AnotherPurl :: a knitter's life

Sheep! Wool!

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Last weekend was the Kentucky Sheep and Fiber Festival. As part of my ongoing driving practice, we went to the festival via North & Lime. The drive was uneventful, and we got to the festival early. After going through the vendor section, we made our way through the animal tents and saw all of the sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas. We saw some angora rabbits, though most of those were in the vendor area, usually next to one of the people spinning away.

I don't know if Q is going to like this enough to go annually, but it was cheap family fun ($3/adult). He got to go into the "Hug a Sheep" pen and pet the very tolerant sheep, and came away with a tiny fistful of crimped fibers. The only thing that could have made it even better is if North & Lime had a vendor truck there. 

I came home with 3 skeins of yarn all named after female scientists. Two are shockingly neon pink and are named after Marie Curie. It just seemed too appropriate.

Three steps to putting a house on the market

Yesterday I mentioned that our house went up on the market. Now, we've had to do this before when we sold our condo, and it doesn't get easier.

For us, the steps usually go like this.

1. Realtor comes over and we walk her through the house/lot and have her tell us what things we should fix. She says declutter about 50 times, and notes a few minor repairs that will have a nice impact on the resale value of our home.

2. We get to the half way stage and have her come by to make sure nothing has changed. While we have obviously gotten rid of a ton of stuff, she says declutter about 30 times and we cry on the inside.

3. After 20 more trips to Good Will and 10 trips to free cycle stuff on the curb, we clean (and pay someone else to clean) our place to shining sparkliness and she comes by and tells us that we need a ton of new smoke/CO detectors, because the laws changed again.

4. We do all that and the house goes on the market. Profit?

If you are like me - and you'll know you are like me if any of the following words could apply to you: hobbyist, packrat, hoarder (but not like the TV kind), slob - then the first step is to take half of your stuff and put it in storage, or a pod. This is the high level getting rid of crap stage, and it is just the stuff you know without considering it that you want to keep.

That won't be enough. With the remaining half of the stuff, decide if you want to keep it, consolidate it into something else (I bought a pressure cooker/multicooker, so I could get rid of multiple small appliances), and get rid of/donate at least another third of your items. Buy trash bags and fill them. Make trips to the dumpster or curb.

Eventually you will be back down to the amount of stuff you had one or two dwellings ago, and that is probably closer to right. If you have a lot of things on your counters, move them into cabinets or drawers. No one wants to see even useful appliances out all over the place.

Scrub. Nope. It's not fun, which is why we hired someone to do at least the bulk of it, or it would have taken us another 2 weeks to get the house on the market.

What does that have to do with knitting? Well, I ran a stash sale and it is still going on. I also have more yarn to put up for sale. It's like the potential mess that keeps on giving. Now I'm going to procrastinate for a bit on touch up cleaning and knit.

I know what I like

There is something wonderful about buying from indie designers, local artisans, and small businesses. While I don't know the economics of it, but it makes me feel better. The products aren't necessarily cheaper, but you know the creators, can ask questions and get responses, and you know that you are directly making someone's life better.

Like this sock yarn. Ana of Toil and Trouble dyes yarn, and sells both finished pieces and patterns. This is her merino/nylon sock yarn in the Malificent colorway. I don't really remember if I met Ana during a Pints & Purls at Gather Here or if I first saw her tweets when they were retweeted by another maker I know, Liz. This sock yarn came home to me and has been marinating in my stash for a decent chunk of a year.

These socks are standard 60-stitch socks with a picot hem (my version of a fancy sock) with afterthought heels. You can sort of see the random single row of purply-red yarn marking the heel. With self-striping yarns, I like to knit them so that there is no pooling between of the heel and gusset, so I do afterthoughts and get this interesting circle of matching stripes. Though, these socks will still be fraternal. I'm not careful or picky enough to knit them so they start in exactly the same spot.

