KnitGeekery

Well, that puts things into perspective

2011-03-11T16:10:00.004-05:00

This morning's news about the mega-quake/tsunami combo in Japan has pretty much wiped away any ideas I had about writing a knitting and/or spinning-related post today. I've been glued to my computer all day today, tuning in to news broadcasts between work deadlines. Not exactly conducive to knitblogging, you know?

But I do have a few things planned for the weekend, so we'll have a nice cup of tea and catch up on Monday, okay? See you then...

This might be the one

2011-03-10T16:58:00.003-05:00

After my last post, I spun up some of the Fat Cat Knits fibre, just to see whether there was a hope in hell of it coordinating with what I spun last week.

The result:(Middle skein is the Fat Cat one—it landed somewhere between the brown and the green/mix that I've already spun, and I think that if I use a plain yarn for contrast, we could be cooking with gas in very short order.)

I declare myself pleased. Now, on with the show! There's yarn to be spun, sweaters to be knit.

Betwixt and between

2011-03-08T14:00:00.009-05:00

I mentioned to you the other day that I've been thinking quite seriously about knitting a sweater from wool I've spun myself.

This might not seem like a big deal to some people—choosing the right fibre, the right colour, the right weight of yarn, spinning it up more or less consistently, and knitting it into something that a person with reasonably good taste might actually choose to wear from time to time—but to me, from here, it looks like a bit of an uphill slog.

For one thing, aside from the insane amount of laceweight I showed you yesterday, I haven't really accumulated a lot of mileage on my wheel. And while I want something wearable, I confess that I have the attention span of your average gnat, such that spinning one colour for miles and miles sounds about as appealing as removing my own toenails with a chisel.

Therefore, I resolved that this would be a stripey sweater. Lots of colours, preferably ones that get along reasonably well together.

So far, this is the yarn I've spun:From right to left, you're looking at about 100 yards of BFL/bamboo/firestar, spun on a whim from some carded batts; about 200 yards of Fleece Artist Merino in the Moss colourway, spun from sliver; and another 350 yards of Fleece Artist Merino, Moss and a colourway whose name I don't know (although it could be something like Autumn).

So my question is this: what next? I need at least another 300 yards of something or another if I'm going to make even a cropped sweater with shortish sleeves...and looking through my current stash, I'm having trouble deciding which way to go next.

Do I opt for this one—Falkland combed top from Fat Cat Knits, in the Brimstone colourway?I like the way the warm tones seem to pick up the warmth of the already-spun yarns; even though there's not a hint of green in this one, I can see it working out as a companion to what I already have.

Or should I consider this—BFL from Yummy Yarn?It looks a bit anemic in the first shot, but that's mostly because I was in a rush to get the picture, and neglected to consider that the bright afternoon sunshine would wash out the colour. Here's another, to give you a better idea:
Again, here I like the idea of sticking with greens and yellows, but this green is quite a bit more blue than the Moss in my current batch. Is that bad? Will it look putrid? I can't decide.

Or do I cave completely, and go with some advice I received recently: use the handspun yarns for the yoke, and get something plain and store-bought for the body and arms? I do have time to ponder the question, since I still have Beatnik on the needles (and will have for a while, if I keep proceeding at this pace).

But if you have an opinion and you feel like sharing, I'd welcome it (unless your opinion is, "Have you lost your mind? Why are you even considering making a sweater out of a whole bunch of colours like this?").

Marathon woman

2011-03-07T15:21:00.006-05:00

In our "Biting Off More than We Can Chew" department, I give you my two latest spinning projects: an 8 oz. coil of blue Corriedale/silk, and two 4 oz. wine-coloured braids of local alpaca/bamboo.

The Corriedale/silk thing had me stumped for the longest time. I've already posted the story of how I circled it cautiously, trying to figure out how best to spin it, before finally hitting on the idea of drumcarding it into blended batts. That worked beautifully: the two-ply yarn has both drape and a bit of crunch, and the colours distributed themselves fairly evenly throughout. There are some shiny slubs, where the silk kind of bunched up as I drafted it, but I'm not unhappy with it—I'm fond of "character yarns" that show their roots a bit.Granted, it took for-freaking-ever to spin, and now I think I know why: having skeined it all and counted the yardage, it turns out I wrung about 1,200 yards of yarn out of that one long, heavy coil of fibre. And then there was the alpaca/bamboo mix, purchased from Turtlepurl Yarns and Notions. I dove into the first hank of fibre right after I got my wheel; mostly, I wanted to try out the smaller flyer, I think. But once I'd started spinning it up, I felt committed to finishing the lot. It was fun to spin, and although I found ample evidence that this fibre had once been worn by a living, breathing, hay-eating alpaca, it didn't bother me. As I say, I like a yarn that knows where it comes from.

Like the Corriedale/silk, the alpaca took a while; and again, when I tallied it up at the end, I discovered I'd spun about 1,000 yards.Of the two, the alpaca/bamboo is definitely the softer yarn, with a fuzzy halo; the Corriedale/silk has more heft and body, and will probably do very nicely in something that calls for a little shimmer. But I'm in no real rush to knit either of them up; for now, I'm content to sit back and contemplate the magic of twisting fibre into yarn.

True love

2011-03-04T13:15:00.006-05:00

I know I've been talking a lot about spinning lately, and it really seems like that's all I've been doing, fibre-wise, but in fact I've had a few projects on the go (including that bally hat, but perhaps the less said about that, the better).

I find it really odd how I can look at a pattern approximately 1,000 times and think, "Meh." And then I look at it for the 1,001st time and suddenly fall completely head-over-heels in love with it. As in, "must cast on right this very second; oh look, I've even got the right yarn in my stash, and the right needles and everything; it must be fated, this project and I belong together forever." And so on.

It happened with the Clapotis (three times, actually), and it happened again recently with another Knitty pattern, Beatnik. For some reason, the first several times I flipped past this one, I was not really that impressed. I do like cabled sweaters, and I love bateau necklines and three-quarter sleeves, and even that shade of dark orange is oddly appealing to me, but at first the pattern just failed to register with me.

Then last week, I was glancing through that issue of Knitty again, and the pattern practically jumped off the page at me. Conveniently enough, since it was about 10 p.m. at the time, I realized that not only did I have the perfect yarn for it in my stash, but I'd just freed up my 5mm needles, so I could knit a test swatch right then and there.

Since then, Beatnik has been my primary project, at least in the knitting department. I haven't done any real cabling to speak of in dog's years, but it came back pretty quickly; I'm currently very close to finishing the back.This is the closest I could get to the actual colour—California Poppy in good old Cascade 220. I tend to refer to it as "school bus yellow," but perhaps I am being unkind.

My one gripe is not about the pattern, but my own strange inability to keep the cabled stitches looking neat and tidy; can you see, in the middle motif, where the cables kind of bulge and shrink in odd ways? I've tried a number of tricks to correct for this, to no avail. My current strategy is to think positive: maybe it'll even out when I block it?
My goal is to have this finished while it's still cool enough to wear it. This one just doesn't strike me as a fantastic addition to my summer wardrobe.

In which I completely blank on a clever title

2011-03-03T17:07:00.008-05:00

Well, you won't believe what's on my needles today.

I can hardly believe it myself: I'm not the biggest fan of violent radioactive green acrylic, and yet for reasons that I cannot yet disclose, I'm buzzing away on a plain green and white toque with a gigantic pompom (also green). I'm not even going to bother photographing this one, because it's kind of non-noteworthy, except for the fact that it's so unexpected. I will tell you that I'm doing it for Adrian, but not for him to wear. More to follow.

In lieu, though, I will tell you about another project I'm cooking up: my grand plan to spin down my fibre stash while simultaneously preparing to knit my first handspun sweater. You might recall that this was one of my plans at the new year, except that originally I was thinking "spin enough for a sweater...with a drop spindle," which is a bit like "chop down an entire forest...with a herring." If not quixotic, at least silly, especially given that I now own a wheel.

Anyway. The stashdown/sweater thing. It started with this:which I spun up into this:
(Well, there was more of it, but Rachel was running around that day taking shots of everything, and this was the nicest one of the lot.)

Then (having finally figured out that I should think hard about what I ply things to), I plied it to a whole bunch of Fleece Artist Merino in Moss Green.
The goal was to tone the colours down a bit, and also to make the final yarn a bit more compatible with the next colourway, which happens to be (wait for it) Fleece Artist Merino in Moss Green, plied to itself. Sadly, I have no pics of that yet, but it's on my list for tomorrow. You're not missing much, really—just a whole whack of green yarn, in more-or-less worsted weight.

Next up...well, I could act all mysterious and pretend that I have a grand plan, but I don't, really. So I think my next step will be to dig through the stash for something that I could plausibly add to the mix.

By the way, I've decided on a name for my wheel: in honour of its extreme blueness, I hereby christen it "Babe." I still won't call it a "she," though. I do have some standards.

Lessons, learned and not learned

2011-03-02T15:08:00.007-05:00

So last summer while I was visiting Victoria's sweet little fibre arts store, Knotty by Nature, I bought two 4oz. braids of the most beautifully dyed Corriedale. I couldn't wait to start spinning them, and by odd coincidence I had brought my Houndesign spindle with me, so off I went.

When I was about halfway through the first braid, Mitchell commented, "Wow. I think I liked the colours better when it was just fibre."

This was remarkable, in that Mitchell rarely notices what woolly thing I'm getting up to, unless I physically grasp his head, turn it toward the WIP, and say, "Isn't this a (fill in adjective of your choice here) (fill in name of project here)?" At which point he will obligingly respond that yes, it's the best, most artistically knit pair of socks he's ever seen; or alternatively, that no, that's one butt-ugly pattern, the designer must have been selling it to feed his or her crack habit, and I'm quite right to want to set it on fire and stomp on the gory remains. Mitchell is very supportive that way.

Anyway. This one time last summer, he noticed that the fibre I was spinning was starting to look kind of muddy, with one colour running into the next and getting lost. I later figured out that this is because I'd been a bit overenthusiastic with the predrafting—a mistake I haven't made since then, and my spinning has been much the better for it.

The other thing I did with those two beautiful braids was spin and ply each one separately: I carefully split each braid in half lengthwise, spun it up, and then plied it to its other half. Makes sense, right?

By the time I was about a quarter of the way into the second braid, though, the horrible truth began to dawn: although the braids had looked like identical twins when I bought them, as I spun them, the subtle differences began to show in a not-at-all subtle manner. One skein of finished yarn was kind of mauve (okay, muddy mauve), while the other was more of a light brown with hints of purple. They were cousins, but definitely not identical twins.

In hindsight, I figured out that I should have plied A to B, rather than A to A and B to B; at least that way the finished yarn would have, um, matched. Okay, I thought. Lesson learned.

And yet...when Rachel gave me two braids of the most delightful blue-green Fleece Artist merino/silk sliver at Hannukah, do you think I followed my own sage advice?

Not a chance.

It's like the whole mauve/beige yarn thing had never even happened. I happily spun up the singles from A...and plied it to a second singles from the same skein.Pretty, huh?

And once again, by the time I was about a quarter of the way into B, a small nagging doubt began to work its way into my brain.

"Hey, this is a lot more blue than the first one," it said.

"Oh, shut up," said I. "It'll all even out by the end. You'll see."

"Doubt it," said the Nagging Doubt.

I ignored it, and kept spinning. And then plying. And when I finally took the finished yarn from Braid B upstairs and compared it to the results from Braid A, the Nagging Doubt just sat there smirking.

"Not even close," it said.
I will not record what I said. (And yes, I do realize that more cautious souls take a more organized approach to spinning. They spin up samples, and keep the first yarn next to them so they can compare and adjust the results as they go. I wish I were that kind of spinner, but I'm really not.)

Anyway, just so you know: I think I've got it now. **Spin a singles from Braid A. Spin a second singles from Braid B. Ply them together. Repeat from **. Or risk this:

p.s. Yes, I know I haven't posted in a while. Sixteen whole days, as one reader helpfully reminded me. All I can say is that it's late winter, and for some unknown reason everyone and his dog feels the need to have conferences and meetings and whatnot at this time of year. And since my livelihood kind of depends on this happening, I can't really complain about it, even when it cuts into my blogging time.

So. About those gloves.

2011-02-11T15:02:00.008-05:00

I've been glued to my computer screen all day today, watching the story unfold in Egypt (with a brief reprieve to go have lunch with Rachel and two of her friends at The Pantry in the Glebe Community Centre: delicious, nutritious, and excellent company—a total luncheon trifecta).

Aside from that lunch, I just cannot seem to tear my eyes away from the news coverage; although I have no personal connection to that country, I'm feeling overwhelmed with emotion just watching them celebrate the departure of Mubarek.

However, I told you yesterday I'd give you a bit more of an update on the gloves I've been making, so here goes:

First, I should say that I don't know exactly what possessed me to buy a single 200m ball of Filabura di Crosa blue/green mohair last year. It's not like I wear a lot of mohair, or even like it all that much—I mean, it's okay, but I don't go all mooshy about it the way some people might. I find the hairiness a bit disconcerting, especially when it's near my neck or face; and a single ball of the stuff could really only be used for something small and simple, like a cowl or a hat, both of which would come a bit too close for my liking.

However, I did buy it, and it's been sitting in my stash waiting for me to trade it or give it away or something, because until Wednesday I had absolutely no intention of actually making anything with it.

The stash also contained a couple of balls of a fairly nice fingering-weight yarn labelled "V.I.P. hand-painted yarn from Needful Yarns." It wasn't an official printed label, just a note scrawled on a bit of paper, attached to the yarn with string, but it informed me that the yarn in question was made from merino and cashmere, and it had been hand painted blue and green. I think I shied away from turning this ultra-soft yarn into socks, since I got kind of burned by a few pairs of Magic Shredding Merino socks last year, and I didn't feel like a repeat performance.

So on Wednesday, as I contemplated my increasingly urgent need for new gloves (it being still winter, and the cold showing no signs of abating for a few weeks yet, and my Kureyon gloves being kind of on the ratty side and getting worse), I was suddenly struck with a wild notion. It was a bit like that old ad where the person carrying peanut butter bumps into the person carrying chocolate, and lo! Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were born.

But in this case it was more like, "Hey! You got merino/cashmere in my mohair!" and "Hey! You got mohair in my merino/cashmere!" I picked the two yarns up, held a few strands out and thought, "Swatch time." (Yes. I knit a swatch. Unlike me, I know, but there you are.) The resulting fabric was both soft and squishy, and dense and strong, with only a vague hint of the disliked Mo-Hairiness.

Most of Glove A, showing a distinct lack of hairiness. Just a nice soft fuzz, totally wearable.

I cast on for the first glove Wednesday night, and things were going swimmingly.

That is, until late last night, when I began to suspect that while I definitely had enough of the merino/cashmere to complete the pair of gloves, the mohair might not hold out. I weighed the first glove: 49g. And the remaining yarn (both kinds): 27g. Ulp.

Exhibit A: Glove A plus not enough yarn to make Glove B. Wow, that stuff looks hairy on the ball, doesn't it? Actually, it kind of looks like a haystack.

There was only one thing for it: head back to the scene of the ~~crime~~ original purchase and beg or cry until they found more mohair. As it turned out, the store didn't even seem to carry Filatura di Crosa; the clerk looked at me kind of funny when I asked for it, as though I was making it up just to try her patience. (Wanna guess which yarn store this was?)

Just on a hunch, though, I decided to check out the sale bins in the back of the store on my own. Where I found...nothing at all by Filatura di Crosa. Nada. It's as if the store had never carried them, even though I distinctly recall buying that yarn there, because they had a very nice sample scarf made from it, and that's what tempted me to buy it in the first place. I can even tell you what the weather was like that day.

But. But. While I was rummaging around in the sale bins, I did stumble upon some balls of a blue-green mohair in the right weight, called "Serenade Colori," by a German company I'd never heard of, Stahlsche Wolle. And (this is the best part) it was on sale. Okay, this is not shocking, since it was in the sale part of the store. But this stuff was not just marked down 10% or 20%. It was half price. I kid you not.

Oddly, even though it wasn't the real official Correct Yarn, when I held it up to the original, I found it hard to tell the difference. Here, check this out:

Can you tell the difference?Nah, neither can I.
And when I'm wearing the gloves, I don't think it will matter.

Random Thursday

2011-02-10T11:24:00.003-05:00

1. First, thanks to everyone for the good wishes (and for not pointing out that pouring boiling water on my foot might be just a tad on the klutzy side). I have stocked up on 2nd Skin burn pads and ouchless paper tape, and am now cultivating patience as I wait for the damn blisters to heal.

2. Meanwhile, I finally faced the fact that my Noro Kureyon gloves are on the verge of giving up the ghost. Granted, I've used them most days this winter, but the fact that I knit them at too loose a gauge, and that Kureyon isn't the hardest-wearing wool in existence, have combined to create some rather large thin patches in inconvenient places such as the fingers and thumbs.

3. So, caving to the inevitable, I cast on yesterday for a pair of gloves that I hope will be both warmer and more durable. I'm doubling up a strand of mohair with a strand of some random merino/cashmere (!) that I dug out of the stash. Couldn't tell you their names, but the combination is pretty stellar.

3a. The pattern is my own, mainly because I can never find patterns in the gauge I want; suffice to say, it's not particularly fancy. It involves two by two ribbing at the cuff, a rather nice outlined thumb gusset, and then it's plain sailing until the fingers.

3b. I just went to take a progress shot, but got a snide reminder from my camera that the battery needs recharging. (This may or may not be related to the fact that I left it turned on yesterday. Even so, I don't need a lecture from my camera on the subject of my own irresponsibility.)

4. Spent most of last night listening to the last 50 or so chapters of the final Harry Potter book (does that woman get paid by the word, or what?), as read by Stephen Fry. Frankly, I would listen to that man read the Ottawa phone book, so was perfectly willing to listen to his rendition of the somewhat over-wrought adventures of HP while knitting the aforementioned gloves. I confess to indulging in some fairly cynical backtalk at times, which earned me reproving frowns and shushes from the HP fans in our household.

5. Hmm. That's about it, really. I was sure there was more, but now that I'm here, my mind has gone blank. Well, I'll try to make it up to you tomorrow. And who knows? Maybe I'll have a functioning, non-lecturing camera by then. Toodles, all.

A tender topic

2011-02-09T12:25:00.004-05:00

So Monday evening started reasonably well, with a visit to the Ottawa Valley Spinners and Weavers Guild monthly meeting. Nice people, lots of interesting discussion, and egg salad finger sandwiches—what's not to like there?

Came home, went to put a bit more water in the (just boiled) kettle so I could partake of our usual evening cocoa. I still don't know for sure whether the handle was broken already, or whether it broke when it hit the floor (and my foot), but the upshot was deeply unpleasant: boiling water all over my feet, and part of one leg.

I did all the stuff you're supposed to do for severe burns: dashed upstairs and sat on the edge of the bathtub, running cold water over the affected areas. I believe I might have said a bad word or three.

The family was great, running out to stock up on Polysporin and some magic burn gel stuff Adrian looked up on the Internet. It turned out that drugstores don't sell it, so Mitch went out and got it from an industrial safety company yesterday—a bit late for me, but we are now prepared for future burn emergencies. And I appreciated the thought.

Turns out I was lucky, and most of the real damage is confined to the lower part of my right foot, along with a couple of inches of leg just above the knee. While my doctor conceded, "Wow, that's a very severe burn," he also suggested that I invest in steel-toed boots for future kettle encounters. Ha, ha, doc. Most amusing. I knew I could count on you.

I learned a few things from this experience:

It is very difficult to sleep without allowing the bedclothes to touch a burned foot.
It is very difficult to sleep at all when your foot hurts that much.
Frozen corn in a plastic bag makes an excellent compress for burns. Just don't use a bag with tiny holes in it, because you will wind up with unpleasant leakage all over your sheets.
It's a good thing I hang onto all those orphaned white cotton gym socks, because there is no way in hell I'm wearing handknits on those blisters.

At the moment, my main beef is that I still cannot wear shoes (despite the -20C temps yesterday, I wore my big rubber gardening sandals to the doctor's office, to his great amusement); this means I'm more or less grounded until the swelling on my foot goes down a bit. Sadly, it doesn't mean I can't work, though.

I did manage to plough through quite a lot of the socks I'm making from drum carded bits and pieces of BFL:
And when my foot is healed enough to wear them, I plan to rejoice in their woolly softness.

Gift horses

2011-02-04T15:43:00.011-05:00

Last summer, Mitchell and Rachel bought me a long braid of blue fibre—8 ounces of Corriedale and silk, handpainted in the most amazingly subtle blues. I brought it home and coiled it into a matching blue glass bowl, where I could admire it while pondering my plan of attack.Once last fall, I tugged off a few inches of the two fibres, and gave them a go on one of my laceweight drop spindles, but I wasn't happy with the barber pole effect; it created a thin silk line twisting around a thicker worsted-spun wool singles, and it just didn't look right to me. And whatever I did with this beautiful fibre, I wanted it to be right, so I put it back in its bowl and let it sit a while longer.

Then, while I was drum carding the BFL I told you about yesterday, it came to me: I could do the same with the silk/Corriedale, and spin it up from carded batts. Here's what happened:

1. I pulled off a tuft (about 7 grams, it turns out) and spread it open.
2. I pulled it apart into staple-length segments, and spread it out on the feed tray of the drum carder. Notice that I'm putting it through sideways (a trick I learned from Leslie, for which I am much thankful); this keeps it from clumping up on the drum, and helps it get all nice and poofy. Yes, that's a technical term.
3. After a single pass through the drum carder, the fibres are still a bit confused and unsure which direction they should be leaning. Some of them seem positively distracted.4. A second pass through should take care of that. Note innovative use of sushi mat (actually, two sushi mats, since one isn't anywhere near long enough, but at $1.49 apiece I figure I can afford a couple). I use them to roll the batt neatly off the drum, and avoid lacerating my knuckles.5. This time, all of the fibre has got the message: it's all headed more or less in the same direction, and looking very cooperative and happy. A beautiful, airy batt. And you can still see the strands of silk, running through the wool.
6. The best part, though, is that three of these pretty batts spin up into almost 100 yards of true laceweight yarn:7. Which pleases me immensely. I love how the silk catches the light and gives the otherwise fuzzy Corriedale a bit of sheen and depth. Overall, I'd say this looks like a go.

Fibre rehab

2011-02-03T14:54:00.008-05:00

So you remember that drum carder I got for my birthday in the fall? The one I am so totally in love with, because I can stick all sorts of interesting fibres in one end, give 'er a crank, and eventually peel a beautiful, fluffy, totally spinnable batt off the drum?

Well, combine the drum carder with the new spinning wheel, and you have a very dangerous combination. Because, you see, I have discovered something crucial: it is possible to renew, rejuvenate, and rehabilitate old, dead fibre from my stash.

