2000 Yards of Lace, 2 Podiatric Garments, A Quilt.

Well, it's been awhile hasn't it?

I've been continuing in my plan to semi-ignore my holiday crafting tasks. Well, sort of.
I managed to finally get around to machine-quilting this quilt-top that I have had kicking around for some time now - next, to put on the binding.It's been easier to work on non-thinking projects. I present to you my variation of the "Azure" socks from the Winter Knitty, made with STR "Cluckers" colorway:
These are on US0, toe-up, blah blah blah. Going pretty quickly.

But I've really been wanting to get another lace project on the needles, so I spent a pre-snowy evening winding up a bunch of lace:That's A Touch of Twist Lace Alpaca in Lavendar, Malabrigo Laceweight in Verdes, and HelloYarn lace in Acid Green.

And while picking up that ball winder, Max also presented me with the Marie Antoinette Honey Bee kits we ordered! We're planning on working these up as a KAL, but Max said sure get to it. So I'm going to do one, and then wait on the second one until Miss Max is ready to go.
So far, I've got the lace cuff done and grafted, and I picked up along the edge.
My notes on this so far: the pattern is EXTENSIVE. It has everything written down and charted, which is great, but mildly confusing (there's just so much there! in so many different formats!). I ran into a very quick brief confusion on the edge lace chart - Row 3 features a BO2, K1, P3.......it turns out that the K1 is the stitch that you loop the second BO over, then go right to the P3. Easily amended. I'm loving the loop pick up thing on this. The yarn is a dream to work with and the color is amazing. It's fun so far, and has a fair amount going on to keep me interested. Well, until I get to a big lace project.

What else is in store for me? More quilting perhaps - I may try and get another quilt done in time for the holidays, but I'm not counting on it. We'll see.

Oh! And cataloging my stash for Ravelry! Max and I plan on Knit-From-The-Stash in 2008 - anyone want to join us? We'll be posting our rules (right, Max?) once we get them solidified.

Baby, It's Cold Outside

Continuing on my path to ignore holiday crafting for others until the last possible minute, I have been foolishly working on.....foot garments. It HAS been cold, and this seems a reasonable way to handle the freeziness of it all. I'm on Sock #2 (of 2, just in case y'all were wondering) in the Helloyarn "Dusk" colorway. The yarn is a joy to work with - super squooshy, such vibrant colors, interesting pooling, not splitty at all.



I should be a good little crafter lady and get into the holiday hub-bub, but it hasn't really happened yet.

Miss Alayne was kind enough to send me some remnants of alpaca that she happened to have in her stash, in just the colorway I was seeking in order to complete the Anthropologie Hayride Capelet. After binding off, I had about....2 yards of yarn left - most certainly not enough for an I-Cord and pompoms! So making some cord is on the agenda, and then quick-like-a-bunny writing up the rest of this pattern (I'm halfway there!) for Miss Max to test-knit it (and then have one of her very own). I've got to tell ya, though....I am LOATHE to make any sort of significant length of I-Cord, donchaknow. In fact, I am loathe even to have others do it. Nonetheless, I think I've found a decent solution:



This is my super-cheap modified Lucet. I saw these at Rhinebeck (much MUCH nicer, though!), and they work in a similar way as spool-knitting. You wrap the yarn around a prong and flip the bottom loop over the top loop. Pull yarn to tighten, and rotate lucet in order to loop the other prong.....continue in this manner forEVER. You end up with a really nice boxy rope. I figured a lucet is nothing but 2 fixed prongs that you can easily slide some yarn over. I considered rigging up some chopsticks, but the plastic fork seemed All Class for this endeavor.

I'm taking suggestions for fast, cheap, outta-control holiday gifts I can make - any ideas?