Ana is selling yarn this weekend as part of the North Shore Yarn Crawl. Of course, I live south of Boston and am car free, so while I don't get to enjoy the crawl, I do get to enjoy any yarn she doesn't sell when it makes it to Etsy (though I hope it all sells).

Buying yarn or bags (I bought a Pansy Maiden bag last year) is a great experience. When I bought my Pansy Maiden bag (I'm hoping to buy a bigger one later this year), I met the designer when I picked up my bag. Shopping local meant no shipping, which was great. I knew when buying the bag that I was helping put kibble and treats into Clementine's bowl, contributing to rent and additional materials for more bags, and maybe a nice dinner out with friends and family.

If you have a favorite local maker, please let me know. I am always interested in finding new interesting shops.

It's a stash sale!

This is just the beginning. I have a ton more yarn where this came from. All of my yarn is stored in a craft room, where my cat, Saru-chan, and my dog, Victor, are not allowed. Definitely a smoking-free home, but obviously not 100% allergen free. Also, if you don't see anything you want, I will be adding to this listing over the course of next week or so.

SOLD Euroflax Sportweight Linen
Color: Eggplant
4 skeins

3 of the skeins are lot: 18.2424-13
1 skein of lot:18.2424-6

$60 for all of skeins. If you only want the 3 skeins of same dye lot, $45.

The two dye lots look the same to my eyes, but feel free to take that for what it is worth.

(more yarns below the cut)

I fell down.

Yesterday, I had a yarn emergency, and despite my best intentions to not buy any new craft materials (except notions needed to finish projects) I had an accident at Gather Here's Pints & Purls and I bought 6 skeins of yarn.

Sadly, this isn't the end of the depravity. I have looked at what I bought them for, and I am pretty sure that I should have bought the 7th skein when I was there.

Pathetic.

So, does anyone know of a 12 step program for yarn addicts? The only way I can get better is by admitting I have a problem. Of course, first I should identify the problem. Is it just yarn or are all craft supplies like delicious, delicious crack to me? What is it that makes it so I cannot resist? Is it color, fiber, texture?

And what is worse is that this isn't even yarn to finish something like the 4+ sweaters I have on the needles that I intend to finish this year, for reals!

It isn't the gloves that I started on Christmas to use my new fancy dpns that I put aside when the weather got warm, rather than finishing them so I could use them today when it was below freezing.

It isn't even the pair of socks I was going to start from my stash to do for the Loopy Ewe quarterly challenge (a one skein project using cables).

Heck, this yarn isn't even in wool, my favorite fiber, so what fumes affected me to buy so much cotton? Isn't winter the wrong season to be knitting that fiber?

And lastly, this isn't me finishing a hat for charity, which would be a better use of my time and karma points. I hope I get better soon, because there is no point to a stash sale if I am just going to replace the yarn before I have gotten rid of any yarn!

Parlez vous Olympics?

I probably used that same blog post name during Beijing, because really I like The Cutting Edge in all its cheesy glory.

Last night despite being sick, but probably because of my long nap, I watched the opening ceremonies while casting on for the 2012 Ravellenic Games (I'm cheesy too). My lovely husband provided a simplle infographic covering many of the important features of the ceremonies from the eyes of a geek.

I loved the opening ceremonies, but I definitely saw this as well as the one ring being forged to bind the other rings. I don't know if this was intended, but it was pretty much how all the geeks I know saw it.

For the Ravellenic Games, I'm competing in two events (hey, feel the cheese): the Shawl Sailing and the WIPs Wrestling. Unsurprisingly, I cast on for the shawl last night, because the new project is always more interesting than the old project much to their detriment. The shawl I'm doing is Leftie, and it is also my Camp Loopy project 3 (I'll post my photos of project 2 tomorrow after it finishes drying). Leftie is intended to use up your leftovers, so here is my quick gloss over that I bought 2 new skeins of yarn for the project. I am still using some leftovers in it from a shawl I made last year.

