TdF Day 2

Yeah I realize I forgot to blog about Day 1.

I did the math on Day 1 and realized I have to spin about 4oz per day in order to finish in time. That isn’t an easy goal for me to keep but so far I’ve managed to do it.

Day 1 started off pretty well, I met Jen and Ginger for breakfast at the FPH. I’m a sucker for their hot chocolate because they put whipped cream AND sprinkles on it.

Once we made it to 3rd Place Ginger and I got setup and started spinning. We got the usual looks and little kids and their parents coming by to watch and ask questions. Sadly I ran out of steam before I finished my first 4oz so I packed up and went home. After a short rest I started spinning again.

The first 4oz.

I’ve found if I pack my singles well I can just BARELY fit 4oz onto my Lendrum bobbins.

This is Day 2. I took the picture with the flyer so you can see how little space is left once I cram on those 4oz.

It’s embarressing to admit that the second 4oz took me almost all afternoon to spin. I haven’t been able to find the right speed I want to go at with this fiber plus the lack of good tv really slows me down. At one point I even fell asleep. I did take lots of breaks which might have contributed to the slow progress. I got up twice to make mini batches of homemade kettlekorn. Delicious stuff.

On one of those breaks I came back to the couch to find this. Nicki spent most of the afternoon sleeping next to me while I spun but apparently the lure of the roving became too much for him to resist.

Tour de Fleece 2009

May the madness begin.

Terri came up with the idea of a Team Dragonfibers* this year and of course I had to join. Then came the realization that my goal for TdF wasn’t to spin small projects of Dragonfibers but to tackle a large project. Namely the Zimmerman Fair Isle Yoke Sweater.(rav link)

I’ve admired this pattern for ages and knew I wanted to make a handspun version. I bought some merino/alpaca in late 2007/early 2008.

“I’m 3lbs of fiber you dummy, how can you possibly expect to spin all of me evenly for a sweater?” it mocked while it sat staring at me.

I put it away in storage when I moved in January and pretended it didn’t exist.

Then TdF came around again. Last year I spun a shawl’s worth of yarn (that I STILL have to mail off to Pam so she can knit a Charlotte’s Web for me).

This year I boldly thought “Lets make it an even bigger challenge!…it’s not like you have a 40hr/week job to pull you away from spinning like a machine”

I’m pretty certain this was the moment we can look back on and say that is when I lost my mind.

3lbs of superwash merino/alpaca in pewter and 8oz ecru BFL.

I know 3lbs is overkill but I figure I might as well spin it all up and KNOW I won’t run out. I’m debating upping the BFL as well just in case.

The reason the BFL is undyed? That would be because I realized about 3 days ago I didn’t know what colors I wanted in my fair isle sweater. I also realized that deciding 5 days before TdF started was maybe not the best time to make a color decision. It will be spun as is and dyed once I’m going to work on the sweater. Who knows when that will happen so my color choices will very likely be different than my choice today.

12lb cat (Nicki) for scale.

The plans have been made, Ginger and I are going to meet at 3rd Place earlier in the day in order to kick start TdF off right (I suspect you will find our table adorned with necessities such as giant lattes and chocolate croissants).

Nicki finds the whole TdF event  quite uninteresting. Notice what a good kitty he is to not even care about the giant balls of fluff next to him.

*If you haven’t joined a team yet or want to join another come on and join Team Dragonfibers!

Feeling a little crochety

Uh oh this can’t be good.

I was inspired by Grumperina’s hotpad swap a little while ago and somehow brought home 5 skeins of King Tut cotton from Little Knits the other day. (seriously how DOES yarn crawl into my bag?)

It’s crochet!!

I picked up a copy of 200 Crochet Blocks at VYT a few weeks ago when I stopped by to run a favor for a fellow Raveler. I really like the Harmony Guides I have but I loved a lot of these blocks. Not too fussy but not too boring either.

I was in the middle of crocheting the first hotpad when Mom called from NYC, she arrived safe and sound and only one of the eggs broke (long story but apparently Mom can pack 3 dozen backyard free range chicken eggs in her suitcase and only break one in transit). Mom is there visiting with Aunt #4 for 2 months while she recovers from surgery and goes through chemo. Aunt #4 was busy enjoying the eggs and homemade organic butter I made for her so I’m a good niece right now. I mentioned to Mom what I was working on and before I knew it I was making more.

2 fancy hotpads for Aunt #4

and their backsides.

I decided 2 wasn’t enough so I dug into the Sugar n Cream stash that never seems to shrink and whipped out some superbasic ones.

1 ball down, 9 to go.

I’m debating pulling out the knitting machine and working up some simple blanks to crochet edging on to send in the package as well. I’m all about trying to destash fast right now. With Tour de Fleece fast approaching I realize just how little knitting time I will have before Sock Summit. I fully expect to have stashing problems at that event.

