The Knitting Pirate

While the kittens get free run of most of the house, my knitting has been banished to my room upstairs. I keep the door shut so there won’t be any curious paws and claws tearing up my stuff, but as a result it’s very stuffy in there… so I think I’ll be knitting in the living room again, and trying to train them to leave my yarn alone. Aubrey is putting on a good posture of innocence here, but I’m not fooled for an instant. She noses her way into everything you want to do.

(I’m not complaining about this too much as it’s totally adorable, but every once in a while I’d like to write an email without an insistant mewing at my feet. Mama, I can’t reach you! Mama, pay attention to me! Mama, I want petting!)

Unlike his sister, Floyd is not nearly as good at looking innocent. Most of the time I just see a little black silhouette of a kitten trotting around the house intent on mischief. If something moves, it belongs to Floyd. If something isn’t moving, it can be poked until it does. If it can be upended, knocked over or spilled, Floyd’s there to take care of it. I’m betting he’s the one who will cause the most trouble with knitting.

Fortunately, kittens sleep about 18 hours a day, so I should be able to find some time to knit when they’re passed out in a corner somewhere.

Say hello to Floyd (the black one) and Aubrey (the grey-and-white one):

All knitting is hereby banished to the upstairs room until kittens can learn that yarn is not for attacking.

Every year, Pirate-Husband and I go to Pennsic War, the biggest annual event in the SCA‘s calendar. We will join over 10,000 people for two weeks of food, fun, fighting, classes on every imaginable subject (link to pdf), shopping – and my favourite, sitting in the shade knitting socks and drinking beer.

This year, we’re actually making two separate trips up to the campsite. We’re leaving for War tonight, will set up our tent tomorrow, and unfortunately have to come home on Sunday so that we can work for three more days before our vacation actually begins. But then, we’re off for a long relaxing trip into the Middle Ages!

I haven’t even decided what knitting I’m bringing yet. On one hand, I could crank out baby knits for my friends who are expecting. On the other, I could finish my Time Traveler socks, which is sort of fitting for a time-traveling vacation. Maybe I’ll bring both and alternate? Maybe I’ll begin a new project?

Not only are we excited about going on vacation, but we’re excited about a new addition to our family. No, we’re not going to have a baby – at least, not a human baby. We’re adopting two little kittens! Here is a video I got of them playing at their foster-mom’s house the other day. She is going to keep them for us until we get back.

We are going to adopt the first two kittens in the video, the small black one and the first gray-and-white one. They will be about three months old when we bring them home. We have potential names picked out for them already, but I want to make sure the kittens and their names go together. Once we’re sure of their names, I’ll let you all know!

Please forgive me if there’s less knitting and spinning in the next few months than usual. I’m going to have to confine my yarn to quarters to keep it from investigative paws and claws.

But, in spinning news, I won a prize in the Tour de Fleece in the Natural Yarns category for the Jacob roving! Granted, it was a prize picked by random number generator, but still – I won a prize! I never win anything and so this came as a massive surprise. I had a choice of prizes, so I picked a BFL/silk blend from Susan’s Spinning Bunny, in the “Sherbert and Ernie” colourway. Of all the available options, this seemed most unlike what I’d buy for myself, so I chose it under the theory that if I never expand my colour preferences then I’ll never know what I might like.

Although I didn’t begin the Tour de Fleece with a specific goal, one gradually coalesced in my mind as I sat down at the wheel each night: to spin and ply one pound of fibre. If I could do that, I promised myself, then I could buy a new four-ounce braid. For every sixteen ounces out, four in. At that rate I will spin down my stash nicely. (And if I don’t make the goal by the end of the Tour, then I still won’t let myself buy anything new until I’ve spun and plied at least a pound!)

Wednesday was a Tour “Rest Day” but Thursday was the “Challenge Day”. I challenged myself to finish the Rambouillet that I’ve been working on for two weeks already. It took more than two hours of spinning to get through what was left, but now it’s all finished and resting on the bobbin, waiting for my first real attempt at chain-plying. I’ve been watching tutorial videos and I hope I can coordinate my hands well enough to come up with a nicely plied sock-weight (possibly heavy sock-weight, in places) striping yarn. The oranges and golds of this yarn will go wonderfully with dark jeans. Once this is plied, I’ll be more than halfway to my one-pound goal, but with only three spinning days left in the Tour, I’d better hurry it up. Six more ounces to spin and ply – can I do it? Will my ankles hold up to the workout? The physiotherapy is definitely helping; I have my fourth appointment this afternoon. Hopefully they’ll say I’m all cured before too long!