You know the stuff I mean—a braid of something-or-other, let's call it Blue Faced Leicester for example, that has migrated down to the bottom of the stash (don't laugh: wool can so migrate. It's a proven medical fact of science), and on its way down, it got kind of compacted and squished up and felted in places.

You pull this once-proud piece out and sigh, because it used to be so beautiful, but now you really can't face having to tease it apart, one molecule at a time, preparatory to spinning it; and yet you can practically hear your Scottish ancestors spinning in their graves at the thought of wasting it.

Over the past few days, I've been on a salvage mission of sorts. I found a hank of cream-coloured BFL, some dark brown, some medium pinkish-brown, and a few wee bits of ultra-dark Shetland, all crammed up and felty and just not looking happy. I began tearing off pieces, arranging them somewhat randomly, and feeding them into the drum carder along with some strands of brilliant red Firestar (aka "that glittery stuff") to pep things up, colour-wise.

I started producing batt after batt, most of them brownish/creamish with bits of red.One I kept cream-coloured, and one I kept almost all brown. Then I tore pieces off the batts and started spinning them, then plying. The result so far is about 300 yards at approximately 14 wraps per inch. Almost enough for a pair of socks!

What I like best about this is the idea of using up fibre that would otherwise have gone to waste. (Actually, is there some kind of theme happening here? Because that was part of my motive in making that accursed linen stitch scarf, too. Must ponder this.)
Poor little BFL fibre, happy at last.

Done

2011-01-31T15:15:00.005-05:00

And not a minute too soon, in my humble opinion.

Granted, 12 days is not exactly an eternity, but it can sure feel like one when you're looking down the wrong end of a 425-stitch row of linen stitch.
Still, I'm pretty pleased with the outcome. I was worried for a while that it might be too short, but some severe blocking took care of that; the final product measures 60" x 6".A nice skinny scarf...because honestly, a fat one would have driven me to drink.

BTW, that last photo shows the wrong side, which isn't as woven-looking as the right side, but is still pretty nifty.

And now, on to a Second Sock, partner to one I started, um, last fall (I think). And happy Last Day of January!

The learning curve is going up

2011-01-27T12:49:00.006-05:00

When I first acquired my spinning wheel (a whole week and a half ago...wow, feels like a lot more!) I had the impression that the transition from drop spindle to wheel would be fraught with challenges.

I'd heard some of this from other drop spindlers—the wheel just yanks the wool away from you; you have to draft like a maniac just to keep up; it's hard to get a steady treadle rhythm going; and on and on.

I have to say, though, that adding the wheel to my spinning toolkit has really not been that difficult. Yes, I did have to learn to treadle in one direction at a time (my first efforts were really kind of spastic); but rather than being intimidated by the wheel's ability to both spin yarn and collect the proceeds on the bobbin, I've found it liberating.

And then there's the whole speed factor. I still believe that the drop spindle is the ideal take-anywhere, spin-anytime tool, and that it's possible to accumulate quite a respectable cop of yarn in a fairly short time, just by popping the spindle in your bag and pulling it out during the lulls in your day.

But for sheer plow-through-a-pile-of-fibre speed, the wheel is definitely where it's at. It's more hassle to set up (especially when you live with Ralph the Demon Seed, who seems to believe there is no string anywhere that does not belong to him, and doesn't seem to grasp the idea that kitties aren't supposed to actually eat spinning wheel drive bands); and it takes a firm intention to sit and spin for a while, but the reward is a lovely pile of spun and plied yarn in a rather short time.
In Friday's post, I showed you some Turtlepurl alpaca/bamboo roving that I was spinning into a singles; here's the result of the first four ounces of that endeavour:
It's truly beautiful stuff, with a soft sheen and beautiful drape; a bit on the challenging side to spin straight away, so I've been fluffing it up to make it easier to draft. I'd initially thought I'd approach this from the fold, but the fluffed version works perfectly fine with my standard short-draw. I spin the singles on a fairly high ratio, using double drive; then I ply on the lowest ratio, which necessitates some vigorous treadling but helps me pack more onto the bobbin.Looking at this, I can see places where I wish I'd plied a bit more firmly, but overall, I'm pretty happy with it. I'd put this somewhere around a fingering weight, and by the time I'm done I hope to have enough for a respectable lace shawl.

Which raises a whole other question: which shawl? There are so many to choose from...

(cue suspenseful music)

We don't need no stinkin' breadmaker

2011-01-26T16:21:00.004-05:00

I have a thing about unnecessary appliances. I'm probably not as dogmatic about it as some people I could name (**coughMitchellcough**), but as I grow older, I find I'm less and less tolerant of gadgets and doodads that perform, usually suboptimally, tasks I could easily do myself.

Take the Slap Chop (please). Does it really do anything that I couldn't accomplish with a decent sharp knife?

And juicers—we got one of those once, as a gift, and honestly, I think I spent more time cleaning out its innards than I did actually getting juice out of it. Plus, I think fruits and vegetables have fibre for a reason, having to do with digestive functions I won't get into here.

I know some people who swear by their breadmakers, but I know a lot of others who swear at them; and when Rachel mentioned the other day that we really should invest in one, she might have been a tiny bit surprised by the vehemence of my reaction. Around here, I told her, we make bread the old-fashioned way. No need for fancy-shmancy machines.

She looked skeptical, so this afternoon I dug out my giant bread bowl and showed her the joys of cultivating the little yeasties, feeding them and harvesting their gaseous emissions to make the bread rise. She seemed to really get into the whole kneading and pounding thing, too; and now the house smells divine, and there will be fresh bread for supper.And, if no one eats it all up in a single evening, we'll have Rachel's Special Oatmeal/Wheat Rosemary bread for a few days to come. Oh, and I don't think we'll be hearing much more about breadmakers and such.

First principles

2011-01-25T17:34:00.003-05:00

I was cleaning out my closet a few days ago, when I ran across my old stash of fleece jackets.

And by "fleece" I don't mean "stuff that gets shaved off sheep." I mean "polyester fleece."

(Yes, I said "polyester" on a blog dedicated to all things woolly. I'll pause for a moment so you can catch your breath.)

Anyway, you'd be justified in asking what the heck I was doing with a stash of polyester fleece jackets in the first place. Here's how it went: back when I bought them, I was cold. I could not seem to get warm, no matter how many layers I wore. And I wore a lot of layers.

This used to be my Deep Winter Indoor Uniform: Silk underwear (someone told me it's the cat's p.j.s for retaining body heat), cotton turtlenecks and jeans (because cotton is both comfortable and cheap, and it breathes, right?), a fleece jacket (because I was told they were super-duper warm), and sometimes even a down-filled vest (because ducks and geese wear down, and you don't hear them bitching and moaning about the cold, do you?). I'd walk around feeling like the Michelin Tire man...only colder. My fingers were always blue. I'm not kidding.

And then one day, for whatever reason, I put on an old, ratty wool sweater...and within minutes, I felt myself starting to warm up. After an hour or so, I realized that I should probably ditch the silk long underwear, because I was actually getting uncomfortably warm.

That was the day I realized that it doesn't matter how high-tech your fleece jacket is; ounce for ounce, it will never be as toasty warm as wool. It doesn't matter what the ads say. They lie.

Think of it this way: each tiny wool fibre consists of a protein-based shaft surrounding a hollow core; along the outside of the shaft are little tiny scales that grip one another. When the fibres are spun into a yarn, then knit or woven into a garment, they create a soft, dense fabric full of minuscule air pockets, that retains heat like nobody's business. And when wool gets damp, did you know that it actually releases small amounts of heat while it dries? True story.

Polyester, meanwhile, is made from a reaction between terephthalic acid, a petroleum derivative, with ethylene glycol, which you probably know as antifreeze. Mix this stuff at high temperature, until it turns into a syrup; then extrude it through a spinneret to create long strands of what amounts to plastic fibre. No air pockets, no scales. Just lots and lots of petroleum-based plastic fibre.

When I bought my various fleece jackets (and I kept buying different ones, because none of them ever seemed to do what their ad copy claimed they would—keep me warm), I wasn't really thinking about things like "petrochemical products" and "will spend the next millennium in a landfill attempting unsuccessfully to biodegrade." All I wanted was a jacket, dammit, that would help me stop shivering like a chihuahua on meth.

And then I put on that wool sweater, and everything changed.

Because that, my friends, is when I dashed off to my local yarn shop, on the hunt for enough wool to make myself armloads of sweaters and shawls, and drawers full of woollen socks. I reacquainted myself with my old friend, knitting; and then I found Ravelry, and blogs, and Knitty, and spinning...and at some point I realized that my quest for warmth had sent me wandering off down a path I couldn't have anticipated.

All in all, though, I'm pretty glad to be here. And I'm warm, too. In January. Bonus.

Making haste slowly

2011-01-24T11:22:00.005-05:00

The sock-yarn scrap linen stitch scarf (go ahead, try and say that fast even once) is growing at its customary glacial pace.

I'm not really complaining, for one thing because I'm actually quite liking watching the colours blend and meld with one another. The linen stitch breaks things up, so that a blinding fuschia/orange combo can live quite comfortably next door to screaming lime green. It's hard to see it here, but you see that bright green stripe about halfway down? The yarn right above it is the same as the yarn next to the cast-on purple edge. I kid you not.

And I'm having fun playing with dark/light contrasts, too. For example, I've concluded that it's really good to have an occasional dark stripe to add a sense of structure and order to the whole.Just for fun, I measured it today. The results:
Sigh. (Then again, I'm only looking at about six inches total, so this means I'm halfway there.)

The Friday post that wasn't

2011-01-23T14:02:00.009-05:00

Friday afternoon, in the middle of my work day, I took a short but well-deserved spinning break. I'd been editing like a fiend all day (all week, in fact), and suddenly I saw a clear patch open up, so I hied myself off downstairs (an advantage of working in a "virtual office," a phrase I still cannot say aloud without smirking or making annoying little quote marks with my fingers).

While I was down there, I thought, "Hey, this room is clean for a change! So why not snap a few pictures from my spinning chair? It will give my blog readers a nice, if somewhat fictional, idea of what I see when I'm working away at my wheel."

The sun was shining, the room looked kind of pretty, and I was hard up for blog posting ideas. So I snapped some pictures, did a bit of spinning, and wandered back upstairs to see where things stood, work-wise.

Shouldn't have done that. Suddenly it seemed like everyone I work with and his or her close relatives wanted something from me...and so the blog post never happened. But I still have the pictures, and things have eased up a bit, so I'm posting them for you now, instead.
The small flyer and half-full bobbin, featuring some light fingering weight alpaca/bamboo blend from Turtlepurl.The fibre close up. The colour kind of reminds me of a fine claret, but that could have been late Friday afternoon power of suggestion.
The view beyond the wheel...looking strangely tidy.
The view below: that blue stuff is actually my yoga mat, which is currently keeping my wheel from sliding out from under me across the hardwood floor. I highly recommend this as a slip-proof substance, although it's not the most attractive floor treatment I've ever used.And finally, the linen-stitch scarf, as it was on Friday. It's progressed some since then, but you'll have to wait until tomorrow for that update. I do like to maintain an aura of suspense, you know.

Slow

2011-01-20T11:36:00.005-05:00

Slow but strangely fascinating: that's how this whole linen stitch scarf thing is coming along.

It takes approximately two years to complete a row, which adds about a millimeter to its width (because I'm working along the long edge). And yet I persevere, in part because I'm only aiming for a width of about six or seven inches, and in part because each colour change yields a delightfully unpredictable layer to the whole.

I'm varying the number of rows per colour, mostly changing on whim rather than any fixed idea of how the thing should eventually look. But each yarn has had at least two rows, sometimes four. Here's a shot of the yarns that have contributed so far:
And here's a group shot of the bits and bobs of yarn that have been clamouring for their turn:I'm not 100% sure they'll all get used, but I'm doing my best to accommodate them. Meanwhile, I'm enjoying revisiting some old favourites, and marvelling at how well they seem to be getting along together, considering their differences.

So yeah, it's slow...but it's satisfying, too.

p.s. If you commented on yesterday's post but don't see that reflected here, blame Blogger. I hit "accept comments," and promptly got a message telling me that some horrible error had been made, and the comments all disappeared. Most disconcerting, and I hope it won't happen again.

The year of knitting dangerously

2011-01-19T14:54:00.006-05:00

Or perhaps I should call it "the year of starting projects that will no doubt drive me screaming off the precipice of sanity before they are done."

Because, dear readers, not only have I launched the Sock Yarn Entrelac Shawl of Doom, but last night at about 11 p.m. I had a sudden brainwave, inspired no doubt by this.

"I know," I muttered to myself. "What I really need to do right this very minute is cast on about four gazillion stitches, and start my very own linen stitch scarf. It's the very thing to put a dent in the cookie jar."(That last remark actually did make sense. I do, in fact, own a cookie jar that I have filled with all the tiny leftover balls and scraps of yarn from previous projects. When my mother-in-law was alive, she generally filled the jar with mandelbrot, but I am not as talented a baker as she was, so wool it is. I like to think of it as a colourful decorative piece, rather than a cookie jar full of wool.)

I dug out several small balls of sock yarn, and cast on last night. That took a while, let me tell you. And so did knitting the first two rows.

A point in this scarf's favour is that it's worked along the long side. And linen stitch involves slipping every other stitch, so I am able to dupe myself into believing that I'm really only knitting two gazillion stitches per row, not four gazillion.

In the debit column, however, the fact that while linen stitch is not difficult, it's tricky. For some reason, my fingers have the idea that when I'm knitting, I should be slipping with the yarn in back, and when purling, with the yarn in front. Of course, it's the opposite with linen stitch, which means I've been giving my profane vocabulary a good workout.

Of course, the other negative about a project like this is that it takes quite a long time to get any vertical momentum. Here's what I've accomplished so far:
Eight rows, not including the cast-on edge. For some reason, the phrase "big whoop" comes to mind.

The number you have reached is not in service

2011-01-18T16:23:00.002-05:00

Actually, I lied. The number you've reached is perfectly fine.

It's just that I'm on deadline, and can't take much time to post. So instead of that scintillating discussion of knitting and/or spinning you were expecting, I offer you this: A cool blog post about the imaginary Alot beast.

The link comes to you courtesy of Adrian, who gets almost as annoyed about lazy grammarians and slothful punctuators as I do. And he's not even an editor, so go figure.

Conditions were perfect

2011-01-17T10:13:00.009-05:00

Or at least, they were perfect over the weekend—for my nefarious purposes, at least.

Yes, it snowed all day Saturday, and the road out to Greely was slick and probably dangerous, but we took it slow and arrived at Chris's house at the assigned time (I only mention this because it's unusual for our family to get anywhere when we're supposed to). And then I met the wheel:

Ashford Traditional, double drive, single treadle, two flyers.
Can be converted to single drive with Scotch tension, but I need to review exactly how to do that, since my brain got kind of full.
Here it is in my family room, where it now lives. Behind it is the drum carder.
Damn, I really think this room needs a new coat of paint. But isn't the wheel beautiful?

Chris, Rachel, and I spent an hour going over the wheel, putting it* through its paces, explaining its quirks, and generally having a good time. Among other things, I discovered that spinning on a wheel after spinning on a drop spindle is a lot like learning to walk and chew gum—or maybe juggle—simultaneously; keeping the wheel going at a steady pace is one thing, but keeping my drafting steady while making the wheel move was a bit of a trick for me. Still, by the time we packed the wheel into the car and headed back home through the snow, I had a pretty decent sense of what I was supposed to be doing.

Chris's last words to me were something along the lines of, "And remember not to use the wheel more than half an hour at a time to start with...."

Excellent advice, to which I'm afraid I pretty much paid absolutely no attention whatsoever. The snow kept snowing, and I got that wheel home, set it up, and kept spinning, and then plying, and here's what came out:It's not the most even yarn I've ever spun, but just like when I started learning the drop spindle, I was pleased as anything to produce something that resembled yarn, no matter how slubby or uneven or strangely plied. And hey, I'm sure I'll find a use for 160yds of Corriedale at some point. As Adrian used to say (when he was two years old and we'd tell him he had to wait for something to happen), "Not yet, pretty soon. Tomorrow in the summertime." He was a very philosophical two-year-old.

Anyway, the spinning didn't stop Saturday. Yesterday dawned sunny and very cold, as it often does here right after a snowfall; too cold to skate on the Canal or do much of anything, really, except stay indoors and spin. (While listening to much of the movie Black Swan—a bit of a yawn from my perspective.)

And spin I did: I worked hard to get my drafting a bit smoother, and while I can see lots of room for improvement, I did manage to churn out another 160yds of BFL:

Again, this is yarn without a specific purpose in mind, but that's okay. Never hurts to have extra.

Oh, and observant readers may have noticed that the wheel seems to be missing its drive band. For that, you can blame Ralph, aka the Demon Seed, who waited until my back was turned last night before gnawing through the drive band (he's got some kind of weird thing about chewing string, which explains why our window blinds only go down halfway these days). Fortunately, I can replace the part easily: apparently butcher's string will do the trick. Just as well, because I think Ralph and I may be in competition as to who gets to the wheel first.

* Yes, "it." I know that on Ravelry and a few other places, people refer to their wheels as "she," but I just cannot bring myself to do it. Does this make me a spinning heretic?

Totally irrelevant update: Last week Adrian went to CUSEC in Montreal—where he was observed in his natural habitat by a co-worker.

NEWS FLASH

2011-01-14T13:06:00.003-05:00

Reliable sources have informed us that Karen is about to buy a spinning wheel. Yes, hell probably has frozen over.

It's true. I'm heading out to "look at" the wheel tomorrow, but (don't tell anyone—it's a secret) I plan to take along sufficient cash to seal the deal. Because, you know, I might just fall in love and need to buy it right then and there.

I realize that I said a while ago that I probably wouldn't need a wheel, since I use my drop spindles so much, and love them and find them really versatile and not at all slow or frustrating, and all of that is still true. But the Spinning Mafia has been working me over for the past several months, and I've finally acknowledged that yes, I might actually get some use out of a wheel.

And then a friend pointed out that someone we both know was selling a couple of her wheels locally at a good price, and suddenly, shazam! I am now totally convinced that I actually cannot live without a wheel. This may be a slight exaggeration, but only a slight one.

I'll let you know how it goes. But first, I must go visit my bank. Toodle-pip!

In lieu

2011-01-10T14:24:00.003-05:00

All I have for you today is yet another update on the giant entrelac shawl, which is of limited interest, even to me. Yes, I admit it. Acres of entrelac = Seriously Boring. But I persist...sort of. Since our last discussion about this one, I've completed 37 squares. Big whoop.

In lieu of yet more entrelac, I give you a shot I snapped over the weekend on my iPhone (did I tell you I got one of those, and it's fabulous? I did, and it is): Maydeleh and Ralph snuggling up together:
These two are seriously best buds now, to the point where Maydeleh, the dog, seems to believe she is actually a cat. When she spots one of Ralph's toy mice, she immediately pounces on it and brings it to one of us, in hopes that we'll toss it for her to retrieve. Note: dogs are not meant to pounce like cats. They lack the agility, plus they tend to come down pretty heavily on their front paws, which causes them to do ungainly yet hilarious face-plants.

Meanwhile, Ralph enjoys practicing his ninja skills on the dog: he likes to hide behind furniture waiting for her to wander past, at which point he dives for her, flips over her back, and streaks off in the opposite direction before she even knows he was there. He steals her food, and complains bitterly if she gets a treat and he misses out. And she never wastes an opportunity to tattle on him: "Mum! Ralph is clawing the chair again!"

Actually, come to think of it, they're a bit like siblings. And like most siblings, they're definitely cuter when they're asleep.

Now it can be revealed

2011-01-05T17:59:00.006-05:00

Holidays being long gone, and various knitted presents dispensed, I think it's probably safe to disclose what was keeping me so busy in the week and a half before the winter solstice.

For starters, I knit a pair of boats for Adrian. Actually, while they were on the needles, these babies looked like twin sleeping bags for Ralph the Kitteh. However, astute readers (such as Kathi Taylor, from whose book I adapted the pattern) may recognize them as striped felted slippers:At least, the top one is a slipper. The bottom one is the unfelted version. Basically, I was hedging my bets, since I wanted to be sure that Slipper A would felt before I invested a lot of energy in Slipper B.

I used a bulkier yarn than specified in the book, in part because that's what I had, and in part because my son's feet are larger than the average bear's. (Actually, that's probably true.) Oh, and I cheated a bit and used the front-loading washer, even though this is supposed to be anathema to felting...but again, it's what was available. My back-up plan, if it hadn't worked, was to go to the neighbourhood laundromat, but fortunately it never came to that. Two runs through the hot/cold cycle, and these puppies were ready to wear. I think they are rather handsome, and Adrian tells me they're just the thing for keeping his feet warm at the office.

For Mitchell, I used some of my new-found mad carding skillz to make rolags, and then I spun up a bunch of the cream-coloured fleece I got last fall. My long-draw spindling is a bit on the idiosyncratic side (read: I pretty much make it up as I go), but I was happy with the yarn I produced.

Plied about a third of it with a dark chocolate brown singles I happened to have lying around, and then knit up the warmest, cosiest cap ever. It's even got a bit of lanolin left in it, so it's more or less water repellent. Just the thing for our northern winters.
I swear, he unwrapped it, clapped it on his head, and then refused to remove it for almost 48 hours. I'm pretty sure it was a hit.

Yesterday's entrelac count: 17

And a Happy New Year to you, too!

2011-01-04T08:55:00.005-05:00

It's entirely possible that I have flipped my cookies. Gone off the deep end. At the very least, I'm willing to consider that I have bitten off a much, much larger mouthful than anyone can be expected to chew at a single go.

Let me explain: I have this theory that the first real knitting project of the year kind of sets the tone for those that will follow. Last year, I started off with a spindle-spun merino/silk scarf; this involved not only spinning something resembling laceweight yarn on a teeny-tiny spindle, but knitting it into a plausible pattern (in this case, Butternut from Knitspot). When I started the project, I had absolutely no doubt that I could and would finish it, and that it would be beautiful. Sure enough, it's been one of my favourites since I finished it last spring.

This year, my First Project is something that exists only in my fevered imagination: a full-size stole (and by "full-size" I mean measuring about two feet wide by about six feet long) in two-colour entrelac...knit in sock yarn, on 3mm needles.

In case you are a non-knitter and wondering what the heck I'm talking about, let me clarify: this will involve a heckuva lot of entrelac. Which isn't hard, necessarily, but does require a certain kind of focus. Not to mention dedication, and the belief that it's actually possible to finish something of this size, in yarn this small.

It's all a little bit nuts, in one way, but I've been telling myself pretty stories to convince myself that it's totally do-able.

