The Knitting Pirate

KnitPicks has my vote based on shipping speed alone – I ordered this yarn only two days ago, and here it is. That is amazingly fast! This is the first time I’ve seen the Felici yarn in person, and already I’m pleased with it. It feels very soft and smells deliciously of wool. The only disappointment I have is that the skeins don’t begin with the same colour, so I’m going to have to skip a few stripes of one in order to make matching socks with the stripes properly lined up. It will be incredibly difficult to keep myself from casting on for the new Jaywalkers tonight. I haven’t been this excited about starting a new pair of socks in a while!

When I told Pirate-Husband about this yarn, he quipped, “If you knit the socks for me, then you could be The Time Traveler’s Wife.” *groan* Awful.

On Saturday, I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. My car turned 25k on the way, which is sort of amazing given that I’ve only had it for thirteen months. I drove up by myself and had a lovely time shopping, aiming mostly for things that I haven’t tried before. After lunch of a pretty good, not great lamb gyro I met up with friends Josh, Efrain, Sam and Jen and wandered around with them for a while. I helped Sam and Jen each pick out a drop spindle from Turnstyles, after looking through the selections at several other booths but not finding the ones that were just right.

This is what I bought:

On the left, eight ounces of Ashland Bay merino in “Lapis”. I know this is really standard commercial top, but it’s also quite nice to spin with, and I liked the colour. On the right, 4 ounces of a 50-50 merino/tencel blend from Bonkers Handmade Originals. I’ve never spun with tencel before, but the colours really shine and I couldn’t resist it.

Two four ounce packages of a merino-tussah-bamboo blend from Bullen’s Wullens. Bamboo is another new-to-me fibre. I was only going to get one package, but they were offering a deal for purchasing two, so…

On the left, a six ounce sampler of Jacob roving from Firefly Farm, another new-to-me fibre. I bought this with the thought that I’d spin each one separately and make some colourwork mittens or a hat. Or both, depending on how much yarn I get out of it. On the right, something I’ve been wanting to try for a while – roving that will spin into a tweedy yarn. It’s Corriedale from a sheep named Lilly, dyed with indigo and iron by Handspun by Stefania, with multicolour silk noil carded in to make the tweeds.

Lastly, eight ounces of merino pencil roving from Pucker Brush Farm. I really liked the colours, and I’ve never spun anything from pencil roving before. I think I’m going to like it! At this point, my backpack was stuffed full and I was (amazingly!) still under the budget I’d set for myself, so I stopped buying stuff. I’m sure if I kept looking, I would have found something else that I loved, but I resisted. We all headed back to Josh’s house to sort and crow over our loot, and so I could teach Jen and Sam to use their new spindles. That’s when Josh reminded me that he’d been holding onto a metric ton of roving from his former housemate, and offered to give some of it to me…

Four giant balls of mystery wool roving, averaging 420 grams each. It was processed some years ago by Frankenmuth Woolen Mill. Much of it was marked ‘unwashed’ or ‘rewash’, but there is very little vegetable matter in it. It feels like it has some lanolin, but a lot less than I think completely unwashed wool would have. If I had known that I’d be getting over 3.5 pounds of naturally-coloured roving, I might not have bought that Jacob sampler to do colourwork! I was also given 470g of alpaca blanket, two in brown and one in white. It’s unwashed as well, with some vegetable matter but not much, and it’s a lot higher quality than the second cuts I had at home to play/practice with. And all of that was only about a quarter of what was there! Sam and Jen each took another quarter, and we saved some for Janis.

It was a lot of fun teaching Sam and Jen to spin. They both picked up the basics of park-and-draft very quickly, and pretty soon Efrain was making a drop spindle from a CD and a chopstick so that he could try as well. Sam offered to buy my Ashford Traditional, Patience, from me – but I’m still not sure I want to sell her! I go back and forth about it. I love how she looks but I don’t spin on her since I got Grace, the Kromski Sonata. On the first hand, I have some emotional attachment to Patience since she was a birthday present. On the other, wouldn’t it be better if someone was making yarn with her?

Last weekend, while my house in Virginia was buried in more than two feet of snow, I went to Canada. Ironically, the weather there was beautiful and clear, if really cold. It was even too cold for me to want to skate on the canal. Instead, my sworn-sister the Ninja and I, along with our friend Amy, took an afternoon to visit yarn stores.

Our first stop was Wool N’ Things in Orleans, where I was thrilled to find some of the discontinued Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed, the same yarn that I used to knit my Fleep-Tops. I picked up two skeins in Cedar, a gorgeous dark green with red and yellow flecks. They’ll probably become another pair of Fleeps, as backup for when my first pair inevitably wears out. The green totally doesn’t match my dark blue winter coat, but it’s time for a new coat anyway. Perhaps something in green, or preferably black. Black goes with everything.

