One Crazy Fiber Lady

Well I’m now officially back from vacation. I have a ton up pictures to upload and I need to organize the 10 days out of the office into some coherent post. But I haven’t blogged in a while and didn’t want to wait any longer. I suspected I might get a few “are you okay” emails and I didn’t want to worry anyone.

So here’s just a quick post, I’m back. I boated. I knit. I did both together.

Yes, that is the WRS I am working on.¬† I finished the second repeat and started the third.¬† I also knit a pair of socks, shopped, guitar hero’ed and a few other things.¬† Hopefully I’ll have a real post later in the week.¬† Now its back to the daily routine.

Craft on!

Borrowing a much used theme for a Wednesday, I have a bunch of random unrelated stuff to relate, though I’m not entirely sure how that differs from any of my other posts

1.  Knittin stuff:

How I’ve been spending my commute. ¬†I’ve completed the first 62 row repeat for the center square, only 300 more rows to go before the insane border stitch pickup

My new glasses arrived and I can now actually see my knitting without blinding myself either from no glasses or overpowered glasses.  Life is good.

For a change, I think the color representation of WRS is actually pretty close to real life.  Last week when I had lunch with  Nancy and she commented upon seeing it in person that it was much pinker.  

Hand blocking, one handed at that, is awfully difficult.  Add in that I was on the ferry and trying to snap this shot really made it fun.  But you can get a sense of where I am in the thing and how big (or small) it is after 62 or so rows.

Work on the Nutkins socks is also progressing, pretty slowly too as WRS is the primary commuting knitting. ¬†I get to put a few rounds on the sock each day while I stand and wait for either the train or the ferry. ¬†I’m tempted to start another sock, a very plain on for the totally mindless, no eyes on the fingers necessary, knit. ¬†I have plenty of opportunity for that over the course of the day, and neither Nutkin nor especially WRS is particularly suited to that. ¬†Nutkin is a great pattern and easy to remember, but each there’s a bit to pay attention to especially using handspun. ¬†I think I’ll take some measurements and start knitting socks for the monkeys.

2.  Spinnin stuff: 

Two bits here. ¬†First, I blame this on JessaLu. ¬†After seeing her goodies from Cummington, I spotted my favorite colorway and just had to have some myself. ¬†I know. ¬†I’m pretty darn week. ¬†But there it is. ¬†At least I only bought 8 oz…

…and thanks to Carole’s 10 Minutes a Day, I’m actually spinning a bit every day. ¬†I started doing this late last week and really, it is amazing how much you can accomplish when you actually spin somewhat frequently. ¬†I’ve taken to spinning during that half hour that the kids and I watch Spongebob prior to bedtime. Some nights I do a bit more time, so less. ¬†Its all good.¬†

¬†With all the time at the wheel, I finished the 8oz of the blue/green merino. ¬†I’ve started on the blue merino that will be plied with it. ¬†While you can’t see it quite so well in the bobbin as it worked out, but the solid blue matches a shade in the blue/green mix. ¬†I’m looking forward to plying it all up and seeing the resulting yarn. ¬†Should be gorgeous on the little boy.

3.  Toy Stuff:

I mentioned this last week in passing, but I picked up a new toy after reading about one on Woot. ¬†It has come in amazingly handy for this Red Sox fan who lives out of local range. ¬†In years past the only games I get are the playoffs and when they play the Yankees. ¬†I really wanted more than that and found that XM carries ALL games. ¬†While I still can’t watch, I can definitely listen. ¬†Have I mentioned how much I love this thing? Last night I sat and listened to the game while spinning. ¬†It was awesome. ¬†Baseball is a great knitting sport as you can look away and not miss much. ¬†Its even better on the radio ¬†The display is cool as it gives you the score and the inning. ¬†This is a portable and I’ve discovered that there are terrestrial repeaters near my office as I was able to listen to today’s day game from the comfort of my desk while I coded. ¬†Oh yeah, the music choices are pretty darn good too ¬†I’d highly recommend it! ¬†

