Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore ...

Don't call me. We're not at home!

This tree is at the Morton Arboretum in Lisle, Illinois. Isn't it amazing? The Arboretum is hosting a lovely show of "Nature Unframed". There are quite a few really amazing works to see, but I particularly loved this one, along with at least a dozen other yarn bombs of "lichen" all over the park.

The kids had a great time here, too, playing in the hedge maze and all through the children's area of the Arboretum.

In the spirit of the yarn-bombing, I'm just going to photo-bomb this post!

In the beginning...

I don’t know who taught me to knit.. the first time. I doubt we even knew we were knitting. What we were doing was creating miles and miles of loopy cord out of cheap acrylic yarn. It’s easy enough to start. Tie a string to your thumb. Now wrap it back and forth through all your fingers, go around the pinky and come back again.. back and forth through each finger. Then wrap the whole thing across the back of your hand and the front again. Now you’re going to want to lift each loop (the small, tight ones) over your finger and the longer loop of yarn to the back of your hand. See how this still leaves a new loop on your finger? Do all four fingers. Wrap the yarn around your whole hand again. Do all four fingers. Repeat…

Eventually you’ll have a really loopy mess hanging from the back of your fingers. But this is where the magic happens! Grab it and pull. BAM! All of a sudden you have an evenly loopy cord. In fact.. it’s I-cord! But I didn’t know that until much, much later.

Grandma taught me to crochet around that time, but it didn’t stick. Oh, I made long chains of yarn with my fingers (just like the finger-knitting, only this time it was crochet loops). And somewhere there is half of a Cabbage-Patch-doll dress in seafoam green acrylic yarn, but search me if I know where. I just didn’t have the patience for it.

It was almost thirty years later when Grandma got a second crack at the whole passing along of the fiber arts. Our family had just moved to Oregon and my father had a conference in Portland. My mother and grandmother came out with him and then drove down to Eugene to spend a week with me. We had a wonderful time driving out to the coast each day and then as far North and South as we could stand to travel in a day and still get home that evening.

Somewhere along the way, dishcloth knitting came out. I don’t recall if Grandma was teaching Mom or had just done so recently. But I wanted in on the action, too. They were able to spare a set of bamboo needles and some Peaches ‘n’ Cream cotton. And a knitter was born.

Just a knitter, tho. Grandma never showed me how to purl.

Sock Summit 2011

Sock Summit 2011, a photo by Project Pictures on Flickr.

I'm not so great at photoblogging or taking lots of pictures. I usually bring my camera and forget to use it. I did try this time to get some fun images from this year's Sock Summit.

I only went for a day (and a night). Things were pretty busy at home, but I'd planned on this trip for quite a while, and we'd worked out that staying all day was okay along with one overnight and driving back the next morning. So when Saturday rolled around I got the house all ready and drove up to Portland.

I arrived about 10am and met up with Ba (seen above in the wonderfully geeky Sockgate). She was also kind enough to pose for me (in her lovely Muir shawl) when we got to Awbrey's booth. And here's Awbrey, too. She makes the most wonderful-smelling soap. You could almost try and take a bite of some of those bars! And Everything Balm, and the wonderful Wood Beams. All fabulous stuff.

 

Ba and I hit the market and then when lunchtime rolled around we took the MAX down to Galleria and bought brats for everyone (YUM). I had to seriously high-tail it back for a fantastic class with Judith MacKenzie... in which I took absolutely no pictures. DOH. Seriously, tho. I was way too busy spinning and learning to remember my camera. Plus we were spinning cashmere and silk and enjoying it far too much.

Class wrapped up and slowly the group managed to gather (it was like herding cats to get this many people going in the same direction at the same time). And while waiting for the MAX again, Sandi started cooking up some nefarious plans. Okay, not really. But she does look like it, doesn't she?

The MAX back down to Galleria was packed and crazy. Lots of people going to do lots of fun things, I'd imagine. We, of course, had to educated a few about knitting. And that in fact all of us in the group were excellent knitters...

