Yarn Ball Boogie

My dear friend Maggie gave me a ball winder. I was so excited that opened it right in the restaurant where we were having dinner, attached it to the table, and attempted to wind some yarn I had in my knitting bag. I then, as I often do, learned all the things you are not supposed to do and decided that my quiet basement "studio" would be the best place to try this - on a good night's sleep and after the kids went to school. Yay, it worked. Behold Linda the patient and kind photographer's first sock project. This sock yarn was dip-dyed while I was pot-dyeing some roving for Etsy customer Lauren.

Different, aren't they?

I dyed two new colorways:

this one is in South American merino-like wool locally called "Punta", Dragonfly DK, and in a lovely supersoft Merino laceweight (Dragonfly Lace yarn, of course). Name?

and Dragonfly colorway in SkinnySock, DK, and Lace yarn. Shall we have another look at that laceweight?

Delicious!

Sheep and Wool Dreams

Well, it's almost here - only three days away. The Maryland Sheep and Wool festival, some say the biggest in the country, is my idea of nirvana. Last year I bought my first wheel there. When I was worrying a little out loud about my husband's thoughts on this expenditure, the kind gentleman from Carolina Homespun who sold me my wheel said, "Well, tell him at least you didn't buy a business! Morgaine bought this business right here 5 years ago."

The bad news is that I didn't get into the 3 day spinning class with "JMac" (Judith McKenzie McCuin). Hopefully, next year. I will go to her free set up a production dye studio class on Sunday. By the way, Gryphon is organizing a meet up for knit bloggers and all other fibery freak type people for Sat and Sun at 1:00 on the grass by the main pavillion. Do come.

Now, you may have noticed that I'm not exactly the planning type. I've been to MDSW for a couple of years now, and this time, I'm prepared to make the most of it. I've been saving my little bits of money here and there from cash yarn sales and lessons and i have some things in mind.

First, I'm looking for a fleece or two. I'm interested in Cormo (at Gryphon's last Spin-In, I handled some of the softest, bounciest combed cormo top from Stony Mountain Fiber. It belonged to Alice Lohr of The Drafting Zone in Bowie, MD Look for them at MDSW also; very yummy stuff, I understand.)

Appropos of nothing, this is the single-ply yarn I spun at the Spin In, from my own hand-painted domestic wool blend.





This colorway was an end of the day color that I called Moonstone. A lovely yarn, completely different from its "parent" roving. Pretty cool how that happens. Makes me smile.





At MDSW, I'd like to at least see a Shetland and a Merino fleece. Probably my greatest love is Blue-faced Leicester. Of course, such a fleece would require a new equipment acquisition:) One needs to comb BFL, to do it justice, due to the long staple length. I've been eyeing wool combs for a bit and will check them out there. Although, depending on how much money I spend, I may have any fleeces I buy processed elsewhere. Probably time to do a cost analysis, but why ruin a perfectly good record?

I'm very interested in recycled sari silk. And I'm intrigued by spinning hemp, so I'm looking for hemp top. I'm in love with the yarn Hempathy by Elspeth Lavold, and I wonder what handspun hemp yarn will be like. I'll be handing lots of wool/silk blends to get a feel for what that's like and, of course, I'll be checking out everyone's hand-dyed fiber and yarn. There should be plenty there as hand-dyed is all the rage:)

Also, I searching for a tweedy yarn similar to Rowan Scottish Tweed for a sweater design I have in my head. For kitty(or Knitty, if you prefer!) submissions, you have to knit the whole item before you submit, and as my portfolio is not so long yet, I'm going have to have to fund the yarn purchase my self. All this to say, no designing with Rowan yarns yet!

I had hoped to have my pink and brown sweater finished, in case the weather is cool, but that clearly is not going to happen. Although the second sleeve (on the correct size needles) is well under way. It's just that I have to re-knit most of the front and then re-do the the neck - I'm planning to alter it a bit anyway, so it's not a complete waste. Fortunately, I do have a few hand- knit tank tops that I really enjoy wearing.

