I thought it'd never end

Knitting an edging on something round has got to be the most soulless, mind-numbing, feel like it's never, ever, ever going to end task in all the world.  Worse than sitting in a traffic jam going home on Friday night until people start walking from car to car visiting with each other (I've been there.  I know.).  Worse than trying to watch a program that's been shown 42 times a year since 1973 on PBS during a pledge drive weekend because the tv won't turn off and you're tied to a chair with your eyes taped open (OK.  I've never had that happen but there's no saying it couldn't.).

The point is that when you're knitting something in the round which ends up with 576 stitches that have to be knitted off individually, two rows to a stitch, even if those 2 rows are less than 12 stitches each, you're sure that you will never finish.  It will never end and all the other knitting you did simply counts for nothing because you'll be 82 and still knitting off those stitches.  And unless you're 81 when you start the edging and you're birthday is just around the bend, it feels like the ultimate unattainable.

But if you ever reach that pipe dream of having a finished project, I'm here to tell you that you don't wait to work in all the ends.  You don't wait until you've washed it and you certainly don't wait until you block it.  The first thing you do is this:

You lay it out on something it will stick to so it will hold its shape until you've taken the photo.  Pinning out 160 tips of edging can wait.  For now, now is the time for savoring.

What I love about being a spinner

I got a package today.  I really needed this package today.  I'm so glad the postal worker stuffed this package into my mail slot today instead of giving me one of those little green slips that would have meant standing in line tomorrow morning on my way to work to pick up the package and then not be able to play with it because I was at work.  I like our postal worker.  She's really good about things like that.

Want to know what was in my package?  This was in my package:


And this was in my package:

If you thought that looks just like the fiber I spun for my Margaret Stove shawl, good eye.  It is.  Just in case I don't have enough to finish the shawl (you can never quite tell with lace weight yarn).

But my story is about this:

Frabjous Fibers Moulin Rouge-colored Blue-faced Leicester.  Can you see the shy little pink peeking out of the bottom and the flirty orange and the strong red holding it all together?  I think I'm going to like this fiber.  I've got here in front of me and this is what I love about being a spinner.

This fiber can be 4 ounces of whatever I want it to be.  It could be 4 ounces of fingering weight yarn - enough for a fab pair of socks.  Can you just imagine what wild things you could do with this sock yarn?  My feet get excited just thinking about it.

Or it could be 4 ounces of lace weight yarn for a really sassy stole or shawl.  (By the way, if you're writing the word "sassy" in a public place, be sure all the letters stay together.  It's not sassy for nothing.)

Or it could be 4 ounces of a focus yarn that could be used to spice up another yarn.  The spice of life, like.

The point here is, this fiber is like the world having it's oyster (and eating it, too).  Anything is possible.  I think I'm going to have to live with it a few days and listen closely to what it wants to be.  I have a feeling that if I don't pay attention to it, it could kick my sassy.  And nobody wants that.

Things have been quiet here on the blog but that's about the only place there's been any quiet around here.  I won't bore you with the non-fiber portion of life except to say it's trying to take over.  I'm trying to put up a good fight but I'm not entirely sure I'll win.

I have been able to make a little progress on some projects and have even finished a few.  Well, one.

This is the silk, merino, cashmere lace weight I spun on my Ashford drop spindle.  I didn't have too much of it so I ended up making this little neckwarmer which I loved so much that I hated to give it away.  It was like air.  Love it.

I did manage to make a little progress on my Tour de Fleece project (although I'm pretty sure the Tour de France is probably over by now - I haven't even had a chance to check).  I'm processing a Polypay fleece.  I finally got about half of it washed and this morning was able to start carding it up:

All those beautiful little rolags!  I've started the spinning but haven't gotten very far.  I'm spinning it long draw and have a feeling it's going to be lovely and light and wonderful.

Drink of Choice

I’ll say first off I’m an American. Well, I’m a Texan and they say that makes me an American. So I’m an American but I don’t like coffee, which makes some doubt my nationality. I don’t like beer and I’m not too crazy about wine. But I do like me a cup of tea. I like hot tea. Black tea. Oolong tea. White tea. I’ll even drink green tea (if pushed).

The reason I’m telling you this is to to show you this:

I can’t remember where I got this mug but I got the teapot in my visit earlier this year to Shakertown, near Lexington, KY. I love that these go together so beautifully. I love the colors and the flow of the glazing. The tans on the lip of the cup are exactly the same as the tans on the top of the teapot.  It’s proof to me every day at work (when everything else testifies against it) that something beautiful feeds the soul and brings me a calmness that I can’t always manage on my own.

What I did (and didn't do) this weekend

I haven't had that many free weekends this year so I've had all kinds of plans for my weekends this month.  For instance, the Tour de France started last weekend.  In the spinning world, there is a contest known as the Tour de Fleece.  I've never joined a team or anything but this year I thought I would and to that end, I obtained a Polypay fleece in Kentucky earlier this year.  Here's what it looked like when I pulled it out of its bag the other day.

As you can see, it's really pretty dirty and needs to be tended to before spinning.  The plan for the weekend was to get it washed so I could start spinning.  So here's what it looks like now.

Yeah, there's nothing different about it.  I never got round to it.

