Old Business and New Business

Old Business



Ta da, the finished mitts. Blocking did not entirely solve the ladder stitch issue, unfortunately.



You can see here what I was talking about before regarding the point on the top "orchid." On the right mitt, the top border lines up to complete the orchid below it:



This is the original photo of the mitt that was lost. This was the (original) left mitt.



You can see that the point didn't line up. When I redid this mitt (grr), I moved the pattern over so that the point did line up correctly. I don't think I would have frogged the previous one, but it did really bug me so I'm glad I fixed it. I'm really not convinced I didn't make a mistake because KnitSpot patterns are usually pretty meticulous and it seems like an odd blip. I really think I missed an instruction.

Speaking of comparison shots...here's the reason I decided to restart my sweater.



Original back on the top, new back on the bottom. See the difference? The original was HUGE.

Here's the pics of my Spunky Eclectic fiber.





And here's some of my Spinderella spinning:



Didn't even put a dent in the bag. A pound is, apparently, a lot of fiber. I'm definitely well-supplied for a while with the extra fiber she threw in.



Next up, spinning class spinning:



New Business

This weekend, I finished the first Caribbean Sock:





And I got to the stopping point on the back of my sweater, so I started on the sleeves. I'm working both at once to make sure the length is consistent. No photo, because it looks just like the back.

Today was my last spinning class (postponed from last week, where we got snowed out) and I learned how to Navajo ply, among other things. It wasn't nearly as hard as I expected it to be and I was so tickled! I asked for help on drafting and got some good tips, plus I got to spin with a bunch of different fibers - flax, a finn/lincoln cross, a mohair/wool blend, something called EcoSpun made out of recycled soda bottles. It was a lot of fun and I'm so pleased with all the progress I've made in the past few weeks.

Busy Butterfly

I say butterfly, instead of bee, because bees do not spin and butterflies do. I have spun my little heart out - well, really, I've spun my little BACK out. I think I need a lower chair for spinning. I don't have nearly as much difficulty at my Monday night spinning class as I do at home. It may be that I'm spending longer on the wheel at a stretch at home, I'm not sure. I haven't timed myself. Anyway, I'm going to take a couple of days off spinning at any rate (even though Tuesdays are for spinning) because I really overdid it a bit and my back is pretty sore.

What all did I do? Why, I did this!

And this!

And this!

Yeah, you're computer's not broken. There's no picture there. I took pics and didn't get them off the camera again. So, the written word will have to suffice.

I have recklessly abandonned all the stuff I was in the midst of spinning. The purple batt and the wine red corriedale are sitting off to one side. For one thing, I had homework for spinning class. I had to spin two full bobbins of singles to take so that I could learn to ply at the next class. I dutifully spun my two bobbins, and I came back with two bobbins worth of 2-ply yarn. Washing and setting will be the next class.

Meanwhile, I got a nice big box in the mail. KGD (formerly known as SOMom) expressed an interested in some handspun because she likes textured yarn, and I thought, I know just the thing!

Back when the Yarn Harlot did the Tour de Fleece, she posted about Spinderella thrum mixes, and how it's impossible to spin an even single from them, so you just kind of have to relax and let it go. I thought, that might be a really great source fiber to make a nice, textured yarn and it sounded like fun, so I ordered it, and I started spinning it. Unfortunately, life interfered a bit, so I only got four skeins spun, plied, and set before the birthday dinner. But, I got what I wanted out of it - it's very textured, and all four skeins seem to be well balanced, so I felt pretty good.

Except for the color, which was not at all what I expected. I am actually wondering a little bit if the wrong thing got put in the box. But, KGD liked it so no big deal. And, to make the whole experience even better, when I opened the box there was a SECOND bag of fiber in a different colorway, and a note on the invoice that she couldn't find a smaller box so she just stuffed some extra fiber in there. Then it said, "Sorry!" and I just laughed. It's not a small amount of fiber, either!

