First up, spinning!

Here are all the spindles in Spindle Jail. I finally came up with a way to store my spindles that keeps them safe from nosy cats. I actually had asked John to build me something to hang them, and he came home from Target with this.

It’s simply a wire mesh basket. I cut the price tag off, turned it upside down, and voilá, a Spindle Jail. Low tech, but it works. Smart man, that one. He came home with two of these, figuring I’d add to the collection at some point. Very smart man.

There’s been a lot of spinning going on for the Tour de Fleece.

And I’m still working on the never ending pile of Corriedale. In a moment of insanity, I bought 3 pounds of this stuff with the plan to make sweater yarn. I’m almost through the first pound. Since I plan to spin all the singles before I ply it, I needed to figure out some way to store the singles so I could reuse bobbins. I have a bunch of bobbins for my wheel, but not enough to keep spinning 3 pounds of wool. Bobbins are expensive, so I found these. Here they are in action.

Click on that last one to see how pretty my singles are!

Next up, knitting! Yes, I’m still knitting around here, though there’s been damn little of it since the Tour started. I actually finished something.

Project Details:

Started: Oh good grief. I’m pretty sure I didn’t record the date. I finished the last pair of socks in December of last year, for pete’s sake, so I probably started these right away. ETA: not true, apparently. According to Ravelry, I started these in September of 2009. Yup, here we are. I started a second pair, since the pair on the needles was on very sharp Signature dpns that I didn’t think would get through airport security. Incidentally, those were the only pair I knit on those needles. Unlike every other human being who has knit with the Signatures, I didn’t like them, and sold them to Major Knitter.

Finished: This past Thursday, the 15th.

Pattern: Same old pattern, same old plain socks.

Yarn: Wollmeise, purchased before the Wollmeise became really really famous. The color name is Löwenzahn, though John renamed this Squashed Frog. I like Squashed Frog better, since every time I type Löwenzahn, I have to do a Google search for how to do diacritical marks on a Mac.

Needles: 2.25mm Pony Pearl dpns

For: Me

What I Learned: Buy yarn when you see it. This stuff has gotten impossible to get. It is good sock yarn, but not worth stalking shop updates like a madwoman. I still have 3 skeins of this left, so I’m good for awhile. Maybe the furor will have died down by the time I’ve used all of it. It’s superwash wool, but has no nylon, so I added Wooly Nylon to the heels and toes for a little better wear.

For the record, that makes one more project done from the UFO pile. I was very transiently down to 4 projects. It’s back up to 5, since I have to have a sock going. Here’s the new one, started yesterday:

The yarn is from Sanguine Gryphon, her Little Traveller sock yarn. The color name is Penny Pot, NJ. This is really, really nice stuff. I (ahem) might have a few other skeins in the stash. The needles are new also. I caved and bought a set of the Blackthorn needles, size 2.oomm. So far I like them. They are wickedly sharp. That photo is a bit fuzzy, click on it to make it bigger (but just as fuzzy), or go to their website to look at them.

That’s enough for one day. I’m off to hang out with the spinning wheel.

I hit another little speed bump on the Tour de Fleece. As I’ve been telling anybody who would listen, I’ve been sick all week. I’m not one to suffer silently; rather, I whine loudly to anyone who will listen. I was pretty sure I had some modern version of the plague since last Tuesday: cough, runny nose, runny eyes, itchy, sneezy, wheezy, drowsy (sounds a little like the seven dwarves, doesn’t it?). I’ve been taking every version of cold remedy on the market, with little or no relief. Even the whiskey didn’t help, it just made me Dopey.

Today it dawned on me. This is the fiber I’ve been spinning on my new Moosie spindle for the Tour.

Here it is again being wound off the spindle onto a tennis ball.

The fiber is from Corgi Hill Farm. It is just lovely stuff, and spins up like nobody’s business. It’s a merino-silk-camel-firestar blend.

Damn. It’s the camel. The only other camel stuff I have in my stash is two things; one is a very small amount of pure camel fiber. It made me sneeze when I stuck my nose in the bag. The other is a bit larger bag of tussah-camel. It also made me sneeze when I stuck my nose in the bag. Fortunately I didn’t go nuts and buy boxes of this stuff.

The camel fiber has all been quarantined. When I’m feeling better, I’ll do a semi-controlled study and play with it a bit and see if the same thing happens. It just won’t take me a week next time to figure it out. If I start sneezing again the next time that bag is opened, the camel fiber will all be on the auction block for sale.