 

And yes, there's the crowded MAX behind us as we all bolted for freedom.. freedom!!!

Unfortunately most of those fun food carts that were available at lunch apparently aren't open for dinner. Doh! It was good luck that Sandi wanted Mexican, and I'd seen a Mexican place on the way back to the MAX after grabbing lunch so we headed that way. A couple split off for more veggie-friendly fare, but most of us ended up eating Mexican food. And it was pretty good.

We really had fun... We also really had fun with Sandi's food... (Mexican for the Watchmen)

 

We went back to one of the rooms and chatted a bit more, but everyone was pretty worn out. So off to respective hotels everyone went and I was fortunate enough to secure a small amount of bed-space for myself (THANK YOU ROSEMARY AND BA!!!).

I did need to get home Sunday morning, but I wanted to stay around long enough to see the start of the Fleece to Foot contest. It was pretty amazing that the Sock Summit team managed to secure permission to bring not one, not two, but THREE sheep into the Convention Center and have them sheared on the premises. I took lots of movies.

Here are the adorable sheep:



And here is Clara Parks sampling their wool:



Sadly, I could not stay any longer than that. I'm sure the outcome was really interesting and there will be others that blog that part. I can't wait to hunt down some sock pictures!

For me, it was a really wonderful day and I can't say enough good things about the people I got to meet and hang with, and about my family who were able to manage without me for an entire day.

Last, but not least.. the Haul

Now we finally come to the part everyone usually wants to see. What did we all buy!

I know it looks like a lot, but really I didn't spend all that much. (Okay, it was a little bit of money, but it was all on sale and it was specifically budgeted so it's all good).

The first bit isn't stash expansion but rather conversion. We had a fiber swap. Put 4oz in, take 4oz out. I was able to trade some black alpaca/silk I didn't enjoy spinning (it was lovely, it just wasn't "me") for a Sheep to Shoe kit, and some other various fibers for 4oz of Spunky Eclectic Merino top. I'm really thrilled about both of these trades.





As for expansion, I did fall down a little bit. My first bump in the road was 1.25 pounds of Cormo/silk blend from The Bellwether Wool Company. It's rather unassuming in the bag, but it's Cormo!! and silk!! blended!! Yum. And they have fantastic fiber. And it didn't hurt that this last lot of the Cormo/silk was marked down 25%. How can I pass up such a lovely sweater? Well, it will be a lovely sweater, eventually!



Then I went by Rainbow Farms Pygora. I went there because I had a gift waiting for me from another event, which turned out to be drop-dead gorgeous pygora-blend batts. Wow! But I couldn't leave without hitting up her 50% off bin and I walked away with another 8oz of dyed Targhee.





And last, I took a class on spinning cashmere. And it came with a 10% off coupon for the teacher's shop. So of course I couldn't walk away without finding some cashmere! I found light tan cashmere that was already marked down and applied the 10% coupon to that as well and bought three ounces for pure-pleasure spinning!



Adding everything up (and counting the swap as stash-neutral) I bought one ounce over two pounds of fiber. Which isn't great for the stash. But it does pretty much kill any desire I have to buy anything at Sock Summit so I may be done for the season!

Radio silence

Sometimes I feel as if I'm quiet on this blog for far too long. Sometimes I actually am. Most of my posting is directly driven by what I have finished lately, or at least something on which I have made significant progress.

What gets me are stealth projects. Half of these stealth projects are the little things (like gifts) planned for people who might actually read my blog. The other half are sooper-top-secret-planz... such as a pattern I have worked on for quite a while that I submitted to a publishing company, or a really lovely piece I have in the works right now that I can't wait to unveil but need to do it at the proper time.

So, I have pictures. I have thoughts I want to share and they're burbling around in my head, trying to make it noisily explode with excitement, but they just have to wait.

Instead, we'll just have to last through a little radio silence together from time to time.

At least I'm not abandoning you here with elevator music, instead!