I also got my Spunky Eclectic shipment for the month. This time it was 4 oz of Corriedale with yellows, orangey reds, and a littel bit of brown. I haven't touched my January fiber yet, since my last experience with merino made me a little gun-shy. I'm kind of holding off on it until I can draft a little better (or until I have time to really thoroughly pre-draft). But, I thought to myself - Corriedale I can do! And I did. I spent most of Saturday spinning it. At first, I thought I would try to keep the colors in order - not by Navajo plying or anything complicated like that, but just by predrafting and then splitting the predrafted roving down the middle.

It wasn't as easy as I thought it would be (I really can't imagine why I thought it would be easy, because if it were, why would people learn to chain ply? clearly I am not as smart as I think I am). I had some trouble drafting the fiber, because it didn't occur to me to open the fiber up a little bit after unrolling it from the bump, even though it was clearly still twisted and the whole premise of spinning is that twist keeps the fibers from moving. Duh. Once I figured that one out (dumbass) I had a much easier time, but I don't have enough control yet to keep the thing from falling apart, so of course I had thin spots and when I went to tear the pieces in half they didn't want to cooperate and it was just kind of a mess.

I persevered through the first half of the fiber, but - I really didn't care for the results, so I just spun the second bobbin in no particular order. I let the bobbins rest overnight and then plied them on Sunday afternoon.

I don't think my color is really a success. I had a boyfriend in high school that would mix all his condiments together on his plate and dip his french fries in them, and that's what my end result reminded me of. I think I need to get a book on how to deal with color in spinning. I clearly do not have a clue.

But, but, but! The end result is clearly the best spinning I have done to date. It still varies quite a bit in thickness, but overall it is much thinner and there are places where it acutally looks kind of a little like commercial yarn. This tickles me to no end. I don't necessarily want to spin something that I could just go buy off the shelf - I just want to be ABLE to spin something that I could just go buy off the shelf. At the very least, I want to spin something that could generally be classed as worsted or sport as opposed to, you know, super bulky huge. I'm making progress.

I have also made progress on the Caribbean sock (note to self - do not name projects things you cannot spell). I got through the heel turn and gusset decreases, and now I'm headed down the foot. I don't know how I feel about the yarn; it doesn't seem to bounce back the way wool does when I put them on (it's a wool-bamboo blend), but that really doesn't matter once the sock is made - it should (hopefully) return to its shape when I wash it. It's only a nuisance now because I keep putting the sock on to see how much farther I have to go.

I also worked on my sweater, but I'm still not quite where I was at the restart. I plan to get back on the exercise bike this week, though, and I may be able to add some more length onto it during my exercise time, as long as I can find a way to keep it off my legs/lap.

Square - Uh, ROW 1.

I cast on for my sweater this past week and knitted happily along on the back. I LOVE the yarn (Valley Yarns Colrain in Grape Jelly), it's beautiful and it feels so wonderful to knit with, and it's not splitty. At first the plain stockinette was kind of boring, but it grew pretty quickly and I enjoyed watching it after a while. I got through a ball and a half of yarn and was about 8 inches in when I thought, you know, I should measure this to see how wide it is. Make sure I'm getting what I'm supposed to, and all that.

Yeah, I might be a little slow.

I measured cheerfully, and found to my disgust that I was getting 24 inches where I was supposed to be getting 22. I thought, well, no big deal, it'll just be a little big, and - here's the kicker. I kept going. I am a moron. It bugged me and it bugged me and I finished out the second ball of yarn and measured and again and discovered that I had been a little optimistic before, that it was actually over 25 inches wide and I was forced to face facts...I was knitting a tent. A giant, beautiful, soft, tent. The thought of having to rip out all that beautifully even stockinette and reknit it with wavy yarn made me want to weep.

I put it away. I fussed. I harassed the SO into entering into my misery, but we both agreed. It was madness and folly to continue on.

