Slow Going

I did get in a good bit of knitting last night. I don't feel like I'm making much progress though, even though I am still checking off rows in the pattern. I think it's because this is the section where there's a 4 row repeat and nothing new is introduced. I'm up to row 237 now, which is 1/4 of the way through Clue 4. I have just a few non-knitting things to accomplish today, so I might get to row 265 today.

I'm looking for a new charity to send knitted things to. I got used to knitting a hat every couple of weekends for The Dulaan Project. I came across a link to the Friends of the Pine Ridge Reservation in the past week. The site lists various organizations which take donations of clothing, school supplies, knitted or sewn items and craft supplies. Today there were three sewing circles listed which accept donations of fabric, notions, yarn and knitting needles. I do believe I'll be able to clear out some of the yarn I am unlikely to use any time soon as well as some of the fabric I've been hoarding. It's all new fabric and yarn, just not items that I'll actually use because my tastes have changed or because I'm just not going to accomplish all the projects I had in mind when I bought it. Donating these things will help me clean out my fabric closet *and* do something useful with the items at the same time. Yay!

Knitting Night!

The Fellowship of the Ring is on TNT tonight. Of course it's got commercials and it's full screen and it's not the extended version, so I'll put the "real" DVD on in a little bit. But I'll knit my way through the whole movie this evening. That should enable me to add an inch or two to the stole's length. I haven't touched the thing at all this week.

MS4 Announcement
Melanie said that next year's project will start in August instead of June/July so that it won't interfere with the Knitting Olympics. Her mom will actually be the designer. I have seen some of Georgia's other work and I might have to buy a new pattern or two.

Sock Cravings
For some reason I'm starting to angst for a bit of sock knitting. It's certainly not the weather bringing this on. Perhaps I can sense that fall is around the corner. I don't know. I really want to finish the 2nd sock of the Mountain Colors pair. Of course last week I really wanted to work on the Trekking sock. Who knows what I'll want to work on next week.

Miniscule Progress

Just four rows accomplished yesterday on MS3. The good news is that I'm watching My Sister Ilene on TCM tonight, so will have plenty of knitting time. I figure I can get a dozen rows done with any luck. I'm in the middle of the less interesting honeycomb section. In looking at the pictures of finished stoles others have done, I'm not entirely keen on the transition to the wing section, but I don't know that I want to make the symmetrical version either. I think I'll keep on with the pattern as originally designed. I don't have to like it or wear it. I can always give it away. It's still been fun.

I very nearly cast on the second blue Trekking sock tonight while I was cycling on the trainer, but I got distracted by the sweating. I'm looking forward to working on socks when the stole is finished.

Clue 3 Finis!

I was, however, too lazy to pin it out for you. I'd rather get started on Clue 4, which is twice as long as the preceding clues. I'm on row 200 now. I'll be on row 335 at the end of Clue 4. It'll take me more than a week to get there, I suspect.

On the reading front, I've started Debbie MacComber's third book about the Blossom Street knit shop. I can't remember the name of it. I've read fewer than ten pages of it. I hope that it doesn't assume that I've read the first two books. The library here doesn't have the first two books, just the third one. For some reason that seems to be how book series work at this library.

Clue 2 Done!

I stayed up a bit later than I intended, but I did manage to get through the last twenty rows of Clue 2 this evening! Yay for me!!!

Now I'll have to find my copy of Clue 3. I think I printed it out, but I could be confusing things. I have a good couple of audio books on my laptop. I could get most of the way through Clue 3 by Friday night. If I don't get distracted or knit myself some errors.

Three Bags Full finished!
I've finished the sheep mystery. I know who killed the shepherd. The sheep didn't quite get it right, but it all ended well. And their new shepherd reads them stories just like George did. It's quite a good book and I'd recommend it if you like mysteries. There were a few parts that were a bit slow and I skipped ahead a bit, but I found the characters to be well-rounded and interesting. The fact that most of them were also sheep just made it more fun. Mopple the Memory Sheep ate a bag of marijuana and slept for two days which really confused his flockmates. The flock also entered itself in the Smartest Sheep in Glennkill Contest. They lost, but they put on a good show.

Hurt Shawl Pic

It's really not all the bad if you look at it from a distance. The rip is about 3 pattern repeats (plus the border) from the bottom of the shawl. I did recall correctly that it's 4-6 stitches wide. That's the three stitch garter border, plus the edge yarn over and one or two stitches from the first leaf. What I can't quite tell is if I'm missing a row of stitches in the middle. If I am, it's just one row, but it doesn't look like it.

I think I can do the garter grafting without much trouble. The only thing that worries me is the end of that leaf motif and getting that picked up/grafted neatly. Of course this rip is right on the edge where I'll be looking at it just about every time I wear it. On the other hand, at least it's not in the middle of the back of the shawl where everybody else will look at it. Heck, I'm just glad that it's not smack in the middle of a lace motif.

And on that note, I'll be letting the Kiri rest on the couch tonight while I keep going on the MS3. I really do think that I can finish Clue 2 tonight if I get started soon and stop being distracted by my blogs. Remember, another clue comes out Friday. I am at least not losing ground against

Shawl Shapes
I've been considering the various shawl shapes and which would be easiest mentally to knit. Not such much the technical part of things but which shape would be least likely to result in loss of motivation. I'd like some day to knit a circular shawl from the center out, but can't imagine the seemingly endless rounds once the shawl gets big. I remember talking ot a knitter once who said they had over a thousand stitches. Wow. It'd take a week to get around once. A square shawl from the center out would at least give you four sides to work on and break it down into more manageable pieces, even if the total number of stitches were the same.

Triangles are either slow to start or slow to finish. Casting on hundreds and hundreds of stitches could be a disaster, but you'd be accelerating as you approach the finish. Or you could cast on a few stitches and end slowly. I don't think I've seen any side-to-side triangle shawls.

Stoles are typically the same width all the way across though the ends may be pointed or irregularly shaped. Somehow that seems like it would be boring unless the pattern were challenging. Having knit an afghan in four panels, I know that it can seem interminable. I like the MS3 with the pattern coming in manageable chunks. I may have to divide all my knitting projects in to smaller chunks like that so that I can mark my progress more easily. Even if it's just ten rows at a time. I might have the big solution to my loss of interest in a large project!! Gold stars (or even just check marks) for finishing sections.

I am a bad shawl mommy!

It's true. I am. I discovered today that I apparently wheeled my desk chair over the edge of my Kiri Shawl last week at work. And put a 1 inch rip in the top edge. It's a pretty neat rip as far as rips go. The stitches aren't distorted or fraying at all. Just no longer connected. I think I can graft it back together. I hope I can graft it back together. I won't rip out half the shawl to fix this. If I rip that much, I might as well rip the whole thing out and I'm not going to do that.

Of course, I failed to bring said shawl home with me tonight, so I can't even ponder the repair process. I'll put it in my bag first thing in the morning when I get to work. I hope I won't need to wear it at the staff meeting. The conference room tends to be absolutely frigid in temperature. I'll post pictures of my poor little Kiri tomorrow. I know the garter stitch edge is torn and I think the rip goes in a few stitches into the pattern as well. I hope it's not too hard to make it whole again. I'm really not very good at grafting things. :-(

On a happier note, I am on Row 133 of MS3. Clue 2 ends at Row 150. I might actually get Clue 3 started this week! I hope I didn't just jinx myself.

Clue 1 Picture!

Here it is! I can see a few places which might be errors, but might not be errors. In any event, I'm going to ignore them. It would most definitely pass the galloping horse test and that's good enough for me.


Speaking of Lacy Things...
Here's a vintage WIP. It's a back buttoning tank top from a Samuel Charis kit.
I think I probably started it 7 years ago. I did knit the front, but frogged it since my gauge was too tight. This is as far as I got on one of the backs and if I recall correctly, my gauge might have been a bit too tight again and that was why I set it aside. It would be a great summer top if I'd finish it. Perhaps about January I'll start working on it so that I'll have it for next summer!

Knitting Weekend Plan!
The temperature this weekend is expected to be around 100 degrees for a high. This will rather limit what I'll be doing outdoors. There is a Vincent Price movie marathon on Turner Classic Movies tonight. Tomorrow is Doris Day Day. I can think of nothing more fun than to park myself in my comfy chair or on the couch and knit away. I wonder how far I could get on MS3 Clue 2! Clue 6 came out today.

