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| of hobbies that take up way too much of my money and room in my apartment. I was bitten by the spinning/dyeing bug a year or so ago but only recently did I switch gears into full-on obsession. I took a weekend class last October, and while the dyeing segment was successful, I didn't get the hang of spinning on a spindle. I enjoyed playing with the dye and the yarn and all the wonderful potential. When it came time to apply the color to the yarn, I went with my inner Goth and created this mixture of black and dark blue, and bright turquoise.  The dyeing was a lot of fun, and it was exciting to see all the colorways and interpretations other members of the workshop came up with. It was a beautiful autumn day and we put our new creations outside to dry in the sun. I desparately wanted to learn how to spin, but my spinning wasn't as immediately satisfying as my dyeing. It was fun, and  I was able to try a couple of different spinning wheels, but I couldn't draft the fiber properly. I was not pleased with the small amount of undyed yarn I created. It looked as though it unraveled after I took it off the spindle. I put it away and didn't pick up a spindle again. But I still dreamt of spinning. I subscribed to Spin Off, I bought books on spinning, and I joined several spinning groups on Ravelry, where I oohed, aahed, and jealously coveted all the wonderful yarns the other Ravelers posted. True to form and generous to the last, the other spinners were eager to answer my questions, satisfy my curiosity and offer advice and information to the new girl. Some might use the word "enabler," but who am I to comment?!  Almost one year later, a different yarn shop offered a two-session class on spindle spinning. Eager to try again, I signed up, along with an unexpected buddy--my sister. Together we learned how to spin on a spindle, and I finally learned how to draft properly. It took all of five minutes, when the teacher took my spinning out of my hands and said, "You're doing it wrong." She patiently showed me how to pull the yarn away from the spindle--two or three times, truth be told--and in that single act, she unlocked the mystery of spinning for me. Leah, I'm forever grateful. You rock, lady! I went home and started spinning that night.
I have two small skeins of chunky hot-pink yarn at home. I have one ball of wonderfully organic undyed gray wool. I'm working my way through the gray Coopworth top so I have enough handspun to make a nice winter cap. I have some great photos in my camera; they'll be part of my next post. All the knitting I've been planning has all been pushed (not just pushed, SHOVED--shoved, I say!) to the side while I only have spinning on the brain. This makes me a bad person. My dog, who shivers when it's cold outside, has been patiently waiting for the handknit sweater I promised him. It will be acrylic, since I'll undoubtably need to throw it in the wash. Sorry, Spike. Maybe I'll start it next week... | | |
|  First of all, I know, I'm a bad blogger! Poor li'l neglected Xanga site. Hopefully I've made amends by including...this picture of adorable alpacas! I went to Fiber Revival 2009 on Saturday the 15th to indulge in a little fibery goodness. This was the third year the festival was held at the Spencer-Pierce-Little Farm in Newbury, MA, but the first year I heard about it. Needless to say I was pretty excited! It was near 90-degrees on Saturday but it was a beautiful day for a drive straight up Route 1A, with an easy turn right into the museum entrance. iI drove up a wide lane lined with beautiful, ancient, sweeping trees. It wasn't hard to imagine the road as a dirt lane on which carriages rode up to the main house two centuries ago. It's nice to see the trees are still there. Not only was this my first time at the festival, it was my first visit to the farm, which I've been meaning to visit for some time. The house itself was a beautiful old stone and wood mansion, with acres of farmland and museum exhibits.  They were offering free tours that day but we didn't stay long enough to take advantage. I found it a little confusing, trying to find the usual exhibits among the festival; I'll have to pay another visit when the museum isn't hosting an event. I feel weird taking photos of people's booths and of other people, so please excuse the lack of fiber-related photos. (Obviously, I had no problem photographing other people's alpacas.) My favorite part of the festival was that herd of adorable alpacas! I've never seen one in person and they are just as gentle as can be. I love their big, expressive eyes, and they all look like they're smiling. They were lovingly attended by their human family. There were a couple of baby alpacas in the crowd, but the photo above is the best one I could get; they all turned their backs to me whenever I snapped a photo! The alpacas were there for the festival, but a variety of animals live on the farm every day. I couldn't resist getting a shot of this little guy (girl?) when I saw him sleeping in the sun. He was so completely unaware of all the yarn and spinning behind him, I had to laugh. Look at how his front paws are stretched apart. I was admiring his gray and white stripes while simultaneously coveting the spinning wheel behind him. There are a variety of farm animals that are cared for and used for educational purposes, such as horses, goats, (giant!) pigs, chickens and even a turkey. Many of the animals are rescues, and the museum has a donation box asking for help in caring for them. I snapped what I thought would be a picturesque view of a sheep by an old shed--when the sheep moved, I realized she only had three legs. I envied the groups of fiber enthusiasts who had travelled together, or met up, and brought their projects, folding chairs and lunches. I was accompanied by one non-knitter (Mom) and one extremely casual knitter (my sister). This basically limited us to looking at the exhibits and doing a little shopping.  It was hard to limit myself but I spent a mere $41: $20 for a 4poz. bag of alpaca roving, and $21 on some handpainted sock yarn--you can never have too much handpainted sock yarn! The roving is a beautiful undyed mocha brown color, and came from an alpaca named Dani Girl. This was the first time I met the source of my spinning and knitting face-to-face! Dani Girl, on the other hand, seemed less impressed than I was... My sister was the biggest surprise of the day: she walked into the festival, saw the vendor selling unprocessed fleeces and decided she wanted to take up spinning! 