Another very fun thing about this weekend is that Gryphon and Lia are coming Friday for Sheepy sleepover (it's LONG drive from easton to the Howard County fairgrounds). Don't tell the girlie but I've asked Gryphon to give her a spinning lesson (I didn't teach her to ride her bike either, but we'll talk about that another time). As I've had Gryphon's drum carder far too long, in my opinion, I've set this weekend as a deadline to finish carding Pinhead. There's plenty of lovely clean fleece now - I've just declared my self finished with washing.


And I've made some decent progress.




Fascinating how it keeps growing and growing as you pull ore out of the box. It's like the Magic Fleece, or the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg, or Strega Nona's Magic Pasta Pot. And by the way, i've figured out what to do with the fleece I felted.




I'll stick it back in the old greasy box with a towel and, voila! The best kitty bed ever.

Finally, I leave you with a picture of Poppy with his grand-dog Emmy and his own dog Scout. The usually lovely husband's always lovely dad, who came with the also very lovely Grammy to babysit last night. Yay Grammy and Poppy!

Thanks.

Dances with Fleece, or many ways to felt a fleece

After reading a ton of blogs on washing fleece, I first washed it in small batches in the sink. It came out a little felty and not as clean as i'd like. After listening to a podcast of the Harlot, I tried tying the locks together to see what

preserving the lock structure looked like. For me, it was still a little felty and hard to untie those little bundles. I did like her idea of opening up the locks a wee bit and putting them in mesh bags (it took the lovely husband a few trips to the sore to get the right mesh bags, particularly as he had no idea what was supposed to happen with them) and boiling them on the stove.

This method was a bit stinky, but effective. Now, I must say, I really don't mind the smell of boiling sheep fleece, but the rest of the family, while tolerant, is not as emamored of the sheep as I am.

Finally, It dawned on me to try the washer. Into mesh bags, and lots of water and Dawn. Clean fleece! Isn't it yummy? But, beware! Never start spinning while waiting for the washer to fill up, especially if you are impatient and put the bags in before the water is full. Not once, but twice I ende up with fleece that was good for this

but not much else. But look how clean it is. I corresponded some with Amy King,

fiber maven and personal hero that she is, who reminded me that you never know what a washer might do. She's processing Cosmo in the sink. (Isn't he stunning?)

So, the washer with laundry bags. The bags seem to keep the fleece from agitating enough to become felted. And, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, put the fllece in the washer until it's filled and turned OFF. That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it.

Now, you may remember, the cotton cards my sweet husband gave me for Christmas. very slow and frustrating. Only now, I'm realizing this is because Romney is not a fine wool and would need WOOL cards to process it appropriately. Enter Gryphon and her drum carder. A month or so ago (I prefer to not to be specific:), it's been too long), I borrowed her drum carder, which has medium teeth. And, between washing the thing more carefully and using the right tool, I have a lovely, snow white roving that's delightful to spin.

as you can see, the princess is dazzled by this stuff, too. The next good thing about the drum carder is it's fascinating to children.

So, I have a part-time assistant. It really helps, too, to have someone turn the crank while you open the locks. I'm still learning how to pull into roving for ease of spinning and a more compact storage. Doesn't just look like luminous clouds?

And it makes a nice, soft, bouncy, fluffy, woolen yarn.

But, oh, look what hapens when you card it a little with a lovely grey brown Romney that someone gives you at Gryphon's spin-in

and spin the two together. Ultra-soft, single-ply goodness. Now, that's a yarn worthy of a sweater!

Meet Pinhead

You may have noticed the natural progression among some of us fiber freaks. For me, it started with sewing. I learned to sew so I could learn to quilt. And then I fell headlong in love with fabric. Then, of course, I had to learn to make the fabric. My grandmother, with whom I was very close, was a big knitter. Some of my best memories involve her knitting (or needlepointing) and watching the Red Sox play on TV. So, I re-learned to knit.

