KnittingKitty rambles on and on

I had such great plans of taking pictures of every single day for Tour de Fleece. It would have made such a cool collage. As you can probably guess I sort of forgot. Oops.

First I forgot to take a picture of the black Shetland/Tencel batts I bought from Sporfarm at BSG. Lovely batts btw. I only paid $8.50 for 4oz and it was 1/3 white tencel. Very nice to spin.

There you have it. Day 1 through Day 5. 4oz of 2ply fingering weight yarn. 330yards and 17wpi.

The downside to completing this project so quickly is that TdF is only 5 days old at this point. Thankfully I had a little bit of fiber lying around. A little brainstorming action and a quick text msg to Pam and TdF project #2 was in the works.

20 oz of Dragonfibers Merino/Bamboo dyed in Secret Garden, Free Range, Oceanic, Masquerade and Blackberry Truffle. These were all dyed up on Day 4 since I knew I was nearing the end of the shetland. The colors are a little muted due to the bamboo content and I’ve got my fingers crossed that they will actually look good together.

What is the plan for all that fiber?

Well a while back Pam made the big mistake of agreeing to knit me a Charlotte’s Web shawl as long as I provided the yarn. I promptly skeined up some superwash merino/bamboo sock yarn in the required amounts. The yarn is still sitting undyed in the closet. So I have a new plan. I’ve got more than enough fiber to spin a decent 2ply sockweight yarn and with a challenge like TdF I have the motivation to actually get it done.

With less than 18 days left in the challenge it means I won’t have time to slack off but since this is coinciding with the completion of a large wholesale order for Dragonfibers the timing works out pretty well.

I’m seriously wondering if there is a way to attach a pedometer to the wheel so see how much I’m treadling

Sadly I don’t have any exciting knitting progress to show off. I could take another picture of the Garter Blankie but somehow blogging about another 3-4 inches of garter stitch doesn’t seem very interesting.

However July 5th marked the beginning of Tour de Fleece. I had planned on washing and spinning my Finn fleece that I bought at OFFF last year but scheduling got in the way of that notion. I decided to go with a ‘learn to use my new flyer’ approach and attempt true laceweight.

Day 1. 2oz of my Black Shetland and Tencel batts that I got at BSG. Unfortunately I didn’t quite realize that spinning 2oz on the VFF would go that quickly so I only have 2oz left before I can ply. I somehow doubt this will keep me busy for the entire Tour de France. However this is probably not quite laceweight so I will try and try again

In other news….I finally got to meet Cristi!!!

I also forgot to take a picture of us but hopefully the ones she got turned out well so I have photographic proof that I met her.

She managed to escape her sisters for a few hours and joined the informal Saturday knitting group that hangs out at VY&T. Hopefully she had fun

The one downside to meeting Cristi? She showed me her latest crochet market bag and pointed out that VY&T carried the bamboo crochet needles that she swears by. Couple that with my compulsive shopping of kitchen cotton at a recent Joanns sale and you can see where this is going.

I think I started on this around 7pm (a girl’s got to eat first you know) and before I knew it I looked at the clock and realized it was 1.30am. I did take a break or two at some point during that marathon crochet session because I got it into my head that 10pm on a Saturday night was a completely reasonable time to clean out your fridge of old leftovers. Oh and I decided to make more jam, Plum Rhubarb this time (earlier in the day I made Peach Cherry).

I had maybe 1 more round of mesh to crochet before making the handle before I finally called it a night. So after sleeping in till 9am (yes that is sleeping in for me) I tackled the rest of the bag.

I had forgotten how fast crochet can be, especially when most of the bag is made up of a nice airy mesh. The only mods I made was adding an extra round of double crochet to the bottom and only making about 17 rounds of the mesh before starting the handles.  It was super easy, I will definitely be making more and the chances are each one might be a little different. 

The one hiccup in making the market bag? I had to look up all the crochet terms. The problem is I learned to crochet using British names so I found myself looking up what a half double crochet and double crochet were. The latter is what I learned as treble crochet. I think I might need to get myself a crochet stitch guide that uses US terms because the only one I have access to is my Mom’s and that is a mid 70’s British publication.