Here’s what’s replacing that fiber for the rest of the Tour:

The color on that is just all wrong. This is also from Corgi Hill Farm, it’s a merino-silk-firestar blend (no stinking camel!), color name True Blood. I’ll work on getting a better photo if our sun ever shows its face. The photo on my monitor looks pink-red. In real life, this has no pink, just deep blood red with shots of darker red and sparkle.

I’m off to find the allergy pills.

I was treadling like a madwoman this morning, trying to finish the sock yarn plying. We have an annual boat parade on our lake every July 4th, and it’s become a tradition that a bunch of neighbors and friends show up at 10AM to have Bloody Marys by the gallon and food by the ton. I wanted to get this finished before then. Then this happened.

I’m off to find the kitchen cotton to make a new drive band. Then it will be back on the road for the Tour!

Well, yeah. I’ve disappeared from the blog again for 2 weeks. I have no excuse. It’s not even nice outside so I could blame it on summer. I think it got all the way up to the mid-60’s today, though at least there’s been sunshine this afternoon and evening. I think everybody in this neck of the woods is just sick to death of grey and rain. It normally doesn’t hang on this long, but there you go. And I have a nasty sinus infection and/or cold, so it makes it even worse. I guess if it was gorgeous outside and I was sick, I’d be even more pissed off, so there’s that.

I have been doing a little knitting, but mostly on my plain old sock. Sinus medicine doesn’t go well with complex lace knitting, so that’s pretty much out. If you think I do stupid knitting tricks on whiskey, you should see my knitting on antihistamines and decongestants (and cough medicine, and ibuprofen, and pretty much anything else in the medicine cabinet offering even a remote possibility of relief).

I do appear to be able to spin on drugs, however. The Tour de France started today, and the Ravelry Tour de Fleece started as well. I’ve signed up, of course. It won’t be too hard, since I spin almost every day already. The only rules are that you try to spin every day that the Tour rides, and to spin something challenging on the 22nd, the toughest cycling day.

Here’s what I’m doing. Though I have 7 spindles, all with something in progress on them, I’ve chosen one to be the primary Tour spindle. Hey, you don’t see Lance changing bikes every hour, do you?*

This is the spindle entry:

Pretty, eh? Click on the picture to see. That’s a Bosworth Moosie, made out of real moose antler. Of course he’s named Bullwinkle. What else would you name a moose antler spindle? I’ve had my name on the waiting list for this since last year, and got it this week just in time for the tour. The fiber is from Anna at Corgi Hill Farm. It’s a blend of merino, camel, silk, and firestar for sparkle. Sparkle is always good. And isn’t that a lovely color? You could get a lot of Corgi hair in that and never know it. The color name is really something like Sea Salt Caramel, but I think it looks a lot like Corgi.

And this is what I’m doing on my wheel.

Yeah, I’m mixing drugs and alcohol. What can I say, I live on the edge.

The fiber is Wensleydale, from Damselfly Yarns. I finished the spinning today, and can now wade into the plying part. The goal for this is a 3 ply sock yarn. I think it will be a little heavier than fingering weight, but I’m still pleased with how it’s turning out. Here’s what Wensleydales look like, if you’re interested.

And just because I learned how to do this today, one last photo:

Hope your 4th of July is full of great picnic food and fireworks tomorrow!

*I’m making that up, I have no idea about that. He might change bikes every hour for all I know. Humor me, I’m sick.

But first, that FO!

This has been in the UFO pile long enough. It’s now done, and I can use it. It’s a linen facecloth. I’m not doing the whole Project Details thing on this one. The yarn is Euroflax linen, the pattern is from Knitters’ Stash. Here’s the Rav link for the pattern. This one is the Lacy Vine pattern. The needles I used were 3.75 mm. I probably will make more of these, if only because I have a bunch of this stuff in the stash, all in different colors, of course, so I can’t use it for much else. The Euroflax is sort of stringy and harsh feeling while you knit it, and splits like crazy. It softens up amazingly when you wash it though.

Enough of that. On to the “pretties” of the title. Click on these photos to really get a good look. Try not to drool on your keyboard.

Those are all of my spindles, out for inspection. Well, all of them except the Ashford boat anchor. Oh, OK, I’ll show you that one, too.

That thing weighs over 2 1/2 ounces, compared to less than an ounce for most of the other ones. Next time I get each of them empty, I plan on weighing them and recording it for future reference. Somebody remind me to do that. I usually think about it when it’s close to full and I’m wondering how much fiber is wound on. It would be very handy to know what the empty spindle weighed.