Then we headed over to Yarn Forward in Ottawa proper, where I bought two skeins of this super-soft (and superwash!) Lang Merino DK in a gray so dark it’s almost black. My first thought was that it might make a pair of Fleeps for Michael, but he wanted something thicker and tweedier, so I’m going to use it for a pair of classy office armwarmers for myself and pick up some Rowan Felted Tweed in as black as it comes for him. Not that I mind being able to use this pettably soft stuff for myself, not at all! I am thinking about making something like these Cafe au Lait Mitts from SnapperKnits, or perhaps I will come up with my own pattern for them.

I did have a disappointment this year: My old Stellar Toque, now over four years old, may be nearing retirement. It’s gotten stretched out and too large, and lets the wind through to my ears. I am thinking that before next Winterlude, I will knit a colourwork hat with earflaps and line it with fleece. We saw many of them in the Byward Market when we were there for the Stew Cook-Off on Friday, and I was seriously tempted to buy one – but why buy what I can knit? Pirate-Husband suggested that I could salvage the Stellar Toque by knitting earflaps onto it and lining it with fleece, instead of making a whole new hat. I could also felt it a little to shrink it and make it more windproof.

A visit from my swornsister the Knitting Ninja would not have been complete without a trip to at least one yarn store. We, along with our brother Michael, decided to check out the new Needles in the Haymarket. They’ve recently moved from the third floor of their building to a much larger store on the first floor. It’s quite nice already, and looks as if there’s even more yarn to come!

I told both sibs that I was on a yarn diet and would not be buying anything. Then this jumped into my hands. “These look like your colors,” I said to Michael, and maybe also “I would knit you another pair of socks,” and perhaps I might have added “One little skein won’t hurt, right?”

Said Michael, “If you’re going to knit socks for me, then I should buy the yarn for you.” And he did, thus absolving me of sin for having broken the yarn diet. (Isn’t it lovely and so subtle in the colors? I can’t wait to see how it knits up!)

Pirate-Husband laughed at me when I said “After this, I’m not going to buy any more yarn until MD Sheep and Wool in May.” Can I really go nine months without buying any yarn? We shall see – but that’s my plan!

But this was a special case (aren’t they all?) This is Opal Rainforest yarn in the discontinued and hard-to-find Tiger colorway, and I’ve been looking for two skeins of it for over a year so that I can make matching tiger paw socks for both of us. I finally found some through an Australian Raveler who was kind enough to ship overseas for me!

My favorite animal is the mountain lion, but Pirate-Husband likes tigers better, and so I thought it would be perfect to make him socks like these. Here is a link to the original project on Ravelry. I think they’re adorable!

I did tell Pirate-Husband that I have no idea when I’m going to actually get to knit these. But at least now I have the yarn, right?

When I pulled up the driveway this afternoon, I could see it on the front steps – my package from Discontinued Name Brand Yarn! I tore it open as soon as I got inside. Wow, this is red. It’s very red. It’s very, very red. I love it, partially because no one expects me to be the sort of person who’d wear something very, very red.

I like doing things that no one expects me to do. About five years ago at a convention, I complimented a friend on her pink cargo pants and added, “I would so wear a pair of pants like that.” Twenty heads swiveled around and what seemed like twenty voices chorused in unison, “You? YOU would wear PINK pants?” …so I went home from the convention and bought a pair of pink cargo capris. Here is photographic evidence of me wearing the pinkness in Philadelphia the following summer.

Anyway, it might be some time before I start the huge task of knitting the Rhiannon socks. I have three pair of socks on the needles as well as some other projects, and at least one piece of babywear queued up (the baby’s not even a glimmer yet, but I know he or she is going to be announced relatively soon). But they’re right up there. I’d like to have them done in time for next September. That gives me a year. I should be able to knit them in a year!

I know I said I didn’t need any.

I know I said I would only buy yarn at festivals.

I know I have enough yarn, especially sock yarn, to keep me knitting for at least five years.

But I didn’t buy any yarn or fiber at Pennsic, and yesterday there was a sale on Louet Gems Fingering at Discontinued Brand Name Yarn, which is just the stuff I need to make Cookie A.’s Rhiannon socks. I could not resist the incredible price of $3.49/skein, marked down from $13.95/skein, and so I bought five skeins in *cherry red*, which should be the most awesome color for knee socks ever.