This was my progress last night (picture from the iPad, so the colors are very off). I am using a skein of Sweet Georgia superwash sock in Lakeshore Drive and one of Lorna's Laces Solemate in Cookies Deep Dark Secret. These are both new to me yarns, though I've been seeing photos of these yarns for months.

I've made a lot more progress than this today and will probably take another photo nearer to the end of the night. Sandi is doing a stitch count and a progress photo to document hers. It is a great idea and a simple thing for trying to get back into more regular blogging. Of course, my stitch numbers change nearly every row, so I am not doing a stitch count. I am too lazy for that.

Also, last night's opening ceremony could have used more corgis.

Even more corgis.

Umm, yeah, more corgis.

What, they were cute! I love most dogs, but the corgis were more adorable than most. I hope that they show more shots of the dogs, because I'm just sick enough that I don't get to walk outside as much (well and it is super rainy). Makes it awefully hard to go out and greet all of the pups in the neighborhood.

not quite speed knitting

I'm rapidly reaching the finish line on Cria, which I started for the Loopy Ewe Q2 challenge (knit something with cotton in it). I have wanted to use Riveting, Kollage's yarn line made out of recycled blue jeans, pretty much ever since I saw it, so this was a great opportunity.

Of course, because I didn't modify Cria for length, I won't be machine washing and drying the finished sweater. Machine washing and drying is supposed to shrink up the row gauge, much like you see in other denim yarns (I thought it would be different, because it was recycled and theoretically had been washed and dried many times, but according to Kollage not so much). Not a big whoopsie, but if I use this yarn I'll keep it in mind if I want to try out the machine washing and drying!

As I near that finish line, I am thinking about my next project. I'm bringing Color Affection (my Camp Loopy project 1) with me to Squam which is in just under a week. I can hardly wait. This weekend will be packing and making cookies and doing all sorts of prep work. I will admit that I'm looking forward to a few days off from work. You'd think the holiday weekend would make that feel less awesome, but Squam Art Workshops is such a great experience. Even more than going to knitting (which I've missed for fun reasons for the past couple of weeks), this is a group of "my people."

Tonight is Pints & Purls at Gather Here, which is the perfect spot for finishing my sleeve (last one) and doing the pockets. I'm putting fabric buttons on my Cria even though there are (at last calculation) 19 buttons. I think that the dusky grey blue fabric needs a little enlivening up. I'm not sure if I want to pick a brighter fabric, or maybe make my buttons out of a softer more feminine fabric. I could see making them with lace and a light gauzy lining fabric. There are tons of options!

the last knit of 2011

Right before Christmas I started a new project, one that would be easy to finish and take me into 2012 with a win for lack of a better word under my belt. I started "Halo," a cowl that requires no pattern and thus no pattern was used.

I finished Halo on New Year's Eve early enough in the evening that I bemoaned my lack of knitting. Knitting at social gatherings helps to keep me from over eating. Instead I came in a very close second in a game of Scrabble. Our game of Scrabble kept devolving into ludeness. While there was lube on the board, there was a brief moment where I would have been able to empty my rack playing ovaries on a triple word score. I almost had gonads and another player almost had vaginas. A good evening with the game crossing the cusp of the year.

While I do sometimes wear the cowl all long and layered under my jacket, more commonly I wear the cowl twisted around my neck as a double loop. It is more compact, which works really well with the puffy (Uranus!) winter coat I pulled out this week when the temperature went well below freezing.

Specs:
Pattern: Halo (rav)
Yarn: Kidsilk Haze in Jelly (2 skeins)
I have about half a skein left which will probably become some kind of fingerless mitt or mitten liner.

I love this, though occasionally I do try to eat the mohair. As a flaw, that is pretty minor. It is comfy, warm and cheerful and what more could I need in my knitting for the first months of the new year.

My first knitting (yeah, I've already cast on something new) of the new year is the Abigail Tee from the Winter 2008 Interweave Knits. I'm using gift yarn from my husband (from 2007, so I really don't have an excuse for not starting this earlier). It is going to be spectacular when it is done, but right now it is a mostly shapeless amorphous blog of lace weight yarn. Delicious and sparkly but not vampiric.

