boogaj

Now this is what I'm talking about!

Yep, I did some spinning yesterday -- on my wheel.  And it's funny that there should be a discussion of plying and balanced yarns on Theresa's blog today because I have been struggling with the same thing. 

Yesterday I spun up this yarn, plied it & decided that there wasn't nearly enough twist in the yarn.  So I plied it some more -- meaning put more twist into it.  The resulting yarn was overly twisty, kinking up on itself.  (I should have taken a picture -- doh!)  But then came the "setting of the twist." 

I let the hank soak in warm soapy water for about 20-25 minutes, then hung it up to dry with a bit of weight hanging from the bottom.  This morning it was transformed into what you see above. 

Here 's a comparison to show you the difference the plying can make:

On the right is my "old" plying and on the left is the new and improved plying.  What a difference!

A Confession

I have a confession. . . this is my Ashford Joy which hasn't seen the light of day in about a year.  *sob*  Why? You ask?  Well, I bought the wheel early last spring, set it up & started trying to spin.  It didn't happen.  I couldn't get the hang of it.  I don't think I had ever really seen a spinning wheel in action and I didn't even know where to start.  Now I had gotten pretty good at using a drop spindle, so I said forget this wheel thing!  I'm going back to my spindle!

A year passed.  The Joy sat in my room in it's carrying case -- untouched & unloved.  Then I went to MS&W.  There was so much fiber!  And I wanted to take home a huge bag, but I thought to myself -- how will you ever get that spun on your spindle?  Oh yeah!  I have a wheel!  Maybe I should take it out again and give it another try.

I finally had a bit of free time yesterday, so I sat down with some lovely Cormo/Silk roving that I got from Foxhill Farm (at the Cormo booth at MS&W) and gave it a go.  After a few mis-starts, I got in the groove and made this little skein. . .

Still a bit uneven (isn't that the whole point of handspinning though?), but much better.  Here are a few things that helped me to love my wheel. . .

• Go slow!  At first I was treadling like there was no tomorrow.  I found that a nice slow pace was just what I needed.  About one treadle (is that the right terminology?) per second was working for me yesterday.
• Learn about ratios!  I was trying to spin this super fine Cormo & tussah silk blend at a low ratio.  This meant fewer twists per inch (TPI) which would explain why the "yarn" I was producing wasn't holding together.  When I switched to 16:1, it got much easier!  Here's a page I found that explains a lot of different wheel terminology.
• Use a white towel!  Use a what?  You can see the white hand towel in my first photo, but maybe you were thinking it was just lying on the floor because I'm messy.  Not so!  I lay this on my lap so that I can see my drafting triangle more clearly.  I was wearing a denim skirt and couldn't see how much I was drafting which resulted in very uneven yarn.  The roving showed up beautifully against the white towel and my singles started to look much better.
• Use a leader that isn't smooth!  Okay, this should have been a no-brainer, but I let myself get totally frustrated before figuring it out.  The leader that I attached to my bobbin at first was a scrap of extra sock yarn.  It was smooth, it had no "grip" and I couldn't get my fiber started.  Ugh!  I nearly tore out my hair trying to get this to work.  Then the light went on in my noggin.  I attached a piece of handspun for a leader and I was off!

So there's my confession.  I'm glad I got past this and I'm learning to love my wheel.  Last night I predrafted the rest of the Cormo/Silk and today I'm ready to spin:

After all, practice makes perfect!

Lace Design?

ucks oakb

Well, I decided that it was time to design something besides felted bags.  (Although I finished up the first prototype of my most recent bag and it's hitting the washing machine later today!)  Here's is a swatch of a lace pattern I drew up over the weekend.  My plan is to make a scarf with the KSH using this lace pattern.  If successful, I may even print up the pattern.  Here's another photo of the lace. . .

I just worked up the swatch in some left over sock yarn and gave it a quick blocking last night so that I could actually see the pattern.  Tell me what you think.  Pete said he liked it, but he's my husband so he's not exactly unbiased.

In other news, we made a trip to IKEA this past weekend and I got this cute lamp for my office:

My husband is mostly Swedish (as opposed to me -- German, Irish, English, Norwegian,  and bits of others) and I've grown to love all things swedish.  Isn't the little bird adorable?  Maybe I'll try to get together a post on Swedish decorative arts sometime so you can see a little of why I like it so much!