What I did, however, was work on a variety of lace patterns from vintage patterns to see if they would work for my lace knitting class coming up in August.  Here's the apple leaf lace pattern:

That funny little jog in it is where I decided to start the pattern over again.  It's not blocked but you can see the pattern pretty well.  This was one of those difficult patterns because the written version is so wordy.  Every time it came to the stitch described, "Slip one stitch, knit one stitch, pass the slipped stitch over the knitted stitch," that's what it said.  Once you got that stitch in a row 4 or 5 times, it made it fairly hard to follow.  I tried to chart it out but that didn't work so well either since you change the number of stitches in a row several times over the pattern.  Anyway, it's pretty.  I think it would be a gorgeous pattern for a bedspread.

The other pattern from the same book that I tried was called the rose leaf pattern. (ahem...edited to say "rose" instead of "rise" because I don't think there's any such a thing as a rise leaf)

It's a little harder to see the pattern here when it's not blocked but I think you can see most of it.  This is 2 repeats of the pattern, which I think would make a lovely, lacy top.

And finally, in the "I liked it in the roving but didn't like it in the yarn but I like it again when it's knitted" category, this is the frabjous fibers silk/merino/cashmere yarn that I spun on the drop spindle being knitted into a lacy scarf.

I would have never in hundred million thousand years have thought this yarn would have knitted up like this.  How gorgeous are those colors and the flow of the colors?  I didn't like the yarn and thought I'd just knit this up for someone but wowser.  I'm still planning on giving it away but I've got more of it that I'm spinning and I'm suddenly looking much more forward to finishing that yarn now.

More finishing

I've now finished all but one of my recent in progress spinning projects.  Here are the latest finishees:

The first is camel.  I wasn't at all pleased with the singles (per the aforementioned lack of skill with the long draw) but once I got it plied and washed, I'm much happier with it. It really did soften right up.  There are still spots that are too thin and too thick but the majority of it is quite tolerable now.

The other yarn pictured here is some silk that I was given during a workshop on spinning silk.  I don't remember why I was given it but it spun up so pretty and soft.  I know exactly who it's going to but I won't say in case she sees this post.

And finally, let me introduce you to the blue stuff.  This is merino fiber I bought at a shop in Champaign sometime last year.  In fact I forgot about it because it was hanging right in my face instead of hidden in a tub in the fiber closet.

I wanted something really fluffy and bouncy out of this fiber.  I'm getting a little better at spinning a thicker yarn.  This is probably a light worsted weight with about 200 yards out of 4 oz.  I did a fairly high twist on the singles and plied it with a tight grist.  Here's a closeup:

I think it's going to be great for a hat and mittens.  Hat and scarf?  Definitely a hat.

Finishing Up

For some reason, I've been on a big finishing binge lately.  I finished up a drop spindle project so I could have the skein for the class I just did at 365 Days on a Farm in Eldridge, IA (which was tons of fun, by the way):

I finished a bump of Louet Northern Lights wool that I've had on the Hitchhiker spinning wheel:

This is going to be used in a project with some black merino I'm going to spin one day.  I'm picturing a fair

isle yoke sweater with the black background and this wonderful gold/orange/red yarn as the pattern yarn.  Now I just need to get the black spun!

Then there's this funky yarn.  I bought this wool at a place in northern Illinois because I loved the colors - so tropical and luscious.  When I started spinning, however, I discovered the fiber was a really poor preparation and was yucky to spin.  I did a small skein from my first experiment and gave it away because I didn't like it.

But the fiber kept laying around and I finally decided if it didn't want to spin regularly, I'd spin a novelty yarn with it.  So here's what I came up with:

Finally, here's a skein from the final bag of Kickapoo Creek Alapaca fiber - a mixture of alpaca, merino and silk.  She always had her fiber prepared in a "cloud" which is not even close to being my favorite preparation.  I'd bought this fiber probably 4 years ago and had started spinning on it about 6 months ago.  Since it was on the bobbin, it got caught up in the fever.

I decided, since it's such a soft mixture, that I wanted to spin a worsted weight 3-ply that would be light and fluffy.  It actually came out just a little lighter than worsted but I'm really pleased with it. I spun this on a medium ratio and then plied it on a slightly higher ratio.  The thinking behind this is that when it's plied, you lose some of the twist from the singles.  When you ply on a higher ratio, you lose more of the twist.  That makes the yarn looser and lets the softer qualities come forward.  This photo is the skein before it's been washed.  Once it's washed it will fluff up wonderfully and I want to use it for a cowl.  I see a ribbed fabric just slightly fluted at both ends.

Not pictured here because they're not quite finished yet are a camel yarn that is in the process of being plied on the Minstrel and some Clun Forest that's being worked on the Fricke.  I don't have high hopes because I didn't do a very good job with the singles.  Comes from not being very good at the long draw.  I've been practicing, though, and I think I'm getting better at it.  The aforementioned Clun Forest, the Cormo I'm spinning and the Navajo Churro/Mohair fiber I'm spinning with the Navajo spindle (which I'm almost finished with, too) are all using the long draw so I'm getting lots of practice.

It's very satisfying to get things finished but I always get a little, ummm, sort of, well, shall we say driven.  Gotta go finish my camel.