Spin spin spin spin spin

Ever since I got a new wheel things around my house have been tornado-tastaic. (Spinning up a storm!)

I think I mentioned I got a new spinning wheel a while back, it's an ashford joy (cue squealing), and its little bitty and travel friendly.

there was a little bit of a learning curve, switching from the old creaky wheel I learned on. Turns out I was treadling WAYYY to fast, and also the parts needed oiled so that the yarn would pull on correctly. :)

Incorporating a little of the festus-de-Estes...Here's what I did last night!

 

It's 1 oz of angora (that I bought at wool festival 2011) I spun up myself, and plied with sparkly silver thread and BEADS!!! Its lucious....I might just go pet it some more.

I have about 108 sparkly magnificent yards. Its a light sport-weight (baby yarn). Any project ideas?

For those of you who are perpetually searching for spinning tips, like I am, I spun it semi-worsted. I went with a from-the-fold drafting method and then inchwormed the bejesus out of it so that it wouldnt go all fluffy riffic and fly apart. I OVER spun the single, so that I could ply it with thread and not have a finished product that came apart in my hands. Plying with beads is TRES easy heres what you do:

1-string beads onto a STURDY thread. (something that will hold up to lots of bead rubbing across-ness)
2- tie one strand of single and thread that beads are on in a knot
3- begin plying as normal
4- every so often, slide a bead up to the drafting triangle, and pop that bad boy in!
5- keep on a spinnin.
6- continue until you are out of thread/beads. Tie a knot between thread/single whenever you break it, so your beads don't run off

some tips- be sure your beads fit through your wheel's orifice. (it makes me giggle too, but is rather important)

What blogger, where?

I apologize, my darlingest dear doodly readers, for the gaping silence that has been residing in this part of the blarg0sphere. This semester was, in a couple words, le crap. Le crap that involved a lot of 3-4 nights in a row being awake working on homework. Soh! I am back now, and promise to do a better job. :)

Fun knitting related things you've missed out on:
1)new spinning wheel
2) new loom!
3) sheeps in a bag!
4) job at a yarn store
5) Estes wool festival! SQUEEE

I will update you on these in later posteses.

For now, I give you my newest trial in evil:

A wedding shawl for my friend Amanda. It's from the Crown Prince Square Shawl (link here).

Right now, I have completed 3 ows. of the center.

I havent done a whole lot on it, and I've been sucked in by some lucious Camel-Silk fiber that I got at wool market yesterday, and eeep! Help me get motivated for nupps peoples!

A137, take THAT

Have you ever spent more time fixing the sweater you're knitting than actually knitting the sweater?

This sweater was one of those.

Meet the poetically named A137. Pattern here, mine, below

(please ignore the soggy towel above it there, blocking was...a fiasco?)

I originally wanted to rework it, and put the sweater together top down. I should have. It would have saved a lot of fighting.

I finished the back, the neck looked a little small but I trudged on. I finished the front. The neck was DEFINITELY too small, but I pretended it wasn't, because hey, the sleeves might add some space right? It's a raglan, but they could definitely add some space...my heads small!

I finished the sleeves, get them almost all sewn in. They are four inches too short. Rip sleeves out. Reknit, using markers, EXACTLY 4 inches longer.

Put sleeves back together, set them in, they are two inches too long. Swear, rip out. Reknit the cast off edge. Sleeves are now one inch too short. Try to smoosh them into place (I believe the technical term is easing but smooshing is more like what happened).

Sleeves still don't fit. Swear, throw the whole thing on the floor, stomp on it, kick it, have a glass of wine and swear never to finish sweater.

Twenty minutes later: reknit sleeves this time slipping stitches so the sweater is EXACTLY where the sleeves are. Realize the problem...They are supposed to be too short idiot, its a raglan. The top and front get sewn to the top of the sleeve caps...move on.

Try sweater on, neck doesn't fit on head. (wondering why I didn't see this coming).

Rip out front, back, sleeves back to normal sized head width. Reseam. Sweater now fits over head.

Time to put on the collar! This will be easy! Its just picking up stitches and knitting!

End up with huge boat neck cowl. Rip out. Throw down.

Ten minutes later, end up with slightly less huge boat neck cowl.

Reread instructions 9 times to figure out that it says "decrease at seams if necessary for collar to lie flat".

Reknit cowl collar. End up with slightly less huge cowl thing. Decide cowls are cute. Put sweater on. Look in mirror.

Rip off sweater, rip out cowl, throw it all on the floor and hope the dog eats it.

Have another glass of wine. Last whack at the collar. Finish collar, bind off. Gee it lays so nicely!