A Little Spinnin'

Here's another little skein from the dyeing adventure Theresa & I had a while back.    It's from the brown/green/gold roving and it looks better than I expected.  After it came out of the steamer, I wasn't too sure about the colors.

Other than that, I've been feverishly working on getting out Black Sheep Bags patterns to lots of yarn shops.  I have added lots of new shops to my where to buy page and I'll be adding even more in the next week or two. 

And last night I started designing my first lace item.  I'm testing out the pattern today and hopefully I'll have pictures next week!  I also have a new bag pattern I'm woring on.  I need to finish that up and get it in the wash.  Whew -- I better go get to work!  Have a great weekend and try to stay cool!

Orange KSH

I did a trade with Deb and got two balls of this lovely orange Kid Silk Haze in the mail.  Now what does it want to be?  I took a look at the list of suggestions I received before I started Birch.  I'm thinking that I will see if there are any designs from A Gathering of Lace that will let me substitute the KSH.  Barring that, I may make the Flower Basket Shawl.  Will I have enough KSH?  Anyone out there use KSH for this shawl?

Aprons!

I've been a bit obsessed with aprons lately.  First there was my sewing binge & then I started looking in at Tie One On.  And last weekend when I went to the library I found this little gem --

How to Make Aprons by Roxa Wright.  Yep, it's long since out of print.  Published in 1953.  A lot of the patterns in the book remind me of aprons I saw Sunday at the Sandwich Antiques Market. 

It's from the "Barrows Recommended Library for Homemakers"  which include such other fine titles as:  "Setting Your Table", "Better Dressmaking" & "Cook it in a Casserole".  And it includes an apron for every task  --

Here's the "Washing Apron"  which you can wear for "any splashy job." 

The "Dressmaking Apron"

The "Hair Washing Apron"

And of course the "Mend-While-You-Iron Apron" (which cracks me up since I never iron, let alone mend!)

And while I rarely find time to cook these days, I do appreciate a cute little apron.  And this book has several of those too.  I love all the little half-aprons, but I thought this one looked especially smart (don't I sound old fashioned?):

The illustrations in this book are great -- very 50's.  It's got me wanting to sew up a couple aprons despite the fact that I don't really do any "home-making" activities that would require the use of one!  (Does microwaving Stouffer's count?)

Now if you want to see some cute vintage aprons, check out Jan's post from yesterday.  I love the rickrack!

I need to buy a vowel because. . .

O my god!

A Gathering of Lace arrived yesterday & I *love* this book!!  So many projects!  And so many projects that I actually want to knit!  (Okay, enough gushing.)

Here's the deal. . . the book is 173 pages and filled with pictures.  There is a little bit of general knitting info, but the book assumes that you can knit and know a bit about knitting lace.  This book isn't about learning to knit lace, it's about lace patterns.  And there are some beauties.  Of course there are many shawls, but also included are patterns for gloves, sweaters, socks and more!  Let me scan a few photo's for you:

Here are the Vanalinn Gloves designed by Nancy Bush.  I think these may be the first project I knit up from this book. 

And here's Meg Swanson's Super-Spiral Shawl.  I've never knit a round shawl and this one looks like it would be fun.  I believe there are some bloggers out there working on this one.

If socks are your thing, there are a copule of great patterns including this one by Medrith Glover -- Medrith's Little Lace Socks.  These are on my list!

And the Frost Flowers & Leaves shawl by Eugen Beugler just amazes me!  I hope to conquer it one day. 

I've just touched the surface here.  Some other designs I like:

• The Faroese Shawl by Marilyn van Keppel -- it looks so big a cozy. 
• A Beginner's Triangle by Any Detjen -- I think this would make an excellent first lace project.  It's a simple pattern, but the finished product looks gorgeous.
• Ribbed Lace Pullover by Norah Gaughan -- Gorgeous lace and cablework on the sleeves.

Great designers, great stuff to knit.  I'm really glad that they finally brought A Gathering of Lace out in paperback!

A few other things. . .There is a Gathering of Lace Knit Along going on. 

And there is a list of correction out there for this book.  Here's a link to the pdf file with all the info!

I'm off to look through the stash to see what I could use to knit those gloves!

