Taking the Plunge

I've decided to dive back into blogging. We'll see how it goes. The idea started while spending time with my friend Beth (*wave*) this past weekend. She had mentioned that afternoons were long and dull at work and she struggled to find ways to keep herself occupied. Maybe a little blog reading will help? So, here's to you Beth!

Lunch of Champions (or at least lunch of this recovering sickie).


The muffins really hit the spot. It reminds me of making simple dinners for myself at my old apartment. Oh, and Ellensburg! I think that's the first time I realized the Jiffy doesn't just make cornbread mix but muffins too. I don't eat this much anymore because James doesn't eat scrambled eggs and especially not cheese.

Kitchen Horrors!


It isn't nearly as bad as it looks. You have to really worry about dishes stacked neatly taking up this amount of room! I have to say, though, that admitting to such a messy kitchen helped provide motivation to finally deal with it.

Voilà!


And since no one wants to only read about dirty dishes, here's some yummy handspun. (BFL I think from Enchanted Knoll Farm for the interested).



I spun up the singles for this yarn ages ago, back when I had just learned to spin. I knew I wanted to chain-ply it to preserve the long color changes. Then, after spinning some Grape Ape yarn for my mom as singles, I wondered if I should just use it as-is (mostly likely to weave with). I really think this was just a delaying tactic-- I didn't want to ruin the yarn! All's well that ends well. I managed plying with no incidents and now I have a lovely yarn to show for it. I think I'll weave it into a nice color gradating scarf. Just need to finish Mom's shawl first...

New knitting/knitters

These have all been done for oh so long, and I've still not taken pictures of a few more projects, but if I put this off any longer, I'd never get back to it.

First up, Jen's mitts. They were finished and handed over somewhere near October 25th. It was dark by the time I took the pictures, so don't mind the horrible lighting. I'm quite happy with them, and even happier that she doesn't mind that they're fraternal twins! The thumbs were especially cool, with the second one be much more of a pain trying to get it to match.



Also finished was the first piano scarf for Mom. Here it is in its natural habitat. It could have been a bit larger, but at least this way it won't get in the way.


We had a fun craft day at Mom's some time ago, and I ended up teaching everyone to knit! Here's Beth whipping through the first part of a hat. This one's a whiz kid-- she's already finished four hats and figured out how to do the crown decreases on her own! Very impressive.


Mom decided to relearn too. She's a thrower, so quite a bit slower. Unfortunately, she hasn't had much time to work on it. Every time I go over there though, I make her pull it out and show me that she remembers the stitches. She'll get done eventually...


Jen was watching the whole production as I showed Mom and Beth how to cast on and start ribbing and I bounced between them answering questions. After they were moving, she totally surprised me and decided to pick it up too. She was a master with the long tail cast on, but tends to knit rather tight. It makes a lovely firm fabric, but I'm not sure if it'll fit on her head when it's done!

Next time I'll tell you about James' fingerless gloves and Mom's Pretty Thing. Gotta go find them to take pictures first...

Canada Trip

We had a ton of fun up in Canada curling! We didn't win any games, but we weren't shut out at all either, which was the goal. Besides, if we'd won one we might have had to play Sunday morning... no fun after all the drinking and carousing we were doing.

I remembered to take a picture of actual curling. This isn't us and I don't know who it is because it was drunkenly snapped Saturday night (because bonspiels are all about drinking).


Since this was the Witches' Broom spiel, there were costumes. The neon craziness was a team from our club. Now I can't remember who they were... gemstones? holograms? Some reference I didn't get anyway.


I did manage to find a yarn store while we were there, so of course I had to stop and find some yumminess. It was Knitopia in Langley. Unfortunately they were in the process of moving again, so it was a bit messy. These are all dyed by West Coast Colour, which turns out was the owner of the shop (her husband was manning the cash register).


I'll try and catch up with all the knitting progress next.

Costume and Curling

My sister Jen came over Wednesday to finish up her costume. I'm happy to say that it's most definitely done. It went from the pile of fabric and ribbon to this:


Very Greek. Not quite the idea that she had originally come to me with, but much easier to move and work in. It was mostly a couple straight seams for the edges and some fraycheck for the gold drapey bit.

The rings, however, were a bit fiddly. They're attached by little pieces of ribbon to both the front and back pieces. The first edge attachment wasn't so bad, but it got more interesting when attaching them to the other piece. Organizing and moving two sheets while trying to sew in a square was rather awkward. They turned out great though! See?


I tried to finish up her fingerless mitts in time to send them off with her, but I ran into a rather serious problem with them. Can you see it?


Everything looks fine, but I grabbed smaller needles for the second one on the right. Unfortunately it's made a rather significant difference and I can't even pull it on all the way. It's been ripped and restarted and I'm about halfway through the first ribbing section again. They won't get much love this weekend, though, because the cables disqualify them from being travel knitting.

Yup, travel. I'm heading up to Canada for a curling bonspiel. It should be so much fun! It'll be my first time curling on canadian ice, which I hear is quite a treat. I'll try and remember to take some pictures...

Ah, color

A bit of an explanation: My general mode of operation is to become totally obsessed about something (project, technique, craft, etc.) and work on it exclusively for a period of time. After that, it tends to get put away for weeks or months until I rediscover it and go into a frenzy all over again.

Having said that, perhaps it will explain my recent fascination with color and stranded colorwork. Most of the things in the post are related to it in some way. You have been warned.

I spent some more time on James' music mitts and reached a part of the pattern that has long stretches of a single color. This leaves the second color being carried in the background with a super long float that is hard to tension correctly (especially on double pointed needles that have corners to turn). I figured I'd try 'catching' or 'wrapping' the float with the other color so it wasn't as long. Being rather oblivious, I didn't bother to look up the proper technique. Boy, what a dork!