Wallowing

I’m loving the Viper Pilot pattern, I love the DIC Starry yet the sock progress is going agonizingly slow.

I finished the cuff per pattern instructions and tried it on but due the slight gauge difference the cuff was too long. As in halfway up my calf too long. I spent a good part of Sat knitting group frogging back to row 40 only to find out that row 40 is not an exact match for row 22 which is where I was supposed to stop. I couldn’t bear the thought of figuring out the new heel pattern right then so I cast on for the second cuff.

It’s still taking me forever. I think I knit more this weekend than I did all weeklong. I’ve just finished the cuff on the second sock and now I have to pull out all the charts so I can reconfigure things. I reckon if I do each piece one right after another I stand a better chance of remembering the mods.

I’ve been doing just a little dyeing lately and will be adding almost 10lbs of roving and yarn to the shop on the 16th. As time goes by I consider the possibility of trying to make Dragonfibers a full-time job but I’m not sure I’m ready to take the leap yet.

There has been a few cooking experiments of sorts going on in my kitchen this past week but nothing I think anyone else wants to see. One won’t be ready for another week but I hope it will be as tasty as I want it to be.

Oh and I knit a whopping 6 rows of garter stitch blanket so far this month. So much for being ahead of schedule.

In other random news…I get the house to myself for 5 days due to both parents heading out of town (to visit their respective siblings) so I find myself wondering where I can get a keg of hard cider in Seattle

Unintentional destash

There are times when having a Mom who taught you how to knit is frustrating, made doubly so when you are living with her. A good example is when you knit socks and comments are made about how you should do some “real” knitting only to be asked a few months later to teach her how to knit those useless socks herself. I’ve also discovered that bringing home new yarn should be done secretively in order to avoid a lecture on spending money frivolously. Then again there are times when sharing a house with a knitter is a good thing.

I finally pulled out the 7 skeins of Aracania Ranco this week that has been languishing in the stash for a while. I bought the first 2 skeins back in 2006 at PhillyKnittyFest but the chevron scarf that it was planned for never looked right. Those 2 skeins got me through 6 hours of waiting at the John Wayne Airport so they served me well.

Flash forward 2 years and somehow I come home with 5 more skeins (3 different colors) after an impulse trip to Little Knits. This was all before I realized that Ranco may be marketed as a sock yarn but it isn’t superwash which goes against my most basic sock yarn rule. “Thou shall not be handwash only”.

What to do with 7 skeins of sock weight handwash only kettledyed yarn?

Granny square blanket!

I pulled out the crochet hook and found the basic granny square instructions and went to work while watching more of season 6 of SG-1. Mom wanders in when the square is about 8″ across and declares the yarn too pretty to be used for a blanket. I show her all the skeins and poof…instant destash to Mom.  :-D

There has been some good progress on the Viper Pilot socks but nothing that has been photographed lately. I’m about 2/3 of the way through the cuff and the chart is finally starting to be intuitive.

Mostly I’ve been doing stuff like this.

Dad’s birthday dessert. A spicy dark chocolate mousse cube with burnt meringue and tequila caramel sauce. Labor intensive but oh so worth it.

I also just realized today is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago and I still remember sitting by the tv watching it all unfold. It had only been a few years since it became official that Hong Kong would revert back to China so everyone was a little on edge waiting to see how it would unfold. It made me proud yet sad at the same time to watch what was going on. Proud that so many people could gather for democratic change and sad that violence is once again the kneejerk reaction.

My wheel is smoking

Poor Daniel. First he gets ignored for several months and I sort of play with him for a little bit in March. Then he gets ignored yet again until this last weekend.

Once I finished the Green Sweater I felt the itch to start something new. Since those Viper Pilot socks are the kind that require some semblance of attention I decided to finally pick up the test braid of roving from the floor where it had been lying for several weeks (I never said I was a good housekeeper). 

Superwash Merino/Cashmere/Nylon roving, splatterdyed with yellows, reds and blues. I started spinning on Saturday afternoon at the usual Third Place Books gathering and zipped through one bobbin pretty quickly.

Sunday night I couldn’t resist the wheel again and before I knew it I had all 3 bobbins filled. 

Aren’t they pretty?

Too bad there was a problem with plying them.

The Fire & Ice Merino/Bamboo that I finished working on in March was never taken off the bobbin.  10 minutes later all was fixed and I was ready to ply.

234 yards of 3 ply Sport to DK weight sock yarn. I still have a little left on 2 of the bobbins that I will chainply to get as much of it as I can.

I’m totally surprised at how the roving spun up. I didn’t realized until the yarn was finished just how much yellow was in the roving. All I could see in the braid was a pale yellow cream with bright red and blue splotches. Those bright colors were strong but still not the dominant color. 

