Obsession du Jour

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.....

Dear Santa - part 2

Or, "Why I should get a trip to the Bahamas for Christmas". 

Know why? 'Cuz I finished That Damned Tank, see?

Ta Da..... (it hasn't been blocked yet, so go easy on us -- I had to take advantage of having a photographer around in the daylight. And I know the edging is all wonky, but it'll get better, I promise. )

Some quick highlights of lessons learned:

1. Decadent Fibers makes some seriously soft, yummy cotton.  I love this material, and would happily wear it against completely bare skin. If you should ever stumble across them, you should fondle this stuff.  However...
2. Nevermore shall we knit with cotton here at Chez Obsession.  Ow.
3. Even the yummiest, most beautiful of yarns can sometimes benefit from a little 'bling', hence the crocheted edging (That's right, I said crochet.  Yes, I do know how, and what's more, I LIKE it.  You gonna make something of it?) in this yarn in 'Moroccan Nights'.
4. Gauge swatches lie.  I know this has all been covered before, but this is the first time it's actually bitten me on the ass.  Also?  It turns out that 'Hanging' gauge is very, very different from 'Flat' gauge.  Did y'all already know that?  Right, of course you did.  Damn.  See how useful it can sometimes be to actually READ the 5 million knitting books stacked all over one's house?
5. The sewing machine can actually be your very bestest knitting friend. 
6. Taking a pair of scissors to a recalcitrant knit can be quite rewarding.  Quite freeing, actually, once you can drink your way push past the initial nausea and paralyzing guilt.
7. Finished = Perfect -- so long as you don't look too closely at my seams.
8. You guys rock!  This wasn't so much a lesson learned as reminder of how great it is to have so many clever knitty friends out there, both imaginary and otherwise.  Thanks to everyone who chimed in with a suggestion.  You guys saved my ass.  I kid you not, I would have done this all wrong if I hadn't gotten so many good tips and places to look.

NOW can I go to the Bahamas?

Ooooooooh...

Gothy angst-knitting....suhweeet! Go HERE.

MUST have these:

Dang it, aren't these cute as hell?

Baby did a bad, bad thing.

Because there aren't enough things in the "To Do" list....but just LOOK  how awesome this sweater is, or will be anyway, once it's shortened by about 6-7 inches.  Yep, yet another Elizabeth Lavold Viking design.  I think I may even do this in the actual suggested yarn - Silky Wool.  Shocking.

And then there's this:

Somehow, this book has "mysteriously" ended up in my collection.  Coincidence or fate?

And last but not least: Swatching.  Always with the swatching around here. I'm slowly making it through the last batch of "test" balls from Knitpicks.  This is the Shine Cotton/Modal blend in the color River.  Can I say how much I love the way this stuff feels and knits and looks?  It's got a nice sheen, has a lot more "give" than other mercerized cotton yarns I've knit, and the color options are quite pretty.   Given my past issues with cotton (yeah, yeah, cotton tank update soon, I hear you), I'm not sure I'd ever try to do a whole adult sweater in this, but I'm betting I could tough it out through some kid knits.  And you know how I need some new projects to do, right?

This is not a shawl

This....is a River.

Ha. Not so complete, eh?  After a few repeats, I decided that the size 10 1/2 needles, while probably fine for the Kid Silk Haze, was entirely too large for this Alpaca Cloud.  At first I thought that it was just because I'm new to lace knitting that I couldn't really get a feel for the look of the pattern, but after a few repeats I realized that it wasn't me, there really wasn't a pattern to see because ALL the holes were too darned big.   I wish I'd thought to take a picture before ripping it out, but I was just so...well....let's just say that I've been a bit tired and on edge and leave it at that, shall we?  It's not the yarn's fault, or the shawl's fault, or even the needle's fault really, and I certainly didn't mean to throw them, but it might have happened.  Plus, I COULD have swatched, right?  But who swatches for a shawl? No one, not even me.  Have I mentioned that I love swatching?  I do, I love the swatch.  Remind me to show you the swatch box some day.   La, la,la...huh? Oh yeah - getting back to River. I'm hoping to cast on AGAIN this weekend, and I'm thinking about dropping to size 9's.  Jody went to size 7's, though, and she's using the same yarn.....hmmm.....what to do, what to do? 

Just in case you were wondering.

This plus this    = Very.Bad.Idea.

It might cause one to resort to frogging several days worth of knitting, drowning one's sorrows in this:

.....and starting an easy, brainless sock.  Picture two inches of orange ribbing and two rows of royal blue stockinette.   Lesson learned.  Lace & football don't mix.  Shocking. 

Weekend Update with Jane Curtain

I lied.  It's just me.

But there IS knitting news.  Does that help?  First up, one completed trip to sleeve island:

Eric the Red sleeve #1 - unblocked - plus gratuitous cat shot.  Unfortunately the cable doesn't show up very well here, but hopefully a post-block daylight shot later in the week will show it off more.