Clue 1 Done!!!

I finally finished it last night. Only 4 clues left to go and I'm caught up! Of course, I'm entirely too tired to knit tonight.

I Have 96 Stitches.

I am not supposed to have 96 stitches. I'm supposed to have either 95 or 97 stitches. I've ripped back two rows and I think I am about to rip back row 93 to check it for errors. Sooooo close to finishing the first clue too. *pout*

This silly stole will *not* beat me. I will finish it!!! Then I'm going to nail the silly thing to the wall like a trophy. Or something.

Good News!!

No mistake in the knitting afterall! It would seem that I failed to check off the last row on the chart that I had knitted. I kept thinking about it after I went to bed last night and finally had to get up to see if I had perhaps just ended up one row past where the chart was marked. I tried to wait until morning, but my brain just wouldn't let me. I was far too tired to keep knitting after I figured out the problem however. So now I'm four full clues and 14 rows behind things. Oh well....

Apparently Yahoo Groups has decided to quit sending my Mystery Stole mail. I'm set up to receive digests, but alas nothing appeared the past few days. It's not in the spam folder. It's not in the inbox. It's AWOL. Of course, given the fuss today, I'm not sure I'm terribly upset. It would seem that the stole will not be symmetrical. This has disappointed some folks. When said disappointed folks shared their opinions about said disappointment, they were called rude. This of course started the de rigeur battle about whether or not differing opinions were allowed or could be considered rude. I guess if you're needing to get your panties in a knot about something, that's as good as anything else. Melanie chimed in and said it was perfectly fine for people to be disappointed with the design and that she had expected that given that you can't please everybody. This might have had a calming effect on the group. I'm not really sure. I had given up following the disappointment thread.

The beginning of the stole is pointed. The end of the stole will be rounded. The theme is Swan Lake. The rounded section is meant to be a wing. I think it'll be fine. I'm not normally a fan of the asymmetrical, but I see no reason to not try it and see what I think. If I don't like it, I'll give it away to someone or even to charity. It'll be fine.

Movie Knitting
It appears to be Mel Gibson war movie night on TNT. The Patriot is on now and We Were Soldiers is on next. Oddly enough both movies feature guerilla warfare, though the firepower in The Patriot isn't quite equal to that see in the Vietnam War.

Progress Halted

I found a boo-boo. The center stitch isn't in the center any more. It looks like I'll have to rip back 3-5 rows. I might get back to where I was yesterday by they end of the night. Here's how things looked yesterday....
Looking more closely at the center of the stole, I'm now not convinced that I goofed. The center yarn over might be where it should be. I wonder if I failed to mark off a row of the pattern and that is why I had "extra" stitches at the end of row 81. I'll have to count and see if that's what I did. I'd be way happier about that than having to rip and redo a couple of rows. Depending upon how I look at things the yarnovers are symmetrical and non-symmetrical. Sigh. Perhaps I just need a glass of wine....

Ready to start Row 81

I'm just not making rapid progress on this silly stole. It's not that I'm having trouble with it. I seem to be lacking knitting time or, if I *do* get knitting time, I seem to be easily distracted by other things like cleaning the kitchen, cooking dinner or reading a book.

On the other hand, I *am* making progress, so that's a good thing and I don't know that I can really complain too much. I still want to finish Clue #1 by the end of the week.

The Knitting Schedule
I had proposed rotating projects pretty regularly so that I would actually get projects finished. I have decided to suspend that plan until I get the Mystery Stole done. Once the stole is done I'll put the red lace sock, the Freedom Sweater and maybe the newly chosen Fawkes socks into rotation.

Holiday Knitting Plan
I haven't decided if I'm going to knit presents this year or not. I might knit toys for my niece and nephew. I haven't a clue which ones. I could make them different animals/toys or I could make the same animals/toys in different colors. I'm not sure which approach would result in the least amount of strife. I've also been thinking that it's time to start the gift sock rotation again. I've knit socks for all the female members of my family, but it's been a number of years. I could knit a pair for each of the four of them again. Not for any particular holiday, just because. It went over quite well the last time and the socks are still being worn! I still owe my sister an Alice Starmore sweater (started it over ten years ago). Perhaps that will enter the knitting rotation after the Freedom Sweater is completed.

Row 77 and counting!

I didn't quite get as far as the end of Clue #1. That would be row 100. But I did get four to six rows knitted. I'll get in another four to six rows tonight and sooner or later we'll get it done. With that said, I still want to get this clue finished this week and start catching up. I'd like to not be four weeks behind at the end of the knitalong. Remember, the next clue appears on Friday!

New Book!
Well, new library book at least. It's called Three Bags Full by Leoni Swann. It's a murder mystery. A shepherd is found dead in the pasture with a spade stuck in his chest. The detectives solving the mystery are the 19 sheep in the flock. I'm only on page 41 and must say that it's pretty entertaining so far. It reminds me a bit of Watership Down in that the sheep look at things quite differently than humans do, as did the rabbits of Watership Down. There is also a cute drawing in the bottom right corner of each page so that if you flip the pages quickly, the sheep appears to be leaping about. So far "God" seems to be a very suspicious character. We'll see how the plot continues to develop.

BlogRing!
I've joined two blog rings, but haven't yet figured out how to add the actual buttons to the side bar. I've got the ring links there, but no images. I may just have to break down and read the directions. Sigh.

In the meantime, I'm off to add a couple more rows to my Mystery Stole!!! And perhaps pondering what Christmas presents to knit this year.

Still chugging away on Clue #1

Yeah, so I got a couple of rows done, then got too tired/unfocused to get it done. I may be the last person to finish Clue #1 for the first time. Yesterday I got sidetracked building a couple of websites. They aren't completely finished yet, but I've got Three Fates Fibers and Desserted Islands launched. I've got some sock patterns on the drawing board too.

Anyways, I'm working on the stole tonight. I've got my schedule cleared and it's past time for a knitting evening!!

Back to the Knitting!

I just finished the last Harry Potter book about 30 minutes ago. No, I'm not going to tell you how it ends. I thought it was good and I'll probably re-read it in the next couple of months.

However, now that I'm done with the book, I'm ready to get back to the knitting. I *still* have not finished the first clue of MS3. Clue #5 is due out in exactly a week. I've got my work cut out for me if I want to stay just 4 clues behind everybody else. Fortunately, it's Friday, the moon is full and there's a darned good movie on the TV. (The Dirty Dozen, if you're interested, and we're just about to start the little war game. Improvise, adapt and overcome!!) I might just get the first clue finished tonight and a good chunk of Clue Two as well! Then again, I might get really sleepy in 45 minutes and quit early. And you know what? That's ok too.

Future Knitting....
Remember the new Poppy colored sock yarn I bought in New Orleans? It's decided that it wants to be a pair of Fawkes Socks from Socktopia. I think the orange color of the yarn will reflect the plumage of Fawkes the phoenix and also the flames that consume and rebirth him.

Fiber for the Birds!

This spring I put some bits and pieces of trashy fleece outside for the birds or other wildlife to use. I never was sure how much of it blew away or was picked up. A month or so ago I discovered that some bird(s) had built a nest in one of the potted ferns hanging at the front of the house. The nest was later abandoned, but you can see that there is indeed quite a bit of wool included in the nest. I'll leave more fiber out this fall, since I certainly will have some leftover "trash" from carding and combing.

MS3 Progress Pic
This is what it looks like after the first chart of Clue 1. Yes, I was lazy. I didn't pin it out so you can see the lace. You'll just have to be patient. Right now, I'm about four or five rows into the second chart of Clue 1 (Row 59 or so). I'll post another picture (pinned out properly) at the end of Clue 1 (Row 99).

There are quite a few people who have finished Clue 4 and are in the row 300+ area. These must be people who have household staff, family to cook/clean and are retired. I have no idea how else they could have gotten that far, unless they also don't sleep. I don't know about you, but when the rest of life gets to be overwhelmingly busy and hectic I often don't feel much like knitting or doing anything else fun. I suppose that's the years of being told that I can't do "fun" stuff until all my homework or chores are done. Imagine my surprise when I got to be a grownup and discovered that there is *always* work to be done. I'm working on allowing myself to have fun despite there being work to be done. And on that note, I'm going to go knit a bit.

MS3 Clue 4!