Today will hopefully be a busy dye-filled day for me, I still have dreams of rearranging my living room but last night while I happily crocheted I realized that I needed a new cable if I wanted to move my tv. The house cleaning/rearranging may need to wait a bit.

Wow I apparently forgot I had a blog for a while. Bear with me, this might be a big catch-up post with all sorts of randomness.

First up. Black Sheep Gathering. I had lots of fun. The event was smaller than I expected, maybe I heard one too many people talk about how big it was and how you HAVE to go. I’m not sure it was that much bigger than OFFF and that event has the perk of being a full 2 hours closer to Seattle.

There were some great booths though and as evidenced by my purchase of a drum carder from Woodland Woolworks at OFFF the WW booth was too much for me to resist. I would like to point out that I did actually set my future purchase down for about 15 seconds before picking it up again to buy.

I got myself the Very Fast Flyer!!!! Holy shit 44:1 ratio!!! This is something I will need to grow into but I’m loving it already. Thank god for Ravelry and the Lendrum group, a member there kindly posted a picture of how to thread the flyer because it is not at all like the standard flyer. Way trickier and boy oh boy if you ever needed motivation for not losing your end…this is it.

I managed to stay within my fiber budget for the rest of the festival (I don’t count gifts to friends as part of my budget). I would give you a breakdown of what I got but I think that might get a little boring. There are pictures of the haul in my flickr album though. The one item I’m most excited about is beyond heavenly.

2oz of 50/50 tussah silk/pygora batts in Spun Gold. Swoon!

I took a great color blending class from Jill of Ashland Bay that got my internal color wheel juiced up and ready to put my drum carder through a workout. With that in mind somehow I also came home with 10oz of raw black alpaca. I feel I can justify the alpaca by saying that the “no fleece” rule for BSG was not broken since I only bought 10oz out of 2-3lbs of fleece. I also know that what I just wrote is complete horseshit.

I do have an FO to show off though!

That is my very own Morning Surf Scarf from the Summer Spin Off. Made from 4oz of Dragonfibers Merino/Tencel in Free Range, navajo plied to keep the colors distinct. The yardage was low on this scarf due to the plying so it’s a little shorter than I prefer but with a nice little pin I should be able to wear this come fall.

I’m so pleased with how it turned out. This is all me, start to finish and I love it. The merino tencel blend is wonderful in the Free Range colorway and man was this one easy knit. I think I started it up late on a Tuesday night and cast off on Friday night. About 3/4 of the scarf was knit between Thursday and Friday night.  I will definitely be making another one soon.

Since getting back from BSG it seems like I haven’t accomplished a whole lot, yet I haven’t had a free moment. There was the realization that I hadn’t given any thought to the brand new colorway for the June Fiber Club. Plus there has been a lot of behind the scenes work for a new wholesale account that I hope to tell you all about soon. Couple all of that with Nicki and Sammy’s inability to vacuum and do laundry/dishes while I’m at work and you can see how time has slipped away from me.

There has been knitting though.

A garter stitch dishcloth. Exciting stuff.

Progress has been made on the Blankie. Not much progress mind you. A garter stitch blanket takes a while no matter what way you look at it. It is marginally bigger though.

You may have noticed a trend. Garter stitch is about all I can muster at this point without my brains liquifiying and leaking out of my ears (nice visual huh?). That will soon change though.

My original plan of washing and spinning my Finn fleece for Tour de Fleece has been scrapped. I so don’t have time to think about washing a fleece right now. So instead I’ve set myself the challenge of spinning a true laceweight on the new flyer. It will make me slow down and think more about what I’m doing rather than how much of it I’m doing. If it takes me the entire TdF to finish 4oz of true laceweight yarn then so be it.

I hope to be in a completely different place emotionally/mentally after this weekend. I’ve been taking some time this last week to really reevaluate what I’m doing both with my personal knitting/spinning but also Dragonfibers. That is a blog post all on it’s own though.

As for sock knitting. Well some of you know more than others my volatile relationship with STR. I sometimes love the yarn base (ie when it doesn’t felt on me) and I find so many of their colorways appealing. STR for it’s part will call out to me “buy me, knit me, love me.” Yet it kind of reminds me of an ex-boyfriend from college. It could have been the great lifelong relationship but the timing was never right. Something was always a little off every time we tried to make it work.

