Knitting in the Shadows

One Word

Stolen from KmKat. 

I wasn't going to steal it... but her answers said I would, so what could I do??

USING ONLY ONE WORD! It's not as easy as you might think! Copy and change the answers to suit you. It's really hard to only use one word answers.

1. Where is your cell phone? Hip
2. Your significant other? Working
3. Your hair? Graying
4. Your mother? Gracious
5. Your father? Healthy
6. Your favorite? Friend
7. Your dream last night? None
8. Your favorite drink? Vino
9. Your dream/goal? Comfort   
10. What room you are in? Solarium
11. Your hobby? Knitting
12. Your fear? Bankruptcy
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Elsewhere
14. Where were you last night? Here
15. Something that you aren't? Barbie
16. Muffins? Chocolate
17. Wish list item? Students
18. Where you grew up? Mid-West
19. Last thing you did? Blog
20. What are you wearing? Jeans
21. Your TV? Off
22. Your pets? Furry
23. Friends? Yep
24. Your life? Busy
25. Your mood? Variable
26. Missing someone? Nope
27. Car? Gray
28. Something you're not wearing? Makeup
29. Your favorite store? Internet
30. Your favorite color? Plum
33. When is the last time you laughed? Wednesday
34. Last time you cried? December
35. Who will resend steal this? Blogger
36. One place that I go to over and over? Maine
37. One person who emails me regularly? Mom
38. My favorite place to eat? together

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Toes

 

Fiber

Bright

 

Warm

 

Grafton

Ailing Blogger Attempts to Distract you with Randomness.

That prickly thing in my throat on Friday ...has spread to lungs and sinuses and has left me feeling like... well... Yuck!

Even so, I've managed to get a few things done in the past few days.

There was prize awarding over at Seasons of Lace...

And a bit of spinning  here at home.  
I got the last of the green stuff plied.  Now I have to choose what to do with this lovely soft yummy stuff:

There might actually be enough for a hat there...(Ain't it lovely, it's from Grafton Fiber Arts)

I went stash diving in the bin in my yarn closet, and came up with some odd stuff that I played with a bit.  It gave me great practice in pre-drafting... and I spun up this:

This included orange, and that salmon, and YELLOW and even a bit of lime green.  I can show you, in fact, because the bobbin has developed a bit of a problem...  the end fell off.

Oops.  I hope the thing can hold together long enough for me to get the singles off.  I guess I won't be Navajo plying THIS one straight from this bobbin, now will I.

There was a bit more of this stuff in reds and blues and purples....

I hope to ply both of these soon (no, not together! talk about clown barf!).  Then I'll figure out something to do with them.  I'm ALMOST ready to tackle the soy silk...

And no, I've not been neglecting my needles.  I'm just trying to put in a half hour a day on the wheel, to get my spinning up to snuff, that's all.

I pulled out the Xmas stocking, and wielded the needlepoint needle for a bit.  I'd show you, but you'd hardly be able  to tell the difference. I'll photograph it when I achieve some markable milestone.

I also pulled Natalia out of hiding, and spent a few hours with the sleeve and some Supernatural
It seems like there ought to be more to show for it, but there it is.  I blame the cold. (and the eye candy).

There has also been design work.  I'm working on a pair or two of socks for an upcoming book that Crystal Palace Yarns will be putting out.  I was very excited to start on one pair, and when the Panda Superwash arrived, I cast on promptly.  Alas, this color hadn't looked quite this dark on my screen when I chose it... and is a bit too dark to show the design...

I'm loving the yarn though.  I'm sure I'll come up with something delicious to do with it.  The only challenge will be to keep DH from demanding that I knit socks for him -- he likes the colorway too.

I've even been working on Laminaria.  I put it in time out when I had to tink back two whole rows because I'd missed the last 2-into-9 stitch on row one of the blossom chart.  GRR.  I'll likely pick it up this afternoon though.  I AM eager to finish ... there's so much in the queue!!

What? yes, I do still knit.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled knitting stuff.

Yes, I did succumb to temptation and order the Colorways Club from Grafton.  And I did touch the wheel yesterday -- but only for a few minutes.  There was this Band Meeting... oy ... it was important, but it ate my evening!

But... since I last posted about knitting there has been progress.  Really.  It ranges from not very much:

I know, I know, I have no excuse for such a poor showing on Laminaria. But there was other ... more noticable progress.  As for Laminaria... I claim distraction..

By... for example, how cool ribbing can be.  Take these socks....

That's a pretty tight cable rib there.  I had moments of worrying that they wouldn't actually be big enough for my foot and ankle.  I tried the cuff on my wrist/hand... and saw (and felt) that it fit pretty nicely...

