Obsession du Jour

Cleanup

In an effort to finish some misc business before diving fully into the Summer of Spinning, I have something to show off.

UF Gator Lap Throw

Since this picture was taken, it's been through the wash/dry cycle several times and the ends have been woven in.  It has also been mailed off.....a tad late for my SIL's June 11th birthday.  Luckily, not only is it par for the course for his entire family, she's not really going to need this until football season anyway since she's in Savannah, GA.  Just in case y'all don't know what that means?  It's hooooooooooooot.  And sticky - blech.

Specs:
Yarn: Caron Simply Soft
Pattern: Tempting from Mile-a-Minute Afghans

Yes, it's crochet.  Yes, it's acrylic.  Don't judge me, people.  First of all, it's a stadium blanket and has to be able to withstand a remarkable amount of filth and abuse.  Also, when I started this, I knew nothing of your crazy, addictive, wool-hoarding ways.  This, my friends, represents my oldest UFO.  I started this YEARS ago and got it about 4/5ths completed before I realized that the urge to poke my own eyes out with my size H plastic crochet hook was starting to be overwhelming.  So into a box it went.  And then that box went into the back of a closet.  Then we moved.  Then we moved again.  Then we moved a couple more times.  Finally, in a fit of finishitis, it came out of it's deep, dark hole and has been weighing on my conscience since.  Now it's GONE!

The Gothic Arches scarf has also been recently completed.  It just needed to be grafted at the middle, but I'd been putting it off out of fear? boredom? distraction?  Who knows, but that same finishitis struck and it's done as well.  All it needs now is a good blocking and a photo, both of which I'm planning to do this weekend.  Yes, also Klaralund photos. Maybe.  Depends on the temperature, really.

I know that some of you are also still waiting on the Hood-less Rogue modification charts, and I just wanted to state for the record that I haven't forgotten, I'm working on it.  It's not hard, mind you, it just seems like a cursed project in that every time I set aside some quiet time for it, something else comes up.

And now, for the big question to which I referred yesterday.  Ready?

Which lace shawl/stole should I make?

After the disastrously boring 'River' (which is still on the needles, but currently in time out until the next fit of finishitis strikes), I charted out a lacy pattern from one of my books and started the Gothic Arches scarf to prove to myself that I could, in fact, both knit AND enjoy the knitting of lace.  So I think I'm ready to pick a pattern, and would love to hear some suggestions.  My preference, it seems, is for the non-pointy-triangle-aimed-aimed-at-my-ass patterns, but that's flexible if the pattern moves me.  Surely someone out there has a suggestion?  Come on Lace-Heads, what would you recommend to someone doing a lace shawl/stole for the first time.  Someone who isn't entirely certain that shawls are even really their bag, but who can't seem to stop thinking about them?

Just so you have a reference point, the front-runners currently are:
Stora Dimun Shawl from 'Folk Shawls'
Wool Peddler's Shawl from 'Folk Shawls
Lacy Lattice Stole from Fiddlesticks
Paisley Long Shawl from Fiddlesticks
The Raj Shawl from Fiddlesticks
The Whisper Scarves from Fiddlesticks

NOTE:  I'm not necessarily asking for a choice of one of these (though if anyone has knitted any of these and wants to talk about it or vote for it, I'd love to hear from you), it's more of a call for new ideas if you have them.....who wants to help a sister out?

Summertiiiiime, and the livin' is....

...well, if not 'easy', it's at least good.  Very good. 

Case in point #1 - Today I am wearing these:

Jaywalkers.  Finito.  These have served me fantastically as backup\subway knitting and I've enjoyed them immensely. The pattern is fun, the yarn is yummy, what more could a knitter ask? I have actually knit three of these socks in that I made a couple of modifications for for sizing on the 2nd sock that ended up making a DRAMATIC differences in both the fit and the striping (go here to see the old look).  Differences that, frankly, I loved so much I was willing to knit the 1st sock over again to get them into both socks.  I believe that the knitting goddess approved of the changes.  Wanna know how I know this?  Behold:

Note the almost perfect matchy-matchiness of the big, juicy, zig-zaggy leg stripes? Absolutely.Positively.Unplanned.Matchiness.  Eerie but kewl.