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| This is Spike, my newest buddy. He's a "sato"--Spanish slang for a stray, or street dog. Spike was abandoned on a street corner in Puerto Rico by his owner. He stayed on that corner for days waiting for his owner to come back. Spike was rescued by a shelter in PR who gave him medical care and lots of attention. He then stayed with a foster family for several weeks before boarding a plane for the US. He lived at a shelter for a few weeks before finding his new home. Spike is a total sweetie--he's friendly and affectionate--the complete opposite of his name. Someone in Puerto Rico gave him his name--his medical records are in Spanish and on the line asking for his nombre it's given as Spike! Friends have joked about my new "attack dog." It doesn't help matters that I coincidentally ended up getting my first tattoo on the same weekend I got Spike. His favorite method of "attack" is to curl up on someone's lap and settle down for a cuddle, then fall asleep. Yep, he's 12 pounds of fury all right. Spike had a hard life before I adopted him. He is so getting a nice handknit sweater!  I bought him a cute yellow parka and a blue, green and brown argyle sweater from the local pet boutique. He doesn't like the sweater. It's too big, and as my sister was walking him in it the other day a neighbor (male) said to her, "Who put that sissy sweater on my little buddy?" I think Spike took it personally. We bought a sweater because we wanted him to have something right away. He shivers when it's cold out. Now he'll have to wait until I knit him one. Now that I have to keep the whole "sissy issue" in mind, I'm not sure what to knit. It will have to be a basic, plain-colored sweater. I have a couple of free patterns from the internet. I ordered some yarn today from Webs. I was originally on their website to buy the supplies to make the new Blue Skies stuffed chickens with their dyed cotton but I threw in a couple hanks of Blue Skies' bulky alpaca in a nice orangy-natural and a nice brown color, respectively. I'm hoping to knit it up quickly, but the warm weather's just around the corner so it may have to be put away until next fall. I'm sure there will be a few more chilly mornings though.
Spike is a daschund/chihuahua mix, and we suspect there is some terrier in him as well. I think he's also part cat. He can jump pretty high for a dog, and often ends up on balancing on the arm of my armchair or the sofa. He seems to be laying claim to my entire knitting area. He thinks my armchair is his, and he's gotten into my yarn a few times so I may have to move my Lantern Moon three-tiered yarn holder. I have a nice green wooden Chinese rice basket that I had set up by my chair to store my current knitting projects in. He got into that so I had to move it somewhere else. I can see that knitting with Spike around is going to be a challenge for a while, but I'm confident he'll get used to my knitterly activities and that he'll settle down. Maybe getting a sweater of his own will help. | | |
|  Crocuses are slowly sprouting all over the place, the temperatures are tentatively reaching out for the 60s, and tourists with maps in hand have been sighted all over Salem. That can only mean one thing: Spring is here! And even though I'm still plugging away at the hooded tunic, I've cast on not one but two different sock projects.
For my birthday a couple of months ago, I treated myself to a custom-dyed yarn order from Three Irish Girls for some colorful socks. This is the Donegan colorway, a gorgeous blend of soft blue, turquoise and chocolate in their Adorn sock yarn. It's deliciously soft and "sproingy." This yarn cried out to me for a cabled sock pattern so, after much pattern book consultation, I chose the Zigzag sock pattern from Vogue Knitting's Ultimate Sock Book. The pattern is an adorably clever fake cable: a slightly confused cable that zigs and zags all over the sock. No cable needle required, it's all done with knits, purls, yo's, ssk's and k2tog's. I don't have a good close-up photo showing the cable pattern, but once these are done and i can put them on I'll post one. In the book the sock is done in a pale pink and it's very pretty. I think a variegated yarn may be a bit too busy for this pattern, which also has subtle lacey holes throughout, so I bought some Knit Picks Palette in pale pink to do another pair of Zigzag. But this is a fun, interesting pattern; a wee bit challenging but not really. I love how soft this yarn is and the funky colors are making this a blast!
