I've gone square!

I've still been sewing, despite having shown little for it. In fact, back in October, I decided perhaps I'd even be a quilter. So, I joined up the local block of the month club and gave it a shot. I figured for $20 I'd get my fabrics, patterns, and 13 hours of instruction (1 a month to teach the block + 1 at the end to teach finishing), and if I didn't care for it, I'd only be out $20. Well, I do care for it... It's yet another dangerous addiction.

And now, without further ado, I present: November, December, and January. The theme, by the way, is stars and batiks.

A random lady at Hobby Lobby offered to give me a pre-cleaned fleece.

You know I said yes...

1-2-3-4...Four Pretty Presents

Four pretty presents... All knitted, felted, blocked, and wrapped by 11:00 this morning. I beat my own record by 12 hours. Now if I could only count Sasha's as done instead of excused...

Want to take a peak?
Details are on my Ravelry page.

Merry Christmas everyone!

How to Use Stash in a Flash

It seems that knitting six strands at a time works well for me. Here's my papaw's slippers all done and on schedule. Actually, I'm a smidge ahead... they are felting as I write. Turns out my Saturday is a bit busier than I thought.

These are knitted with six strands of Brown Sheep Nature Spun Sport held together to achieve gauge. I had seven balls in the mallard colorway stashed and thought it'd work well. I figured that it should be plenty of yardage, but used 6+ balls for the inner sole and upper. Since I still needed to finish the outer sole, I picked up a ball of hunter green Cascade 220 and held this double with one strand of Nature Spun to make the colors blend better. It looks pretty good in person. My leftovers are also shown above, and the book is about 8.5" by 11" for scale.

I also attempted to get a ball of smooth, worsted weight navy wool for my dad's hat (has to be navy to go with his work uniform). Candice didn't have any (seriously... no smooth navy worsted weight of any kind), so I had a good excuse to visit Andra's (my favorite, but a bit out of my way). It's balled up and ready to go... destined to become the Caramel Cable Hat by Iris Wilde.

24 Days

Yes, 24 days remain until Christmas. I got to thinking about last Christmas the other day and realized that I had finished my dad's socks on Christmas Eve after everyone had gone to bed. I cannot do that this year, but it seems as though I need all that time.

I have a Swallowtail shawl nearly finished for my mamaw. It's been done since July and now only needs to be blocked. I can check that one off the list. Its a beauty, made of Malabrigo Lace in burgundy, but I don't think the others would be happy if it were the only one. I have a second gift about a third finished, I'd comment more, but since its for Sasha, I can't. She has though given me permission to finish it for after Christmas. So, another one not to stress over.

Then, there are three more to be made. The most stressful is the shawl I've started on for mom. You can see it partially finished in the photo above. It was a wonderful afternoon to work on it. My room was nice and neat, and, since you likely can't tell, I was able to open my blinds and watch the most beautiful snow all afternoon. I finished one more pattern repeat. This would be awesome progress, except that the progress calculator says I'm now a whole six percent done. Ugh! I have a new pair of slippers to make my papaw. He told everyone about his slippers last year and probably has nearly worn them out. I'm using the felted clogs pattern from Fiber Trends again this year, so it isn't too stressful, but it is a very high priority. I couldn't possibly disappoint him by not having a pair under the tree. Lastly is my dad's gift. I'd been debating whether his father of the bride suit was a sufficient gift, but this afternoon decided that he definitely needs a handknit as well. So later this week, I'm off to the yarn store for a ball of navy 220 to make a hat.

As you can tell, even without final exams and family get togethers, I'm going to be busy busy. Here's my game plan, so lets see how well I can stick to it.

