Catching up with life

It's what I do whenever a semester ends. I'll have exams, then a slow wind-down afterwards including piles and piles of grading, painstaking entering of grades, and then responding to student emails for about 10 days. Only half of that time will be spent in the office, so I get to indulge myself by knitting during grading breaks, but mostly my free time is taken up with activities like laundry, seeing the dentist, cleaning the apartment, and in general doing all those things I've put off during the last month.

Today is different. All grades are in, the student email rate has reduced to a trickle, and I am caught up on random chores. I have enough energy and free time this morning to make myself some tasty scrambled eggs for breakfast, throw on a podcast, and reflect on my knitting and spinning over the last month or so. Let's get the un-updated updates out of the way first, then move on to the meatier stuff.

1. Brie gloves are still languishing. I need to re-read the directions for the thumb, and I don't feel like doing so.

2. I got some more Soak woolwash, and washed a bunch of handspun. Three of the skeins felt stringy rather than squishy, and I wasn't in love with them until they dried after the wash. I must remember this: washing your yarn is a good thing.

3. Spinning progresses apace. I finished two big spinning projects, which I will save for another post later.

4. The Halcyon Sweater is also chugging along. I'm almost done with the front, and I have a sneaking suspicion that the knitting goddesses are going to toy with me by allowing me to finish this sweater with only a small amount of yarn short. We'll see. I was interested to find that I am able to memorize the 12-row and 16-row cable repeats, but not the 24-row main cable. I don't need to grab the book as I can read the pattern from the previously worked repeats, but I can't hold the whole thing in my head. Did my brain hit a saturation point, or just a plateau? I guess I should wait and see if I have the thing memorized by the time I finish the back of the sweater as well.

5. I was lucky enough to be part of Verb's fabulous Keep the Fleece event two weekends ago. It was a day of many firsts. In addition to being the first Verb Keep the Fleece event, it was also the first time I've been around that many spinners all spinning at once, my first sheep-to-anything event (we did a scarf), and my first time being on video talking about knitting, spinning, crafting, and blogging. I sat next to the fabulous Aija and we chatted about getting connected to other crafters through the internet for a very charming gentleman (whose name escapes me at the moment) who is making a documentary film about knitters. I also introduced another knitter to the joys of handspun yarn for the first time. There was good food, good company, and good conversation, all for a good cause!

We started with fabulous Verb naturally-colored and naturally-dyed fiber:

The whole shebang


Delicious dyed BFL


Yummy Shetland locks

We were given partners, one spinner and one knitter per team. We had creative license over color choices, with the restriction that one ply of the yarn be Black BFL, and that we spin for a DK-weight 2-ply yarn. For an hilarious picture of me choosing colors, go take a look at my knitting partner's flickr photo. I think my claw hand is too funny! I look like a storybook witch cackling over which plump little child she's going to bake in the oven first. For the record, I am actually trying to decide on a purple colorway or a red-orange colorway for the second ply of our yarn.

Next, we handed our freshly spun yarn to the knitting halves, who churned out squares:


and then we combined the squares into an awesome scarf:


It was a great day, and I managed to not get sunburned! Living in Fog City has turned me into a total lizard, and I have very little self-control where direct sunshine is concerned. Luckily we had a little room to spin in, so we were all in the shade during the hottest part of the day. It was such an overall awesome event, I hope I get to be involved in something like that again. I've never been one for competition, so I'm not looking to join a sheep-to-shawl team, but it was very exciting to be around so much creative energy all packed into one day. I can't wait until next year!

Okay, I better stop there because this is getting kinda long. I'll tell you about my handspun projects soon (hopefully tomorrow morning, cross your fingers!). On Saturday I will be tooling around Maker Faire and I am expecting to run into all manner of crafty/DIY friends. I've never had a bad time at Maker Faire, and it's especially awesome because it's one of those events that is really exciting for me, the significant other, and just about all of our friends. Between the tech geek displays, the man-sized mousetrap, power tool drag races, and Bazaar Bizarre, there's something for everyone to see. I always leave tired, but I always learn new things there. Alright. Commercial over. I must go clean up after my scrambled eggs.

Remember those gloves?

The ones I talked about in this post? Well, for anyone who says that one needle size won't change your gauge that much, look ye upon disaster:



All gloves are unblocked, and no that one on the end isn't flipping the bird. It doesn't even have a bird to flip, since I stumbled upon my error while knitting the index finger and never got around to the middle finger. From left to right, we have:

1. Left glove attempt #2

2. Right glove

3. Left glove attempt #1

So that's the difference between a US size 1 (2 mm) and a US size 2 (2.5 mm) for me. Placing everyone side by side, it seems obvious. The ribbing is a full inch shorter, the palm isn't nearly as wide. I guess it's easy enough to miss if you whip through the wrist portion very quickly and never get the other glove out to see how they compare. Also, since these are knit flat and seamed up later, it didn't really click that the left glove had a lot less ease than the right glove. I'm pretty sure I'll have enough yarn to make glove #2 #3 without having to rip back, which is good. I did make an effort to rip out the glove, but it would go for about 5 stitches then I'd have to tug so hard the yarn would break rather than undo the stitch. Mohair is like cement. But cuddlier. Before this fiasco, I was going to try and make myself finish these before casting on for my Halcyon, but now it gets to wait at the bottom of my project bag until I'm darn well ready to knit fiddly little fingers again. Which might be awhile, because I'm in love with that sweater.

