cruise reading & project planning

Yippee! The books I ordered arrived just in time for me to take them with me! Finally I have my own copy of Victorian Lace Today, along with a couple of Yarn Harlot books.

Perfect cruise reading.

Now, I have to plunder my stash to find a laceweight yarn to take, just in case a project demands to be started while I am away.

My current planning is to take the shawl in progress, a pair of almost completed socks, the yarn for another lace shawl and another pair of socks for the knitting content - is that really going to be enough for two weeks? Hmm - I'm going to have to think about it.

I also am taking my Little Gem, the remainder of the silk I am spinning and two other spinning projects - one is 4 ounces and the other is 12 ounces.

Just to be certain - I am also taking a couple of spindles with their own fiber supply.

Getting Ready

It's been a while... My laptop is still down for the count. D will take it to the shop soon.

I am off work today - packing for our cruise. Two weeks - from Los Angeles to Hawaii. We are so excited. I bought a new camera and want to take one of the cruise ship classes in using it.

I hope to come back with lots of great pictures and renewed interest in blogging daily.

It's been a while

My computer is still on the fritz and I have not been good about writing.

I have a number of pictures to upload, I don't know why I have been putting it off.

The blue version of the Forest Canopy Shawl is done, blocked and put away, all without one picture. The green striped one is almost done - I hope to take a photo when it's blocking.

The cruise is less than 3 weeks away now and we are planning the luggage to take. I have to determine which projects to take - the Little Gem is the wheel that is going along. I just have to figure out what fiber I want to spin. I have over a pound of fiber to spin for mom's sweater, I could take that. I also have some gorgeous dyed silk that I am thinking of taking. It will take hours and hours to spin, but I don't know if the humidity will be an issue.

As for knitting. I will look in my stash for some handspun sock yarn and start a souvenier sock. I have the blue ones from last years trip and my red ones from SOAR. I think memory socks is a wonderful idea. I will also take a lace project - I am thinking that I need to try another pattern for lace now that I have the Forest Canopy Shawl pattern memorized. I still have the cobweb yarn that I dyed at SOAR that I want to knit into a shawl. I have to find the perfect pattern for it. I also have another skein of the chocolate polworth and silk that needs to be turned into something beautiful.

Pecular title

I can't decide which one of these I like best - what do you think?

Barbara Anne the Lush is great, but "in the Middle of much madness on Avon has a great ring to it.

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Her Excellency Barbara Anne the Lush of New Porton Wells Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

My Peculiar Aristocratic Title is: Empress Barbara Anne in the Middle of Much Madness upon Avon Get your Peculiar Aristocratic Title

The brown blob blocking

I finished the Forest Canopy Shawl and it is a delight to knit. Very easy to memorize the pattern and the instructions are very clear. I did many more repeats than the pattern called for, as my yarn was finer and my gauge swatch was more stitches per inch. My first lace shawl.

I knit this out of a fingering or lighter hand spun yarn. The wool is chocolate Polwarth from Rovings.com and I blended it with some silk I bought at SOAR. The ball of yarn weighed 6.5 ounces and was 850 yards. I have very little left.

The colors of the silk are very hard to see but give the yarn quite a bit of tweediness in some places. I am not sure that I like it, but will wait to see what it looks like after blocking.

Blocking on the Tri loom, if I was going to do it over I would change how I put it on the loom. I did the top first and then tried to do the sides. I should have done it from the center out three ways.

More pictures when my camera starts working again. I think I need to replace the batteries in it.

Guild Meeting of the Queen Creek Yarn Yankers

We had a little holiday/birthday party last Saturday at our guild meeting. The food was fabulous and this is Ellen trying on her new hat over top of some novelty yarn I spun at the last demo.

Knitters without Borders

Once again the Yarn Harlot has challenged knitters to step up and put our money where our heart is... hmm somehow that didn't come out right.

Please take a look at this post and consider giving to this great cause - even if just a little bit in this holiday season. Paraphrasing Steph - each of our donations is a small stitch amoung many and each stitch is necessary to the whole.

Knit from your Stash 2007

Wendy has started a Knit from your Stash 2007 idea and I am going to participate.

My own little twist to the rules is that I will also spin from my stash. The two exemptions are fiber bought at fiber festivals and my monthly fiber of the month club package.

Otherwise I will attempt to knit and spin from stash from January until September.