Mamaw's shawl needs blocked. My Matthew will help me with that, and I'm thinking we'll do it this coming Sunday. The slippers need felted and time to dry (I gave them to him wet last year!), so I need to finish them soon. I aim to finish the first slipper tomorrow and the second on Thursday. I'll felt them probably Saturday morning. Dad's hat will be my destress project during exams, so that's next week. A few rows a day will add up to pretty quick progress on it. I aim to finish it by the 14th. It'll be my car knitting when I go dress shopping (dress shopping!) with mom and mamaw on the 13th. This leaves me intermittent time during the next two weeks and about eight days uninterrupted to work on mom's shawl. I can remove a few repeats to expedite the process if I have to. It's silk and won't need a hard blocking, so, if I can pin and spray by the 23rd, I'm golden.

Wish me luck!

"That's Why Its Called a Drop Spindle"

I have been trying my darnedest to learn to spin for nearly two years now. The idea is simple... spread out some fiber so that the bits are going in generally the same direction and then twist them up so that they stay together. People have done this for centuries if not millennia on everything from just their leg to a fancy spinning machine (not to be confused with pretty antique wheels, but they've used them too). I passed Organic Chemistry (and on the first try) and surely spinning ought not be any more difficult.

Well, my friends, it isn't. In fact, I've come to the conclusion that it's not only simple, but its also very enjoyable. Turns out that all this time, I've been trying to be too in control. My drafting was sloppy and made thick, nasty messes when I got it to spin because I wanted to grip the fiber instead of letting it slide through my hands. The few yards I've managed in the last months is far over spun from trying to work right at the hook on my CD spindle. But now, now I understand. PetuniaLu showed me. You actually spin about 6-8 inches above the hook, if not more. This allows the spindle to maintain a nice, even spin and room for this spin to work its way into the newly drafted fiber. It was rough starting out because this was against my scientific nature... I should have complete control. But after a few drops and the encouraging words of both PetuniaLu and Whorling Tides, who reminded me it is a drop spindle after all, I had new found hope that I could make yarn. And make yarn I have.

Above is the second part of an 8 oz bag of Ready Spin that I purchased when I first decided to learn. (Anyone else notice that anything pink that I photograph has a shine?) Below is the product of a week and a half of my new hobby on the very best bobbin money can buy-the paper towel roll. My dad spoils me... he's already given me three :D It is about 3.5-4 oz of a decently (I think) evenly spun fingering weight. But now I have a dilemma. I wanted to ply the purple and pink together, and then hopefully do some sort of scarf, but I can already tell that I have about 1/3 more purple. So, come out of lurking and tell me... Should I ply it together anyway and ply the leftover purple to itself or should I ply them each with themselves and do a smaller, mosaic stitch neck warmer?

SAFF Haul 2008

YARN

From upper left: Aziza from Just Our Yarn: a nice fingering weight tencel that is a bit darker in person and should make a lovely thank you wedding gift for my mom as it is very near one of our colors (it looks much bluer here, its really more teal), Random Camel/Wool blend: a lace-fingering weight yarn that was 600 yards to the $5 ball (I've never used camel, so I couldn't resist), 1 ball each of Grape and Berry Yarnsmiths Knight: a DK cashmere/merino blend that I think may become a Noro Striped Scarf (it's stripier in person), and Palana: a handpaint sock yarn in a colorway that ranges from light blue to dark and into purple. The last three are all from Carriage House Woolens.

Other Happy

Also from upper left: There were lots of alpaca this year. I'd say 2-3 times what they had last year. Most were super cute little ones like these. I have a new spindle too. I broke the CD spindle I got at my class ages ago and have another I never use because it is different. This beauty is from Whorling Tides and came with some fiber to start. Her customer service is excellent as she let me swap out what was in the starter kit for this wool/bamboo braid (I think she said the color was Cinnamon, though it is more pink) at no extra cost. Her booth mate, Petunia Lu had some tempting naturally dyed fibers, but I was already worried about having more fiber than I could use, so I'll be heading to her ETSY shop for a navy wool braid that caught my eye once I get through all my current fiber. She was super helpful and showed me what I had been doing wrong, so now I officially spin! Next is "turquoise green" (I say green, the color here is pretty accurate) alpaca/silk fiber that came from The Yarn Barn. I'm worried that it and the bamboo blend may be slick, so I'm working with 100%wool at the moment. And also, the leaves were pretty!