New Addition

So, as you may have surmised by checking my flickr acount, I have a new spinning wheel!

Whee! Wheel!

It's a Fricke S-160 F: a single treadle folding wheel. I've been playing a lot with it, and after a few growing pains, I think I'm in love! Here's my first product:

English Rose

This is the wool roving that I dyed and blogged about here (well, the pink on the left - I haven't gotten to the blue on the right yet). It's about 80 yds and a pretty good worsted/bulky weight 2-ply.
I've moved on to some of the Spinners Hill top that I bought at Rhinebeck - I don't know how much yardage I'm going to wind up with, but it seems like I've been spinning forever!

I've also been doing a bit of dyeing -

Tequila Sunrise and Swamp Thing!

Merino/Silk. Yummy.

Oh, and you know all of those knitting works in progress that I blogged about earlier? Yeah, no progress on any of them. In the time when I'm not spinning, I've been sucked into the baby-knitting vortex. Hopefully I'll have this sweater done by a shower on Sunday:

Love!

And it's even from Stash yarn, hooray!

Mittens!

Mittens!

Pattern: Loosely based on the mitten pattern in the Catalina Yarns Chunky Essentials pattern book, with some mods
Yarn: Catalina Yarns Baby Alpaca Chunky, 100% alpaca
Needles: KnitPicks interchangeables, size 8?
Started: ~ January 3, 2007
Finished: ~ January 30, 2007 (slight delay for photos and post)

Comments: Do you have any idea how hard it is to take pictures of your own hands? This is the best I could do holding my camera under my chin. It's not perfect, but you get the gist. Two solid yellow mittens in fuzzy alpaca. They're starting to felt slightly, making them exactly the size of my hands, which is just fabulous. And I finished them just in time for winter to hit DC!

Snowball!

The yarn and pattern book were from Heather at last year's stash swap. So, not only did I make myself a pair of mittens that I really need, I also knit them from stash. Sweet!

And figuring out how to take a picture of my own hands was not the only adventure involved in this photo shoot. When I first went out the door into my back yard, I noticed some paw prints across the snow - some of the neighborhood kittens. Then, while I was balancing my camera under my chin and taking blurry photos of my thumb, I looked up to notice the neighborhood gray tabby cat - the one that looks like Linus - walking toward me. I said "Hello kitty," and then thought, "That's the cat that looks like Linus!"
And then I looked at my back door and noticed Cleo sitting on the stoop - outside. Hmm. That probably then was not the cat that looked like Linus. I managed to convince Cleo to go back inside, shut the door behind her, and then went back to corral the other cat. But not before taking a photo or two.

Linus has a snowy adventure!

I had to do a bit of chasing to catch him, but I did. He didn't appear to appreciate being forced out of his outdoor playground, but he did spend the next few minutes sitting in front of the vent and licking his paws. I think he's lucky to be an indoor cat!

Travel and new WIPs

Last week, I was looking at this...

Ocean...

Today, this is my view:

Yes, that is snow (a little)

The Pomatomus sock enjoyed the trip too, making it officially my most well-traveled sock (San Diego to Tanzania is 10092 miles or 16242 km). It posed with all of the safari animals, and was missing wildlife, so it jumped at the chance for a photoshoot with some animals. Even if they completely ignored us.

Beach slugs. I mean, harbor seals

Actually, you can see the beach slugs in the first picture, too - all of those brown specks on the beach and rocks. And big news on the Pomatomus sock - it's done! OK, technically I need to graft the toe together, but the knitting is done. Now I just need to make the second one.

But now I'm back home in the snow and ice storm (yippee for early dismissal, though!). However, I've decided that that's OK, because now I can still justify knitting sweaters! Here's what's on the needles (great airplane knitting):

Loving it!

