Obsession du Jour

Pimp my Ride again.

Have you ever had one of those moments when you make what 'feels' like a deliciously spontaneous decision?  A decision that leaves you thinking 'Look out world, I am utterly unpredictable, crazy and free-spirited.  I DEFINE spontaneous.  Wild at heart, baby.  Wild at heart.'  Don't you love those?  I do.  I love 'em.  I even thought for a moment this weekend that I had one of those moments.  Until I stopped and thought about it and realized that what had seemed like it had come out of nowhere was actually the slow stacking of little things - experiences, discussions, experiments, trials, a word here, a spin (or three) there - a slow building of ideas and impressions and desires that finally coalesce in an almost blinding flash around one very simple statement.

.

"You know that's going to look fucking fantastic against your red living room walls, right?"

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It's a Lucien Paradis antique Canadian production wheel, tricked out for the new generation by Dave at The Merlin Tree.  It's beautifully intact and beautifully (she was right, wasn't she) mine. The Spindicate may be ruthless, but they are never wrong.

(ETA: Thankfully, someone got a photo of the happy event.  You can see it here.  Thanks, Cassie!)

I wish that I had some spinning from her to show you, but I gave up my spinning time for this:

Finally we have actual life in our front yard.  Monday morning, all that lived here were the two Corkscrew Filberts (planted last summer) and a whole mess of mulch.  It was terrible.  Now, after a day of hard work, we have Clematis, Yellow Trumpet Vine, a Lilac, Roses, Peonies, Columbines, Dwarf Day Lilies, a few Dahlias, and some herbs for the front border. Those white stones mark a tiny path that will be filled in with bits of broken slate (from the bathroom project) with Creeping Thyme and Irish Moss planted between them to fill in with greenery.    The area behind the Filberts (now filled with mulch piles to be spread out) was to be planted with a red-stemmed Dogwood, aka cornus sericea, but I think it's too likely to try to take over, so instead I'm considering some Foxgloves and Hollyhocks back there for drama.  Not to mention camouflage for the foundation.

What I did on my bloggy vacation - pt 1

I didn't set out to have a blogging vacation, but sometimes life just conspires to make us get out there and live it -- or work it, as the case may be, but we'll pretend that I was out having fun and not working 10-12 hour days.  You should also know that we're having technical difficulties here at Chez Obsession that stem from a dying router, an F'ed up cable modem, and a dramatic lack of the time needed to address those issues just now.  What that means to you is that I only have reliable, hassle-free net service at work (a workplace which, I might add, doesn't seem to understand the importance of a blogger's life) so if you've sent me email in the last few weeks and it seems to take forever to get an answer, I'm sorry.  All I can do is ask for patience as my net time is curtailed.  Blah, blah, blah...but what's been going on, you say? 

Well, in addition to a couple of crazy knitter gatherings (and I will second whoever it was that said that the $10 margarita at Cayote Cafe was SO worth every dime), there's been some more of this:

Yep, it's all fun, all the time here in the DMZ.  In this case, we are toning down the brazeness of the radiators on the 1st floor by painting them 'Ballroom Gold' intead of 'Two-Bit-Whorehouse Brass'.  I'm always a little surprised by how much something SO FREAKING MINOR in this process pays off in a really big way, even if one can't quite figure out what exactly has been changed from one visit to the next.  Here's where I'd normally launch into a poetic 'Ode to the Little Anal Retentive Details', but I'm talking to a band of knitters, so...y'all know, don't you?  So I'll spare you the iambic pentameter and move on to something I know you'll care more about.

Cheap yarn.  Some disassembly required.

