In which I handcard and acquire a new spindle

A basket of handcarded mixed wools. I was practicing handcarding and color mixing using odds and ends of leftover rovings.

My new Grafton flagship spindle. I love it.

In which I am a bad, bad girl

Here it is Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend and I can think of nothing but wanting to knit. The problem is that I still have a few hours to go before I can leave my office and I really should be writing performance reviews. I, of course, have no desire to write performance reviews at the moment--or at any time, if truth be told. It's really quiet around the office and streets of the financial district are basically empty. Do you think I can get away with a row or three? (I've got a clapotis as my carry around knitting.)

Hey, I wanna do that!

I spent yesterday afternoon spinning on my Joy while keeping Kristine company at the Claremont Middle School Spring Fling. Claremont Middle School is in the Rockridge area of Oakland. They have an amazing school garden and music program. Kristine's booth was on the lawn near the garden and the petting zoo (which had the cutest little pig).

The beginning of the event was slow back where we were. By early afternoon, a number of kids had stopped by to see what Kristine was selling and what Adrienne, Sara and I were doing. Soon Adrienne and Sara were showing kids how to spin on a spindle. There was one boy that was closely watching me. I asked him if he wanted to learn how to spin. "Yeah." "On a spindle?" "No, on that" pointing to the spinning wheel. I slowed down to show him exactly what I was doing with my hands--a modified long draw. Then we switched places. At first, he wanted to treadle just as fast as he would if he were riding a bike and the wheel kept snatching the fiber from his hands. I stopped him and got him to treadle a bit slower. He started making bumpy, lumpy yarn like all beginners make. Then the urge to race the treadles bit him again. Snatch, stop, re-thread the orifice, start again.

After about 10 minutes, I noticed a little girl sitting on the chair next me. I asked her what she thought about spinning. Her answer: "Hey, I wanna do that!"

So I began the cycle of showing another child how to operate the spinning wheel. Man, was she determined. After awhile, she stopped and wanted to spin some different colored fiber. I asked her why. "Because this is ugly." (Mind you, this was some polwarth I bought at Deep Color Studio last summer in a colorway I love called "Black Magic".) "I wanna spin some of that" pointing at some of Kristine's indigo dyed fiber. I explained that we couldn't use that and that I didn't have any other fiber other than the "ugly" stuff with me.

"Well, I don't like it."
"Okay, what colors do you like?" I asked.
"White."
"Why do you like white?"
"Because it's pretty" all the while grinning at the sky.

This Baby Surprise Jacket flew off of my needles last week. I made it for a co-worker's newly adopted newborn girl. The buttons are Peter Rabbit and are leftover from baby things I made for my daughter forever ago.

Handspun weekend

This is the yarn I made this weekend. It is a combination of this:

baby llama purchased from A Verb for Keeping Warm at Colors last weekend and

80% merino/20% tencel purchased from Deep Color Studio in December.

I hand spun the merino/tencel and spun the baby llama on my Schacht Matchless. The colors of the merino/tencel are bright and the gray of the llama tones them down so that they are much softer. The yarn is approximately 18 wpi and 262 yards. I'm thinking neckwarmer.

The most stylish woman on my street

This lovely lady lives in one of my neighbor's front yard. She is always there, regardless of the weather. She makes me smile every time I see her.

RIP Ada

I hoped against hope that in the end Ada would turn out to be the perfect throw on sweater. Alas, I was mistaken. Last night, Ada and I bid farewell. And this morning, Ada went to the frog pond. Ada, it was fun while it lasted.

Colors--A Fiber Festival

Yesterday was Colors in Berkeley. This event was pulled together by Sara, Kristine of A Verb for Keeping Warm, and Brooke and Maia of Tactile Fiber Arts. In addition to fiber and yarn from A Verb for Keeping Warm and Tactile Fiber Arts, there was fiber and other goodies from Pigeonroof Studios and Girl on the Rocks. Plus, there were three sessions of beginning drop spindling and three different fiber tastings. It was great fun.

