Spinning Fever! 2013

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So, being pregnant, I've run into a common pregnancy symptom called "nesting." I'm given to understand that this usually affects women by having them clean and organize. I'm no exception for the most part. I've been cleaning and I did reorg my entire stash and catalog it. But I've got an added fiber dimension to my nesting. I call it SPINNING FEVER!

I don't know why, but I have been spinning like a mad woman. As you can see from my last post (April 25th), I already finished 2 wheel-spinning projects. While I'm still working on the wheel, I've now moved to drop-spinning. You know, because it's soooo much more efficient (/sarcasm). 

Here's another pic (with better detail, but not as true to color as the above). This is the fruit of two different drop spindles. The teal and purple are the same batt - I split it so that most of the purple would be in one set and most of the teal on the other. There's some cross-over, and the accents are black, white, green, and firestar.   The grey is from another spindle that I decided to clear so I could give it to my friend Sherry, so I could teach her to spin. First it needed a hook added to it. I had been spinning without one since it broke.

Then, there's the 3rd drop spindle I'm working on. This is the one I call my "lucky spindle" because it's 4-leaf clovers saved in resin (or something). It doesn't spin exceptionally well, but it's decent and it's pretty. I'm spinning two different batts (I think) that are almost exactly the same. I know that one of them I got on my cruise to Alaska when the husbean and I got engaged. The other.....may be the same. It also could be something I bought later. The similarities are stunning. I'll really know when I finish the 2nd half of the first batt and move to 2nd bat, which looks like it has more purple. 

And here is a close up of the first bat, one finished half and one progress. The batt is purple, lavender, light green, super light blue, and sparkle. You can see some of the sparkle glinting at you from this picture. So....apparently this is my new nesting activity. You know, not really something useful. Let's just hope I can keep myself from the supported spindle for a little bit longer.......

April Costuming and Spinning

Where to begin? This weekend is the Nova Albion Steampunk Convention, in lovely Santa Clara, CA. I'll be there in my usual position - hosting the Tea Room (Called Miss Kalendar's), which is actually the con suite. For those of you not aware of what a con suite is, it's the place where people can go to relax during a convention. There are usually complimentary snacks and drinks. It's not usually anything fancy - potato chips and kool aid or soda. My version has china cups and saucers where we serve people tea (which we brew in pots), silver and other metal trays where we put out cookies and "biscuits." This may be a little difficult in my so-called "delicate condition," but I'm still in my early 8th month of pregnancy, so all I really need is someone to help me carry big heavy things this time.  I even managed a costume, which is at the end of this post. 

But first, because it always comes first, the fibre! Turns out that my newest nesting activity has less to do with cleaning and more to do with spinning. 

Here's the first thing I finished this week. It's a 3 ply of pure wool. I affectionately call it "School Bus Yellow" since that's what the color reminds me of. It's about a light worsted, heavy fingering. I'm quite pleased with how it turned out. There is a good 321 yds of it.  The story behind this yarn is that I gave half of a fleece I'd purchased and paid to have cleaned to a friend. The other half I loaned her to dye. This is part of what I got back, and I spun it up almost immediately since the color made me so happy.

Here's the gratuitous close-up. You can see the three plys and the great yellow and orange that make up this yarn. It's so nice and fluffy!










Here's the other thing I finished this week. It's definitely an "art yarn." This was a lovely greyish purple bat that I mother gave me for Christmas. The bat was full of 2nd cuts and neps, so it didn't want to spin very evenly. After a few frustrating minutes of trying to pick them out and get an even yarn, I decided to give up and let the yarn be what it wanted to be. It was a very quick spin after that. One night to spin, one night to ply.  I haven't spun anything that looked remotely like this since my very first wheel spinning. It was pretty liberating. I'm not sure what to use it for. Perhaps a hat for my mom as a thank you?



Below is the gratuitous close-up.

And here are the gratuitous baby bump photos.

Do not look below if that sort of thing makes you crazy.

Here I am after finishing my 7th month. 

And here I am at 7 months and a few days in the costume I finally was able to scratch together for the convention this weekend. Not featured are the hair piece and the hat I'll be wearing. Those are still to be decided.

Mid April Catch Up! 2013

As most of you have heard or figured out by now, I'm pregnant. To be more specific, I'm just under 28 weeks pregnant. That means I have just over 12 weeks left.  It's been a real journey for me. There are a lot of things that you have to deal with and worry about as a pregnant woman that I had no idea about prior to living through this.  One of those things was how much time being pregnant was going to take out of my crafting life. I expected that being a mom would do that, but didn't think I'd lose most of the 10 months prior.