Story 1: I knit socks from sock yarn all the time. This project will require about 1,600 metres of yarn, which is the equivalent of about four pairs of socks. That's not all that much, really, is it?
Story 2: I've knit many lace shawls using much smaller yarn than this. Some of the shawls have been even bigger than the one I'm currently working on, so what's the big deal? (This argument holds a bit less water when you consider that lace is full of holes, and therefore requires less knitting than entrelac, which is essentially stocking stitch with attitude.)
Story 3: The yarns change colours, and I'm always fascinated when my projects do that. Again, this is not the strongest of stories, since the yarns in question are the kind that change veeeeeeerrrrrrrry gradually, and the variations are more subtle than average. Like "orange" through to "brown." And one of the "colours" is actually grey, which doesn't really count at all.
Story 4: I will be able to maintain motivation just by looking at the thing and imagining how it will look once it's finished. This is the most plausible of the stories so far, so it's the one I'm sticking with. For now.

I do realize that a project this size will take time, and isn't really the most bloggable thing in the known universe, so I've decided that rather than give you daily progress reports ("...knit some more, not finished yet....knit some more, not finished yet....") I will simply post the number of squares completed the previous day. For instance, yesterday I finished 16.

Tomorrow: What I knit everyone for the holidays. Much more exciting, I promise.

Last-minute fibery goodness

2010-12-21T12:12:00.009-05:00

I'm not really the sort of person you want to ask about "last-minute gift ideas," for a couple of reasons:

Whenever anyone asks me that sort of question, my mind immediately goes completely, irredeemably blank.
My last-minute gift selection tends to be what could charitably be called "holistic" (as in Dirk Gently's holistic driving method in The Long, Dark Tea-time of the Soul)—I may not get where I planned to go, but I usually wind up somewhere I need to be.
I'm usually too busy making/purchasing my own last-minute gifts to be of much use to anyone else.

However, I had an idea yesterday that I thought I ought to share, in the spirit of seasonal conviviality and all that. I told you a couple of weeks ago about the Great Nuno Adventure, during which some friends and I got together and pounded on some innocent wet wool until it agreed to turn into beautiful, artistic-looking felt.

Well, yesterday afternoon it occurred to me that I wanted—needed, in fact—a scarf to wear to last night's staff dinner party. Obviously, it was a bit late in the day to knit anything, even on mega-gigundo needles. And besides, what I wanted was something airy and floaty, with a bit of colour to it. Something kind of festive, if you know what I mean.

So I got out my trusty lengths of bubble-wrap, a bunch of red merino/silk combed top, some purple mohair locks, and a longish silk chiffon scarf. (Why yes, I do have this stuff just lying around my house, why do you ask?)

I wish I could show you one of those sped-up videos, but here's the basic sequence of events:

Pull merino/silk into staple-length tufts, open it up with fingers so you can see through it—a kind of cobwebby look is what you're aiming for.
Lay scarf under a length of bubble-wrap (as a template).
Lay tufts of fibre at a 45-degree angle along the edges of the silk scarf.
Carefully pull the scarf out and lay it on top of the fibre.
Lay out more tufts of fibre, perpendicular to the fibre that is now on the underside of the scarf.
I left the middle of my scarf blank until the end, when I pulled out a very long, thin stretch of top, floofed it up, and laid it snakewise down the centre. Then I added some random bits of purple mohair locks, as it was starting to look a bit too monochromatic for my liking.
Using a spray bottle full of warm, soapy water, spray the entire thing until it's wet but not flooded. Be careful not to let the intensity of the spray move the fibre around too much. I find that spraying from directly above the piece is best.
Carefully roll the whole thing up, end-to-end, like a giant sushi.
Start kneading it with your hands, very gently at first. I think of this as a bit like rolling out very delicate pastry: you don't want to disarrange the fibre at this point, just kind of get it used to its new home. I kneaded for about three or four minutes, then opened it up and took a peek. Already, I could see the fibres beginning to lock into one another. Excellent.
Roll it up from the other end, and continue kneading it, gradually adding more pressure, for another five minutes or so.
Unroll again and take a look. At this point, you should start to see some of the wool/silk fibres peeking through the back of the chiffon.
Keep doing this—kneading and rolling, then undoing the package to inspect its contents—until you're satisfied that the wool/silk is as felted as it's going to be, and you can see many many fibres poking through the bare areas on the back of the scarf. While you do your inspection, make sure that the edges of the scarf don't felt to one another. You can just pull them apart, telling them it's for their own good.
Rinse your scarf in hot water, then in cold, until you can't see any more soap suds.
At this point, you can start getting violent. Scrunch the scarf up in your fist, and throw it as hard as you can against your work surface. Open it up and pull apart any stray bits that have become too familiar with one another, then scrunch it and throw it again.
When you have worked out all your aggression, or run out of time and energy, give your scarf one last rinse, roll it in a towel to squeeze out all the remaining water, and hang it to dry.

Start to finish, my scarf took about 45 minutes (not including the five minutes I spent, um, blow-drying it because it wasn't quite dry enough to wear by 6 p.m. I'm pretty sure this is not officially sanctioned by the Nuno Police, but they have to catch me first).

You can see here how the shrinking wool has gripped the chiffon backing, pulling it in and creating a wrinkly, rippled effect. And here's the back:If you peer in closely, you can see the fibres that have poked through the chiffon:
Bonus Pics: Here's a shot of some "cobweb felting" I did last week. For this one, I used thinned drumcarded batts, and the pink squiggles are bamboo. The pinky-orange blobs are prefelt, which I cut into more or less circular shapes. You'll notice that cobweb felting is a bit like nuno, only sans cloth backing.
So. There you have it. My contribution to the pre-holiday gift panic insanity.

p.s. I wore my nuno scarf last night, pinned with a garnet brooch, and was most pleased with the effect.

Sock puppetry

2010-12-17T11:02:00.006-05:00

Time was that I thought all "sock puppets" looked like this:

Now, though, what with the Interwebs and all, I realize that my definitions need some updating. These days, a sock puppet can mean any of a few things*. For example...

"An account made on an internet message board, by a person who already has an account, for the purpose of posting more-or-less anonymously"
"A fake personality, usually a 'friend' or 'sister,' created by a drama queen/king for the sake of defending him/herself against others in an online forum" (I've actually exposed a couple of these—MWF alumni might recall the Great Kacy Dramaz of 1999.)
"Homer Simpson's greatest fear (Marge: Sock puppets! Homer: AAAAAAH!!)"

I'd like to propose a new, knitting-related meaning: "An ongoing project intended to convince potential recipients of other knitted gifts that they won't be getting anything handmade from you this year." Usage: "I pulled out my sock puppet project Friday night during our regular family get-together, and worked on it while we watched a movie."

Here's my current sock puppet: Yes, it's one of the ubiquitous but nevertheless fascinating Noro striped scarves. I know, I've already made two, but these are easy, mindless knitting, and it's great fun watching the colours emerge and blend (or duke it out for supremacy, depending).

Plus, am I the only person in the world who thought Lambchop would have looked better on a plate with a few sprigs of mint for garnish? I like my sock puppet much better.

* Thanks, Urban Dictionary!

Plying

2010-12-16T14:50:00.010-05:00

Some of you might recall this fleece from a few weeks back: It's a merino/bamboo/shiny-stuff blend from Dyeing for Colour Fibre Works, and I decided that rather than go with a laceweight (which would definitely stretch my four ounces to the max), I'd try for something closer to a DK. So far, so good.

It took practically no time to spin up at that weight. I kept it by my computer, and during odd moments when nothing was happening onscreen (or I needed a quick waker-upper), I'd spin for a few minutes, then put it down and pretend nothing had happened. This is one of the advantages of the drop spindle—while it's slower in real terms, its portability and versatility can pump up the output like nobody's business.

Anyway, last week I graduated from spinning singles to plying. I use a highly complex and technical system involving tennis balls filched from the dog's massive collection. (I ask you: how many tennis balls does one dog really need?) Keeping a good tension on the singles, I wind them together around a ball, which I plop into the nearest bowl or other reasonably bowl-shaped receptacle; from there, I can ply at my leisure, in reasonable certainty that I won't run into too many unexpected twisty bits or surprising breaks.
As you can see, the yarn starts to twist around itself a bit even before I start plying; but my goal is to get the singles to embrace a bit more tightly than that. Here's the first skein, along with the plying spindle I've been using—a 2 ounce Golding that's pretty relentless: that thing just goes and goes and goes, and the yarn doesn't have a chance against it.
And here's some of the finished yarn up close:
I declare myself well-pleased. You can't see the sparkly bits here, but that's how I want it: I'm not going for the Disco Queen look, but just a nice quiet bit of twinkle, like moonlight on snow.

p.s. The holiday gifts are coming along, thanks for asking. So far, no one suspects a thing.

I hope they brought their knitting

2010-12-14T09:44:00.004-05:00

Because I know that if I were in these people's shoes, and I'd forgotten to bring my knitting or drop spindle along (ha! fat chance of that, but we're speaking hypothetically here), I'd be seriously ticked off. [Edited to add: A brief poll of my family members reveals that none of them would want to risk being in the car with me sans knitting. I feel this is a bit over-stated.]

As it is, I hope everyone gets home safely today.

We're just getting the tail end of the storm, and my main challenge at the moment is that our garage lock is frozen shut, so I can't get at the snow shovels. But compared to sleeping in my car during a white-out, I'm in excellent shape.

Just so you know

2010-12-13T11:12:00.003-05:00

Earlier this year, I decided that I would not be knitting (or spinning, or felting, or otherwise making in any fashion) anyone's Yule gifts this time round. I've done it too many times, and it always adds even more stress and anxiety to a season that already delivers more than its fair share of both.

Because...what if the recipient doesn't like what I make? Or worse, claims to love it, but then hangs it up and never, ever uses it, and I have to look at it drooping mournfully from its hook, and ask myself why I bothered in the first place...not that this has ever happened, of course. Nope. Not ever.

Or even worse than that, what if I make something and it's the wrong size? Then you get the frozen smile, the valiant attempt to try on the obviously very wrong garment, and then the sinking feeling that really, you haven't given the person a gift so much as an affirmation that you have no freaking clue how big (or small) they really are. Yeah, bonus.

Then, of course, there's the infamous "I started in plenty of time, but then things crept up on me and I ran out of spare moments to knit, and I really did want to finish in time, but it just didn't work out...so, uh, here's your half-finished single sock." (This does not even get into the time that I celebrated my sister's birthday by pelting her with balls of grey yarn, much to her amused dismay. I did eventually knit her the sweater, but the trauma of the Great Yarn Attack of '76 seems to have stuck with her for some reason I just cannot fathom.)

So this year, I thought, I'll just avoid the whole tawdry mess, and buy gifts.

But then this past weekend, I suddenly realized that if I played it right, I could actually fit in some handknits without killing myself. Smallish items, not great honkin' sweaters or shawls or anything ridiculous like that. But things the recipients will find both useful and aesthetically pleasing. Things that won't kill me, but will please them. I can do it, I know I can.

Twelve-step devotees may recognize this as something they call "stinkin' thinking'." As a former mental health professional, I'm more inclined to call it "delusional." Pick your poison.

Whatever. I now have three projects on the needles, but I cannot divulge any further details until after our family has finished its quirk-laden nod toward the winter solstice, which by my reckoning will occur next week.

Therefore, this blog will play the fibre equivalent of elevator music for the next several days.

Welcome to the Spinning Station, where we're adopting an "all spinning, all the time" format, at least until further notice. Today's offering: silk merino laceweight singles.
Tune in tomorrow for the plied version.

Random Friday

2010-12-10T13:08:00.009-05:00

1. Yesterday was the final day of Hannukah. Wednesday night, Rachel and I lit the menorah for the last time this year (interesting fact: all Jewish holidays start at sundown the day before...this explains why we light shabbos candles Friday night, when everyone knows that the Jewish sabbath is on Saturday).2. This is the first time I can remember Mitchell missing the entire eight-day festival. But we did manage to include him on at least one candle-lighting, from Barcelona via Skype. The world is truly an odd place these days.

2a. We may well be the only family in the world that places bets on which candle will last the longest each night. On Wednesday, Rachel chose red, third from the left, while my money was on orange, second from the right. We were both wrong: after a long head-to-head battle between my orange and its red neighbour, my poor orange succumbed. It was touch and go for a while, though, and I felt my candle held up the side admirably.

3. This year, I vowed to figure out my mother-in-law's famous sugared almonds recipe. She left us a big box of her recipes, many of them hand-written on convenient file cards; but she always told me the almonds were dead easy...so easy, in fact, that she never bothered to write them down.

On Attempt #1 this year, I got something like the right sugar/cinnamon mixture, but the texture was all wrong. They are supposed to be crisp, with a whitish sugary coating that crumbles to the touch. Attempt #1 produced slick, polished-looking nuts...but the taste was definitely getting close. On a hunch, I popped Attempt #2 into the oven at 350F for an hour or so. This was a bit better—the taste was even better, but I think I over-baked them. They were still slick-looking. Attempt #3 is still in the oven, but this time I asked Mitchell's advice, and he said he vaguely remembers his mother baking the nuts for a long time on low heat. So I've got them baking (drying out, actually) at about 225F. We shall see.

4. Rachel gave me the loveliest bunch of 100g of Fleece Artist Merino/Silk sliver, of which I've already spun about a quarter. I was able to squeeze about 25g of fine singles onto my laceweight Dyak (which wobbles about like a sailor on shore leave, but still manages to produce decent yarn, go figure).I'm not worried about maintaining the colour runs here, as there really aren't any, to speak of; this yarn just seems to flow from one colour to the next, smooth as (dare I say) silk. And while I've heard it said that "blue and green should never be seen," I think this proves pretty definitively that that old saying is a lot of eyewash, don't you?

4. And last but definitely not least, Mitchell finally made it home last night, after all sorts of excitement involving snow, ice, freezing rain, and AirFrance. (Hint: the latter is not able to deal adequately or gracefully with any of the former. Just sayin'.)

All over the map

2010-12-09T17:18:00.002-05:00

Maybe it's the impending holiday season, or maybe it's the fact that Mitchell got stuck at DeGaulle airport because of the snow/ice situation in Europe, and may not even make it home tonight (and he's already a full 24 hours past his revised ETA); or maybe it's the fact that I'm sitting here surrounded by beautiful fleece and yarn, and my head is full of bright ideas for knitting gifts that could occupy me well into the new year, but I want to give them as holiday gifts, which means I should, you know, actually knit something. But which should I do first?

And meanwhile, I'm contemplating the idea of actually getting a spinning wheel (Wait! What's that I hear? Hell freezing over?), but I'm confused about what I want. I've looked at an Ashford Traveler, which has a nice old-fashioned kind of vibe even though it's definitely a modern wheel; and I've thought about a folding Lendrum, in part because it's Canadian-made; and I know someone who once offered to lend me her Kiwi to try.

Everyone says it's a good idea to try a bunch of different wheels before deciding on one, but honestly, I don't know that many people with wheels. And I don't want to invest a lot of money in a wheel before I even know if I like wheel-spinning; maybe I'm really a spindler at heart, and should just give up on this wheel foolishness altogether?

Like I said, all over the map. Discombobulated.

However, I did cast on with yesterday's wool for a nice plainish hat, one of the aforementioned gifts, so I think I'll go do some 2x2 ribbing on that while I contemplate spinning wheels, holiday pressure, and AirFrance.

Mixed media

2010-12-08T10:18:00.005-05:00

Over the weekend, I had a chance to practice my hand-carding skills on some of the washed fleece I brought home from the workshop I took in late October. I made a bunch of rolags (and then discovered a few I'd made during the workshop, and tucked into the bag thinking I'd remember they were there...so much for long-term memory), which I spun more or less woollen-style on a 1.6oz Golding.
I'm still not 100% happy with my long-draw technique, but I like the way this yarn emerged: it's definitely fuzzy and lofty, and while there are a few slubs (and not a small amount of good old Ottawa Valley vegetable matter), it feels kind of comforting and old-timey to me.

I got about 125 yards of two-ply at about nine WPI on the first lot of rolags, and then I remembered that I had another 100 yards or thereabouts of deep brown BFL singles, which I'd spun worsted.

Hmm, I thought to myself. I wonder how these two might get along? So I plied a sample using the worsted-spun BFL and the mostly woollen-spun Sheep of Unknown Provenance...and I liked what I saw.
The smooth, dark BFL seems to accentuate the poofyness of the...whatever that sheep was (the fleece came from the wool coop out in Carleton Place, and all I can say for sure is that it's not merino).
One part of me wants to just keep these two skeins on my desk to admire and fondle from time to time, but I suspect they may eventually become a hat. Or mittens. Time will tell.

Messy play

2010-12-06T10:24:00.010-05:00

What do you get when you throw together six women ranging in age from 16 to 53, several silk chiffon scarves, yards and yards of bubble wrap, a bunch of old towels, some really hot water (and really cold water), a jug of dish detergent, and enough ziplock bags of unspun fibre to fill an entire couch?

A good time, that's what.

And some unbelievably beautiful nuno felted scarves, each one as unique and fascinating as its creator.

A couple of years ago, Rachel and I took a one-evening course on nuno felt at Wabi-Sabi, and ever since then, I've thought it would be cool to do some more. And recently it dawned on me that there is really no reason not to (other than the fact that I was a little foggy on the details of that first workshop...but hey, that's what the Internet is for, right?). Further, it dawned on me that if nuno felting is fun for two, it should be exponentially more fun for, say, six people.

I don't think I can do justice to the afternoon's festivities, other than to note that it's a good thing Rachel remembered that towels were involved in our first nuno foray: each time I poured the hot water onto someone's scarf, a mad scramble would ensue, as people lunged for their towels to sop up the inevitable excess.

Isabel massages her scarf: Round 1

Oh, and while I thought I remembered that we used some kind of rubber mat for the final part of the felting process, we wound up using those little bamboo sushi mats, which worked just fine. (Valuable life lesson: if you rub your knuckle repeatedly across a bamboo sushi mat, it takes almost no time to wear the skin away, leaving a fairly painful blister. Next time, I'm using a rolling pin.)

Patti massages her bundle; sushi mat of doom in foreground.
The rest of us had gone in search of cookies at this point. I should mention that cookies and a delicious bundt cake, courtesy of Isabel, played a large role in the festivities.

It was amazing and beautiful to watch everyone's scarves evolve from plain white chiffon strips into colourful, delicate works of art. I'm not identifying the scarves and their creators here, since I know some will be given as gifts; suffice to say, they were all beautiful. By the time we were ready for the final photo shoot of the day, though, the sun had set and the light was awful, so my apologies to everyone for the poor quality of the shots here:

Here's another view of my scarf, dry and in daylight:

The red and white squiggles are bamboo; the purple is a mohair lock, combed out.

My thanks to everyone who came over and made Saturday an amazing, exciting, and most of all fun ride!

(Sunday was no slouch in the fun department either, as Zayde came for a visit. Latkes and gelt were consumed, candles were lit, blessings were sung, a computer was fixed, many hugs were exchanged. Most satisfactory, if a bit on the brief side. Till next time!)

Back to the drawing board

2010-12-02T12:31:00.005-05:00

Last night I had what seemed like a brilliant idea: I've been meaning to try to work out a leaf lace pattern, knit as a scarf on the bias.

That is to say, I'd start with the point of the leaf, and use yarn-over increases on each side to build up to a certain number of stitches; then I'd start decreasing stitches on the right, while continuing to increase on the left, such that the item would grow in one direction while shrinking on the opposite side. This, to my way of thinking, should produce a pretty nice biased scarf. Especially if constructed using some of my kinda stripey handspun.

Problem is, when I tried it out last night, it just plumb didn't work. In fact, it didn't work to such an extent that I ripped it out before I could even take a picture of it. It really was that embarrassingly awful.

I've got the beginnings of the pattern pretty much down in my head, but for some reason I'm just not getting the part where I "turn the corner" and start forming what amounts to a parallelogram. I'm afraid I'm going to have to turn to my court of last resort: I'll have to draw myself a chart, rather than just knitting on the fly.

And sadly, I have far too much work piled up over the next couple of days to devote any real energy to it. On the other hand, it's been my experience in the past that when I'm well and truly thwarted by a knitting problem, it can actually help to let it gestate for a while in my brain while I pretend to be completely engrossed in some other far less interesting task.

Then, when it's not looking, I turn around suddenly, and Blam!! I catch it in the act. Problem solved. I'll let you know when it happens.

Inconceivable

2010-12-01T12:43:00.006-05:00

Here's something weird: I measured the yarn I spun from the handpainted Romney, and at most I had about 130 yds. Not a huge amount, and I'd call it a sport weight; I used 3.75mm needles for the top, then switched to 4mm for the main part, and it's none too dense.
All of which is possibly too much detail, but here's the thing: the pattern called for 104 yds of chunky yarn, or 215 yds of worsted. To my mind, this implies that I should have needed more yardage, not less. And yet, my measly 130 yds yielded this:
...which is definitely not a puny hat, considering the size of my noggin.

Then again, tonight is the first night of Hannukah, when a single day's worth of oil burned for eight days straight. So maybe using less to make more is in the air right now.

Whatever. Kathi, you were right: Romney is exceptionally warm, even when it's full of holes. And to anyone who'll be lighting that first candle tonight, hag sameach!

Forecast

2010-11-30T10:42:00.005-05:00

Last week, before all the kerfuffle about mittens arose, I started spinning up some of the Romney wool I'd acquired from Spunky Eclectic. The colourway is Progressions Forecast, and it spun up pretty quickly and reasonably cooperatively, producing about 125 yds of this:

Which, as it turns out, is just about enough to make this top-down lace Foliage, courtesy of Knitty:I was a bit worried about yardage, which is why I decided on a top-down pattern; my reasoning was that in the event that I ran out of yarn too soon, I could fudge it a bit by making the brim in a contrasting colour. In fact, I had some brown handspun Shetland standing by, just in case. But I don't think I'll need it: I've reached the brim, and seem to have a decent amount of yarn left to finish up.

Granted, it does seem a bit foolhardy to be knitting an openwork cap just in time for winter; but this is one of those projects that bit hard and wouldn't let go. And it never hurts to prepare in advance for the warmer days of spring, does it?

The epitome of snazz

2010-11-29T09:22:00.006-05:00

If you were following along last week, you might recall that on Friday I came face to face with an unpleasant reality: the thrummed mittens I'd been promising my nephew for the past, um, two and a half months were not going to materialize. This left me with a problem: the mercury has definitely begun to plummet, there's snow on the ground, and the time for serious mittening has arrived.

I applied myself to the needles Friday night, and by mid-morning on Saturday, I had produced these:Mega-gigundo mitts, using Cascade Eco+ in the blackest of blacks, on 7mm needles.

Time for felting. So I ran hot water in one side of the kitchen sink, and cold water in the other side, and started pounding the living daylights out of the first mitten. After 10 minutes with no appreciable change (though there might have been a small amount of felting taking place on the palm, but then it could have been the light or my own wishful thinking), I made another decision: these were going into the washing machine.

