It's yarn!

Fiber: Wool/Mohair/???

Colorway: Vine Maple

Ydg: 149 yds

Wt: 2.45 oz

WPI: 11

2 ply

Source: Ferndale Fibers Potluck Roving

A taste of Miami

This weekend the Northwest got a flash of summer heat that we don't usually get until August. Saturday's temps were in the nineties and hundreds, but it was Sunday that was truly miserable as moisture came up from the south and shot the humidity up from the low 30s up into higher levels we're not used to. In the evening thunderstorms came through, including one that the carpool had to drive through to return from rehearsal. I figured it was Nature's way of giving those of us who are going to Miami to sing at GALA a taste of what to expect.

Thank goodness for A/C. It made the house livable so that I could take care of a few chores. One was defrosting the little freezer I have. I got rid of a bunch of old food and cleaned the floor while the freezer sat out on the back porch. The water from the drainage attracted some sugar ants but once the water was gone the ants returned back down to their dens. The cats weren't too thrilled with having to walk through the puddle to try to get back in the house from taking refuge in the garden shade.

This summer I don't expect to do much knitting unless it's socks. I ripped out the leg of the first of the Knitters Without Borders socks when I couldn't figure out how I made the heel and the heel of the second one looked much better than the first. I tried doing the two socks on two needles again and after untangling myself on the third row bagged it and went back to my one sock on two circs. I have other sock yarn waiting for me to work up; they'll most likely come with me to Miami.

At home I'm hitting the spinning wheel and working on the pile of fiber I have accumulated over the last 9 months. I have a boatload of stuff waiting for me to work on. The latest I finished spinning up the singles was 5 oz of superwash merino 54s yclept Plumalicious. Those are set aside now to "cook".

I plied up some singles of some of the blended roving named "Vine Maple" from Ferndale Fibers. I'm seeing how I need to continue to practice. I've started a spreadsheet similar to that done by David Daniels of Cabin Cove for my Spinup 2008. The Raspberry Cremosa and the Parade yarn are in; soon I'll add others I've done this year and we'll see how well I do.

It started with a song (continued)

Our next stop on the fiber field trip was Golding Fiber Tools. I had seen one of their spinning wheels in the "flesh" sotospeak and just loved it, so I was excited to be able to see the workshop and items in their home environment. Tom and Diane Golding were very happy to give us a tour of the place and show some of Tom's handiwork. The pictures are beautiful but seeing it all in person makes one really appreciate the beauty of the work.

To give you an idea of his work, the window of his shop gallery is a prime example of what he has done with a simple circular shape with a pentagrammic motif. The outside is adorned with swans and the interior is framed with beautiful knotwork.

A wheel is far out of our budgets (no one placed an order) but the handspindles were a more affordable way of indulging in a piece of art. Sadia was definitely trying them out. I was a little more hesitant but tried out a few before settling on one dubbed "Swan Lake", a lovely 1.9 oz cherry that was perfect for doing heavier yarns and plying. A few of us picked out spindles and took our treasures home.

We headed then to WEBS in Northampton where we met up with more Knitcampers. The look on their faces at seeing me there was priceless. Some were there for the first time so were overwhelmed with the sheer volume of yarn available. Having been there last year, I wasn't quite so besotted with the deals available and was in search of cobweb weight yarn. I was a little disappointed that there were only two options available in the weight I was looking for: Jaggerspun Zephyr and Misti Alpaca Lace. I was working my swatch of the Melanie in Lane Borgosesia Cashwool and liking how it was working up, so I was loath to switch to a different fiber. So I walked out of WEBS with a tiny crochet hook for beadwork, stitch markers, and charting tape. I don't know who won for having spent the most, but it was fun seeing the faces of the newbies.

Not an ordinary scarf

Back in January, Ted sent an invitation out to selected folks to participate in a Fiber to Shawl exchange. It was an opportunity to get to try out some different fiber and practice my spinning skills. I knew there would be some experienced spinners in the group so I was a little intimidated but I felt that since this was intended for a project I would have a purpose, a time line, and practice. So if some of the yarn ended up as barf, it was still an experience.

I sent in my info and some fiber and received in return this. It was 8 oz of Black Bunny Fibers Emerald City Blue Faced Leicester. Say this with me: mmmmmmm......

There was one thing about it that the picture doesn't really do justice to it. It was green. Vibrant spring green. Or, as I saw it, Kermit the Frog green. It was immediately dubbed the Frog Hair.

At first I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it so some of my early yarn was rather thin and overspun. As I got used to it, it said it wanted to be heavier. Also, while I was spinning it I was trying to think what would be a good pattern for the yarn. It would be uneven but not too much so, so a lace type pattern was out of the question in my mind. Framed stockinette would have been rather blah and show the flaws of the yarn more than I would like. Plain rib would have been tedious, but a brioche rib was easy and give it enough texture to make it interesting. So I opted for basic brioche. The results were very pleasing.

The more I worked with the fiber, the more it worked with me and the yarn grew more and more consistent. Soon I was finished with the spinning and was knitting away. Would it be enough, I worried. It was worsted weight yarn and only 8 oz of fiber, and being a newbie didn't yet have the instinct built on what I could produce with what quantities. It turned out that my fears were unfounded. It was perfect. Perfect length, perfect width, perfect quantity. And the color was gorgeous.

I contacted Ted to let him know the scarf was done and he sent me the name of my recipient: Mona Schmidt. Ted said, "Go ahead and blog about it." So who is Mona Schmidt? Well, she has published several patterns in IK and has her blog here. She hails from Germany but now lives in Montreal. She's going to have a girl (congratulations!). Her knitting is beautiful!