The fourth clue was posted today. I won't be starting it any time soon. I'm not even finished with the first clue, though I at least started the second set of charts last night. Unfortunately, I think I made an error in the next to last row I knit. I'll be tinking back this evening. Hopefully I don't have to go back more than one or two rows. I have finally printed out the charts, which will help. It's hard to follow along on the computer screen. Goal? To finish the first clue by the end of the weekend.

I'm actually learning quite a bit from this project but none of it has to do with knitting. It has to do with taking large projects and breaking them down into manageable pieces so that progress can be observed. Observable progress seems to be linked to greater motivation to keep working and thus the project gets finished. It occurs to me that I need to break down the larger projects in my life into smaller pieces, write down intermediate goals and have measurable progress toward those goals and the end goal. Looks like I'll be making myself some progress charts this weekend!

No Longer Unique :o(

I thought I was being clever, but it would seem that great minds think alike. It turns out that another person has opened an Etsy shop called Three Fates Fiber. Pooh. Looks like I'll be only selling through my website and blog, not on Etsy. Sigh. At least I had the foresight to register the domain years ago. Of course, I only registered the commercial domains, not the .net versions. Double sigh.

MS3 Progress
I'm starting Charts B and C tonight (the second half of the first clue). I will be a good girl and pay my bills first, then sit down to knit. I've got some conundrums to work out in my head and knitting is a fine backdrop to that.

I'm going to have to put away my new yarn purchases though. The Poppy sock yarn is calling my name. It doesn't know what it wants to be, but it wants me to play with it.

Knitting Happened!

So did yarn shopping!

I'm back from a week in New Orleans with four skeins of yarn and chart A of the first MS3 clue finished. W00t!

I stopped by the Garden District Needlework Shop and had a lovely time. I picked up a skein of Schaefer Anne sock yarn in the Babe Didrickson colorway (dark greens, blue and purple), a skein of Claudia Handpainted Yarn Silk Lace in Purple Earth, which is purples, pale blues, yellows and two skeins of Claudia Handpainted Yarn fingering weight yarn in Poppy. The Poppy is destined to be socks. The lace yarn will be a shawl eventually, possibly even Print O' the Wave.

Despite being busy all week, I did get some knitting done. I had taken the MS3 stole and a fairly plain sock in case I needed some simple knitting. I didn't touch the sock. I did get most of chart A done from the first MS3 clue though, so that was good. I might get the rest of Clue 1 finished this week, just in time to download the 3rd and 4th clues (clue 4 comes out on Friday). I haven't really stretched out the bit of the stole that I have finished, but so far I think it looks pretty good. I'll try to take a picture later this week.

Design Plans
I have been having a creative streak lately. I have had several design ideas for shawls and for socks in the past couple of weeks. I have dutifully been writing them in my little red idea book. Flipping through the book and the ideas which have been collecting there for the past several years, I should make the time in the next few weeks to start working up a few of these into actual patterns.

Experiment Aborted

I decided that I needed to work on my conference presentation for next week. I also had to start the laundry so I could pack for my trip. So no sock knitting happened on the 4th.

But I Have Travel Knitting Planned!
I will be taking the blue Trekking sock and the red lace sock with me. I'm also taking the Mystery Stole along. I downloaded the 2nd clue this morning. Then of course, I had to print Clue #1 again since the previously printed copy had vanished. I'll pack it all up and take it along with me, just in case I can get started.

New Orleans LYS!
The Quarter Stitch is within walking distance of my hotel, near Jackson Square. The Garden District Needlework Shop is on Magazine Street and is apparently one of the largest needle shops in the southeastern US. I wanted to stop by the Magazine Street fire station anyway, so that works out just fine. I spent two nights at the Magazine Street station the week after Katrina. The ambulance company I worked for sent units down to help with the rescue/recovery effort. It will be weird to see the place without a national guard unit and snipers.

I don't have any particular purchase in mind, but I might pick up another skein of lace-weight yarn. Something besides red. I already have two skeins of red lace weight. Perhaps a pale blue or black.

Knitting Organization Progress:
Well, after deciding upon my completion "schedule", I haven't actually knit anything. How's that for a bad bit of luck? I hope to get some practice in on the whole knitting schedule thing while on my trip. That's part of the reason why I'm taking three projects.

I have been going through my yarn and fiber stash in my head, however, and trying to think of what each yarn, roving and fleece wants to be. I had already started this to some extent with the sock yarn. I have pattern names written on several of the labels already. With the stash database, this process could be fairly simple. I just have to remember to write down what I decide upon or I'll never remember any of it.

The Fresian Fleece
Is now mulch in the garden. Because it got rained on so much and didn't ever get a chance to dry out, it started to smell pretty funky. Really ripe, actually. I decided that there wasn't likely to be any way that the smell would ever come out of it, so I threw it in the garden. I didn't pay that much for it and it wasn't particularly clean and had certainly not been skirted. I had a total of three fleeces, which ended up being about 2 fleeces of wool clean enough to be usable. Even then there was considerable veggie matter (mostly straw/chaff). It came out easily enough when being flicked and carded, but having been spoiled by completely veggie matter-free fleeces, I can't say I was particularly interested in fighting with it. Anyway, I got enough usable (and non-stinky fleece out of the boxload to make it worth what I paid for it. The rest of it is a learning experience and mulch. I'm completely ok with that.

The Gray Curly Fleece
I have come up with a great idea for this fleece. I had considered turning it into lace weight yarn for a shawl. I've decided that this is indeed what it wants to be. I think I will try dyeing it a pale lavender color, then knit a shawl or stole in memory of my recently departed friend, DZD. She had gray hair and loved purple. Her hair may have been considerably darker than this fleece, but I have always associated silvery gray and purple with her. Pattern/design to be determined later. I can work on that part of it during the carding and spinning process.

A Sock Experiment....

I have tomorrow off, since it is Independence Day. I have a bit of work to do around the house and yard, but there is also a possibility of rain which may keep me indoors. I also have a presentation to revise.

Anyway, my possible experiment is to see how long it takes me to knit a sock from start to finish. My last estimate for a basic sock was 12 hours, though that was a rough measure. I could theoretically spend the whole day tomorrow working on the blue broken rib sock. For entertainment, I could watch the Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends marathon starting at 6am or break out the DVDs for the Lord of the Rings movies or The Thin Man movies. I've also got 30 hours of audiobooks on my laptop. The "bad" part of me wants to just knit all day. The responsible part of me says I need to get some work done first. Some days I *hate* being a grown up.

Continued Organization.....

So, I've described the immediate knitting projects (the red lace, blue Trekking and red Mountain Colors socks, plus the mystery stole) and the various fleeces to scour and card. I had great plans to work on the Sweater A Month KAL, but I have fallen far far behind the plan. (I'm not sure I've finished a single WIP since January, if you must know.) While bludgeoning my way through my foot tall stack of data entry at work, I mulled over my lack of productivity and how to improve it. Then I had a brilliant idea. Well, actually I remembered an idea that Joan Hamer had a number of years ago on the KnitList (back when it was still hosted at University of Minnesota). She also had difficulties managing multiple projects and making progress. So she assigned each project a day of the week and worked on a maximum of seven projects a time, each on its respective day. I like this plan, with some modifications....

I don't have the time to knit seven days a week, much as I would like to do so. However, I can manage to knit or do fibery things three or four days a week although it may just be for 15-20 minutes. At the moment, the projects I choose to work on are the red lace sock, the blue Trekking sock, the Mystery Stole, the Coopworth fleece and the Freedom Sweater (from Amazing Threads long long ago).

I won't assign days precisely since each week's schedule is a bit different depending upon what other tasks I must accomplish, but I can rotate through projects when I do get knitting/fiber days. The rotation of projects will be sock, stole, fleece and sweater. I'll work on the red lace sock when I have the ability to concentrate on it and the blue Trekking sock when I am tired and likely to make mistakes in lace. So the next day I have to work on such things, I'll pick up the chosen sock and get to work. The next knitting day after that, I'll work on the stole, etc. With regular attention to each of these projects, I should make marked progress. This should keep me from getting discouraged about projects never getting finished. And I might actually get the Freedom Sweater finished by this fall. I started it 8-10 years ago. It's only lacking a sleeve and a half. Even so, it's likely to become my new favorite sweater.

I really need to make a list of my projects in progress on the side of this blog. And maybe a list of projects for the future too. I've been meaning to re-organize things here for a while and spruce them up a bit. Perhaps the re-design will be what I'll ponder in my subconscious at work tomorrow.