This is A Cardigan for Arwen from the winter 2006 Interweave Knits. I'm knitting it in Ming, a 50% wool 50% silk blend from Artfibers that I bought last summer in color 9 - a gorgeous blue-black that's perfect for Project Spectrum! I was so excited about this sweater (and yarn) that I actually swatched, washed the swatch, and blocked it! Good thing, too - it bloomed quite a bit and I went up a needle size from the pre-washed swatch. I think I'm going to modify it a bit - I am considering trying to knit it without a hood. I have some qualms wearing hooded cardigans to work on days that aren't "casual Friday" and I'd like to get more wear out of this sweater. I'm thinking about what I'm going to do at the neck, though. I could just end the cable and do a hem around the collar, similar to the bottom. I would really like to try something crazy, though, and figure out how to do a mitered corner in the cable pattern. Elsebeth Lavold teaches a 3-hour workshop on it, but I'm most likely not going to Sweden for it, so I think I'll just be figuring it out by myself. If anyone has any pointers, please let me know!!! Or impatience to have a finished sweater may just win out and I'll go with the hood. Time will tell.

Also cast on just today is a mindless knitting project.

Knitting in the round is good

This is going to grow up to be a vest loosely based on Gesta (Cornelia Tuttle Hamilton Book 2 - better known as the Klaralund book). In fact, it was going to be Gesta, but then I realized that the gauge was very different - about half in fact. So now I'm just going to wing it. OK, so maybe it's not that mindless, but I am excited about my ribbed scoop neck sweater vest. I'm making it out of Noro Big Bebe, which I got at Stitches East last fall. Gorgeous yarn, at a great discout (75% off), in a ridiculous put-up of 27.5 yards per skein. There's going to be a lot of ends to weave in on this baby!

There's other exciting craft news to share, but that can wait until my next post... for a preview you can check out my flickr account.

Of Stash, Sales, Super Bowl and more...

We're going to a Super Bowl party this evening - go Colts! I spent most of my formative years living just outside of Indianapolis, and I remember when they moved there from Baltimore. My first professional football game was to see the Colts with my friend Kathy and her dad, back when the stadium was called the Hoosier Dome. Most of the time I lived in the Midwest, the Colts were known as the Dolts because they were truly terrible. It's nice to see them finally having a good year. However, this will make watching the game much more stressful than most Super Bowls, where I could care less...

Since it's Super Bowl Sunday, it was also the Springwater Fiber Workshop annual early morning sale! The sale starts at 7 AM, with (marked) yarns at 60% off the regular price. At 8 AM, the sale goes to 50% off, and at 9 AM and for the rest of the day it's 40%. However, if you got there at 9 AM there probably wasn't very much left. I was there at about 7:20 and I think most of the good yarns were already gone. It was much like the Running of the Brides at Filene's Basement - people were spread out all over the floor sorting through bags full of yarn. I think the prevailing philosophy was "grab first, decide later." However, I wasn't particularly shopping for yarn (although some of the bags that went out the door looked lovely, especially at 60% off!), thanks to Knit From Your Stash. But then I was standing next to a table when someone dropped off a reject that they'd decided not to take, and that's how I wound up bringing this home:

It followed me home! Can I keep it?

That's 14 skeins of Adrienne Vittadini Dianna, a supersoft cotton/acrylic blend. And a bag of 100% lyocell, a cellulose-based fiber derived from wood, to try to spin with - I bought a shirt recently that was lyocell and it's super soft and lovely. And also "the eco friendly cotton alternative." And fairly cheap.

So that's all the yarn damage I did... and I'll play my KFYS "Get out of Jail Free Card." Now, the book table was another story... other people were surrounded by yarn, I filled my arms with books and then sat down to sort them. I did put some back, but I still managed to make it home with these:

Some light reading material!

I'm a sucker for European pattern magazines - always have been, always will be. This is a pretty good representation - Anny Blatt, Bouton D'or, Phildar, Filati, Dale, Rowan, and Adrienne Vittadini. Plus a book on designing your own knitwear by Becky's go-to reference Montse Stanley (who I'd always assumed was a man, based on the name Montse, until I saw her bookjacket photo). The first paragraph is a well-written rant about how knitters are encouraged to blindly follow patterns and not think for themselves. I love it!

