Just for a little variety

Here is some of the spinning I've been doing. I'm not progressing all that quickly, simply because I need to lock myself away in a room away from cats and children in order to spin. The opportunity just doesn't arise that often.



These are some mystery fibres that I acquired at the end of my spinning classes in December. The oatmeal-coloured one was very wispy, with and it had a bit of darker, coarse hairs running through it. I have no idea what it is, but it was nice to spin.

The purple/green was actually just a bunch of dyed locks that I flick-carded and spun, mostly just to experiment with blending colours.



This is the espresso Shetland wool that I got for Christmas. I have spun two bobbins full like the one above, and I still have this much to go:



Yeah, I know it's a crappy picture and it's hard to see. It's sitting on my knees. For those who don't know how big a spinning wheel is for reference, the ball is more-or-less soccer ball sized.

I wanted to see how my spinning was shaping, so I plied the two bobbins together and got this:



Oh it is really pretty. I'm going to have a lot of it by the time I'm done, too. Hours and hours of fun-this was the best gift ever.

still with the socks...

I haven't gotten totally bored of them yet. I suppose that's a good thing, since I still have a fair bit of sock yarn (not to mention several patterns I want to try).

Several FO:

M. has been bugging me to knit him something with the leftover yarn from my husband's socks. I decided to whip off a pair of teensy wrist-warmers, because I wasn't sure I'd have enough for socks.




My sister's socks became my mom's socks, because they fit her and so I worried they'd be too roomy on my sis. Plus I don't think I could've gotten them off my mom once she tried them on.



Forgive the carpet. It's my grandma's, so I think it gets a pass.

Then of course, M. wanted to know where his socks were, and I definitely had enough of this yarn left over.



And since my sister still had no birthday socks, I cast on these:



Lang Jawoll cotton jacquard in a mock cable pattern. Simple enough to work on anywhere, anytime. Fancy enough that I don't die from boredom.

And I know the stripes don't match. Believe me, I know. The twitch in my eye is just starting to go away.

Last but not least, I finished the boyfriend socks for me:



I made them pretty short more or less on purpose. If I'd done another cable pattern repeat, they would have been tall enough to reach past my bizarrely muscular calves, and I would've had to work an increase in there, and it was after easter dinner and frankly I was too stuffed and lazy to bother. It also leaves me with a bit more blue for a...something small and blue. Hmm.

...and here are all the pictures

Lana Grossa Meilenweit cotton. Note the slightly crappy short-row heel. I find my gauge on this yarn is a little loose, but the resulting socks are coming out very very soft.


Fleece Artist merino socks. Pardon my stash in the background.


I did the afterthought heel on these ones. Nice finished look, but I'm not sure it's worth the trouble of getting the heel stitches on the needles.


Now these are my socks-to-be:

This is Lang Jawoll cotton. These will be for my mom, so they are going to be the plainest socks ever. She has issues with tightness, scratchiness, texture, etc. It's going to be pretty boring. She's lucky I love her.


Koigu KPPPM. I have no pattern ideas for this one. I'm waiting for it to tell me what it wants to be.


Fleece artist Sea Wool (in Cosmic Dawn, I think). Yes, it really is that shiny. I think this wants to be Pomatomus, don't you?

Update- no pictures

We spent the day at "Maple Madness" with the kids, so I am entirely too tired and lazy to get up and get my camera, and my knitting, and find a cat-and-child-free space to take pictures. You're just going to have to take my word for it that I'm progressing.

My boyfriend socks are nearing the end, I think. I did the heels (afterthought heels, which I loved the first time I did them on my husband's socks, but this time it seemed unnecessarily fiddly) and I'm now just knitting up the leg, I guess until I'm out of yarn. I have discovered the one drawback to toe-up socks though, at least for me: I can see that I am going to do a lot of coaxing to get myself to knit these up to the appropriate height. I'm so tempted to just cast off now and turn them into ankle socks, but I know I'd be disappointed later.

My sister's socks, which are top-down, are also just past the heel. I decided to try a short-row heel on those, and I do believe I'm a convert. I like the evenness and roundness of them, and there is no fiddly picking up of held stitches. And no flaps. I'm very not fond of flaps for some reason.