4.  Family stuff:

I also mentioned this in passing last week, but last weekend was the kids’ graduation ceremony. ¬†The school had a ceremony for the two preschool classes, about 50 kids in total. ¬†Some, ¬†like mine, will be in the same class (or the other preschool class) next year so it was more of a dress rehearsal. ¬†It was very well done. ¬†The kids were all up on a stage, sang a bunch of songs and there was a slideshow of pictures of the kids to the tear inducing tunes. ¬†As homework each kid put together a poster with their favorite thing. ¬†Not surprisingly, there were a great number of posters containing Power Rangers, Super Heroes and Disney Princesses. ¬†One by one, at the teacher held up the poster, the kid came to the microphone and announce “my favorite thing is:…” and generally announce what the poster indicated. Kat stuck to the script and declared her love of Disney Princesses. ¬†Alex was the row behind her and I saw his poster come up when he totally surprised me by saying: ¬†”My favorite thing is my mom”. ¬†Whoa. ¬†That’s my boy ¬†Don’t they look cute in the caps & gowns! ¬†I had to wait for High School graduation before I marched to Pomp & Circumstance and got a tassel.

I’m not sure how much I’ll be posting in the days to come. ¬†I was handed a pretty big project today at work that is high on the Pres’ radar list. ¬†It should be nice and challenging as it will involve front end web page work and not the usual plumbing/behind the scenes kind of coding that I’m used to. ¬†I also have to do my self-eval for review season. ¬†Seriously, I hate those things. ¬†I rank em with root canal and earaches… oh and tired/hungry toddlers ¬†Anyway…

Craft on!

The stitches in Wedding Ring Shawl are downright teeny tiny.¬† The stretchy merino yarn makes them easier to do, but I’m finding a new to wear the relatively recently acquired reading glasses to knit.¬† Okay so I need them for threading the quilting needle and doing the beading as well.¬† The eyes really do go first don’t they? Or was that the legs?

Anyway, here is what WRS looked like last night shortly before bed.¬† I spent my evening listening to the Red Sox lose using my new portable XM radio.¬† Sadly, reception dropped off during the top of the 9th thanks to the awesome thunder storm that came tearing through.¬† I’m not complaining as it also brought the end to the nasty heat wave.¬† It is way more comfortable today.

That was approximately 26 rows into the 62 row repeat.  Can you say long term project?   For a better sense of scale, I took this picture with the fingers shown and the Chibi:

Still.  In. Love.

Craft on!

Judging from all the comments I got, my boy is a perfectly normal energetic boy who will keep me on my toes for years to come. I try to let him be, and think of ways to expend the energy. The backyard with the swingset and various other bits and bobs is pretty good for that, as well as the park around the corner. Now that the pool is open, the liner fixed, and the water filling, we should have another avenue for tiring him out, at least for the summer.

Sorry to have disappeared. It was a combination of a new video game and getting sick that has kept me away for so long. Fortunately, I had a pretty productive two days in bed though. Thursday I made some serious progress on my Orkney Pi. I’m actually a bit further along than this picture shows. I took this shot on Wednesday while on the ferry to the office. I have probably another 12 or so rounds completed beyond this point. I’m seriously considering cutting this off at the end of this section. I’m pretty sure I killed the other pi shawls at this state too, but I’ll have to check. As it is, each round has 640 stitches. Right now, this is the easy knitting project as there are no socks on the needles at the present. Amazing I know.

In Thursday’s mail was the yarn I ordered as another candidate for Wedding Ring Shawl. I found it on fleegle‘s blog as she was vetting possibilities for Princess. This is Yarn Place’s Angel in color 217 – Dusty Rose. MMMMMMMMM. I swatched it on Friday and fell in love. What a joy it is to work with. It is STRETCHY! Gotta love that about merino. It makes those little tiny stitches actually workable. No problems doing a k2tog where one of them is a yarn over! I have a new favorite laceweight yarn. Even before blocking my swatch (which I seem to have lost yesterday during my commute), I knew it was the right yarn. I cast on as soon as the swatch was dry and I got tired of fondling it.

Using some perle 8 cotton that I now have on hand thanks to the bobbin lace hobby addition, I cast on the multitude of stitches that make up the center square. Sorry for the lousy color in the next three pictures. I took them in the car this morning while I was waiting for the train.