I got a fresh ball of yarn and started the back again, but this time I cast on for the size one down from what I was working on. I debated for some time between switching to a smaller needle or knitting the smaller size, and finally settled on the smaller size just because I was relatively certain, based on the amount my initial attempt giant swatch was off by, that this would give me the correct width, and I could not bear the thought of attempting it with a smaller needle only to find that I was going to have to start over a third time. I'm still questioning this decision a little, since I would kind of like it if the fabric were a little tighter, but I'm forging ahead anyway. I'm actually a little concerned because my row guage is also slightly off, but I don't really have a problem with the sweater being a little longer than it is supposed to be. I think. And if I do, I'm reasonably certain I can fix it in the knitting. The only part that is not fixed in length (in other words, the only part that does not say 'knit until it is x inches long') is the spiral chart, so if I find it is too long, I can always take out a diamond.

The upside of this whole thing is, that I was able to change the hem, which I was really wishing I had done. The sweater is knit entirely in stockinette so the bottom edge rolls, and the roll was driving me crazy. So, I knit a garter stitch hem on it when I restarted, to control the roll. It's beautiful. It's gorgeous. I love it. Almost enough to not be better about knitting it twice. Really, I wouldn't be bitter at all, except for the intense pain I feel at the thought of the wavyness of that frogged yarn. I *think* I may actually have enough yarn not to have to rip out the first try giant swatch.

I know that I could always frog the yarn, reskein it on my niddy noddy, and wash it to take out the kinks, but...I'm lazy. If I can avoid that, I will. We shall see.

Thank God I love this yarn so much. If I were indifferent toward it I think I would shoot myself, but since I have such an appreciation for its softness and beauty, it's okay.

I just hope it wears at least moderately okay - it will break my heart if it comes apart the second time I wear it!

Round and round

I didn't knit most of the time that I was sick, just because all I wanted to do was sleep. I finally picked up some knitting Friday night, but I found that sitting up to knit made me kind of dizzy. I eventually found a compromise pose somewhere between sitting up and lying down that made the vertigo bearable, and I knit. I picked out the part of the Orchid Mitt I had messed up (again) and was able to finish the whole mitt (I may have knit the thumb on Saturday, I'm not sure). With this encouragement, I was also able to motor through the second mitt, and last night I finished it up. They're finally done and I don't have to worry about them anymore.

Overall happiness with the project...meh. I should have used a different yarn, one with a little more bounce. I have HUUUGE ladder stitches down the sides, which is a problem I really haven't had before. I'm not sure what the problem was. I'm hoping that in the soaking and blocking that maybe things will even out a little bit, but I can't block these much because there isn't much give in them to begin with, and I don't want to stretch them out huge. I hope they fit the recipient.

And, just like that, I'm down to three WIPS. I definitely had some startitis going on at the beginning of this year, but I've managed to finish all of those things off and so now I'm down to 1 pair of socks, 1 lace shawl (that has languished for months, but we'll ignore that for now), and the hemlock blanket on my active project list. (I do have a few more wips that are 'hibernating' but those really don't bother me the way active projects do).

Three projects feels very reasonable to me, so I no longer have this "I have got to finish some of these off before I start something else" feeling. I hope to get going on my phyllo sweater tonight.

I'm going to attempt to go on a yarn diet until MD Sheep and Wool; between Christmas and my other recent purchases I have really got more than enough yarn to keep me going for a while and I really need to put the breaks on the money output. I did make one more big expenditure this month, and that was on a spinning class being offered by Nature's Yarns. It turns out...I am the only student! Yesterday was my first class and I learned several things I had not gotten out of the book, so I am looking forward to next week. I have spinning homework to do before then, so that's also on the agenda for tonight. Teach gave me several different preps to try spinning, and I am to try each of these and also to fill two bobbins before class next week so that we can cover plying.

I also had the chance to talk to her about staining my wheel, and she pretty much said there is nothing special I need to know, just to go for it, so I'm going to have to set aside a weekend for that. I still have hopes of getting a certain someone to paint something pretty on the flywheel, maybe in exchange for some of my, ahem, highly textured handspun.

