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.

Just because

Several bloggers have been doing this meme. Yarmando, my favorite sock minion, said to take it from his if I liked, so I did.

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?

Nineteen ninety-eight was a year where I felt sort of lost. I remember feeling disgusted with the attention of the Lewinsky scandal and elated with Mark McGwire's record hitting season. I was out but not really in the community. I wasn't singing or knitting; the only regular activity was going to a monthly potluck.

2. What are 5 things on my to-do list today? (not in any particular order)

-- Feed the cats -- Bring Robert's birthday present to work -- Do some dishes that were set soaking last night -- Make a reservation for the motel I'm staying at for my niece's wedding. -- Spend some time outside to talk with neighbors and enjoy the nice day.

3. Snacks I enjoy:

-- Cheetos Puffs (the super puffy kind, not the harder ones) -- Peanut M & Ms -- Dry roasted peanuts -- Honey nut Cheerios

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire:

-- Talk with Warren Buffett about money management and good sources for a money manager. -- Establish an education fund for music outside the schools. -- Establish a program that would provide child care and young child education for single parents. -- Sponsor fiber workshops that would be affordable and pay the teachers well. -- Set up a comfortable household that would be placed in a beautiful setting where I could have my friends.

5. Places I have lived:

-- Portland OR (4 different neighborhoods) -- McMinnville OR (college)

6. Peeps I want to know more about:

??? When I want to get to know someone I try to read their blog archives from the beginning. It gives me a better feeling for that person than reading their responses to a 5 question meme.

Sucked in by spinning

I went to the Black Sheep Gathering this last weekend with Susan and Gail. Mobility kept me from getting around to everything comfortably but it was a joy to see the wares at the vendors booths. This year I decided that I would look for different things instead of gravitating toward things that made me feel safe. This not only included different kinds of fibers but also different colorways that normally I would not touch. I came home with wools, mohair locks, a silk bell, angelina, suri alpaca and cotton (the last two courtesy of Susan who generously shared in her goodies). No Woolee Winder though. I couldn't swing it and get fiber. It wasn't the most cost effective way of getting fiber but I want to learn how different fibers spin up. Summertime is feeling more like spinning weather than knitting weather. And if nothing else it's giving my legs a good gentle workout.

A master of words

Words. They communicate a little or a lot. Those who can't use words well struggle with everyday things while others seem to be so skilled with words that you wonder if they were weaned on the great wordsmiths like Mencken, Faulkner, or E B White. The ones who write words have time to ruminate, to ponder and erase, to write retractions.

Tonight's weather: Dark. Continued mostly dark tonight with widely scattered light in the morning.

Stand up comedy has few truly gifted wordsmiths. The medium is brutal to those who can't figure out what to say. The less talented rely on wisecracks, cheap shots, and the shock of the taboo. The ones who shine are the ones who can take the ordinary word and make it extraordinary.

Take refrigerator-freezer. It's too long; it should be refrigideezer.

George Carlin, who died of heart failure on Sunday, was one of those wordsmiths. His love of language was evident in everything he did in his performances. When I listen to the records he did during the seventies, I hear a joy of the world he hears around him of the noises that we call words.

How about cheese fon-don't for those who don't like cheese fondue?

His lament of how he couldn't perform his take on the voices he heard in the neighborhood he grew up in (Morningside Heights in upper Manhattan) struck me. He couldn't do the voices of the Puerto Ricans, the blacks, the Italians, the Jews because he was an "Irish white guy."

Hey man, where yo' ass at? Shee-it, my man ain't got no ass. How you keep dem pants up man? Shee-it, man ain't got no ass.

His paean to baseball versus football is a classic that makes every baseball lover adore him. His discussion of how to deal with all of his stuff appeals to every person who has ever had more than the bare necessities. And of course, there is his well-known list of seven words you can never say on television. His observations of the everyday were moments when you wanted to say, "Duh! I could have thought of that!" But you didn't. George did.

Now I've heard of a semi-boneless ham. It has a bone. And it's a BONE. Ain't no semi-bone. It's like military intelligence: it's mutually exclusive.

Who empties the wishing well?

I heard about an ad for a semi-truck driver. Now maybe it's someone who doesn't finish the course. Or it's a little guy: "Hey guys! Hey!"

There are three asses in the world. I've numbered them one, two and C. I never could number things. But there's one, the fat ass. Then there's the everyday you-seen-one-you've-seen-'em-all ass. Then there's the unfortunates like me, no ass at all. Gotta have a fat wallet and three handkerchiefs in your back pockets.

I've read his words but they don't have the same zing as when he spoke them. He presented his observations with a bevy of voices and faces. I imitated his voices as I repeated his lines.

You'd never see black guys in Harlem saying, "Oh gee whiz we won the big game today." Instead you'd have red-headed Irish guys named Duffy who'd be saying, "Hey man, what's playin'. Gimme some skin, man. You see what they doin'? Shee-it, man."

He was an angrier man as he grew older and at times his bitterness was hard to hear, but you listened because you knew that somewhere in that bile was that love of language. He said that we often use the word that is synonymous with loving someone to hurt others. It was better to use words to be kinder, to convey joy, to foster understanding. And of course, to laugh.