Two Socks Darned!

and three toes left to re-knit! Actually two toes and half of a foot. I managed to get a hole halfway up the foot of one sock and it was too big for me to comfortably darn, so I figured I could rip it back and knit it up again.

MS3 Swatch!
I got my swatch done (one repeat at least). I can't decide if I like it or not. I'm debating switching to a smaller needle size. The "solid" parts between the YOs aren't quite as solid as I'd like. I haven't actually measured the gauge, though that's not critical in this pattern. I'm mostly just curious.

Didn't get much knitting done this weekend. Too busy with yardwork and housework. With any luck I'll get the stole started by the end of the week. I'd like to not get too far behind on the clues.

I'll have to pick a more mindless portable project for my trip next week too. I'm leaning toward the 2nd of the blue Trekking socks. I could theoretically get the pair finished while I'm on vacation. It's a mistake-rib pattern on 60 stitches with size 2 needles.

Peacock Delayed!

I've found another "new" project to consider. I've joined Mystery Stole 3. It's a knitalong where the pattern is given out a bit at a time. The first section was posted today.

The recommended yarn color is white (more or less) or black (more or less) in order to fit with the pattern theme (which is to be revealed later). Conveniently, I had purchased a very nice medium gray merino sweater at the GoodWill store for the sole purpose of unravelling it for its lace weight yarn. I have just finished unravelling the sweater and am soaking the yarn in hot water to release the kinks from it. I should be able to get the first skein wound into a ball and start in on the first chart by the end of the weekend.

So the Peacock Shawl goes back into storage for a later engagement.

Darning Pile
It's still there. With the expected rainy weather this weekend, I may have no choice but to actually work on the darning and other mending. I at least will have no excuse to not get it done.

My Five are Done!

I have finally completely finished my five items for The Dulaan Project. And just in time too. They have to be received in Arizona by July 1st. If I get them mailed tomorrow I should just make the deadline. There are three newborn-sized hats, one toddler sized hat (the beret) and one teenager/adult sized hat. Next year, I think I'll try making Wallaby Sweaters. Well, at least one Wallaby and probably more hats.

Batt Pile
This is the short stack of four Coopworth batts I carded up last week. This is maybe 1/4 of a bin of pre-flicked, washed fleece. Once it was teased, it filled up a copy paper box. I have another bin of washed fleece, one bin of unwashed, flicked fleece and probably a bin to a bin and a half of unflicked, unwashed fleece. That ought to be enough for a sweater, right? :o)

I'm not sure that carding is the best prep for the Coopworth. I did find a couple of neps in the batts. It doesn't tolerate being carded too quickly and I really don't want neps and noils in this fiber. I will probably just comb the rest of it. I may try carding the combing waste.

"Washing" Fleece
Well, sort of. I had soaked one of the Fresian fleeces in cold water to get the dirt/mud out of them, then let it sit in my lawn chair to dry. I had left more of it laying in the backyard, waiting to be washed in a bin outdoors. Except that it rained the past three days. The "drying" fleece isn't getting much drying done. However, the previously unwashed fleece is getting washed a bit in the rain. It will still need to be soaked and rinsed thoroughly. A nice hot water wash would be good too, but most of the dirty work is done. The fleece itself is really dry and crunchy feeling. I don't know if that's a function of this particular fleece's characteristics or if the fiber is damaged from heat/storage. With any luck things will dry out a bit in the next week. There ought to be enough Fresian for a box full of hats and outerwear. I bet it would work well as weft in a rug too. Then I wouldn't have to worry about scratchiness so much.

Gaining Focus

Ok, here are a few goals for myself with regard to my fibery habits.....

First, I'm going to finish carding up the gray Coopworth fleece. I have two big bins of teased and washed fiber that will need to be re-teased, then carded. There is another bin of teased, unwashed fiber and probably an equal amount of unteased, unwashed fiber.

Second I'll start on the coarser light gray fleece that I've gotten five batts from already. I've discovered that my initial rather cursory washing job wasn't really good enough. It's really too greasy/sticky to card without a second washing. When I start in on the rest of the fleece, I'll have to flick it a bit before washing it so I don't end up washing everything twice.

Third, I need to decide what to do with the Fresian. It's going to be pretty coarse and have some veggie matter in it. It might be good for felting or outerwear. I'm trying to decide if it's worth my effort, given that I paid very little for it.

Goals on the Knitting Front:
Darn two socks per week until the mending basket is empty.
Finish red lace sock.
Start second blue multi sock.
Start second red/blue Mountain Colors sock

Organizing the Fiber Room
Ok, so the setting up of the table in the fiber room didn't happen. I need to get rid of some things first. I'd end up moving half my stash to the spare room (and thus clutter it to the point of being unusable), so things will stay as they are for now.

Philosophically, I am getting ever closer to decluttering and simplifying my possessions. I have yarn I will never knit. My tastes have changed. My knitting priorities have changed. I have managed to catalogue my yarn and fiber stash. Now it's time to decide objectively what I'll actually use from the stash, package it up with possible patterns and put the rest up on Ebay. I figure I can manage to accomplish that by the end of August. I guess that means I need to go through my pattern and magazine stash and decide what I'll make. Now all I need are some rainy days/evenings so I'm stuck inside.

The Peacock is Out!

The pattern is sitting next to my knitting chair. The yarn is on the table. I'm far too tired to actually do anything with it today, but perhaps by the end of the weekend....

Picking on the Fleece
I've started flicking the Fresian that I soaked in cold water outside. Remarkably the vast majority of the dirt came out without soap and there is little grease. The veggie matter is coming out in the flicking. I can't tell if the tips are weak or not. I may just cut them off. I think this fleece might be a good candidate for dyeing, though I'm not sure I want to start with that yet.

Of course, I should probably just finish the silly Coopworth fleece and get it out of the way, but no....I have to start something new. I can't decide if I have an aversion to finishing things or if I just get distracted by new things. I certainly like it when I do finish things. It's just that sometimes I lose interest before the finishing part.

Decisions, Decisions!

I want to prepare a bunch of stuff all at the same time and I can't focus long enough to decide what to actually work on. I'm *very* ADHD this week.

I have started washing up some Friesian wool. This stuff has sat in my garage for a couple of years. It's got some veggie matter in it and it wasn't well skirted, but it's something to practice my carding skills upon. I have used the skirtings to mulch my garden. Surprisingly, the wool is washing up to be a bright white color. I think it might make a decent heavy worsted weight yarn and might be good for felting.

Must Darn Socks!
I wore handknit socks today since I was going to be on my feet all day long. Apparently my toenails needed a bit of a trim. I haven't worn a hole in the right sock, but it came close. Sigh. My darning pile is slowly growing. I really need to quit ignoring it. I also need to quit ignoring the pile of clothes needing folding and ironing, but that's a different story.

Speaking of Socks....
I started a new pair today. Yes, I know, I have one sock in progress and two second socks to finish. I needed something with a small ball of yarn to carry wtih me in the car. So I started the purple socks made with Marks and Katten "Clown". I made a pair of socks for a former professor friend of mine from this yarn, liked how well they turned out and bought more yarn for me. I like that the balls are small and compact.

Shawl Craving
I got a hankering today to start a shawl. I'm thinking about starting the Peacock Feathers Shawl from Fiddlesticks Knitting. I have a cone of Jaggerspun Zephyr in a lovely teal color just the shade of a peacock. I don't know that I need to start a new project given the existing knitting and carding/spinning works in progress, but I might just jump in anyway.

Gone Batty!!

I've now got three batts of the gray coarse wool run through twice. There are three more which have only had one pass through the carder. I think they will end up making two finished batts. I wonder if this wool might spin up into a nice lace weight yarn for a shawl.

Organizing the Fiber Habit
I've decided that I need to put together the work table in the fiber room. Right now that room is crowded enough that I can't set up the table. I think I'll move some of the boxes into the spare room, so I can set up the table. That way I won't have to do all my fibery habits in the living room and contribute to the disorder and clutter in that area. The clutter of the public room in my house aggravates me. I like to be tidy. Right now there are two stacks of waste fiber, one bin of clean, but unpicked fiber to card and two stacks of carded batts. These items are on the floor, the sofa and on top of the stereo. I'd rather have them all in the fiber room, not really out of sight, but contained. I think I'll be more productive with things in the one room as well.