Now, in theory front-loading washers aren't ideal for felting, because you can't interrupt the cycle every few minutes to make sure the item in question is doing what it ought; you are more or less doomed to wait out the entire wash/rinse/spin cycle to find out the verdict. But since I don't own another kind of washer, and I didn't plan to spend the rest of my life abusing the mittens at the kitchen sink, I set our front-loader to hot wash/cold rinse, threw the mittens in, held my breath, and hit "Start."

About 45 minutes later, the mittens emerged...and they were almost text-book perfect. Thick, dense, matted wool, just the thing for cutting winter winds and keeping hands warm. Rachel suggested that they could stand just a bit more felting, so I tossed them into the dryer, set it on "Scorch," and let them dry for about 15 minutes in total. That seemed to do the trick; now they were thick, dense, etc., but a bit more so. Oh, and much, much smaller.In deference to the nephew's current place of higher education, I decided that his black mittens really needed a nice flash of red, so I used some bright red Paton's Classic Merino to knit 2x2 ribbed cuffs. Sewed them in, with just a bit of red peeking out, and here's the result:
As Rachel said, these are definitely quite snazzy. In fact, I would say they are the epitome of snazz. Wear them in good health, Michael!

(And just ignore the gratuitous Twilight reference....)

Changing horses in midstream

2010-11-26T12:14:00.004-05:00

You know how it is: in a rash moment, you promise a friend/relative, "Oh, sure, I can knit you one of those, no problem!"

...and then, for various reasons, that project keeps sliding to the bottom of your knitting pile. The guilt, however, continues to accumulate, especially if the project in question is, say, a pair of warm mittens for your sister's offspring, who has moved to a very cold part of the world from a very warm one, and will thus require more than the usual amount of hand insulation when winter strikes.

And the guilt gets even worse as the temperatures plummet—as they are wont to do in these parts—and the nephew starts to wonder very gently what ever happened to those mittens you promised him, back in September? Because, you know, his hands are getting kind of chilly, and today it snowed on top of freezing rain, and mittens would be very nice right about now.

Here's what happened: I bought a kit. It was a beautiful kit, containing some lovely, warm alpaca fibre in black (the colour of choice for man-mittens, it seems), with enough cream-coloured roving to make thrums from here to the Yukon and back. I started knitting the mittens back in October, and quickly discovered that the yarn, though beautiful and soft and lovely in many respects, has a distressing tendency to spontaneously shred during the knitting process, such that I would be knitting along, and suddenly discover that I was knitting thin air.

Much cursing would ensue, as I rejoined the yarn and knit another 10 stitches, only to have it happen again. And again. The problem is that the yarn is just barely spun—it feels almost like roving, it's that lightly twisted. So the slightest tug, and it gives up the ghost.

It takes a lot for me to declare that I really do not like a yarn. I really do not like this yarn. In fact, I do not like it so much that I just put the half-completed mitten down and walked away from it in a snit.

At first I thought I just needed a cooling-off period. I jammed the whole thing into a ziplock bag and shoved it into a corner for a time-out. Sometimes that's what it takes: put the project away for a while, let it think about how it's offended you, and then come back to it with renewed love and enthusiasm.

About three days ago, as I glanced guiltily at that corner of the family room yet again, and realized: those alpaca thrummed mittens will never get knit. At least, not by me.

Leaving me, of course, with the original problem: what do to about the nephew with the freezing hands? That's when I made up my mind: thrummed mitts be damned. I'm going for felting. So last night I cast on for a pair of Kathi Taylor's Double-Cuff Mittens, from her book, Knit One, Felt Too.

These have several distinct advantages over the original project: they are a fast knit, at a time when speed is of the essence. They will be warm, draught-resistant, and almost waterproof—all very important qualities in this climate.

And best of all, they are made of good old-fashioned wool, not self-shredding, one-step-up-from-roving alpaca.

Dream a little dream

2010-11-25T13:38:00.007-05:00

I've been thinking about that Possibly Insane Thing (PIT) that I suggested yesterday: spinning up enough yarn on my drop spindle to actually make a sweater.

Not that I'm obsessed or anything, but I actually had a long and rather involved dream in which I thought I had enough fibre on hand to actually do it, but then found out that person or persons unknown had actually stolen a bag of washed fleece that I'd been storing on top of the hutch in the dining room. (Don't tell any burglars, but here is a bag of that description in that location right now; I checked this morning to make sure it was still there.)

Dreams aside, I don't have enough of any one fibre in my spinning stash to proceed with the PIT. However, Kathi Taylor made an excellent suggestion yesterday: spin up smaller amounts, and do the sweater in stripes...or mitred squares.

This last bit has kind of gripped my imagination. I've thought about mitred square sweaters in the past, and have seen a few that really worked beautifully. (I've also seen some that looked like Patches the Clown; not really the look I'm aiming for.) And when I looked through the spinning stash, I came up with some likely candidates, mostly from the same colour families:

230g of BFL Sliver from Fleece Artist

230g of Merino Sliver, Fleece Artist again

230g of BFL from Turtlepurl Yarns

And (possibly less likely, but still in the running for now) some BFL combed top from Fat Cat Knits.

I'd intended to ply this with the accompanying INSilk Fingerwolle from SchoppelWolle, and I still might. But all of this bounty adds up to almost a kilo (2 pounds) of fibre...and most of my sweaters weigh a bit less than that.

It's not exactly a scientific way to calculate it, but I'm thinking that if I approach this as a mitred square project, I might be able to swing it. I'll keep you posted.

And meanwhile, those of you south of the border from here, have a safe, happy, fulfilling Thanksgiving!

Romney

2010-11-24T14:13:00.007-05:00

I had a nice surprise on Monday—my order from the Spinning Loft arrived, complete with two braids of Spunky Eclectic's long colour-change Romney wool:

Forecast starts out silvery grey, shifts gradually into a dreamy aqua, then turns into something between khaki and green. I want to take full advantage of the extremely long colour changes, so I simply split the braid once lengthwise, weighing each half. With only a couple of grams' difference between the two, I'm keeping fingers crossed that I'll be able to spin consistent plies, and they'll stand a reasonable chance of matching up. (If not...well, a little uncertainty is good for the soul, I always say.)
I spun up the first half yesterday and this morning, and I'll get to the second half tonight, all other things being equal and the stars in alignment. I'm finding the Romney easy enough to spin, but whoa! is it different from the finewools I've grown used to!

According to Clara Parkes' excellent resource, The Knitter's Book of Wool, Romneys are a dual-purpose longwool, and their fleece really packs a punch, at 32 to 39 microns per fibre: compare this to the 17 to 22 microns found in yer standard Merino, and you can see that the Romney is positively hair-like in consistency.

That's fine with me; I think it's all too easy to become accustomed to the softer, less hardy finewools, thus neglecting some of the tougher breeds that really do have a lot to offer.

For instance, right now I'm wearing the shawl I knit last summer, using handspun, hand-dyed wool of unknown provenance that I picked up at a farmer's market on Pender Island. You wouldn't call this wool soft, by any stretch; and yet, it's warmer and more draft-resistant than some of the fluffier, "prettier" pieces I've made.

Oh, while we're on the topic of spinning: I have been thinking about all the various spinning challenges and resolutions flying about the blogosphere lately, and I have a question for the more experienced spinners out there: is it completely bonkers of me to consider making a sweater out of yarn spun on my drop spindle? And how much fleece do you think that might take? All best guesses accepted.

The socks went marching two by two...

2010-11-23T14:55:00.007-05:00

The sun came out today, a full 24 hours earlier than the weather office predicted! Yay!

So I was able to snap a couple of shots of the socks I've been working on for the past week:

These ones are knit from opposite ends of the same skein of Colinette Jitterbug, in the Lagoon colourway. I was a wee bit nervous about the yardage versus my size 12 feet, so I did the heels in a similar colour, using some yarn left over from a pair of socks I made last winter. So far, it seems to be working; and the nice thing about toe-ups is that I can just keep going until I run out of yarn.

I'm completely fascinated by the complementary pooling happening here: I've never seen it before, but those who do two-at-a-time socks regularly may be more familiar with it.

The pattern is my own standard toe-up, with a heel flap and longish gusset. The stitch is ridiculously easy: K4, P2 around for four rows; then K2, P4 around for four more rows. Repeat as necessary. I like the way the waving ripples break up the pooling.
And these are the Turtlepurl Striped Turtle Toes I started a week ago Sunday; they've been on time-out since the kitten chewed through one of the threads just as I was working the toe section, but I literally have about 20 rows left to go before I Kitchener them shut, and add them to the sock stash.

The pattern is a standard top-down with heel flap, nothing terribly exciting. But there's something comfortingly consistent about these socks, I find. (However, I confess to a certain annoyance that I didn't make the cuffs a bit longer; I'm going to have a largish amount of leftover yarn on this project. Next time, I'll be a bit less parsimonious.)

And now, it's back to work for me. Deadlines await and all that. Toodle-pip!

The drears of November

2010-11-22T17:35:00.003-05:00

I don't actually think "drears" is a word, but it probably should be. To me, it sounds both droopy and dark, and more than a little depressing, damp, and dull. (Goodness, I didn't anticipate that sudden onrush of d words; who knew so many icky words start with that letter? Dim, drab, droning, dribble, drippy....it's odd, very odd. But there you are—that's onomatopoeia for you.

Oh, come on. Onomatopoeia. You learned this in high school, you've just forgotten. It's when words sound like what they describe. So "drip" actually evokes a kind of wet, plopping sound. That sort of thing.

Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes. The drears of November, when it's dark outside from the time I haul myself out of the old john fred in the a.m. until I turn in for the night. The sun's so far to the south that it seems to start to set about five minutes after it rises. Making it too dark and miserable to even think about photographing anything, even though I've made some excellent progress on the two pairs of socks I started last week.

(Note how I just nonchalantly slipped it in there: yes, I'm almost finished TWO WHOLE PAIRS of socks, now that I've grasped the trick of knitting two at a time. TWO PAIRS. In a single week. Are you amazed? So am I. Hence the gratuitous overuse of all-caps.)

I'm thoroughly in love with this whole two-at-a-time thing, though. At first I thought it would be more or less the same, time-wise, as knitting socks consecutively, because after all, I still have to knit across both pairs, so I'm committing the exact same number of stitches.

And yet...through some strange magic, it turns out that knitting socks in parallel actually seems to shift the time-space continuum, such that the socks actually knit up faster (and neater, since I don't have to try to recollect what I did to Sock A before I tossed it in the corner six months ago—if I do it to Sock A, I do it to Sock B, on exactly the same row, leaving no room for doubt or post facto reverse engineering).

I cannot explain it, and because it's so damned dark and dull around here these days, I cannot even take pictures to prove my point. And the weather office isn't calling for any relief until Wednesday, when it's expected to be clear but cold. Oh, hurrah. But maybe the sun will shine long enough for me to sneak in a couple of pictures...

It is I, Captain Vegetable!

2010-11-18T16:50:00.005-05:00

(You get extra points if you remember this song from Sesame Street.)

A couple of months back, our family signed on with an organic vegetable delivery service. Once a week, they bring us a giant plastic bin full of about 17 different fruits and vegetables, most of it local or at least regional, all of it certified organic.

We did this for a few reasons:

I was sick and bloody tired of the forlorn-looking, uninspiring fruits and vegetables at my local supermarket.
I knew we weren't really eating enough veggies ("What should we have for supper? Chicken? With what vegetables? Peas? Oh, okay."), but I had been working with such a limited variety for so long that I was having trouble imagining how to change that. I figured having someone deliver a large box of vegetables to our door each week might jar us out of our routine.
I like the idea that our supplier chooses seasonal, locally produced fruits and vegetables first. It galls me that we are so used to eating out-of-season foods that we think nothing about the carbon footprint of having most of our produce shipped halfway across a continent, or around the world.
Having a big box of produce delivered to one's door every week feels a bit like Christmas: you are never quite certain what you'll get. Collard greens? Wow! Kale? Who would have thought? (Look, I don't live a very exciting life; it takes little to amuse me.)

When we signed up, though, I hadn't really anticipated a couple of extra bonuses.

For one thing, it turns out that it's more of a challenge than you might think to fit that much green (or orange, or red) stuff into our diet.

At first, we were eating up the fruits just fine, but our fridge was still packed with leafy green mystery vegetables by the time the next shipment got here. But gradually, I've found that "using up vegetables" has become an interesting challenge to my inventiveness in the kitchen.

Too many butternut squashes? Bake them with a few apples, and turn them into butternut squash soup. Cauliflowers crowding your vegetable bin? They make a great vegetable curry. It took me a while to figure out that cabbage is not only for coleslaw—chopped and sauteed in its own juices, it makes a fantastic side dish with meats.

I was a bit puzzled by the aforementioned collard greens, my only experience of them being vague references to "Granny's fixin' up a mess of collard greens, Jethro!" But one night while I was cooking chicken thighs, I washed and chopped the greens, threw them into the pan, and clapped the lid on tight, letting them wilt for a few minutes. Unbelievable.

Oh, and faced with a surplus of carrots, plus one white turnip, I chopped and steamed both of them in the same pot, then added an improvised sauce involving orange juice concentrate and fresh ginger. Oh, my.

And it turns out that beets, which I've never cooked much, are amazing when combined with maple-syrup glazed walnuts, goat cheese, and baby lettuce. (There was also the Giant Borscht of Doom, which seemed to reproduce in the fridge when we weren't looking, and never really got any smaller no matter how much of it we ate...for about a week. But perhaps the less said about that, the better.)

Another advantage: we now bypass the produce section almost entirely when we're shopping. It's great—the only time we visit our supermarket's displays of vegetables is when we're looking for things like fresh herbs. It really cuts down the time and energy I must devote to shopping, which is perfectly fine by me.

Anyway, the Veggie Dude was just here, and I have a bunch of fresh, crisp chard sitting on my kitchen counter awaiting my culinary attentions. I wonder if there's any way to to fit chard into a meal that includes pasta and meatballs?

(By the way, the socks are moving along at quite a decent clip; I'm nearly halfway down the foot now. Okay, the feet; because when these babies come off the needles, they will be done, baby, done!)

Good times in progress

2010-11-16T14:15:00.006-05:00

Things trundle along apace on the two-at-a-time socks: at one point I realized that somehow, in the transition between two sets of needles, I'd added an extra row to one sock (horrors!), but then I realized that I could remedy this quite easily by adding an extra row to the other, so all was well.

A few notes about knitting two on the same long circ: I found that just as knitting Magic Loop takes a bit of adjustment (particularly for those of us who like to knit our first two stitches per new needle very tightly indeed—which makes it a bit tricky when it comes time to push a row of new stitches forward onto the working needle), knitting two-at-a-time demands a small but significant amount of mental reconfiguring.

For one thing, you need to be okay with having a lot of dangly bits hanging off your projects.

For another, you have to be able to keep the cords in their place; they have a tendency to open up at odd moments, such that you lose the place where your back and front bits meet, and must count stitches to get it back again.

Oh, and you have to be okay with knitting at a glacial pace, compared with knitting a single sock. Because of course, the flip side to "no more single sock syndrome" is "you are now knitting twice as much at once."

There really is no free lunch, I'm afraid.

For the curious: the yarn is Turtlepurl's Striped Turtle Toes in the Gothic Rose colourway. It comes pre-wound for two-at-a-time projects, which is how I got into this in the first place. I'm using 2.5mm Addi lace needles, with a 100cm (40") cord. And the pattern is my basic no-frills top-down sock.

Bowing to the inevitable

2010-11-15T16:46:00.002-05:00

(Just FYI, I nearly typed that as, "Bowling to the inevitable," which could have some amusement value...if it actually meant anything, which it doesn't. Ahem.)

ANYway. Over the weekend I took a good hard look at the multiple sock projects I've still got on the go, and I realized they all have a common denominator: they are singletons. That is to say, I knit one sock, then for whatever reason (boredom? eagerness to try the next pattern? a pathological inability to defer gratification?) instantly cast on another...in a different pattern and different yarn.

This would work fantastically well if I were, say, writing a book about sock knitting: I have it on good authority that when sock book writers design socks for such things, they are often only required to knit singletons as samples. And if I were a sock-book author, I'd have my ~~minions~~ test knitters knit the companion socks, because I'd be busy thinking up groovy patterns and wouldn't have the time to busy myself with such things.

But once again, I digress. (Note to self: Digression possibly the root of current lack of second socks? Must consider.)

So here I sit, surrounded by mismatched socks that I can't use until I've finished knitting the pair. Brilliant. That's when it dawned on me: knit the damn things two at a time, and quit yer kvetching.

I should say that I actually tried this technique once in the long distant past, and gave it up as a bad job. I'd been knitting socks on DPNs far too long, I thought, and this whole business of shifting the work from one end of the working circ to the other, trying not to let it snag on the join between the needle and the cord, while not losing the loop of cord protruding from the non-working sock, is just too much work.

(Of course, this would imply that knitting a second sock when I'm completely over the pattern and want to move on and do something else is not too much work. And we've already established that in fact, it really is a bit of a bummer.)

Anyway, I decided last night to just suck it up and cast on already, and so I did, using the one 40" circ at my disposal; it's a 3mm Addi Lace, which is a bit on the hefty side for the sock yarn I'm using, so I decided to go against type and knit from the cuff down for a change. The plan is to knit the first couple of inches on the larger needles, then switch to smaller ones for the lower cuff and the foot. This buys me a bit of time to go out in search of smaller needles.

For now, though, I have two things to report:

The two-socks/one-needle thing is working out just fine, proving that sometimes it pays to take a bit of time away from the problem before you attack it again. Also possibly something about the whole "if at first you don't succeed" adage.

I don't have much to show for my efforts, other than a tangled-looking bunch of needle and yarn, and about 10 rows of two-by-two ribbing. Trust me, it's really not very exciting to look at. I'll see if I can't get a couple of photos tomorrow, though.

The right tool for the job

2010-11-12T10:01:00.007-05:00

The drop spindle is such a simple implement, when you think about it: it's basically a stick with a weight, or even just a stick without a weight, that enables one to lengthen and twist fibres into yarn, or thread, or string. And when you've twisted a length of fibre, you simply wind it onto the stick, then twist some more, until you either run out of fibre, or the stick is too full to hold any more.

Pretty basic, really. So basic, in fact, that it's kind of amazing to realize that the size and type of spindle you choose will profoundly affect the nature of the string/thread/yarn you produce.

I mean, to the non-spinner, all spindles look pretty similar: some are bigger and some are smaller, and some have pretty designs on the whorl while others are plain, but ultimately, don't they all do the same thing?

Not really. Take a spindle's weight, for example: this baby alpaca roving was so soft, fine, and disorganized (it was a true roving, not combed top) that it would have shredded with a mid-sized spindle, but when I used my smallest laceweight spindle, it turned into this:

And consider the whorl itself: if it's weighted at the rim, centrifugal force will keep that baby spinning...and spinning...and spinning. That's a good thing, if you're trying to make a tightly spun or plied yarn, such as you might wish to use for hard-wearing socks. Lots of twist means less of the actual fibre will be exposed to wear. Ergo, longer-lasting socks.

But if your goal is something softer and poofier, you might want to use a non-weighted (or less-weighted) whorl. It won't spin as long or as hard as a weighted one, but sometimes that's exactly what you want.

I think of it this way: the yarn doesn't really want to twist, so it's the spindle's job to convince it otherwise. A non-weighted whorl will impose a certain amount of twist, but it lacks the oomph to really insist; once it's done what it can, it goes off for a coffee break, and the yarn is free to untwist at will.

This sounds like a bad thing, and if you're aiming for sock yarn, it really is. But if you actually only want a moderate amount of twist, then a lighter rim is a great choice. I used a 1 oz Houndesign for this Corriedale (yes, it does have some rim weighting, but not nearly as much as the Goldings, and I was spinning a thicker yarn, which gave the spindle some serious back-talk, but ultimately turned into a bouncy, happy skein):

I'm using the same approach on this merino/firestar/bamboo blend, in part because I want a thicker yarn, and in part because I want to retain the fibre's bounce, while showing off its smooth lustrous character:

Here's a wee bit, plied:

I plied this on the fly, and haven't soaked it to set the twist yet, so the singles look like they're just starting to get to know one another, but once they've had a bath they'll settle right in and release their twist, and start working together as a yarn.

Reverberations

2010-11-11T17:21:00.002-05:00

Today being Remembrance Day and all, I've been thinking about how war affects us all—not just those who serve and the families they leave behind, or return to, but those who are caught up in the violence by accident, and those who merely stand by and witness it all.

The "great wars" of the twentieth century are long gone, but even now that the last known Canadian veteran of the First World War is no longer with us, the families and descendants of those who returned, and those who did not, continue to feel the repercussions of those spasms of violence. And we're involved in another conflict now, one that will cut its own swathe of anguish, suffering, and death.

As I remember, all I can wish is that all of us find some measure of peace within ourselves, and that we do our best to spread it around. Really, it's the least we can do.

Dear Ralph

2010-11-10T16:54:00.003-05:00

You are a sweet little fellow, really you are.

You delight us with your wacky antics—ricocheting off furniture, wrestling with the dog's hind leg (while poor Maydeleh looks back at you quizzically, wondering what you find so fascinating about her feet), and diving under the couch to find your favourite toy, the Croaking Froggy.

And when you're not in hyper-frenetic mode, we love the way you cuddle up under our chins, or nestle into our laps, purring and gazing up at us with that loving, completely content look in your eyes. I'm sorry I called you "skinny, bald, cross-eyed, and bow-legged" when we first got you. Really, you're adorable. And Siamese cats are supposed to be cross-eyed, so it's really no biggie.

I admit I'm not totally crazy about your obsession with my wool, but I can cope; I just need to remember to keep it out of your reach when I'm not in the room.

(I'm not sure what you like so much about the smell of lanolin—but when I brought home that bag of unwashed wool a couple of weeks ago, you went completely gonzo, diving at the bag and trying to grab tufts of the stuff out of my hand. I share your enthusiasm, but I'd like to think I have a bit more self control than that.)

But Ralph, here's the thing.

We humans are a bit rigid when it comes to our sleep requirements. That is, when we go to bed and turn out the lights, we kind of expect that we'll be spending the next few hours in quiet repose. We like to sleep, to recharge our batteries as it were.

I realize you don't have to go to work or school in the morning, so it's really no problem for you to stay up all night visiting each of us by turns, trying to purr and nuzzle your way under the covers, or pouncing on invisible prey next to our heads. All in a night's work, for a kitten.

Not so, my little friend. In fact, you can probably trace our family's collective crankiness over the past few days to your middle-of-the-night meanderings. So if you could knock it off, I'd be much obliged.

I admit, though, it was a nice touch to stand on the buttons of my clock radio and reset the wake-up station, such that I was awakened to heavy metal—LOUD heavy metal—rather than the soothing voices of our local CBC station. Good one, little fellow.