Hope you're having a good talk with God, George. I'm sure you have plenty to say.

It started with a song (and went on and on)

It's a pleasant evening for spinning. I sat on the front porch and watched folks come and go. Tonight was mystery fiber from Fantasy Fibers on the Louet. At first I thought it would end up being a cat bed but I'm now thinking it would make a nice sweater along the lines of the Adult Surprise Jacket. The link is through Ravelry, so if you're not a member, just google it. It's a classic.

Back to Knit Camp

Saturday was going to be hot. Hot and muggy. Hot and sticky. And if you are in Vermont, AC's are not that plentiful as in, say, Miami. Fortunately there was one in the conference room we were in at the Paradise Inn so those of us who were prone to meltage in temperatures above 75 had a refuge. A few ventured off to the Inn's pool but a good portion of us stayed and knitted. Folks helped folks out with their many different projects and much chocolate and mac and cheese was devoured.

Sadia showed folks how to spin on a handspindle. As she had a huge collection acquired over the years, she had a good number of students working on the roving I had brought for folks to play with. Some played and set it aside but a couple hung in there and were spinning long after the demo.

When Sadia wasn't demo'ing basic handspindling, she was playing with her new spindle. She plied her yarn by Andean plying, which I had not seen before. She was kind enough to show me how to do it. It's not hard and nice to know how to do if you want to do sample lengths of spinning.

In the meantime, I spent my time at my wheel working on the Parade roving from StitchJones. I had hoped to have it all spun up and ready to be plied but still had some to spin. The spinning went quickly and the plying worked up well. It was an experiment with splitting the entire roving down the middle to match up colors and while I didn't match up the entire length the color changes were still very pretty.

Overall it was a wonderful gathering. We missed several participants who had come to last year's event, but we got to meet new folks and put faces to names. I hope to come to it next year. It's a magic time where people of different places and spaces come together to share a craft.

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.

It started with a song

A couple of months ago, people on the GLBT Knit list were getting ready for the Knit Camp East. Food lists were being compiled, requests for demos being posted, and a general excitement of getting to meet friends known only online was building. Soon after I had sung to the Yarn Harlot, I was getting requests to call in and sing to the group as I had said I would not be able to make it to Knit Camp this year.

Originally I had thought I would not have been able to make it due to limited funds. But when the call came through, I had received funds from Daddy Bush, making it possible to get a ticket to fly over. I thought that instead of announcing I was coming to the entire group I would make it a surprise instead. So I contacted the camp's hosts and conspired to make my entrance. They very generously offered a bed for me to sleep in for the weekend so I didn't have to worry about accommodations. From there it was a case of keeping the secret for two months until June.

The day arrived with a forecast of heat being posted for Vermont over the weekend. Vermont hot? Yes. And it was hot. More humid than I was used to. My flight stopped at Dulles airport where the place was uncomfortably sticky and delays caused my flight to Albany end up being an hour late. I picked up my car and drove to Bennington for the gathering. I was the first to arrive of the group to my hosts so prepared for the first of several surprisings. Other campers started to arrive and were delighted to see that I had indeed made it over to sing in person.

The next day was field trip day. A group of us went to the Green Mountain Spinnery and got a tour of the place.

It starts with the raw fleece. These are bales of fleeces brought in. GMS prides itself in having as ecologically safe a processing method for making its yarns, so more and more of its fleece purchases are from organically raised sheep.

The fiber being processed that day was cotton. After washing and drying, it's run through a picker a couple of times to clean out vegetable matter and such.

The fiber is then put through the machine that cards it into sliver, then roving.

The sliver (pronounced SLY ver) can be seen on the device on the very top of this pic

This is the roving being wound onto bobbins prior to spinning.

The roving is then spun into singles.

After plying, the bobbined yarn is steamed to set the twist.

Next: Golding Fiber Tools

I'm here

If you're a regular reader and notice that I blog mostly on the weekends and saw that I hadn't posted last weekend, well don't worry. I'm fine. I was out on a trip over the weekend to surprise a great group of folks who thought they would be hearing my voice over the tinny speaker of a cellphone and got a live performance instead. More to come when I have a few hours to post.

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.

Horticultural Intervention

I have some really nice and patient neighbors behind me. I'm not the greatest neighbor to have as I don't really take care of my yard like I should. The back yard, while small, is overrun with weeds and ivy and I don't prune my Japanese cherry very often.

It's the tree they were concerned about because it casts a lot of shade on their property. The tree is I think as old as the house if not a decade younger and taller than my house.

So when they mentioned the tree, I was afraid they wanted it taken out. "Oh no," they said. "We just want to trim it so that we can get more sunlight in our yard." They'd do it right, not just hack away at the branches leaving a flat side. They'd do the whole tree for free. All I needed to do is get someone to haul the debris away. No problem. I found a hauler who would do the cleanup and take away the debris.

So this is the before. Overgrown with sports and sprigs growing everywhere.