I'm glad you like the scarf, Mona. It was a pleasure to make it from scratch. So any pics of you with it?

A new challenge

This summer I'm doing a fair bit of traveling which will include some flying time. Since there will be few distractions, I'll be able to sit and work on something fairly complex. One thing I was thinking of taking with me was the Rose of England piece I had started and set aside last year. I picked it up the other day and realized that I would have to tink back a bit to figure out where I was as the stitch count didn't quite match up with what I had marked on the pattern.

When this came up on the Spin Sales list as an eBay auction, I was sorely tempted. It would be a long project though. But I could swatch it. I had yarn I could substitute for the Merino Lace it calls for to see if it works for it. The pic shows you how thin the yarn is. And to tell you how nuts I'm getting on this I'm actually considering doing it in black or white. Black for wearing as evening wear or white for summer or other wear. If I ever get married I want to at least have my veil in my trousseau.

Views

As I was getting ready to post my weekly entry, I happened to look up. This is my view from my desk. Sometimes when I'm here I see my neighbors doing their things ranging from washing dishes at the sink to the eldest son practicing his guitar. Some days there's nothing showing but I hear the beating of drums or a sax playing. There's always some music and while sometimes it's a little off, there are times when it's very good. Some neighbors would complain, but I'd rather hear music than people shouting at each other. Or nothing at all. I've only had to call them once to turn it down, only because it was getting late and Dan was still playing quite loudly. But it's fun to share the love of music. I'm sure they hear me practicing my music or making my rehearsal tapes and I have my ugly notes.

I got to thinking about everyday views. What do you see when you look out a window where you live? If you didn't see it, would you miss it? If you took a picture of it, what would you think about when you looked at it somewhere else?

One time I was goofing around with my parents' Instamatic and took pictures of the neighborhood from my bedroom windows. I still have them. I think of the early mornings when I'd look out to see if it was snowing. I think of the one morning after an ice storm where there was so much ice that the power overloads were blowing up transformers and lighting up the sky. My bedroom window faced east so I could see the moon rise. There was a sunroom off of the living room and its roof was outside my bedroom, so when the rain was falling I could hear the water hitting the tar paper and running down the downspout.

Monday I'm seeing another orthopedic surgeon for a consultation on my knees. We've been having weird spring weather these days with very cold nights for the season (in the 30's Fahrenheit). It's been hard some mornings to figure whether the ache is from the cold or the previous day's activities. I'm looking forward to hearing what he has to say and hopefully I can convince him that a knee replacement, either partial or total, would be more beneficial now than later.

One of the things I have to bring to the appointment is a copy of the pictures they took of my knees, both the X-rays and the bone scan. Instead of films in a big envelope, I received a CD. Curious person that I am and entitled to know what's going on, I popped it into my computer and took a look. The software was easy to figure out and the pictures fascinating. I'm not a trained radiologist, but the size of the white spots on my knees from the scan looked ominous. See doc? See? See? Those aren't going to go away, even if you shave the scar tissue away. I want to do water exercise again. I want to ride a bicycle. I want to walk with my friends in fiber festivals. Gimme new knees!

This morning after breakfast I sat down with my taxes and after finishing realized I also needed to take the car in to have its registration renewed. That jaunt took me by IKEA. While the idea of finding a parking place in their lot and wandering around their showrooms seemed daunting, I figured it was an opportunity to get in some exercise combined with some fun. I was blessed with a parking spot close to the door (thank you Asphalta, goddess of parking!), snagged a yellow bag, and rode the escalator to the showroom floor.

Naturally it was a late Saturday morning so it was fairly crowded, but not hard to get around in. It was my first trip there, so there was the element of curiosity. I had heard of their scenarios (a living situation in 275 square feet). I tested chairs. I examined storage wall bins. I felt towels.

I came away with furry pads for the cats, a set of plastic dishes for taking to chorus retreats, a laundry hamper, and a wicker chair for the front porch, all but the chair and the hamper fitting in one of their huge blue reusable bags (I should have gotten two of those, come to think of it). I was there for only an hour but I could see spending a day in there. I also could see how easy it was to get lost, forever wandering the aisles past products with strange Swedish names like Torgven and Jurgen. My mind wandered to the story I had heard of the man who spent two weeks living in an IKEA while his house was uninhabitable. I could imagine him sleeping in a Malm bed with Bibbi Snurr sheets and Gosa Blasa pillows, waking to a Skarp alarm clock and padding across the Balk flooring samples.

Fibery stuff

StitchJones came to Wednesday night knit with her goody bag of yarns and roving she's been dyeing. The sight of the roving was too much to bear. I came home with this, dubbed Raspberry Cremosa:

Picture courtesy of StitchJones.com

I got home too late to play with it, but Thursday evening after a nap I took a bit and played with it on the Louet. It wanted to be spun fine. The sample was a good practice piece for fine spinning with a different wool (she didn't know which wool it was) so my yarn balance wasn't very good (underspun singles, overplied). But I did get a yarn.

And I was able to knit it up on Friday after having set the twist. This was done on size 3.75 mms. The color is off because by the time I got a pic I had to take it indoors, but you get the idea.

Makes me want to snuggle in my Bibbi Snurr.

Spun fiber

For those of you waiting for Mystery roving results: A bit uneven, but after watching Buster bury his head in the bags of batt it will most likely turn into a cat bed. It's good for practice though. It's slick and requires a lot more twist than I expected. Great practice for me.