The Strange Joy of Frogging

Frogged Yarn
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

What is this, you ask? An ephemeral, deep-sea coral? Some strange spaghetti monster? A steaming pile of yarn vomit? No. This is, or rather this was, my Diamond Fantasy Shawl, now gone to the happy frog pond in the sky. This was my first shawl, back before I really even understood what a lovely thing a shawl could be. But it never really worked.

First off, it was too small. A single skein of sock yarn can yield a respectable kerchief, but really two are necessary for a good wrap. Second, it was rough. I don't know if it was my washing, or my finishing, but soft Merino yarn that was usually a joy to touch became harsh and twine-like in this piece. And lastly, the colors of the yarn warred with the lovely diamond-pattern of the lace. When worn, all the detail simply disappeared.

Now that I've been knitting for a bit, I've come to recognize that not every project works. Sometimes it's obvious when you finish--it's too big, or too small, or your skeins didn't match and it has a horrible stripe right at the wrong place. It could be more subtle with a fit that doesn't quite flatter no matter how you gently block or tug it into place. I started to notice that once I had more than one of a couple of types of knitting, certain projects ended up in the back of the shelf or the bottom of the pile, never to see the light of day.

I decided to frog the Diamond Fantasy Shawl. It was a hard decision. It was my first. It was pretty. But it wasn't getting worn when all of my other shawls and scarves were seeing frequent use. It's time was done. And the yarn is just too pretty to languish in a project that didn't make me happy.

Here that mess is, again. It is amazing what a nice, hot, soapy bath can do for unruly yarn. Gone are those crazy kinks from blocking. Gone is the sproingy mass of curls. Instead, I once again have a smooth skein. And even better, it's softer! And even with a few yards of scrappy bits to deal with, I'm really looking forward to seeing this yarn become socks or some other project where the unique handpainted nature can shine, rather than compete with the stitch-pattern.

But, it is not the only thing that has visited the frog pond this week. Oh, no. I also had the almost-lovely Versatility. Versatility wanted to be a great project, it just never was. I'm almost afraid to share a picture of it because, well, Ugh.

Versatility wanted to be versatile! It was a scarf. It was a shrug. It was a vest. It was a hood. It was cables and lace and bobbles. It was lovely.. and terrible. No matter how I arranged it on me, I looked smooshed into it like a sausage. The beads I used to replace the bobbles tarnished quickly, and they were cold against my skin when I tried to use it as a scarf. It had a huge stripe in the middle where my third skein of yarn didn't match the original two I purchased. It just didn't work.

This one was actually even more fun to rip out than the shawl. I had a deep sense of satisfaction knowing I wouldn't have the project looking at me reproachfully from its shelf in the closet for never bringing it out to wear. Every line that I pulled out of its knitting made me a little bit happier. By the end, I had three orderly balls of yarn that should probably still be skeined and washed, but will do so on my time schedule, whenever the whim may take me.

Until then, happy knitting everyone. Or happy frogging!

Resolutions

This time of year, many of us make promises to ourselves. Eat less. Exercise more. Loose those holiday pounds. Run farther. Keep the house clean. Catch up on the backlog on your desk. And so on.

This year, I'm going to loose pounds... from my stash.

I have already entered a "Stash Staycation" pact with a friend. Neither of us will purchase any more fiber until Spring (that is, March 21st) with the one exception of WIPs where you run out. It would be just plain cruel to make a girl wait until Spring to finish that sweater she wanted to wear this year...

But that's just part of the deal.

I don't just have yarn stash. I have millspun yarn and handspun yarn. And on top of that, I have unspun fiber. I have laceweight and fingering and DK and Worsted and Bulky. I have bags of sample bits of handspun and leftovers from old projects. There's nothing wrong with having an inspirational stash, but I'd like to reduce my backlog of projects and the amount of yarn I'm just saving because it's pretty in the skein. So, here's the plan.

• For every time I get more fiber/yarn (gift or purchase), I must spin that weight in fiber. This means either immediately spinning the new item, or getting something out of my stash.
• For every project I spin, I must knit an equivalent weight handspun.
• For every project I knit out of handspun, I must knit the same out of millspun.
• For every project I knit out of millspun, I must spin a project.