 Here is my sock-in-progress. It begged me to walk over to the harbor on my lunch hour to knit on it for a while and to be photographed amid the natural scenery. I didn't have any checkers or chess pieces with me, but the sock didn't seem to mind.
 Here's a lovely view of Salem harbor. It was 70+ degrees yesterday in the Boston area. I love being near the water; it's relaxing and it refreshes my spirit.
I've spent entirely too much money on yarny goodness lately (just when is that Economic Stimulus check coming, anyway? I do have bills to pay, you know) but it's fun! I made my way over to Seed Stitch last night for the funky Friday night iPod party knitting night. It was a great group of ladies--there were no guys last night, though rumor has it they show up from time to time. Anyone with an iPod was asked to make a mix at least 2 hours long and bring the iPod in so they could plug it into the awesome sounding Bose iPod dock. I totally want one even more now but I hesitate at spending the money (wait a minute--did someone say Economic Stimulus check?). I planned on buying the yarn to make my own version of Skully, but with a different chart on the sleeves, so I could start it there. But like an idiot, I forgot to throw Donegan in my bag in case they didn't have the yarn I wanted in stock. Of course they didn't so, instead of placing an order and leaving, I threw in 2 skeins of Regia's Kaffe Fassett sock yarn in Fire and some Addi DPNs. Hence my second sock project. Oh well, I kept drooling over this color in the Webs catalog anyway, so now I've got it! I had to order Lamb's Pride bulky in black, of all things, so now I need to begin planning my sweater.
I want to make a more fitted version of Skully, with not-quite-so-humungous sleeves. But this requires math, my evil nemesis, so I may need to sign up for a studio session or two to have a knittng professional help me write the pattern. I'd also prefer to knit it in the round rather than flat. I'll keep you all posted once I get going on this.
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|  Today I successfully hand-dyed my first hank of yarn. I'm so proud! Ain't it pretty? I used a hank of Knit Picks' Bare Fingering Weight yarn and Blastin' Black Cherry Kool-Aid. I know it's in keeping with the whole "ruby/red" theme I have going on here, but I expected it to be a little darker, perhaps veering toward purple a little, like black cherry usually does, as opposed to a bright cherry red. But I like it a lot, and I'm very happy with the results. This is a picture of my yarn simmering away on my stove. The finished result is the same as the color you see here.
Thanks to Knitty's instructions I was able to put my yarn on the stovetop to simmer, start doing some homework, and check back on it periodically. Don't you love when knitters share? It was extremely simple, and lots of fun. I made a quick trip to Special Thoughts, the local discount outlet/seconds/overstock store to pick up some cheap cookware supplies that I'll reserve just for dying yarn. I love the nice, deep pot--it comes with a lid. I filled in the gaps in Special Thought's inventory with a stop in Wal-Mart for the rest of my supplies: cheap tongs, rubber gloves (I got pink ones-HA!), turkey basters and, for a mere $9.99, a three-tiered set of bamboo steamers for when I start hand-painting yarn. Not bad.
Here are the specs, in case anyone's interested:
1 hank Knit Picks Bare yarn, Fingering Weight (the hand-wash only version) 440 yards/100 grams (4 oz)
5 packs Kool-Aid in Blastin' Black Cherry (1 pack per ounce of yarn recommended, I added one more in an attempt to produce a darker color)
 Now my yarn is hanging in the bathroom drying. The flash from my camera has added a pinkish sheen around the middle but the yarn is a nice, uniform bright red all over. The yarn is well-saturated and there are no uneven/undyed areas.
I was planning on making a pair of red socks with a Gingerbread Cable pattern (found in Vogue's Ultimate Sock Knitting) but there's so much yarn in this hank I may just knit the socks and then set my sights a little higher. Perhaps a shawl too? I could dye two more hanks in different colors and do some type of lace patterning. I'll have to think about/play with this a little. Spin Off's Spring 08 issue has inspired me with its article on Scandanavian shawls. Bare's hand-wash was $3.49 per hank; I expected it to be a lot smaller. I didn't pay attention to the details in the catalog, I just added the yarn onto my book order at the last minute and decided to go for the hand-dying process. This is my first, but certainly not my last, round of yarn dyeing. Now I'm just waiting for my apartment to stop smelling like fruity goodness and wet wool. | | |
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