CSS Hell

How can one (one being moi) so completely forget how to write code?  It took me almost an hour to remember how to use the <div> tag so that I could change the font on my Bloglines list over there in the right-hand side bar.  But it is done and now you can see what sites I'm keeping track of.  Whew.

New Bag Design?

Sometimes when I'm feeling uninspired, I need to take a step back and try something new.  The sewing and crafting I have been doing has really changed my attitude!  In fact, diverting my mind from knitting has helped me to come up with a few new bag designs.  That's the first one that I'm working on.  It's based on, believe it or not, this tank top that I designed for Maddie last year.  Hopefully proto-type #1 will be finished this week!

In other news, I deleted my daily blog reads list because I have been using Bloglines and hadn't clicked through the links recently.  Imagine my surprise when one of my readers clued me in to the fact that a blog that used to be a knitting blog had changed into a porn blog!?!?  Oops!  So I took down the list and will be trying to get a link to my Bloglines subscriptions up in the sidebar soon.

Finally, if you are a slacker like me and haven't contributed to Claudia's MS Ride yet, please think about it!  I finally did it today, with only 5 days to spare!

More sewing -- zippered pouch!

Well, I'm back to sewing and I'm trying to perfect my zippered pouch pattern.  My first attempt ended up as a mangled mess and into the garbage it went.  Try number 2 turned out much better, don't you think?  It's even lined:

And I used some interfacing since the cotton fabric is very flimsy by itself.  That part of the process went very well.  The zipper is fully functional and looks pretty good from the outside, but the lining is a little wonky.  Not sure what I need to do to fix this in the future.  Any good books on the subject?  Let me know!

Birch Finished!

Okay, not any more finished than it was yesterday (meaning, still unblocked. . .), but at least you can see the shape and a bit of the pattern here.

I really enjoyed knitting Birch!  (I have to say that I am a process girl more than a production girl.)  Lace is one of my favorite things to knit and the Kid Silk Haze is *so* wonderful!  The Birch pattern is super easy and I had it memorized after only a couple of pattern repeats.  And because it was so easy to see where you were at with the pattern, no stitch markers were needed. 

And now for a little trade action. . .

I bought 4 balls of the Kid Silk Haze in color Dewberry with no particular project in mind.  I decided on Birch which only needed 3 balls, and ended up using just over 2 1/2 balls.  (The full ball weighs .8 oz without it's ball band according to my postal scale and the left over bit weighs .3 oz.)  So I have up for trade 1 & almost 1/2 balls of KSH in Dewberry.  I love this yarn and would love to trade with someone for a similar amount in another color!  However I like unique trades too.  Other laceweight?  Other crafty stuff?  Heck the last trade I did was for scone mix and syrup!  Let me know what you have to offer!  (BTW, I think there is a pattern for a pretty scarf using one skein of KSH in Last Minute Knitted Gifts.) Email Me with your trades!

Escape Velocity

Well I guess I achieved escape velocity today with Birch.  (Go check out Stephanie's physics post on knitting if you don't know what I'm talking about.)

It's not blocked yet, and the child was the closest thing I had to throw it over for the picture.  More tomorrow when I am (hopefully) feeling better.

131.5

Well, I'm down to 131.5. Only 1.5 lbs to go. I have to tell you that I am losing my drive though. I've been seriously craving some Ben & Jerry's. Will I make it to 130? We shall see.

A Gathering of Lace

Well I just purchased A Gathering of Lace, finally. Why do I say finally? Because I had this book in my Amazon Wishlist forever, but apparently I had the hardcover version listed. So here I thought it was hopelessly out of print and that I would have to pay $40 for a used copy, which I was not about to do. I just figured out that there was a new paperback version released this spring. Yipee! I'll give a full review when it arrives.

(Oh, and I also got the Handy Book of Knitting Patterns, which I will review too!)

Vermont & Knitting Guild News

Remember the laceweight cashmere blend I traded last week?  I traded with Elaine (*** added later -- I didn't realize Elaine had a blog, so now I know and now I linked. Thanks again Elaine! ***) who sent me goodies from Vermont:

Scone mix, biscotti mix, pancake goodies including maple syrup!  I can't wait to make a batch of scones this weekend.  Maddie already took the little mug (which is why it isn't pictured here) and has been using it -- she loves it!  Thanks so much Elaine!