I think it's a pretty good plan, if I can stick to it. What's your plan for the new year?

Under my Christmas Tree

Christmas 2010
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

This year I found sock yarn.. from my daughter.. for me.. to knit my daughter's new socks. (She requested socks before Christmas, and then went shopping with Daddy and picked out the pink yarn herself. Can't you tell? Only it was worsted weight Lamb's Pride wool/mohair blend. This yarn is the exact same shade. Only it will actually make socks. So will the Merino-cashmere-nylon yarn. But those will be mine.)

I also found a gift certificate to Paradise Fibers from my mother-in-law (which has now been turned into a super secret surprise I may unveil at a later date when I get over the glee).

And fiber from my husband in the form of four ounces of deliciously sparkly batts and six ounces of yummy merino-silk-yak blend. (He's a keeper.)

Merry Christmas to all and a Happy New Year. May it be filled with fabulous fibery goodness!

Bags

Christmas Gift Bags
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

This year, I gave bags for Christmas.

In all honesty, each of those bags is also filled with a hand-made gift for four of my lovely family members. But you don't really expect me to tell you what is in them before the 25th, right?

Right.

I've been wanting to do gift bags for a while. This year I hit JoAnne's and found 50% off Christmas-theme fabric. Perfect! And then I went pattern hunting on the 'net. How hard can bags be, right?

Right.

But I found patterns! A lot of them. And I finally settled on this lined drawstring bag. The series of blog posts has several options, and in the end I modified even the plan laid out by "happythings" (but thank you "happythings" for giving me a great starting point!). If you read it and understand what she's doing, then my modifications will make sense. If not, then you'll just have to trust me that what I changed made it much easier to make a bunch of bags!

First off, my sewing skills are iffy. My seams are usually serpentine and let's not even get into me cutting a straight line in the first place. In addition, I hate hand-sewing up the hole where you turn a bag or pillow or whatever to be right-side-out again (I can never get it to look like the machine-sewed seam and that irks me to no end). So I didn't. I sewed the whole thing as per the directions leaving only the spot where the drawstring would go through and then pulled it through that hole. VIOLA! And after making a couple, I didn't see why I needed to make the liner out of two squares--because that's just one more place I can cut things unevenly. So I left the liner as a slightly-shorter-than-the-outside-material rectangle and sure enough, that works just fine!

Hopefully these bags will be unpacked tomorrow, and the contents appreciated on Saturday. And hopefully some gifts can be given in them again, next year.

Zombie Attack!

ZAS Processing
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I don't let myself get drawn in too often, but from time to time a group of friends online will propose a gift swap, and add into the mix an amusing idea for a theme and a reasonable price limit and all of a sudden I'm in for a bit of fun.

The Phat Fiber group on Ravelry decided to have a $35-limit swap with the theme "Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse". I have to say I'm not a huge zombie fan. Well, I am, in theory. I like reading the whimsical books. I've seen a movie or two, and although they're not my first pick I have somewhat enjoyed them. But I'm not much of a blood-and-guts gory slasher invasion movie person.

I still had to do this swap. There were too many fun possibilities with it. For instance, the picture above is not what I received, but the gift I sent to my swapee. It has fiber, yarn, crochet patterns, a brain-on-a-stick supported spindle, and above all, a flow-chart detailing what to open when in order to survive the Zombie Apocalypse. I had $35 of fun just putting this thing together (and then splattering it liberally with "blood" before sending it off).

What I got in turn was just as fun!

First, I got cool stuff. I got a bag (hand-lettered with "ACME Zombie Attack Survival Kit") filled with goodies. It was filled with various personal care items, camouflage face paint, zombie notepads, fingerless mitts with a compass, an ACME Combo Laser Zombie Disorientation and Beer Can Opener Device (awesome!!), lovely handmade buttons that look like eyeballs, and a Twinkie cookbook, so I could have haute cuisine in the aftermath of the invasion (since Twinkies will survive anything).