STR and I are on a break. I hope one day our yarny desires can mesh well with each other but that day isn’t today.

So since we broke up I cast on for a new sock. In Sockotta because well it was 92F yesterday and this was the only sock yarn in my stash that had cotton in it. A cotton blend sock seemed like a good idea at the time.

I have visions of a Ross and Rachael breakup drama unfolding in my stash cabinet with me trying to weasel out of my sock knitting infidelity by pulling out the “We were on a Break!” card.

Think STR will ever forgive me?

As some of you may know I have never been particularly close to my Dad’s family. Some of it is because of personalities but most of it was because of geography. I never grew up knowing any of them with the exception of the occasional letter and a short visit every 5-10 years. We just never knew each other.

When my Grandpa died this past February I was torn, I felt bad about his passing but I felt worse because it truly didn’t feel like a loss to me. My Dad and his sisters decided to wait until summertime to get together to have a memorial (my youngest aunt has MS so traveling is a bit of a hardship for her).

Mom and Dad went back to Boise this last weekend to visit with the family and settle things. Apparently the ‘memorial’ was the family going to the pub my Grandpa was a regular at. Mom mentioned something about 1/2lb burgers. I remember Grandpa taking me there once for lunch, back before I knew how irresponsible it was for an adult to take a kid to a pub and then drive her around town for a while after having a couple beers with lunch.

They were also going to look at their storage unit (don’t get me started on the topic of paying for a storage unit for over a decade) so I asked for just one thing…my Grandmother’s rocking chair. It isn’t a fancy chair, in fact I remember it as being quite plain. I also don’t remember ever seeing her sit in it since by the time I saw them more often they had their recliners. Yet I wanted the chair.

It’s ugly isn’t it

Just look at the fabric! A cornucopia of pineapples, apples, squash and grapes. Ick.

Turns out this was my Greatgrandmother’s chair. My Dad says he remembers her sitting in it.

She was a knitter.

The knitting gene may have skipped a few generations on my Dad’s side of the family but now the chair has found a new home with me. I think it is only fitting it finds a new knitter to take care of it (once that awful fabric gets replaced of course).

And following the family themed blog post.

My mom in her early 20’s. I’m not sure where this was taken but it was in the mid to late 1960’s.

It seems like ages ago when I lost my sock mojo before but looking back it was only in January. In the past week I’ve started and frogged 2 different yarns. One was the languishing Scottish Highlands in STR that I failed to make into pretty socks last year. I loved the way the colors played with each other in the skein but no matter what gauge or pattern I used I couldn’t replecate that into a sock.

I ended up with this.

While I can live with a certain amount of pooling and flashing I draw the line at having only 2 of the colors visible at a time. Besides that alternating green and yellow striping was annoying me. So Bus Sock 3 was set aside.

I grabbed another STR lightweight skein that I had been eyeing in the stash for a while and Bus Sock 3.1 was cast on.

The following day it was frogged and cast on again. The toe was then partially frogged and reknit.

It was then frogged again.

Granted this time the yarn wasn’t the issue, it was the pattern (and me). I was getting 8.5st/inch gauge yet the pattern called for 84 stitches. So I did some ‘math’ and tried working the pattern over 72 stitches..no go.

I then tried the new ‘math’ of 76 stitches and still failed.

Finally I resorted to knitting with 84 stitches only to realize there was no way in hell 3 measly cable were going to create enough pull to make a 10″ circumference sock fit comfortably on my 9″ circumference foot.

Thankfully the majority of Bus Sock 3.1 was knit during a Mariners game. I’m not a baseball fan. I just don’t get the sport. However my Dad likes it and since it was his 64th birthday this week I took him to a game. If anyone is aware of how the Mariners are playing this season well you can see why I was glad I had knitting (even pointless going nowhere knitting) to do. To say they are not doing well is putting it nicely.

I’m debating hanging up the sock needles for a bit but part of me wants to knit the sock that gets me my mojo back.