We discussed whether I needed to take the wheel apart to stain it and Teach thought I could do it without taking it apart, there would just be some areas I wouldn't be able to get to as easily, but those parts would be largely covered by the wheel anyway. This is a relief, as I had so much trouble getting the wheel onto the thing that taking it off was kind of a terrifying prospect.

So, plans plans - spin my homework, start my sweater, finish Moonlight Sonata so that I can start Swan Lake, now that I have both yarn and beads in hand. I don't think I want to have both on the needles at once; I try not to have more than one of the same type of project going at the same time. I like to have multiple projects that are suitable for different types of knitting time. I have the hemlock ring for TV knitting, the sock for travel knitting, moonlight sonata for times when I can focus, and the sweater is several different kinds of knitting depending on where in the process I am, so I can move it around as needed. I really think that after all the lace knitting I have done and all the scarf knitting I have been doing...the sweater will move kind of fast.

Stuff becoming other stuff

I wrote this post on Tuesday, right before I got sick, and it sounded so grumpy I saved it as a draft to come back to later, but since it has now been days with no post...here it is in all its grumpy glory.

I have finished the Just Enough Ruffles Scarf:



Malabrigo Silky Merino in the colorway Velvet Grapes. The bind off took me an HOUR. I like it, and I'm currently wearing it as I type this post despite being in my comfortable home - but it looks an awful lot like the severed arm of an octopus. I'm just saying.

I like the end result and I love the yarn and the colorway, but it was really boring to knit. This was the first time I've done short rows, but they weren't difficult. For the most part, just stockinette. Very pretty. Insanely dull. And, it bears repeating - 600 stitches to bind off. AN HOUR.

I knit and washed a swatch.



Valley Yarns Colrain in emerald, purchased strictly for swatching. I am now fully prepared to cast on for my sweater. Any day now. Totally going to do it.

I have been spinning:



Wine Corriedale from Paradise Fibers. I have 8 ounces of this and my spinning has drastically improved. I think. We'll see when it's done and plied. I'm not very far into it. I still have a loooooot left to go.

So this week I popped it off the wheel and spun something fun for variety. I picked up a couple of batts from Butterfly Girl.

One was this:



Which I have been turning into this:



I feel I am posting all of this entirely without enthusiasm, but I'm feeling kind of sick today - I've developed a cough and a sore throat and I don't have a lot of energy.

Nature's Yarns is offering their wheel spinning class again starting next Monday, so I signed up. I went by the shop today to pay and while I was there I checked to see if the Zephyr had been restocked, and:



It had. I am jazzed to start Swan Lake, but I have a number of less fascinating things to cross off my list first.

Oops

I get paid once every month, and I like to have a little payday treat, so last week I very responsibly considered my finances and made a couple little small purchases to make me happy (this ignores the purchasing that I did all January long, but I am working on that).

I picked up some stitch markers from Hide and Sheep (I love their softloop markers so, so much - I have I think four sets already, three in the snowflake obsidian and one that is cobalt blue hearts, and I get sad when I have to use plastic ring markers instead on my larger needles...but not sad enough to buy big ones, since I rarely knit at larger sizes anymore) and I bought a couple of batts from Butterfly Girl Designs (blue morpho and passionflower). I then promised myself I was not going to spend any more money. While my stash is meager by the standards of most, I did get quite a bit of yarn for Christmas, I do still have quite a few projects that can be knit with what I have on hand, and I don't really need more yarn.

Then I got an e-mail in my inbox from Little Knits and...well. I had a little accident. An accident involving two bags of Plymouth Royal Silk Merino and a bag of Rowan Cashsoft Aran, both on closeout. The silk merino was a deal I just couldn't pass up. I have been waiting for some time to knit Eris, but I wanted a yarn that would show all that beautiful celtic cabling (which is why I didn't immediately knit it out of the VY Colrain; the color, while stunning and very me, is pretty dark and I am not knitting all those cables to have them swallowed up in a stunning but dark color). I had been stalking Elann Incense for this purpose, but even at Elann prices, when you add shipping in it's kind of a lot of money, so I put it off (also, they did not have the color I wanted at the moments when I was weakest).