I took the Exotics fiber tasting with Kristine. We spun baby alpaca, alpaca with silk, baby llama, baby camel with silk and 100% cashmere. It was all yummy and gave me an idea of what to ply with this merino/tencel blend I'm spinning on my Bosworth midi spindle.


This is going to look gorgeous with the baby llama I bought from A Verb for Keeping Warm.


Kristine is a really good teacher. There was the right mix of general chatting, discussion of the fibers we were spinning, and spinners silently concentrating on their spinning. I would highly recommend if you are in the Bay Area and get a chance to take a spinning class from Kristine that you leap. I've not taken spinning classes from Maia or Brooke; the buzz was that they are great teachers as well. I occasionally spin with both of them and can speak to their understanding of spinning and fibers--deep, very deep.

For me, one of the best parts of the day was meeting old friends from Deep Color and new friends from Ravelry. I loved sitting and knitting and spinning with Kathleen, Sara, Adrienne, Krista, Wonder Mike and Hizknits from Yknit. (If you haven't listened to their latest episode which is an interview with Lucy Neatby, what are you waiting for?) I met a lot of people from Ravelry whom I can't mention by name because I'm absolutely terrible about remembering names.

Here is the rest of the stash acquisition from yesterday.
100% Finn in Indigo Dip from A Verb for Keeping Warm.
80 merino 20 silk in Headlands from A Verb for Keeping Warm.
Superwash merino in Pink Cady from Pigeonroof Studios.
Superwash merino in Harlequin from Pigeonroof Studios.

I also bought the sweetest stitch markers from Girl on the Rocks and forgot to take a picture.

Just in case it looks as if I've done nothing but add to my stash, I present last week's spinning project: 268 yards of 80 merino 20 silk dyed with logwood grey from Tactile Fiber Arts.


Ada update: less than 20 rows to knit before I'm finished with both sleeves!

Let's make thread

This past Sunday I had the great pleasure of giving my Louet student spindle to a friend's five year old. Every time he has visited my house, he's wanted to "make thread." On Sunday as he spun, he told me he was going to make a pillow with his thread. To help him meet this fantastic goal, I gave him a bunch of small skeins of my hand spun. As he was getting ready to leave, I gave him a bag with some of rovings I had make with my improvised hackle. He is really a ways away from really spinning as his small motor skills don't match his ambition yet. I'm just so thrilled that he wants to learn to spin.

I finished knitting one sleeve of Ada. I didn't knit the full 9 1/2 inches of garter stitch the pattern calls for, stopping at around 8 inches because I didn't want a sleeve that grazes my knuckles (apparently, I've got short arms because I'm always shortening sleeve lengths when I knit or sew). I just have to finish knitting the garter portion of the second sleeve, sew up the shoulder seams, pick up and knit the front and neck band, sew up the sleeve seams, set in the sleeves and find a button. I figure another week and I'll be finished.

Experimenting

I've been busy experimenting with natural dyes. Last weekend I dyed up the last of my white BFL with cochineal and marigold. Here's what it looked like before I overdyed it.


I'd been inspired by some lavender growing in my neighborhood. So I overdyed it with logwood grey and got this.
I like the soft colors a lot.

I also experimented with an improvised wool hackle made from a hair pick and a table vise.

It works and is a lot less expense than buying a hackle. I'm going to keep playing with this set up until I decide whether or not I really like blending on a hackle enough to sink some money into a better set up, which will probably be homemade as well. Here's the first roving I pull off of the hackle.


Right now Ada is blocking. I used my Knitter's Blocks and steam blocked the top. I'll have to block the garter portion separately. I'm half through knitting the first sleeve and so far, so good.