So, please know that this paltry offering of finished projects for March and Mid April are not due to slacking - well not ENTIRELY due to slacking. It's just harder to get stuff done when you fall asleep or become a zombie after work. It's a struggle just to make dinner and make sure I have clean clothes to wear to say nothing of proper nutrition, blogging, podcasting, knitting, or working late hours.

But I did finish a few things - and here they are!

Finished Objects March through April 10, 2013:

• 2 rainbow car seat blankets, 1 for Lena and one for Amelia, congrats on being born, kiddos!
• ALL the blanket squares for Angela! (I only got a photo of some, but in all, I managed to get through something like 30, which finished the project)
• Socks for my husbean
• A blanket for the nice couple in our birthing class who are having a girl in June :)
• Merged Guest Room into my Fiboreum AND cataloged all my yarn and fiber. This took almost two weeks of evenings and partial weekend days.

 2 Rainbow Car Seat Blankets:

Here's the detail on what they look like. They were made by striping 1 skein of rainbow colorway with one colorway that was greys and lavender.  I believe the yarn was chroma...... This technique is one that is commonly used with Noro, but Noro was not the correct price-point or care needs for newborns.

Here are some of the mitered squares I finished. This was the second batch of what I finished since I'd already deployed an earlier set to be delivered to the recipient by a friend. This will make the 3rd installment.

 This is a pair of socks I finished for the husbean. They are made with leftovers from two different pairs of sasquatch socks - note the different color toe detail.

Here's the recently finished baby blanket, another gift. This one is for the lovely couple who is in our birthing class. We've finished 7 weeks so far, with 5 to go. They are a really nice couple. The husband works in tech, and is Indian - and he's the one who clued me in that wearing some of my Indian clothes may be more comfortable during pregnancy. One time he brought his mom, which was great. The woman is a teacher, and I think she even teaches in our district. They are giving their daughter a great Indian name.

Lastly, here are a couple pictures after the great Fiboreum cleanup, re-org, and cataloging.

This pic is of the closet, newly re-org-ed. It still looks messy, but it is head and shoulders above where it was before. Trust me on this. Plus, there are a bunch of fleeces you can't even see because they are piled on the very top "shelf." I'm considering that to be deep stash since I can't get to it easily.

There are also now 6 under-bed containers under the guest bed we've moved into the room. They are a little wider than the bed, but what can you do?

I also managed to go ahead and label a lot of items that weren't labeled. And then I made a new scrap bag - which is now mostly sock scraps and unfinished skeins since I made that huge scrap blanket last year. It's really exciting to cataloge all your stash. I feel newly inspired by some of the simply gorgeous stuff that I had and had either half-forgotten or just not remembered how gorgeous it was. This project also got me back on my spinning wheel because I was so inspired to spin more after touching all of my awesome handspun. I'm really looking forward to making things with my handspun. I only have enough to make full garments with plain fleeces, so now I'm beginning to think how  can mix and match my dyed stuff. It's so exciting.

End of January 2013 Post

It's the end of January, you know what that means....time for the tally!  Just before the end of Jan I finished my socks out of Poste Yarn from Simply Socks Yarn Company.  Pretty nice stuff! I was in love with the colorway. It's got these great thick stripes in brown, turquoise, and light blue.  Below is a close-up of the yarn, but first the stats:

January 2013 reconing:

• 1 pair of socks (for me)
• 1 skien of yarn in pink and brown
• 1 huge blanket 

Selfish index: 100%

 

Here's my most recent acquisition, courtesy of Overstock.com.  It's 4 cones of yarn (LB 18somethingorother), a book called Amigurumi Knits, and a new ball-winder. The ball-winder is to replace the one that I have that doesn't work so well anymore.

And, of course, what end of month post would be complete without showing my new projects. I couldn't help it, I had a little startitis.

To the right is my new project out of Bernat Mosaic, two different colorways, which looks a lot like if you do the same thing with Noro. The yarn is a lot like Noro, I suspect on purpose.

And here is my last new project, another daybreak. This will be my 3rd. It's done in a dark red (sorry for the bad color in the picture) and navy blue variegated yarn and a plain navy yarn, both are cascade heritage.

I love the daybreak, it's such a quick knit - probably because you can plan to do just 1 more stripe before you put it down and suddenly, you have a ton of stripes.

Making due and Mending

Quick one today.

For those of you who follow my podcast, you probably have already gotten the hint that I try to be as "Green" as possible. To me, that means trying to fix things rather than replace them and overall trying to use less.

Yesterday I spent about an hour mending a laundry basket and thought I might as well share, since I can't be the only one who has this type of trouble.

I've included a before and after pic of what I was working on so that you can see what I figured out.

