Reaching For "Normal" (Life is not for the weak)

Hats? What's with the hats? For those of you who kindly expressed concern over my recent stress, I present hats! Not lace, and knit by my sister rather than me, but important because they signal at least a partial reduction of my stress. These hats are for our good friend, Louise who you may have heard me refer to over the years. She has posed several times as a shawl model. Once with a Swallowtail shawl (which she then proceeded to keep) and once with the Hyrna which she decided was not her color so she let me keep that one. She even was nice enough to lend me back the first lace shawl I ever spun (which she owns of course) so I could take a picture of it for this blog (pre blog, pre digital photography). I have known Louise for over 20 years and she has been in the hospital for weeks, hence my stress. The great thing is that she looks like she may be on the mend and needs hats since her hair, alas had to be sacrificed. Thank you to everyone who has been wishing me well. I think the good vibes may have helped us both.

As I try to reach for something like "Normal" I have started back to knitting on the International Shawl and have added the leaf pattern that fleegle found in Pitsilised Koekirjad by Leili Reimann. I have a corner shot of the shawl bit it's getting really crowded on this needle so I'm not sure it's the best shot. I'm not going to make it very deep since I still have to fit in "Something Shetland"after the leaf pattern. The increases in the corners happen every other row and the pattern shaping in the corners are strictly, "By Guess By Golly" if you catch my drift. This is a seat of the pants deal as you can see. The leaf pattern is # 114 for those of you who have the book. Unfortunately, I don't think this book is available right now but there is a new book on Estonian Lace coming out by Nancy Bush called, "Knitted Lace of Estonia: Techniques, Patterns and Traditions" Nothing lowers stress better than retail therapy so I have already placed this book on pre-order at Amazon and I have high hopes it will be a fun one to knit from:-)

Below the shawl I have a shot of my new shawl pin. I got it from Romi and it's beaten copper. Very pretty, about two inches in length, the pin is shaped so it does not slip out so easily from the shawl. She has lots of lovely pins and is well known for her lace patterns including Muir and Ice Queen to name a few. As you can see, I have now spun up two colors of merino/sari silk fiber from Enchanted Knoll Farms . One with more pink/red to it, the other mostly green. It's not a thin yarn by any means so I really have to give this one some thought as to what I will do with it. It's the first "Superwash" wool I've ever spun and I did not really like how it felt or spun very much. Think of hair that has been permed one too many times and now feels kind of dry and lifeless. It's still soft, but I'm used to wool that feels "alive" with the scales still on those hair shafts. I still have some more superwash I can try in a different color but if it continues to feel crappy this may be the last time I buy any since I don't make socks. The bobbin of brown singles is the Madder dyed BFL from "A Verb For Keeping Warm". It actually looks nicer than what shows on the screen but there is still only 4 ounces of it. 4 ounces will only get me a triangle shawl or a good sized scarf. I will have to give this more thought. Maybe I can get more? Ha! Fat chance! Oh Well. That's all that there is for now. I am sending good vibes to everyone out there in knitting land as you did for me while I lived in dread. I hope everyone who has a 3 day holiday coming up enjoys it. Happy And Healthy Knitting to you All!

Playing Catch-Up (Trying to Get Current)

It's been awhile since I was last able to post. I've had some unusually stressful things happening lately so I've been spinning more than knitting. Stress was one of the reasons I first learned to spin and the relaxing yet productive nature of this activity never fails me. If I didn't have my crafts to keep me relaxed I'd be a quivering mess of "whips and jingles" as my friend Louise would say. That said, you can see that I did manage to knit a colorful little baby hat out of Lorna's Laces "Angel" in 70/30 Angora and Lambswool, colorway "Lorikeet". One 50 yard ball makes this hat with very little left over. It's for my niece who is expecting.

Since nothing helps me more when I'm stressed than a bout of shopping, I also had to have yet another Japanese knitting book. "Vintage Knitting in Tradition" which I picked up at the Kinokuniya Bookstore in "J" town in SF. Of course, I got it for the lace but it has some very lovely cable sweaters and Fair Isle type sweaters as well. Yeah. I know I have a heck of a lot of books on lace, but I really do think I will get to some of these. In particular I like the simple stole with the "birds eye lace" center and the pretty leaves on the ends. That one looks like it would be relaxing!

The next few pictures are of yarn I bought, put away and proceeded to forget I ever had. The blue Claudia Hand painted lace weight yarn was from Communknity, the cone of Habu 2/48 superfine merino in green and the two cones of Louet Lace Linen 20/2 in Speckled Salmon are from Article Pract. The skein of Whisper (merino wool laceweight) in oranes/greens and yellows was an impulse buy at Imagiknit and the Suri Elegance from the Alpaca Company (colorway Misty Morning) is once again from Article Pract.