During one of our (far too regular) trips to Goodwill recently, I discovered 'Dollar Days' in the sweater section.  I KNOW! A dollar per sweater!  So even though we were on our way to meet some folks for dinner, I gave the boy a crash course in how to shop for yarn (in sweater form) and essentially shoved him face first into one of the 4 racks of sweaters.  Four.Racks.Of.Sweaters.  Wheeeeeee! These are the six pieces that we found in the 15 minutes we allotted to the task, and that's not counting the two that I found for actual wear.  Clockwise from top left:
1. Black, super-soft, heavy-worsted merino cropped sweater.
2. Powder blue light worsted lambswool. Soft & fabulous.  This is a kid's sweater, so there won't be enough for an actual sweater (plus, baby blue...not my color) but it CAN be used for some sort of accessory(ies).
3. Burgandy, amazingly soft, heavy worsted cotton sweater.  Yep.  Cotton.  Not because I'll knit with it, but because this will make a FANTASTIC crocheted throw.  Yes, crochet.  Breathe.  Relax.  It's fine, really.  Don't run from the crochet.  It's good, clean fun.
4. Kelly-ish green tweed, sport weight, silk/wool blend.  A women's size large TUNIC sweater's worth of wool/silk tweed.....for a BUCK people. ONE DOLLAR.  I was so excited I could've peed my pants.  I should maybe get out more.
5. Oh baby - juicy, limey goodness...*ahem*.  Lime green, sport weight, lambswool/angora blend.  Yup, another LG tunic.  Angora....*sigh*  Is anyone else out there checking to see what time their local Goodwill opens today?
6.  This last one is actually a bit of a dilemma for me.  It's a truly lovely smoky plum, sport weight, 100% silk, 3x3 rib, classic sweater.  I am having the hardest time trying to decide whether to wear it or recycle it.  It's such a great sweater, but it's a color I almost never wear, and the yarn isn't like any silk I've ever felt before.  It's very 'springy' and soft, and it has a phenomenal luster without being 'shiny' and seems like it would be quite sensuous and lovely to knit with. So this one's fate is still undecided.  Knit or wear? Knit or wear?

$6 and 15 minutes.....totally worth it.

Next time.....Rogue, redesigned and the start of festival season.  What festivals?  Oh please...as IF.  But here's a hint:

On a warm spring day? Life just doesn't get any better than this.

P.S. Maryse?  You ROCK!!!  Look what Maryse made us!

Take it....pass it along....knit a bit for Mr Etherknitter and send out the BKM.

Breaking news

It has recently been brought to our attention that someone here at Chez Obsession has been holding back key information.  Now, we shall not engage ourselves in distasteful mud-slinging and finger-pointing, as we feel that these activities are best left to the workplace where at least one can get paid for them.  No. Instead we will simply submit to you, our readers (all 5 of you, and thanks for stopping by), this single piece of incontrovertible and damning evidence that there is a fickle wheel-whore in our midst:

Rumor has it that the spinner in question (pictured above shamelessly committing various wheel infidelities in public at the Rhinebeck Fairgrounds a few weeks back) has become the proud owner of a space in the two-year-long line for one of these glorious wheels.  This rumor has not been confirmed as of yet, but a source close to the alleged wheel-whore reports a definitive change in her relationship with at least one of the two wheels already in her harem, and also notes that she seems "inordinately pleased with herself of late".  Coincidence?  We think not.

We would also like to thank Julia for this particularly juicy bit of gossip evidence.  Without her lightning-quick journalistic instincts, we might have never known the truth.

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Reprieve

Appearancess have been a little sparse here in the last few weeks, mainly because we've had a plethora of either business travel for us, or friends/family staying here (love you guys, really, but does The Weather Channel HAVE to be on 24/7?).  Lucky for me, big.honkin'.college.football.day + the car show being in town = boys' day out.  Picture someting akin to Father's Day, minus the fishin'.  In my mind, boys' day out = girls' day out.  Now, if I were a responsible, sensible girl, I would stay home and...I don't know, maybe lay tile, or prime some window trim, or something equally boring.  I've never been very good at doing chores when there's fun to be had, though, so while they had their male bonding, my Saturday ended up looking like this instead:

Wheeeeeeeeeeels!  Does this look like fun or what?!?!

We had an amazing workshop on plying with Barbara Clorite yesterday in the heart of Moth Heaven, and we had such fun that it's hard to even think of it as a "class".  But learn we did.  Barbara was a wonderful teacher, and in addition to teaching us the basics of good, balanced plying, she taught us all kinds of cool methods and techniques - Andean, Navaho, cable - so many.  We even made boucle!!!  No, seriously, and it even LOOKS like the real deal! Julia knit some of hers up right off the bobbin and it looked fantastic.  Maybe if we ask nicely, she'll show it to us?  Speaking of Julia...this workshop was her brainchild, and she also graciously allowed us to overrun her kitchen.  Thank you, Julia.  It was, as always, great fun.

Magic

Hi there boys and girls!  Today's obsession here at Obsession du jour is magic.  As in, magic tricks.  Since this is still, ostensibly, a knitting/spinning blog, today's magic trick will involve wool.  This wool, to be precise:

Ya'll remember Nadine, right?