Architectural Rib Pullover revisited

Remember this? It is going to live with Kristine. I know that Kristine will give it a good home. I loved knitting it. It just isn't flattering on me. I got a really good idea for using the angled ribbing as a kick pleat in a skirt. I used up some of my stash yarn that I couldn't bring myself to give away as yarn and I've still got just under 3 skeins left to make something special for myself. For me, the best part is always in the making rather than the wearing. I thought about unraveling it and making something else. But this sweater is such a beautiful thing that I couldn't bring myself to do it.

I finished the body of Ada and started the sleeves, which I am knitting one at a time in case I encounter any problems. I really love the look of this sweater. Yet, man oh man, interpretation of the pattern has been a bit of a trial for me. Have I learned anything in the process? Yeah, I love knitting with my handspun!

A weekend of natural dyeing

I spent last weekend dyeing BFL with marigold (grown by me last summer), cochineal, and black walnut. These were all kettle dyed.

Marigold.

Cochineal; it's a bit darker in real life.

Black walnut; I was going for a color that reminds me of coffee with lots of cream. This is pretty close.

I also got these in the mail.

Blackbird from Butterfly Girl Designs, a blend of 60% merino, 30% bamboo and 10% nylon firestar; it appeals to my inner magpie!

Dance of the Dervish BFL from Crown Mountain.

A little progress

I've made a bit of progress on Ada, not much really. There are a lot of stitches on the needle--you start with 260 and decrease 2 stitches every three rows plus it's garter stitch, which eats up yarn but doesn't add a lot of inches. I've probably got about 5" more to go before switching to stockinette and shaping the bodice. This really doesn't make for good blog fodder, but it is what it is.

On Sunday, I started spinning up some carbonized bamboo that I bought from Tactile Fiber Arts. It wasn't smooth spinning at all. I predrafted thin strips of fiber and was getting lumpy yarn. I fluffed it even more and tried spinning over the fold--still getting lumpy yarn. On top of all of that I wasn't enjoying the hand of this fiber at all. The last time I spun bamboo I had the same reaction about the hand. On Monday, I inspected my results and hated, hated, hated them. So the spun fiber came off the bobbin. I gathered up the unspun fiber as well and trotted off to the garbage shoot and gleefully dumped it. I just needed it out of my life. This is no reflection on the quality of Tactile's fiber. I've spun other fibers from them and they were quite nice. In fact, I'm spinning up a lovely merino silk blend that was dyed with logwood gray I bought from them at Lambtown last summer. I just think that bamboo and I don't get along!

A wee bit more from Stitches West

I feel so lucky; I won a prize from the Ravelry raffle at Stitches West. I never, ever win drawings. Surprisingly, my name was drawn for one of the prizes from A Verb for Keeping Warm. While Kristine is a friend of mine, this was a complete, utter surprise and there was no monkey business with the drawing.

Here's my swag.

422 yards of fingering weight of an alpaca/silk blend. This yarn is lush.

This bag has already traveled to Los Angeles loaded down with books!

I've been spinning some of the fiber I bought from A Verb for Keeping Warm at Stitches. This is 2 oz. of merino dyed with cosmos grown by Adrienne and Kristine last year and overdyed with indigo. I think I'm going to knit a shoulder shawl with this.

Hello, Ada

I started knitting the new Article Pract pattern "Ada" while on vacation. My gut told me that there was a mistake in the stitch marker placement--of course, I ignored myself. I knit almost 10" of the body before I accepted that my gut was right. I ripped it out and started over after I contacted Christina at Article Pract to see if, indeed, the pattern had a mistake. She is posting the errata on the pattern page over at the Article Pract website.

Oh, and I'm knitting it out of the wine colored merino handspun I spun last fall.

Where I've been

Two glorious weeks at the beach in Southern California--a much needed break from my regular routine. I took my daughter down to LA for LA Fashion Week; drove around most of west LA taking her to casting calls.

Explored a few yarn and fiber shops while there. Loved, loved, loved two of the shops: Knit Cafe in West Hollywood and Wild Fiber in Santa Monica. What made them so wonderful? Both had a ton of natural light and friendly staff. Good natural light always grabs me.

