The Knitting Pirate

It’s getting to be that gift-giving time of year again, isn’t it? Yesterday, Pirate-Husband asked me what I wanted for my birthday and Chanukah gifts. My birthday is in January and his is in December, so we often do combined presents in order to get one bigger thing.

The problem is, I have no idea what I want.

Lots of the things on my wishlist are way out of our budget. They’re things I’m saving up for, like a new laptop, a new monitor, and a fancy-schmancy camera. Some of the things on my wishlist are mere thoughts of what I might want if I didn’t already have a time-consuming fibre addiction, like a bowling ball and new shoes. Some are things I’m just not ready to get yet, like a book reader, and some are things I’d much rather buy for myself, like clothing and makeup.

But then there are the knitting and spinning related things. I’m sure I could ask for a gift certificate to the yarn store, or to pick out a bunch of hand-dyed top on Etsy. But I really don’t need any new yarn or fibre. Unless maybe it was natural fibre, in which case I’d also ask for a set of dyes… but that seems messy, and our basement really isn’t set up for that kind of work (yet). Knitting or spinning books, maybe.

Oh, hey, what about a jumbo flyer kit for the Sonata and an extra bobbin (in walnut)? That would definitely make plying easier, and it’s something I’d like to have that I almost certainly wouldn’t buy for myself.

If only I could get the gift of time. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have four extra hours in every day? Imagine all the knitting I could get done…

Before the rain came through on Sunday, I was able to get outside to take some pictures. This is the merino top from Baba Black Sheep that I picked up at Maker Faire last weekend. It’s just under 4.5 ounces. I bought the fibre without having any plans for it. The way it spins up will help to determine what the knitting project will be. The deep blues and greens might be good as the background in some colourwork with a cream yarn for the contrast. Maybe some of the alpaca I have lying around would work for that. It was quite difficult to get the true colours of this fibre to show in the picture. The camera kept veering too light or too dark or too washed-out. Maybe it’s time to think about setting up a lightbox or even getting a new, better camera…

I finished the pointy hat for Angie’s baby on Friday night. It is adorable, and I’m sure she’s going to love it! Cascade Fixation was a good choice. The knitted fabric is firm enough that the hat doesn’t flop over at all, and the elastic will help keep it on. I’ve gotten started on the matching booties, and made myself go to bed at bedtime last night, even though I was so close to finishing the second bootie. Ah well, I can finish it up tonight and cross another project off my list. That’ll be a good feeling.

While I had the camera out, I got a picture of Mom’s first sock. The blocker that I made in two minutes from a wire hanger seems to be working well. The pattern is pretty simple, and very similar to the Sibling Socks, but I’m considering writing it up for publication anyway. Why not? There are a couple of things about it that are different from many of the ribbed patterns I’ve seen: first, the ribbing goes all the way down the heel, and second, I really like the way there’s no break in the purl ‘gutter’ between the leg of the sock and the foot. I’ve got the numbers written up for two sizes already. Might as well share, right? What do you think?

Speaking of design, I’ve got another pattern in the works. I’ve written most of it up, but the final version will have to wait until I can knit one up as a sample, to make sure I’ve got the numbers right. Then I’ll release it as another free, Creative-Commons licensed pattern.

Aubrey the Adorable. (Floyd is also adorable, but being both squirmy and dark-furred, he’s much more difficult to photograph.) I got this picture of her the other day just as she was just waking up from her afternoon nap. It’s amazing how empty the house seems without the kittens – they’ve spent the weekend at the vet’s for their spay/neuter surgeries. I’ll be picking them up after work today. Hopefully they haven’t felt too lonely and abandoned, and hopefully their recovery will be quick and easy!

