Persistent Knitter

My spinning group met tonite. Boy it was fun! I wish we had a quieter place to meet; but we still manage to talk and chat and goof around with fiber. There were plenty of on-lookers tonite, from small kids to adults who are fascinated with how the spinning wheel works. We managed to convince one girl she should have a drop spindle, and her dad (who is a woodworker) sounded very wiling to help her make one.

Yay for enablement at an early age.

One dangerous thing happened, Shiori started asking me questions about how to do a sheep to shawl contest. Yikes!!

Here’s some action shots of the fun (click thumbnails to see full size photos on flickr):

** PS: For those of you who like the bigger photos, I’ll occasionally post one. The nice thing about flickr is you can click on the photo and see as large of a version you want on that site!

I got this fiber last week; and forgot to post a picture of it. It feels super soft, and should be great to spin! I think it’s the same fiber as the Hyacinth yarn I just finished spinning recently.

One of the photo-related things I’ve been playing around with is a poor-man’s light box. (see http://www.jyoseph.com/blog/detail.cfm/post/18). I bought the stuff to set it up, and this picture was the first thing I took with it. (I didn’t even think to make the skein look ‘pretty’).

I use four cheapy shop lights, filled with 2 60w regular bulbs and 2 “plant bulbs” that said they were good for growing stuff. I figured that meant they were more full spectrum, but honestly I have no idea. I’ll play around with different lights later when I find somewhere to setup the light box that won’t result in it’s instant destruction by a curious cat (or child)

Total light box project cost for me?

$30 for 6 sheets of large foam board
$20 for light fixtures
$12 for bulbs
$1.97 for not-quite-white tape

Total: $64

Not dirt cheap; but I think I’ll get some good use out of it going forward. I may want to redo the box part so it’s more solid as a box. Wouldn’t it be cool if it actually folded for storage?

Thanks for everyone’s nice comments on my blue yarn. It’s really squishy and wonderful. I can’t wait to knit something with it; but want to make sure I pick the right project for it. So far I’ve been thinking a fair isle sweater with this as the accent color; and a dark blue as the main color. I’ve got some yarn in my stash that it might work with (from Brooks Farm) but it’ll really need a swatch as I’ve never used the other yarn, and don’t know how it’ll behave when washed. That of course means using my handspun and wasting it in a swatch. Maybe I’ll think about this for a little bit more first.

Oh – and why haven’t I posted lately? Well, I’ve been sucked into moving my blog over to my own host; and have been playing around with it. I suppose I should just move it and be done with it; but I’m afraid I’ll have to delete the whole thing (for about the 4th time) because if I upgrade a plug in or something and it does bad things… We’ll have to see. I’ll let you know if you need to start pointing your browser somewhere else.

I’m also disgusted with the terrible pictures I take; so I’m working on a small do it yourself project at home to make taking pictures a bit easier. If it works, you’ll be sick of all the pictures I post of the random crap I’ll take pictures of. Just you wait :)

A bit of before:

A bit of a wash:

After fulling:

Fiber: Shetland from Spunky Ecelectic Fiber of the Month club; December 2006 I think.
Two Ply yarn, spun semi worsted.

I could have sworn I spun 8 ounces, but now have just over 7. Wierd.

I fulled it with a hot/cold/hot/cold/hot washing and rinsing in the sink. Whacked against the counter many times for good measure. It sure puffed up! I’m not sure I like fulling it quite that much, as it doesn’t have quite the shine it did before. Of course the plying evened out a lot; and it hangs dead straight now.

Today is Sheep to Shawl at Estes Park Wool Market. It’s also the first time in three years (this would have been year four) I haven’t been there competing with my team, Team Chutzpah.  There was much gnashing of teeth as the team wasn’t sure if they’d compete this year at all; several people have beyond busy schedules; finding time to get everyone together was impossible (I think they managed it once), and many statements of, "I’m not in charge!"