Using a light colored yarn from my teaching box (in this case, some Rowan something or other), I moved the broken and pokey bits of the basket back where they seemed to belong and covered them with yarn. I used the yarn for two purposes: For the handles of the basket, I used a lot of yarn, wanting to not just reinforce, but keep any bits of the basket from poking out again. My hands deserve not to be shredded when I'm doing laundry. The other reason I used so much yarn is because I wanted a little cushion. Laundry baskets can get heavy when full. Why not make it more pleasant to carry them?

The other thing I did was simply run the yarn around the top reeds of the basket to pull them back into shape and keep them from sticking out and getting caught on things. For this, there was no need for the full coverage I did on the handles, shown to the right. Instead, it was a quicker job and I wrapped about every quarter to half inch. I figure, I've just extended the life of this basket at least a year, if not multiple years, which saves me the original cost, or at least defers it, and I haven't thrown something useable away. Also, I did this with a sturdy yarn, something all of us have near ay hand.

Just thought I'd share.

MId-January 2013 Project Status

Well, as one might expect, I can't seem to goa month without finishing something.

As proof, I  maintain that we're about halfway through the month of January, and I have already finished two things!

As you may or may not remember from the last post, there were 11 unfinished projects at the start of 2013. I'm happy to report the fact that two of those are done.  To the side, you can see the blanket I started last summer while my husbean was in surgery. I couldn't get a pic of it all spread out because it's frigging huge and we don't have enough floor space.

But trust me, it's huge.

I took a couple pictures just hoping to give you a feel of the crazy-quilt style this blanket embodies. 

I like how it turned out, and I like how it looks with my friend's baby playing on it in my living room. Keep in mind, the whole thing is garter, just using up odds and ends of dk/sport weight in my stash.

Next, I finished some spinning! I had trouble getting a good pic of this with my neanderthal camera skills. So let me just tell you what it is, pink and brown with a little white. I spun it so that the pink and brown were tempered by the white rather than preserving them as deep colors. I like the semi-pastel way it turned out. Very vintage baby. It's a two ply, not sure what I'm going to do with it yet. But I'm sensing a shouldrette or really big cowl in it's future.

Here's the best close-up I could get. Sorry for the blurriness.

But what would my life be without a new project here and there? Are you groaning? Maybe 11 is my magic number! So I wound up these two lovely skeins of sock yarn (cascade heritage, if I remember correctly). These two are going to be a daybreak for my friend Micah. He's awesome enough to wear a Daybreak the way Stephen West intended. So he gets one.

This will be the 3rd one I've made. I'm still not sick of the pattern. Something about it is just fun. I think I should probably investigate other Stephen West patterns soon. Who knows what I could be missing??



Below is the first progress pic of this lovely.

And, lastly, what would life be without starting something new on the wheel? I just took something off, so it is probably lonely, right?

This supremely cheery yellow and orange is courtesy of my friend Erica. We made a deal last year that I'd provide her with a whole, clean, pin-drafted fleece, and she'd give me half of it back dyed. I'm not sure how many ounces I have in this color, but I'm smitten. It's the perfect winter doldrums spinning. How can you not be happy when faced with this?

So, yeah, 11 projects again. Whoops!

Unfinished items going into 2013

Like many people who knit, spin, crochet, weave, or otherwise make things with their hands, I have several projects going on at one time. Some may call this genius (I do) because it allows me to flit from one to the next according to what my brain is craving (or capable of) at the time. For example - rough day, maybe some socks or garter stitch. Easy day or want to feel challenged, lace will do it. Others may say this is not so smart. For example - you could lose projects, forget about them, never finish anything..... But why be negative? I never never never forget about projects....well, only sometimes.

So, rather than hiding my WIPs (works in progress)(because we always intend to finish them, whether or not we actually do), I'm going to start the new year celebrating them. And what better way to do that then haul them all out and take pictures of them? note: these are the only ones I know about or could find....there could be something(s) I didn't remember.

Project  #1 
Review Socks.
These are being made out of Poste Stripe Seattle Coffee Blu. This is from Simply Socks Yarn Company.  Full disclosure: I received 1 of these skeins for free from the dyer. I chose which colorway I wanted, but there were other colorways that I really liked as well. I purchased the other ball myself since I enjoy doing socks 2 at a time.

Current Progress: both socks are just passed the gusset and working down the foot.

Project  #2
2013.1 Husbean Socks.
These are being made out of trekking. They are being made out of the remnants left from 2 pairs of Sasquatch Socks (or at least I think they will take both sets of remnants. If not, he'll get 2 pairs).  Not in love with the colorway, but it's passable for him and that's all that matters.


Current Progress: leg done, ready to start heel flap.






Project  #3
Angela's Blanket
To be honest, this is the longest WIP I have. It spans multiple years. It's mitered squares made out of some lionbrand that I was gifted a million years ago. I was given a bag full of the stuff - as in the sealed bag that the yarn store must have received it in. I forget even who gave it to me.