On my way home yesterday, I saw these three butterflies crowding each other for space on a thistle-blossom. They were so captivating that I stopped the car in the middle of the road to watch them, and then got out to take a picture. Unfortunately I only had my phone instead of a real camera, but I think it’s worth sharing anyway. The dark butterfly is a Black Swallowtail, and the two orange butterflies are Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. I am lucky to live in such a gorgeous place; every day I make a point of admiring the view as I drive up the mountain. I never want to become jaded to the beauty of the semi-wilderness.

Next up, I’m going to spin something thick, quick and woolen. It will be a nice break after the thin, slow worsted spinning I’ve been doing for what seems like forever… and it will give me half a chance of being able to reach the one pound goal by Sunday night.

Pirate-Husband and I have been in our mountain house for two and a half years now, and yet, only two of the rooms are really what I’d call “finished” – the living room, and the library. There is so much yet that I want to do! As we’ve settled in, we’ve each found our spots and niches. The upstairs room, with the loft bed and slanted ceiling, has become my office. Pirate-Husband works from home and has claimed the library as his office, and he’s also got a workbench in the garage where he tinkers, makes steampunky things out of leather and metal and wood, takes stuff apart and puts it together again.

So if he’s got a work space and a craft space, I’d like one too – for fairness, of course. The back room in the basement is almost exactly perfect for what I’m thinking of, too. It’s our laundry room, and our storage closet for our SCA gear is there. There’s an inset space in which we’d like to put a second freezer for food storage, but for the most part the room is going completely unused.

There’s already water to the room for the laundry, so it shouldn’t be too hard to split off the line and install a slop sink. Drainage might be a little more complicated, but I bet it could be done. With a sink, I could wash fleece and mix dyes, though I’d still have to bring dyed fibre or yarn upstairs to simmer on the stove. Hrrm, unless I got a little propane-powered burner. That’s a possibility, and would keep dyes out of our food-prep kitchen.

I’d like to run a workbench down the entire back wall of the room, attaching it into the wall so that it wouldn’t wobble. It wouldn’t be too high, because I’m shortish. There I would be able to keep my drum carder and sewing machine. I’ve even been thinking about getting a wool picker, perhaps bench-style rather than the torture-chamber-esque cradle picker style. I don’t think I could support myself on a fibre-y business income, but I bet I could make some reasonable pocket change selling carded batts and handspun yarn on Etsy.

Underneath the workbench, I would have shelves and drawers for storage space, except at the end I’d leave a bit of an overhang so that I’d have a place to sit and use the sewing machine. I don’t sew very often, but I’m drawn to the idea more and more – if only I had a good workspace! The first things I’d sew would be quilted covers for the carder, picker, and sewing machine, to keep them safe and dust-free.

The room itself needs some work. The laundry closet is in desperate need of new doors, and the walls could use a coat of paint. I’d install good lighting in the ceiling and scissor-arm lights along the walls, so that I’d always have enough light – that room has but one small window and doesn’t get much sun. Then I’d hang inspirational artwork everywhere!

What would your perfect crafting space look like?

I have a good excuse for not finishing the first of the Timey-Wimey socks this weekend. Actually, I have two good excuses and one sorry one! The sorry excuse is that I have been taking Celebrex for my ankle injury, and I feel like a zombie. If I sit down, I have a tendency to fall asleep. I did knit for a while and I’ve started the toe decreases. I think that I might have measured properly so that I’ll be able to have matching socks. It’ll be within a few yards, but I think it’s possible. Fingers crossed!

This is my first good excuse: in my efforts to stay awake, I went down into the garage with Pirate-Husband and worked on the next set of our wine bottle lanterns. We got the idea from Gerardot & Co. via Make.