As you might have guessed, I was doing it completely wrong. I was trying to 'catch' the yarn by twisting the balls of yarn and pulling that twist up to the needles. Yikes! (This video has a good intro, wraps are at minute 2. This one was where it really clicked.).



I don't know if the photos really show it, but these have some wild variations in tension. They're also too small for James. Sigh. That combined with wrongly wrapped floats means I need to rip them out and start over. They're cool enough that I want to get them right!

Towards that goal, I started a practice piece. I took the first couple patterns easy, with only two stitch floats. Then I branched out and tried a pattern from Alice Starmore's Book of Fair Isle Knitting. (Ignore the extra needles-- they were just to help keep it flat for the picture.)



Ah, much better! I thought that I had twisted the cast on for this, so right before I joined them, I twisted it one rotation. Turns out I had it right the first time, so I ended up with a twisted cast on anyway. Well, it's just a practice piece, so I snipped it a couple rows in and straightened it out.

I was feeling pretty confident at this point, so I got a wild and crazy hair and decide two colors weren't enough. A trip to the yarn store and some fiddling later and I had this:


Um, yeah. Maybe I should just stick with self-striping yarn for awhile.


Or maybe I just need some more transition colors. More yarn, yum!

My goodness, it sure is easy for time to just fly! Last week was nuts thanks to two dress rehearsals and a concert. I snapped this picture Thursday at rehearsal. If I look back towards the orchestra, this is what I see.


In the midst of all this, I realized that most of my knitting ends up being for other people. I've started three sweaters for myself, but I've never finished them. I decided to pull out my bohus-inspired sweater and get cracking.


I'm rather impressed with all that I've gotten done in the midst of everything. Usually I'm very leisurely and I don't worry about how long everything is taking, but the sheer enormity of this project (7 sts/in!) and its repetitiveness are encouraging me to get a move on and practice knitting quickly.

You can probably see the one thing that's bugging me on the left of the picture if you look closely. Somehow, for some reason, my stitch markers leave visible ladders. Gah! I know this is a rather fine gauge, but they're really not that big. *Sigh* I guess I should try the ones I made and see if it helps.

Monday my sister Jenny came over looking for help with her halloween costume. See if you can picture it:


It actually promises to be rather cool if we can execute it well. I've got some seams to do up and some raw edges to finish before we get together again and figure out fit (well, length mostly).

She came over wearing the kitty scarf I knit for her last year. Apparently her apartment is rather cold... so now I've got an order for fingerless mitts too! We had to go to the craft store for the costume anyway, so she picked out some yarn. It's Mini Mochi, though I'm not sure of the colorway because I'm at work and they're not.


I'm actually quite a bit farther now, halfway through the cabling and about where I need to figure out the thumb. Oh, right, I'm using this pattern (scroll down for the english version).

I was telling James about the new project, and wouldn't you know it, he asked about his mitts... which I had put aside and forgotten about. Talk about guilt!


I spent last night switching between them. I'm modifying the original pattern to use an alto clef instead of a bass clef since he plays viola. You can't see it here, but I'm halfway through it and it looks pretty cool! Except for all that uneven tension between colors...

Yummy handspun

I really meant to post about these yarns last Friday, but I finally caught the cold-from-hell that James had. I ended up missing most of last week at work. Here it is a week later and I still feel like I'm coughing my lungs up. Sigh. At least between coughing fits I was able to squeeze in some spinning time, so I guess it's not all bad.

I managed to survive the my second spinning class last Sunday, but I thought I was going to pass out near the end. We learned about choosing and preparing a fleece. Here's the teacher Shirley with a gorgeous one. It was smelling quite sheepy all afternoon!


We used hand cards to make some roulags to spin from. It seemed like a lot of work... I'm not convinced that I want to start from a fleece anytime soon. Maybe some day, but not yet I think.

First Plied Yarn


This is the BFL in the color 'Big Sky' that I was showing last time. I plied 'er up as a two ply. I have 170 yards or so of a roughly sport weight at 12 wraps per inch (wpi). I'm very happy with the weight and relative consistency of the yarn. I even hopped on to ravelry while it was still drying and started looking for patterns. Nothing decided yet, but it'll probably end up as a scarf of some sort.

First Three Ply Yarn


I actually spun these singles before the BFL, but plied them after the other yarn was finished. The fiber is 5 oz. of Lorna's Laces superwash merino in the color 'Georgetown'. It was my first time working with merino, so the singles had a lot of thick and thin action going on. The plied yarn is better, but it still has quite a bit of variation. It came out to roughly 90 yards at 8 wpi.

Coffee Socks

James saw me working away at all this spinning, and decided he wanted handspun, hand knit socks. How could I refuse such a request!?! I quickly hopped on etsy to look for some appropriate fiber. I found it at Fiber Optic Yarns... 4 oz. of superwash merino in 'Black Coffee' (incredibly appropriate as James is quite the coffee enthusiast). I was in so much of a hurry to get started that I didn't get even get pictures of the fiber or singles. You'll have to make do with some plied yarn.


For some reason I had my heart set on three ply for socks. I think I did a pretty good job getting a fairly consistent fingering weight. I plied the yarn more than it seemed to really want because I wanted it to be sturdy for socks. I've knit a bit with it to start and it seems a little stiff. They should wear like iron, though. I also need slightly larger needles than I usually do, so I'll be starting the sock over again soon. Pictures when I do.

I used my jumbo flyer for the first time plying this. I liked not having to worry about filling up the bobbin, but it was so big I could feel the revolutions pulling at the yarn as I was plying, which was a little disconcerting. Also pictured is my newest addition-- a cup holder to fit my wheel from FBN Plastics holding tissues at the time... very clever! I figure it will be especially useful when I'm spinning somewhere other than my living room.