NO fiber content whatsoever

I saw a great quote today on another blog about consequences and it struck home for me today especially.

My 34 year old son has been living with me since he was released from prison last August and recently he stopped doing what he was supposed to do. You know - see his parole officer once a week, keep a job... etc.

It's always hard to watch those we love act in a way that we know will bring them nothing but trouble and will break our hearts. I know this first hand

Just a little while ago I got a call from D saying that my son was in an accident and she was going to see what he needed. Still not sure what happened, but the police ran his record and his parole officer already had a warrant for his arrest out there - so back to prison he went.

I am destroyed......

Computer Woes

I have been pretty much offline for quite a while now due to one of the nasty cats pissing on the keyboard of my laptop. I can do some functions, but basically it's not usable.

I have another computer in the office - a huge old slow desktop that I really hate, but between the two of them I can get some of my draft posts completed today.

I took the day off work as I have to burn thru some of my PTO before the end of the year. We switched to a use it or lose it policy for time off and I had quite a bit accumulated prior to the change. I get 25 days PTO per year and another 4-5 days of personal holidays. I had at least 15 days on the books at the start of the year so I've gotten creative at using up vacation time.

Next year I will have to use the rest of my legacy time of 10 days in addition to the 29 days for 2007. I have been sitting down and planning days off for the whole year - mostly around fiber retreats and festivals. I'll have the time off - now I have to save for the events themselves.

The first vacation will start January 26th and last until February 11th - we are taking a 15 day cruise to Hawaii. 4 days at sea, 5 days around the islands, 4 days back to Mexico and then back to Los Angeles. I have never been on a cruise and I am desperately trying to figure out how I can pack 15 days worth of spinning and knitting - (not to mention books) in luggage I can actually carry. LOL - D will probably only need one of her checked bags, I can use hers too.

Thanksgiving

It was great to have Bill here for the holiday. Here he is holding Zachary. The guys on the couch are my nephews Tyler (on the left) and Matthew.






My sister Juanita has lost a bunch of weight and looks great here with my best friend Jackson.







Patrick and his father - really the reason I brought Bill down here was so that he and Pat could have a little time together












Sarah looks so cute wearing Melody's hat







My family - That's D on the left, my son Patrick, me in a hideous dress and Bill.

Green Socks

I finished these green socks quite a while ago, but pulled them out to wear recently. I have completely crossed over to the dark side of knitting - yes that's right! I know wear socks as well as knit them.

For a long time, I considered my self on the grey side - I knit socks but did not wear them. Barefoot is the way to go as far as I have always been concerned, but the weather here has hit a cold spell and I tried on these green socks.

That was all it took. These have a cable running up each side of the instep and then two cables on each side of the leg. This is a 2 ply handspun superwash merino. I cannot remember who I got the fiber from.

Holiday presents finished

when I was at SOAR, I purchased a couple of kits from Lambspun for their "One Ball Shawl" the kit had all these fun fur and other novelty yarns in it and was wound in a ball with each yarn tied to the next. It was like knitting a surprise. I knit both of those up and gave them to my two younger sisters

This past weekend, I was at the craft store looking for some "unnamed items" for a couple of holiday presents and saw the novelty yarns all stacked up and decided to make my own kits for holiday presents. I bought about 10 skeins all different types, mainly browns. At home, I divided them up. some skeins into 3 parts, some into 4 - depending on the number of yards in the skein and how I liked the color or texture. Then I sorted those little bits into 7 piles and then arranged it so each pile had the colors and textures in a "different from all the rest but pleasing" sequence.

I started knitting one of the kits in the everyday - cast on three and increase 4 every other row - triangle shawl that Sarah is modeling below. That came out so well, I immediately cast on for Maegan's poncho. The girls loved them so much that they took them home with them instead of waiting for the holiday party.




The scarf to the right is for one of the other nieces and I knit it out of one of the kits too.















I still have 4 kits left - I am going to knit D's granddaughter a scarf and perhaps my mom and sister in Missouri.

Optim

Here is 500+ yards of Optim, 4 ounces, from a roving I got at SOAR from Janel at Chameleon Colorworks.

It's so pretty,I'm not sure what I am going to make out of it - I think I will let it age in my stash for a little while.

swatching

I have been working on the design of a yarn from my SOAR purchases.