And here's the world's worst picture of our guild meeting.  I'm terrible at taking photos (and to be fair, there was a wall in the way, so I couldn't back up any farther).  Despite the terrible photo, it was a fun time.  That's Marianne -- who owns my very local yarn shop, Perfect Touch Yarns -- at the head of the table.  She has been doing the work of all the officers for years, so I'm trying to help out a little more.  I met Cindi &  got to see her beautiful Vittadini sweater (that lace one with the ruffle -- she made it and it is gorgeous!)  And I met Vicki, who made a cute version of my Lily bag with srtipey goodness (I love stripes!)  If you live in the greater Joliet, Il area, let me know!  We would love to have you join our guild!

15.35 Miles

Oy!  That's how much yarn I have in the stash. . . 15.35 miles.  And that doesn't include all the yarn associated with the *many* WIP's.  (Or all the 'cheaper' yarn I got in moments of weakness at the mega-craft stores, or the load of superwash wool I got on eBay a few years ago, or. . . ) 

Last night I made the mistake of having a latte after dinner.  So when I came home and saw the post over at GirlReaction my mind started racing.  I have a great love of spreadsheets, so I dragged out the stash and started taking notes.  After midnight I was all finished.  15.35 miles -- it boggles the mind!

In other news, the greatest thing *ever* happened today.  People came over and cleaned my house.  Okay, why didn't I get a cleaning service before now?  I'm in heaven!!!!

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Six years and counting!

Striped Tote (or I sew too!)

Did you know that I sew a little too? The sewing bug bit me a little while back, but I had resisted. Yesterday I was overcome and went to the fabric store. I picked up this cheery fabric and made this tote.

Now, I didn't use a pattern, and I didn't document the process, but these bags are very simple. Mariko, whose blog I *love* has a nice little tutorial here.

My bag is even fully lined! See how I mostly was able to match the stripes?

Oh yeah, and it's reversible too. Fun, quick and easy. I think I'll make a couple of smaller ones too. I got a ton of the fabric. Now, does anyone know where there is a good tutorial for a zippered pouch? I tried to make one and ended up with a mangled mess. I know it can't be that difficult. I just need some guidance!

More sepcific on the trade. . .

I guess that my ultimate trade would be some laceweight wool or wool blend in a different color. 

UPDATE -- The yarn has been claimed!

Trade!!

A while back I got this in that box thing (remember, the box came to your house, you took out stuff and put stuff in?)  Anyway, these aren't my colors.  I'm a autumn girl (and a pink and purple girl) and so these have lingered, unused in my stash.  Here's the details:

• From Motomo
• Colorway -- Coral Reef II
• 75% Lambswool & 25% Chinese Cashmere
• Hand dyed
• 18wpi (lace weight)
• 400 yrds each for a total of 1200 yrds.
• 3 oz each for a total of 12 oz.

I figured with the Summer of Lace coming up, someone could use these.  It's super soft and would make a lovely shawl or other lacy project.

So, if you are interested, email me.  Let me know what you have to offer.  I will take other yarn, other crafty goodness or cash.  Best offer wins! (Oh yeah, here's my  email.)

133

It's been two weeks and I've lost 3 lbs. Half-way there!

Colorful Spinning

Remember this roving that I dyed up?  Well, I spun it.  Look how it turned out. . .

I need to find a mini project to use it on so I can see what it looks like knit up!  Any suggestions?

Speaking of dyeing and spinning, after Theresa and I had out little dyeing experiment I decided to purchase a few dyeing books.  They arrived yesterday from Amazon and I'll try to tell you a little about them.

First up is Deb Menz's Color In Spinning.  What can I say but WOW!  This book has so much info and so many color pictures, that I will have my nose buried in it for days.  Seriously!  She starts out with a  great chapter on color theory.  (And if you are really interested in color theory, I would recommend Menz's book Color Works which I also have and love.) 

Chapter 2 is all about the dyeing.  Step-by-step.  Illustrated so that you can't go wrong! 

Chapter 3 may be my favorite.  It's titled "Painting rovings for multicolored yarns.'  Great color pictures lead you through the process.