I didn't get much knitting done so I have no real progress to report in that regard. And, now I'm back at work and my regular routine. Fortunately, the weather in the Bay Area is quite wonderful and warm, but right now I wish I was here:

Spinning a dream

I'm spinning the bundle on the left--a lovely merino from A Verb for Keeping Warm, colorway "Cosmos"--as a lace weight. This is dyed with cosmos grown in Kristine and Adrienne's dye garden and overdyed with indigo. I'm in love!

Stitches West

I spent yesterday at Stitches West in Santa Clara. I had a great time, met a lot of people from Ravelry including the guys from Yknit and Jenny and Nicole from Stash and Burn, and visited a lot of vendors that were new to me thanks to the Ravelry passport game.

I'm still recovering from the yarn fumes, so here is my day in pictures.

The patterns:


The books:


The yarn:
Sock yarn from A Verb for Keeping Warm; for my mom.

Primero from Brooks Farm; also for my mom.

Sock yarn from Tactile Fiberarts; for my mom.

Millends from Blue Moon Fiber; medium-weight Socks That Rock.

The roving:
Fire on the Mountain merino superwash from Blue Moon Fiber.

50% merino 50% bamboo from Creatively Dyed Yarns.

Merino in "Cosmos" and polwarth in "Correopsis" from A Verb for Keeping Warm's Garden Series 2007.

A change of heart

I've decided that the Architectural Rib Pullover would look better on my daughter. So I've gifted it to her. I really enjoyed knitting it. Since it's all about process for me, that is enough.

Don't judge too harshly

This is the architectural rib pullover on. It fits closer than I thought it would. I got gauge and thought I picked the right size according to my measurements. My daughter says it looks better in real life than in the photo. I hate having my picture taken and never hold my body in a natural way when I know the camera is on me. So forgive the wrinkles above my bust.

Fighting Tofu

I have been in an ambivalent frame of mind when it comes to knitting. As Natalie Goldberg writes in Writing Down the Bones, I was fighting the tofu. Fighting the tofu gets you nowhere.

The conversation in my head goes something like this:
"I want to spin."
"You need to finish knitting Caitlin's sweater."
"I'll knit later; after I've spun for a little while."
"You'll knit right now!"

So while my head talks to itself, nothing gets done. I don't spin nor do I knit. Goldberg goes on to say "If those characters in you want to fight, let them fight. Meanwhile, the sane part of you should quietly get up, go over to your notebook, and begin to write from a deeper, more peaceful place." So for the past couple of evenings, I've let my head fight it out while I picked up my needles and knit. I don't have pictures yet. The knitting is easy; I can do it without looking. And, after awhile my head stops fighting and begins to enjoy the creative process.

This sweater which has taunted me since the end of January is practically knitting itself because I've stopped resisting the process. I've got my knitting mojo back. It's not come back in a blaze of fire. It's just back and I've stopped looking for reasons not to knit. I didn't really do anything special to get my mojo back. For the first time in a very long time, I let my life take its course and did what felt right.

If spinning felt right, that was fine. I spun. I even thought about the sweater, but I always brought myself back to what I was doing at that moment. I just took note of the command to get knitting and filed it away. I kept spinning.

A few days ago, I picked up the sweater thinking I would knit a few rounds. And those few rounds became a few more. Tuesday night while knitting at a friend's house, I enjoyed the conversation and let my fingers feel the knitting. When I got home I was surprised to see that I had knit about 3 more inches of the body.

Yesterday, I was reading Goldberg and came across the phrase "fighting the tofu." It seemed to perfectly describe what I've been going through with knitting. Now, mind you, I've read this book a few times and this never jumped out at me before. I really like it.

And, I'm going to stop fighting the tofu.

Oh, and this is what I've spun when I haven't been knitting.