Perhaps this weekend I will put together the table and start the reorganization. I suspect some de-stashing may follow.

Fibery Fun!

Nope, I didn't fall off the planet. I went out of town for a weekend and never got around to getting my laptop back into my usual blogging place (the comfy chair). I decided to fix that today since I'm developing a big backlog of pictures and I miss surfing the Internet while watching movies.

Carding myself silly
The drum carder is about the bestest present I've bought myself in a long time. I finished with the cream colored fleece and immediately jumped into a coarser light gray fleece. I don't think the coarse fleece will spin up into anything which can be worn next to the skin. Might make good mittens though. I also started in on the light gray coopworth fleece. I know I said I wanted to comb that fleece. I think I'm changing my mind. I have to be careful and tease the washed locks thoroughly before carding or I get neps. Already noticed that. I hadn't had any breakage issues with the previous two fleeces, but the Coopworth doesn't care for mishandling. I think it's worth the extra time and effort. I think I'll make myself a nice gansey with the final product.

Tag, I'm it!
So, I got tagged a while ago by sheila. I have waited long enough to respond that just about everybody has also been tagged. In any event, here are the seven random things about me:

1. I taught myself how to knit from a book in 1992. My paternal grandmother knit, but was unsuccessful in teaching me when I was little. I knit her a cardigan before she died.

2. I ride a motorcycle. I actually own two of them, one of which is for sale. If you know anybody interested in a 1977 Yamaha XS650, let me know.

3. My right ankle clicks when I walk, presumably due to the bone fragments in it. I apparently broke my ankle one of the myriad times I twisted it and kept going. Oopsies. I also have a rather high pain tolerance.

4. Everybody says I bake killer chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies. My lemon bars have gotten good reviews too.

5. I'm entered in the Chicago Marathon again this year. My goal is to cut my previous best (and only) time from 7:45 to something under 4 hours.

6. I've lived in Australia.

7. I would like to publish some knitting designs in the next year or two. Mostly socks, but I'm starting to get interested in lace as well. Of course, I'll have to write up my Aran sweater pattern too.

Drum Carder has arrived!

And of course, I already jumped right into using it. And on a completely different fleece than the one I'd intended. I used a cream colored long wool, possibly one of the Romneys. I've got three bats carded up. I had teased the fiber pretty thoroughly, so it carded up beautifully in just 1-2 passes, depending upon how smoothly and evenly I fed in the locks. w00t!

I can hardly wait to get more fleece(s) prepared for carding. This is really fun!!! Definitely a worthwhile purchase.

And the Winner Is....

The black Shetland fleece. That's my choice for first fleece to run through the drum carder. I'm getting it washed up now. It's really not that wonderful a fleece. There are some second cuts and some veggie matter. On the other hand, it's a lovely dark color with a decent staple length. I expect most of the veggie matter to fall out when I pick/tease it prior to carding. It's coarser leaves/stems, rather than the finely ground up stuff that *never* comes out. After that, I've got some washed Cotswold locks and a Merino crossbred fleece.

Cleaning Up
I tidied up the studio/fiber room today. I got the boxes of computer parts out of the way, for starters, and put some odds and ends in the closet. I almost have room to put together the sewing table. I can't decide if that will actually gain me space or lose space. I'll be able to stack boxes of fleece/yarn underneath it as well as on top of it. It'll be good to get the sewing machine set up and have some planning area other than in the living room.

Three Hats Done, Two To Go.

Actually I'm about 1/4 of the way through hat number four. The first three hats are simple stocking caps in bulky yarn and should fit a 2 year old (based on the head size of my nephew at Christmas). The current hat is a beret that should fit a 5-7 year old once it's felted. It is taking a lot longer given that it's worsted weight yarn. I think the last hat of the five will be a red and blue striped hat.

Picovoli
I think I'll make this t-shirt as one of my summer projects. I think I have the yarn already in my stash. I have some Cotton Classic in a solid blue and a multicolor blue that would work nicely. I'd been meaning to use it in a nice tank for me, but never did find a pattern I liked. Isn't that how it always works? You have the right yarn, but never the right pattern OR you have the right pattern, but never the right yarn.

Speaking of the Stash....
Now that I have it all catalogued, I ought to go through it and try to match up the yarns with patterns. It would be fairly easy to make up "kits" of yarn with pattern. That would certainly facilitate getting stuff knitted up. What's left over can get de-stashed on Ebay. I suppose I ought to plan out the weaving projects too. I haven't given them much thought at all, probaby because my stash room is so full I couldn't possibly get my loom set up.

Knitting Plan for the Weekend....
I'm supposed to go to a party with some co-workers this weekend. Given how grumpy everybody was today, followed by nearly everybody deciding to gossip snarkily all afternoon, I'm not particularly inclined to go to the party. I'd rather wash and wax my car, re-grout the shower and do all my laundry. And then there's the fun stuff like playing in the garden and watching the Preakness Stakes.

GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! I'm an idiot!

Last night was knitting night at the library. I remembered that just now. Only a day late. Sigh. Now I'll have to wait until next month to knit with people. Sigh. Well, I accomplish quite a bit of weeding in my garden, so the evening wasn't a complete loss....

Double GAAAAAAAAH!
It's only a month until June 15th!! I have a month to make two more hats for the Dulaan Project to complete my five things for them!!! It's taken me a month to finally get one hat done (not that much knitting, but that much time to get around to the knitting). I will *have* to spend at least one hour a week and more on weekends on my Dulaan Hats. I *will* be achieving this goal.

The Drum Carder is En Route
UPS took control of it yesterday. They expect it will be in my hot little hands in a week. Yay!!

I bought a gently used Strauch's Finest, complete with all the extra goodies. I can hardly wait to start using it. There's a holiday weekend coming up this month. I'll have to take the extra day off and get acquainted with the carder. I guess that means I should get some fleece washed and picked. Which means I'll have to figure out which one to prepare. Although I've got a lot of Coopworth picked and washed, I think I'd rather comb that fleece. I do have a couple of crossbred fleeces and a couple of Shetland fleeces which would be excellent candidates for the carder. I'll go have a look a bit later tonight and make a decision.

Red Sock!
Although I didn't knit on the red lace sock while travelling, I did get about an inch knit on it over the weekend. AND I finished the red Mountain Colors sock. Well, the first one, at least.

Darning:
I have a basket of socks to mend. I've been avoiding them. It's not that I have a lot of mending. I just find it tedious. My socks actually wear very well. However, if the nail on my right big toe gets a little long and I wear handknit socks with one particular pair of shoes, I start to wear a thin spot in the sock. I usually figure this out about the time I take the socks off at the end of the day. Sigh.

Actually, there is one pair of socks which needs the toe re-knit, but that's because it was a bit too short.

Perhaps that will be this week's knitting accomplishment: put one pair of socks back into service by the end of the week. I can manage that.

About That Travel Knitting....

I ended up deciding on the red lace sock. And then I never even touched it. I ended up going out with some new friends both nights I was there. Oh well....

Travel Knitting

I am headed out for three days of training this week. I have absolutely no trouble packing clothes or anything else for trips. I have unending amounts of trouble packing knitting projects.

Here are the criteria I need to meet:

• project must be transportable/packable--the afghan or nearly completed adult-sized sweater is probably too big to fit neatly into luggage.
• project must be interesting enough to keep my attention, esp if the cable TV offerings aren't terribly exciting
• project must also be simple enough for me to not completely screw it up if I am mentally tired or try to knit and read simultaneously

Of the projects currently underway, I have two pair of socks which would meet these criteria, but I really don't feel like knitting socks. I feel the need to knit something new. Rather than agonize over it, which I could easily do, I think I will just simply take my two socks in progress (one lace and one fairly plain) and call it good. Sure, that's the easy way out, but I'm too tired to figure out something else to take with me, then find the appropriate yarn, needles and pattern. I'm almost guaranteed to forget one of those three things if I start out new anyway.

Blocked and moving on...

I got the shawl blocked out. I did not, however, manage to take a photo of it before unpinning it. Silly me. It is about six feet from end to end and probably three feet deep. I didn't block it severely due to space limitations, but I could probably get several more inches of depth out of it if I re-blocked it. That will either wait until I wear it enough to wash it or it won't ever happen because I gave it to someone else.