Last I hear the team got it together and managed to show up; I’m hoping to get pictures from the event soon.  In the meantime, I’ve been spinning at home, trying to support the team from afar.  I’m on bobbin #2 of a shetland yarn, spinning it semi-worsted:

The first bobbin has some pink areas in it. For the 2nd ply I thought I’d make it all blue (but shades of blue) so I selectively picked out chunks of roving that were only blue.  In this it looks like the first bobbin is much lighter, but given how the WooLee winder lays fiber on the bobbin in layers, I might find darker layers underneath.  I don’t think this yarn will stripe – if it does, it will be much more subtle.  I’m excited to see how the finished yarn comes out. Back to the Wheel!!!

Oooh – what is that I see on the scale?

Look at those pretty colors! 

I won’t keep you in suspense. Here is is unballed:

This is the increase portion of Clapotis.  I’m making it in thinner yarn than the pattern calls for; so I’m taking a few steps to make sure I have enough, and maybe even use up most of my yarn if it makes sense (I don’t need a scarf for a giraffe).   Basically you weigh it once your’e done with the increases, and before you start the straight section. Then you can weigh your yarn and make sure you have that amount left (in this case 42 grams)  so you know when to start the decrease section.   Weighing the needle gives you an extra bit of fudging room :)

I added an extra drop area to the increases, as it’s not as wide as it would be in the called for yarn.  I hope that will make it just that tiny bit wider and keep the proportions correct. 

I was able last night to do the first drop – which is the shortest one, so it wasn’t as exciting as it should be.  The really exiciting thing though – Isn’t it cool that my handspun yarn is striping?

At work, my group decided it would be fun for everyone to make a portrait of themselves to put outside their cube. Using an online tool - The portraits followed the same basic format. It’s actually kind of scary how accurate some of the portraits are, given the rudimentary nature of the portraits. It took me some time and thinking, but I finally came up with mine:

(click for bigger, and to read text on shirt)

Build your own here. (note there are many different sites to do this same thing, and different sites offer different hats, facial features, t-shirts, etc. Google “Build South Park Character” to find other sites. I had to photoshop my portrait to add the items that I wanted.)

A certain someone has respectfully said you can’t make anything really good with handspun*.  I am tossing this challenge to all the spinners out there to send me links to your beautiful mittens, shawls, scarves, sweaters and so on made with your handspun!  I just wound off my Hyancinth yarn this morning:

It’s about fingering weight; and I have 8ounces of it.  So far I’m considering Clapotis, or maybe another lacier shawl. It’s pretty variegated and I don’t want to pick a really hard pattern that won’t show up and compete too much with the colors in the yarn.  I think there will be a bit of subtle striping, although it’s really hard to tell.

* No fair getting all upset, this is all in good fun. Besides, we know we’re going to show her, right? :)

I have to say it was really fun to see all my friends and family take the “which finger are you” quiz and see what the results were. In the meantime, I started a new project the other day. Here it is (sorry for the horrible picture)

Oooooh… ahhh. lacy wrap/stole started from Mountain Colors Mountain Goat yarn. (Morning Glory pattern from here),

But wait. Oh no!!!!!!!!!!

Do you see it?

Look closer.

The top skein is a different color than the bottom one!

Closer examination of the tags show that it’s a bonehead mistake – they are totally different colors. In my glee at having such beautiful yarn I apparently didn’t even make sure they were all the same color. The bottom skein matches what I’ve already started knitting with. The top skein is something completely different. There’s no blue, although the purple undertones are the same.

So what do I do??

Some options as I can see it so far:

• Call the store to see if they have more of the given color. I called (actually my friend Jill did, as I was so distraught at the time), and they don’t have any more of that color.
• Use only two skeins for the pattern I’ve started. It’s a really really really long stole; so maybe it’d be ok shorter by one third.
• Start doing every other row with the ‘odd’ skein for a while to incorporate it into the stole without being obvious about it.
• Knit the middle of the stole with the odd skein
• Cry
• Put it aside in the ‘naughty step‘ for daring to be the wrong color
• Do something else entirely

Thoughts? Ideas?