Here’s another photo of the pretty ones. Clickety-click.

From left to right:

1) My latest acquisition, a Greensleeves Damsel Monique. Very lightweight, great for lace. The whorl is redwood burl with purpleheart, and the shaft is mahogany. The fiber is an Abby Batt, in the color Glitterpigeon.

2) Cascade Spindles Mt. St. Helens. This is just a great dependable spinner. The fiber is a merino silk blend, I think it’s from Louet.

3) Bosworth Midi, in Zebrawood. I want a Bossie in every size and wood, really. The fiber is a merino-sparkly blend that I got at the spin-in on Whidbey earlier this year. I’m actually almost done with the plying here, fortunately. I’m not sure how much more I could get on this thing.

4) Another Cascade spindle, this time the Cougar. This one weighs next to nothing and is terrific for lace. The fiber is more Louet, 80/20 merino silk, color Golden Hibiscus.

5) Last but not least, my first Butterfly Girl spindle. This has a whorl made from Italian resin. It’s also quite lightweight. I say first since there might just be a second one from her shop on the way. The fiber is also hers, a merino/bamboo/firestar batt called Blue Morpho. There might just be some more fiber coming this week, too.

You might note that while I seem to be happiest with only three or four knitting projects going at any one time, I seem to have absolutely no problem having a spinning WIP on every available spindle and bobbin.

After I got my wheel, the spindles sort of sat around some. They’ve gotten a lot more use in the last few months, and I’m rarely without one close at hand. Don’t get me wrong, I adore my wheel, but if somebody put a gun to my head and made me choose, I’d pick the spindles.

I’m off to check the mailbox for the umpteenth time today. Have a good weekend, everybody!

We’ve had another of those weird spring days here. Cold, pouring rain, grey, and then all of a sudden, bright and sunny. That didn’t last, but it got me outside with the camera to try to get a decent photo of the color of my Evenstar shawl. This will have to do, since it’s pouring rain again. At least it’s raining in the front yard. The sun is still shining in the back yard. Weird.

That’s the best it’s going to get. The inside photos of this color just look pale grey-blue. In real life, it’s a pale clear aquamarine color. The yarn is a cashmere silk 2-ply light laceweight from Colourmart, for those of you not keeping up.

Oh, good, now it’s a downpour out back too, that was worrying me.

I never did show any photos of our trip out to Whidbey Island for the spin-in and visit with Dorothy. Here are a couple of Deception Pass, probably the most photographed spot in Washington. Click these to embiggen.

Here’s John, as usual, not following directions:

And here are a couple from the spinning day:

There were some serious opportunities for fiber stash enhancement, and I did not pass many of them by unheeded. Here’s one, already on the spindle.

This is a blend of deep red, blue and purple wool, along with some firestar sparkly stuff. There’s about three ounces of it total, and I think it will be a light fingering when I’m done with it. We’ll see. I think that would make a pretty little neck thing, either a scarf or a cowl.

I’ve been spending much of the last few days that I’ve had off trying to organize my fiber office. Fiber Office, that sounds sort of official, doesn’t it? Much better than the Pit of Despair, which is what it usually looks like. Now that it’s a bit more organized, I have discovered that I have way too many WIPS and UFO’s than my usual comfort zone allows. I really need to get knitting on some of them. Hopefully you all will see some progress soon on things.

One last thing. I’ve been looking at my blog stats. The funniest three search strings that got people here lately are “big stonking circular shawl”, “clean knitters stories”, and “goofy knitting”. I’m not making that up. I’m off to knit…

ETA: “pee blog knit”. One silly person actually got to my blog by typing that into Google. If you’re that person, please comment and explain exactly what you were looking for.

I had a wonderful time last weekend, though I’m just getting around to posting about it. Dorothy (Missouri Star) and her husband Bill came to visit us over the weekend. They live just a few hours from here, though we rarely get to see one another, for one reason or another. Now that she’s retired, and I have a more sane work schedule, I hope that situation changes!

Dorothy and I both used to say that we would never take up spinning. Ha! I fell hard last summer, and it was only a few months later that she was asking questions about spindles and wheels. When she joined the Beginning Spinners group on Ravelry, I knew that it was all over. She bought a spindle, then got a wheel last month. She brought her wheel with her, a nice Ashford Traveller, and some pretty hostess gift Romney fiber from a neighbor’s sheep, named Rainbow! We did a little spinning, a lot of chatting, eating, and generally having fun. John & Bill hit it off, and managed to find things to do that didn’t involve spinning or talking about spinning. They brought their Corgi, Maggie, along with them, and after a bit of jousting amongst the dogs to figure out who the biggest alpha bitch was, everybody got along just fine.