Pattern: Jaywalker socks (I KNOW you don't need a link by now)
Yarn: Socks That Rock (old skool, pre-weight changes) in colorway 'Moss Agate' from the Great Rhinebeck '06 stash explosion extravaganza.
Needles: Addi Turbos (2 circs, as always) sz #2
Mods:
1. Reduced the total stitches to make 6 stitches between each set of inc/dec, ie: 8 less than original small size in the pattern.
2. Gusset reductions every round rather than every other round.  I pretty much always have to do this. Perhaps it's the uber high arches inherited along with the fair skin & freckles?
3. Stopped the chevron patterning at the heel/ankle.  I did it all the way down on the first sock, but it was uncomfortable once it was stuffed in a shoe for any period of time, so I skipped for the final socks.

Case in point #2:  A fantastic weekend populated by wonderful friends, shoe shopping (which I have always thought I hated), garage sales, baby cuddling, pub food, and a sincere and concerted effort to convince two friends to move into the house next door to the Boston metro area.  Seriously ladies, Boston rocks.  You should live here, and not just because I covet your spinning wheels.  Did I mention all the great yarn shops?

Case in point #3: I got to cook actual food for actual people. I recognize that this is not a big deal for most, but as much as we love to entertain and as much as I love to cook, it has been a real trial this living in a glorified campground, er, I mean renovation zone for so long.  Friday night I really got to do some honest-to-goodness from-scratch cooking, and while I definitely felt rusty (and also cramped, what with the 6 sq inches of counter space in the not-yet-renovated-kitchen), and there were also maybe some timing issues on the hot vs. cold items, in general it felt fantastic & I was pretty happy with the results.  Wish I'd thought to get a picture.  MUST do kitchen remodel next/soon.  Sigh.

Case in point #4: The weekly farmer's market is back for the season!  Wheeeeeee!  Last night my dinner looked like this:

Al fresco pattern trolling dining including fresh tomatoes, mozzarella, basil, onions, and homemade pesto & hummus courtesy of the local market stands and accompanied by a Prosecco 'pop' (why yes, that IS a pink plastic bendy straw. what of it?) courtesy of Ms. Moth Heaven. Seriously folks, how can you not love someone who brings you little individual sparkling wines and straws to go with them?   Dinner tonight will be pan-seared tuna accompanied by (farm stand) beets and broccolini and served with a lucious white wine plucked from the magical cellar of Ms Etherknitter.  See what I mean?  Life - she is very, very good.

Tomorrow, more FO's and a pattern question.  Get out your lace shawl ideas folks.

I do hereby designate....

...this summer as the 'Summer of Spinning' here at Chez Obsession.

It's not that there won't be any knitting -- ha, as if! There's a whole series of sock experiments going on, so I guess you could actually call it the 'Summer of Spinning & Socks'. At any rate, the focus will very much be on fiber, fiber prep, spinning, etc.  Why?  Because I am drowning in fiber and fleeces here!  Mind you, I'm not in any way complaining (truthfully, it makes me embarrassingly giddy), just stating a fact.  I think we've proven that I can stockpile wool pretty much anything fiber. Now it's time to see if I can actually DO something with it. In the next few days I'm going to put together an inventory and get it listed here so that there's nowhere to run. 

Meanwhile, here's a couple of sample skeins from some of this season's purchases:
Remember the Spinner's Hill Hot Rod?

Fresh singles showing a good full range of Lisa's colors.

And here's the rest of the test spin, Navajo plied.

At New Hampshire this year, out of curiosity, I picked up a couple of ounces of a merino/tencel blend from The Sheep Shed in the colorway 'Bermuda':

Verdict: It's a little annoyingly sticky on the draft, and maybe it's a fiber best spun sober (what?  just let it be a leson to you, that's all I'm saying), but it has a very lovely sheen and drape and seems like it would knit up into a lovely fabric.