Now, this is the after. After one big truckful of debris and 3 hours of work. The hauler was quite nice and efficient. It was an excellent opportunity for getting rid of some other yard debris I had in the yard that had been there for a while.

Space! Air! It's going to be a happy tree this summer.

Don't tell me lace isn't addictive.

Someone posted on the Knitting for Sale list the Melanie Shawl pattern by Sharon Miller being up on eBay. Since it's still in print, I didn't think that one could get a good deal on it, but I put a watch on it. Sure enough there were a couple of bidders, but it was still below the exchange rate. So I threw a bid on it and won it! With postage it's a few dollars more than what I would have gotten for it from Heirloom Knitting, but who knows what with air mail postage from the UK to the US if that would have made up the difference. Has anyone knitted it in anything other than the HK Merino Lace? I was thinking the Baruffa FA RE laceweight because that's pretty fine stuff and the HK Merino Lace called for in the pattern is reeeeeally fine stuff. Like fat thread.

In the meantime, I'm working away at the Voyager Lace Stole and liking it and the Berroco Comfort yarn quite a bit. I'm doing it wider than what the pattern calls for but then I'm wider than the model demonstrating the stole.

Have a safe Memorial Day, folks in the US!

By popular demand

It's been a while since the Yarn Harlot came to Portland but I keep getting requests for the lyrics for the song I sang for her at the Oregon Forestry Center. Here is the video:

Yarn Harlot Serenade from akimbo on Vimeo. And here are the lyrics.

(To "My Little Deuce Coupe")

It's a travelin' sock. You don' know what I got.

You'll see me walkin' down any ole street

With my open toe Birkies on my fancy feet

Fingers are a'flyin' on my dpn's

I'll end up with a sock when I get to the end.

It's my travelin' sock. You don' know what I got.

It's knitted real fine out of STR

The colorway matches with the sweaters I wear

I did the heel flap gusset and a springy cast on

And all my friends say that they are the bomb

It's my travelin' sock. You don't know what I got.

It's been to Nashville, Charlotte, and Atlanta Gee Aay

I always have it with me wherever I stay.

And if that ain't enough for you to flip your lid,

I get people posin' with it for my weblog, Daddy.

And when I lay down in my bed at night,

I think of all those stitches all neat and tight.

I think of all the joy it gives while I'm having fun,

And fancy new socks I'll have when I am done.

It's my travelin' sock. You don't know what I got.

It's my travelin' sock. You don't know what I got.

The Chocolate Truck arrived!

I had remembered I needed to take a photo of the Knitters Without Borders sock when just as I opened the door the local driver of UPS arrived with a box I had been waiting for. It was a shipment from WEBS.

When I had browsed through a copy of Vogue Knitting a couple of weeks ago, I saw a pattern advertised by Elann.com that looked interesting but not too complex. It was the Voyager Lace Stole. What captivated me about it was its texture. The leaves make a wavy texture due to the decreases uses instead of being flat like some lace. The hunt through the stash produced nothing that would work for a summerweight item, so I hunted on WEBS and came up with this. The colors are stunning and the red I had chosen so nummy that I'm going gaga over it. The swatch next to it is Cascade 220.

When I looked over the pattern, I was thinking that something with a different shaping would work better for covering my shoulders and arms. It was a case of charting the pattern, playing with the main motif, and seeing what I could do to make it a different shape. This arrived as well to help me along.

Oh yeah. The KWB socks. I think my foot's larger than The Yarn Harlot's friend because I really got great stripes out of it. The hoo hah along the cuff is a cable. I thought I'd play with a cable to make it more interesting to knit. So far it's killing my hands turning stitches that small and I don't trust the stitches enough to just let them lie without a cable needle.

Retreat (continued)

I'm home with the crud that someone's loving child probably passed on to me while I was at the beach. Unlike some who have had this it's so far not lain me so low that I can't get out of bed. I'm hoping today's day off from work will conquer it.

My adventure at the beach didn't end with my departure from South Beach. Since I was alone, I could take any route home I wanted. So I stopped at a local fish joint, picked up some fish and chips (halibut, salmon, and albacore tuna -- yum!), and headed to Devil's Punch Bowl at Otter Rock, a favorite stop at the beach for me. It's between Depoe Bay and Newport and features a formation formed from a sea cave whose roof had collapsed years ago, forming a bowl that the sea flows into and churns. When I got there, the tide was out and people were wandering inside the bowl, so I missed the wave action. But there were a few surfers out on the water doing their thing.

While I was munching on my fish and chips, I noticed squirrels coming out to forage. Naturally at a state park like this the squirrels are more tame than most wild squirrels thanks to the droppings left by humans during their picnics or handouts given to them. What struck me was their coats compared to those I see in the city. The centuries of life at the beach have generated a coat more grizzled and capable of hiding in sandy areas. Compare these guys to ones you see around your place.

Yesterday I was listening to the taping I did of the retreat and we don't sound too bad. A little polishing and we'll be ready for concerts in June. They will be the weekend of the 14th in Portland and Salem. The last rehearsal session break saw the completion of the Noro brioche scarf, nice and long for those days when the east wind blows.

Back to bed now.