New Toy

Seems everyone's doing it these days.



I procured this (Hazel Rose 4-inch loom) during a really fabulous event: our local knitting group hooked up with Urban Fauna Studio for a get-together at their shop. We had cheese & crackers, did some shopping, and had an all-around great time! I am super excited to start using up all the little sock yarn leftovers I have in my deep stash. It's also endlessly fascinating to feel the woven fabric, and how different it feels than knitting. I did a square in Malabrigo worsted last weekend, and it's like knitting at a really tight gauge. Or maybe I'm just warping the thing too tightly... not sure yet.

I haven't been blogging because I've been spending the weekends trying to get out of my head. It's looking more and more like I won't get the new job I applied for (back in January... yeesh) and I've been really down about it. I'm not totally shocked, but it was a full-time job for a place I'm currently working at part-time, and I'm going to continue to work there part-time for the foreseeable future. So the office dynamic is going to change with a new full-timer, and everyone knows I tried for and didn't get the position. It all makes for work being a little awkward right now, and nothing will be settled for sure for another few weeks. So I am trying to get re-involved in other aspects of my life besides work (lots of crafting got put on hold while I was preparing for interviews) and sorta distract myself with the hand loom, lots of spinning, and this:



The first sleeve. Currently I have both sleeves done, this photo is a few days old. Thank you Purl Jammers for convincing me to do one more cable repeat! At least now I'm sure they will be long enough. Now, I'm getting mentally prepared to cast on for the front of the sweater. I have a few decisions to make about inserting some waist shaping (just a little teeny bit), but the knitting is chugging right along. I hope I won't run out of yarn! If that ends up happening, the problem is not spinning more, it's combining the light and dark locks I have left into something that's more homogeneous in color and at least attempts to match the rest of the sweater. There's also the last-ditch option of making some of the ribbing at the waist or the neck in a slightly darker color. I'll be back soon with another update on the handspun!

Life, Upside-Down

Holy Macaroni, I knew I hadn't blogged in a while, but nearly 3 weeks? Just seems wrong. Like someone else has been asleep at the wheel, not me, no sir. I haven't picked up the camera much recently, either, which is probably part of the problem. However, the fact that there has been a distinct lack of yarn, fiber, or knitting photos taken since my stitches post really just points to the same conclusion as my lack of blog posts: I have been neglectful.

Okay, enough wallowing in self-pity. Time for the update! I have been dealing with hectic life changes and those blasted gloves by starting a few easy projects. In the picture we have another mitered square, a cowl, and a scarf.



Don't let the mitered square fool you, I probably finished it in early February and just kept forgetting to take its picture. I'll still need to properly photograph it in all its proportionate glory so I can keep the flickr set looking nice and tidy. The cowl and scarf are both made from handspun yarn: the AVFKW merino/angora/silk blend that I blogged about here and Falkland wool from Girl on the Rocks that has been marinating in the stash since... last August (?!?!). The cowl is another variation on the Dolores Park cowl, but on size 11 US needles and with only 60 stitches around. A few rounds of seed stitch at either end. The scarf is a variation of the strips used in Olive's Afghan (Ravelry link) in the book Knitalong.

I have five skeins of handspun gray fleece, waiting for life to give me a pause (and hopefully, if all goes to plan, a new, better, shinier job *knock on wood*) so I can start swatching for my handspun cabled sweater. For now, cables would just get tangled up in my head. I've needed simple projects. I've also gone back to the second glove. I'm releasing myself from the need to finish them before I start something else.

In the spinning front, I've had a few weekends at home to spend some quality time with my Ladybug. By the way, has anyone else heard of the Anniversary Edition Schacht Matchless? Lots of folks are selling their standard-edition matchless wheels around Ravelry, so it seems like a good time to pick one up if you're interested in trying to find a bargain. I think the matchless is a fabulous wheel and the all-cherry wood version sounds absolutely beautiful, but I'm sticking with my wheel. I can't really justify upgrading to a wheel that costs double what I paid after only a year! We've been having lots of fun with the extra bobbins and new high-speed whorl, too. Here, take a look:



These aren't all on the high-speed whorl, or even all on the wheel! We've got from left to right: Smoky Mountain Spinnery Baltic Merino, Creatively Dyed wool/milk protein/seawool, Pigeonroof Studios BFL in "Autumn Cherry", Hello Yarn Superwash BFL in "Starry Night" (club fiber from December), and last but not least, A Verb for Keeping Warm Shetland and Silk in "Prudence" and "Shirley Temple", plied together.