We’d made one of these lanterns last fall, and had some ideas to improve on them for the next set. Our house is right in the middle of Virginia wine country, so we’re going to collect a variety of our favourites from local wineries. To keep the labels from peeling off, we’ve given the bottles a coating of clear polyurethane from a spray can. I drove some sturdy sticks into the ground, then slid the bottles onto them so that the bottoms could be sprayed as well. They’ll get a second coat some time this week. The humidity caused the spray to give a hazy finish, which I actually like better than if they’d come out clear.

The original instructions suggest using a cap to keep the wick dry when it’s not in use. Our first lantern lost its cap in less than a week, and has acquired a few inches of water underneath the oil in the lantern. To keep the cap from getting lost again, I got out “ye old chainmail kit” and made a chain of ten links. An eleventh link was soldered to the top of the cap, then hooked up to the rest. At the other end, the last link was put around the split ring hanger. The cap may still fall off, but at least now it won’t be lost! I discovered that I really enjoy soldering when I took a stained glass class, and this was a fun opportunity for me to play with molten metal again. Pirate-Husband deserves thanks for letting me do much of the soldering work, because I know he likes it too.

Unfortunately, the shiny copper-plated hardware didn’t weather as well as I would have liked. Real copper turns a beautiful green in the outdoors, but this stuff just sort of looked dirty. Rather than spray it with the polyurethane so that it stays shiny, we hit them with a flat black spray paint. Pirate-Husband is going to teach me dry-brushing techniques to make them look properly weathered, and then the clear polyurethane will seal in that look.

And this is my second good excuse: Sunday evening, just as I was settling in to finish the sock toe, we heard a rumbling from outside. Pirate-Husband’s former co-worker had somehow gotten his deuce and a half up into our driveway, and asked us if we wanted to go for a ride. There was really no thinking about it; I dropped the yarn and off we went on the loudest adventure ever! Even though I was wearing ear protection, I still feel slightly deafened. We drove to where the paved roads end and kept going, forded a small creek, saw a small spotted fawn, and had a wonderful time. I hope you don’t hold it against me that as a result I have no knitting to show today – and if you get the chance for an adventure like that, I hope you’ll also drop your yarn and run to meet it!

These pictures are a little smaller than usual because I took them with the camera in my phone. I wasn’t expecting any of them to come out well enough to share, but some did! So here they are.

I’ve always thought Jacob sheep were cool, especially the four-horned ones. Some only have two horns, but these all have four. If I ever have a farm, I’d like to have Jacob sheep – their wool is good for spinning, they are good to eat, and horns could be useful for any number of things.

I’d consider having a couple of alpaca, too, but as they’re primarily fiber animals, they seem a little bit less useful. Alpaca meat was once considered a delicacy, but apparently no one eats it any more. They are kind of scrawny under all that hair, but they’re so cute!

Llamas are also cute, but not on my list. This particular fellow barely moved as I walked around and snapped pictures of him. It was a very hot day, and while he’d been recently shorn, I think he was enjoying the breeze from the electric fan that was aimed at him.

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get any good pictures of the baby Pygora goats. Now those are cute little useful animals that I wouldn’t mind having a bunch of – maybe not Pygoras specifically, but goats in general. They’re another smallish animal that gives fibre, meat and milk. I’d also consider raising quail and rabbits.

Knitter’s Day at Veronica’s house was great! There were about a dozen people there, a half-ton of food, and *lots* of knitting. I brought the ribbed socks and got to within a few inches of the toe decreases. It will be great to finish a project, for the first time in months. Gonna crank through the rest of the socks-in-progress and get more of that finishing going on!

And I’ve made plans to go back to my old SnB next week for their anniversary celebration. I was there at the beginning; I would love to revisit everyone for an evening and catch up again. Besides, if I don’t spend the whole night talking, I’m sure I’ll make lots of progress on whatever project I bring.

In non-knitting domesticity, Pirate-Husband and I have been using the stand mixer to make lots of bread. The more loaves we make, the better they get! The latest was an oatmeal-raisin breakfast bread. We brought a loaf to my parents’ on Sunday, and they loved it. Last night we tried a recipe that could be used as a sandwich bread for cold cuts, with half white and half whole wheat flour. It was still in the oven when I went to bed, so I didn’t get any – but Pirate-Husband emailed to tell me that it’s “a semi-wheaty sandwich bread. Slightly chewy, soft, but it holds together well. The crust is perfect, it could be store-bought.” Hooray!