The Cashsoft I use for charity knitting - although, I actually use the dk weight, so I should have thought it through a little harder. But, I'm sure I can make it work if I so choose, though I am kind of thinking if my first couple of sweater forays do not totally scare me off, I could totally make something wearable out of the Cashsoft. We'll see. There might not be enough yardage, and I think my charity knitting could go just as well in the heavier yarn (I like Grumperina's hat patterns and they do come out a little small - I might need different beads though). I favorited a bunch of hats on ravelry, so we'll see when it comes. I tend to use the favorites button as sort of an inspiration box, when I see something and think "I kind of like that, I might want to knit that later," I favorite it, and then when I am looking for a new project I go browse through my favorites to see what strikes me. I don't usually put things in my queue until I am reasonably committed to knitting them.

So, yay for a good deal! Boo for breaking my promise to myself. Well, we'll just have to see how it turns out in the end. If I get a great sweater out of it, I think I will consider it a happy thing. I should actually have quite a bit more than I need for the sweater I am planning, so I will be able to either swap the rest or find something else to do with it (maybe an extra special charity hat or two). I just hope I like the color - I picked 'mossy,' which actually looks more like 'lime' in the picture. I did some searching on ravelry, though, and decided I was happy with the color in the projects I was seeing, so I went ahead with it. I am just a teeny bit anxious though.

Chicken

Knitting doesn't scare me. Though I have been knitting for a relatively short time (coming up on 2 years) I have accepted that all I have to do to succeed in knitting is follow directions. The craziest, most whacked-out looking stuff in knitting all boils down to very simple directions and as long as you follow them dilligently and in the right order, you're fine. Skp? What the hell's a skp? Oh...slip knit pass slipped stitch over. Okay, I can do that. Piece of cake. It worried me when you crammed it all together like that but when you break it out, it makes sense. Just follow the directions. SSK? Slip slip knit? I needed a little expansion on that one but once again, pretty easy.

I have occasionally had issues with directions that I thought could maybe be broken down a little more - most notably, "pick up and knit." I was fine with the knit, but the "pick up" thing had me stymied for a while. Just...just pick it up? That's it? Pick it up how? Through where?

Fortunately for me I live in the age of the internet, a time when a panicked knitter with half a sock in her lap can google the living daylights out of something until she has read 6 different explanations of how to go about this thing and can therefore feel somewhat mentally prepared for following this unusually complex simple instruction.

The only new technique I have really abandonned as of this date is the toe-up sock. Not because it was hard...but because I couldn't get over the idea that it was STUPID. Intellectually I know that there are very good reasons to make a toe up sock. But as I sat there shortrowing and wrapping and contemplating the next step, I kept thinking, "I'd be halfway down the rib by now" and I just gave it up and went back to my unrepentant top-down sock knitting ways. However, this is temporary. Now I have to knit a freaking toe-up sock or I will never respect myself again. It probably didn't help that I tried this technique out of desperation with a sock yarn with which I had started a top-down sock that I then quit in the middle of because I HATED IT. Because I am a Harlot Whore (I know it sounds redundant, but I can't help it, it's what I am, but we'll talk about my constant desire to knit what Stephanie's knitting some other time - though did you see my noro scarf?) I decided to try the Leyburn sock and see if it could overcome my dislike for this colorway. So I tried to work a new technique in a yarn I hated and it didn't work. I. am. so. shocked.

I digress. Often, actually. Where was I?

