Which-Crafts?

I really enjoy it when two very separate things come together. I have a bunch of stitch pattern books by Barbara G. Walker that are quite well known and very popular in knitting circles. When I was sorting books out for my recent book purge I ran across “The Woman’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets” and “The Secrets of the Tarot” also by Barbara G. Walker. I did a bit of internet digging and yes indeedy - they are the same person.

I am really hankering to make this lovely sweater.  I am not hankering to pay 350 dollars for the yarn. Its made out of a lovely hand-dyed Silk/Merino/SeaCell yarn from Handmaiden called Great Big Sea  it retails for oh . . . about $35 a skein and I MIGHT be able to get away with only using 9 skiens . . .

Now I am off to see if I can find replacement yarn - Whee!!

I am having a blast playing around at Ravelry. I somehow got lucky enough to get high enough on the list folks asking for sign-ups that I got an invite about a week ago. And since then I have taken some of my free time to start inputing project information. (I have way more finished projects than I thought)

The site is incredibly easy to use and imho is very well designed. There are enough folks over there that preceded me that there is plenty of seeded pattern and yarn information to keep my data-entry down to an easy amount. I am enjoying getting to see everyone elses projects - but there are two things that I find even more cool/deadly addictive.

1. the Idea of the project queue. As I browse around the site and find new patterns I really like, i can queue up the project so I don’t forget about it. Also I can look it up in my queue and have the pattern information for when I am ready.

2. the forums - god such crack! Ravelry is a growing and changing environment and as a member we get to watch the development process and put our own two cents in where we think its needed. It is very neat to see suggestions go into production soon after and watch the communities needs and desires shape this site. It is interesting to see the debates about the best way to handle this or that and then see the discussions resolve and create a feature or a theory/methodology for how the site could work.

Right now the site is mostly an effort of love by the 2 creators (they are just starting to get some ad revenue) and it really amazes me what they have done with their combination of hobbies.

So if you are reading this and you have an account over there you can find me - my user name is whichy ;).

Its amazing how a little plan change really can shake things up.

To start this out, some of you may know that Erin and David (DS, and BIL) and nephew Rowan, are moving much closer to us v.v.soon now. It is less likely that you know that Erin is pregnant with “The Player to Be Named Later”.

We originally had plans to go out and visit them all for Erin’s Birthday mid April. But then David got a job, and they bought a house, and David’s job starts in Champaign before mid April. So after a lot of uncertainty and backing and forthing we changed our visiting plans. We leave Thursday at the ass crack of dawn and fly to Seattle. On Friday I will help supervise the loading of the moving truck. Friday evening we all will pack up David and Erin’s two Priuses (how do you pluralize that?) with their immediate needs and caravan back to the Chicago area.

And why am I posting about all this bit on the knitting blog? Well . . .

1. 4-5 days sitting on my ass in the car means a LOT of knitting can get done, I had to plan a project accordingly.
2. I had to push up my due date on the big ass felted Knitting Purse so that I could have it done BEFORE I got on the airplane. With only 2 bags allowed on the plane maximizing bag efficiency was important. I need to bring my laptop in its bag, so I needed to consolidate my knitting and purse into 1 bag. Which isn’t to say that I haven’t been planning on doing the Knitting/Purse combo deal for its own sake, its just that the travel date accelerated things a bit.

I did finish the bag last night and (YEA!) have a loaner camera so a post will be immediately following with pictures and details. Which now means that I have the space to bring all the knitting stuff I need for the trip. ‘Cause I decided to get an early start on the new baby’s blanket. I think I will bring a sock along for the airport and flight, but I’ll knit the baby blanket on the car trip.

(contents of this post are somewhat old, but still valid commentary)

I sometimes think that the reason gauge swatches are so hard for me to work myself up into doing, is knowing that I am going to have to wash it and wait for it to dry before I move forward on the project.

Spinning is worse, in this case, I dyed the fiber, I prepped it, I spun it (4ply cable no less) and now I have washed it, it has to dry and I have yet to knit a test swatch before I know if I can even go forward, or if I need to spin a new sample and wash/dry/testknit it before I have the finished product that I need.

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On the plus side, I now think I don’t have to card the 2lbs of fiber that I dyed before I spin it. I will admit carding with handcards is not my favorite thing, even if I like spinning from the rolags. I am considering considering a drum carder, but that is a huge investment I don’t think I need to make quite yet, and frankly would come after a new camera. For the fiber I think that if I split the roving into sufficiently small strips then it will loosen up enough to spin with. This should be less time consuming and easier on my hands.