Dorothy is a natural as a spinner. Go look at what she’s been spinning on her blog (but come back!). After just a few weeks, she’s spinning nearly laceweight, very evenly.

I managed to finish spinning a whole pile of Cormo (that insulation yellow stuff from several posts back, though it hasn’t been washed up yet, so it’s not ready for a photo op). I did start a new spinning project while Dorothy was here.

The fiber is from Chasing Rainbows Dyeworks, in the color Forest. I bought 2 ounces of this color in a merino-bombyx silk blend, and another 2 ounces in the same color in merino-tencel. I have the silk blend all spun, and I’m about half way through the tencel, then plan to ply them together. We’ll see how that works out. I did do a little couple yard sample, and I think I’ll like it. Here’s where I bought the fiber. The colors really are that rich.

Last but not least, here’s one of my spinning helpers. Lewey tends to sit right under my feet while I’m spinning, and Will is just pretty sure this is where he belongs.

And this is probably why he’s so friendly lately. When the weather’s better, he’s outside a lot, but he’s not a big fan of rain.

Come to think of it, I’m getting a bit tired of that rain myself!

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If you haven’t done so already, go here and read Stephanie’s post about Haiti. She’s said it much better than I can. If Doctors Without Borders isn’t your favorite charity, pick another one, but dig deep and give. If we can all afford to have computers and yarn and fiber toys, we can certainly sacrifice a bit of cash to those affected by this horrifying disaster.

I don’t have any impressive knitting photos to show today, so you get spinning photos instead. My True Blood Faery sweater is coming along, though slowly. I’ve finished the bottom hem cable, and am almost done with the stocking stitch hem. Then I get to pick up another gazillion stitches on the opposite edge of the cable, and knitting up the body will proceed. Just imagine what it looks like, OK?

I’ve been spinning quite a bit lately, and have several projects going. The wheel project is a whack of golden yellow Cormo that I bought on Etsy. I have one bobbin full as of yesterday.

This stuff is really fun to spin. It’s definitely different than what I’ve been working with, which is what makes spinning so much fun. Every fiber is different, and I’m having a blast learning different techniques to get the result I want. This will be approximately fingering weight once it’s plied. It’s dreamy-soft. Click on those pictures to embiggen.

Then there are the spindles. I have three nice spindles, as well as the “student” boat anchor that I started with. That will be a sturdy spindle for plying heavier yarns, I suspect, but I really like my other spindles, and have a project going on each. Here’s what’s spinning on the Cascade Spindle Company St. Helens:

This is Ashland Bay merino/silk blend (70/30), purchased from Paradise Fibers, in the color Lilac. You can get yours here. They have lots of pretty colors available. This is spinning up into a silvery grey-lilac fiber, and will probably be a light fingering or heavy lace when I’m done with it, but we’ll see.

I managed to get the spindle filled this morning to the point where it was getting a little weird and wobbly, so figured it was time to wind off. I’ve been dithering around, trying to figure out the best way to deal with this, and with the help of Fleegle and Ravelry, came up with this method. She posted these boxes on her blog a few weeks ago, and I went online and bought one for each spindle. These are quite clever spinning gadgets, even though they are made for the purpose of shower caddies. They are just the right size to corral a spindle and fiber, with a neat carrying handle. And when it comes time to wind off, it works as a Lazy Kate.

If you had two spindles full, you could just ply directly from this either onto a third spindle, or a wheel. I’ve tried winding directly into a ball, but the mess in the middle was a bit spectacular. Thus, the suggestion I found on one of the forums on Ravelry to use a tennis ball as the center. I just bought a pack of new tennis balls*, and wound from the spindle directly onto that. Once I have two tennis balls worth, I can ply it into yarn. Clever, eh? I got mine from Amazon, though it looks like the spinners have bought them out. If you google Zia boxes, you’ll get other online vendors. These are the small size.

Fleegle slides her cops off the spindle onto straws, then does her plying from those. I like having the singles wound firmly into a plying ball, as it tensions the fiber nicely so I don’t get so many of those squiggly corkscrews in my finished yarn. I suppose as I get better at plying, her method might be faster.

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Thank you all for the thoughts and prayers for the four murdered police officers from Lakewood. It’s been sort of a difficult week around here for the community, but the outpouring of support for the families involved, and for the police department, has been amazing. There is a formal memorial service at the Tacoma Dome next week, though I doubt we’ll even try to get there. Most of the available spots are going to be reserved for regional law enforcement folks to come pay their respects, which is as it should be. Keep them all in your thoughts; they have an incredibly difficult job.