Because if it was a vampire I would stake that shit no matter how gorgeous!

Whee!

Some days are just boring. Today, so far, is just one of those. A bit of time at the gym, some work and then home to make cake and ice cream. Nothing to write home about, really.

On the other hand, I am working on this cowl. And for something so boring it is incredibly exciting. Simple stockinette, lace weight. It sounds like a yawn when put that way, but it is a very vibrant green. I believe the colorway (I feel prententious just writing that) is Jelly.

I was at Snow Goose last week, because I had time to kill before the next bus was going to show up. I took the time to browse (and obviously more than browse) and found this sample cowl. It was warm looking and it was next to this pile of yarn and books by Classic Elite. I looked at the pattern and started to scowl. Let's just say that some patterns are too simple for me to want to pay for. The only thing in the pattern I might not have thought of is the double stranded cast on and bind off.

So, I picked a different yarn (admittedly with a lighter weight) and went to on Christmas eve. I have another day or so more knitting to do on this, and then I will be able to cast off, weave in ends and finish 2011 with a new knit.

A bright cheerful knit for keeping warm in the dark winter days ahead.

the happy finish dance

Oh, it is finished! Finished!

See, the happy face (though it did take more than one picture to get a facial expression that didn't show how much I hate having my picture taken)!

I have been enamored of Oranje since I saw the pattern in the winter Knitty. Of course, I wish I was small enough to have knit one of the smallest sizes rather than the size 40.

My first fairisle project was a baby hat in a class with Mary Jane Mucklestone at SAW in June. I made Elinor's Mittens last month, and they were awesome and gave me to confidence to tackle a much larger project.

Oranje calls for Bugga!, but I just couldn't find 3 skeins I liked with interesting contrast colors. When the Camp Loopy challenge came up, I chose solids from the Loopy Ewe Solid Series (the purple) and Spud and Chloe Fine (the green and white).

These yarns came in the 50 gram putups rather than the 100 grams of Bugga!, so I ordered 6 of the purple and 1 each of the contrast colors.

6! Why did I buy 6 skeins? I did run out of white. I finished it off with some of the white from the blanket I've been working on (Cascade Heritage). I had some green left. And after all of the knitting and finishing was done today I had 2 whole skeins of the purple left and 26 grams. Mary Jane commented that I knit like her, in a way that conserves yarn but I have never seen it quite so clearly before.

2.5 skeins of yarn is two pairs of socks (my socks weigh on average 66 grams). Gosh. What am I making with all of this extra yarn!?

 

My arrows are a little wonky, but I love them anyway.

Things I learned:

Just hand sew the dang steeks. Sew them down by hand 2 or 3 times on each side but still do it by hand. My machine sewn steeks meandered. That made picking up stitches more harrowing than it needed to be. I ended up hand sewing after the rest of the finishing was over the steek edges near the worst areas.

I started this project by accident as a size 44 and simply decreased down to my size. I did not do any waste shaping. The extra fit at the bottom is a good thing, because this sweater is long. Of course, it would still look better with, umm, better foundation garments or losing 5-10 pounds. While the sweater is supposed to be close fitting, this sweater doesn't glide over my lumps and bumps. I love it anyway, and it is super warm!

Lastly, working 3 colors is not that hard. However, the length of my floats or something in the arrows made that a little wonky. I'm not sure if it would still be wonky if I knit it again. The three colored triangles were perfectly fine. I'm not sure I've actually seen a finished piece that does the triangles that way. Even the sample in the Knitty pattern is done in horizontal stripes.

Also, because my steek was a meandering drunken fool, I ate the first column near the patterning at the top for a bit to give me a little more safety in picking up stitches. It was fine, though it does mean that I am missing half a green arrow. While I am often a perfectionist, I left that behind with this project. I'm still learning. I have another sweater in the works from last year that also has colorwork that I've been putting off. I don't think I need to worry about putting it off anymore.