But tonight, do you mind if we just sleep? I'd be ever so grateful.

Sincerely,
Karen (aka the Giant Can-Opener)

The rest of the haul

2010-11-09T14:41:00.006-05:00

Just for the record, I really am aware that I do not need to add more fibre to my stash.

But somehow, when I walked into the Ottawa Valley Spinners and Weavers Guild show on Sunday, all semblance of sanity vanished, and I started scooping up spinning fibre like there was about to be a global shortage.

Here's some of it:

I've had a soft spot for Christine's fibres since I started drop spindling a year and a half ago; I bought some from her Etsy store then, and it was my first "grown-up" fibre. I can't say I did that first lot any kind of justice, but I hope I'll do better with this. It's meant to be plied in various permutations and combinations, which I will no doubt muck up, but it's darn pretty, and I think it'll be a good fun spin.

This is some local alpaca blended with bamboo from Turtlepurl Yarns. Her colours are always stunning, and she has a real gift for finding just the right blend.

And here's some merino/firestar/bamboo from a dyer I haven't met yet: Dyeing for Colour. I have a feeling I'll be seeing more of her work, though!

Oh, and just to show that I am a woman of my word, here's a slightly more accurate shot of Mary's Blooming Stole (except I've progressed to the Limp Dishrag phase, so you can't really see much except the colour of the yarn).
Yes, it really is that vibrant.

It followed me home

2010-11-08T14:00:00.006-05:00

This past weekend, the Ottawa Valley Spinners and Weavers Guild held their annual Fall Exhibition and Sale. I attended yesterday afternoon, and I am still recovering. This is my fourth visit to the OVSWG show, and each year it seems to get better. I really, really wish I'd brought along my camera—next year, for sure.

While I was visiting the Rose Haven Farm Store booth (a perennial favourite, as they sell some amazing and wacky stuff that can be hard to find locally), I happened upon the new Interweave Holiday Gifts edition, which contains a couple of patterns designed by my friend Mary.

Of course I scooped it up, along with some delicious merino/silk laceweight in the most extraordinary deep cherry pink—Audrey from Schaefer Yarns, in the Clara Barton colourway.

Almost as soon as I got home, I had that yarn wound, and I was hunting down a set of 3.25mm dpns with which to cast on. (As it happens, I wound up casting on with circs. I don't know how Mary managed to get—and keep—those first eight stitches on the needles without totally losing her sanity, but it was beyond me! But the circs worked fine.)

It's a sweet pattern, and I think this yarn will work perfectly with it.

The yarn itself is a delight to work with: fine, but with enough body to keep the needles swishing along; soft and warm, with a bit of sheen from the silk; and even at this early stage, I can feel it's going to have a beautiful drape.

The colour is off in this photo, but I'll try to get some shots in actual daylight tomorrow.

Where angels fear

2010-11-05T13:10:00.004-04:00

So, a couple of years ago in a fit of yarn-lust, I bought this kit: Jane by Perl Grey

Then I went to Ravelry to see how other knitters had fared with it, and I discovered that the overall opinion was, "Cool design, some odd features, weak instructions." This did not sound encouraging, not one little bit.

And while I was pretty sure I could overcome the problems cited—tight sleeves, gaping at the armholes, rolling edges—I wasn't totally convinced that the final product would be worth it. So I bundled up the yarn and instructions, and tucked them away in my stash.

But this morning I was doing some quick reorganization (interpretation: a bunch of yarn fell down off the shelves where it's crammed, and I had to find some tricksy ways of getting it to stay put, dammit!), I ran across the pattern again, and more critically, the yarn.

Ah, that yarn.

It's Ottawa by Fleece Artist, a single ply mostly wool with about 8% viscose. I've worked with it in the past, and remember being completely enthralled with it.

Ralph likes it, too.

And it turns out that I actually have two sweaters' worth, in two similar but not quite identical colourways—one with more brown and russet, the other with bits of purple and gold in amongst the brown. So if I wanted to, I could maybe do some amendments to Jane, like maybe some stripey bits or extra short rows...I think I could do it, I really do.

Or am I contemplating embarking on a fool's errand? I'll keep you posted.

p.s. To everyone who wrote suggesting hat ideas for that self-striping handspun, thank you! And Kathi, I do indeed plan to make mittens, with the other two balls I have yet to spin. Apparently great minds think alike! :D

That yarn I promised

2010-11-04T11:57:00.005-04:00

This is it:

It's about four ounces of superwash BFL from Twisted Fiber Art, in the Ember colourway.

I got about 250m total, though I'm not 100% certain because I kind of forgot to count as I was winding it onto the niddy-noddy.

I spun and plied it more or less worsted (although not really, because I omitted the whole smoothing it out as you go thing) on a 1.2 oz Houndesign drop spindle, using the fractal method of divvying up the roving lengthwise to create one ply with very long colour runs and the other ply with shorter runs of the same colours. The goal, which I actually seem to have achieved, is to create some subtle self-striping, like so:

This swatch is about 26 stitches wide, and the stripes are pretty nifty, I think.

Which, as it turns out, is the root of my problem vis à vis the whole hat searching issue.

Because I've discovered that the self-striping shows up really nicely on shorter rows, but not so well at all on the longer rows that are usually involved in knitting a hat in the round. In fact, in the round they kind of disappear altogether, which makes me sad, because I put a fair bit of thought and effort into creating them in the first place. You know?

So for the time being, I've decided not to decide. I think this project needs a time out, so I'm putting it on hold until my brain catches up.

Now, where did I put that sock I was working on?

In search of

2010-11-03T17:35:00.004-04:00

I want a hat.

More to the point, I want to make a hat, and I have some very fussy criteria:

I want to make it from some Twisted Fiber Art BFL that I spun a few weeks back. (I had a photo shoot all set up so I could show you this yarn, but when I went for the camera I discovered that I'd let the battery run down. Brilliant. I will show you tomorrow, though, okay?)
The pattern must be plainish, because the yarn is quite variegated and textured, and cables or lace would simply disappear into it.
I want a hat thick enough to stand up to an Ottawa winter. Based on my gauge swatch (yes! I did one! Where's my prize?), I'm thinking about 6 stitches to the inch on 3.75mm needles.
It must be large, to fit my unusually capacious cranium.
It must not make me look like a doofus, any more than strictly necessary.
It must come down over my ears (see above note re. Ottawa winters).

I've searched Ravelry every which way but up, and for some reason nothing is really calling my name.

I've considered Mary's Double Double Cloche, and may yet proceed in that direction; but I hae me doots about my ability to carry off that look. But (and this is most unlike me) for the time being, I am wracked with indecision. I think it's because I spent a fair bit of time on that yarn, and I want to do it justice.

("What yarn?" you ask. "You haven't shown us any yarn yet." Well, stand by. Tomorrow, for sure.)

Wait. Is that my calling calling?

2010-11-02T09:27:00.006-04:00

So I'm lounging about trying to ~~think of ways to avoid work~~ get myself geared up for a productive work day, and I do all the things a normal person would do in such circumstances:

Drink a couple of gallons of coffee.
Take out some yarn I spun a while ago and ponder what to do with it.
Drink more coffee.
Check out SOAR, via the Yarn Harlot.
Look at the news headlines and decide I have already heard way too much about Crazy-Ass Teabaggers and/or people who've lost their homes and had their lives destroyed by the system the C-ATs stand for.
Get depressed that the election in that country is today and it seems like the C-ATs will likely make some gains, which makes me feel sad for everyone I know who lives there.
Drink more coffee.
Start pressing random buttons on my keyboard, and wind up getting mercifully distracted by this: 10 Weird Almost-Nations

Okay, first off, this is seriously cool. A guy in a military uniform and sunglasses who bans onions, walruses, and everything from Texas (except Kelly Clarkson); who pays his US taxes, but labels it "foreign aid"? Now, that's class.

Another guy took the enterprising step of laying claim to the entirety of space (except Earth); still another started small, declaring sovereignty within his own bedroom, but gradually started claiming territory including Milwaukee's East Side and a couple of obscure islands in Antarctica and France. Of course, he was later overthrown by a coup.

For one thing, they make a wee fibre obsession look, well, pretty darn tame by comparison. Really, let's face facts: maintaining a room full of wool and implements pertaining thereto is nothing—nothing—compared to believing that one is the "Grand Duke of Westarctica," population: 0 (most of the time).

And it makes me think: have I missed my calling? If anyone comes across a little hunk of unclaimed land, could you please let me know?

Good times were had

2010-11-01T09:05:00.003-04:00

Despite the dismal* weather this past weekend, I enjoyed myself thoroughly on several fronts:

Went to Wabi-Sabi for a three-hour course on fibre preparation (that's me on the right, looking applied), during which I learned exactly how I was mis-using my hand cards. I also learned interesting things about the sex lives of sheep, and the importance of pinging little scraps of wool next to one's ear before choosing a fleece. Came away with bags of ~~swag~~ washed and unwashed fleece, and am now awaiting a sunny day when I can wash and dry that stuff outdoors. Because much as I enjoy irritating my daughter, I think filling the house with the aroma of unwashed fleece is going just a step too far.
Had lunch at Three Bakers and a Bike, a small but nifty shop along Wellington Street. I don't know that I've ever had a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich that I enjoyed more. Seriously: the bread was home-made and fresh; the cheese was sharp and melty; and the tomato firm and ripe but not over-ripe. I never did try any of the cupcakes the shop is known for, but I'd go back there for a sandwich any day. Especially on a rainy, dreary Saturday when a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich is just the thing you need to cheer you up. Oh, and the staff were fascinated with the socks I was making, and all came over to look and talk about their own knitting adventures. And they gave us free cookies as we left, because "this was your first visit and we want you to like us." Mission accomplished: I definitely like them!
Speaking of socks, finished two pairs over the weekend—Do Not Adjust Your Set, and the unnamed pink, grey, and blue toe-ups I started on the flight to B.C. last summer. And about three seconds after I'd sewn in the last end on the fourth sock, I cast on for...
...A pair of Monkeys. Sort of. I'm doing them toe-up, but not reversing the lace pattern, so it'll be upside down. And because I use Cat Bordhi's "every third round" increase system for my toe-up gussets (they just seem to fit my feet so much better), I'm adding an extra round of non-pattern stitch between each pattern stitch round, as follows: Pattern round, plain, plain; Pattern round, plain, plain...and so on. So I guess this makes them upside-down elongated Monkeys. Whatever. I'm using some Trail Socks by Fleece
Artist; it's been in my stash for ages. The sock isn't photo-worthy yet, but soon. I hope.

*And by "dismal" I mean: It rained all day Saturday, with the temps hovering low enough to trigger the "low outdoor temperature" signal on our overly protective Jetta; and then later that evening, white sloppy wet stuff started to fall out of the sky, and was not completely gone by Sunday morning. The sun tried to shine yesterday, and I think a ray or two pierced the clouds, but it was mostly gloomy. I wonder whether there's an aphorism about November coming in like a lion? Or maybe that's just wishful thinking.

Sheep and their discontents

2010-10-29T14:09:00.007-04:00

Tomorrow I'm taking a 3-hour class from Leslie, the lovely and patient woman who taught me to use the drop spindle; this time, she's doing a workshop on Fibre Prep. I'll be learning to choose and wash a raw fleece, use handcards and combs, and all sorts of other nifty stuff, I'm sure.

I've been looking forward to the class for ages now, in part because I know it'll be taught well, but in part because the smell and feel of raw wool never fails to evoke a very particular part of my childhood.

My aunt and uncle used to run sheep on South Pender Island, and one of my earliest memories is the sound of hand cards scraping together, as Aunt Hope sat in the huge kitchen of their hand-hewn log house, brushing out the wool before spinning it on her creaky and recalcitrant wheel. The smell of the wood stove, combined with the scent of lanolin-rich, coarse wool (these weren't exactly merinos we're talking about) still bring back a sense of absolute calm and serenity.

I think this might be where my love of all things sheep-related first started—although I must confess that sheep, as a species, are not particularly impressive.

Especially when you're trying to round them up for a bath, or shearing, or whatever: they have a nasty tendency to rush off in the wrong direction, looking back with this kind of sullen dullness that makes you think they're doing their best to be stupid. I remember some very long days spent chasing the foolish brutes through fields, up hills, and along cliff-edges, trying to convince them that it really was time for a haircut.

I used to find sheep skeletons in some very unlikely places when I was wandering the island as a child—this one would have fallen off a cliff, or another would have got stuck in some brush, and by spring, the ravens would have picked the bones clean. Not that I was particularly sympathetic. The sheep had only themselves to blame, really: after all, the biggest known predator on South Pender is the wasp.

(Oh, wait, I'm forgetting the bald eagle that used to nest on the cliff above Aunt Hope's house; each spring it would claim a lamb to feed its young. But really, it's not like the sheep on the island had to worry about bears or coyotes or anything. Their main threat was their own sub-par IQ, and a kind of dimwitted stubbornness.)

While I nursed a healthy disrespect for sheep as a child, I remember my sister was dead terrified of them. I think this stemmed from an incident involving a doorless outhouse, which she was afraid to use because, in her four-year-old words, "The sheepses are lookin' at me." Wendy was never fond of outhouses at the best of times; I think the idea of an outhouse where sheep might peer at her was just too much to take.

As for me, I appreciate sheep for what they produce; and for that, I'm willing to overlook their inability to do advanced calculus.

Do Not Adjust Your Set: Free sock pattern

2010-10-28T11:30:00.009-04:00

As you might recall, I started these on Sunday, and "unvented" the stitch pattern to mitigate an overly effusive tendency for the colours in this yarn to pool, flash, and generally go nuts.

I am about halfway through the second sock, but several of you have emailed to ask about the pattern. So for the curious (or terminally bored), here's a very loose description of how I constructed these socks:

For starters, I'm using Blue Moon STR Mediumweight, at a gauge of about 8 stitches to the inch. For me, this means 2.75mm needles, but your gauge will vary.

I knit BIG socks—women's size 12s—so in the extremely likely event that your feet are a bit daintier than mine, you'll want to use fewer stitches than I did.

These are knit toe-up with a heel flap, and the nature of the stitch pattern kind of dictates that you'll want to knit them on circs rather than DPNs. If you're totally dead set on DPNs, you'll want them to be the longest ones you can find; and use three rather than four. You'll put all the stitches for the instep (the top of the foot) on one needle, because believe me, it's a lot better than rearranging your stitches every couple of rows. (Then again, maybe you like that kind of thing. A chacun son gout, I suppose.)

Toe:

I cast on using Judy's Magic Cast-On, starting with 8 stitches per needle (16 total). Knit one round, then start toe increases:
K2, LLinc, K to last 2 sts, RLinc, K2; K2, LLinc, K to last 2 sts, RLinc, K2.

That's a full round, and you should have 20 stitches total. Continue increasing 2 sts per side (4 sts per round) until you have 32 sts total. Then increase every second round, until you have 64 sts total. (The actual number is less important than the fact that your total stitch count should be divisible by 4.)

Foot:

Here's where you get to start the pattern stitch, but only on the instep (not the sole):

Round 1—**YO, K2, pass YO over two stitches, K2**. Repeat to the end of the instep needle. Then knit the rest of the round (the sole).
Rounds 2, 4, 6, and 8—K
Round 3—K1, **YO, K2, pass YO over two stitches, K2** to last 3 sts. YO, K2, pass YO over two stitches, K1. Knit the rest of the round.
Round 5—K2, **YO, K2, pass YO over two stitches, K2** to last 2 sts. YO, K2, pass YO over two stitches. Knit the rest of the round.
Round 7—K3, **YO, K2, pass YO over two stitches, K2** to last 3 sts. Knit the rest of the round.

Repeat these 8 rounds for about 5 inches (or about 4 inches, for the small-footed).

Gusset:

Then start your gusset increases:
K1, LLinc, continue in pattern to last stitch on instep; RLinc, K1. Knit the rest of the round.

You'll be increasing every third round, not every second, 13 more times.

Your mileage here may vary, so I'd suggest trying the sock on a few times during the increase process. If it's too short, knit more increase rounds; you're done when the sock is about an inch and a half shorter than your total foot length.

Heel:

Working on the sole side only (the plain knit side), K1, sl1 to last stitch. Wrap and turn (w&t). Purl to last stitch, w&t.

Continue in this way, wrapping and turning at the end of each row, until you have made the heel as deep as you like it to be; you should end on a purl row. I prefer a fairly deep heel, so I usually keep going until I have about 10 unwrapped stitches in the middle of the needle. In this case, that means I have 11 wrapped stitches on either side.

Now, Sl1, K1 across your right-side stitches, and then knit each wrapped stitch, picking up and knitting the wrap with the stitch. When you come to the last wrapped stitch, pick up the wrap, then slip both the wrap and the stitch onto the right needle knitwise. Move the first gusset stitch from the instep side of the sock onto your heel needle, slip it knitwise, and knit into the back of the three stitches (wrap, last heel stitch, and first gusset stitch)—SSSK.

Now, move the gusset increase stitches from the instep needle onto the heel needle. Turn your work, slip the first stitch, then purl back across until you get to the gap between heel stitches and gusset stitches. Purl the last heel stitch and the first gusset stitch together; then turn. K1, slip 1 to the last heel stitch; SSK the last heel stitch and first gusset stitch. As you work back and forth, you're creating a nice neat heel flap. (Of course, if you're a dedicated short-row heel person, please feel free. Improvise! Amend! Have fun! Take chances!)

When you've worked all the gusset stitches, you should be back to 32 stitches per needle. Now you're ready to work the leg. Of course, you may wish to stop at this point and admire your beautiful heel flap, rejoicing in its niftyness. I know I do.

Leg:

Now you're back to the stitch pattern you established on the instep, only you'll want to work it on both needles from here on, as follows:
K1 through the back loop (K1tbl=twisted knit), P1, then follow stitch pattern as established until the last 2 stitches on the needle. P1, K1 tbl. Repeat for the second needle.

This should create a nice straight line up the side of each leg, and (not coincidentally) means that you don't have to fiddle around with moving your stitches between needles every couple of rounds, which trust me, I tried and it wasn't fun at all.

When you get to a decent leg length (I usually fold the sock in half at the heel, and try to make the leg at least as long as the foot, yarn yardage willing and all other things being equal), switch to ribbing for an inch or two.

To cast off, you can either use the Elizabeth Zimmerman sewn bind-off, or do what I do:
K1, YO, slip K stitch over YO. K1, slip remaining stitch over new stitch. YO, remaining stitch over new stitch. K1, slip remaining stitch over new stitch.

This will make a slightly ruffled bind-off, but it will also prevent you from cutting off circulation from the ankle down, which I think is a point in its favour.

And that's about it, really. Oh, except that you should probably knit a second sock. Wnich I am going to do...as soon as I've got this work deadline taken care of.

On a tear

2010-10-27T17:20:00.003-04:00

Can't talk much. Am busily knitting second sock.

I'm not usually so motivated to finish a second sock, and so would like to maintain the momentum.

However, to keep you entertained, here's my blog version of Muzak: our dog and kitten taking a break from chasing one another around the house earlier this afternoon.

No, our house isn't filled with smoke, and it's not particularly foggy here; it's just Mitchell's BlackBerry masquerading as a camera again.

See you tomorrow...

Do not adjust your set

2010-10-26T13:23:00.007-04:00

Some knitters are driven absolutely bull-goose batshit crazy by the pooling, flashing, and random striping that can happen when you delve into the wild world of hand-dyed yarns. These knitters consider a project a failure if the yarn's colours stack up on top of one another in unexpected ways; they say it distorts the pattern, or distracts the eye, or jars the senses. In fact, I know people who won't touch multi-coloured yarns at all, for that very reason.

I'm not sure what it says about me that I actually kind of like flashing, pooling, and general randomness—but then, I've always had a taste for life on the wild side. For instance, I frequently start pairs of socks from completely different places on the ball of yarn, so I have very few actual "identical twin" socks. They're pretty much all fraternal, and that's the way (uh-huh, uh-huh) I like it.

But, attracted as I am to multi-coloured yarns, when I opened up a skein of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Mediumweight in Fire on the Mountain, I knew that even I might not be totally nuts about the kind of pooling etc. it would deliver.

For starters, the colours are...vivid. And there are lots of them—green, purple, turquoise, yellow, orange, magenta—in shortish segments that are almost guaranteed to stack up on top of one another in some rather alarming and unpredictable ways. I'm all for the whole free spirit thing, but even my Inner Wild Child was forced to take a deep breath and ponder when confronted with this particular yarn.

I thought about a few techniques I've learned over the years, ways to tame pooling, to assert a small modicum of order into the crazy salad presented by certain yarns.

There's the old "knit one below" trick: this creates a column effect, alternating from one colour to the next, but the fabric will look like stockinette stitch. I wrote this off as "too plain," though I will definitely give it a try. Just not this time.
Or you could try a stranded stitch, as in the famous Leyburns, which use a quilted lattice stitch. My one gripe about this stitch, which is pretty darn cool-looking, is that it creates a tighter fabric, and I find it hard to get my Leyburns on over my high arches (even though I made them with a gusset and flap heel; I'd have been completely out of luck if I'd gone with the recommended short-row heel).

But thinking about the Leyburn got me contemplating the idea of stranding in general. Might it be possible to use stranded knitting without cutting off blood circulation to my feet? I started playing around with the idea, and on Sunday afternoon during my knitting group meeting, I cast on.

Here's what I came up with:

Now I'll be the first to admit that these are not everyone's cuppa.

This stitch does pretty much nothing to hide the pooling, but I'm really enjoying the way the diagonal stacks of stranding show up against the (admittedly vibrant) colours. I admit I extract a fair bit of entertainment value from watching as the colours pile on top of one another, forming stripes and blobs and what-have-you.

And I like how adding just one or two stitches throws the whole thing into wild disarray: the minute I started adding stitches to the side gussets (these are toe-ups with a flap heel, my personal fave at the moment), it threw the pooling pattern right out of whack, a bit like fiddling with the horizontal knob on our old TV set when I was a kid.

Once I'd finished the heel and started on the leg, the patterning resumed once more; only the colour arrangement was different this time, as I was knitting the pattern stitch on the back of the leg as well as the front, and thus altering the amount of yarn used per row.

I'm pretty happy with the fit on these. The extra yarn from the stranding makes the fabric a bit heavy, but the sock doesn't threaten my feet with gangrene; and at this time of year, I appreciate a bit of extra thickness in a sock.

All in all, I'd dub this a successful experiment.

Sock round-up

2010-10-25T16:23:00.007-04:00

With fall steaming along at a good clip, my thoughts have been turning to the utilitarian side of this whole knitting gig: to whit, socks.

Fact is, I had great ambitions this past summer. The plan was to knit up at least half a dozen new pairs of socks, so as to be ready for winter. The plan was practical and, I thought, realistic: I'd spend the hot months knitting small, portable projects, and at the end of it all, I'd have seriously augmented my sock wardrobe (which, if you recall, I share with my daughter, whose feet are exactly the same size as mine).