You can see the progression of my spinning desires over the last six weeks: the baltic merino was done on my spindle, so afterwards I jumped right to the wheel to get a quick project. Next came the wool/milk/seawool blend, which was done on the high speed whorl to get a feel for how it works. Next, the Pigeonroof fiber is trying to be as thin as possible, but I ended up plying the yarn to get a more consistent final yarn. Next, I wanted something bulky after the teeny-weeny singles so I spun the superwash BFL fast and loose. Finally, I settled into a more concentrated project: the shetland and silk. I had these two fibers in mind for a combined yarn after seeing them at Verb's Workshop grand opening, and being inspired by Kristine's yarn. This one is my favorite, and I had a little bit of silk singles left over that got n-plied right on the same bobbin. It was awesome. I may still be on a roll with these cowls, we'll see if I've got enough yardage for another one! I won't be ready for a more complex project for at least another few weeks yet.

Oh Booger.

In my excitement after finishing the fleece spinning (knock on wood), I made a big push to get my two smaller projects off the needles. You know, clear the air before starting a large garment. One of those was that pair of gloves I started at the end of December. I got back from knit night tonight, thinking that the index finger looked a little stumpy, but maybe it was just the poor lighting. As I rummaged through my knitting bag to find a third needle, I realized I'd knit the ENTIRE SECOND GLOVE on US 1's instead of US 2's.

I don't know if I have enough yarn to just leave this as is and knit a third glove.

Mohair is not known for being easy to rip out.

Time for another beer.

Being sick is lame, but at least I could knit

So first the significant other got sick (this was two weeks ago), then I got sick about three days after he recovered. And by recovered, I mean that most of his symptoms were replaced with a persistent cough. Now, I may be reaching the coughing stage. So neither of us were sleeping well, and last weekend was mostly devoted to chilling out, doing laundry, and catching up on sleep. In the meantime, I've been knitting mitered squares. Behold, square #19:


square #20:


and square #21:


I've got them all in one Flickr set so that, when I'm done with the knitting, I can drag the pictures around and get a feel for what the entire blanket will look like. I'll definitely have enough yarn to do a 6 squares by 6 squares blanket, and it's nice to be making headway on this project again.

I am thisclose to being finished spinning my fleece! And by finished, I mean that I will have enough yarn for a cabled sweater, not that I will have spun up the entire fleece. Remember way back when I separated out the darkest and lightest locks from the rest of the bunch? Yeah, that fell by the wayside. I spun up all the middle-gray locks, and was about 300 yards short of my spinning goal for the sweater. Hopefully my makeshift blending of light and dark locks won't be too obvious in this last skein. I am cutting it pretty close on the yardage, but I think I'll be okay. I'm about 85% sure that I want to knit the
Halcyon Aran (second link is to Ravelry). Instead of doing the pattern exactly as written, I am already planning on shortening the sweater by a few inches, probably by taking out one repeat of the large center cable. 26 and a half inches (the length as written) would put the lower hem of the sweater below my butt, which wasn't a good look for me in the late 80's and isn't any better now. Plus, I figure this will be a heavier garment and it'll stretch a little under its own weight. I've got one more bobbin of singles that will get plied back on itself (hopefully this weekend), so next week I can start swatching! Hooray! I'm so excited to think I might actually have taken this project from raw fleece to finished sweater in a year. Given my timing, I'll probably finish the sweater in June...

Get your nerd on, old school

Here's me, waving my geek flag high and proud. The Castro Theater in San Francisco is doing an original-cast Star Trek movie marathon this weekend. Three double features: I and II tonight, III and IV on Saturday night, and V and VI on Sunday night.

I found out about the event this morning, while idly searching for movie times and procrastinating at work. Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was the first Star Trek movie I saw in a theater, and I'm a little more excited to see the rest on the big screen than I probably ought to admit in a public space. The only question in my mind was whether the significant other would want to go just tonight, or for all three nights. I immediately made plans to get over to the theater as soon as I could after my classes ended, so I could get in line and get tickets before they sold out. I was checking my purse for change for the bus, looking up how long it would take me to get over there via public transit, and seeing if any of our friends would be interested in coming. Several emails, phone calls, text messages, and one MUNI ride across the city later, I arrived at the theater to find no line and a very bored-looking ticket clerk who assured me that yes, they still had plenty of seats left for the 7:00 show.

I guess I'm the only person in San Francisco who would assume that a Star Trek marathon would sell out... must be the way I was raised.

P.S. KHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!

P.P.S. I promise, more knitting content soon. I have finished three more squares. And I need to share my haul from Stitches. Tomorrow morning I will get off my butt and photograph fibery goodness.