Chapter 4 & 5 are intriguing to me -- it's about blending & making batts with a drum carder.  Menz now has me dreaming of buying one.  Here's a link to a demo of a drum carder for those who don't know what I'm talking about. 

Chapter 6 explores another interesting and new technique to me -- combing.  Tons of colorful pictures to lead you through combing fibers, using a diz (I always wondered what these things were used for!), and preparing your rovings.  Once again, color blending is discussed.

And of course, chapter 7 deals with the actual spinning of the colorful rovings you have created!  She gets into color theory a little bit more here while discussing plying.  This chapter really ties it all together.  She has a small chapter at the end that also shows some finished garments made with the hand dyed, hand spun yarn.

All in all, this book gets an A+ from me.  I know I will be reading it from cover to cover and picking it up often just to look at all the great photos.  If you want to do some dyeing, I recommend picking up a copy of this book!

The other book I purchased was Hands on Dyeing by Betsy Blumenthal & Kathryn Kreider.  This book is much smaller and has fewer color photos, but is still very well illustrated.  It also touches on color theory and the dyeing process, but has a much broader audience.  While Menz's book is aimed primarily at spinners, this book covers the dyeing of fabrics and processed yarns.  Many different projects are included: quilted placements, a sewn jacket, knit, woven & silk scarves, and even an overdyed blue jean rag rug!  Great inspirations and a lot of great info.  If you are looking to dye more than just fleece, I think this book would be a great reference material for you.

And while I'm on the subject of books, I finished this book:

A Changed Man by Francine Prose.  It's about a skinhead that has a conversion and decides to go over to the other side.  There are great moments in this book that explore the meaning of racism and bigotry and it's prevalence in our daily live.  Pretty much all the characters have racist or bigoted thoughts at some point, but it's what they choose do do with these thoughts that seem to make the difference in who they are. 

Having said how great the ideas in this book are, I have to say that I'm not a big fan of Prose's writing style.  I felt that the ending was awful (and they lived happily ever after. . .  type thing) and that her writing needed a lot more polish.  This is a good book that could have been great.  Taking a look at the inside pages of the book reveal a long list of books she has written.  Perhaps she should write fewer books and put more time into re-writes and editing.

And here's some info and a picture of the cover of The Yarn Harlot's latest book -- Yarn Harlot : The Secret Life of a Knitter. No release date, but I'm sure it will be worth the wait!

~-~-~ Lemon Sorbet ~-~-~

I love lemons.  Has to be close to my #1 favorite flavor.  So when I saw lemons on sale at the grocery, I knew it was time to make some lemon sorbet.

The first step in this process was finding a recipe.  I have *many* cookbooks (you would think I would cook more, huh) but I knew which one to pull out -- Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book.  I've made several recipes from this book and they have all been good.  I used the Lemon Daiquiri recipe minus the rum.  Super easy -- no cooking involved.  Which is a good thing since it's 90 degrees here today!  Here's what it looked like:

Then I threw it into the ice cream maker.  I use this:

I think it works very well for a little home machine.  Some tips:

• Think cold!  Freeze the ice cream bowl for at least a day.
• Chill the mixture for about an hour before putting it into the icecream maker.
• Start the machine and then pour in the mixture.
• Put all untesils you will be using in the freezer.

It's really very simple, I assure you!  Here's progress pictures:

First picture shows what it will look like just after pouring in the mixture.  After about 15-20 minutes it will look opaque and slushy, like picture #2.  The third picture shows the finished sorbet after about 35 minutes in the machine.  At this point I removed it from the ice cream maker and put it into a pre-chilled freezer container.  It will continue to harden in the freezer. 

But of course I left out some for me & Pete to sample. . .

Oh, I wish I had a sprig of mint, so that it would look all professional.  It was very tasty and refreshing and I'll be making more sorbets this summer!

Socks. . .

Not much to tell.  I've been making a lot of patterns and trying to get caught up on orders.  For lack of anything else to post, I'll show a picture of my current sock-in-progress.

I'm using my usual pattern and some lovely Cherry Tree Hill sock yarn in the colorway Indian summer.  Here's a close up of the lovely colors:

Pretty stuff, isn't it? 

So, now that I've bored you with my sock. . . go see Jan's cute hats!

134

Two lbs down, four to go. Time to go get on the elliptical machine. . . .