I’m off to enjoy the sunny, if cold, day.

*John, being ever frugal, suggested that we have plenty of tennis balls around here already, and did I really need to buy new ones? I reminded him that our tennis balls are dog toys, and slathered in dog spit. Thanks, I’ll splurge on new ones, dear.

Catchy title, eh? What can I say, at least I’m posting.

First up, work. I started the new job this past week, and I couldn’t be happier. (Happy, Happy, Happy, that’s the new motto around here.) I think it will be a good match all the way around. Of course, so far it hasn’t been particular grueling. The first day was “on-boarding”, or assimilation* as we call it around the Knitting Doctor household. I learned all sorts of stuff essential to the new practice group, and got a nice gift basket at the end of the day.

Notice the wine. I think they’ve heard about me.

The next two days were computer training. The new practice is all computerized, so I had to get up to speed quickly with their electronic medical record. Fortunately I’m a nerd and can play on the computer for days without getting bored, so that’s been easy so far. Thursday and Friday was more orientation in the local office where I’ll actually be practicing, and I got a warm welcome from the nursing staff that was quite encouraging. I actually saw a few patients, and that went well. Next week is more of the same. I’ll spend the first few weeks seeing just a few patients a day in the office, so I can get comfortable with the computer stuff, then I go into the regular rotation of both office and hospital work. I’ll be at the same hospital that I’ve been at for the last nine years, so that shouldn’t be too much of an adjustment. I’ll keep you all up to date!

On the knitting front, I’m not posting any photos. I’m working on those Peony socks, but slowly. This past week hasn’t been particularly busy, but I have been distracted by the job change. I’ve also done a few more repeats on the Faery cable, but it really doesn’t look any different than the last time, just a little longer.

Shopping update: I went to the office supply store today to get a few things for my new office desk, and found these.

I don’t have the receipt in front of me, but they were under $10 for the stack. They are about 3 or 4 inches across at most, and lock shut, so you can put little knitting gadgets in them. I’m sure they were intended for paper clips or something.

Finally, the spinning update. I haven’t burned the wheel and spindles in the back yard in frustration, though there was a bit of alpaca a couple of weeks ago that made the thought cross my mind. Then I made this. It’s still wet from the finishing process, so looks a bit bedraggled, but I think it turned out OK.

It’s about a worsted weight, and the fiber is Barrister Lane Fiber Rococo, I can’t find the band at the moment, but John has dubbed this Squashed Frog. I got it from Kris at Sonny & Shear. Click on that to make it bigger. I’m getting better at this, really.

Last but not least is a purchase I made in Ireland that I forgot to show you. Click on this one too.

Seamus the wheel got his own sheep. Doesn’t every spinning wheel need a good-luck sheep?

I’m off to rescue the sweet potatoes from the oven.

*”We are Borg, resistance is futile You will be assimilated.”

No, it’s not what you think. I head down the rabbit hole to work tomorrow morning, so I may or may not get a chance to post in my new blog for a week. So here’s a quickie post.

Did I mention that I have a new blog??

Oh, right, I did.

Never mind.

Here are a couple of photos to tide you over. I finished a project, but I’m not going to post details until it’s been mailed off. So you get cooking and spinning. You’ll have to make do.

We made gumbo this weekend. This might not sound all that exciting, but it’s sort of a major project around here. We use Crescent Dragonwagon’s* recipe for gumbo, which involves a whole lot of chopping and cooking, but results in lots of storage containers of gumbo base in the freezer. When we want gumbo, we thaw out a container of the base, then add the last few ingredients.

And the finished plates:

Then there’s the spinning. I’ve spun up a whole bunch of Abby’s Batts that I scored a month or so ago. This is a silk/merino/sparkle blend. I’ve finally got the whole bunch of fluff spun, and now I’m plying it. Here you go.

That’s roughly a light fingering weight, 2 ply. I have about six or seven ounces of this, but this is the first bobbin of plied stuff, so I don’t know the yardage yet. I think this will make a nice shawl. What do you think?

Down the rabbit hole I go. I’ll be back in a week.

*Yes, that’s her name. If you don’t have her cookbooks, you are really missing out. Go, now, and buy them. I highly recommend her Soup & Bread cookbook just for the gumbo and cornbread recipes, and The Passionate Vegetarian is one of my all time favorites.