There are lots of things to talk about from the past week and weekend from preparation to festival. However, here’s a brief tasting:
Wensleydale singles dyed by Gnomespun that I was given for my birthday. There are about 310yds that want to grow up to be a shawlette one day. I won second place in the Singles Class!
Not bad for my first singles!
So, I’ve had the urge to try dyeing for a while and finally got around to it a few weeks ago. I ordered supplies, finally got all the things together, and went to it. I dyed 8 sock blanks with no particular pattern or theme in mind. These are what I came up with.
Each of these sock blanks is approximately 450yds and double stranded (~225yds each strand). I handed some off to the knitters in my local group to knit and then give me feedback.
The main response was something along the lines on”ZOMG 450yds is a LOT of yardage.” and the strands were twisting together an awful lot. Other than that, things look good and everyone’s projects are knitting up wonderfully. There’s even one pair of knee socks completed in just one week by Leslie from the top left blank.
I decided that I could see myself doing this again and am planning to dye up another batch of blanks to sell at the Garden State Sheep Breeders Festival this coming Saturday and Sunday (September 11th and 12th) at the Hunterdon County Fairgrounds. The colors will be different, there will be single stranded blanks as well as double stranded, and the yardage is reduced a little bit. I’ll also have orifice hooks similar to this one.
Please come visit and check out the other items that will be for sale in our booth. There will be project bags, spindles, batts, roving, tea and much more! We should be in barn 4!
About two months ago, I decided I had enough with the messy fiber corner. AND I was trying to get a CPW which needs some space. Time to organize!
This is totally not cool.
Staples is your friend. I picked up a media cabinet thing to assemble for my fiber stash and a binder with blank pages to keep loose patterns in. I enlisted some help one day after work.
There was some:
…and:
And voila!
Now to organize that “pesky” fiber stash. The braids came out of their bags for a group photo.
Then I coiled them up and arranged them several in each shelf, gave my swift and ball winder a place to live, and put my spare wheel bobbins and flyer in there, too. The bags of fluff went into a hatbox and are behind the chair.
Huzzah! A fairly organized corner:
Haven’t gotten around to the pattern organizing yet, though. I have printed patterns for things I want to make and printed ones that I’ve made and marked up floating around in my various knitting bags. Perhaps I’ll tackle that this weekend.
It seems that I went on a finishing projects kick. My Honeybee Cardigan became a finished object on the second night of Passover at Jesh’s. When I got there all I had left was to sew on a few more buttons and weave in the ends (which she helped with). I celebrated with some wine!
The other day, I finished the SolidSocks Mystery socks for March/April 2010. It was a day late to get into the drawing for a prize. However, they fit wonderfully and just in time for sandal weather… hrmph.
A while back I got one of those sock blocker keychain kabobs. More recently than that, I made it a sock with some leftover yarn from my Honeybee. Brendan says that I should get an action figure leg to put it on.
Speaking of itty bitty… I bought a new toy Kuchulu Turkish Spindle from Jenkins. It’s a beauty and I love it.
Here it is without any fiber on it:
This is after spinning up a small sample of BFL that I had laying around:
This baby can hold more than it’s own weight in yarn. It’s 10g or approximately 0.35oz.
My other spindling is this silk roving that I bought last fall on a yarnventure.
There’s also the ideas I’ve been having for products. Spinning wheel orifice hooks, hand dyed sock flats, spindle cases, etc.. etc.. And I still want to open a yarn and spinning shop. It’s scary to think about starting your own business and I go from “I can’t wait” to “oh no, I can’t do that” every other hour.
At the end of the month, Jesh and I will be driving up to Massachusetts for the Sheep and Wool festival. We’re leaving Friday and coming back Monday. I can’t wait! It’s the week after my birthday (and Memorial Day weekend). It promises to be awesome.
It’s been a week of recuperating from all that YO, k2tog, YO, k2tog,YO, k2tog,YO, k2tog,YO, k2tog,YO, k2tog, etc… And look! It paid off!
I completed my Shipwreck Shawl and 1:40am EST/10:40pm PST on February 28th. Jess and I went to finish our Ravelympics projects at Jesh’s. It took me over 2 and a half hours to bind off. A few days later I got some pictures of it. Maybe if things like my 5 year anniversary with my Brendan (No complaint though! We had a lovely evening at Benihana.) or going to see a Trenton Devils game with my parents or that thing called work that allows me to feed my fiber addiction hadn’t gotten in the way, I would have finished earlier by hours or days. Silly other stuff.
This was also my first lace project. With lace comes blocking.
Before:
After:
Isn’t blocking magic?!!