Desert/Dessert

I'm trying to kick it into high-gear holiday crafting mode, but I seem to be failing. I continue to knit primarily for myself, or I'm working on non-specific-person crafts, which is fine and good and all, but gives me nothing under the tree. I present to you a little something I am working on, that, um, well...yeah, I think it will speak for itself:


That's some Claudia Hand-Painted yarn in the Desert Dusk colorway. I picked it up over Thanksgiving weekend, when I visited a yarn shop on my (seemingly eternal!) quest for 5" metal US1 dpns (I failed.....anyone got any ideas here?). This yarn is lovely to work with and boy is it sproingy. It will most certainly be a treat for someone's feet. Oh, and that HelloYarn footwear from last week? Well, the first one has reached completion - I'll cast-on for the second one later this week most likely.

Meanwhile.......I received my November Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club selection yesterday. This is Pie For Everyone! - a delicious and wonderful to spin bundle of Falkland Wool:
This stuff is pretty darn soft. It spun up real quick-like, and after plying 2 bobbins worth, I've ended up with something in the realm of 246 yards. It's a.....sport? DK? weight. I didn't give it too much twist in the plying and it came out perfectly balanced.

Any ideas on what to do with this? Might make cute mittens, or perhaps a BSJ?

Moth=Landed

I had planned on taking a bazillion pictures of: work on the needles, work finally off of the needles, work blocked. But, alas! I have very little to show. I do, however, have a bit of a teaser:This is the Moth! Completed! blocked! BUT folded up.........

It was too dark to get any proper pictures of the Moth IN ACTION ( it is XTREME, recall?) but I will work towards that goal this evening. The blocking portion of this project went fairly well; it was the usual pinning here there and everywhere only to return to where I had started from to do it all again. In other words, the usual. It is very glamourous and I cannot wait to show you all.

I also managed to finish my Socks That Rock experiment - I had originally planned on just knitting through half the ball for each sock, but I ended up tearing the first one back a bit (I didn't care for the pooling changes once I added calf shaping). I gotta say, these things are SPROINGY. They're pretty cozy, too. I completely understand the attraction and STR love now. And of course: THE COLORS.

I got back to the wheel for a little bit, trying to finish up my September Fiber from HelloYarn (I'm quite behind, see) and a wee bit of tackling October's Spunky Eclectic Fiber. BUT! My main project this weekend (and this week - hoping to complete this bear soon) is a quilt that I started TWO YEARS ago for my father. It's made out of his old button-down shirts. It's a BEAST, I tell ya. But I need to just git it done already so I can move on to bigger and brighter pastures.

More pics tomorrow, I promise! Oh, and a tale of reverse-engineering! I'm teaching this week, so there will be books too!

Here's another Moth teaser:

In Which I Make Books & Knit & Simone Gets Married!

Here ya go! A week in six pictures......

I was teaching last week. I had a most wonderful Limp Vellum Bookbinding class - 7 students, 3 day class, make great book. I talk about the Red Sox a bunch, and harangue the students. It's great fun! I got a little bit feisty:

(photo by R. Craig Fansler)

This is an example of the sewing technique we were doing - the Herringbone Stitch. We were creating models of a 14th century binding. The sections of the book are sewn around alum-tawed skin, which is held taut on these sewing frames. Yeah, I know - pushpins are not the most 14th-century technique, but, hey, ya gotta go with what works. One of my students posted more pictures of books in action on his blog.

Then off to Vermont I went! For the most lovely (albeit rainy) wedding festivities of Miss Simone and Scott - here is the lovely Simone modelling her contract knitting:

One of the photographers had exclaimed "If you get a chance to touch this thing, DO IT."
The ceremony, the food, the setting, the company, ESPECIALLY the wedding party - all lovely! Miss B also had a handknit garment:

A lovely little capelet (NOT a shrug!), which ended up blocking out all sorts of wonderful.

The car-ride to Vermont? Lots of time for knitting! Experiment Number 194595495: What's the big deal with Blue Moon Fibers "Socks that Rock" yarn? Like, why does everyone LURVE it so? I decided to find out for myself:
Lest you think that I am not thorough in my experiments, I present to you TWO of these dandies:
This is the "Loch Ness" colorway - one of about 3 colorways remaining by the time I got to the booth selling this stuff at Rhinebeck. I gotta tell ya, it's pretty freakin' nice stuff. It's rather sproingy, and I like the striping. It is super NOT splitty, It seems that it will weather and wear well. I think I can undertand now, and I will even go so far as to recommend this yarn to y'all. I'll revisit it, methinks.