I bought this pattern (the picture is from Cookie A.’s site) back in September, when I attended her top-down sock design class, and I’ve been waiting for the right yarn to show up ever since. Nothing was quite right – it was too expensive, it was the wrong color, it had the wrong feel to it. But now I’ve got the right stuff! It may take me forever and a day to knit these monsters, but I am really excited about them! Doesn’t everyone need a pair of cherry-red knee socks? I’m already daydreaming the outfit to go with them – maybe one of those cute flared black skirts, a blouse with just the right red to match. Most likely it’ll take me as long to find the right pair of shoes as it will to knit the socks, so I’d better start looking for those now. It’s not always easy to find affordable size 10.5 shoes that aren’t terribly ugly.

Pirate-Husband thinks that I should wear them as thigh-high socks with the tops unfolded. I’m not so sure, but he can be awfully convincing sometimes…

Earlier this afternoon, at one of those warehouse stores where you can buy six pounds of peanut butter at a time, Pirate-Husband talked me into getting nine clear stackable plastic totes for yarn and fiber storage. Admittedly, it didn’t take much arm-twisting.

I spent some time sorting and filling them, and now I am feeling as if my room is much neater! It looks much better to have my stash in totes, rather than in a variety of cardboard boxes. I have one for sock yarn and one for miscellaneous stuff that got in my stash when I wasn’t looking. One holds the yarn for big projects, and one holds everything else. Three have fiber… but I think that’s about to be four, as I’m going to move the fiber that lives near the wheel to a tote. Having everything in sight will probably keep me from impulsively buying more, and remind me to keep working on the time-consuming projects, like carding alpaca.

Slowly, slowly… organization is happening. I still have not yet painted the room, so there’s a lot that isn’t unpacked yet. After over a year in the house, it might be time to get around to that, y’think?

On Saturday, Janis and I went to the Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival, and had a wonderful time! For the most part, I kept to my shopping list. I didn’t buy anything that wasn’t on the list, and I didn’t buy some things that were on the list, like semi-solid sock yarns. I didn’t buy any yarn at all, actually!

I picked up both a spinner’s control card and a WPI (wraps per inch) tool, which is basically just a bit of wood with a one inch notch cut in it. These should help me get to a point where I’m more consistent in my spinning.

Then I bought a variety of fibers to spin – a four ounce braid of Merino/silk in a foresty green and brown, four ounces each of Merino/silk and Falklands dyed in the same bluesy colorway that I plan to spin separately and ply together, eight ounces of “Starry Night”, 50-50 wool and mohair with a bit of gold glitz, and an eight ounce bag of Finn/mohair locks in a variety of colors that somehow all go together well.

Janis and I are splitting two pounds of raw Romney, but she’s taking the whole of it home with her to clean. I think that’s awesome of her!

I snagged about fourteen ounces of Corriedale in a bunch of solid colors for making blends on the drum carder, but I couldn’t find any nylon roving at the show. When I got home, I ordered a pound of it from Sheep Shed Studio. I got a few small baggies of glitz in different colors to blend in, surprising myself, as I never thought I’d like the stuff. It’s a lot less scratchy than I thought it would be.

What’s surprising is that I decided that I like the walnut finish on the Kromski Sonata better than the new mahogany finish. I had been so excited for the Sonata to be released in mahogany, as I’d seen both finishes on websites here and there and didn’t really care for the walnut much. Now that I’ve seen them in person, I’m definitely leaning towards the walnut!

On Sunday, I sorted out the colors in the Finn/mohair blend and carded two batts. The fiber seems to be less clean than I thought it would be; I’m definitely noticing lanolin on my hands, and wondering if I should re-wash it before I card any more. The first batt seems to be more mohair, and the second more Finn. I teased the locks apart with my fingers and fed the batt through three times. For the second batt, I used the teasing tool that came with the carder to open up the locks more, and only had to do two passes to get a reasonably smooth batt.

When I was tired of carding, I went upstairs and spun for about 45 minutes before bed. I’m working on some Ashland Bay merino top that might be thin enough for a three-ply sock yarn, and coming to the end of the second bobbin. I’ll have to weigh the singles, since I was stupid and didn’t split the top before I began.

More pictures when I have a sunny day, so I can get good shots with accurate color!

I got this yarn as part of a Ravelry gift swap, and I am appropriately ashamed that I didn’t immediately take pictures of it and add it to the stash. Here we have some 100% linen laceweight in purple. I have no idea what to do with it, but the color is beautiful! It’s about 165 yards, lightly variegated. What could I make with this?

And here’s 600 meters of grey Icelandic laceweight, which may one day become a shawl. It’s sort of hairy and coarse, so it wouldn’t be suitable for a next-to-the-skin project. Both of these yarns are beautiful and neither of them is something I’d've purchased on my own, so it’s perfect to have gotten them in a gift swap!