Well, she had a bit of a run in with some magic powder a couple of weeks ago.  Me, I'm not always a fan of "magic" powders, but Nadine came home with some great stories involving tequila shots and hot tubs and she looked like this:

Not bad, eh?  I know I've never looked so great at the end of a "lost weekend" before.  I mean, I wouldn't....if I had ever had a lost weekend. Which I haven't, of course.  Uh, hi Mrs. Wainner.  Ahem.  Right. Sorry about the fuzzy picture, she was still so excited that I was having a hard time getting her to stop bouncing around.  Not impressed yet?  Well then, hocus pokus slibbitey slye presto chango, what am I?

Now THAT'S impressive.  8 ounces of carded roving. Sooooooo soft and fluffy. Such colors! Yum. What?  OH, you want to know how the trick works?  I probably shouldn't tell you, but there IS a little secret behind the magic.  Do you want to see?  Well, if not, stop reading.  Otherwise, behold!

MINE, all miiiine...mwah ha ha ha!  Drum carders RULE!  I don't have any idea how Claudia could stand to part with it, but wooohoooo!  I can't believe how much fiber can be processed in such a short period of time.  Thanks again Claudia; she's found a very loving home where there is LOTS (no joke, 13 lbs of clean, uncarded fleece in the stash) of work for her. 

Now if you'll excuse me, the cats need to be....er, brushed.

Quick and dirty

It seems like forever since I've been home for more than an hour or two that didn't involve sleeping (or chainsaws, but that's a different post) so I'm a little remiss in updates.  That's the bad news.  The good news is that most of the things that have kept me out of the house have also involved varying amounts of travel time that don't require that I put my hands on any sort of steering wheel(except for the ones involving chainsaws).  You know what that means, right?  Right. Knitting.  I kid you not, actual knitting content, yes, here.  I know, thrilling stuff this knit-blogging.

First up: the back of the cotton tank, done.  Thank you Melanie for encouraging me to stop being such a wuss and get on with it already pick this back up and finish it.  Now that my hand/wrist seems to be all better I think I'm OK with this cotton, and I'm going to cast on for the front sometime this weekend. 

   This is as close as I could get to the actual pale sage green color of this yarn. I've also been trying to come up with just the right word to explain how yummy the resulting fabric is, but all I can think of is scrumptchiliscious.  Yeah, I know.  Sue me.

Next up - socks.  Yes, more socks.  I might even call these boring if it weren't for the fact that they were knit from my very own handspun singles.  Woohoo! 

Thick, non-matching, glorious, luxurious & comfy, out of some handpainted (Boogieknits) merino.  These are definitely house socks that will never, ever, ever see the inside of a shoe.  They're just too soft, but I'm unlikely to take them off for anything OTHER than the need to put my feet into shoes, an act to which I am already morally opposed.   I can guarantee that you'll see more crazy-soft house socks here in the future b/c, while I'd MUCH rather be barefoot all the time (yup, you can take the girl out of the country...), after about October, even hot-natured me needs to put something on her tootsies.  Since I hate even the idea of wearing shoes in the house, and even slippers annoy the bejesus out of me, socks it is.  Please, kids, don't try this un-protected, frictionless sock wearing at home on YOUR hardwood/tile floors.  It's very dangerous.  You've been warned.  As for the not-matching thing?  Well, I didn't spin this yarn up with anything specific in mind, most especially not socks, so I didn't bother with that whole business of splitting the roving in half to maintain color repeats thing.  Honestly?  I pretty much couldn't care less, especially since thy'll never leave the house.  I DID use regular commercial yarn for the toes, just to make them a tiny bit more durable.  The remainder of this yarn is being knitted into a square for one of the many good afghan projects going on right now in blogland.

And last, but not least, there is this:

It's the back of the Cable Raglan Turtleneck from Debbie Bliss' book 4. It's the same yarn and color as in the book, which I'm pretty sure is a first for me.  The yarn is from a Web's clearance sale, last winter I think, and the speed of knitting with the chunky yarn is great fun.  This is one of the sweaters that got planned out while I wasn't allowed to knit, and I'm loving the instant gratification that this fast, easy knit is providing.  I'll probably go back to the tank and get it done first before moving on with this one, but don't anyone hold their breath or anything. 

