sweetgeorgia

I suck at knitting along.

It’s September 30th and tomorrow my fellow “Knitting on the Road” knitalong-ers will be moving on to the next set of socks, “Conwy”. Me? I’m missing the boat. Here I am at the toe of the first “Friday Harbour” sock:

I even started right on the first day of the KAL, August 1st, and can’t believe it’s been two months and this is as far as I’ve gotten on this sock. Shameful.

These “time management” issues have been on my mind for some time, but I was confronted with them a couple days ago when Roxanne posted a comment asking “How do you find time for everything?” And the answer is, I really really don’t.

I try to spin a bit every evening; I knit in the car on the way to work and back, at lunch and when I get together on weekends with friends; I dye on free Saturdays and update the shop on Mondays; and I work all week at my design business. But all the to-dos from work, home, craft, etc. pile up — the unfinished knit projects, the unspun wool, the undyed wool — it gets overwhelming. The only thing I can do is work on a little at a time and whittle away at it.

So, here’s the plan. There are a couple things I need to finish off: the Electra vest, the Trellis baby cardi, the Harry Potter scarf, and these socks! I’m going to frog the pink mohair mess that was a “Hollywood Knits” sweater and re-knit it (eventually) with my own pattern. And Lucky? Well that will be on hold until springtime.

Then, I can work on my lovely fairisle cardigan (ala Meg Swansen), start Na Craga for the DH, and possibly Rogue for me. I thought about setting up some rules for myself. Something like:

Maximum number of allowed projects at any one time: * One sweater for me * One sweater/big project for gifting * One lace shawl for me * Two pairs of socks

Hmm, I might still use that as a general guideline. But all I can say is, do a little bit everyday…

For naughty people who want to spin at work

Heh heh, here is the little spindle I made at work.

To make one, you’ll need:

• 1 free pencil from big name paper company
• 1 free cheese-shaped eraser from Babybel bag of round red cheeses
• some yarn to use as a leader (I stole some from my fairisle vest — that’s Rowan Felted Tweed! ooh, fancy!)
• 1 elastic band to hold the leader to the pencil.

I couldn’t actually get the tip of the pencil all the way through the eraser, but no matter, just as long as it doesn’t fall off! I could have probably used a paper clip as a hook and attached it to the pencil eraser, but I was in a bit of a panic (needing to spin that fibre that arrived from the postman) and didn’t think of it.

Enjoy your clandestine office spinning!

Twisted

You know you have a problem when you make a spindle out of a pencil and eraser so that you can spin at work.

Would you like some dryer lint with that?

Why yes, I do knit. But I’m feeling pulled in all directions — should I knit something for my dad’s upcoming 60th birthday, or all those friends and colleages who are newly pregnant, or be selfish and knit for myself? Well, let’s see…

I’m knitting for myself. Awful, aren’t I?

I started the cover vest on the new Rowan 38. It’s a simple fair isle vest with a combination of Yorkshire Tweed DK, Felted Tweed and Kidsilk Haze. Of course, Rowan has written the pattern as two flat pieces to be seamed later, but the rebel in me is knitting this gasp in the round. And I’m going to steek the armholes and front neck opening.

We’re not going to talk about how the colours in the printed Rowan magazine are totally and completely wrong. But I will say that when I pay an arm and a leg for Rowan yarn, I do expect to see nice and well-made yarns. I think that’s pretty basic. But this Yorkshire Tweed? Can you say “got VM?” Every foot or so, I’m picking out pieces of straw! And the yarn itself? It looks like rocket pop coloured dryer lint exploded on my knitting… but in a good way, I guess. The grist/weight of Yorkshire Tweed DK and Felted Tweed are different, so the fair isle comes out a little bubbly looking. Hopefully a good swish and block will make it behave.

And finally, I had a chance to update the shop with some new yarns — here they are for a group photo! See the new stuff here…

There’s one skein of sock yarn inspired by Firefly, plus another that’s inspired by Pumpkin Spice Lattes… speaking of which…

The man they call Jayne…

Here’s the finished Jayne hat!

I used 10.5 US (6.5 mm) needles for the hat and definitely got 3 sts per in for gauge. I loosely followed one of the Firefly hat patterns and cast on 64 stitches. It’s a BIG hat with a circumference of about 21-22″ around. I think this is too big and if I was really really OCD, I might actually rip the hat and re-knit it at 56 or 60 stitches. But I won’t. I also thought about felting it just slightly or trying to block it a teeny bit smaller, but I’m still unsure about that action. I don’t want it to end up being a thick felted fabric. Ugh.

This hat was super fast to knit — I had already cast on before we sat down for the Firefly marathon, but I think I finished it around the fifth episode.

Kaylee: I think it’s the sweetest hat ever.

Smooth, even and perfect

Wednesday night was the start of my new “Spinning & Dyeing” class at Place Des Arts. There’s quite range of experience in the class from people who have never seen a wheel or spindle before to those who are spinning and plying silks and wools. I assume this is because it’s kind of a continuous class…

But for this first class, Irene passed out some batts of washed and drum carded Romney wool — some of us started spinning right away while others learned to pick, tease, and card the wool with hand carders. The beginners then tried some drop spindles and by the end of the class were practicing treadling on big bulky spinners. To those of us that were spinning already, she encouraged us to spin “smooth, even and perfect” yarns — for now — because it is the jump point for learning to spin more experimental or novelty yarns.

In the same vein, I just received my copy of Pluckyfluff’s (Lexi Boeger) book “Handspun Revolution”. If you haven’t seen her yarns yet, take a peek — they are fun and inspired! (I love one skein that she made a while ago called “Koi Pond” that had orangey-red nubs spun into a turquoise base single yarn — it looked just like little goldfish in a stream!) It’s easy to pass this off as “bad” spinning — a lot of it is overtwisted, uneven, kinky or even felted — so I was delighted to read at the start of her book, “Challenge yourself to spin perfectly straight, even and balanced yarns. This is the only route to truly creative spinning. You have to understand the rules before you break them.”

She also encourages all spinners to do all their own fibre prep — learn to wash raw fleece, pick, tease, and card it yourself. This is to appreciate not only “what yarn is, but what it was“. The idea that if you only explore the narrow window of commercially and perfectly prepared top, you are missing out!

I also love her concept of how using handspun is a collaborative project or play between spinner and knitter. It seems so very… organic. But it also empowers spinners to make their yarns creative projects in their own right, rather than spinning soley to match commercially prepared yarns for use in knitted projects. Anyhow, I quite like this book (slim as it may be — although Mabel Ross’s “The Essentials of Handspinning” is even skinnier) and it gives new respect to cult spinning!

Here’s some of my own, not so cultish, spinning from this week:

And here’s some merino/tencel blend that I dyed up — this stuff spins up so shiny!

Happy Friday everybody!