On Saturday, Michael and I went to Maker Faire. It was pretty freaking awesome. We saw some really cool stuff – self replicating 3D printers, the Egg-Bot in action, and a fully functional lifesize game of Mousetrap. Not to mention the ArcAttack performance! We went wandering through the vendors and I was tempted (without any arm-twisting at all, really) into buying a 4+ ounce braid of locally sourced and hand-dyed merino top in deep blues and greens. I haven’t taken a picture of it yet, but as soon as the sun comes out I will.

I knit while I was riding the train, and it made the trip go by super-fast. On the way to New York, I finished off the fingers on the first Fleep-Top and got started on the Gnome Baby hat (link to pattern page on Ravelry). I held my breath when Michael tried on the glove, but there was nothing to worry about. It fits perfectly, and all the fingers are the right length. Whew! On the train ride home, I came close to finishing the baby hat. I’m already into the decreases which will form the point. (That red should be much more red. It’s not easy to get a good picture of such a saturated colour while on a moving train!)

Cascade Fixation is a funny yarn to knit with, but I’m not yet sure if that’s good funny or bad funny. It doesn’t hurt my hands like most cotton yarns do, but I find it difficult to keep an even tension due to the elastic content. I don’t want to pull too tightly on it, but I have to be extra careful of my tension between needles or I’ll get ladders. It’s great for baby clothes since it’s not rough or scratchy, and the elastic will certainly help keep the hat and booties on the baby rather than on the floor… but I think I’d rather knit with wool.

My sister-in-law has asked me to hold off on knitting for the twins until she finds out if they’ll be boys, girls, or one of each. She’d like to colour-code her babies, and so that project has been put on the back burner for a few more weeks. So far, the leading pattern is the Presto Chango – I really like the idea of having swappable front panels in which I can try different stitch patterns. Even with this delay, I have renewed confidence that I’ll be able to finish all my gift knits by their deadlines. Working up most of a hat in just a few hours has reminded me of how fast a baby-project goes.

Almost home, waiting at Metro Center for the train. I’m fascinated by the shapes of the concrete in the metro stations. That must be a good thing, since I had to wait twenty minutes for my train to come along…

I have a problem with Ravelry.

No, no, wait – before you run me out of town, hear me out! This is my problem: There are so many awesome patterns available that I’d never have known about, if it weren’t for Ravelry. And if I didn’t know about them, I wouldn’t want to knit them all. But now I do know about them, and I do want to knit them all.

For example, the Oktoberfest sock. I mean, really, it’s a sock kit with a pattern that makes your socks look like glasses of beer. The kit comes with beer-coloured yarn in three different flavours, and it even has a foamy white head. How absolutely awesome is this sock? Of course I want to knit this (psst, anyone who buys me gifts, I like the “Irish Red” colourway and I’d need the large size) but even if I got it now, it might be Oktoberfest 2013 before I get to wear the socks. That doesn’t stop me from wanting it every time I see the pattern come up in one of the banner ads. (Picture is from the Holiday Yarns website.)

Here’s one I just found today: a twelve inch doll, knitted in the round, with adorable foofy hair and even a little belly button. I bet I know a three and a half year old nieceling who might like a little doll so that she can play Mommy when her twin siblings are born next spring. But I also bet I know that I can’t take on any more time-based knitting commitments in the foreseeable future. Arrgh, if only I could take a month off work to sequester myself with yarn.

So much to knit… so little time!

I did not knit at all last night. Instead I had a good conversation with Pirate-Husband while we dragged a string around on the floor for the kittens to play with. It was 100%, absolutely, incredibly worth it. They are adorable little monsters. I hope they won’t be too mad at us next weekend when we drop them off at the vet’s to be fixed. They’ll be gone from Saturday through Monday, and the house will seem so empty without them!

After a wonderful dim sum brunch with a group of friends, Janis and I celebrated “World Wide Spin in Public Day” by, what else, spinning in public! We set up our wheels at a local coffeehouse and got to work. I brought eight ounces of merino pencil roving with me. After a few frustrating undertwisted yards that kept drifting apart, I was able to get a good single going. The pencil roving has colour changes every six to nine inches, so I plan on chain-plying the singles to keep the striping going. The yarn should come out to be a good fingering weight once it’s plied. Spinning sock yarn does take a long time, but I like knitting socks best of all, so I end up spinning a lot of worsted, fine singles.

