affected my ability to knit about as much as it adversely affected everything else.

So I knit stockinette socks and played video games a lot (because interestingly video games seemed to require less coordination than knitting, and hitting 'reset' was somewhat less agonizing than frogging). Besides the handspun ones I finished I'm a cuff away from being done with a pair in Misti Alpaca sock. I also finally managed to finish the socks I promised Amanda for her birthday. Luckily for her most of what was left on them was the stockinette foot.

Anyway, this last weekend Cookie A's new book Sock Innovation came out and it finally shocked me out of the stockinette jag (being done with classes helped too) so I'm also working on some Wollmeise socks using the "Rick" pattern. I liked the description as much as the look of these. Someday I'll wear them to an autocross and they will make me go faster :D

Also this weekend I found a new kind of shaft to use for my drop spindles.

I had a gorgeous Mother of Pearl donut that I got in Austin back in December. It was too light to put on a regular chopstick but its a great fit with this pin. I was finally able to use some of the sterling wire I got as well for the hook. I really love this spindle (Its mine and you can't have it!), the shaft is only about 6" long so its about the same length as my favorite Turkish drops and it spins very well.

I'm considering trying to get more of these pins to make up drop spindles for etsy. I just really like the smaller size and I'm not sure many people are making shorter ones - it seems like this would be a great traveling spindle since its shorter shaft means a longer spin when sitting down. Not sure if there's a big demand, but it might be worth finding whorls for a dozen or so to try out.