Try to put on, refuses to fit over head.

Swear, rip out cast off, spend 45 minutes googling "stretchy bind offs" for one that doesn't look too strange. Use this.

Put on, YAY IT FITS! time for sleep, 3 am.

Next morning: Sew in all ends, in the attempt to sew in collar, eliminate stretchy-ness of bind off. Rip out 3 times, loosely tack end to rest of collar, hope maybe blocking will fix stupid-looking ness.

For the next 3 days:sew in ends.

Dunk in tub full of water. Realize sweater is now circus tent, not sweater....

Throw in dryer. Pull out, realize all hair conditioner used to make wool less itchy has not been washed out.

Ignore for 3 days.

Think about swearing off knitting, but then what would I do with all that yarn...Stuff pillows?

Redunk sweater, end up again, with circus tent, but at least now its not elephant-appropriate. Remove from tub, realize still greasy, redunk sweater, repeat.

2 days of dunking sweater later, throw in dryer again. Leave in dryer too long. Color changes have felted, GAH!

Turn sweater inside out, stretch color changes mercilessly. Cut some strings, stretch some more. Pull on head, start sticking things into sleeves to help stretch out some. Feel like idiot. Redunk. Problem solved.

Leave in kitchen floor to dry. Come home to find a new dog-kibble hiding place inside the sweater.

Remove kibbles, flip over, place in bedroom floor. Come home to find new dog bed has been made, on sweater.

Remove dog hair, shake out, still damp, so place in bathtub, which dog fears. Go 2 days without showering (its okay it was the weekend, no one saw me mom).

TA DAA!!! Finished sweater.

If you feel you must must must have one? I highly recommend doing this sweater as a top down raglan. Consult Ann Budd's handy book of sweater patterns if you have no clue what I'm talking about.

Good luck.

BUTTS!

Some australian bums for you all:

Courtesy of our Australian correspondent-Zach.

In non-knitting news

Dear Neighbors-

My darling roommate... panty snatcher... butter thief... dog is NOT A BOY....SHE IS A GIRL...
So, to help you all out with your confusion, I have decked her out in the GIRLIEST COLLAR I could find.

Observe

She would appreciate it if you a) Admire her new collar, b) tell her she is very pretty, c) pet her a little, d) STOP CALLING HER A CUTE LITTLE BOY!

Thank you.

Spinny Spinny Spin

So- for those of you who don't know, I got a new spinning wheel for my birthday *SQUEEE!!!!***
Its a beauty-ful ASHFORD JOY....

(note my little helpers toes in the top corner there)

but had been having a few...problems with it.. mainly i wasn't using it right because my previous wheel was so ghetto. but....Lily managed to help me get things sorted out and now I'm on a roll...

Seriously I might not knit for a while.

Two days in? Look what I've done:

Thats 8 oz of fiber!!! I feel insanely productive.

Now...what to spin next....Maybe I'll let Aimee pick. ($20 I end up with the smelliest fiber in the stash, any takers?)

Thwarted

I live with...how do I put this nicely. A nefarious blanket thief.

No joke, I woke up this morning, the comforter was missing, I was freezing. I look at the floor, and there lies my DOG all cozied up in my blanket....

So to solve this leetel problem. I made her her own! 6 skeins of baby pink Plymouth Heaven later:

A happy little burglar. Lets just hope this solution works. Otherwise, its going to continue to be a cold winter.

Its aliiiiive

So I'm not dead. Sorry for the aybss of silence you've all been experiencing.

I have lots!!! of fun things to tell you. But not today because my last little knitting endeavor ended up making the house a leeeeetel messy.

I haven't been blogging because the end of last semester? SUCKED. and also, I lost my camera and what fun are pictureless blogs? So, while I am cleaning, and until we can talk about craftying things, I leave you with this:

Turkey!

Enjoy!

Not everyone has Thanksgiving. :)

Concerns

You know you should be worried when you start saying things about your christmas knitting like

"Mens size 15 feet are not THAT much bigger than mine" (womens size 5)

"I could probably make 4 of those"

"SURE! Why not, the first one only took me 3 days!"

Quick Update

Sorry, havent talked at you in a while...school is icky.

Haruni- done, and at home currently blocking. I hope that two days is enough time for the little goober to dry cuz that is ALL ITS GETTING! I left it unattended, and Aims and I went away for the weekend, because I was afraid she'd decide to do an irish step dance on it. And it is white...She's the reason we can't have nice things.