In general, I also tend to like richer, deeper colors than I normally see in this blend.  Is that just current dyeing fashion for this stuff, or is there something about the fiber properties of the tencel that makes it harder to get the rich colors?   Anyone?

Feast or famine.

So.....yeah....it's definitely feast or famine around here.  I've been given a short lunch break by the Construction-Master in the midst of hanging these:

,
along with painting and installing quarter-round along the living room floor, stripping some of the woodwork in the hallway, running all new wiring for the floor outlets (ha!  you thought the great wiring adventure would be LONG finished by now, didn't you?) on the first floor, washing a month's worth of laundry, and cleaning a month's worth of neglect in the house.  These last two seem especially important to me because we have company coming next weekend, and while I am not what one might call 'anal retentive' regarding housekeeping (thanks to 3 years of living with 6 graduate student males in one house, before that I was a nightmare), I do still feel the need to scrape the Spaghetti-O's off the stove and vaccum the cat hair off the floor from time to time.  Figuratively speaking, of course.  We would never eat Spaghetti-O's in this house, much less leave bits to dry on the stove for days/weeks.  Ahem.   Also, there's been some weeding of the garden, which is settling in nicely for the most part.  I think we're going to lose one of our transplants, a 'Multi-Blue' Clematis, but everyone else seems pretty happy.  Like this Echinacea:

Echinacea 'Sunset' loving this sunshine.

Since my disappearance, some stuff has happened, there's been some traveling (updates to come), and there's even been a teeny bit of actual knitting/spinning/blog-type activity(ditto).  Not much, but some.  We'll start with the newest family member and her adventures with an old friend, Nadine .

Lucy and Nadine.

Oh yeah, she says her name is Lucy.  I'll admit that I tried to talk her into Lucretia, but she's having none of that sort of frilly name stuff, so I guess Lucy it is.   

The three of us have spent some time getting to know one another, because me?  Completely unfamiliar with the world of double-drive spinning, not to mention the speed with which a wheel this size will spin up fiber.  Folks, they don't call this a 'production wheel' for nothing. Fast drafting and good fiber control are key, apparently.  By the end of the bobbin nadine looked like this:

I think Lucy and I have come to a basic understanding of one another.  Next we'll try plying some of this, but before we did that, I decided that I needed a wrist distaff, so I ran a little bit back through to increase the twist even more and made this:

I used the examples in 'A Handspindle Treasury' (thanks again Santa), and oh my, my, how I love this thing!  Lookit!

Stunningly beautiful Hello Yarn hand painted roving from the Maine Fiber Frolic (what? I said there was travelling.) and the newest drop spindle in the stable, a Bosworth in Tulipwood from New Hampshire S&W. 

Can I say? SO MUCH BETTER to have a distaff for the handspindling.  Call me uncoordinated (and I am), but my enjoyment level of the drop spindle, which has always been mitigated by the fiber control issues, has just skyrocketed.  If you think you don't like handspindling, I'd like to suggest trying this before you completely dismiss this particular outlet for your spinning addiction habit hobby.  It bears mentioning here that plenty of folks have said the distaff was important equipment in the past, but I sort of always thought that just wrapping the fiber around my wrist was good enough, especially given that one of the joys of handspindling is the distinct lack of necessary equipment to tote around.  Who me?  'I don't need no stinking crutch'.  Foot?  Meet mouth.  Mouth? Meet foot.  Yeah.  So.Wrong.

Here are some links to other wrist distaff photos, but Urbanspinner's site with instructions for these seems to be down (temporarily?  permanently?):
Woolflowers
Notsoswift
Tessa
Fibernut

Spinoff Summer 2005 also had instructions for making a wrist distaff using an interesting technique.

Ooops...breaktime's over. Hear that whip crackin'?  Gotta go!  More stuff to show you!  Dang! I'll try to sneak away later.....