I managed to spin up the pretty green batts from Spritely Goods and I'm using part of it for a Knit-A-Long on Ravelry with a group called "One Shawl To Rule Them All". Their group Icon is the Eye Of Sauron. You can't beat that with a stick! They voted on different free patterns to knit or crochet for this group. I am knitting the Woodland Shawl as an Elven pattern. A little on the simple side but hey, it's a knit-a-long so it has to be something most people could actually finish. I think I will have enough yarn left over to make something else. I also bought several batts of fiber from Enchanted Knoll Farm (thank you very much Opal for infecting me) They are black superwash merino with Sari Silk mixed in. The batt with the red and pink silk is called "Raven" and the one with the green is " Araucuna". I have a particular lace project in mind for these if they come out well.

I am going to start back in on the International Shawl and I'm going to "wing it" ie knit whatever I can, however I can do it. I need to do this because I have yet another co-worker who is to retire and I would like this shawl to be for her. So if you see me screaming and ripping out my hair in the future, it will mostly likely be my failure to make this shawl as pretty as I would like it to be. Don't blame fleegle if it sucks since I'm not as elegant as she is with the blending of the lace styles. Hers will be polished. Mine will be...well let's just say it will be finished! We also serve who sing in the chorus :-)

Cashmere and Camel and Lama Oh My! (Color: A Fiber Festival 2008)

For those of you who are not into spinning and fiber, you might just want to pass on this blog posting. The only thing that saved me from utter madness was the fact that I ran out of cash and resisted the urge to break out the credit/debit card. For those of you who are interested, view on :-)

Let's just say that Colour: A Fiber Festival was a lot of fun for me and my sister. Yes indeed! The last three pictures of fiber are my sisters purchases . The orange and orange green roving's were from Girl On The Rocks and I think they are Flame, South African Finn (the orange) and California Poppy also in a Finn (orange/green). The three roving's together are all superwash Merino from Tactile Fiber Arts and the brown/grey roving is polworth from A Verb For Keeping Warm.

At the top of the blog you have a selection of "exotic" fibers that I got to sample/taste which we kept in order with this handy plastic card holder they gave us. You can make notes, keep a sample of the fiber and a sample of the spun yarn. Very neat! Color had classes, some spinning, some knitting and some fiber "tastings" where you could try rare breeds, exotics, etc. Whatever you were interested in. I took the course from Kristine Vejar who was really great. She provided different fibers and we all spun them trying to get yarn to highlight the best characteristics of the fiber. The exotics consisted of cashmere, baby camel and silk tussah, baby alpaca and silk, baby lama and baby alpaca. I did not bring a wheel, I just borrowed a spindle from my sister. Though I have spun all but the cashmere, I did not know that you could get more fluff by spinning from the fold with a larger drafting area to catch the air, that spinning it looser would help maintain the fluff factor and that either long draw or supported long draw would work the best. My singles really came out nicer so I will try to remember this when I go to spin all the stuff I got. It's a small festival that has big potential. there were about 4 vendors. Tactile, Girl, Verb and Pigeonroofstudios. Let me just say, that Pigeonroofstudios sold out of fiber in the first 45 minutes. I was lucky to get anything at all. That said, I did not go begging for fiber!

Now for my haul. The Brown roving is baby alpaca from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The colorful green/pink/yellow stuff is merino from Girl On The Rocks. The two small bundles of roving are two colorways of baby camel and tussah silk from A Verb for Keeping Warm. The "snail" of braided fiber is baby alpaca/merino from pigeonroofstudios. The red/orange roving is Gradient Dyed ie from lighter to darker and is superwash merino from Girl On The Rocks. Below that is BFL that is indigo dyed and then BFL that is Madder Dyed, both from A Verb for Keeping Warm.

Whew!