I'm taking a little break from the christmas knitting to work on one of these. Mine is in purple...I've also made a few slight edits to the pattern, which I will share with you later. (if they work) The yarn is smooshy and luscious and the little wooden beads make me giggle like scooby doo.

I had to go out and buy mittens...because I knit slowly turns out. And so The Rainbow mittens are on hold...

How are you all doing?!

BRILLIANT

Do you know how much time this would save me?

YOU KNOW WHAT!

Schools kicking my ass.

Zach has officially moved to Australia (which is sucking the fun right out of things, despite the whole being apart fiasco)

Aimee LOVES THE SNOW, which would be great if it meant i didn't have to stand out there in it for hours while she gallivanted.

My knitting is lagging...

I'm off to nap. I promise something more up beat next time.

Love you all, hope you're enjoying the snow, if you have any, and that you're enjoying the fact that you're running out of time to knit christmas gifts!

SQUEEEE!!!

SMITTENS!!!

At this point I'm a leetel worried about how they'll fit, they seem a tidge tight.

I'm hoping blocking will help loosen them some. Either way they're GOING to fit because i refuse to frog. Just saying,.

Midterms

Midterms make me do bad bad things....

Just ask Aimee.

Or should I say "Mademoiselle le Bee"?

Hehehehehehehehehehehhehehe.

take THAT

oops, deleted the first try. here we go again....

So I was digging through my old WIPs in the attempt to avoid the haruni....and I came across the bead bracelet that has been half finished for around 3 years...woops?

Since I had a ton of studying to do, I sat down and finished the bracelet.

It's bead crochet. What you do is load a ton of beads on some thread, then go to town with the slip stitches until you've decided your rope is long enough. I'm sure, via google, you can find some handy dandy instructions if you're so inclined.





Then, you whip out a teensy tinsy needle and some thread, and sew that baby up. If you only have white, like I did, but you need black, DONT PANIC! It's okay, just color it black with a permanent marker first!

At this point, even if it is midnight, you should wear that little sucker proudly around the house.










Go on, wave it in the dog's face. You know she cares too!

Well okay, maybe not.

Some advice

Don't ever tell a dog smart enough to break into the fridge and eat all your butter than you don't want to go outside and play fetch right now, because its too much work to get up and get a bra.

Especially if they REALLY want to play fetch.

Fluff!

I've finished the Ptarmigan Cowl, out of the lovely lovely Absolou.

It's light as a feather and oh so fluffy. It says in the pattern to block it. My philosophy on that is: if you can already see the lace pattern, why bother? Especially when its going to be all wadded up on my neck most of the time anyways and it'll just undo all that hard pinning work. (Plus, who wants to hurt that lovely squooshy yarns?!)

The pattern called for 175 yards of yarn, and that is EXACTLY what I had. So, to be on the safe side (and also because I am beyond paranoid) I only did 2 garter ridges at each end, instead of 3. I probably would have been fine doing 3, as I ended up with a little extra yarn, but I wasn't stressed about running out the entire time this way. The main reason for this decision is Mr. Flood recommended the long tail cast on, and I always overshoot on that, so I had about 2 yards of dangle left on my cast on that MIGHT be necessary. It was really better this way.

The pattern also suggests a sewn bind off. (AKA tedious beyond reason bind off) This was for stretchy purposes. I'd never done it, so I gave it a shot. It's not much stretcher than if I had cast off normally. If you want something super stretchy I'd google some other methods. Otherwise, this method is fine. ESPECIALLY if you're one of those people who ends up with a funky mc-bunched tight cast off all the time. 

I'm off to work on the Haruni. The plain, boring, white haruni. While my dogwood blossoms sweater kit taunts me....

For those of you who were concerned, it only took 45 minutes but with a little help from my dog we managed to get the alpaca untangled. It's intact, and doesn't seem to have suffered much during its little doggie adventure. 

Fallen

I've fallen, and my credit card has slipped. I think I have a sweater related problem. I blame my comfy new runcorn.

When I fell, I ended up with a kit for one of these:

Purchase your own here.

It will be a while before I get to start because I'm working on a haruni for someone
for christmas.

I'm itching to get starting. What do we think, cardigan version, or pullover?

Line up

I *might* have overindulged a little:












See that? That right there is Absolu. It's a fancy french angora that is from special bred bunnies. That is its NATURAL color. no dye.

It comes in this fancy box, with a certificate of fancy-ness. To certify it's origin, and what not.

I'm going to make myself a little cowl of luciousness. Out of this pattern here.

After a few rows of knitting, I can honestly say you should just go ahead and buy a skein. Even if you just keep it around for petting purposes.