Oh, but that's not all... if you're lacking for pattern inspiration, just let me know. I can probably help you out. See, these came home with me too:

They were a steal of a deal!

Mostly Vogue Knitting International, dating back to 1992, although mostly from the late 90's - early 00's. At $0.75 each I just couldn't pass them up. I love going back through magazines and seeing what new things catch my eye. I really need to sit down with these and some post-its...

I always buy back issues of magazines if I can find them cheaply, so it didn't suprise me that there were a few duplicates to ones I already had. Actually, I'm suprised there weren't more. Anyway, these 4 were already in my collection:

We're twins!

That's (clockwise from upper right) Winter 94/95, Spring/Summer 00, Fall 99, and Fall 93. And they can be yours if you want them. Just leave me a comment or send me an e-mail and I'll send them your way!

Alright, off to the party... Go Colts!

Yarn Swap

OK, how is it February already? Seriously, people!

Anyway, let's think back, shall we? Once upon a time, some local knitbloggers gathered, and brought yarn, and it was good. I invited all of the DC/MD/northern VA knitbloggers that I knew of, and they invited some others (sorry if we missed you - it wasn't on purpose, I swear!), and we wound up with 17 bloggers, wine, snacks, and yarn at my house for a night of fun.

Ever seen a bunch of impatient women? Pile a table high of yarn (yarn that's going to be up for grabs) and then make them wait for a while...

Can we just start the swap already?

And then there was the On Your Mark, Get Set...

GO!

Reach for it!

That's right, we had a yarn free-for-all. And I am pleased to say that there was absolutely no punching, biting, kicking, elbowing, hair-pulling, cursing (well, at least not during the swap), or really any bad behavior whatsoever. There was plenty of enabling, matching of colors, suggestions of patterns (can't figure out what you'll ever do with only 300 yds of a gorgeous wool/silk blend? pose the question theoretically to a room full of knitters, who see you eyeing said yarn with a covetous glance, and they'll come up with so many suggestions it will seem stupid not to take it!), and even some begging ("please take that lovely yarn - I want it to go to a good home!"). Everyone swore that they left with more than they brought, and yet the table was still covered with leftover skeins at the end of the night (seriously, how does that work?).

And never doubt that the knitters are a generous bunch. Well, after seeing the KWB totals, the Dulaan and Red Scarf project galleries, and other similar phenomena around blogland, I know that you're already convinced, but still. See, I told all of these lovely ladies that they could also bring "charity yarn" and I would collect it all and donate it. I expected a few skeins of Red Heart, but this is what I wound up with:

A rainbow of goodness!

Yes, Lolly, I put them in that order for you and Project Spectrum :). There's a lot of yarn there! There's a lot of good yarn there! There are going to be some very lucky kitties, chemo patients, nursing home inhabitants, Mongolian children, and who knows what else when the knitters get done with this yarn. And faced with all of that variety, I couldn't help myself, but I dove in and made a Rapunzel scarf:

Let down your hair!

If you haven't seen this before, it's based on one that was in the Anthropologie catalog last winter (and selling for $58.00, I might add) that is just yarn braided together. I cut a bunch of different yarns into about 8' lengths, tied them together on one end and braided away. The finished scarf is about 6.5' long, and I'm really hoping a college kid will like it, because I'm sending it to the Red Scarf project (just in time - they're packing up the boxes on the 5th!). For a bunch more examples, check here.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who came over for the fun evening. We had such a great time, we really need to do it more often (once a year just isn't enough!).

The attendees: me (OK, it was my house), my co-hostess Lara, Natalie, Carolina, Kelly, Ann, Joanna, Shannon, Heather, Lauren, Paula, Holly, Elspeth, Dani, Erin, Isel, and Aimee (no blog, but she co-runs a yarn store, so we'll give her a bye). Thanks again to everyone for coming!