I'm going to throw out this teaser:
I'll be back with pictures of my new friend tomorrow ;)

And Some Said It Would Not Happen -

Goblin Socks! TWO OF THEM!
With a lovely little picot edge.I'm thrilled with how they turned out - I had split the yarn cake into 2 equal weight balls and knit them toe-up until I ran out of yarn. They're super squishy-comfortable. Not too much pooling, but some amazing stripery going on there, no?

I was inspired enough by these socks to start up another pair- using my awesome Spunky Eclectic Fiber Club "Celebration" handspun:(These also, believe it or not, are DONE. Like, a PAIR OF THEM. I just need to take some pictures of them.)

And..........more handspinning! This is the lovely "Granite" colorway from Hello Yarn. I am quite pleased with how it turned out, and I still have another bundle of it left to spin up! I did this 2-ply, and managed to get around 417 yards of a (semi-consistent) fingering weight yarn. The colors are just lovely all together-like. I can't wait to knit this up into something, but what? Any ideas? I should hopefully end up with just over twice this much.In the world of lace, well....I'll admit that I have not made much more progress on Hanami. I'm just shy of being halfway through it; perhaps I'll pick it up again this evening. I'm loving the Lacey Lamb yarn - and I had the opportunity to meet the woman behind Jade Sapphire, the importers of Lacey Lamb! She was thrilled to speak with a Lacey Lamb "consumer", and I was able to see a few more colorways that I was not aware of. Man oh man, I cannot say enough good things about that yarn - it is such a treat to work with - buttery soft, saturated colors, just stunning and wonderful in every way. But enough about that - let me show you my Wing O' The Moth!
I cast-on for this shortly after Max did about a week and a half ago. I've completed one pattern repeat (seems easy enough to get it stuck in the brain) and have since set it down. As this IS supposed to be for a knit-along, and the along-ing part has hit some traffic, I don't feel so guilty having not looked at this since I did that one repeat. Let me make a bit more progress on Hanami, then I promise I'll get back to this, okay? Unless, of course, you feel ready to dive back in, Max!

More to come! I just need to take some pictures to get back up to speed. Stay tuned for: Venus the sheep, in which I tackle wool straight form the shearing stage; more lace (of course); more spinning (naturally); my gallery of unfinished/abandoned projects; some quilting (I'll admit that I am posting on that largely to get a cheerleading squad together in order to complete them); and rainbows.

Welcome to the Laboratory

And (some of you) said it would never happen.

But here we have a second Goblin sock!I cast-on last night and got just a wee bit past the toe. I'm running off on a mini-vacation, and I figured this would be a great opportunity to work through this second sock. I *still* don't understand the fascination/obsession with sock knitting. It's just like knitting sleeves, which I don't really care for either. It can't be the "second sock/sleeve/etc" thing either, because I do quite enjoy knitting gloves and mittens. We'll see how I feel upon completion of this the second sock. (Remember, science experiment is not over yet - not until I have a PAIR of socks off the needles.)

So Hanami rests. Though only briefly, I assure you. Hanami will also be travelling with me, so I expect some progress there as well. In the meantime, the spinning will have to wait a bit, though I desperately want to tackle the rest of that lovely blue-brown Hello Yarn bundle of fiber......

Progress?

Very little to report. Or it could be thought of as "more of the same".....

The other sock? Yeah, I haven't cast-on for that yet. Oh, but I will! Maybe this weekend. I promise.