Knitting Baby Stuff (Lace Down-time)

I'm afraid no pictures of lace for you. I'm currently knitting Baby Stuff for a niece who is "expecting" so I'm in the middle of"lace down-time" with very little lace being done. I've made three more points on the edge of Princess, plied up the Camel/Silk and bought beautiful fiber batts from "Spritely Goods" after seeing her lovely shawl in Spin-Off Magazine. The batt is made of Merino, Alpaca, Angelina and Firestar in a colorway called Palo Verde. It's the first fiber I've ever spun with sparkle in it. I usually don't go for that type of thing but this is really very subtle so I'm interested to see how it comes out. I also could not resist buying yet another Sharon Miller pattern as you can see, even though I have not yet finished any of those projects I've started with her patterns. I'm beginning to get a complex! Still, I can't resist them. I will be back to knitting lace shortly since I have another co-worker about to retire. It so happens she likes to garden. I imagine you know where the International Shawl is going to end up. Tomorrow it's off to "Color: A Fiber Festival". where I hope I will not just loose my mind and buy more fiber. Faint hope I know but I will try. Until I have something better for you all to see, I hope everyone has a great weekend.

Proto Yarn (Fiber Sins)

I know this is not lace, but I swear to you it will be in the future! The moment I tried to cut back on buying yarn, my fiber purchases went ballistic! Consider this display my on-line confessional :-) Top of the list, A lovely 50/50 baby camel and tussah silk from Anzula that I purchased at Yarn Place (colorway-Autumn). I'm in the process of plying it. It's only 4 ounces so maybe some kind of scarf or small shawlette. It's not as orange as the fiber suggests but darker than what is on that bobbin. The next three pictures are of some of my sisters Spindles since there was a request to see some of them. She keeps them standing up in a wooden container like some exotic wooden flower arrangement. She really likes to use them to spin. I'd much rather use a wheel :-) The next two pictures are of Black Bunny Fibers that I had to get because I've never tried spinning either of these. The teal is Finn Roving which is very soft and the blue is Falkland which is a little less soft but still really nice in the hands. I'm going to give in and join her fiber club if I get the chance. It will save me from having to haunt her site for updates! The two little bundles of blue fiber are a purchase I made at article pract. They have started carrying fiber from "a verb for keeping warm". These are polworth in their "Garden Series" colorway. Polworth you say? Did I not have a bad time with Polworth before? The spinning of it was lovely, the knitting, not so much. Still, I want to give it another try. Who knew I could be so Masochistic about spinning? And lastly, I had to have this small coil of Cashmere/Silk from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks that I purchased at Purlescence. It's only 2 ounces but I also purchased a 2 ounce hank of silk dyed in the same colorway to use to ply. I'm going to save this fiber to spin when I have been a very very good girl. Now that you know how bad I've been, I feel a lot better! I guess confession really is good for the soul :-) For those of you who live in the Bay Area, there is a small fiber festival that is scheduled for the end of this month "Color: a Fiber Festival" on Saturday, April 26th. There will be classes in spinning, knitting, fiber "tasting" of different types of fiber and vendors as well. I have a feeling my sister and I will be going there with big bags to carry stuff home in.

I am sorry to say I have not done much knitting in the last week because life sometimes cuts into my knitting time (who knew?) but I have actually started back to knitting the Shetland Tea Shawl which had been in hibernation for ages and I have finished the last flower in the center of the International Shawl (Yippee!) Once I get a chance I will post a few pictures of progress on these.

Last, but not least, you might like to have a listen at a podcast called "Yknit" It's nice to hear a podcast by male knitters (WonderMike & Stephen hizKNITS) and they are a nice addition to my listening line-up that includes David Reidy of "Sticks and String" and Guido of "It's A Purl Man" It's really fun to listen while you spin or knit. Hope you all had a great weekend :-)

Laminiaria Done (My. It really is very ORANGE isn't it?"

Just for the record. Mohair does not stretch much and it does not stretch easily. Brute strength is required and very sturdy pins. That said, it came out pretty nicely and will make a terrific shawl for the office. Why the office you ask? We moved our offices and the room I'm in is quite chilly for some reason. They think the air-conditioner is on all the time or something. In any case this shawl took virtually all of the 4 ounces of yarn I spun and I was fortunate I did not end up running out before the end!

To re-cap. The pattern is Laminiaria from the Spring 2008 Knitty on-line magazine. The fiber is from Black Bunny Fibers in a 50/50 Border Leicester/Mohair Top with a little Cream colored Suri Alpaca to lighten it up a little bit. The colorway is "Carnival" and was spun on the Majacraft Rose for a two ply laceweight yarn. Knit on US 6 needles, I followed the instructions for the smaller shawl because I was using such large needles and knew it would end up pretty good sized anyway.

For those not already aware, I have given away Legends of the Shetland Seas to a co-worker who is going to retire soon. The day after I got it back from the folks at Spin-Off, I gave it, and a copy of the magazine to her. It's her colors and now it will be worn and not put away in a box. Being in the magazine was great. Giving away the shawl was better :-) Good evening and good knitting!