In the meantime, I have knit a nice little hat for the Dulaan Project while watching TV. I'm about halfway through the foot of my current sock too. I haven't any idea when that might get finished. At the rate I've been finishing things lately, it ought to be done around August....

My knitting progress may be slowing down in the near future. You see, I've purchased a drum carder. A friend is picking it up and shipping it to me in a week or so. This should help me get the oodles of fleeces I have ready to spin and then lead to LOTS and LOTS yarn that I will eventually knit or weave into something.

Spinning Planning
I have never quite figured out if I should just spin whatever strikes my fancy at the time or find a project first, then spin to meet the project's requirements and hope that I have sufficient fleece to make all the yarn for that project. The latter is really the only way I have of making sure I will have enough yarn for a given project. Otherwise I'd just have to hope that I had sufficient amounts of yarn already spun up that matched the project's needs. That might work, if A) I got lucky on the quantity and B) I actually kept records of how much yarn I had spun. Obviously I need to work on B regardless. I have several spare notebooks, so I really have no excuse for *not* documenting my spinning. With my McMorran yarn balance I can even figure out how much yarn I have without having to measure every last inch.

To accomplish my spinning goals, I will need to clean out my fiber room and make it functional (meaning I need to get the table put together). That means I will have to finish sorting through my computer parts and move them either to the computer room or to the trash. Which means I need to clean out the computer room too. I'll see how much of that I can accomplish this week. It's supposed to rain a couple of days this week so I won't be able to play in the yard after work. Looks like I know what I'll be doing on the rainy nights. :o)

Okay, Okay. So I did it.

The Kiri Shawl has been cast off (without any errors in the process!!) and is presently soaking in a warm soapy bath. It's just a bit small in it's pre-blocked state, so it should end up just right size post blocking.

Next, the question will be what to do with it (keep it or give it away). It's not exactly a color I think looks good on me. I could certainly dye it, but I'd hate to screw up the dyeing and end up with a blotchy shawl. I know of at least one person who would appreciate it in the color it presently is. If worst came to worst, I could always donate it some place.

Next Project:
I have two socks in progress at the moment, both of which are the first sock of their respective pairs. One is the lace sock from the cover of Socks, Socks, Socks and the second is Braided Toeholder from 3 Trails Designs in Mountain Colors Weavers Wool Quarters. I could work on either of those. However, I recently was sent a sock pattern to test knit for Jeannie of Townsend Sock Knit Along. I forget the name of the sock, but it's a pattern which would be well suited to the green KnitPicks Essentials I got almost two years ago. I may have to start that project instead of work on an existing one. If I recall correctly, the pattern is written to be knit either toe-up or top down. I have always knit socks cuff down, but might try toe up this time, just to be different. And I think that the pattern looks better in the toe up picture.

Procrastination or Perfectionism?

Well, the Kiri is finished, except for the cast off. It's been like that for about three days. I propose two reasons why it's not done yet. One is that I generally have difficulty actually finishing projects, though I don't think that's the issue here. The second is that I don't want to screw up the bind off and have it be either too stretchy or too tight, then have to redo it repeatedly until it's just right. At the moment, my plan is to add a bind off stitch every two stitches and see if that's stretchy enough. Part of me wants to finish this thing tonight and part of me is just exhausted from two days of training with the CDC to just fall over and go to bed by 7pm. Blah.

I am the stupidest smart person I know (at least on some days). Would you believe that the Kiri pattern actually tells you what the best bind off is? Sigh. I *swear* I read through the whole pattern several times during the knitting of the shawl, just to make sure that I hadn't missed some tidbit of useful information or other tips. Yeah, well, apparently I managed to visually delete that bit until just now. Sigh.

On the other hand, I have absolutely no excuse, other than being relatively brain dead today, to not cast off the shawl tonight.

Two more rows done!

I'm still plodding away at the border. I am intending to get a minimum of one row done each day. What worries me at this point is not the border itself or the blocking after, but the casting off. My casting off tends to be not terribly elastic. I will have to haul out my copy of Principles of Knitting and read what Ms. Hiatt has to say about elastic bind offs.

Remember my green lace scarf?
I am debating frogging the whole thing and re-doing it. It's really too narrow, too long and knit at too loose a gauge. I think I could easily go down a needle size, add a pattern repeat and make it a foot shorter to produce a much more satisfying end product. I don't mind a supple scarf, but not a limp one.

Planning the next project
I have decided to finish the socks I have already in progress (all three of them). Then I will knit at least one pullover for the Dulaan Project using the green and white yarn from my frogged ski sweater. Plus Dulaan Hats, of course. After that perhaps I'll work on finishing the sweaters for me that I've started.

Making Progress.....

I have completed the first four rows of the border. So far I have only had to re-do about 20 stitches due to a mis-counting at the start of the first row. Only seven or eight more rows to go. Yay!! I might even get it finished by the end of the week.

The Fiber Event
This is the first year in about five years that I've missed what used to be known as The Fleece Fair in Greencastle, IN. I had considered going this year, even though it would be a six to seven hour drive one way. However, given my small fiber budget and rather large fiber stash, I really didn't think I could justify collecting more fleeces. If I really really really want another Hidden Valley fleece, I can always call them directly. (Like I need a fifth and sixth fleece from them at the moment....) It sounds like the weather was pretty cold and miserable up there anyway, so that wouldn't have been much fun.

Starting the Border....

I have finished the last row of the last repeat. I am about to commence the border of the Kiri. The end is rapidly approaching.


Since the weather is expected to be cold and rainy, at least for tomorrow, I should be able to get a good bit of knitting accomplished. I'm even mostly caught up on the housework, so that won't be a distraction. I figure I'll make the usual run to Wal-Mart, library and Lowe's, then fire up iTunes and listen to podcasts while I knit away the day. If I have time, I need to darn two pair of socks as well.

I still have no idea what I'll knit next. I'm hoping to crank out a Dulaan Hat on Sunday evening.

Another ARGH!!!

This one is of my own making. I was diligently working on the Kiri last night. When I was really too tired to be working on it. And I discovered, as it put it down for the night, that I'd dropped a stitch about four rows ago. Fortunately it was along an edge and not in the lace. Then again, I'm not sure I'd notice a dropped stitch *in* the lace. Anyway, I left the knitting as it was last night, knowing I was too tired to figure out fixing the dropped stitch.

Then as I walked away to go to bed I caught my foot in the working yarn. And promptly snapped it in two. Fortunately there weren't any skaters nearby so disaster was averted. (oooooold Yarn Harlot reference)

So tonight I got to spit splice the yarn back together, fix the dropped stitch (which was painless and only involved re-doing a single decrease in the process) and then knit half a row of the final pattern row of the final pattern repeat. Soon, all that will remain will be the border. I might actually get this silly thing finished this week. Then, of course, I'll have to let it sit around for a couple of weeks before washing and blocking it. NOT!!! I really want to see what she looks like all stretched out.

Then I shall have to knit a couple of Dulaan Project hats. And finish my Mountain Colors sock. Once those are done, I'll decide what to do next. If I try to figure out what I'll knit too far into the future, I'll just end up changing my mind.

But I did get the living room painted over the weekend. The entire room is now a single color: "Soft Cream" which is a barely yellow color. Now I'll just have to decide which bits of art to hang on the now completely bare walls.

ARGH!!!!!

Bad CSI! BAD! BAD!
"Angora is processed goat hair."
Um.....no. CASHMERE and MOHAIR are processed goat hair. I think where they got confused is that angora goats produce cashmere. Angora fiber comes from angora rabbits. Which reminds me, I have about 4 ounces of angora hanging around somewhere in my fiber stash. I'll have to run some of it through the drum carder (once I get it) with some of the merino stash I have.

Sigh.

Loong Weekend coming!!
But probably no fiber excitement this coming weekend. I am planning to paint my living room and bathroom instead, starting Thursday evening. I started painting it in November, so it's really time to finish it up. I'm about done with ignoring two of the walls in the living room and the rather uneven painting job I did on one of the finished walls is starting to drive me bonkers.

On the other hand, I might just have to take a break for a couple of hours to catch a movie on TV or DVD and finished that silly Kiri Shawl. No, I still haven't stretched it out to see how big it is, but I have decided that this is indeed the final repeat before the border. So *there*! :o)

Fleecy Pictures!