I've been working a fair amount on the Icarus Shawl, though you wouldn't know to look at it. This shawl is triangular, and knit from the top center down, with 4 increases every other row. So it groooooows. But at a very very slow pace. The portion of the shawl that I am currently working on is dead boring as well - it has just enough going on that you have to pay a wee bit of attention, but it is not exciting at all. I want to get to the fun stuff! I want to get to the crazy lacey bits! But no - I think I have about 8 more rows to go of this first chart, which doesn't seem too bad, but when each row takes seemingly forever, it could be next month before I get there. I present this photo, which looks very similar to an earlier photo posted, but I swear I have been working on this:I have also hit the point in where I am starting to panic about if I will have enough yarn. This is Misti Alpaca (it is LOVELY to work with) and I think I have *just* what the pattern calls for (okay, just checked - I actually have one yard LESS than what the pattern calls for - 875 yds - but I think I may run out for REAL, not just by one yard) and I have read reports of people having run out. I'm not super concerned at this point - I know where I got this, it's pretty cheap, etc. etc. I just want. to. get. to. the. good. stuff. Dammit!

When not busy slogging through the dreadful boredom that is chart 1 of this shawl (almost as boring as socks!) I've been spinning spinning spinning like a mad woman! I'm working my way through the mystery wool from Amy, and working towards a thinner yarn. I *feel* like I am beginning to understand this spinning business a bit more - like I am on the road to owning it, but that road is very very long. Since this bag of fiber is kind of a mystery, I'm learning a bit about different fibers and how they want to behave for me. What I've really come to believe is the secret of spinning is this: tension. I feel if you can just get the tension of these 8 different things to all work together perfectly, things are golden. You just need the planets to align! And I would like to believe that I am working towards that. I've made a mini-skein of something resembling Jamieson's Shetland Spindrift, which, if you have not worked with this yarn it is wonderful, and then I tried out some Navajo Plying which is pretty interesting, and I am pleased with the results of that as well. I can see what I would like to improve on in both of these, and now I just have to figure out exactly how to do that. Max has suggested that I spin at HER place, as she likes the smooth whir whir whir of the wheel. There will be pictures soon - it's tough to get clear pics that will give you some sense of the weight and texture of the wool.

This has all left me even more excited about Rhinebeck this year; I'll try not to come back with any animals.

All Fiber, All The Time

Well, I managed to complete this:

....and I have not yet cast-on for the other one. I plan on tackling that this evening - I am DETERMINED to knit up 2 of these bad boys. I'm still not really understanding the thrill and allure and obsession with the sock-knitting. After completing this one, I was distracted by this:
That's the Icarus Shawl from Interweave Knits (Summer 2006). I started this awhile back; I'm at a horrifically tedious point in the knitting, and it keeps getting back-burnered. But! I am working on it now, being a good little lace knitter, because there are 2 other shawls that I really really really want to work on, but I have made a promise to myself that I can't cast-on for those until this one is complete. SO! I am slogging through the tedium, hopefully will get to the fun stuff by the end of this week.


I've been doing a little bit of Tour de Fleece spinning as well, but just a little bit:Amy kindly provided me with this wool - I don't know what it is, but it is nice to work with - and I'm trying my darnedest to make a fairly thin, consistent yarn. Seems to be working out okay - for now.

I am currently ignoring this new distraction:

That's a Kromski Harp Rigid Heddle Loom that I picked up the other day. Now I don't know the first thing about weaving, but I have been interested in trying it out and learning about it. This lovely item popped up (brand spankin' new!) for a fraction of it's regular cost, and I had to jump at this opportunity. I don't plan on really diving into this latest crafty endeavor for some time - it seems kind of overwhelming! For now, I'll just keep reading about it.

Fat Lip

Here's an idea of what I am NOT currently knitting. (I'll try and get to the wee bit of what I am trying to knit whenever I find my camera.....)

I was making a sock and then I thought better of it (yes - A sock. I do not have high hopes/aspirations in the realm of socks, as I am sure you are all aware. If not, feel free to contact me and I can do some 'splainin) so I tore out what little of it I had done, and I was left with this red.....toe portion.

Which I just found in my bag.

...and immediately put to good use.