I did notice that these 2 failed socks to be were both from printed patterns. I’ve also noticed I tend to enjoy my sock knitting the most when I am making up my own. I loved knitting the Sweet Georgia socks when all I did was insert a pattern from a Barbara Walker book into a basic toe-up pattern.

Maybe I’m not the kind of sock knitter that wants to follow a printed pattern. There are several I have enjoyed knitting but maybe for most of my sock knitting I should consider charting my own path.

In my quest to have fun yet simple sock knitting for the commute to work I have found out that stockingnette socks need a little oompf to keep them interesting. You may recall I picked this yarn for Bus Sock 2.

Lana Grossa Fantasy in a very bright color combo. The sock was cast on and made good progress until I realized I was spending most of my non-bus knitting time working on the bus knitting project. The sock was set aside for only commuting knitting while I started on projects that were less portable.

Time went by, vacation happened and I was only 1/3 of the way through the second sock. I knew I wanted to start June off with a different bus project so I chugged away at BS2.

Are they finished?

Hmm what is that little black line of stitches doing there?

Oh I get it. An Afterthought heel!

Woo hoo. Do they match?

So close! 

I had a lot of fun knitting these socks, the colors were bright and cheery yet the knitting was mindless. The afterthought heel was one I have never tried before so only time will tell if I like the way they fit. One thing I did learn from the process…for your own sanity always use a wildly different colored yarn for your waste yarn. 

Bus Sock 3 is already on the needles. I’ve decided to give my Scottish Highlands STR one last chance to become a happy sock and cast on for a modified toeup RPM last night. I even had to frog the toe and restart yet I’m not frustrated with it. Maybe the year it sat languishing in the back of the yarn closet taught it (and maybe me) a little patience.

I’m going to be copying Pam and also trying out the hybrid heel we learned at Seasocks. Hers turned out so well I can’t help but follow suit.

I’ve come to the sad realization that I rarely have time to knit anymore. I miss it.

Between the day job, Dragonfibers, eating and sleeping, cat mommy duties and other misc hobbies/tasks I find myself saddled with there is less and less time in my day for the simple pleasures of knitting and spinning.

I made a decision the other night to spin some Dragonfibers merino tencel roving to start whittling down the fiber stash. Thankfully the fiber stash is much smaller than the yarn stash. It takes up more space but if you’re counting number of items the yarn stash wins by a landslide.

Damn that stuff is slippery. I have visions of navajo plying this when it is complete so I’m aiming for thin singles and I’m spinning it end to end. Hopefully this will give me some nice long color repeats.

As for knitting. Well right now I have about 5 active WIPs on the needles.

1: Moderne log cabin blanket-stalled at the end of section 4.

2: Bus sock 2-just past the heel on the 2nd sock.

3: Seasocks sock yarn shawl-languishing

4: Linen stitch Manos Silk/Merino scarf-stalled

5: Sakura shawl-frogged and restarted.

About the only item from that list that I can see getting completed anytime soon is the Bus Sock2. I want a new sock for June commuting so that means I need to finish this one up before Monday June 2nd. After seeing Pam’s recent RPM socks I think that might be a perfect candidate for bus knitting.

Everything else on my WIP list are items I really want to finish but maybe it is the approach of summer that makes me question the sanity of knitting shawls, scarves and blankets right now.

What should I work on?

Should this be the summer of socks?

A while back you may remember this little bundle of fiber.

That was the first Well Heeled Batt to come off the drumcarder (now named Q).

A little while later there was this.

4oz of 3ply handspun at approximately 390yards.

The finished yarn languished for about 2 months before I realized what I wanted to do with it. I loved the yarn and was so proud of the spinning that I wanted the knitting of the socks to be special (yes I’m just that dorky).

Then came Seasocks. What better occasion to pull out the handspun and make it a truly memorable knit? The yarn was wound and sat ready to be cast on.

In order to make this a truly Seasocks pair of socks I didn’t cast on until we were waiting to board the ship. So I sat in the terminal with another 2000 cruise-goers and pulled out the needles.

It was wonderful.

I knit and I knit and then I knit some more. All the while other more intricately designed/colored socks were being knit around me and still I knit on my simple green heathered stockingnette socks. 

By Monday afternoon sock #1 was nearing completion.