This is the dark Coopworth fleece I wrote about, spread out on the living room floor. Just looking at it makes me want to go to The Fiber Event and pick up another one (or two) from Hidden Valley Farm. There's not a speck of vegetation in this fleece and very little dirt. The staple length is about 4 inches.


This is an assortment of the other fleeces I have waiting for me. The sample in the bottom middle actually washes up to be white. The bottom left is a pale gray. The bottom right is a dark gray/brown.


Decisions, Decisions.....
Which spinning project or fleece I'll tackle next seems to change every day. Heck, so does the next knitting project. Since I was traveling this week for work, I got very little knitting done and I don't feel much like knitting or spinning this weekend. I'm tired enough, mentally and physically, that I just want to sit in my comfy chair and drool on myself in front of the TV.

Fleecy Goodness!

Since I'm nearly done teasing apart the light gray Coopworth fleece, I decided to get out the dark gray fleece. I unrolled it on the floor to have a look at the color. There's not a speck of veggie matter in the entire fleece, hardly any dirt and not much grease either. This sheep was clearly a neat freak who avoided mud puddles. Then again, all the Hidden Valley fleeces seem to come from neat freak sheep. A photo of the dark fleece will come soon, I promise.

Now that I've gotten the dark fleece out and started playing with it, I feel the urge to actually work with one of the cream colored fleeces. I have a cream colored Coopworth also from Hidden Valley Farm, plus two fine-wool crossbreds, a long-wool of some sort and a Shetland. I found some washed Cotswold locks and some washed Romney too. I don't know how they washed the Cotswold, but the tips are still full of dirt/mud even though the lanolin has been removed. Unfortunately the dirt seems to be eating the fiber and the lock structure is somewhat compromised. I may soak the whole lot to soften up the mud and see how much of it I can wash out.

I had a look at the two Romney fleeces I got from some 4-H kids a couple of years ago. These fleeces are fairly clean and not at all greasy, but they got packed hard into the shipping box. It feels as though the compression and probably some heat (from being stored in a non-climate controlled area) has started to felt them together (or else they were washed before I bought them). The lighter of the two fleeces has some veggie matter in it (crushed leaves from hay), but that ought to fall out when the fleece is picked. The darker of the fleeces looks very clean and no second cuts.

If the weather is nice over the weekend, I may take one of the darker Shetland fleeces outside, unroll it and shake out the second cuts and veggie matter. One of them has some VM in it. The other one is clean. The less than ideal fleece is from a less experienced grower, but it's got a nice color and good length.

Speaking of less than ideal fleeces, I had purchased several Friesian fleeces via E-bay some time ago. I think there were two or three of them. Not at all well skirted and full of VM (mostly on the surface rather than worked into the fleece). I had done a cursory sorting job when I first got the fleeces and have several bags of not-so-nice wool waiting to have something done with them. I have decided that the not-so-nice wool will become mulch in the garden. Apparently wool works very well as a mulch for strawberries and for fruit trees. I will definitely be using some of the dirtier wool for mulch.

Anyway, I ought to have the rest of the first Coopworth fleece teased apart by the end of the weekend and then wash it over the following week. I had initially planned to comb it, but I might card it instead since that will go faster (once I get the drum carder, that is). Of course, I can comb it now whereas the carding would have to wait on the arrival of said drum carder which is, as yet, unpurchased.

As far as the knitting goes, I haven't done any in the past few days. I'm out of town for training for three days this week, including two nights in a hotel--always a good knitting opportunity. I'll be taking a sock and possibly the Kiri with me. I might even finish the sock, if not the Kiri. Speaking of socks, I should find the yarn for the second blue sock. Not that I need wool socks here any more. (On that note, a co-worker said she'd had to put on the air conditioning at home because it was hot. It was 73 degrees out today. I can't imagine what she's going to do in August when it's 95 degrees out and she grew up here!!!)

Fibery Rants

Washing wool
*Stop* calling wool a "living fiber". The fiber is actually dead when it leaves the follicle on the sheep. That's why you can cut it off without injuring the sheep. In that respect it's just like hair. The only part of the hair fiber that is alive is the follicle.

Yes, wool is sensitive to extremes in pH, but so are most things. Soap, however, is not evil. Soap is not unbalanced in terms of pH. When soap is made, sodium hydroxide (a strong alkali) is mixed with fats to create the soap. The amounts of alkali and fats are balanced so that all the alkali is consumed. In fact, many soaps have excess fats in them to provide for a more emollient feel. These fats can be left on the skin or whatever is being washed, but are usually rinsed away. In any event, using a soap does NOT automatically result in pH imbalance in whatever is being washed. If a soap was a harsh alkali, it would burn your skin. Not just dry it out, but actually produce a chemical burn. I've used Ivory soap for years (it is 99.99% soap) and haven't had a burn yet.

The choice between soap and detergent depends to some extent on your water supply. Hard water and soap do not work well together. That combination produces soap scum, not only on your bathtub but also on your clothes and the fiber you are trying to clean. In that situation, you can either use a softening agent in the wash water or use a detergent. Detergents were developed to work with hard water situations and do a much better cleaning job than soaps in that situation.

Yes, washing wool to remove the lanolin, dirt and other contaminants can result in the fiber feeling dry. It feels dry because the lanolin and other natural oils have been removed. Your hair does the same thing. You have two options: either don't remove all the lanolin/oils or to replace them with some sort of emollient or oil. In any event, the fault does not lie with the cleaning agent, but with the application of that cleaning agent to the fiber.

On protecting the environment:
Occasionally the bashing of acrylic fibers is done under the guise of protecting the environment. Acrylic is bad because it is not "natural" and is made from petroleum products. These folks advocate cotton or wool because they are better for the environment. Have you ever looked at what goes into cotton production and its impact on the environment? Do you realize that cotton is one of the most chemically treated crops on the planet? Cotton production uses 11% of the pesticides and 25% of the insecticides produced in a year despite being only 2.4% of all the crops grown in the world (Source). The plants are sprayed repeatedly to kill weeds and insects. Prior to harvest, defoliants are used to destroy all the leaves so the cotton won't be contaminated by leaf matter. Some defoliants are organophosphates and have neurological effects on birds, mammals, fish and invertebrates. (As an aside, organophosphates are also used in nerve agents.) Non-organophosphate defoliants are still highly toxic in the environment even if they don't have demonstrative reproductive or neurologic effects in humans. Field runoff still kills fish, plants and aquatic invertebrates.

So perhaps cotton isn't as environmentally friendly as you might think.

Wool Allergy Rant

A topic which comes up regularly on the various knitting list is allergic reactions to wool. A person asking the question "What shall I knit my hat with if the person I'm giving it to is allergic to wool?" is inevitably bombarded with messages telling him or her that said person cannot be allergic to wool because either true wool allergies don't exist or that people aren't allergic to wool itself, but only to the chemicals used in processing or dyeing it. In either event, the knitter is advised to use wool anyway in whatever he or she is knitting.

This aggravates me. A LOT. I post here a rant on this very subject.

Does it really matter if the recipient of the gift is truly allergic or "merely" sensitive to a particular fiber? They have expressed a preference. I would think that disregarding that preference because you think you know better than they do what they like or dislike
serves only to guarantee an unsuccessful gift. This person, in expressing their preference (or their restriction) is giving you a clue on how to come up with a successful gift (eg something they will use, wear or otherwise enjoy). It may not make any sense to you that someone might find the finest, softest Merino processed in the gentlest manner to be completely irritating and scratchy. That doesn't mean it isn't real to *them* and it doesn't mean they don't
have the right to avoid such an unpleasant encounter, particularly since they made sure you were aware of the limitation. Personally, I think it's borderline rude to just ignore someone's assertion that wool (or whatever fiber) is a problem for them.

I've seen a contact dermatitis rash on a toddler that was cause by the wool blanket that someone gave his mother "because babies aren't allergic to wool". (Mom was unaware that the blanket was wool since she had told the knitter that wool was a problem.) It may not be a full-blown anaphylactic reaction (where your airway swells up and your eyes swell shut, etc), but it's certainly the overactive immune response that is generally referred to as an "allergic reaction". Regardless of what you want to label it, the blanket and that child are *never* going to be happy together. I know the toddler was miserable. I have no idea how guilty the knitter felt or if they decided that the parents were rude and ungrateful because the child was never going to use the painstakingly knitted blanket he was given.