I couldn't stop knitting once I started. The first project I completed was a sweater. It's not the most interesting pattern - just four rectangles and rolled edges. But it is still pretty. I taught everyone in the neighborhood (except Mary L, she remains a holdout, although she does many other fabulous things. In fact, for my birthday one year, she beaded a dragonfly onto a t-shirt for me. Beautiful!)

I knew very early on that I was going to have to learn to spin. My favorite blog reading is about spinning. The pictures of the roving, then the singles on the bobbin, then the lovely plied yarn. I bought a spindle kit from an ebay store and a pound of dark blue superwash roving and began that very frustrating odessey that is learning to spindle spin. Last year at MD Sheep and Wool, I sat down at wheels and tried a bunch out and, with the help of some very kind people at Carolina Homespun, bought my first wheel. It's a Lendrum and spinning on it makes me very happy.

My usually lovely husband began to notice the yarn piling up and suggested I start a business selling it. I think he thought I'd sell a few skeins on ebay and be happy (Although he should have learned when, years ago, he suggested I cut back on meat during the school semester because I was unhappy with my weight at the time, and I became a vegetarian for thirteen years.) Now, of course, I'm trying to ditch my social work career and be a full-time fiber freak.

As important as color is to me, dyeing fiber and yarn became the next logical step. And then came Christmas. The lovely husband, hoping to contribute something to the business, gave me a set of fine cloth hand carders that he had purchsed from Adrian at Hello Yarn. He even asked her questions about which one to buy - and got the right one! Unfortunately for him, he didn't realize that he'd just thrown the door wide open to another level of fiber feakiness!

I had to have something to do with the hand cards, so I bought a Romney fleece from the Pitchfork Ranch. The sheep to whom this fleece belonged is called Pinhead. Here is Pinhead in the box. Lovely white niceley crimped (that's what gives your wool it'ds bounciness) locks with 4" - 6" staple length. Medium "fineness" (I've forgottend what that term is).

Next up: what I'mm doing with this only slightly stinky box of wonders.

Postscript

Remember that lovely pink and brown sleeve I was so proud to show you yesterday? Yet more evidence that "by the seat of your pants' may not be the best way to go through life. After working on the cuff of the new sleeve for a bit, I noticed that the ribbing appeared more compact and, well, nicer than that of the previous sleeve. A quick comparison to the first sleeve and then the body of the sweater proved my slowly dawning sense of horror to be appropriate. I had knit the first sleeve with the wrong size needles! As Bill the Cat would say, "Aaacckkk!"

I'll use this disappointment to two things. One, change the sleeve length to full size (3/4 sleeves are cute, but I might get cold!) and two, admit to myself that I must order another skein of the Sierra. Bummer, but in the end, it's going to be a beautiful sweater.

Next up, Pinhead, or "How to felt a fleece in just a few easy steps".

Updates Galore!

First, there is the lovely pink sweater update. (Vogue Knitting, or VK for short, gives this piece the very glamorous name "U-Neck Sweater".) I must mention that I was in denial when I bought the yarn for this sweater and under-bought. I finally admitted defeat a few weeks ago, and ordered more from Yarnbow and Hello Knitty. Now that I've finished the first sleeve, I'm going to need more of the Sierra. Aarrggh!

I believe I mentioned before that the pattern includes cap sleeves, which can only make arms appear short and stubby. I happen to not need any help in the short and stubby department. Instead, I'm going for graceful 3/4 length sleeves. Tonight, I cast on for the second sleeve.