The plan started off like gangbusters, with four pairs cast on by early July. Then summer vacation hit, I visited the fibre dens of the west coast, and the plan started heading south faster than a speeding potato. It was replaced by something along the lines of, "Oh, look! New fibre! Spinning! Carding! Whee!"

As the thermometer has begun plummeting, though, I've begun to regret my grasshopper-like ways. So today I decided to gather up the socks I didn't knit, put them all in a pile, and commit to finishing them once and for all. Here's what I found, tucked into various hidey-holes around the house:

Pair 1:

These are within an inch of being finished. However, I discovered too late that I'd made them at least a full size too small. So when they're done, they'll be heading off to another sock drawer. Too bad, because I kind of liked them.

Pair 2:

Again, these are chugging along toward their final destination. And they do fit, thanks to some generous two-by-two ribbing across the instep. I abandoned them because...well, there's no real reason for it. I just did. Don't judge me.

I'll finish them, I really will. Soon.

Pair 3:

This poor lonely sock yearns for a companion. And I know for a fact that I wrote down the needle size I used to make it. So once I find the scrap of paper I wrote it on, and cast on again, the sock will be alone no more.

I know it's around here somewhere. It's got to be, right? I mean, scraps of paper with unintelligible jottings on them don't just get up and wander off. It's here. Definitely. Just gotta find it.

Pair 4:

You've seen this one already, and it has a perfectly valid excuse for being an orphan: I had to finish spinning the yarn for its partner. Now that I have the yarn in hand (as of Saturday, hurrah!), I'll get cracking on the second sock.

But first, I must complete Pair 5:

I cannot tell a lie: I cast on these socks only yesterday.

Yes, I know, I had other pairs clamouring for my attention, but I just had one of those inexplicable spells—the kind where you suddenly realize you have thought up a completely new stitch (well, completely new to me, and I haven't seen it anywhere else, so maybe it actually is an original), and you absolutely have to drop everything else you're doing and cast on to see if the stitch works as expected. It does, and I will tell you more about it tomorrow.

Anyway, that's the lot (at least, as far as I can tell) for this fall's sock round-up.

So...move 'em on, head 'em up, count 'em out, ride 'em in.

Do you believe in magic?

2010-10-22T10:32:00.008-04:00

You have to know that I spent a couple of hours playing with the new drum carder last night.

First I took some of this random undyed Corriedale, fluffed out the fibres so as not to clog the intake drum, and ran it through.

Then I added just a bit of this Fleece Artist Kid Mohair.

I tore the results into strips, floofed them some more, and ran them through a couple more times to blend the colours a bit better. This was the result:

But there was something missing, I felt. Some sort of je ne sais quoi that I couldn't quite put a finger on.

I decided to sleep on it, and when the kitten woke me this morning (by dancing on my eyeballs, dear little fellow) I had it figured out: it needs a dash of complementary colour to give the purplish-blue more depth and character.

I searched through the fibre stash (as opposed to the yarn stash—the fibre stash is smaller, but it's feisty), and came up with this:

Kind of sad-looking, as it's been compressed and abused in all sorts of unspeakable ways, but at one time this was a rather beautiful piece of merino. Before I could blend it with my first carded batt, I would have to do some emergency rehabilitation. This was the result:

Much better. All the fibres are liberated, with lots of air between them. They seem happier to me.

Now, all that remained was to run it through with the first batt a couple of times.

Ta-da! Here's the batt now:

The orange doesn't show up as streaks, but the overall blend seems to have more visual depth. Of course, this does not preclude the possibility that I might want to throw some streaky bits in for added spice, but that will have to wait until this evening.

Sadly, I can't spend the entire day mucking around with this stuff, as I have two client deadlines to attend to—but the weekend awaits, and then who knows what new tricks I'll learn?

Mail call

2010-10-21T16:55:00.003-04:00

The postman rang my doorbell today with some difficulty, as he was toting a rather large and heavy cardboard box. No, not more shoes—this time he was bringing me a birthday gift, one I've been anticipating ever since I was asked to choose it. (Yes, Mitchell broke down and got me to choose my own drum carder. I think he felt he'd used up all his gift-buying luck when he got me three Golding spindles last holiday season!)

I'm now the proud owner of a Strauch Petite Drum Carder, which came complete with the Knuckle-Saving Batt Pick (yes, it really is all caps), and a doffer brush, which is used to clean the large drum after you remove the batt. (Oh, don't I sound like I actually know what I'm talking about? Heh.)

(Slight digression: When I was a teenager, one of my favourite groups was Steeleye Span. Their female vocalist, Maddy Prior, did a lovely album with June Tabor in 1975 called Silly Sisters, which opens with a song called "Doffing Mistress." Until very recently (like, about four hours ago), I had absolutely no idea what a doffer might be; now, I think I do.)

Of course, the first thing I did when the drum carder arrived was unpack it, set it up, and try to card a bit of wool. I chose a few scraps from Rachel's needle-felting stash—don't tell her, she'll never miss it—and ran it through the carder. To my utter delight, it poofed up and stretched out just as I'd hoped it would.

Now granted, I have absolutely not the faintest clue what I might want to do with a small piece of poofed up, stretched out mystery fibre; but the point is, I have a drum carder now, and I can foresee some great fun in my future.

Oompa Loompa fashion tips

2010-10-20T18:14:00.004-04:00

Teenagers can be so scathing, don't you find?

Last year, for example, Rachel was describing one of her teachers to me. "She's super-nice, and really smart," she said, "but she dresses funny."

"Funny how?" I asked.

"Okay." She settled back in her seat, preparing to paint a word picture. "Today she came in wearing this poufy skirt, gathered at the waist; it ended just above the knee."

I shrugged. "That doesn't sound so bad..."

"I know. But wait, there's more. She had on this jacket—kind of a military jacket, like off the cover of Sergeant Pepper. And she'd put her hair up in pigtails. And..."—Rachel paused for dramatic effect—"she was wearing Earth shoes."

"Well, that sealed it," I said.

"Mum—she looked like an Oompa Loompa. I'm not kidding!" She stopped again, and corrected herself. "No, wait. Not just an Oompa Loompa—she looked like their queen."

I told you all that so you'd understand that when the box arrived from Zappos last night, it created quite a stir around here. Thing is, I needed shoes for the winter, and I saw some, and I ordered them online, and they just happen to be (prepare yourself) the dreaded Earth shoes.

They fit like a dream right out of the box, and I think they look rather handsome with my handknit socks (yes, they really are highlighter green).

And if they happen to look a little Oompa Looma-ish, well, what can I say? I take my fashion tips from royalty.

Over-rated

2010-10-19T13:29:00.011-04:00

I know I told you that we travelled to the West Coast this past summer; and I'm pretty sure I've already raved on about Knotty by Nature, Victoria's lovely little indie fibre shop.

However, I don't think I've mentioned that while I was there, I bought a fair bit of fibre, including two hanks of something that looked like this:

It's hand-dyed Corriedale, and when I bought the two four-ounce hanks I'd have sworn they were identical. Sworn, I tell you.

All unawares, I spun, plied, and skeined most of the fibre while we were still out west (why, yes, I did have my Houndesign spindle with me, why do you ask?). On the skein, I could see that the two hanks were, well, not exactly the same. In the sense that a grapefruit is not a pear.

Of course, if I'd had my wits about me, I'd have plied singles from each hank of fibre, rather than plying all of hank A, then all of hank B. However, once it was plied, there was no way in hell I was about to go back and unply it, so there it was: two yarns, similar yet not really alike.

However, trusting that they were more or less fraternal, and that they'd at least coordinate with one another, if not match perfectly, I knit them up into a frothy little bit of something that I've been wearing pretty regularly since it came off the needles at the beginning of September.

Body: Colour A; Collar: Colour B.

There's no pattern for this...yet. However, if anyone's interested, I can definitely tell you how to go about making your very own lacy shrug. It's just about perfect for this time of year, when you want something warm and woolly but not super-heavy to keep your shoulders warm.

And you know, the more I wear this, the more I am convinced: perfectly matched yarn is over-rated.

Just another manic Monday

2010-10-18T13:16:00.009-04:00

Too many things to tell you about, not enough time to write it all out. So here's my Monday List of Randomness. You may sort it out at your leisure.

1. The three yarn colours I showed you on Friday do, in fact, look pretty darn smashing in shawl form. So far, at least.

2. I have some pretty brilliant, hard-working friends. Mary is one of them—not only does she blog here and here, but she's been getting her designs out there, and this morning's preview of Interweave Knits Holiday Gifts features not just one, but two of her designs. I plan to knit the stole ASAP.

3. For some obscure reason, my next-door neighbour has chosen the windiest day in October so far to have a bunch of hooligans climb onto her roof and rip all the shingles off it. Many of them (the shingles, not the hooligans) are landing in my driveway.

4. The whole "raining shingles in a driving wind" thing is preventing me from gaining access to my garage, which sucks because I wanted to take a picture of my new bike to show you.

5. New bike?

6. Yep, bought it last week. It looks more or less like this, only in cream, not white. It is the epitome of urban grooviness, it doesn't hurt my back because I can ride upright, and I love it.

7. I love it so much that I will even consent to wear a helmet when I ride it. You have to know me to understand what a major concession this is.

8. Having made a hatband in entrelac, I am currently taking multiple stabs at finishing the crown in a way that will not make me look like a Conehead. So far, I'm on Attempt #32. But I'm not giving up. Yet.

9. Conehead or no Conehead, I'm pretty darn pleased with the entrelac on this one. It's from Twisted Fiber Arts; Duchess yarn in the Xavier colourway.

10. I hope it will be done in time for winter. At the rate I'm going, I'd give me 60/40 odds.

11. Unfortunately, no hat, no matter how pretty, will protect my head from the Flying Shingles of Doom.

12. So instead, I will stay inside and do the whole nose-to-the-grindstone thing.

13. Happy Monday!

Decisions

2010-10-15T13:50:00.006-04:00

Like most knitters I know, I have a ridiculously long queue of projects awaiting my attention. Some have yet to be cast on; others are works in various states of completion; still others have not yet been fully formulated in my mind.

I think of those in the last category as "works in progress in progress"—I might have the yarn at hand, but haven't hit on just the right pattern; or I might have a general, vague idea of what I want to accomplish, but nothing concrete planned yet.

For example, over the summer I spun an awful lot of wool (and alpaca, and even some silk, but that's a whole other kettle of fish, to mix my metaphors with gay abandon). Three skeins of merino in contrasting colourways strike me as belonging together, and for almost a month now I've been tossing around pattern ideas for them.

(Top left, Turtlepurl; top right, Rocky Mountain Fibres; and bottom, Ottawa Valley Fiber Arts. They're all spun to about 14 wpi. Exact total yardage unknown, but likely around 750m.)

At first I thought I might actually have enough for a sweater. And I do, if said sweater were sized to fit, say, a three-year-old child.

Then I thought about a shawl...maybe a triangle shawl with some lacy bits? Okay, but those eat up yarn like nobody's biz, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not exactly sure what kind of yardage I have on my hands.

Well, what about a scarf, then? Maybe an extra-wide scarf that could do double duty as a stole? Okay, cool. A scarf. Yeah, I can live with that. In which pattern stitch?

This led to hours of searching through my various pattern books...where I drew blank after resounding blank. I wanted a pattern that would make the most of the colour contrasts; this seemed to suggest a lace pattern that grows in horizontal layers. But while I like feather and fan/old shale and its variants, that's not the look this set of yarns seems to crave.

And in fact, maybe the whole rectangular thing just wasn't right after all. Maybe I should reconsider the triangle.

And so on, and so on. The internal arguments were getting tedious, and some part of me wanted to just cast on, and to hell with it. The thing is, though, I worked hard to make this yarn, I think it looks pretty cool, and I want to knit it into something that will do it justice.

And that's why I've finally decided (at least, I think it's a final decision—I reserve the right to frog if need be) on a pattern by Miss Weldon, whose gracious, often simple but never boring patterns were a favourite of Victorian women.

I cast on this evening. I'll keep you informed.

Two out of three ain't bad

2010-10-14T14:45:00.009-04:00

I started these socks back in...whoa, was it really June? Apparently it was, at least according to the handy little calendar thingy on my Ravelry projects page.

Anyway, I had some goals in mind here:

Learn how to knit entrelac. I'd seen it done, and couldn't quite wrap my brain around it, but I also know that I learn best by picking up a project and just doing it, so that is what I did.
Knit socks from Noro Kureyon Sock that would not shred on impact.
Knit an entire pair of socks using circs rather than my usual (and beloved) DPNs.

Goal 1: Check. Turns out that entrelac, like so many techniques that look insanely difficult, is really pretty simple once you get started. And (go figure) entrelac in the round is actually easier than plain old back and forth, because you get to skip those irritating side triangles altogether. Bonus.

(By the way, does anyone here know the origin of the term "entrelac"? I can't make it out; "between lakes" is the closest I can come, and that's just plain silly.)

Goal 2: Check. It also turns out that Noro Kureyon Sock works up into quite a respectably tight sock fabric...if you don't cheap out and try to use 3mm needles, that is. (Not that I would ever do such a thing, ahem.) These were done on 2.25mms, and I think they worked out rather well. Plus, Kureyon Sock was born to be entrelac, in my humble opinion.

Yes, I had to use a teeny-tiny needle for it, because Kureyon does have those notorious patches of super-skinny thread; but the resulting fabric feels practically bullet-proof, quite unlike the floopy, hole-prone fabric I got the last time I tried this yarn. Granted, the tiny needles had tiny sharp points that made knitting a bit of a chore, which could help explain why these took so bleedin' long to knit.

Goal 3: Oh, fine. Not quite a check. I did break down and finish the second sock using DPNs, but I got most of the way through on circs. That should count for something.

The socks are fraternal, not identical twins, since I didn't bother trying to match up the yarn; but I kind of like the way they mirror one another; and I have no explanation for the extra-long repeat of blue-green on the left foot. It's just one of those mysterious Noro things.

I'm Mr. Angus, and I approved this message. And you will, too, if you know what's good for you.

And I'm Ralph, and I approved it, too! Right boss? Right?

In which I knit a purple stook

2010-10-12T17:49:00.009-04:00

On Friday I promised pics of the project I finished last week, and pics you shall have.

It all started last September (last year, not last month), when Rachel, Erin, Patti, and I went on our infamous road trip to the Kitchener-Waterloo Knitter's Fair. Despite promises made beforehand—foolish promises in hindsight, such as "I won't spend more than the amount of cash I have in my wallet" and "No Visa for me, no sirree, not this time!"—we staggered out of the place at the end of the day, laden with bags of wool of all description.

One of my best hauls that day was something I can only describe as a giant purple woolen stook. (You know, a stook: those bundles of wheat you used to see in farmers' fields, before the advent of the mechanical hay baler.)

My stook, however, was purple, and woolly. It was, in fact, made up of 10 plump skeins of Manos del Uruguay Wool Clasica, tied together top and bottom, which I purchased from the Purple Purl booth at some ridiculously low price. I had no idea what I wanted to make with it, but that much Manos at that price? No way I was walking out of there and leaving it behind.

Fast forward 11 months, and suddenly one afternoon—bing!—just like that, I knew what the purple Manos stook needed to be.

A sweater. A big warm hug of a sweater, which I would knit from the top down and make as long as I could, to keep me cosy as fall set in. It would be plain, but not boring; and it would neatly sidestep some of the issues I've had with top-down sweaters in the past.

For starters, top-down raglan sleeves: made as usually writ, they tend to billow out into massive swathes of fabric by the time the seams are long enough to join at the underarm.

But not if you increase on either side of the raglan every second row, until you're halfway to where you think you'll want to join for the armpit; then you start increasing every fourth row instead.

The result is a neater-looking raglan, and much less fabric where you don't necessarily want it.

Then there's the issue of the saggy, droopy neckline. One problem with top-down anything, really, is that because it lacks seams, it can also lack structural stability. Seams, it turns out, are often not just put there at the whim of the designer; they're there to do a job. They lend stability and strength to the garment's architecture, which can be vital, especially when the garment is made of rather heavy wool that would really like to succumb to gravity.

But just because a garment is seamless doesn't mean it is doomed to twist and sag out of shape. I added a bit of structural stability to the neckline/collar, using the old "crochet along the inside of the collar" trick. Can you see it? Nope, neither can I. But it's there, and it's working very nicely.

The third challenge I overcame had to do more with the process of knitting. Viz., that knitting sleeves in situ in the round on a rather large and heavy sweater can be a royal pain in the tuches.

If you've ever done it, you'll know what I mean: as you knit in the round, you keep turning your work in the same direction, and after a few turns (I believe the exact number may be determined scientifically: the number of turns will be inversely proportional to the weight and bulk of the sweater you're knitting) the sleeve twists itself so tightly that you must pick up the entire project and unwind it. Only to find that a few rows later the sleeve is twisted up tight again, and so on. I've heard people recommend remedies like placing the garment in a pillowcase to make it easier to pick up and untwist; others just knit the sleeves separately, and graft them on using the Kitchener stitch.

But! You can avoid the whole issue if you can figure out how do do Magic Loop on circs. Using that method, you're basically just working back and forth, turning your work first clockwise, then counter-clockwise, then back again. And the issue of untwisting a giant recalcitrant mass of sweater just simply...vanishes.

In any case, here's the finished result:

It's warm, it's comfy, and I've been wearing it pretty much non-stop all weekend.

You'll note that I kind of fudged the whole question of buttons, and have been substituting a fancified safety pin that I scavenged from a store-bought sweater last year; I may yet change my mind on that, and add some wooden buttons. No promises yet.

I kind of like the insouciant, devil-may-care attitude of the pin, don't you?

Watch this space

2010-10-08T18:17:00.003-04:00

I finished a project last night. It's a large one, something I started at the beginning of September, my goal being to have something cosy to wear by around Thanksgiving (Canadian Thanksgiving, that is, which will happen this coming Monday, so in that sense I'm right on time).

Anyway, the thing is done, complete, fini...all except the sewing in of ends, and the blocking.

And if today had not been the kind of work day in which my Outlook decided it no longer wished to send crucial documents to clients, and other deadlines stood in line clamouring for my attention, I might have had time to photograph and describe the new project. As it is, I'm gearing up for a sew-in-athon tonight, followed by blocking tomorrow.

Not quite the schedule I had in mind, but the good news is that it's only 6:30 p.m., and I'm laying off work for the day. Toodle-pip!

Ogden Point

2010-10-07T16:46:00.009-04:00

Last summer, Rachel took this photo near the end of the long breakwater at Ogden Point.

Gazing out across the water, I was completely mesmerized by the interplay of sun, wind, and water. The colours—blue, grey, brown, mauve, green, silver—glinted and gleamed as the waves danced in the sun.

Later on, when I started spinning up the fibre I threw together on the drum carder at Knotty by Nature, some of the same colours seemed to emerge; why, there was even some sparkle! (And you have to know, I'm not really a "sparkle" kind of person. I like my yarns to look like they came from a sheep, not a disco. But somehow this particular sparkle won me over.)

Foolishly, I didn't think to take a picture of the fibre before it was spun, but here's the end result:

The pattern is Gust, from Knitspot.

It knits up with a heck of a bias, and needs a good long soak and some serious persuasion to lie straight, but once it does, it behaves itself beautifully.

It's hard to see much of the sparkle, but the constant colour and texture shifts, along with the distinctly windy, wavy pattern, immediately reminded me of our afternoon at Ogden Point.

Fractal fever

2010-10-06T10:19:00.006-04:00

For ages now, I've been hearing about something called "fractal spinning."

I was intrigued: I know the term fractal means "a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be split into parts, each of which is a reduced-size copy of the whole." In nature, we see fractals in certain branching crystal patterns, or in some plants, like ferns or broccoli.

Fair enough, I get that, but for the life of me, I couldn't figure out how such a term might apply to spinning.

Last winter, in an effort to puzzle it out, I bought two hanks of specially dyed "fractal roving" from Hilltop Fibreworker. On her Etsy site, she explained the fractal thing thusly: "Fractal Rovings are pairs of rovings designed to spin into a subtly striped yarn with a unified colour scheme." She also put up an instructional video, but I couldn't get my computer to open it, and eventually I just gave up.

"Never mind," I thought. "I'll just follow the instructions and see what happens. All will become clear, I'm sure of it."

The fibre arrived, and I spun it up as directed, and it was very pretty. And yes, it did create subtle stripes with a unified colour theme, as advertised. But I still wasn't totally understanding the connection between this attractive, subtly striped yarn and the concept of fractals. Truth be told, I was beginning to feel like a bit of a slow learner.

Then, the other night I had a dream. (Yes, I do puzzle out knitting and spinning problems in my sleep. Don't you?) And when I woke up, I had figured it out. It's all about the plies, you see. And the colour repeats.

More specifically, it's about spinning two singles, one of which represents the original "rough or fragmented geometric shape," and the other of which represents the "reduced-size copy of the whole."

Let's put it this way: say you have a hank of roving that's been dyed in three colours: A, B, and C. The colours repeat in that order: ABC, ABC, ABC, etc. To "fractalize" it, first you split the roving lengthwise down the middle. You'll spin that into the first singles, and as you do so, the colours will stre-e-e-e-e-tch, something like this:

AAAAAABBBBBBCCCCCCAAAAAABBBBBBCCCCCC....

Now, take the remaining lengthwise piece, and split it lengthwise, say into about four more or less equal pieces. Spin it into a singles that's about the same size as your first singles. Since each length of fibre you spin is only about a quarter the width of your original, your stripes will come at shorter intervals, more like this:

AABBCCAABBCCAABBCCAABBCCAABBCCAABBCC....

Are you with me so far?

Now, take these two singles—one with long colour repeats and the other with shorter ones—and ply them together, like this:

AAAAAABBBBBBCCCCCCAAAAAABBBBBBCCCCCC
AABBCCAABBCCAABBCCAABBCCAABBCCAABBCC

Do you see what happens? I've bolded the places where the colours on the long-change singles meet up with their counterparts on the short-change singles. In practice, it looks something like this:

Cool, huh?

Now that I've worked this out to my own satisfaction, of course, I feel compelled to rush out and apply my new understanding to all the unspun fibre I own. I should probably finish these socks first, though.

Dances with shawls

2010-10-05T10:20:00.005-04:00

Call me unromantic, but certain life experiences seem to elude me.

For example, my daily grind only rarely consists of twirling giddily in fields full of blooming wildflowers, arms spread to allow my stunning knitted lace shawl to flutter in the gentle breeze. Nor do I spend much time posing on hills (or rocks, or the shores of lakes and/or oceans) gazing moodily into the mist, with my beautiful shawl wrapped artistically about my shoulders. And most of the time, I don't tend to lounge about the estate garden, peering through wrought-iron gates all wistful-like.