I have already started planning for my next socks- since I've decided to join the Slow-Poke Socks KAL, I am going to have to start thinking ahead. And I realise now that if I'm actually going to talk about future socks, I should put in pictures of the damn yarn. So I'll have to save that for a less lazy day.

Socks!

If someone had ever told me that I would derive such pleasure from socks, and that I would dedicate significant chunks of my life to talking, writing and thinking about socks, I would've thought they were nuts. Gosh, I can only imagine what you all think of me.

Well, no matter- I have finished socks!

First, this pair has actually been finished since the beginning of this year. I just haven't gotten around to taking pictures until now. They are the Fleece Artist soft sock/mitt kit (blue-face/mohair).



I have no idea why they look like they are two completely different colours.

Next, I have the socks I made for my husband, out of Lana Grossa Meilenweit. The pattern is Thuja from knitty.com, except I knit them toe-up.



Here is a decidedly cuter picture of the socks.



These are my half (okay, maybe 1/3) finished socks, just for meeeee! I'm using the boyfriend socks pattern, and Fleece Artist again, just the standard merino socks. Yum!



Finally, I just cast on another pair last night, more Lana Grossa, but the cotton blend. These are going to be for my sister, for her birthday (I'm quite sure she doesn't even know I have a blog, so I'm probably safe to post that).



I also have 3 pairs-worth of sock yarn all wound into balls, waiting to be knit up as soon as I decide on the patterns. I have sock fever, and the only prescription is more cowb...err, socks.

Toes!

My toe-up fleece artist socks are making me giddy. I'm making very slow progress, simply because I can't help but stop to admire them every row. I'll get over it eventually...I hope.

I used the Magic Cast-On from Knitty.com. It is perfect and flawless, and I have beautiful, seamless toes. Even the insides are pretty.



I'm sick, I know. But I'll have the nicest socks in the asylum, I'll tell you right now...

FO alert!

I've completed the rumple scarf, and I'm very pleased with it. It's not going to be practical as a winter scarf, so now I can't wait for spring.

It's about 5 feet long, and I used up every last scrap possible of the silk. I have a small hunk of the mohair left for some reason. I'm not sure what to do with it. It's way too small to make anything useful.

WIPs!

More of them than I usually have at once. Four of them, which may be insignificant for some, but i tend to be fairly single-minded, so I'm finding this pretty cool. The truly remarkable thing is that they are all actually in progress, all at once. Shocking, no?

First is my Hourglass sweater in Malabrigo. I did end up frogging the sleeves, after I washed and measured them and used them as swatches (see, it wasn't a total waste). Then I started on the body instead of the sleeves, because I have a really hard time ripping out something and then re-knitting the exact same thing immediately. It makes no difference in the long run, but it seems to help psychologically.

Here's the finished body (up to where you do the raglan shaping):



And the sleeves in progress now:



I not only started with a lot fewer stitches than before, but I am not doing the full belled sleeve. I'm only doing one decrease between the wrist and arm sections. I think that the cushy thickness of the finished material makes the bells much clunkier than is really practical.

The rumple scarf is still on needles. It's taking it's time, because, well, it's a scarf, and it's mostly my take-along project because it is brainless and can be put down anywhere. And thus it gets put down a lot. But I think it is almost done. I will say, I got a heck of a lot of yardage out of this kit:



Pretty no? Only one tiny issue. About it being 'brainless'- sometimes that leads to the most brainless mistakes.



I must've knit two plain rows instead of alternating with the YO row at this point. I didn't even notice until I had knit a good 5 inches past this point. So frogging it was completely out of the question. The good thing is that it seems to be landing itself smack in the middle of the scarf (or close enough anyway). So I may actually be able to pass it off as a creative design alteration, rather than a flaw. Yay creativity!

The cashmere/silk is making it's way into a lovely Diamond Fantasy shawl/scarf. I love the way the colours are lining up, I love the look of it, the feel of it, it's absolutely luscious. The only issue I'm having is that the yarn feels really really fragile, like if I pull it too hard it will just snap. Because of this, it's all coming out a little loose, and progress is really slow because I'm terrified of making a mistake, and I don't think the yarn would hold up very well to frogging.