Second, I received lovely fiber. There is wonderful yarn that I can't wait to find a great pattern to knit, and then two batts which I had a huge amount of fun spinning. The radioactively-green batt has all sorts of interesting fibers in it (banana, alpaca, silk, bamboo and superwash merino), and the other is just as lovely with yummy fibers and a bit of sparkle. (According to the creator, Lampyridae, it "would be the 'Love Sparks at Night' - Midsummer Nights Dream blend It has SW merino, firestar, bamboo, some angelina, the deep purple is soy silk, and the brown is alpaca.") The Midsummer batt really caught my attention and weighing in at a little over two ounces, I felt it needed a little extra love to make a full project.

I was convinced by a local store-owner (Laura, owner of Textiles a Mano) to blend up a batt of my own to go with the Zombie Swap batt. She helped me put together a combination of fibers I never would have picked on my own (yellow, green, orange, brown, blue and lavender with a little sparkle) that blended up into a batt that spun up a luscious purple-brown. The two together look fabulous, with just enough shine and just enough loft. While I was too excited to get a picture of both batts together before spinning, you can see the results of Laura's batt on its own in the smaller skein, as there was a little extra single of that one left over, and I plied it back on itself.

I was especially happy to have taken a long-draw class so recently at OFFF to help me out with this yarn. I'm already planning on knitting it into a small shawl/scarf. I think it will be quite elegant when done.

And it all happened thanks to a little Zombie Apocalypse fun.

OFFF - Fast, Furious and Fluffy

OFFF Class
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I've been spinning for almost two years now, but I am largely self- and internet-taught. It leaves you wanting, fairly often, to know exactly what it is you're doing. There is only so much that long-distance-explanation can do.

So when the Oregon Flock and Fiber Festival came up on my radar, I immediately checked out the class listing.

"Long Draw" is something that is rather difficult to do on an unsupported spindle (although it can be done), but it is quite a natural technique for the wheel. Now that I have a wheel, I couldn't resist some hands-on instruction.

Jeane DeCoster was the instructor for this class, and she was great. She got everyone involved right away with a pledge to allow ourselves to "Really #*@$ things up" while we were learning. It got a big laugh, and got people to relax enough to learn.

What I found out is that I really knew how to long-draw already. I just didn't know for sure that was what I was doing. She did give me some really good pointers, and one counter-intuitive piece of advice that was really helpful.

In the end, I spun a nice skein of purple yarn that is very, very fluffy. I'm quite happy with it.

I also have a better understanding of what I'm doing, and how to go about it.

In addition, I bought a little bit of wool at Abstract Fibers. I got a small sample of their stuff at Black Sheep Gathering and fell in love. (You know, the lost-and-found skeinlet. It was so pretty, I knew I had to find them to look at their stuff in person.

My class was Sunday morning. Almost all Sunday, it rained. It certainly was dreary and overcast for the entire day. So when I walked into Abstract Fibers' booth, it was a respite from gloomy grey. The people working the booth were awesome. I had as much fun just chatting with them, and showing off my mini-skein, as I did buying fiber.

They were able to find a one-off of "Kaliki" in 80/20 Merino/silk blend. "Kaliki" is what I spun from BSG. This particular skein doesn't have the pronounced red in it that my sample skein does, but it is still brilliantly gorgeous. And I was more than happy to nab it at a reduced price. On a day where grey and mud pressed in from every direction, it was impossible to resist such a brilliantly sunny colorway. Plus, I'd had have a mind to buy it even before I walked in that morning.

I also couldn't leave without this 50/50 Merino/silk blend called "Rosewood", although it makes me think more of the copper-bottomed pots I have. They did have a "Copper" colorway in the same base, but it was much more muted and similar to a camel/silk blend I spun up last year. I loved the brilliant, shiny red of this fiber and almost chose it over "Kaliki". But then again, why pick one or the other, when you can have both... and still leave the fair without having spent your whole budget?

And last, but not least, they shoved a huge handful of blue fiber at me as a sample after seeing what I had done with the Kaliki sample from BSG. It is also 80/20 Merino/silk, and I couldn't help but spin up a bit of it as soon as I got home.