And yet, apparently, these are all accepted—nay, expected—activities for those of us who would wear knitted lace shawls. I don't blame the designers (most of the time)—no, it's the photographers and publishers, I think, who seem to believe that if one goes to the trouble of knitting and blocking a lace shawl, one should immediately turn into some kind of latter-day Tess of the D'Urbervilles.

Not that this has stopped me from knitting lace shawls, mind you. I've knit 'em, and I love 'em. I just don't twirl or swoop or pose much with them.

And truth be told, as the outdoor temps start to drop at this time of year, I'm much less concerned with knitting frothy lace confections, and much more interested in working up stout woollen garments that will stave off the morning chill when I walk the dog.

I mentioned one such garment yesterday, en passant: a simple garter (and sometimes stockinette, when the mood overtook me) triangle shawl, which I knit from a bunch of handspun, hand-dyed wool during the last half of August. The spinner/dyer, whom I met at the Pender Island Farmer's Market one bright sunshiny Saturday morning, told me she used natural dyes hand-picked on South Pender. She spun it rough—thick and thin, over- and under-twisted—and sold it as singles.

I knit it up during our trip, finishing shortly after we arrived back in Ottawa. Rachel kept alleging (unfairly, I thought) that it had "an odour"; by which she meant that it smelled pretty strongly of sheep. (Well, duh. It came from sheep. Big surprise.)

But to keep her happy, I give it a longish bath with Eucalan and some extra lavender oil, and while you can still tell where it came from, it no longer offends my citified daughter.

More to the point, though, it has become one of my go-to garments this fall. Besides losing its odour, it fluffed up and relaxed when I washed it. I wear it turned sideways, with the "spine" travelling down one arm; then I pin it with one of my wooden shawl sticks, and bob's yer uncle: instant warm.

(Yes, that is a smallish part of my stash peeking out from behind me. Don't judge me.)

This really is not a shawl for twirling, swooping, posing, or lounging in. It is a working shawl. A shawl that means business.

And that's the way I like it.

An abundance. Of something or other.

2010-10-04T12:10:00.005-04:00

Well, I did it again. Totally painted myself into a corner, blog-wise.

Here's what happened: summer. Not the whole "lazy, crazy, hazy days of" kind, which might have explained a certain laxity of attitude re posting. No, I wish. The summer I had was more like the "insane, oh-my-God everyone's gone away and left me to manage this entire crazy ball of wax and there's too much to do" kind.

Oh, there were holidays squeezed in there, along with various trips to interesting parts of Ontario; and I did get to visit (lots, but never enough) with my sister who usually lives halfway around the world. And a lot of spinning and knitting took place, but it was therapeutic spinning/knitting—the kind one does in response to the feeling that one really just can't do any more of the other stuff.

And during it all, I kept thinking, "Oh, I could blog about this...or this...or this...." But of course, I only have so many hands, and an increasingly limited number of brain cells, so while lots was happening, not much was getting written. I did miss all of you out there in the blogosphere, and I thought about you lots. Honest, I did. But that does you no earthly good, I know.

So today, it's put up or shut up time. And that's where the whole "painted into a corner" thing comes in: there's so damn much to tell you, I don't really feel I can put it all into a single post. In fact, it would take an entire ream of posts just to bring you all up to speed on everything. That's the Catch-22—I have tons to tell you, but if I tell you everything it will be too long, so I put off blogging for another day; but then there's even more to tell you. And so on.

So I've decided to break the cycle and do a list. In no particular order (or at least, in the order in which things occur to me), I give you...my update:

I went to a huge family reunion on South Pender Island, B.C., where my aunt and uncle used to run sheep. While there, in addition to spending time with my lovely aunt and cousins, I purchased an armload of handspun, hand-dyed yarn at the Saturday Farmer's Market (highly recommended).
I knit it into something, which I will show you as soon as I get my new camera working.
I got the camera on Saturday, which was my birthday. It's a Canon, and looks very cool, but will likely take some figuring out.
While on the west coast, I had more fun than should be legal, learning to use a drum carder to make art batts. Thanks to the kind folks at Knotty by Nature, my new favourite B.C. LYS.
Learned to spin from the fold, mostly of necessity since the art batts we made included some right slippery fibres that wanted to slide right past one another. Drafting from the fold seemed to whip them into shape, all right.
Also while in B.C., I sat in on a couple of knit nights with the Bitchy Bees, who welcomed me with open arms. Lovely ladies, not bitchy at all. False advertising, if you ask me.

6. Favourite B.C. memory: early mornings spent spinning merino and silk on a laceweight spindle, while sipping locally roasted coffee and watching the hummingbirds in this Victorian garden.

7. My nephew, Michael (pronounced the Danish way, so "Meek-ale"...sort of) is now living in Ottawa, and attending university here. Yay! This is a double bonus: not only do we get to see more of him, but now that all three of her kids live in Ontario, my sister will be forced to visit more often.

8. My sister and I have been described as "a force of nature." We don't see this as a bad thing. We run mostly on coffee and jujubes from Farm Boy.

9. While she was here, I taught Wendy how to spin on the drop spindle. She is much better at it than I was when I started out, so I hold high hopes that she will eventually become a championship spinner.

10. She doesn't knit. I mean, she can, but she doesn't.

11. But if she continues spinning, all that yarn's got to go somewhere, right?

12. Yes, that's what I thought.

13. While we're on the topic of spinning, I have heard rumours that a Strauch drum carder might be on its way to my house. I'll let you know. Actually, if you stick your head out the door, you'll likely hear me hooting and hollering when it arrives.

There's more....lots more. But it will have to wait until tomorrow; for now, it's shoulder to the grindstone and hand to the plough and all that bosh. Ta-ra!

Take 2

2010-07-22T14:47:00.004-04:00

It was really bugging me yesterday, not being able to even roughly approximate the colour of the Turtlepurl merino I spun up a week or so ago.

Here's another go at it. By no means perfect, but at least it's not as grey and blah as yesterday's offering.

And now, it's back to the chain gang for me, I'm afraid. I heard a theory once that summer is supposed to be a relaxing time, work-wise, but you wouldn't know it by me.

I'm not officially spinning, but...

2010-07-21T18:34:00.008-04:00

For someone who's not actually taking part in the Tour de Fleece, I sure have been spinning a lot lately. In fact, this summer being what it has been, the whole Tour thing kind of slipped my mind for a while, until my friend Mary reminded me of it, and by then it was too late to sign up, since the train had left the station without me.

But no matter. I started late, and I didn't sign up, and I didn't have a goal, but by God I have spent the past three weeks spinning up a storm.

First there was the merino from Turtlepurl...it's a colourway called Gothic Rose, and it yielded about 325m of springy, bouncy yarn at about 14 wpi. I used my 1.6oz Golding drop spindle for the singles, and the 2.0oz Golding for plying.

I've tried photographing it every which way, and just can't seem to capture the deep, rich colour.
I'll have to try again tomorrow in a different light, and see if I can't get it, because it's really worth a look.

Next up was some alpaca roving from Princess Farms, received last spring as part of a fibre box from Ottawa Valley Fiber Arts. I spun this semi-worsted on a 0.8oz drop spindle I picked up last fall at a yarn show. Sadly, I don't remember the name of the vendor, but I do love that little spindle; it's not showy, but it's light and well-balanced, and works up laceweight in nothing flat.

For plying, I went with one of the lighter Goldings.

This worked up to nearly 200m at 18 wpi in the end, and the fuzziness is not entirely the fault of the camera—the yarn really is that fluffy and light.

Not the usual hairy, sheddy alpaca I've seen recently in shops, either; the fibres here are so fine and short, I had to keep reminding myself it was alpaca, and not qiviut or something equally exotic.

The next yarn felt like a visit with an old friend. Just a few weeks ago, I finished spinning up about 100g of Ashford Silk Merino Sliver, in Mulberry; that's what I used to make my Butternut scarf.

I loved it so much that I decided to do it again, this time in Saffron.

I used my new Hyak laceweight, which I like for its pretty flying saucer design; I have to admit that it's not as well-balanced as my other lace spindle, but it does a creditable job. For plying, I went with the 1.6oz Golding.

I've spun about 250m so far, at about 19 wpi, and I'd say I'm about halfway through. I love the depth of colour in this yarn; and as I discovered last time round, the silk gives it a truly special sheen and drape.

Finally, after all this lighter-weight spinning, I decided to see if I could still spin a thicker yarn. This is some natural Corriedale, nothing terribly exciting, that I spun on my Houndesign 1.0oz spindle. It came out at about 100m, 12wpi. A happy, balanced yarn.

So, yeah. I'm not doing the Tour de Fleece, but I might just as well be.

Friday opinion poll

2010-07-16T13:13:00.002-04:00

If you knew a certain hypothetical knit-blogger who was a decent writer and an okay knitter and spinner, but who lacked the technical know-how, not to mention the actual tools, to take good pictures of the stuff she (or he—this is hypothetical, right?) knit and/or spun, what kind of digital camera would you recommend?

Keep in mind that this blogger might freak out if she had to think about anything weird like f/stops or depth-of-field issues. Or anything very technical, really. She is thinking about some kind of point-and-shoot camera that will rise above its class and take pictures that don't look like dog food.

She also wouldn't be averse to any simple picture-taking ideas that any of her readers might wish to share.

Feel free to chime in. The more specific, the better. All opinions valued, unless they come from spambots or trolls, in which case they will be summarily executed.

It's like deja vu all over again

2010-07-14T19:40:00.002-04:00

So last week I had all sorts of great intentions. I was going to lay my latest batch of spindle-spun yarn out and take excellent pictures of it all (and there is quite a bit, although I can't back that up with photographic evidence just yet for various reasons—but I'm getting ahead of myself).

I also planned to tidy up our back garden, which is getting so overgrown that I'm kind of afraid to go out there, lest I be devoured by triffids. And I was contemplating polishing some silver...but that was kind of low on my list, and so I didn't feel too badly about letting it slide off the bottom. (There was also a bunch of stuff in there about work and so on—but that's not likely of much interest to you, unless you'd like to explore my rich and varied vocabulary of expletives.)

Here's what happened to derail my grand plans: it got hot. Too hot to do much of anything outside, except walk the dog first thing in the morning and last thing at night, when I was less likely to be fried by the sun. Certainly too hot to garden, especially if that might involve digging things up and moving dirt around and such.

As for my picture-taking ambitions, the household cameras are traveling again. This has effectively scuppered my photo-shoot plans.

This is getting a little old: last time I wanted to take some pics to show you the fruits of my various labours, the Good Camera (aka Mitchell's) was on a trip to Vancouver, while the Crap Camera (aka mine, at least in theory) was in northern Saskatchewan.

This is because Mitchell was working on a conference newsletter on the West Coast, while Rachel was on a SEVEC-sponsored field trip to her twin community, Ahtahkakoop, a Cree reserve, where she took part in all sorts of really cool stuff, like talking to Elders and survivors of the residential schools, watching traditional dancers, driving an ATV, and seeing how many marshmallows she could fit into her mouth in a single go.

That was last week.

This week when I went camera-hunting, I discovered that the Good Camera had buggered off to Argentina (Mitchell—an onsite newsletter in Buenos Aires), while the Crap Camera is in Lakefield, Ontario, which might be familiar to some of you as the home of Margaret Laurence, one of Canada's all-time great novelists. Rachel's not there to see Ms. Laurence (just as well, since Ms. L. is no longer with us); this time she's on a three-day internship with Michael Fortune. (For fibre-fanatic comparison purposes, this would be like me just casually mentioning, "I went on a three-day internship with Kaffe Fassett.")

Alert readers might recollect last fall's Ottawa Wood Show, in which Rachel's "Philosopher's Bookshelf" won the Jury's Favourite Award. Mr. Fortune was one of the judges at the show, and right on the spot, he offered her this internship, which she's been looking forward to for, well, months now. And she took Crap Camera with her, which I think is perfectly fine.

However, once again I find myself camera-less. And I am beginning to suspect that our cameras live much more exciting lives than I do.

I am also beginning to wonder whether there might be room for one more camera in this household. Let me get back to you on that.

Can't complain

2010-07-09T13:37:00.003-04:00

(And even if I did, no one would listen.)

Yes, it's been hot. Damn hot. Hotter than I can remember it getting in quite some time, although to be fair, the last couple of summers have scored pretty low on the "fun in the sun" scale. Actually, this time last year I remember people moaning about how that July was the rainiest on record, and it was too cold to go out and bake one's self to a leathery crisp in the back yard, and so on and so forth.

My point being that we North Americans seem to spend an inordinate amount of time complaining about the weather. Too hot (or too cold, or too rainy) in the summer, too cold (or snowy, or melty) in the winter. Too (insert adjective of your choice here) in the (spring/fall).

Honestly, people, can't we find other things to gripe about? Maybe even stuff we can actually change?

Harrumph. Anyway.

That's not actually what I wanted to talk about today. What I wanted to talk about is spinning.

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have my friend Mary drop by for a cup of tea and some blether, along with a bit of spinning. I'm not really expert enough to call myself any kind of spinning teacher, but I was able to show her some of the tricks I use when I'm in the mood to turn poofy bumps of fleece into knittable yarn.

By the end of our visit, we were both chatting away about non-spinning stuff, while our spindles whirled and wound merrily along. Something very homey and wonderful about spinning in tandem on a beautiful summer's morning. I wish I'd thought to get a picture or two!

Tomorrow: pics of the stuff I've been spinning.

Shaken and stirred

2010-06-23T21:34:00.003-04:00

The first time I felt an earthquake, I was about seven years old and living in Victoria, B.C. I was getting ready for school in my usual haphazard way, and had finally collected my lunchbox, found my knee socks and the shoes I'd polished the night before, pretended to brush my hair, and thrown on my winter jacket.

I was standing at the top of the stairs preparing to race down, throw the door open, and pelt up Agnes Street to meet my best friend Cindy. I'd glimpsed her through our huge plate glass living room window; she was heading down the hill toward our house, and I wanted to catch her before she reached our house. It was a matter of pride: I was a strong, fast runner, and never passed up a chance to prove it.

As I turned to wave good-bye to my mother (while studiously ignoring my little sister and brother), I felt a very large bus rumble past our house. This was odd, since they'd changed the bus routes a year before. I looked at my mother, who stood frozen in the kitchen doorway holding my sister by the hand, hanging onto the door-frame with her free hand to keep her balance.

That bus just kept rumbling past, making the living room window buckle and wow, and at some point I must have grabbed the banister next to me, to keep from tumbling down the stairs. Something was not right—the breakfast dishes were jumping up and down on the kitchen counter, and pictures swung crazily on the walls.

"What is this?" I asked. I wasn't afraid, particularly, but I was puzzled. This had never happened before.

"I think we're having an earthquake," my mother said quietly. "Come over and stand with me."

Afterward she told me it had been "just a tremor," and sent me off to school as usual.

I felt another small earthquake here in Ottawa in about 1988; it was nothing to write home about, just a mild shaking feeling in the floor of our downtown apartment building. No buckling of windows, no holding onto doorways, no dancing breakfast dishes. Kind of unspectacular, if you ask me. So I wasn't exactly prepared for today's extravaganza.

As I sat working this afternoon, I heard a loud bang, followed by a low, shaking rumble—it's garbage day here, and my first (highly illogical) thought was that a garbage truck had somehow slammed into our house. (Because, you know, garbage trucks frequently ram our house for no apparent reason. Doesn't this happen to everyone?)

Everything in the house began to rattle and shake, and the ironing board behind me swayed; the iron crashed to the floor. The shaking seemed to come in a couple of waves, fading and then intensifying again, and then finally fading away to nothing.

This time I didn't need my mother to tell me we were having an earthquake. But unlike the earthquake of my childhood, I actually was a bit freaked out by today's event. I suppose it's because my seven-year-old self had no clue that earthquakes can make houses could fall down, or roads come apart, or windows shatter; my adult self, however, is all too well aware of this kind of thing.

My first thought was to make sure my family was okay; only trouble is, most of them aren't in town right now. I did check with Adrian right away (apparently a truck had rammed into his building too; who knew?); and then I went to the CBC Radio site, where I get most of my news. Finding nothing, I tuned in to Twitter, where tweets were flooding in from all over southern and eastern Ontario, western Quebec, the northeastern U.S., and even a couple from places like Milwaukee, from people who'd felt the quake.

As it turns out, aside from some pictures hanging askew, the iron that fell, and some books that got knocked sideways on a shelf downstairs, the quake's only notable effect was that my great-great grandfather Hamley's old Beidermeier wall clock had stopped cold at exactly 1:41 p.m. Apparently it doesn't appreciate being shaken.

According to the seismologists, this quake registered as a 5.0 on the Richter scale; to keep things in perspective, the quake that devastated Haiti last January clocked in at over 7.0. So as these things go, our wee quake wasn't really that big a deal after all.

On the other other hand, if it's all the same to everyone, I'd prefer that we not make them a regular occurrence.

In which I contradict myself

2010-06-22T12:42:00.004-04:00

A few months back I waxed poetic about DPNs for socks, and asserted that I really really hate using circs for this purpose.

Stand back: I am about to reverse that opinion. Or at least revise it somewhat.

The thing is, last week I had a sudden impulse to learn how to knit entrelac in the round. I'd figured out the flat variety a while ago, and liked the look of it, but for some reason I had it in my head that entrelac in the round would be uber-complicated and dangerous.

Turns out that this fear was mostly unfounded: in fact, entrelac in the round means you don't have to make those annoying little side triangle thingies (aka "the poopy stuff"); instead, you just keep knitting the rectangles (aka "the good stuff") for as long as your little heart desires. Granted, if you're looking for a quick pair of socks, you might want to reconsider entrelac as the technique of choice. But I was in the mood for something fun but a bit challenging, and I think I found it.

This is the kind of project where it's almost impossible to avoid stopping from time to time to gape in wonder at the beauty of the design, and the way the colours flow into one another. Not that I can claim the design for my own; it's pretty generic, really. But if you go look on Ravelry, you'll find a number of entrelac sock patterns to try.

Oh, another thing I swore I'd never do again: Noro Kureyon Sock yarn for socks. The last pair, knit on 3mm needles, sprung leaks like the friggin' Titanic, and stretched out in some particularly horrible and unattractive ways. However, last week when I took out a ball of Kureyon and inspected it closely, I realized that it's really no worse, consistency-wise, than the sock yarn I spun meself last winter. And the trick to getting that yarn to make a creditable pair of socks was...small needles. 2.25mm, to be precise.

As I knit these ones, I've been realizing that the nice dense fabric is much more sock-like than the loose, floppy stuff I knit on my last Kureyon Sock outing. And when it's washed, it'll fuzz up like nobody's business. I do like myself a nice fuzzy pair of socks. Not for this time of year, you understand, but when winter comes I plan to have a nice sock stash built up. Warm feet: the key to winter happiness.

As for the whole "circs for socks" thing, well, let's just say that knitting entrelac on DPNs introduces a few too many moving parts for my liking. Doing it on circs, more or less Magic Loop style, makes the project just that much easier to pop into one's purse, in the expectation that when you pop it out again it will not have turned into the dog's breakfast.

So, yeah. Chalk one up for circs. And my apologies to Elizabeth Zimmermann.

Playing catch-up

2010-06-16T13:49:00.007-04:00

I've been doing one of those hurry up and wait kind of projects at work lately.

You know, the kind where you sit and stare at the computer for an hour, willing it to disgorge an email; nothing happens...nothing happens some more...still nothing...and then, just as you're about to drift off to sleep (or downstairs to find some coffee), BAM! Five files land in your inbox, and you've got an hour to edit the lot and get them back to the client in pristine condition. GO! GO! GO!

Like that.

Oddly, I'm rather fond of this kind of project, especially because it's an onsite newsletter, so once I've edited the files and sent them off, they will never come back. I appreciate this, I really do. I have a love 'em and leave 'em approach to the files I meet: I give them my best work, make them all pretty and readable and happy, and then boot them out the door. Once they're gone, I really never want to see them again.

So despite the crazy deadlines and long waiting periods, I like onsite newsletters a lot. Today I've been taking advantage of the interstices to catch up on a bunch of busywork. Filing, that sort of thing.

And one thing I've been meaning to do for ages now is update my FOs on Ravelry. Basically the problem is that our household's cameras were AWOL for a bit, and then what with one thing and another, the urgency of photographing and recording them would fade. So I've snapped a few shots of stuff, which I present in no particular order:

Ruffled Baktus: A free pattern on Rav, and really a whole lot of fun. I used Classic Elite's Alpaca Sox, mainly because I couldn't bring myself to work this fine, delicate, loosely plied yarn into a sock, only to have it disintegrate on me. I didn't just fall off the turnip truck, you know. Note that while the pattern says it's got a ruffle, it's really quite a light, inoffensive ruffle, perfect for non-ruffles persons such as myself. Also, it's nice and long, and can be worn wrapped or as a mini-shawl.

Handspun Leaf Lace Scarf: Got this one from the Fall 2009 Spin-Off, so sadly there is no link. However, I don't think this would be too hard to duplicate; it's a very basic leaf-lace, with k2tog/yo border. The yarn is my take on some Fleece Artist BFL sliver, which I spun up over the winter into something resembling a DK weight. It's unbelievably soft, totally neck-worthy. My only gripe is that I should have made it longer and thinner.

Kalajoki Socks: Another Rav download. I made these in the winter using Socks that Rock Mediumweight (a favourite for me) in Jasper. A couple of notes here: I should have used a smaller gauge, and next time I probably wouldn't use the toe as writ in the pattern. It's an "anatomical" toe, in that it slopes gently rather than just being rounded; a nice idea, except that it means you can only wear the socks one way. This is a bad idea for me, because I tend to walk on the outside of my foot, which exerts more pressure on that part of the sock, and so I prefer to be able to switch up my socks with each wearing.

Oh, and here's the final outcome for the mega-gigundo Clapotis I finished last week: honestly, this thing is about nine feet long. I am seriously considering trying to shrink it up some, possibly via some seriously hot water to convince the wool to contract a bit. The thing is, I don't know the ratio of silk to wool, as I haven't been able to find a description of the yarn anywhere, so I'm not totally certain what might happen. On the other hand, unless it actually grows more, what have I got to lose? It could shrink almost by half, and it'd still be a decent size! Craziness.

The mending of socks

2010-06-15T14:50:00.004-04:00

I've been darning a sock today, in between bite-size chunks of work. Actually, I'm not sure if what I'm doing is really darning—it's more like working a duplicate stitch over a patch of heel that's grown dangerously thin. Never mind, let's not split hairs: to all intents and purposes, I'm darning a sock.

A few years back, I wouldn't have bothered: the sock, which would have been purchased at Zellers or some such, would have been examined, rejected, and summarily tossed into the nearest garbage receptacle.