We’d originally thought to sit outside the coffeehouse and spin, for the best “in public” experience, but it was really bright out and I didn’t have sunscreen with me. Even so, a few people stopped to watch us spin indoors, and one even asked to take our picture to send to her fibre-fiend sister. That was really cool – and she was nice enough to send us a copy of the picture. (These two aren’t them; I remembered I had my camera after she’d gone and Pirate-Husband was kind enough to take some shots of us.)

I can’t have a spinning day without teaching a friend to spin. This is Stef, learning the drop spindle (my Cascade Little Si, which weighs about an ounce and a half) with some bright green top. Janis’s larger spindle is on the table. Stef decided that spinning really wasn’t her thing, but she does want to learn to knit. I’m not as confident teaching people to knit as I am to spin, but hopefully I can get the concept across well without too much frustration on either side. Maybe I’ll ask Janis to help with the teaching. Since she knits English and I prefer Continental, it might be good for both of us to be there so we can teach both ways. Then Stef can pick whichever she likes better!

Janis and I, along with Stef and Sam, also stopped by Woolwinders to check out the new inventory. They have a pretty good selection of higher-end yarns, but very little in my favourite “cheap sock yarn” range. I wasn’t going to buy anything at first, but Sam and I have been talking about designing a shawl together, so I got this Madelinetosh Merino Light in the “Vintage Frame” colourway for that. Sam also got a skein of Merino Light, but in a dark purples and black colourway. I won’t have time to design and execute a shawl for a while, but this beautiful pewter-coloured fingering-weight single will be perfect when I get to it. We’re discussing the possibility of incorporating the same stitch patterns into both a triangular shawl and a rectangular stole.

Floyd and Aubrey are out cold. This might be the only time I could knit in front of them without fearing for my yarn. Fortunately, kittens sleep a lot…

While my friends and neighbors at Pennsic said that I’d made amazing progress on Mom’s sock, I’m actually a little disappointed. I made it past the heel and through the gusset decreases, but I’d hoped to get the entire first sock finished while I was there. It was really just too hot to knit much of the time, and there were other things going on, too. That said, it’s coming out beautifully. There’s a little bit of pooling around the gusset, but I expected that. I love this yarn just as much as the first time I used it. I’m using almost exactly the same pattern; the only change I made was to take out four stitches, because Mom’s feet are just a little bit smaller.

My Pennsic-friend Alaric makes wood and stone drop spindles, although he himself doesn’t spin. Last year I bought one from him to give to Gaerwen, another SCA friend, who was receiving an award for her skills in spinning and natural dyeing. This year I came home with a twelve inch long, 25 gram, cherry spindle of my own. He had some which were all wood, and some with stone whorls, and some with double stone whorls that could be swapped in and out to get different weights. Every time I see him, I tell him to get an Etsy shop set up and then to advertise on Ravelry!

I really liked this particular spindle of the ones he had, and it fits well into my collection – now I have a 14g (from the Spanish Peacock) for really fine stuff, this 25g for medium, and a 34g spindle (the Cascade Little Si) for slightly heavier yarn. I generally like spinning at the wheel a lot better than using a drop spindle, but there are times when spindles are convenient. They’re certainly lighter to carry and take up less space, but also I’ve found that it’s easier to teach new spinners on a spindle.

This is the stuff that was mostly done before I went on vacation…

The three skeins of Jacob yarn had been plied during the Tour de Fleece, but I didn’t get to washing it until after vacation. The yarn came out so unexpectedly soft – the darkest one is the softest. I’ve been told that the different colours of wool on a Jacob sheep will actually have different staple lengths, but as I got this fibre already prepped into roving, I didn’t notice. I’m still looking for the perfect colourwork earflap hat pattern for this yarn. The two darker colours are closer in value than I’d like, but I think that can be worked around. I have 104 yards of the darkest colour, and 92 yards each of the medium and white – plenty for a hat!