Next, I updated the Etsy shop with my latest hand-dyed yarns. Spinning fibers will be done another day (I feel the couch and last night's episode of CSI Miami calling me). Without further ado, I give you Pink Hydrangea,

Wistful, as in remember those days when all the boys wore faded jeans and leather boots (and that was pretty much all you wore too?),

Springy, with lovely spring greens and lively blues,

Red Dirt (I'm clearly feeling nostalgic for the hills of Charlottesville where I went to college and where the dirt is made of red clay. The dirt is also red in the town of Blacksburg where Virginia Tech was the setting for the horrible shootings yeserday),

and Midnight, all in Dragonfly Skinny Sock. I've been wanting to call this "Midnight at the Oasis" ever since I re-skeined it. Remember that Olivia Newton-John song? I may have been in middle school then. Not the coolest, but I think I may have secretly liked it. This skein was kettle-dyed, along with some roving I was dying to coordinate with my Blue Jean roving.

Some colorways I take careful notes on and replicate pretty effectively, and some are end of the day, use up all the dye colorways. The latter are usually either gorgeous, or ... not. Blue Jean turned out to be gorgeous. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that it was done at the end of the day Gryphon came to dye with me. Here is Blue Jean and the roving I dyed to go with it.

And this is a 2 oz piece that I dip-dyed in the pot. Too bad I didn't do more of this! But I think I will do more later.

These are a new yarn, called Dragonfly Twist. A light worsted weight yummy soft merino yarn. One of the four plies in this yarn is more tightly twisted, causing it to take up the dye with more intensity. Sometimes the yarn becomes speckled, as in this Bell Bottom Blues,

and sometimes, a deepened, more complex color. I'm still experimenting with it. But the softness is unbeatable.

Finally, we had come crazy spring weather here, well everywhere, actually, and this weekend we had to bite the bullet and clean our house. Perhaps it's easier to do it as Mutant Alien Batman with the sparkly red cape?

Back to Normal?

Easter celebrations
It was cold but we enjoyed our Easter egg hunt. Memommie kept trying to steal the eggs from the kids' baskets so she could re-hide them; unfortunately, they saw her coming a mile away. Here is the boy alien in his dress up shirt, showing off his haul.

We also paid our bi-annual visit to church. Who knew I would have such an appropriate Easter Bonnet? If it weren't for the hat and scarves, we would looklike the Addams family celebrating Easter.

Our county is fairly Catholic, so we also get Easter Monday off (or at least the kids do!) The usually lovely husband is travelling, so the kids and I had friends over to help us eat all the extra Esater food. After all, when you go to the trouble of putting on a tablecloth, why just use it once?

Actual knitting content

Last summer, I fell in love with many of the lacy concoctions in VK. I chose Nicky Epstein's design, because I wouldn't have to buy custom-made undergarments to wear it. And I loved the layers and the pink and brown together.

I started knitting it in August on vacation and then put it aside in September for other projects. This is a most unusual behavior for me; while I may be disorganized and, well, downright chaotic, I am a finisher. It may be that I acknowledged, for the first time since I began this crazy, crafty adventure, that knitting for Christmas might need to begin before December 24th. Or, perhaps it has something to do with competition from my very first spinning wheel. Or maybe, I should have taken a longer vacation.

No matter. For the super luxurious Karabella yarn used by Epstein, I substituted Cascade Sierra in Jasmine, a lovely pale but not yucky pastel pink for the main yarn and Elsbeth Lavold's Hempathy in Chocolate, held double, for the ribbing. I bought these in a lovely little knitting shop in Bethany Beach, Delaware called Sea Needles, owned by the nicest, most mellow knitter.

I was fascinated by Cascade Sierra but couldn't find it anywhere "live". A cotton/wool blend, it's as yummy as I knew it would be. Alot like Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, but the colors are much better. And the hemp yarn feels great going through your fingers. Perhaps it's time to try spinning it?

Anyway, I'd finished the back and half the front, and here it is, spring again.