Working on remodeling . . . it might look a bit different around here for a few days or so. My ring links will be down for a while but as soon as I pick a theme they’ll be back up.

Yesterday I finally got to dye up the lost/found fiber to match the old batch that I dyed back in october. I decided that since I had hoped the last batch was darker that I would aim for the same colors only more intense. I got fabukous results colorwise. (I would post pictures, but I accidently drowned my camera with a horrific water-bottle/purse incident earlier in the week)

I used jaquard dyes and used the powdered dye to water ratios in the Twisted Sister book - but for the sky blue and turquoise I used the recipe for 2xstrong color stocks and diluted them one to one stock to water&vinegar. For the sun yellow and black I used regular strength stocks with the same one to one dilution. The colors are beautifully intense and deep.

The only problem is the roving turned out much more felted this time, and there will be no way to get around carding it all before I spin it. So I have spilt the old dye batch and the new dye batch up into equal 5 foot sections and will pair them up dark to light and card them together for a good distribution of the colors.

I hope my camera drys out in a few days and then I may be able to post some pictures.

I have been spinning quite a bit lately, and not knitting much - for more than one reason.

• I shouldn’t have allowed myself to get into a position of being pressured trying to get the socks knit for my mom (IOW I shouldn’t have offered), I hate the pressure and it makes me not want to do it.
• I have TOO many projects on the needles (plus more being planned in my head) and it makes me feel disorganized and it is hard to focus on a single project.
• The tiny sock needles on the projects I *should* be working on, hurt my hands when I use them too long, and in conjunction with all the extra hours I at work with my hand superglued to the mouse - I just am not out courting the hand pain and tendonitis.
• Spinning travels better than 2 socks at one time with 4 balls of yarn that are always twisted up. I can spin in the car with my drop spindle (and did all the way back from MN) and I proved last weekend that my spinning wheel is quite portable.
• Spinning has more of a zen quality for me. I can get started and once I get the feel for what I want to produce, it just flows and flows. No need to worry about the pattern or maintaining gauge or switching needles etc. Its all in the touch and plus the spinning feels all soft and cozy with all the fiber.

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*sigh* I hang my head in shame and plead too much work.  For a while now I have been working very long weeks, which does not mean I haven’t done any thing, it means that I just haven’t posted about it.  BUT COMING SOON! Posts about spinning - I have been a busy bee and have much spinning to do over the next few weeks for Christmakwanzukah ( I am just hoping that the fiber shows up with plenty of time).  If you are just *dying* to see the images before I post about them you can check them out at my photo gallery.

But I am aiming for a actual content post(s) by the end of the week including “frustrations with finding fiber”, “oops, was I supposed to dye *THAT*?”, “picked it up for a song”, and “oooooohhhhh soft”

I am working on my 2nd pair of socks here, I love the yarn (with only one complaint) and the color. The yarn is from Ellen’s 1/2 Pint Farm in a beautiful variagated teal color (i am not sure if the photo does it justice), its really soft and nicely stretchy, but every there are some weird spots in the ply where one of the plys went off and did a dance for a while. But it feels great to knit with, and the socks are working up pretty fast now that I have settled on a style and pattern.

I am knitting them top down, with 66 sts on size 1 needles, with a slip stitch rib pattern, this is considerably less stitches and a smaller needle size than the previous pair I knitted I am hopeing that these fit better. Speaking of needles, I got a few pairs of Chia-goo DP needles and I am loving them, they are very flexible (which does mean that they will bend while you knit) with a reasonably pointy tip, they feel great in my hand and are short enough not to get in the way on the socks—I think they are 5″ long.

If I wasn’t so distracted by getting my replacement laptop up to speed and catching up on work I was supposed to be doing on it I am sure I would be much further along on the socks, but I am hoping that I can catch-up a bit this weekend. I really want to start on the two color socks soon.

I have also joined my first “‘along”! Its a Dye-Spin-Knit-along called Twisted Knitters. I am pretty excited, my mom and I have been talking about trying fiber/yarn dying for a few months now (she does all kinds of fabric dying already) and I have been reading the Twisted Sister Sock Workbook and getting all inspried. I have 2.5lbs Falkland wool and 2lbs BFL that I am deciding between for the event. I really want this to be “designed” or planned, which I have never done for a spinning project before. With this quantity of fiber I could really have a nice final project. So right now I am in the planning/pondering stage.