What shouldn’t be forgotten is the cheer gifts I was given that helped me reach my goal. Swedish fish, goldfish crackers, trail mix, encouraging cards, stitch markers, yarn needles, and then sock yarn, buttons and a bag of dark chocolate peanut M&Ms. She spoiled me rotten and cheered me to my goal. Let’s just say that I am fairly confident that I know who my cheer-io is and she is awesome!
(If you don’t count the two weeks of not working on my Jaywalkers, it took me two weeks to knit these babies.
I am terribly in love with these socks. The sock knitting bug has hit me hard.)
Not a proper post, but this was too cool not to share! Is there anything Google doesn’t think of?
So the Ravelympics started on Friday! My yarner group, the Union County Crafters, decided to rent a suite at the Crown Plaza to kick off the event. Jesh and I arrived early and decided to explore our room a bit. There was a giant jacuzzi in the bathroom, so I decided to hop in and knit for a bit.
As soon as Jess arrived, she, Jesh, and I went over to Tarantella’s for pizza and beer. Being the good knitters we are, we used our waiting time to work on some projects.
Back at the hotel, the other yarners showed up. We watched tv and giggled while waiting for the opening ceremonies to start. Some of us were waiting to cast on/continue when the ceremonies started. Others were waiting for the flame to be lit. Being that I was trying to finish my first jaywalker sock, I was in the former group. So yay! I kitchenered the toe during the parade of nations and cast on sock number two!
Saturday there was knitting in bed until we realized that we had to get out of the room and go have breakfast. After the diner, a couple of us went to the Coffee Beanery (we end up there a LOT). I made some progress on my Shipwreck shawl.
It’s now day 7 of the Olympics and I’m quite a bit further along. I joined the new ball of Noro and the rows are slow going at 560 stitches around. I need to average 5 rows a day in order to bind off before the flame is extinguished on the 28th. The new yarn isn’t softer from riding around in my knitting bag, so it’s been irritating my yarn-holding finger. Bandaids will be purchased to help my cause.
In the meantime, I’m trying to ignore the startitus, but I may swatch for the Helleborus Yoke cardi tonight or this weekend so I’m ready to go in 1.5 weeks.
So, I finished my third pair of socks on Thursday.
I started the yarn at Down Cellar back at the end of August and cast on while at the store. It was a yarnventure Saturday, so Jess and I picked a yarn shop we hadn’t been to. Lots of people I know were starting to knit through Cookie A’s Sock Innovation, so I jumped on the wagon.
At the time, I think it was the most difficult project I attempted. After a couple weeks I put it down for some other project. Halfway through January I woke up thinking about them and two weeks later they were done! They’re the best fitting socks out of the three pairs I’ve made to date. I’m contemplating which Cookie sock to work on next.
This is a merino/bamboo/silk blend that was the August/September Spin-a-Long fiber from All Spun Up on Etsy. This ended up a 2ply at 325yds. The other day, I decided that I wanted a scarf that I made instead of the store bought one I’ve been using. Perfectly acceptable for a knitter, right? I decided on this mini shawl. It calls for just a little more yardage than I have and it’s easy enough to stop when I get close to the end.
This is what I’ve got so far:
I’m hoping it’ll go pretty quick and be finished before the Ravelympics start next Friday night. That’s a whole other post.
I’ve been quite excited about spinning lately.
So back in September, I purchased a 6oz. braid of merino/tencel in “Emerald City” from Zarzuela’s Fibers at the Garden State Sheep Breeders Annual Sheep & Fiber Festival. I started spinning it up and was having difficulty drafting for some reason or another and then put this fiber on hold after a little less than 1/4 through. Then at the end of December, my friend Jesh got a drum carder. Naturally, I asked her to card up the remaining fiber when she has time. The fiber is awesome and the colorway is really pretty, so I’ve been sad that it was giving me trouble.
Last night, after finishing other fiber that ended up not being enough for a Quill cowl, I thought I’d see what I have that could work instead. I came back to this fiber sitting on the bobbin still in singles and thought I could wind it off to see if it would be stable. I washed it up soaking it in hot water, then cold, then hot, and cold again as I’ve heard is a good way to set singles.
This is the final result. 140yds of laceweight singles at about 30wpi. It seems to be holding. When I get my fiber back, I plan on spinning the rest up with a little more twist. I can’t wait to get started and should probably swatch to see how this holds up.
The above experiment led me to wonder about the merino/silk mill ends that I purchased from Twisted Fiber Yarn, also at the same festival. I expected it might need some better prep, but was in a mood to just try it. I grabbed a handful of fiber, put my wheel to it’s highest ratio, and went! The result is this super thin (for me at least) yarn. My plan is to spin until the bobbin is full and decide whether or not to ply it. It would be a good idea to weigh and divide the fiber before that happens. We’ll see.