Here it is enjoying the brisk cold air up in Glacier Bay. We were approaching the Hubbard Glacier so we were all on deck waiting to see the view. 

By Tuesday morning sock #2 was on the needles.

Here it is hanging out on a large rock near the Mendellhall Glacier near Juneau. 

The second sock seemed determined to be done and shortly before dinner on Wednesday night (our last formal night) it was done.

Check out that dorky grin! (photo shamelessly pilfered from Trillian42)

Why am I so proud of such simple socks? 

They are a product of so many firsts…first of the luxury sock batts for Dragonfibers (hand dyed and hand carded by moi)…first true fingering weight 3ply…first time using Harmony DPNs…first cruise…first time to Alaska…

All in all these simple heathered green socks are my personal little memento of the trip. Yarn bought on vacation is always a great thing and believe me I took that to heart but this was something uniquely mine. I touched so many steps in it’s creation that even if these socks were not knit for me I feel they would still be mine.

I’m now the incredibly proud owner of my very own Sea Socks.

The entire cruise was such a whirlwind of activity that I don’t think I can summarize it into a post that most of you will find even remotely interesting.

Thursday before the cruise was spent picking up Pam and Stephie at the airport where we got to put our collective brains together to figure out how to fit 4 adults and 5 suitcases in my VW Golf. It kind of looked like the knitter version of a clown car.

Once the car was unloaded and everyone could breathe we then all piled back into the car along with Sharon for a trip to Weaving Works and their Mother’s Day Sale. 

Friday before the cruise was spent at Little Knits. I love going there but damn it is hard to walk in there if you’re on a yarn diet. Sue was amazing as always and let us invade her space without blinking an eye. It’s a good thing she lives on the other side of Seattle from me otherwise I think I would be there way more often. As it was I spent my time at Little Knits getting introduced to this thing call Malabrigo.

I’ve never been a huge fan of non-plied yarns for some reason but these might be the yarns to change all that. I honestly have no clue what to do with them but they are oh so purty. The Silky Merino was still in a box and it is entirely possible that some of us took upon ourselves to help “unpack”.

Thankfully I decided to leave my new yarn purchases at home instead of packing them in my suitcase. We had checked in everyone’s bags at 11.30am on Friday. Everyone got their bags by dinner that night…except me. By midnight I had filed a missing bag report, by 3.30am there was still no bag to be found. I was told it must have been left behind and I would get it at the next port…on SUNDAY!  Needless to say I was a little unhappy about this. Then at 8.30am we get a call from our room attendant who wants to know if we are missing a bag. I swear I hugged that bag when it showed up.

The rest of the cruise went a lot smoother after the bag fiasco. I’m very thankful I don’t get seasick because the weather was really rough on some folks. The cabin was a lot roomier than I expected for a quad. We really expected to be crammed in there like sardines but they really design the cabins for maximum storage potential considering the size of the room.

I had a wonderful birthday in Ketchikan but that will be a separate blog post.

There was Quivet.

The LYS said someone bought 6oz of Quivet fiber but I never did find out which Seasocker did that. I’m guessing she kept her identity secret so we wouldn’t steal her suitcases.

There was a great toe-up class from Chrissy Gardiner where I got to learn her hybrid heel. I have vowed to use it in my next pair of socks. I never did make it to the top down class that Heather was teaching. The sock yarn shawl class with Amy was great and her No Sheep class was even better.

The Hubbard Glacier was stunning, we got incredibly close to it so the view was spectacular. It was also hellishly cold (go figure) but totally worth it.

Pam and Stephie enjoying the brisk cool air up by the glacier

I’m sure others in the group will blog about the cruise in greater detail so I will probably stop here unless I suddenly remember something so incredibly cool about the cruise that I just HAVE to share with you.

Everyone stayed a few extra days after the cruise got back into Seattle so I was able to show them a little of Seattle. Hopefully there was still a lot left to see so they will come back and visit again.

I had a blast and the vacation was just what I needed. Even though at time it felt more exhausting than everyday life it was something I’m glad I didn’t miss.

Now if you don’t mind I’m going to take a little nap so I can rest up before joining the real world tomorrow.