Looks like a nice gentle stretch on the wrist.  The wrist which is a good two inches smaller in circumference than my ankle.  But, ya know.. this yarn is lovely, but it's not wrist-soft.  I like really soft things on my wrists...  So... I tried it on the ankle....

Where I think it fits quite comfortably, thank you very much.  And I'll be back to focus on these as soon as my wee package with a replacement needle arrives from Grafton Fiber Arts.  Yes, I confess to my crime.  A serious one -- I ...  I ... (really embarrassed now), I snapped a Darn Pretty Needle.

There, I said it.  And Tom is so wonderful that he's sending me another one.

I also got all distracted by the Must Have Cardigan.  I finished the sleeves.  Dumped 'em in the sink...

And spread them out to block on the ugly foam blocks

I am so loving this sweater.

However, I have promised the Divine Though Blogless Elizabeth that I'd give her a chance to catch up with me before embarking on the body parts.

Instead, I'll focus a bit more on Laminaria, which is a perfect warm up for the nupps in Madli's Shawl... (next in the queue), and the socks.... at least until my next batch of yarn arrives from Crystal Palace Yarns, for whom I'm designing a couple of socks for an upcoming book!!  When the yarn arrives, I'll have to go all monogamous on them in order to meet the deadline for finished socks...

Spin Again!!

What a glorious weekend!
My hands may never forgive me.

As I intimated in my last post, this as a spinning oriented weekend. 

Whichy came down for the weekend, and brought her wheel (a lovely little ).  Saturday morning, we set up in the family room, I shifted around a bit, but finally settled into "my chair" with my first wheel (an old.... old  Ashford kit wheel that looks a lot like a Scholar, but I think is not).  I tried spinning with the wheel I'd used Thursday, which is another old Ashford, that I think is an Ashford Traditional Single Drive Wheel.  Syliva would know -- as she gifted it to me a dozen years ago.  While that wheel worked for me quite well in the hotel at Stitches, and in my sun room on the lovely tile floor, it was having none of me in the family room on the cushy carpet.  So..  I set up with the Scholar(?) and started spinning on my lovely green Grafton Fibers.

Whichy set up with her lovely  Lendrum folding wheel and some fiber she picked up at a wool festival (Midwest Fiber Festival perhaps)?  She wanted to finishe that off so she could get started on HER yummy Grafton Fibers.

The girls joined us, and asked for some spinning lessons.  I rounded up our spindles, and turned Whichy loose on them...  Next thing I knew... there were three people spindling away in my living room.

Not too long thereafter, Alexis arrived ... and pulled her little Ashford Traveller out.  And Dee arrived with her brand new Lendrum!  She blames ME for her aquisition.  Did I make her go to The Fold on Friday?  Did I? I did not!  And yet, there she was....  and the very next day her wheel came for a visit.

We spent the day spinning.  (Okay, Dee spent the day playing with her wheel, learning to treadle and then learning to get the whell to draw in yarn... and generally having fun).

Wanna see what we made?

Whichy, spinner that she is.... first spun this up, and plied it

Pretty!  even if it is a tad orange.  Want a better look?

Then she pulled out her Grafton Fibers January offering from the Colorways Club
I love this colorway.   I love it in the batt.  I love it in the yummy bump ball that Whichy makes as part of fiber prep....

I love it even more in the bobbin....  I mean look at this bobbin....  By the end of the day she'd made this one.....

 

I love this colorway....  and it gets better... .look what happens when you give her an extra chunk of day to play and it's all spun and plied!

And this pictuer doesn't begin to show the real beauty of this yarn....

Okay that was fun.  And I probably shouldn't have shown you the good stuff before I showed you my wee little accomplishment. 

First I finished spinning the rest of the yummy Grafton Fiber that I had prepped ..

Then.... I PLIED it up,  and wound it up onto my Babe niddy noddy...

Wet it down, and hung it up, and discovered this:

See that... the way it's not all twisted at the bottom... you know what that means?? That means that it's actually balanced!!!  I made yarn that I like, that's balanced... not over spun, or over plied or.. any of that bad stuff.

Even though I KNOW I should have stopped spinning... I know my hands were totally not up to hours of spinning on their first day after months of ignoring the wheel....   I prepped the rest of the fiber...

And spun it!  It's resting ... and I'll ply it tomorrow....  using a trick I learned from Whichy.  I wound the bobbin into a center pull ball using the nifty ballwinder ... which I attached to my wheel...

Tomorrow I'll ply starting with the two ends... until I get to the middle.  I'm tickeled behon all comprehension -- I'll have enough to actually knit something with!

Then, I tried Whichy's Lendrum.

THAT was a mistake.  I totally want one now.  I love the double treade... and the portability.  Sigh.

Eventually -- I actually returned to knitting.... and got in another repeat on Laminaria. 

This week, I think I'll be teaching Kitty to use the wheel. ... her yarn is looking great.