But man is it lovely, even if it wouldn't stay flat for the photo:




Last thing I'm working on at the moment is a pair of socks for dh. I'm using a ball of Lana Grossa that I won as a door prize at my LYS holiday party. I've never been particularly drawn to these kinds of sock yarns (the 75/25 wool/acrylic blends) because they always seem terribly scratchy when they're wound into a ball*. But dh is less picky than I am, and as I'm knitting them up, I'm finding the scratchiness quite tolerable, and the finished fabric is really nice. I'm also using my new knitpicks circulars on these (not the options, since they don't come in 2 and 2.5mm sizes) and I'm smitten. The metal needles aren't bugging me as much as they have in the past- probably because they are so slidy- and the cord is amazingly flexible. These would be fantastic for magic loop.

I'm doing these toe-up, two at once, which I think is going to be my technique of choice for socks for a while. Avoids second sock syndrome, and all that counting of rows, and there's less yarn waste. And because I bought the knitpicks needles instead of getting bamboos or addis at my LYS, I got 4 sets of needles (two of each size) for the cost of maybe 2 bamboo sets, or one and a quarter addis. Wheee!



*(I tried to explain this to dh last night, but unfortunately my choice of words was "scratchy in the balls" and we were too hysterical to form a complete sentence for a good hour after that, because we are both 12)

I love bell sleeves...

I really do love them. But for some reason, I can't stop obsessing over the fact that these sleeves are going to be too belled.



I'm really playing with fire with this hourglass sweater.

Firstly, I didn't actually swatch (I know, I know, don't hurt me). I realised that for my swatch to be at all accurate, I'd have to knit it in the round, and therefore I'd have to have enough stitches that I could get an accurate gauge on half the stitches. Since the sleeves are worked in the round anyway, I had a brilliant idea. The sleeves can be my swatch! That way, if I get gauge right away, I won't have wasted all that time knitting a swatch. Besides, I had already started the body of the sweater on 5mm needles and determined that it was way, way too big, so I had a good starting point with 4.5mm.

After knitting the up to the hem for the sleeves- Oh yes, sleeves. I knit them both at once, so that I can avoid obsessive row counting and still have sleeves the same length. Again, this seemed like a brilliant idea, but perhaps not so much when combined with the "sleeves as swatch" idea, since it's much harder to just scrap-and-start-over two sleeves, rather than one. Which is how I managed to get this far before questioning my progress.



So as I was saying, I knit up to the hems on 4.5mm, and measured my gauge. It was about 16sts/inch, still a little big (I'm going for 19), but I was not concerned. I knit the hems up (provisional cast on, then k2tog the hem and sleeve stitches to avoid sewing later) then switched to my 4.25 needles for the rest of the sleeves. After several rows, I checked again. About 21 sts/inch. Well, that's actually smaller, but since it's already looking a little big, I'm okay with that. In fact, to prevent the extreme belled-ness of the sleeves from translating all the way up the arm, I've actually knit 2 extra decrease rows already. I'm pretty much trying to get the sleeves to the small sized measurements (from the medium which is what I cast on).

Goodness, if anyone is still following this, good for you. I'm totally lost.

The second thing that is vaguely concerning me is the colour difference. It's a double edged sword with Malabrigo. I love the variation, it's gorgeous, and subtle, and makes a much more interesting knit than a super consistent colour (at least for plain stockinette stitch). But doing both sleeves at once (hence two balls) makes it difficult to alternate balls to prevent pooling of a lighter or darker skein- since that would require four balls at once. I think I'd go mad(der). This has left me with two gorgeous sleeves of slightly different colours. I'm okay with this, I think.



Of course, the fact that I'm posting this all is a sign that I have not completely resigned myself to continuing.

I may need to switch projects for a while, to keep myself from progressing on the hourglass if I am going to eventually frog it. I can't believe I just typed that.

Happy New Yarn- er- Year!

All I wanted for the holidays was yarn, or money with which to acquire yarn, or roving which I could spin into yarn. Santa (and my relations) were all extremely good to me in this respect.