Stay tuned for fun with chainsaws and spinning wheels.

Brought to you by the letter "S"

S is for Solidarity:
(and socks)

(Please, please don't judge me by the cat hair on this section of floor.  My house is bad, but in general, not THIS bad)

S is for Spinning:

(and Spunky Eclectic, hi Amy)

4 oz. Spunky Eclectic handpainted Merino roving in colorway "Autumn Girls" spun into springy singles destined to become soft, scrumptious socks.

S is for Spawn:

(because, knitting-schmitting, I have no illusions about what you really want)

Maxin' relaxin'

Leon and Lola are watching the College World Series with my man. And Bourbon? She's sleeping.  She's more into the National Geographic channel.  Atta girl, Bourbon.

Family cuddle.

Oh, and the kid socks are done.  It's amazing I tell you.  Pictures tomor...well, anyway, later.

Show and tell

There's a backlog of photos on my camera begging to be offloaded, and some of them belong here.

First up, yarn porn:

Hooray for Navajo plying!  This is some Spunky Eclectic handpainted wool in the colorway "down by the pond".  Purty, ain't it?  This is 2 oz of the 4 oz that's here and the other 2 oz is spun up, but not yet plied.

Next up, cat porn:

Napoleon and Josephine sittin' in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g.......Just taking a little break from their parental duties, folks. 

For those of you who share my current sock fetish:

Knitpicks Sock Landscape "Mesa" using my standard Ann Budd pattern and two circulars.  These are thick and soft and scrumptious.  Those Knitpicks folks continue to impress me with the beauty and high quality of their yarns, and all for a great price.  I also have a TON of this left over.  Granted, I made these about 2" shorter than usual, but it still seems crazy to me that I'm pretty sure I could get another pair just exactly like this from the leftovers of these two skeins, despite my Sasquatch feet.  As soon as I can figure out which box my kitchen scale is hiding in I'll be comparing the weight of the leftovers to that of the socks . Yes of course I have to know.

And now, the stuff I know that you've all actually come here for, gratuitous kitten cuteness:

Lola, that's super-kitty up there, is actually sound asleep (actually, they both are, but she's the focus of this particular story).  She often falls asleep draped over the edge of their bed while trying to decide if she should come back out and play some more, and then she slowly sinks down, in stages, to the bottom of the bed - all while still sound asleep.  It's killing you isn't it, all that cuteness?  She's also a total ham.  Seriously, see for yourself:

She's destined to be a pin up girl.  Just look at that smile.

I'd also like to send a shout out to Ms. Melanie and Ms. Yarnpants for not running screaming away from the construction zone we call a house here at Chez Obsession.  See, they came by for some cider fibery fun last night, and we hung out with the stash that ate Chicago and the super-adorable cats, and we spun and we knit and generally had a grand old Friday night.   Don't you EVEN try to tell me that's not what you think of as a hot and hoppin' Friday night, because I won't believe you.  That or I'll just assume you don't know these girls.  So anyway, after they left, I realized that they were my very first social event ever in this house.  Yeah, after 10 months -- crazy, huh?  Thanks y'all!  Maybe next time I'll have that durned latch fixed and you won't have to hold the door of the outhouse closed while you pee.

A metaphor for life

Two words that I now own:  Navajo plying. 

Yeah baby!  Woohoo!!!!  Mission accomplished!  I will not embarrass myself by telling you how much I read about it, nor how many on-line video clips I watched in some vain hope of understanding it.  Nope, I won't, but suffice it to say that I am, at heart, an idiot.  I have no idea why it was so difficult to get my head around the procedure, but I can say that I couldn't.figure.it.out.  Er, until I simply got my lazy ass off the couch and sat down at my wheel.  Funny how that's so true of so many things isn't it?  Turns out that it really was as simple as it seemed but I, for some reason, had decided that it HAD to be more complicated.  Had to be.  It wasn't.  So yeah, the Navajo triple ply thing rocks the house. 

As the overpriced sneaker ads say:  Just DO it.   We will also not be talking about how I continue to have to learn this life spinning lesson over and over and over again.  No we won't.  Nor will we talk about the lack of photos*. 

* It IS, however 20 degrees cooler than it was yesterday at this time, so there is hope yet for my life as a photo-blogger.

SPAWN!!!