The chocolate polworth, the brown and orange silk - the cashmere/alpaca blend... what to do, what to do.

so I did something different this time. I sampled. I spun up a bobbin of the cashmere/alpaca, a bobbin of the polworth and a little bit of the silk. I tried plying the three together, that didn't thrill me - so I tried two plys of the three combinations. Didn't really care for any of those either. The silk was too much contrast to the polworth and got lost in the cashmere tweediness.

I went to the drum carder and blended some of the silk with the polworth and spun up a bobbin of that. Back to sampling. Plyed all possible combinations of the three bobbins and then knit a test swatch of each sample. This is a picture of the test swatch.

6 different yarns and I like the one on the right side the best. This picture doesn't show the silk shine, but the right hand yarn is the polworth plyed with the polworth/silk blend.



This skein is about 6.75 ounces and over 800 yards of pretty pretty yarn.

Tarot Card

It's been a long time between posts. My camera is not working and I have been feverishly working on the design of the yarn for my sweater.

Here is an interesting test I took today

You are the World

Completion, Good Reward.

The World is the final card of the Major Arcana, and as such represents saturnian energies, time, and completion.

The World card pictures a dancer in a Yoni (sometimes made of laurel leaves). The Yoni symbolizes the great Mother, the cervix through which everything is born, and also the doorway to the next life after death. It is indicative of a complete circle. Everything is finally coming together, successfully and at last. You will get that Ph.D. you've been working for years to complete, graduate at long last, marry after a long engagement, or finish that huge project. This card is not for little ends, but for big ones, important ones, ones that come with well earned cheers and acknowledgements. Your hard work, knowledge, wisdom, patience, etc, will absolutely pay-off; you've done everything right.

What Tarot Card are You?
Take the Test to Find Out.

Soar Retreat classes

I took 4 Retreat classes at SOAR - here are the results from two of them.

The first class I took was painting handspun yarns with Deb Menz. I took a drum carding class last year with her and it's made all the difference in my color blending on my drum carder.

Anyway, this is 1600 yards of grey polwarth spun laceweight or cobweb. It weighs 6.5 ounces and is amazing yarn that I still can't believe I spun. I experimented with some different colors, but knew that I wanted to keep it simple so as to not detract from the lace shawl that I intend to knit from it.

The color theory in class really helped me decide that I wanted the different colors to have roughly the same value. Every chance to take a class with Deb, you can bet I'll jump on it.

I was standing there, afraid to put dye on my yarn cause it took so long to make. and she said: "don't make it too precious, you can always spin it again" - this gave me the freedom to just dye it and not agonize over whether it was going to turn out great or not. Luckily, it did. I love the colors and the way they go together. I am leaving it in the skein form until Guild tomorrow night for show and tell. Then it's off to the ball winder to get it ready to knit with. I still don't have a pattern for the semicircle shawl that I want to knit from it.

This is from Maggie Casey's class on Boucle the easy way. The bottom sample can't be seen very well in this picture, but it didn't come out as boucle as the others anyway.

This is the result of spinning one finer ply of soft wool with one ply slightly thicker of adult mohair. The two different white samples were both rambo roving with different preparations of mohair - the top one was mohair roving and the bottom one mohair top. After spinning, you shock the yarn to shrink it - agitate it in hot hot water and then plunge it into cold water. Instant Boucle! What a great class. I took a class with Maggie last year on spinning skeins for submitting in a skein contest. She looked at my niddy noddy and instantly knew who made it. What a fount of knowledge she is.

Update to SOAR shopping post

I learned how to make words into links in my posts - so I linked to each of the vendor's websites in my original post listing my purchases at SOAR. I am so moving into the technological world.

I always wondered how people put all those links in their posts and now I know how to do it too.

woo, and also, hoo.

Stash enhancement project

This doesn't look like much does it?













Even spread out, it's not really that much.








Left to right top: three 4 ounce braids of superwash, 2 ounces of camel down, one ounce of alpaca, two 4 ounce bumps of alpaca/silk/cashmere, 2 lbs of chocolate polworth

Left to right bottom: 4 ounces dyed tussah, two 4 ounce braids of optim, two more 1 ounce samples of alpaca, two 4 ounce braids of merino tencel, three different 1 ounce cashmere samples

Promised Harlot picture

Here is Stephanie holding my red sock up with her blue one. She was so friendly and said nice things about my sock.

She rocked the tent on Thursday night.