I'm planning to knit three-quarter length sleeves in the main yarn with two inches of the twisted rib in Hempathy. I'm adding a very simple yarn over pattern shortly after switching to the main yarn to continue the lace theme but not (hopefully) go overboard. While I wish I'd added some waist shaping, the looser fit will work better with the modified drop shoulder sleeve. Wish me luck on finshing quickly as I've some design projects coming down the pike (actual ones and ones I'm hoping for) and it's just too pretty not miss wearing this spring!

And finally, I signed up for Sockapalooza 4. My first! Now, if I could only figure out how to get her adorable button on my sidebar. Anyone?

Snowball fights on Easter Eve?

My friend Mary's sister says that it's not spring until it snows on the robins. For the last week or two the robins have been busy, so now, spring can come.

And this spring, we have snow on the cherry trees. So beautiful.

My mom, visiting from New Orleans, is thrilled. It only snows there about every ten years, and certainly not in April. So, we had the First Annual Easter Eve Snowball Fight and Egg Dyeing Fest.

Beautiful eggs were decorated and dyed. Of course, what self-respecting fiber freak would toss left-over egg dye? Not this one. To Memommie's great dismay, the girlie and I did some Easter Egg sock yarn. Pictures another day.

I know I promised pictures of the sweater I am knitting. I shall do so as soon as Easter is over, as I am at a difficult point and need to figure a few things out.

Emmy says, "All those pre-Easter activities have have plum wore me out!"

Various

A few random thoughts. First, it's fabulous spring break. The offspring and I have been spending as much time as possible enjoying the actual spring weather. I'm not sure what his dudeness is doing there - probably has become Accelerate, or something. He did spend a lot of his time running back and forth in the house.

,

My mom, or Memommie, depending on who you ask, is coming to see us tomorrow. Despite the fact that the temperature will be in the 30's (how sad is that!), we will take the subway down to meet her at the airport and then go the Mall to view Cherry blossoms and perhaps dinosaur bones. It would be nice to see some art, but that may be too much to ask. I have already warned her that we have been having too much fun to clean the house. Luckily, she knows I am a slovenly housekeeper (recently, when the girlie asked me what "standards" were, I used it in a sentence: "My standards are low for house cleaning." She laughed appreciatively).

Next, here is the next bag I have completed for sale at Tiara Day. It needed a little something, so we went to G Street Fabrics and the kids helped me pick out a lovely ribbon to put through the top. I have to say, they have very good taste and they were even helpful, putting things back and everything. If I didn't have to seperate them on the way home and threaten to stop and throw them out a few times, I might be thinking I could get used to this. They were even well-behaved on our lunch date with our very dear friends Maggie and Sharan (of course, they did get to eat shrimp and nachos)

I have been knitting something for me. Very uncharacteristically, I started it in August and then put it away for a while. It is from last summer's Vogue Knitting and I will show it to you next time. I hope to finish it before I need to start my sweater for the next SnB book (I need to start soon, as it will take me a while!) I also hoping to submit a few things for the next Knitty. Only ideas in my head at this point, however.

Here are the yarns I dyed last week:

Duckweed in Dragonfly DK and in Skinny Sock (I affectionately think of this as "Pondscum", 'cause that's what Duckweed looks like from far away)

Pink Chocolate in Skinny Sock (above) and domestic wool roving. This is what you get when you discover that you have once again put too much dye on and then squeeze the excess back out again - or when your strawberry ice cream gets mixed with chocolate sauce.

Electric Daffodil in extra fine Merino roving. Very beautiful, luminous in fact. For my mother in law, who really loves those spring bulbs.

Delta Blues (almost the same as Blue Jeans, which was an end of the day throw everything in it and, therefore, unduplicatable colorway)

and hmmm, Dragonfly? both in domestic wool roving.

Bell Bottom Blues (appears darker than it really is) and

Blue Dolphin in Skinny Sock. Hurray for Linda, patient photographer extraordinaire (and her husband Mike, who we often call for assistance when it comes to having all these electronics speak with each other)!

And here's to being tired at the end of a long day in the sunshine and fresh air.