Here you can see the progress I’ve made so far.

I’m absolutely loving it. Yes, Unst is on hold for the foreseeable future as THIS is the project that I really wanted to work on. So after nearly a year of swatching yarns, I finally am working on it and enjoying every minute.

I’ve also resurrected another long dead to me hobby: quilting. I ordered this kit a while ago from a seller on eBay. It has been sitting and quietly calling to me from my bookshelf, hoping to insinuate itself in the hobby queue. Wednesday evening, my monthly Craft Book of the Month Club arrived and it was a quilting handbook with serious amount of text devoted to hand piecing/quilting. I seriously considered hand piecing even though my two previous forays into quilting had me using the machine to piece and then hand quilt. But, I wasn’t ready to commit to that quite yet. So Thursday while knitting and watching the tube, I loaded up a Simply Quilts episode from the DVR at random. What was it about? Hand piecing. I’d call that a sign and broke out my supplies and started hand piecing. Amazingly enough, I can sew straighter by hand than by machine. Sick. With no socks on the needles, the piecing has become my pocket book project. Those pink triangles get sewn to white triangles along the hypotenuse to form a square. If i counted right, there are 40 of these squares to put together. Before I knew it, I had 10 of em done. I managed to do three while waiting for the kids’ graduation on Saturday (that will be another post as I don’t have pictures quite yet). Good purse project.

Finally, I took this picture on the way home from the train last night. It was about 6:40 pm. While summer is my favorite season by far, I could pass on thermometer readings like this one, especially in JUNE and when accompanied by 64% humidity. UGH. The heat wave is supposed to end today. My fingers are crossed.

Craft on (and stay cool!)

If Tuesday is for Twirling, Wednesday is for WIPs.. lets break em out.  

First up is Kat’s Amore. ¬†I’ve made some decent progress on the first sleeve. ¬†I haven’t exactly been a monogamous knitter with this, which explains why it isn’t finished yet. ¬†I’m guilty of reading on the train again. ¬†I’m still deep in my¬†Philippa Gregory obsession and am on the third of her books and as I’m coming towards the end of it, the less I knit on the train and the more I read. ¬†Never fret, I have two more of her books waiting in the wings ¬†Anyway, I should be getting back to this shortly.

Seeing as it was still WIP Wednesday and I’m trying to whittle them down before the SOL and SOS officially being on 6/21 and not actually start anything else (a big problem right about now), I pulled out some golden oldies. ¬†I had to transfer Orkney Pi to a longer cable so took the opportunity to get a better picture of at least part of this pi shawl. ¬†This morning on the train I neither read nor knitting on Amore, but worked 2 rounds on this. ¬†Yes, only two. ¬†Each is now 640 stitches. ¬†She’s going to be a big girl when she grows up as there is a 1280 stitch section after this one.

Not to be outdone, I spend some of my WIP Wednesday time Winding. ¬†I spent good quality time with my ball winder. ¬†Remember way back when I started the Kauni, I figured out that one of my four skeins was wound in the opposite direction. ¬†As I’m nearing the ends of the first skeins, it was time to do something about it. ¬†I rewound both of the remaining skeins so that they are going in the same color progression. ¬†This picture makes me smile. ¬†I’ve since broke off the remaining yarn and connected these two to the sleeve at the right points in the color progression. ¬†Fortunately I didn’t loose much in the way of yardage to accomplish this task. ¬†I have Kauni in the car in case I get motivated to work on her this evening at SnB. ¬†

I know I announced a few days ago that I was starting new socks with the Flat Feet yarn I bought a while back. ¬†Well I did. ¬†Except I can’t say as I enjoyed knitting with crinkly frogged yarn very much. ¬†It is pretty but not a pleasurable experience when paired with a lace sock. ¬†I’m not much in the mood to knit plain socks at the moment and definitely not in the mood to unravel the entire Flat, wash and wait, so back into stash it goes. ¬†I pulled out another new to me yarn, Lime & Violet’s Sasquatch Sock in Mahjong. ¬† I have the pattern for Ina’s SOS2007 design winner all printed out and ready to go. ¬†

