The Day After

Yesterday was the annual Bishop Hill Spin In.  This year they had it in a nice hotel conference space in East Peoria and it seemed a much better space for the vendors, although it seemed to be many fewer vendors than in past years.

That's not to say there weren't enough vendors.  It's a good thing I didn't need any fiber, I can't imagine how much I would have come home with if I'd actually needed more.

The most interesting purchase of the day was a fleece from a Finn sheep.  I found out about it from an encounter that started in the bathroom.  Before your imagination runs away with you, it was a very normal sort of encounter.  I went into the Ladies and there was a lady with several fingers of fleece.  She'd been washing them at the sink and was drying them to see the clean colors.  Now who hasn't had such an experience in a public restroom?  Right?

We got started talking and she was showing me how beautiful and soft the fiber was.  Her fleece had a bunch of browns and grays but by the time I'd thought about it and decided my life would be richer for the experience of cleaning, preparing and spinning a Finn fleece, there were only white fleeces left.

Actually they were a yellow color and the friend who was with me was asking if I was willing to have a yellowish yarn because this was not a white/white fleece.  Of course, I didn't care if it was purple polka dots so home it came with me.

Once home, I had to wash a bit just to see how it was going to spin.  Here's a picture of the unwashed fleece, a washed finger and a small bit of yarn spun from the lock.

Looks white/white to me!

Change of pace

I've got a trip coming up so I was trying to decide what projects to take for the long flight.  It's been a long time since I've had a pair of socks on the needle so I thought it would be good to do socks.  So what yarn do I use?

My favorite pair of socks are made from a merino/silk yarn so wouldn't it be great to do something along those lines?  But I don't have any yarn like that.  But I do have roving.  I have some amazing Blue-faced Leicester (which, while it's not Merino, it's either the next best thing or it's the better thing)/tussah silk blend roving.  THAT could make some amazing socks.

But of course, roving is not yarn.  Roving makes yarn but it's not yarn.

When you spin the roving, though, you can make the yarn.

So last night I started.  And tonight I finished.

My friends tease me about being a fast knitter but even I have never spun and plied a full skein of yarn in 2 evenings.  Can't wait to start knitting!

Three's the charmer

This was the fastest thing I've ever done, I think.

I'd got it to this point on Saturday night.  The columns and most of the first pineapples.  I wasn't sure how long the rest would take but I started on Sunday to work the second row of pineapples.  Once I'd finished the first row of them, I had to decide how long I thought it was going to be and whether I would need a 3 row of not.  I decided not.

 

Once I'd got to this point, each pineapple had to be worked on its own.  Something that took almost exactly 20 minutes per pineapple.  People ask me sometimes how long it took to do something and it's really hard to say because I'm usually doing multiple projects at once.  This, however, took 20 minutes per pineapple.  So there you go.

 

And here you go.  I give you pineapples...

TADA!

In fact, I love this pattern so much that I've started the round tablecloth to match it.  I just couldn't help myself.

The Pineapple

I was showing some friends my filet crochet curtain valance which started us talking about what I was going to do for the other windows in the living room.  One friend asked whether I was going to do pineapples for the window next to the door.  Oddly enough, I had found a pattern in the 1947 book, "Complete Book of Crochet," that featured pineapples.  The pattern was actually for a chair back (antimacassar).  As I started looking at the pattern, trying to figure out how to adapt it for the window, I started flipping through the pages until I came across a pineapple table cloth that looked so much more suited to the curtain.

It's been such an easy pattern that I'm halfway thinking about doing the table cloth.  I've got plenty of thread.  Surely it couldn't take long to do a full table cloth.  Right?

Why pineapples you wonder?  It all started during the Colonial days.  Here's the explanation from the website of the history of the pineapple: "In this manner, the fruit which was the visual keystone of the feast naturally came to symbolize the high spirits of the social events themselves; the image of the pineapple coming to express the sense of welcome, good cheer, human warmth and family affection inherent to such gracious home gatherings."

It's a cornerstone of the crochet pattern library and everyone who's ever crocheted anything will have, at one time or another, crocheted her fair share of pineapples.

A lovely obsession with a typical ending

I've been tooling along and was thiiiiiiis close to finishing

 when the thread ran out.

Isn't that the most typical thing you've ever heard?  Hundreds of yards of size 30 crochet cotton and I run out with 2 inches to go?  Geez!

So off I go to hunt some more size 30 crochet cotton to finish my 2 inches of this...

I can see I'm going to have to starch the points to get them to lay flat but that's it.  That's my filet crochet double window valance.  It has been a lovely obsession.

Now to the 3rd window.  I'm guess it should be tatted.  I'm off to find my big shuttle and get loaded up. 

Not so much

Making a piece of filet crochet is so intoxicating that I can lose all track of time.  Trying to see what the next line is going to make it look like.  I know that sounds stupid because I can see the x's on the graph that show me what it looks like.  There's just something about seeing it come to life.

I finally finished the second repeat of the pattern but it's still leaving me about 4-6 inches short.  So I've had to identify a section of the repeat that will fit into the bottom edge repeat that will fit in the distance I need to go to finish things off.  I think I've found it and it means adding about 30 rows onto each side.

So much for almost being done. Ha!  I've been reading the Yarn Harlot's blog this week where she's been talking about completely buying into the thought that should could knit a couple of sweaters on the way to a conference in an area that was going to be cool because she'd left all her woolens at the house.  Just in that little window of madness a knitter (or crocheter) really thinks that the laws of physics are optional and fingers and needles can reach mach speed and do what no one else on the planet can do.  I get it, I really do.

Deep in my heart I knew I wasn't really that close to being done with my curtain because after I've finished the length I need, I still need to crochet the border onto it.  After that I still need to add the top section that will fit onto the curtain rod.  You see, I'm not really that close after all.

But deeper in my heart, I'm thinking, "I really think I can do it."  Challenge on.

Another day, another curtain

I got one of the valances for the smaller windows done and I was working on another, this time in filet crochet.  This is a pattern from a 1943 classroom book but it's a pretty typical filet crochet pattern of flowers.  I thought I'd be able to do 2 repeats to fit the smaller windows but it's not going to work.  One repeat isn't quite wide enough for the smaller window but 2 repeats, it appears is going to just a little narrow for the double window.  I can easily add some filler pattern to either side of the curtain or maybe just a nice wide border will do it and it will fit the double window perfectly.

You can't see the points very well but at the end, I will do a small border along all the edges that will help those lay flat.  Plus I'll starch the liver out of it.  That helps, too. Ha!

Filet crochet always feels a little like magic to me.  you work row on row on row, taking it by faith that you're going to wind up with something at the end.  Then you roll it out and step back.  BAM!  You've got something pretty.  I'm also thinking about doing a filet crochet antimacassar for my couch but I'll have to figure out what color to do it because I don't think white will show up very well on it.