Yes. Knitting does not scare me. Why, then, despite the fact that I have for the last year at least been determined to knit a sweater...not knitted a sweater? First it was a cost issue. I couldn't figure out how people were paying for these sweaters. I will admit I am a sucker and a bit of a spendthrift and I will buy just about anything - as long as it is cheap. I will put myself in the poorhouse with nickle and time purchases that add up and then I get to the counter and I'm like WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT'S THE TOTAL but I am there and I am too proud to back down so off goes the money. But offer me a seventy-dollar sweater and I will laugh in your face. So I had to find something inexpensive to knit it in, and I kind of did, only it was out of stock in the color I wanted and blah blah...

Enter the SO, who very sweetly gave me a sweater's worth of yarn for our anniversary back in October. I was thrilled, I was excited, I was indecisive...my initial sweater choice didn't seem right. I thought about it, but I worried. I didn't want to spend a lot of yarn and time on a sweater I would hate. I decided to look at other patterns. I narrowed it down to three. I debated which would be best. I conducted a poll of friends. I eliminated one. I waffled between the others. I didn't have the book for the sweater I wanted. Besides, it was Christmas season and I had some major knitting to do for Christmas so...I'd wait until the New Year.

Meanwhile a friend gave me the book with the sweater pattern I wanted and so lo, here I was, fully equipped and ready to embark on my sweater voyage...except I wasn't done with the Christmas knitting yet AND I had not double-pointed needles, which were a requirement. Normally I use double circulars or magic loop to do anything that would otherwise go on a dpn, but since I was going to be knitting a pentagon and not a circle...five needles seemed like an advantage (I am going to have to figure out something for the sixth, since I am not buying another package of double-points just to get one more needle).

Well, I finished the Christmas knitting and several sizes of DPNs are now sitting in a box on my table waiting for me and...I still have not started the sweater. I was going to swatch for it (I remembered later, that's what the unidentified yarn in the MLK day pile was) and then I looked at the pattern (duh) and realized I didn't have enough yarn to spare for swatching. Back in the pending pile it went. The SO generously offered to buy me another ball of the same yarn (but in a different color, as the one I am using for the sweater is backordered and it would be a different dyelot anyway) and so now I am waiting for that to get here so I can swatch, but I have to tell you, as we cruise into February and I have yay verily, not a stitch of a sweater on the needles...I might be a little afraid of the sweater. I may have built up some unreasonable sweater expectations.

My fear comes from 2 major quarters:

--This is a Norah Gaughan sweater and I am a little afraid that it might be too complicated for a first attempt - however, I am sticking to my experience which tells me that all I have to do is follow directions and I will be fine.
--It has seams.

That is the part that really gets me, I think. Seams are not knitting. Seams are sewing. I do many crafty things. I do not sew. At least, I do not sew in a way designed to make things actually look neat and hold together at the same time. I cross stitch. I am intellectually aware of the basics of making the seam. I have knitting books galore at home with detailed photographs of mattress stitch and a bunch of other seam-sewing techniques. But I have to say...I'm a little terrified of the seam. I know there are seamless sweaters out there but 1) I really like this one 2) I am a Harlot Whore and the Harlot says that learning to seam things is an essential knitting skill. And also, while I believe the Harlot to be a comedy writing genius...frankly I'm not sure that she knits better than me. Faster, for sure. Absolutely. With more confidence, definitely. And experience probably gives her an edge with regards to appropriate yarn choices for particular projects. But knitting is knitting and there really is no good or not good about it. As the Harlot says...as long as you are ending up with socks at the end of the day and not (what was it, I loved that prhase...) wee knitted cows, you probably aren't doing too badly. My stitches are even and I have not stabbed anyone in the process of knitting. Although I probably have to give her colorwork. Colorwork takes some extra skills that I do not yet have. My one experience with it was mediocre at best. Fabric too tight, colors peaking through. Not so wonderful. So she does colorwork way better than me. Well, and there may be some levels of neatness about her edges that I have not acheived. But still! Regular knitting? Plain sweater knitting? I can totally do that.

It's just, you know. Seams. Also fit. And guage. And stuff.