You might think that that was all the time I spent with the ball winder, but you’d be wrong. ¬†I had some seriously quality and quantity time with it. ¬†My merino laceweight arrived and I was eager to get that wound. ¬†All 1750 yards of it. ¬†That would be the downside to lace! ¬†It was all I could do to not cast on for it last night. ¬†I did content myself to making a stitch marker for the center stitch. Yup, truly rediscovered the whole beading hobby

 

I figured that while I had the camera out, I should find the little bookworm bobbin lace project. ¬†I tracked down where my daughter hid it. ¬†isn’t it cute? ¬†I now am using it for its intended purpose. ¬†Why yes, as a bookmark! ¬†I loves it ¬†

Since I haven’t posted a picture of the popular and goofy cat in a while, here she is in all her glory. ¬†Even declawed she manages to get into odd spots. ¬†I snapped this this morning after I spotted her sitting on the top of the high back chair in the living room. ¬†Good old Sara.

Having now spent quality time with the posting tool, I’m off to spend some quality time with my .NET console program to extract users from Active Directory.

Craft on!

..ew, not that horrible yarn, that dreaded ass-crylic (thanks Kim for that name!).  No, this is much better yarn.  This is my handspun.  The first handspun off the new Ladybug too.

I haven’t yet measured the yardage in these two huge skeins of yarn so no, I haven’t a clue what I’ve got.¬† One ply is the Mystery Bump from Still River Mill.¬† The other is BFL from Little Barn.¬† Both fibers were purchased this year at MDSW.¬† I know, I’m shocked too.¬† I did the spinning in about a week.¬† Saturday I pulled out the Fricke eSpinner, dug up a couple of empty Majacraft WW bobbins and got busy.¬† Over the course of 3 hours I filled up 3 bobbins completely and finished all the singles while I watched The Tudors on Showtime.¬† (I LOVE that show!!!!).¬† Sunday I used the skeiner for Suzie and wound off the bobbins.¬† I joined two of them to make that massive skein on the left.¬†¬† After three days of hanging about, the yarn is finally dry.¬† I might actually try and figure out how much I have.¬† It’s about a worsted weight. I have no doubts that I’ll have enough yardage to make the little miss a cardi out of it.¬† I’m planning a top down raglan for her.¬† She’s requested ties like my recent sweater.¬† I can honor that request!¬† Now that clapo-two is done, I can get to work on this for her.

In between futzing with the blog and updating the template finally (I’d been using the default Kubrick theme since moving to WordPress in January – kind of embarassing for someone who makes their living doing web work eh?) I decided what lace I want to do for the coming season of lace.¬† Call it a convergence of yarn and pattern.

First I saw a link to an indie dyer’s Etsy store while reading the SOL board on Ravelry.¬† The colors in the banner just drew my mouse to it and I was powerless in avoiding the click.¬† A few more clicks and I found THE yarn.¬† (Picture from ColorfulSheep).¬† That is 1750 yards of dyed laceweight merino.¬† I’m a sucker for laceweight merino.¬† Not to mention completely incapable of using stash yarn, but I digress.

Anyway, after being compelled to order that yarn, I knew the right pattern for its deep blue goodness:¬† Mystic Waters!¬† I’ve seen a bunch of these done on Ravelry and throughout my blog travels (of which I’m terribly behind right about now) and just adore it.¬† (Picture is naturally not mine – but click for bigness).¬† I’m really looking forward to working on this!¬† I wonder if I can whip out Kat’s sweater before the SOL starts.¬† Hmmm…

Craft on!

…another repeat!¬† Make that two, two glorious diamonds tall already.¬† Two down, 17 more to go and I’m halfway through one now.¬† I’d be further, maybe, but I had to stand on the crowded ferry this morning!¬† (We had the little dinghy boat and while I could have waited for the next one, I opted to cram on.)¬† I have most of the pattern memorized so it isn’t difficult commuting knitting.¬† Add in that I have the pattern all neatly organized in the plastic sleeve to which a post-it sticks beautifully and we are all in business.¬†

It is an interesting pattern so far.¬† The diamonds are an every other row motif while the trees between are every row.¬† The really interesting bits should come when the center is done and the borders have been picked up.¬† Since it is garter stitch, you have two choices, do each quadrant of the border (square shawl and all that) separately and then sew them together.¬† Not exactly my first choice as I try to do as little sewing, especially on lacework, as possible!¬† The other is to purl every other round.¬† Seeing as I knit Eastern Uncrossed (or combined knitting as others are wont to call it), purling isn’t such a big deal to me.¬† I’m just not used to much stitch manipulation on the purl.¬† I guess I’ll get comfy with it pretty soon.