My darling husband bought me two gorgeous balls/lumps/pillows of roving. A 100% shetland in 'espresso', a very very dark brown, and a 70% shetland, 30% alpaca in 'oatmeal'. I never realised just how much I loved the natural colours of fibres. I could just sit and stare at it all day. I spend an inordinate amount of time over the holidays just squishing it.

Of course, colours not always found in nature are also quite appealing. So with some of my festive funds, I purchased some merino/silk roving too. I was almost swayed by the alpaca/silk as well, with beautifully contrasting colours (Think darkest brown alpaca streaked with copper-coloured silk. Black streaked with nearly iridescent red. Caramel streaked with gold. Now wipe the drool off your chin). Alas, at $10/oz, it was well beyond my reasonable budget. But don't get me wrong, the merino/silk is very nice. Don't you think?



But my real holiday treat was the boxing day sale at 'Lettuce Knit' in Toronto. 30% off. It may not sound like a lot, but it was apparently all that was standing between me and a whole buttload of Fleece Artist/Handmaiden yarn.

Merino socks- haven't decided on a pattern yet. I just want to swim in it.



Silk Rumple and Angel Hair (mohair/nylon). Part-way towards becoming a beautiful bias lacy scarf.


Cashmere/Silk, in (I think) the Paris colourway. Hopefully this will be a Diamond fantasy shawl by spring.


I also have a pair of Mohair/Blue-Faced Leicester fuzzy socks, but I don't have a picture yet. They've been spending too much time on my feet.

And quite a few months ago, I bought 6 skeins of Malabrigo in Azul Profundo. I was going to use it to make tubey, but after casting it on I became apprehensive that the pattern was not going to work for me. Fit issues. I now expect it to become an Hourglass sweater. I'm not particularly rushing on this one, since I won't likely get much wear out of it until next fall.

Pictures of that yarn to come, for those of you who like that sort of thing.

A Few More FOs

Before I get too far into the new year, I have to update on my last few FOs of 2006. I would like to add that I finished ALL of my gifts well before the 24th, thank you very much. I am very proud of myself.



This is the scarf from the hand spun wool that was roving that belonged to my grandmother-in-law (follow that?). I re-dyed it, because I found the bright green to be a bit garish for granddad. The colour looked a lot nicer in person than it does in the picture.



A felted bowl, made from a skein of Noro, for my mom. She's using it to keep my grandma's glasses in, so she can find them easily. I love making useful things.

In other FO news, I finally (finally!) finished the broadripple socks that I started...ooh, when was it? When my youngest was about 3 months old? Yeah, he'll be two this month. That was pathetic. And while they are lovely socks, I am so sick of working on them that I didn't even want to keep them for myself. Luckily, I have a beautiful friend whose birthday is this month, and she has small feet like mine. Also, she's allergic to wool, and since these socks are made from cascade fixation, it's all good. They are currently en route to her in Germany. In my haste to send them off, I forgot to take a picture of the pair. Well, go back to my first blog posts, there's a picture there of one of them, almost finished. The other one? Looks just like it. You'll have to imagine the toe though.

I will also update that everyone loved their knitted gifts. They all think I am incredibly talented and creative. Well maybe I am.

spin, span, spun

I'm not abandoning my knitting. I'm really not.

I am, however, having a torrid affair with a man named Ashford.



He's lovely, isn't he?

The big hunk of fleece is what I'm currently spinning. But here's a little photo journal of my progress so far.

This was the end of my first day of spinning:



Pretty good, but we were given some really nice tops to spin, so that helped.

This is the same white wool, and some grey wool too, plied and washed:


The grey was a lot coarser. And a lot harder to spin. It shows.

After my second class, when the instructor checked over my wheel and pronounced it fit to spin, I found some roving in a box with all my bobbins and other spinning accessories. The wheel and the roving used to belong to my husband's grandmother. The roving must have been at least 5, maybe 10 years old, but it spun up quite nicely (despite my questionable skill). I dyed it with blue and green Kool-Aid, and I'm planning on knitting a scarf for my husband's granddad out of it.

It's not quite as bright as the picture shows:



Class #2 homework- beautiful, but very sticky, grey coopworth. Spun, plied and washed (actually a little over-spun, over-plied, and still wet):



Today was the day we got to spin alpaca. It was baby blue, and looked just like cotton candy. She didn't give us much:



The colour is not quite true. And that is a quarter beside it, for reference. It's a really tiny ball.