Then again, that sock wouldn't have been hand-knit, which, it turns out, makes all the difference in the world to my sock-discarding habits. Now that I know exactly how much yarn, and how much time and labour, went into the thing, it feels much more valuable to me. Dammit, it is valuable.

In fact, the other kind of sock—the store-bought kind—is valuable too; we just don't know it, because we pay so little for it. But that kind of sock embodies a whole slew of resources. There's cotton, if it's a gym sock; or nylon if it's the thinner, dressier kind; and Lycra for both, to keep them from drooping around the ankles.

BTW, that nylon (or acrylic, or polyester, or what have you) doesn't grow on nylon bushes, harvested by happy-faced peasants in faraway lands; it's extruded from a melting vat of chemicals, mostly of the petro- variety—which of course come from oil. Ditto Lycra.

Then there's the labour involved: running all the machines that plant, harvest, de-lint, de-seed, spin, and knits the cotton, just as a small example. The fact that all this work takes place in factories that I'll probably never see doesn't mean no work is done; it just means I don't see it, and I don't have to live in places where the workers are paid ridiculously low wages for the work they do.

But I do reap the benefits.

A couple of years ago a friend of mine who'd lived through troubled times in another part of the world, described how, as a child, she'd take a fine needle and thread and carefully go over every worn stitch on the soles of her store-bought socks, trying to squeeze out every tiny drop of use from them. For her, machine-knit socks were a luxury, and she guarded them carefully.

The vision of that simple act—taking care of something she couldn't afford to throw away—stuck with me. I mend my socks for a very different reason, having to do more with stubborn determination that I don't want to toss away my own labour that casually, but the result is that I have become much more mindful of the things I own. I'm more willing to take the time to fix, rather than tossing; and when I do buy new things, I'm more cautious, less willing to succumb to impulse purchases.

Well, except for wool, of course. But I never claimed to be perfect.

While we're doing show-and-tell

2010-06-10T16:06:00.006-04:00

Here's something else I finished last week.

I started it around Christmas last year, but because I spun the yarn on my little teeny tiny laceweight spindle, then plied it on my lightest Golding, it took a while to complete. Well, okay, a few other projects intervened, too.

This one started out as Louet's Merino/Silk combed top in a fascinating colourway called Mulberry, which was a complete joy to spin. The colours are fascinating, shifting and changing with the light; sometimes it's kind of greyish, other times it's much more purple; and I can see flecks of red if I squint just the right way.

The pattern is Butternut, which I found at Knitspot (and I have two more of Anne's patterns in the queue; I do appreciate her simple yet elegant approach).

The end result is very wearable—about 80" long by 12" wide, fully blocked.

I like that I can see imperfections in the yarn, and that it's so light and airy; and I like the fact that it looks pretty decent on the "wrong" side, as well.

And, I admit, I like it that the knitters who've seen it thus far have all said, "You used a drop spindle for this?"

Makes me feel like I might finally be getting the hang of this whole spinning thing.

I don't care what anyone says...

2010-06-09T12:41:00.006-04:00

...it's no easy feat to photograph yourself and look half-decent. Or even a quarter-decent.

Besides which, my mission was not really to photograph myself, but to show you the cool thing I made last week.

It's Ms. Marigold, a pattern from the lovely and talented ladies at Zephyr Style. Rachel bought this one a couple of years ago, along with a truckload of Knitpicks Elegance in a pretty shade called Grass, and made a decent start on it, but then other interests prevailed, and the partially finished project languished around the house looking sad and abandoned. Eventually I frogged the thing to put it out of its misery.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I thought to myself, "Self, you know what you need? You need another knitted tee." And although I like Rachel's original choice of yarn, I wasn't looking for a silk/alpaca blend, which seems to me an unwise choice for summer; I was thinking more along the lines of "cotton with maybe a touch of wool for bounce."

And that's when I remembered that I stashed away a bunch of Main Line (also from Knitpicks, and now discontinued) a couple of summers ago. It's cotton/wool, 75%/25%, and a thicker yarn than Elegance, so I took the pattern down a size to compensate, thinking I could probably fudge a bit since the pattern is top-down and all.

Despite a slew of negative reviews on Ravelry, I liked working with this yarn. I've had absolutely no pilling, and it's got a round, robust feel to it, with that slight hint of woolly bounce to offset the cottony dryness. The stitches are beautifully well-defined, and the whole project took maybe a week start to finish, thanks to the hefty needles involved (5.5 mm).

I skipped the ruffles at the shoulder, added a bit of waist shaping (decreased two stitches at each side every three rows until it fit right; knit straight for a while; and then increased two stitches every three rows until it fit nicely across the hips), and lengthened the original pattern, because I am a rather long person.

I should note that this is really more of a vest than an actual tee, because although it's technically legal in Ontario for women to parade around topless or nearly so, I am a little elderly for that sort of thing. Never mind; all in all, I think the whole thing came out rather well, and it's very, very wearable.

Now, if only I could find a decent photographer...

Clap the Third: the Monster Edition

2010-06-07T11:19:00.010-04:00

A couple of years ago I jumped on the Clapotis bandwagon with both feet. I was late to the party—the original pattern was published in Knitty in 2004, and I caught on to its fundamental brilliance in '08, but big deal.

Back then, I was also just beginning to discover Noro yarns as amazing shawl material, and my first Clapotis is still one of my favourite all-round scarf/shawl thingies:

It's much longer and narrower than the original, but I love the way the bands of colour cut across the ripples of dropped stitches on a bias, turning a deceptively simple design into a fabulous piece of artwear.

My second Clapotis emerged a few months later, but I used a completely different medium: this time, I wanted something long, slinky, drape-y—more of a dressy scarf, but still with that lovely rippled feel.

I used Handmaiden's Sea Silk for this version, and it's even longer and narrower than the Noro one. It's also one of my go-to scarves when I'm looking for something to dress up an outfit. The sleek, slightly luminous finish, and the deep, sophisticated palette make the scarf a bit dressier than its older sister, and the Sea Silk makes it slightly cool to the touch.

Both of these Claps are more scarf than shawl; they're much longer and narrower than the designer had in mind, and for a while now I've been looking for the right yarn to make a "true" Clapotis—the original was about 21" by 55". I wanted something with a bit of variegation, but not so much that it would obscure the simplicity of the Clapotis' wavelets. It had to be a heavier-weight than either Kureyon Sock or Sea Silk; I was looking for something that would knit up on 5mm needles or thereabouts.

Last week I described a yarn I salvaged from the ~~darkest depths of Mordor~~ our basement. I couldn't provide photos at the time of the discovery, because our household's cameras were on furlough (one in Montreal, where someone left it on our last trip; the other in St. Catharines, Ontario, where another household member was at the Canada-wide high school rowing regatta).

As I was winding the salvaged yarn (and saving it from its fate as an accessory to one of the goofiest-looking handmade sweaters known to humanity), I kept thinking, "This would make a great Clapotis...."

And so far, that prediction is bearing out:

Can you see how rustic this yarn is? I've tried to dissect a few strands, and it's still a bit of a mystery to me. Definitely has wool in it, and I've found little bits of something resembling cocoon fibre, which makes me think there must also be some raw silk in the mix. On the other hand, I could be talking through my hat.

I'm fairly sure it's originally from Fleece Artist, though, and also that it's discontinued; my guess would be that other, smoother yarns with the trademark Fleece Artist brilliant colourways would have pushed this one out of the market pretty quickly.

Still, I do like the colours on this one: as I mentioned, it reminds me of sunlight on water. Always a happy feeling for me.

Here it is with the swatch I soaked and blocked: can you see the difference in texture between the unblocked and blocked versions? The yarn has really begun to soften up and relax here, and there's even a tiny bit of a bloom. This is what persuaded me that this yarn really was Clapotis-worthy.

And here we see a few of its columns "clapoted" (thanks to Kathi Taylor for this term).

The good news: it's knitting up FAST. The somewhat alarming news: it's HUGE. There's not enough of it yet to really demonstrate on camera, but trust me: this one will be much more shawl than scarf.

But hey, a little variety never hurt anyone.

Comment of the day

2010-06-05T17:06:00.003-04:00

"That can't be knitting. It has holes in it."
—Woman next to me at coffee shop

Poor dear, little did she realize that her perplexed comment would lead to an information dump about the whys and wherefores of knitting lace. But she was a good sport about it, and either understood what I was saying, or did a good job of humouring the crazy lady.

Salvage

2010-06-04T14:48:00.002-04:00

Our basement is not exactly ready for the front cover of Better Homes and Gardens. In fact, it's a bit of a tip, really.

In what passes for our laundry room (also furnace room, workbench room, extra toilet room, and general junk repository), the extremely brave casual visitor would find a bewildering array of cast-offs and "things we don't know what to do with right now, but which might come in handy some day, or which are too good to throw away, but are pretty much useless to us." Such as, for example, three cat carriers. We currently own one cat and one smallish dog, but the cat is not keen on being carried, and the dog, while smallish, wouldn't fit any of the three carriers; but you can't just throw out a cat carrier, now, can you?

Anyway, the other day I was down there (against my will, I might add, since some other inconsiderate member of my household had seized the upstairs bathroom, leaving me no choice but to use the Dreaded Downstairs Extra Toilet, which is actually some plumber's idea of a really funny joke, since it is allegedly "low-flush" but actually requires about five full flushes to do anything really useful, thus completely negating any purported water savings...but I digress), and out of boredom, I opened up a drawer in one of those little plastic dressers on wheels (aka Rolling Junk Holders), and discovered a knitted item I'd completely forgotten about.

Actually, I think I meant to forget about it, since I'd folded it carefully into a giant wad and stuffed it into the very back of the drawer, then piled a bunch of other stuff in on top of it. I don't treat most knitted items this way, but this one had clearly deserved it.

Because this was a truly embarrassing knitted item, my friends. I think I'd been aiming for a drapy, slouchy garter stitch pullover with a v-neck and drop shoulders. What I produced was a stiff, scratchy pullover with unbelievably tight armpits and no shape to speak of.

I'd used the exact wrong yarn for the project—rather than something with some drape and flow to it, I'd used a single-ply silk/wool blend from Fleece Artist, which I believe she has since discontinued. And I'd knit it using giant needles, probably in the hope that BIG stitches would droop, or something. (Oh, hell, I don't know what I was thinking. I'd blame drugs or strong drink, but I'm pretty sure it was just inexperience combined with an astonishing ability to convince myself I knew what I was doing.)

At some point, I must have tried the thing on, at which point I must have realized that sweaters that choke off circulation to the arms are generally not a great fashion choice. So I'd tried to repair the lack of armpit by inserting (get this) contrasting gussets, which in some deluded moment I'd decided to create using a whole other yarn—a thin linen, with the softness and stretch of butcher's string—in single crochet.

Of course, this made the armpit area even stiffer than the rest of the benighted thing, and I suspect it was at the point when I realized that I'd essentially created a stiff, crunchy sweater with armour-plated armpits that I crumpled it up and tossed it into the drawer.

Anyway, the other day I took pity on the poor thing and decided it might deserve a less ignominious fate. I set to work with my nail scissors, cutting out the armoured underarms; then I searched for the sewn-in ends, unpicked the seams, and began unravelling the sweater. It took some time, but eventually I managed to salvage nearly 500g of yarn, in a rather nice sea-blue/pale yellow colourway that fairly screams, "Beach! Summer! Ocean!"

Admittedly, it's still a pretty crunchy yarn, but I knit up a swatch in stocking stitch on 5.5mm needles, gave it a shortish bath in Eucalan and warm water, and let it dry overnight. The results were encouraging: not only had it softened up and even bloomed a bit, but the stitches had relaxed into one another very nicely.

While it'll never be cashmere, or even Corriedale, I think it might make a nice summer wrap. So I've cast on for my third Clapotis, and am almost up to the main body of the thing.

I love this design, and I'm growing fonder of this yarn by the hour; and at this point I'd rate my chances of armour-plated armpits as pretty much nil.

Oh, sure, take away my will to live

2010-06-02T14:08:00.002-04:00

I am a big coffee fan. Have been one ever since I was about 14, when I discovered the thrilling boot-to-the-head WAKE UP NOW!!! effects of a cup of java.

Granted, the coffee I drank then was bilge compared to what I like now: I drank what my parents drank, which was Maxwell House, percolated until it begged for mercy, and poured like so much Bunker C into a porcelain mug. My parents drank theirs black, but I preferred a strong dose of canned cow (that'd be evaporated milk) to cut the harsh taste.

These days I tend more toward the fancy-pants version of coffee: my current mug contains fair-traded, organic, shade-grown, dark-roasted Mexican. Is it pathetic of me to point out that when I go to bed at night, I smile slightly at the thought of waking up and drinking my first cup of the morning? Yeah, I thought so. Well, tough noogies. I do, and that's that.

Because, you see, I rely on my morning coffee to slap me into consciousness, whisk me painlessly upstairs to my desk, and force my eyes open so I can face another day's editing. That's why it pained me so deeply to read this article.

If I've got this straight, some British bloke is claiming that coffee doesn't actually enhance brain function at all. In fact, the whole "alertness" thing is actually just the coffee kicking in to remove the nasty groggy feeling that is the natural result of...coffee deprivation. So the coffee is actually just restoring my natural level of alertness, which kind of got lost overnight because I wasn't drinking coffee while I slept. Crap-tastic.

(Note to self: Investigate whether it's possible to drink coffee while sleeping. There has to be a way.)

Next thing you know, they'll be telling me that knitting doesn't actually keep me from killing people who irritate me. You know these scientist types. Always trying to take the joy out of living.

Smoky days and Mondays

2010-05-31T15:16:00.003-04:00

This morning when I opened my front door and headed out to walk the dog, the air was thick with smoke; it smelled like someone had lit a giant campfire near by. It was weird; a pall of grey smoke hung over the river, and I could barely see the tops of some distant apartment buildings. The smell was overwhelming, and by the time I got back home I was glad to take refuge in our relatively unsmoky air-conditioned house.

I thought at first that one of my neighbours' houses might be burning down. (This is not an unreasonable supposition, given the bizarre number of fires we've had in Ottawa in the past several months.)

Then I heard on the radio that today's smoke comes to us courtesy of the many out-of-control forest fires currently raging about 350km northeast of here, in northern Quebec. Of course the Ottawa Valley, being a trough, is a great place to store your unwanted smoke: we've been known to hang onto this sort of thing for days, until an obliging wind comes and sweeps everything away.

My vote: wind, soon, and lots of it. My kid has asthma, and she was out rowing on the Ottawa River at 5:00 a.m. And we're not talking "a leisurely paddle down the river," either. She's a member of her high school's rowing team (who took more gold at the Ottawa high school regatta this past weekend, and who will be rowing next weekend at the Nationals in St. Catharines).

In any case, I'm not at all keen on the idea of Rachel inhaling great giant lungfuls of wood-smoke while she trains. Ask any parent of a kid with moderate to severe asthma: this sort of thing is not cool.

Of course, when I called to see how she was holding up, she sounded...forbearing. "Yes, Mum. I took my puffer. Yes, Mum. Yeah. Uh-huh. I know. Yeah. Yes, I'm fine. Yes, I'll call if I need anything. Listen, I have to go now, okay?"

So she's fine, I'm fine, we're all fine.

All we have to do now is figure out why Quebec's forests are burning out of control in late May when it's not even freakin' summer yet, and we'll have this thing licked.

It's the details that count

2010-05-19T20:40:00.003-04:00

It's not every morning that I wake up to hear my bank has burned down.

I'm not complaining, mind you; I've lived quite a number of years now without such extraordinary news, and I'd be happy to live many more without hearing it again. On the other hand, it did wake me up rather quickly.

My first coherent thought was, "Hmm. Sounds suspicious." Apparently the Fire Marshall and I were thinking along similar lines, as they announced almost immediately that arson was suspected. The fire started very quickly at about 3 a.m. yesterday, and witnesses saw some men run out and jump into an SUV, then drive away very quickly.

Then last night the CBC site posted something even more odd: not only was arson suspected, but the arsonists (whom the CBC characterized, rather endearingly, as an "anti-Establishment" group—ah, how well I remember the days when one could talk about "the Establishment" without a hint of irony or embarrassment) had apparently posted a video of their handiwork, complete with manifesto narrated by a computer voice simulator.

My, my. How very Matrix.

But my very favourite part of the whole thing: well, of course that's the bit where the Mad Bombers Wot Bomb at Three A.M. stride boldly out of the flaming inferno, jump into the waiting SUV and roar off into the darkness.

I mean, come on, people. An SUV, gas-guzzler di tutti gas-guzzlers? This is the best you can do?

But maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe they had no choice—they had to take Dad's SUV, because Mum's Audi was in the shop.

Once in a lifetime

2010-05-17T12:37:00.005-04:00

Yesterday I took part in something quite extraordinary. My actual role was tiny, but felt big to me; and the event itself may or may not seem significant to you, but I'll try to do it justice anyway.

Last May, I posted here about my in-laws' synagogue, Congregation Dorshei Emet, and their groundbreaking project, Torat Imeinu—"Torah of Our Mothers." Our family was fortunate enough to participate in the "Two Hands on a Quill" project, in which we were allowed to rest our hands on the hand of the soferet, or scribe, while she inscribed the first line of the Book of Genesis: "In the beginning...."

It was a very moving experience, and I learned a little about the process of making Torahs: for instance, did you know that it's hypothetically possible to inscribe an entire Torah on the hide of a single giraffe (since giraffes are technically kosher, even though they are not eaten)? Since I hadn't known that inscribing a Torah required the hide of any animal, this made a bit of an impression.

In any case. Yesterday, the new Torah arrived at Dorshei Emet. It was a splendid May day, cloudless and warm, with a light breeze. We joined members of the congregation as they gathered in a park near the shul, and watched as the welcoming committee fastened the corners of a prayer shawl to long poles, forming a chuppah, or bridal canopy, for the new Torah.

The other Torahs (I think there were six, but I'm open to correction here) had been brought out to welcome and accompany the new one back to the building. We followed after, a festive parade, accompanied by a trio of klezmer musicians. In front of the shul, we joined hands and danced (note to self: next time I go to any festive event at Dorshei Emet, I will wear comfy shoes; they dance a LOT), passing the Torahs to anyone who wanted to take a turn with them.

Since the Ottawa contingent of our family tends toward the secular, my father-in-law had thoughtfully brought a supply of kippot, complete with pins; I'd already made one for the occasion, using some of my favourite hand-spun yarn, so Rachel wore mine, and I pinned my mother-in-law's to my hair. I remember her pride when she showed me her hand-crocheted kippah; when she was a girl, women didn't even worship alongside the men, let alone wear the mandatory head-gear. As we danced and sang with the Torahs, new and old, I kept thinking how proud and thrilled Phyllis would have been to see this day.

Inside the building, we watched as the final family participated in writing the final word in the new Torah: "Israel." Painstaking, slow, careful—Rachel whispered, "Did she write the whole thing at this pace?" I nodded. She was impressed. That's a lot of writing.

Finally, the children in the audience were called up to the bimah, and the new Torah itself was unrolled from its wooden rollers, encircling them as a symbol of their place as the true guarantors of Torah, the root of all things Jewish. It was a breathtaking moment, in part because of the beauty and strength of the symbolism, but in part because I kept wondering what would happen if some kid decided to make a break for it with the whole Torah unrolled around the group like a giant ribbon around a gift box. (Apparently the organizers had evaluated this prospect and decided that the parchment would withstand the stress.)

However, there were no disasters. They re-rolled the scrolls, dressed the Torah in its gorgeous red velvet covering, with four wavy columns that represent both the four matriarchs and the four tributaries of the river that ran out of Eden; they replaced the sterling silver crown, shaped like a pomegranate (sacred because of its 613 seeds; must remember to buy a pomegranate and check this out some time). Then they opened the ark and placed the new Torah next to the old ones.

And after the requisite food and coffee and hugs at the reception downstairs, we emerged back into the late afternoon sunshine. My feet hurt, but my heart is full.

p.s. Here's the CTV coverage.

The obligatory hockey post

2010-05-14T12:42:00.004-04:00

Despite my Canadian citizenship, I will admit to not being much of a hockey-watcher. The regular NHL season does pretty much nothing for me, possibly because the roster is full of teams I've ever neither heard of (the Coyotes? the Ducks? These are hockey teams?) or don't really care about (sorry, Canucks—by the time you entered the league, my allegiances were set. I wish I could love you, but I don't).

But watching the Montreal Canadiens pound the snot out of the Penguins the other night stirred up some memories for me. For some reason, I kept hearing Danny Gallivan's nasal, hyperbolic descriptions above the drone of the actual play-by-play announcer; and a couple of times I could have sworn I saw "le gros Bill" Beliveau leaping over the boards, striding down the ice like he owned it.

When I was growing up in Victoria, Saturday nights were sacrosanct in our house: right after supper, we kids would huddle around the black-and-white TV to watch Bugs Bunny, knowing that once that hour of cartoon lunacy was over, we'd have to sit through two hours' worth of Hockey Night in Canada. My parents—Dad in particular—wouldn't let us touch the channel knob until the game was over.

Although he'd never travelled east of the Rockies, my father was a die-hard Habs fan; my mother was equally vehement in her support of the Leafs.

Then again, that was their usual pattern—Dad loved Benny Goodman's swinging clarinet, while Mum insisted Artie Shaw's playing was both sweeter and more technically proficient; if Dad said he was voting Liberal, Mum would inform him she planned to cancel his vote by going Conservative this time...or SoCred, as the case might be. She called him a "heathen," so he recited the 23rd Psalm at about 78RPM, to prove she was wrong.

We kids knew better than to venture even the most timid opinions in these areas.

But back to hockey: In the pre-expansion 1960s, hockey was a national religion; the NHL contained exactly six teams (and even the US teams were full of Canadians), so you could be reasonably certain that on any given Saturday night, your chosen team would be playing. If you were a Leafs fan or a Habs fan, you also knew beyond a doubt that one or the other team would skate off the ice with the Stanley Cup.

I don't know where they got it, these two West Coast kids who'd never picked up a hockey stick in their lives, but they stuck fiercely by their chosen teams, vying to out-cheer one another over the scratchy background roar, and the persistent drone of the play-by-play, that emerged from our RCA Victor each Saturday night.

After the first round of expansions, my parents began to lose some of their hockey fervour. Other teams, with names that sounded strange to our ears, began to crowd onto the ice; and eventually, the Leafs and the Habs weren't even playing in the same conferences any longer, so the rivalry in our house began to cool.

But the other night, as I watched Montreal pound in goal after goal, I imagined I heard them again:

"Yes! Look, I told you! Omigod, that was beautiful! He just tucked it in there, neat as a pin..."
"Aw, shaddup. He got lucky, that's all. You just wait—we'll tear you apart in the semi-finals."
"Yeah? You and whose army?"
"I'm not talking to you any more."
"I'm not talking to you first."

And then Dad slung his massive arm along the back of the couch, and Mum tucked her head against his chest, and the game went on.