Current Progress: No F'ing clue. I've given her multiple finished square and have at least 13 more I haven't given her yet - any maybe 10 more skiens.

Project  #4

Scrap Blanket 

I started this right before my husbean went into ankle surgery last Spring.  I've got two panels, one knitted onto the other, each 200 stitches across. 

Current Progress: I've got something like 70 rows left until I'm finished with the 2nd panel. Then it's done until I have enough scrap to make a 3rd panel. 

Project  #5
Milestone Shawl
I started this on my honeymoon in late Oct 2011. It's a lace pattern of little moons. After I finished the pattern, I went back and repeated it over and over to increase size. Then I went "off road" and made up some of my own. Now I'm stealing the willow boarder from Victorian Lace Today.

Current Progress: Almost 1/4 done with interminable border.

Project  #6
Handspun Arianne Sweater
True to the title, this is being knit from yarn I spun myself. I believe it's Corriedale. I can't remember who I bought it from, but I do remember that I purchased it at one of the spinning days at the winery in Livermore. I call the color Antique Pink, although it looks a little like a purple-y-mauve here. It's lighter than that, I just didn't take a good picture (personal kryptonite)

Current Progress: Ripped out once and back to pat start.

Project  #7, #8
C.M. Material Girl and Unknown fibre
The Crown Mountain is lovely stuff (as everyone knows) I'm spinning it with a wollee-winder on the electric wheel the husbean built for me. I expect to use this wheel a lot more as my belly increases.

Current Progress C.M. Material Girl: 1/3 done on singles. 2/3 to go and then 3-plying. 8oz, I think.

The unknown fibre was purchased at Purlescence. I fell in love with the color. It's brown, white, and dark pink. I'm probably about 3/4 done with the singles. It is spinning up much lighter, but still very nice. I did really like the drastic dark colors, but even muted by the white, they are turning out very pretty. Reminds me of fall.

Current Progress unknown fibre: 3/4 finished singles. Then need to 2-ply or Navajo ply. 4oz, I think.




Project  #9
Lupine II, EWEnique Creations and Fiber
This is a primarily superwash merino hand-dyed goodie from my Alaska Cruise in, what, 2010? It was when I got engaged. There's only 2z here. It's GORGEOUS (but a little felty from me handling it too much)

Current progress: prob about 1/2 an oz. FAIL.

Project  #10
Halloween Fibre (Fairy Mountain Fibres)
Alright, I don't have the band for this, so I don't know the real name of the colorway. It look Halloween-ish to me, though. Pretty sure it's Fairy Mountain. Love the creepy green and teal over the magenta and black with some angelina.

Current Progress: pic is misleading, I'm actually on my second spindle shaft of this, which means I'm more than 1/2 way. Sadly, the spindle shaft is broken, so it's very slow now.


Project  #11
Crochet-novelty
Sorry, no pic. I think I know where this project is languishing, and I'm just not woman enough to get it It would be hard to get at and I'm just not motivated enough to face the accompanying crap-alanche that would follow. This is a lovely skien of novelty yarn (but the 'spensive kind) that was a gift. It's pink, white, black, and red. I was wearing it around my neck in the skien, so I decided to single crochet it and then secure it into what's now being called by the fashion world a "Circular scarf" or a "round scarf" or whatever they want to call a mobius these days. Although I'm not going to add the twist, so it won't be a mobius, just imagine a skien around my neck and you'll have it.

Current Progress: Almost done with the crocheting. So pretty darn near close to complete. Once I dig it out of it's hidey hole, I may even manage to finish it.


PURPOSEFULLY NOT FEATURED
Re-enacting:
Some things I have on my spindles are not projects, or at least not WIPs in a true sense. These are things I take with me when re-enacting. They are not really to finish, they are to give me something to do with my hands and which I enjoy that is historically accurate. I have 2 spindles engaged thusly, and packed with my re-enacting gear. I'm using gift fibre (as in, the person was going to spin but hated it and gave me their beginner stuff) on one and random grab-bag fiber on the other (ends of multiple sheep thrown together, all different colors). Although I don't consider these projects, they are very fun when I work on them. If I ever finish the yarn, I'll post it and maybe make something out of it as a project. I have 1 supported spindle to model spinning cotton (which I hate) so I can show people.

Not started: Things which haven't yet been started, but which are in the swatch stage are also not going to show up. Why? They aren't projects. They are little hopes that may or may not happen.

Handspun blanket: Let's face it, this is just a convenient way for me to store old handspun ends. But I'm thinking it either needs to be ripped out and reknit on a pattern (maybe bee-keeper quilt) or ripped and the yarn re-purposed another way. Otherwise, I'd put it on here. But since it's going to get frogged either way, it's not really a project anymore, just a way I'm storing handspun scraps.