Lastly, this is my homework for today (class #3 of 4). This is what I've spun off the big white puffball in the first picture:



I think I'm improving. I think I'm in love.

FFO!

I'll leave the extra 'F' up to your imagination.

This is it. This is all my holiday knitting, with the exception of a hat for my husband (which has been a nightmare involving the brioche stitch and earflaps- don't ask).

First, a bag for my dad. This was the first present I knit, in June, I think. I still haven't felted it yet.



These are a pair of knucks for my brother. They were fun to knit. I have plans to make several more pairs- um, eventually.



These are mittens for my brother-in-law. His hands are not, to my knowledge, two different sizes. I have no excuse for why the mittens are. I'm fully prepared to rip one back and make it smaller if I need to, but I'm sort of hoping he won't notice.



A wine cozy for my father-in-law. He likes wine. Maybe this was a bit of a cop-out. My husband got him a $60 flag from his university, so that should make up for it.



The only person not getting a knitted gift from me is my mom. I was going to make some felted mobius bowls, but I didn't get my book back in time. Instead, she is getting a record by Jonathan and Darlene Edwards. Yes, an actual vinyl record. Very retro.

My kids are not getting knitted gifts because they grow too damn fast and like to paint and play in mud puddles. They are getting toys. I don't think they'll be too disappointed.

A real sense of accomplishment

Just pretend this is artfully draped over my shoulders, and not over my computer chair.

A close up:



It really does speak for itself, doesn't it?

Icar-ish

Sometime this summer I decided to knit all my x-mas gifts for my family this year. I thought it would be fun to do a lace weight shawl for my MIL, both because she is probably the only person I know who would wear one, and because I had just finished a worsted weight lace project, and I wanted to try the real thing.

Sometime in June, I picked up some Misti Alpaca and the pattern for the Icarus shawl from Interweave Knits (many thanks to the woman at Lettuce Knit who set me up). I know that it was June, because I took this picture on June 19th, to show off a few days (weeks? I can't remember) of progress:



Now here we are, exactly 5 months after that picture was taken, and we have this:


I am fantastically proud of myself. Now I just need to find a place to block it that is safe from children and cats. Ummm, yeah.

Oh, in case you can't tell, that is not a full-sized Icarus. I skipped a couple repeats of the rather tedious first chart. I think my MIL would get more use out of it as shawlette (shawlini?), plus it meant she would actually get it for x-mas. Bonus.

I'm lazy.

That's the best excuse I have, seriously. At least, I'm a lazy blogger. It's not like I haven't been fairly productive in the last few months. But apparently it takes too much effort to write about it. Or take pictures of it. Actually, the problem with the latter may actually be finding space to photograph my knitting. I used to lay things out on my computer desk, but my HCD (horizontal clutter disorder) has gotten seriously out of control. Maybe I need to start arranging my knitting outside in flower bushes or something, like the Yarn Harlot. Speaking of, guess who I met last week. Well, no, don't guess, I just told you. I am even in the group photo of her Kingston post. And she showed me how to un-screw-up my shawl (note to self, knitting while laughing hysterically and trying not to cough up a lung do not mix). And part of the reason I am updating now is because I told her I would email her a link to my blog, and I'm embarrassed to do so without having at least semi-recent posts in it.

I still haven't taken recent pictures of my knitting. For my own accountability, here is a list of FO which I must photograph and then post. If I make a separate post for each object, maybe it'll actually start looking like I post on this blog after all.

• Winecozy for my FIL. It needs to be embellished but I'm stuck for ideas, so maybe once I post it someone will comment and tell me what to do.
• Mittens for my BIL. Probably too long, but better than being too short.
  
• Moebius sling bag for my dad, though it still needs to be felted.

Also, I need to post a picture of my Icarus shawl as it is now. It is really very close to being finished. I think it deserves a post all its own.

I have two more projects after the shawl and then I am more or less done my x-mas presents. I still haven't decided on a hat pattern for my husband, but since that is neither a surprise nor something he desperately needs at the moment, it is probably going to be a very late x-mas gift. Or a very early next x-mas gift. It's good to plan ahead.