Just LOOK at how adorable they are:

Doesn't she look proud tired? For those of you who are all into the nitty gritty natural stuff, you can see the action shots of kitten #1 here and here.  Don't go here if you creep out easily.  I mean it.  And here's their close up:

This was taken Saturday evening, pretty much exactly 24 hours after they were born.  And I spent almost every one of those 24 hours with them, I tell you.  You see, Josie is pretty well attached at my hip whenever I'm home.  Hell, I can't even go to the bathroom without her.  Worse than a puppy, that one. So here she is, a new mom at 8 months old, right?  Yeah, you guessed it, she went insane every time I left the room the bed.  So there I sat, most of the night Friday night and all day Saturday.  By lunchtime Saturday, she DID let me get as far away as my spinning wheel -- set up next to the bed where her birthing box is, of course.  A couple of hours later, she was OK with me being across the room at my desk.  I slept most of the night Saturday night in my own bed, and by mid-day Sunday, she was mostly OK hanging by herself with the kittens and venturing down from the attic for little 10-minute stretches. Fantastic progress so far. I happened to work from home today, so I was able to spend all day with her, and now she's come a full 180 and gets all up in my face if I even try to sit on the bed, much less get anywhere near her kittens.  I'd say it's all good now.  Poor Leon, though, he's getting all kinds of attitude and strife.  He's not used to having to sleep alone, and he's pretty damned sure he doesn't like it.  Sadly, since this is totally his fault I'm a little short on sympathy for him. 

The bright side to being firmly planted to a bed for the better part of the weekend is that I'm now about 99.9% done with the Hourglass sweater!!  Woohoo! I'm currently tacking down the live stitches on the neckline and I'll say this, no matter how much I love this sweater, if I can find a better way for the neck on the next one, I will.  This sucks and I hate it.  Luckily, this thing is GORGEOUS.  I can't say enough about how much I love, love, love this Knitpicks Andean Silk.  I have no idea how it will wear, but it has been pure joy to knit. Not that you've seen a ton of them anyway, but no more pics of it until it's done.

What you CAN see is more of my spinning.  I'm certain that this excites me far more than it excites you, but what the hell -- it's my party here isn't it?

This is the blue faced leicester that was on the wheel here:

...only now it's all plied and washed and literally begging to be knit.  I wish I had enough finished to actually make something. Anything. This is only about 75 yds, though, so I'll just have to get more. Pooooooooor me.

And this is the merino/silk blend from that same post, also all cleaned up and ready to go.   

I decided not to ply it because it really fluffed up into a respectable single when it got washed.  There are two of these, so I should have enough of this for a nice luxurious cowl or short little ascot-y scarf for the fall.  Then again, maybe I'll get more of it, too.  Oh the sacrifice....

This lovely corriedale from eBay:

I'm never knitting this up. Ever. It's going to sit on my desk so that I can love it and pet it and squish it in my hands. Seriously, those of you who play with wool a lot will think I'm being silly, or worse - stupid, but I never had any idea that wool could be this soft and luscious and lustrous. I swear to you that if I didn't know any better, I would put good money on a bet that this fiber had silk, or something, in it.   If there happen to be any seasoned spinners reading this, is this a corriedale thing, or did I just happen into some really amazing wool?

And from Spunky Eclectic (some of you may know her as BoogieKnits) this fantastic hand-painted wool:

Isn't it cool? Like a walk in the jungle, says me. Down by the pond's edge, says Amy.  Whichever, it's beautiful. I haven't gotten very far with it, but here's how it looks so far:

I also got these two and I can't wait to get them on the wheel as well.

And then there's the new bag.  She makes some very nice bags.  I'd call them spunky if that weren't already in the name.  Instead I'll call them sassy, even though I already say that far too much.  Here's my new bag that she whipped up just for me, completely customized, in less than three days. 

It's sturdy, roomy, cute as hell and just perfect.

That's two small projects and all the various accompanying tools in addition to my wallet, etc. for daily living.  It's also big enough to carry two more small projects before it starts to feel uncomfortably full. I'd show you, but the ones that will live in here are super-secret knitting and I can't. This particular bag is the Metro and it's fantastic.

That Amy, she's darned crafty.  You should check her out if you haven't already, and if this stuff doesn't tempt you, I have two words for you.  Sheepy mug.

Jeez, I almost forgot, here's the start of the baby hat out of the my dreamsicle hand-spun.

Oh my god - are you guys still here?  Go home, get some knitting done.