I’m totally in love with the finished yarn. To me it actually feels softer than the commerically spun 3ply yarn I got from the mill. I think I will get more of this.

June 1st Stashdown

Finally some Stashdown progress!

Miles: 27.7

lbs: 31.9

Skeins: 210

 

It’s probably time to revisit the garter blanket again.

Green Sweater is fini!

It’s done!!! 

Overall I used way less yarn than expected. I had 22 balls of the mystery China yarn and despite knitting it double stranded I only used 8 balls of it. I really don’t want another green sweater but 14 balls is definitely enough for one. Good thing Mom knits because then I could ‘destash’ those remaining balls to her.

I made this almost exactly as the pattern dictates. I only varied because I had cast on for the wrong size and had to frog back over half my work. I wasn’t going to frog back to the beginning just to have a minicule difference in collar size. I briefly considered a few short rows for the bust but once again my laziness kicked in. Odds are I will rarely actually button this up so any effort to add length to the front vs the back would really be indistinguishable.

I had planned on making 3/4 length sleeves but once I got to the length suggested by the pattern I decided against that route. The shaping of the body and overall style of the cardigan just seemed a little too casual and summery for 3/4 sleeves. Besides shorter sleeves meant less knitting which means finishing in May and having time to start on something new.

Ok so it doesn’t look like much but the finished socks should be fabulous. It’s the Viper Pilot sock that was of course inspired by Battlestar Galactica. As soon as the pattern was released I knew I wanted to knit it and last week I was at Little Knits when a box from Dream in Color was opened to reveal a bunch of Starry yarn. My favorite colorway has always been Night Watch and when I saw it in the Starry I was sold. (I didn’t realize until I had started working on the sock that the original was also knit in Night Watch but in Smooshy yarn).

Holy crap this is going to be a slow going sock. Until I memorize the 7 different cables that the sock uses there is going to be a lot of ‘hmm what is that symbol, ok look at the legend’. This is also going to be a definite knit in good lighting and sober type of sock. 

Last night would not have been a good night to knit the sock…there may have been some drunk texting going on and I do apologize to any of you who got them. Those Blakberi Lemondrops were addictive.

untitled

I can’t recall if I blogged about Aunt #3* before. Last fall she was diagnosed with lung cancer and given a few months to live. My Mom flew back to Hong Kong to stay a few months and take care of her while she went through chemo. The chemo worked until about a month ago when they discovered new tumors and the doctor recommended stopping everything.

This morning we got the call (seriously when is a 5am phone call ever a good thing). 

The hardest part is watching my Mom grieve. While I spent a lot of time with Aunt #3 as a kid it’s been over 11 years since I’ve seen her. When my parents would head out of town Sarah and I were always sent to stay with her.  Out of all my aunts I probably spent the most time at her house, the adults would sit around playing Mah Jong while I would watch tv or read a book or have her kids teach me how to make origami birds and those little ribbon stars. It was at her house that Sarah and I came up with our phrase Gai Jai Galut Dai which loosely translated to chicken armpits (hey I was 11 when I came up with it).

It feels weird to mourn someone who was a part of my life so long ago. Mostly I’m sad for my Mom, I’m glad she got to spend those couple months there but I know she regrets not being able to do more. On top of all this she is scheduled to leave in a few weeks to go and spend 2 months with Aunt #4 who is having surgery for cancer next month. 

I’m getting really tired of posting almost annually about family members dying.

 

* Yes we really do call our aunts and uncles by numbers. There were 15 of them! My Mom is Aunt #7)

Birthday gift to me

In my family we don’t typically go all out for birthday (or even Christmas) presents although my sister’s gift this year definitely doesn’t fit the norm. So each year no matter what I tend to get myself a little gift for my birthday. Last year was the Seasocks cruise which was anything but little but totally worth every penny. I think one year I bought my beloved Wustof chef knife that no one else is allowed to use.

This year I decided on a little fiber gift.

Grafton Fibers Colorways shipment for May. 

I’ve been eyeing the Grafton Fiber batts for at least a year now, when I first found out about them they seemed harder to find than today. Since they are in Vermont I’ve never heard of them making their way West for any fiber shows. I was on their website in early May trying to decide on a batt I liked when I spotted the Colorways membership. For only $20 a month I could get a surprise batt in the mail, at that price it was cheaper than their normal batts and since it’s paid monthly if I hate it I can cancel at any time.

When I signed up though I thought I had missed the cutoff date for May so I wasn’t expecting the shipment for this month.

Check out those colors. It’s one huge corriedale batt weighing in at 4oz and I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to do with it. There was a great little pamphlet included with the batt showing what the folks at Grafton Fibers had spun up with their batt along with a tutorial on making it into a felted bowl. I love the extra info that they provided.

I can’t stop looking at all the pretty colors.