This brings me to the gift end of the equation: Every year, just before the winter holidays, people begin to ask what to knit various people who are either picky or have stated that they don't like whatever it is hte knitter loves to knit the best. ("My doesn't like or wear hats, but I want to knit him a hat so s/he doesn't get a cold head. What pattern do you recommend?") Shortly after the holidays there will be the ever popular January topic of "The Ungrateful Knitted Gift Recipient" in which the recipient is bashed and the knitter wails about how all their hard work and time and emotional involvement was just shoved into a box and left in a corner. I have often wondered how closely these two things are related.

Why would you knit someone an item you *know* they aren't going to enjoy? Why waste that time, that energy and that yarn? I have seen many people on various knitting lists talk about the horribly ungrateful person who was given an intricate handknit sweater but never wore it. Yet we all laughed about the sweaters Mrs. Weasley knit for Harry and his friends in the Harry Potter books/movies. Somehow that's not nearly as funny when *you* are the knitter, is it? Why set yourself up for failure?

If you *do* knit something that the recipient does not like for whatever reason (and they may never tell you why they don't like it so as to spare your feelings), do NOT get crabby and resentful when the recipient doesn't wear it. If you are going to knit something and have any number of strings attached to it, including whether or not you will consider that person to be worth any sort of civil treatment for the rest of your lives, why bother? Isn't the process of giving and receiving a gift supposed to bring joy? Why not get a head start and give something which the *recipient* might like, not just something that you would like if someone made it for you or something you've been meaning to knit but didn't have an excuse to knit until now? There was one year where I knit hats and sweaters for charity (and donated them in hte names of my family members), then gave NOBODY in my family any gifts other than a small gift card
for each person. They *loved* that idea and everybody was happy. (I do realize this does not work for most families and certainly not with kids, but it's an idea. Feel free to come up with your own creative solution and develop your own tradition.)

I do not deny that there are ungrateful gift recipients out there. There are those who don't like presents unless they have the "right" labels in them (from the "right' designer or store, etc). There are those folks who simply do not like handmade/homemade *anything*. These people may or may not be gracious in their receipt of a gift which is not to their liking. Some people truly do not understand how much time and effort goes into a knitted gift. Some of them really don't care. Let it be. There are plenty of things in the world that each of us doesn't care about that others find to be of the utmost importance. Do NOT just blast people for that or for not liking the gift you gave them. It doesn't matter how long it took you to knit that queen-sized lace bedspread if it's not something that suits your grown son and his wife. Wailing about how long you worked on it and how they refuse to use it is only going to generate hurt feelings on both sides. Think about how women feel when their "clod" of a husband gives them something romantic like snow tires for Valentine's Day. Is it any different to give someone a knitted gift that isn't actually something that suits the recipient?

What I recommend is something I am going to term the "Gift Swatch". Most knitters use swatches to make sure they're achieving the correct gauge so that the resultant item will actually be the desired size. A "gift swatch" is something of a test to find out what sort of knitted item a potential recipient will like. Knitted presents aren't really things that you can just give blindly. You need to have some idea what the recipient will like, if you expect them to ever use it, assuming that USING the knitted gift is your actual goal. You can be sneaky and ask generic questions about hats or sweaters or just ask them to feel a particular ball of yarn. You can tell them that you'd like to knit them something but want to make sure it's something they'll enjoy. Someone else who posted recently suggested giving the recipient a list of possibilities and ask them to pick something out. I have taken my sister to the yarn shop and had her pick out yarn and a pattern for a sweater. It wasn't a complete surprise when she got it, but she still squealed with joy when she opened it because it was *exactly* what she wanted. Someone else several years ago said that in her family one person is chosen each year to receive a handknit sweater. Everybody else gets store-bought gifts that year. I believe the recipient chose the color and had input into the design. There is no rule that a gift must be a complete surprise in order to be successful. I would argue that for some gifts having it be 100% surprise is a great way to have
an unpleasant gift experience on both sides.

Anyway, it's something to think about. I'll get off my soap box now and go back to finishing my socks. :o)

More Knitting!!

Believe it or not, I actually knit on both Saturday *and* Sunday this past weekend. I'm even going to knit tonight!!! I finished up a repeat on the Kiri and fixed that lace boo-boo from last week. Tonight I hope to get one more repeat done and then I think I'll just put on the border. I know I keep saying that, but this time I really mean it. I will have leftover yarn that I'll have to make a scarf or something else with. I don't like having odds and ends of yarn. It seems wasteful somehow to me for stuff to be leftover like that and then I have to go find some other project to use the leftovers in. I'll just have to deal with it.

Fleece!
While I was being productive this weekend, I also washed up the bin full of teased Coopworth and part of a fleece from 2002 or 2003. It's got lots of curl to it, but I have no idea what it is. Some sort of long-wool. The Coopworth is one of three fleeces I have from Hidden Valley Farm, which was featured in SpinOff not too long ago. I have at least one other gray fleece and one or two cream colored ones. My intention with the two gray fleeces (one dark and one light) was to spin and weave myself a Lord of the Rings cloak. I don't know that I'll actually do that, but I might.

I also came to the conclusion that I need to buy a drum carder. I'm not going to ever get around to shipping the fleeces off to be processed, at least not without worrying the entire time about whether or not the fleeces are being handled how I want them handled. Frankly, with the shipping costs both ways, it's not that much more expensive to get the drum carder and then I can amortize the cost over all the future fleeces I'll bring home since I doubt I'll quit buying fleeces. I would also have the option of blending fibers much easier with the drum carder. Right now I'm restricted to hand cards or my English combs. I do have several ounces of soy silk and Ingeo that would be lovely blended in with some fine wool. Conveniently I have just a couple pounds or so of merino roving....

Sweater Picture!
No, I didn't knit on this sweater. I just finally got a picture posted of it. All it needs is the shawl collar knitted onto it and I can call it *done*! I even managed to find the pattern for it this weekend! It's Mexicali Baby Ole from the Summer 2003, Knitters'. I'm using Socknitters' Rainbow from Lorna's Laces. This was the colorway which was going to be sold exclusively to members of the Socknitters group, but somehow ended up going into general production once it became popular. The purple for the collar and center stripe is Socka.

And on that note, I'm going to logoff and knit while watching I, Robot. :o)

Knitting!!

I got to knit!! I got to knit!!

I went to the local knitting group that meets at the library once a month. I sat and chatted for about 90 minutes. There were three other women there. One has been knitting for over 40 years and was working on a baby sweater. Another had been knitting for three weeks and was teaching herself how to do yarn overs. The third is an advanced beginning knitter and was working on a hat. I did a couple of rows on my Kiri shawl. I think I might have goofed up the last row, however, so might be pulling that out later this evening. It was quite comforting for the beginning knitter to see that I had to stop and fix some mistakes. She was convinced that "real" knitters don't do things like that. I was able to reassure her that even knitters with 14 years of experience make mistakes and we laughed about it.

Fiber Weekend Plan
I dragged out one of the Coopworth fleeces last night and started teasing the fiber apart. I am much farther along in the process than I thought I was. There are only a few pounds left to tease apart and then I can just wash it all and comb it. The latter two steps won't happen this weekend, but I can at least get the fiber ready for washing and possibly even get a start on the washing process.

Tonight I'll either tease more fleece or I'll tear out that row of the Kiri. I haven't decided which I want to do.

Update:
YAY for me!!! I fixed the error in the Kiri *without* ripping it out!!! The error involved an area with increases next to a column of yarnovers and I was able to figure it out and make the side with the error match the other side of the mirror point of the repeat unit. The stitches are a bit uneven, but that will sort itself out with blocking. I am on the last row of the repeat. I have decided, given the amount of yarn I have left to do at least one more set of repeats. I could probably do two or three more, but I don't want the shawl to be too large. Tomorrow I need to put it on waste yarn and pin it out. That will require purchasing some pins. I have been completely unable to locate my sewing pins or my measuring tapes. I don't know which box they ended up in, but they're not with any of the sewing stuff.

Still No Knitting

Life has simply interfered in my evil plan. I have completed exactly NO projects and we're now in to March. I won't get anything done this weekend either. I am so far behind at work (and in getting the routine life chores done) that I won't have any chance to get any knitting done. Perhaps, if I get caught up on work this weekend I'll actually be able to knit next week. I can't actually remember when I last did any knitting. Or anything else for myself, actually.

Sigh.