Sadly, the second trip to sleeve island for this sweater will have to wait because this yarn was killing my wrists and I need a break.  It's a coned yarn from Webs (Valley 2.6, yes - clearance) and still has all that wierd oil and stuff they use on those commercial-type yarns, which makes the yarn a little stiff and unyielding for handwork.  Stockinette is no big deal, but the cabling really sucked ass.  I know from experience that this stuff washes up clean and soft and "blooms" into a beautiful yarn, so I'll do two things before I start the next sleeve.  The first is that I will wash and block this sleeve to make sure all is well with size, gauge, etc., and the second is that I think I'll go ahead and skein up the rest of this yarn and prewash it.  I know that sort of defeats the joy of the coned yarn, but what the hell?  I like my wrists, and they're worth it.

Next up, River:

Pattern: River from Rowan #38

Yarn: Knitpicks Alpaca Cloud in Autumn - soooooooo soft and yummy. Love it. This is a pretty accurate color representation, too.

Needles: Clover Bamboo straights (finally.  it took several tries before finding the right needles for this yarn/project.)

That's right, straights.  It's quite an adjustment since I knit almost everything on circulars now because of the convenience and portability - crowded train knitting made easier and all that. This is 10 or 11 rows, up to the beginning of the repeating part of the pattern.  Oh, and maybe it's just because it's my first lace,  but even though I'd been warned on more than one occasion, I was unprepared by how hard it is to keep knitting something looks like total crap.  Here's where I learn to get over it and knit on faith.   It's a valuable lesson, but it's a bit like learning to love spinach.

Oh, and because who DOESN'T love it when we play around with our cameras' Macro abilities, here's a close up of the heathered colors of the Alpaca Cloud:

 

p.s.  New blog alterations coming along nicely.  There are some new albums over there on the sidebar, but the layout changes have yet to pass the "obsession test".  With any luck, no one has even noticed those couple of bad hours last weekend.

Thanks!

Hooray for knitters!  Thanks everyone for your help on the lace cast on for River, you guys rock!

I would also like to thank everyone for NOT pointing out publicly that I AM AN IDIOT.  I bet you guys knew that there is a "members" section on the Rowan website, and that in this memebers section there are, yes, searchable forums?    I did not know these things.  Not because they aren't blatantly obvious on the website, because they are.  No, it's because I am an idiot.  A blind idiot.  See...I actually went there the other night looking for this exact sort of thing.  I did so!  No, I had not been drinking.  Oh wait, yes....I HAD been drinking.  Sure, sure -- that's the ticket. The wine made me stupid.  Damned wine.

Pardon our mess...

...as we undergo some changes around here.  We will work to keep our rubble and detrius out of the way as we completely redesign the layout of our area with NO FREAKING CLUE what we are doing.

Now, while that could easily be the start to a fabulously hysterical post about the state of the really tall escalators at my T stop these days (broken.  lots of stairs. yuck), it actually isn't.  I'm hoping to do some clean up and such here, starting with some new photo albums, etc. which are easy, and ending with a whole new layout, which isn't.  Not that it shouldn't be, b/c it's not like Typepad doesn't provide us with a boatload of great interchangable options.  No, it's mainly because I insist on reinventing the wheel each and every time I touch this site and also insist on doing all the html edits myself.  That could be all cool-geeky-chick, if one were into that sort of thing, except that I've no earthly idea what I'm doing.  Not kidding.  Anyway it's likely to get REALLY F'ed up around here for a few days, so I'm apologizing now.  Er...Sorry.   But don't worry, I'm even more impatient than I am ignorant, so it won't be long before I give up and hand it over to someone smarter than me to fix what I've broken.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled program:

Swatch from Elsebeth Lavold Viking Knits. Just one cable pattern repeat to make sure that a) the boy does actually like it in real life BEFORE I do a bazillion of them up the arms of a sweater I've started for him - in a completely different yarn, but still, (he does) and b)that I could read her charts and make her infernal lifted increases (I can).  Since I've never knitted from a chart before, this seemed like a moderately good idea.  Plus it gave me an excuse to play with this trial skein of KnitPicks Andean Treasure in Embers. You've noticed that have you?  The trial skeins in my stash?  Yes, I love the trial skeins and the swatching and the learning about different yarns and fibers, etc.  A lot. It's fun, it's educational, it's...yeah, ok, it's an excuse to play with yarn without having to make an expensive committment for which neither of us is ready. 

Ahem...where was I...oh right - lovely stuff this Andean treasure.  It shows the cable in real life much, much better than it does here, but it still probably would not be a first choice for a cabled project simply because of the fuzziness.   It might, however be in the top 5 on my "throw-it-all-in-a-pile-and-roll-around-on-it-naked" list.  Really.  Even with the fuzziness.  It's got some kind of silk+angora feel to it that I can't figure out but like very much.  Neither of these fibers is in the yarn, BTW, just trying to explain the feeling.  Also, it seems worth noting that though this photo is fairly accurate to the depth and richness of the actual color (though a little washed out to bring up the cable detail), there was no bleeding when this swatch got washed.  That seemed pretty amazing, given how dark it is.