This is the corriedale from EthnicityGoddess on Etsy. I’d spun and plied this just before the Tour de Fleece began, but again, was lazy about the washing. Now it’s 218 yards of a bouncy three-ply yarn with subtle colours. Pirate-Husband suggested that it would be great for making thick flip-top mittens, and I think I agree with him. But that will be a far-off future project, since I already have so much planned for the near future.

I was incredibly surprised when I found out that I’d won a prize in the Tour de Fleece. Sure, it was a random number generator that chose me, but that doesn’t make it any less cool to have won something! I had my choice of prizes and went for a four ounce blend of fibre I’ve never spun before – BFL/tussah – in a colourway that is about the farthest thing from ‘my colours’ as I could get. It’s called ‘Sherbert and Ernie’ and it’s from Susan’s Spinning Bunny. Thank you so much for donating a prize and making the Tour de Fleece that much more exciting!

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.

Three weeks of spinning nearly every day for the Tour de Fleece has been great, for so many reasons. First, because doing something every day (or nearly every day) is bound to make you better at it, and I feel like my spinning skills have subtly increased. No great big leaps of skill or whooshing breakthroughs, but I’m definitely better than when I started.

Second, because I do love a good challenge. And I love having a challenge that, if I don’t quite meet it, it’s all right. I’d set a goal to spin every day that my ankles were up to it, and I met that. Well, with the exception of the rest days, and the weekend I spent in New York. I’m okay with that. I’d also set a goal to spin and ply a pound of yarn… which I didn’t meet. But you know what? That’s still a heck of a lot of spinning, and quite a bit more yarn than I had when I began this adventure. It’s been freeing to take on a challenge with the foreknowledge that a) I might not make it but b) that’s totally okay. I’m not down on myself for not getting there, I’m feeling great because I got as far as I did! If I do this crazy thing again next year, I’ll set a one-pound goal again, and with (kenahora*) healthy ankles, I should be able to make it.

Thirdly, because I really do like spinning.

Fourthly, because Pirate-Husband has been nothing but supportive of me and my yarnish hobby, especially during the Tour. Some evenings I felt guilty saying “No, I don’t want to watch a movie with you, I want to go upstairs and spin.” But he’s been awesome about it, cheering me on and admiring the yarn that is slowly but surely taking over all the available shelf-space in my room.

So, a wrapup: What did I accomplish in the past three weeks? I spun and plied six ounces of natural Jacob roving that will become a hat, spun four ounces of Rambouillet combed top that’s meant to be chain-plied and then to become socks, and spun three of four remaining ounces of wool/mohair/angelina roving, which is coming out to be a worsted/chunky-weight soft sparkly deliciousness, and which Pirate-Husband thinks I should knit into a scarf for Grandma. The fourth ounce of that roving is hanging from the wheel; I may get to it tonight and then I can ply it later in the week. I spun the first four ounces of it last fall, and it came out to be 138 yards. If the second skein is the same, then I should have enough for a medium-sized scarf.

And now what? Now I go back to knitting. Vacation begins in just over a week and I have to decide which projects to bring with me! The baby knits? The gift-socks? My own socks? A whole new project? So many options!

——————————————————————————————–
* Kenahora isn’t quite Yiddish and it isn’t quite Hebrew, and it isn’t quite one word, either! It’s actually three words slurred together: kein, the Yiddish word for no or negating, ayin, which is Hebrew for eye, and hara, Hebrew for Evil. It’s what you say when you want to ward off the evil eye – in other words, when you don’t want to jinx yourself. So, kenahora, I will have healthy ankles next July and I will be able to spin and ply a full pound of fibre.

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.