In other news, I discovered my car doesn’t like the rain.¬† Or the sprinkler.¬† I noticed this last summer/fall.¬† On rainy days or days when I parked too close to the front lawn and the car got wet, the radio display was flaky.¬† It either was blank, flickered or showed gibberish.¬†¬† And then it stopped.¬† Probably because fall came, the rains stopped and the sprinklers were winterized.¬† Then I forgot all about it.¬† Until yesterday.¬† The rains returned.¬† It has now been raining forever, well okay, more like three days.¬† Here is how it displayed this morning.¬† I called Toyota to ask about it.¬† After a few¬†questions as to model (Sienna), year (2006) and mileage (@9000) I was told they’d order me a new radio.¬† Since I wasn’t near the car I have to call back with the exact mileage on my car and the model number of the radio.¬† It still plays music, thank goodness, but it is always amusing to see what it has to say for itself.¬†¬† I hope it wasn’t cursing at me this morning!

Craft on!

..but I’ve already declared it Summer:¬† my summer of madness lace (and sanity socks).

I thank everyone for their feedback on my quandry.¬† After work on Friday, I did some swatching with the Habu Silk.¬† I can’t say as I really enjoyed it.¬† It was slippery (go figure) and because of the dark color, I couldn’t use my US0 Harmony Needles.¬† I couldn’t see the stitches!¬† I had to use something different, not even sure at the moment what they were but they weren’t as pointy as the Harmony.¬† So I had slick yarn and not so pointy needles.¬† A deadly combination in lace knitting.¬† Anyway, halfway through the swatch, I lost a stitch and boy did it run!¬† That was the third strike.¬† I didn’t even finish the swatch.¬† I pulled it¬†out and rewound the yarn onto the cone.¬† I hope MY will take it back.

At the same time I posted my quandry here, I also posed a similar question on the Yahoo Group for Sharon Miller lace knitters.  I listed the three patterns in contention, Unst, Princess and WRS, and asked for their sage advice.  The darkhorse winner of the lace contest is:  Unst!

I got busy swatching quickly.¬† I kind of cheated and did two sized needles all on one swatch.¬† Didn’t want to cast on and bind off twice. Lazy am I.¬† Size US0 on top, US1 on the bottom.¬† Mom and I both liked the 1′s better and I’ve gone with em.¬†

The yarn, if you can call this threadlike stuff that, is the J&S 1-Ply Cobweb.  It is sturdier than it appears and also a tad crunchy.  Gotta love shetland.  It does soften a bit with soaking and blocking.

While the kids played, I cast on for the center of the shawl.¬† Before dinner, I’d made it through the first repeat.¬† The center square had 10 diamonds across and 19 high.¬† I’m done with one

The purple at the bottom is some laceweight silk that I used for waste yarn.¬† Yeah, I know.¬† It is leftover from Icarus.¬† I couldn’t think what else to use it for.¬† Makes excellent waste as it doesn’t have fuzz to catch the wool.¬† Expensive waste though

I kind of freaked out a muggle on the train this morning while I was working on it.  I saw her out of the corner of my eye staring at me, eyes open wide.  So much for my train project monogamy, though I did work on Clapotis on the ferry.  I think both projects will be heading south this weekend!

Thanks to the encouragement of a few fiber friends, I signed up Friday for WOOL.¬† Can I hear a WOOT!¬† The ‘rents agreed to watch the monkeys and let me go for the weekend.¬† I can’t wait (well I can as it will mean the end of my favorite season) for a weekend of fiber and friends.¬† Should be a blast!

Craft on!