I can't wait to dig into these, as soon as I'm able to get a few things out of my ever-growing queue!

Short Garden Update

Garden - 8/4
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

Ladies and Gents, I am happy to say, I am on vacation.

Yes, I am far, far from home and yet I bring you a picture of our garden just before we left. We have watermelon! My daughter and I are terribly excited about these little babies and hope they are much, much bigger when we get home again. Since the sprinklers are on automatic and the neighbors agreed to peek in on things, I have a fairly good feeling that plants will still be growing when we get home.

There is also some occasional knitting and spinning going on here, but that will have to wait until we return and pictures can be properly downloaded, edited, and uploaded again!

I'm also really looking forward to getting back to Stitches Midwest. This is the second time our family vacation has coincided with StitchesMW, and I promise I didn't plan it that way. But I sure am going to take advantage of the fact!

An Experiment in Overdyeing

Silk Overdye
Originally uploaded by Project Pictures

I've spent the past week or so trying to find the perfect silk yarn to knit a shawl for my grandmother. So far, most things have either been not-quite-the-right-color, or extremely expensive.

Then on Monday night, a friend pulled out a ball of gorgeous silver-grey silk yarn. She said she had picked it up from our local Ben Franklin craft store on an incredible clearance sale. But they didn't have much left. Since it was exactly the right weight for what I wanted to knit, and because "golden" was the color my friend said was left, I went immediately to check it out. One of our local dyers (Janis) has often advised me that yellow is a great color to over-dye. And at the sale price offered, this yarn seemed an excellent candidate.

When I got there, I was able to find the last five balls of the yarn. Normally selling for $17, it was marked down to $4. I bought all five. I had hoped for six, but I'm pretty sure five will have enough yardage for what I want to do. Then I went home and cut myself 2-inch samples and tossed them in my dyestock to test it out. I did a second set where I dumped out much of the dye and attempted a less concentrated batch.

I think the full concentration came out best. All four are lovely, but the turquoise and purple (first and third strands) looked like the best combination. Then I had to plan how to dye this stuff up.

First, I skeined the balls. This involved winding them onto my niddy-noddy so that the dye would be able to get to all the yarn more easily. I found that after fifty "wraps" on the niddy-noddy, I had to stop and unwind the last of the ball from the inside before wrapping the rest, or I'd end up with a hopeless tangle. That finished, I tossed the lot of them into a bucket of warm water with a little soap to start wetting. Silk takes a notoriously long time to get wet all the way through, and you need that for good dye penetration.

Next was how to dye it without getting dye in my pots. I didn't want to use the microwave method I've used in the past. Heating silk too much can destroy its beautiful sheen. I wanted to keep it around 180 degrees. I figured I could double-bag it in some extra plastic storage bags I had on hand. I put it in and dumped in the rest of my stock dye solution. I punched both through with a long-handled spoon to keep the top above the water in my big boiling pot and made myself a quick double-boiler. I even tied the spoons together and lifted the whole ensemble so that it wouldn't melt to the bottom of the pot while heating. And that worked great!

I cooked it for a good part of the day and then put the spoons over the side and tossed on the lid. I let it cool overnight and came back the next morning to check on things. Fishing the bags out of the pot, everything looked good. The dye stock had clearly exhausted, or nearly so. Turquoise is well known for never quite coming completely clear. The purple, tho, was obviously all in the silk. I dumped them all out and took a good look--and I was quite disappointed. Both yarns were clearly still very golden under the dye, and the ties had acted as a resist (I thought they were loose enough) and so there were spots with no dye at all. I threw everything back into bags and reheated with more dye solution in each.

After re-dying both skeins twice, and spot-applying more dye to the resisted areas, I finally had really solid coverage. I'm not sure it's quite as intense as the original test pieces, but they look really good! The skeins aren't quite dry and I think the color will pop even more once they are no longer water-logged. I'm looking forward to winding them all back up into balls and starting to knit tomorrow night!