I feel an inexorable pull towards lace projects now, especially with the warmer weather upon us.¬† I have zero desire to sit with a big pile o’wool in my lap, even with the A/C on as it has been the last few nights at home.¬† I think the remaining sweaters in my WIP pile (Ballerina, Kauni and Autumn Rose) will go into hibernation until the end of the summer OR I burn out on making lace and socks (which will be mental vacation from lace).

Now I do realize I have a couple of lace items already in the works namely the Orkney Pi, Leaf Lace and oh yeah Tina, but I’m really itching to do a cobweb shawl.¬†¬† You might remember that this past summer I developed an attachment to¬†a particular pattern and have been swatching on and off (not to mention amassing a variety of cobweb weight yarns) since.¬† I’m “this close” to finalizing that decision.¬† It is down to two with one still needing a swatch.¬† I balled that sucker up, now I just need to sit down with the needles.¬† Maybe this weekend.

Anyway, I have a bit of a quandry.¬† In the interim, I picked up another Sharon Miller pattern or two.¬† Then last night as Jessica and I were leaving MY, I spotted new Habu cones.¬† Sitting right out front was this gorgeous brown that reads plum in some lights of 60/2 Kenbo Silk.¬† I fell in love with it on the spot.¬† When a yarn yells that loudly, you must have it.¬†¬† So I bought two cones, which is about 3600yds.¬† Enough for WRS, but not Princess.¬† I thought about readjusting what I had earmarked for WRS, but nothing was enough to do Princess and the 60/2 was the PERFECT weight for it too.¬† I called MY this morning, they have 2 more cones in the brown that are now put on the side for me ¬† I’ll have to swatch to find the right size needle though the ones Sharon suggests for this weight is either¬†a US00 or US0.¬† {hee hee}¬† Let my summer of madness lace begin!

Oh wait, where’s the quandry you ask.¬† Um, here it is.¬† Which of these insane shawls do I start with?¬† Or do I bypass jumping into the deep end of the cobweb pool and perhaps start with something smaller like the Unst stole that I have had the yarn for a while?¬† Or as was suggested to me last night that if I start smaller, won’t I burn out on lace before I even get to the good stuff? Good point.¬† Sigh.¬†

Craft on!

It really shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’ve been pretty busy of late. My big project at work still proceeds apace and I managed to overcome a rather problematic issue today. Goodness indeed.

Jessica and I decided to take advantage of the varying sized cylinders we each have for our NZAKs and traded one to try out. In exchange for my 72, I have her 60 to test drive. Last week I cranked out my first pair on the NZAK using the 54 but amazingly found them to be a bit tight. Yeah, I know, surprised me too! Anyway, so Sunday evening, I gave the 60 a shot. I pulled out the Opal Acapulco that was included with my NZAK. Two hours of cranking, stitch moving, etc later, followed by another 40 min or so of kitchnering, I have a pair of perfectly fitting socks WITH a picot edge. Something I’ve never enjoyed hand knitting. Sweet.

I’m still rather partial to fraternal twins for some odd reason I wore these babies on Monday. Perfection. Now I can only hope that the 72 is as magical for Jessica as the 60 is for me

I figured it was also time for an update on Ballerina. I made a good deal of progress on it while I was laying in bed sick. The semi-mindless garter stitch was perfect for that. Honestly, I haven’t touched it since after the two days of sick time.

I then spent two days on Orkney Pi – take two..

And the reminder of the time (another day or so) went towards the ill fated Orangebell.

Sadly, there is NO knitting going on now, what with all the reading. See what Amazon brought me today

And that doesn’t cover what I was reading today. I have this book on my new phone/pda toy and devoted today’s commute to reading it. ¬† Yeah I’m hooked.

I think I’m going to park on the easy chair for a bit and finally do some knitting before turning in early.¬† I was up far too late last night adding new tunes to the iPod

Craft on!

p.s. – as a forewarning, I’m planning on upgrading to the new version of¬† WordPress this weekend so the site might be down a bit.

p.p.s. РAlso as a remind, check your RSS subscription through your reader.   If typepad.com appears anywhere, it will no longer function once I finally close that account.