Weird psychedelic photo, but now we wait for drying! It shouldn’t take long with this cobweb weight yarn.
Bath Time
Blocking Day at last!
The first step was to run a fine cotton thread through all the edging points to make pinning easier later. Then it's into the bath for a soak. I use Kookaburra wool wash and cool water, and at least a 15-20 minute soak to make sure everything is saturated. This has also been hauled all over the place for 6 years, so it likely needs a good wash anyway.
Update to follow!
Posted with BlogsyOmg Omg OMG!
It is DONE DONE DONE. I can't wait for blocking to show you a photo. I won't be able to finish this officially until I get home and have a few hours to block it properly, but I know you are all waiting on the edge of your seats to see it.
Sweetpea for scale. And one without the bear.
This is easily the most complicated thing I've ever made. Project Details will follow when the blocking is done.
The End is Near
One repeat of the edging left to do, then graft the beginning to the end, and block. This might actually get finished.
We're on the Oregon Coast with my sisters and spouses this week. Here are a few photos, all phone photos. The car was packed so full that there wasn't room for the camera bag.
The Oregon Coast is a yarn shop rich environment.
And there has been a little studying going on. I'm hoping Sweetpea remembers it all.
Coreopsis!
It’s finally off the blocking board, after a little mayhem. I tried to expedite things and just pinned the bottom edges instead of running blocking wires through it, which resulted in a nice scalloped border. I looked at it for a day before I did the right thing and put in the blocking wires, then steam blocked the edge to straighten it out.
Project Details
Pattern: Boneyard Shawl, by Stephen West
Yarn: My own handspan, spun from Bluefaced Leicester wool on my Watson Wheel. I then dyed the yarn using Coreopsis flowers from our deck plants. I blogged about the dyeing here. The fiber came from Paradise Fibers, the brand is Ashland Bay. It was nicely prepared and very easy to spin. It also takes dye beautifully, which is a good thing, since I bought 4 pounds of it originally. This was 366 grams worth of yarn, about 790 yards.
Needles: 4.5 mm
Started: July 16, 2015
Finished: September 3, 2015
For: Me
Modifications: None
What I Learned: Oh my. It is really a lot of fun to see a project through from fiber to a finished wearable item. This is one of those patterns that could be adapted to a wide variety of yarn types, or even color stripes. He has a second version here that uses extra increases to make it wider and shallower. A nice bonus is that it’s a free pattern. I predict that this will get a lot of wear. It’s just the right size for a little warmth around the shoulders, and nice and squishy soft.
I’m calling this one a success!
Morning Knitting
I will finish this someday. Another edging repeat done this morning. “Only” 7 repeats left.
Each of those repeats has 20 rows, 370-odd stitches, and 50 beads.
Sigh.
It is going to be very pretty when done.
Coreopsis
It is finally done. I can’t wait for the blocking to show it off.
It’s getting a bath and then will be blocked.
I was able to use almost all of the yarn, there were 17 grams left, which MIGHT have been enough for another row, but I hate ripping out a bind off if I’m wrong. The garter rows use more yarn, and the stretchy bind off I use really eats up yarn.
There will be a Project Details post when it’s blocked and dry.
So what’s next? I suppose I should just finish something already on the needles, but where’s the fun in that?
Here’s some new yarn. It’s obviously Hazel Knits, this is her Divine fingering, which is merino, cashmere and silk.
What might this become? I know I said I would never make another Color Affection, but that turns out to be one of the most versatile shawls I have.
And what might have inspired that color choice, which is rather on the gaudy side?
It is football season, after all. I’m off to wind up yarn.
Antidote
This past work week was a bit hectic. To compensate, I've done nothing but just what I wanted to do all weekend. There is no better antidote to a crappy week than a Saturday and Sunday spent knitting, reading, playing flute, and cooking with my husband.
The cooking was scallops and grits. Here is the finished project.
Scallops with red pepper, green onion, a little jalapeno, garlic, parsley, and white wine, served over cheese grits. Yum.
Here's the knitting.
I've finally gotten to the last ball of the handspun yarn. I wet spliced it together this morning.
This is a pretty simple shawl pattern, the only challenge will be to guess how much yarn I need for the 12 row garter border. Since this is handspun and hand dyed, I want to use every bit of it that I can.
Out came the trusty drug dealer's scale. The last row I did took 2.6 grams of yarn. I have 126 grams left. Of course the rows get longer as I go, so I'll have to keep weighing as I knit, but I should be able to get several 12 row repeats done still. This should be a nice big cozy warm shawl when it's done.
We're off to the market for provisions, then back to knitting!
Days Like Today
Slow down what’s the hurry
There’s no rush today
There won’t be too many
Days like today
Cheryl Wheeler, Driving Home
The day started out blessedly cool, in the mid-50’s. We decided to put on sweatshirts and wool socks and eat breakfast out on the deck, since there surely won’t be too many perfect days like today.
Breakfast was a frittata made with leftover ratatouille from last night. Here’s the ratatouille.
We’re at that part of the summer where we have a profusion of vegetables, and we’ve used up all the zucchini ideas. Enter ratatouille. This one was a baked version*. You cut up all the veggies, toss with olive oil and lots of chopped fresh herbs, put in a casserole dish and bake. Much easier, and much less mushy than the usual fidgety stovetop version. This one has sliced onions, 2 bell peppers, 2 small eggplants, zucchini, cherry tomatoes, and lots of garlic. The herbs were parsley, thyme, marjoram, tarragon, and oregano. The onions were from the store, the herbs from our patio garden, and the rest was from our CSA haul from last week. We had this last night with a white bean vegetarian “stew”, also cooked with lots of garden herbs.
There was plenty leftover, so we made a frittata this morning. I put a little grapeseed oil in the skillet, then enough ratatouille to cover the bottom of the pan. I heated it up, then poured over whisked eggs and cooked until mostly set, then ran it under the broiler to finish cooking. I topped it with a bit of grated gruyere and broiled for another half a minute.
And just because I’m in that sort of mood, here’s some music for you.
What will you do with this perfect day?
* If you need a “real” recipe, this was from Mark Bittman’s How To Cook Everything Vegetarian cookbook.
Coreopsis
I was about to catalogue that lovely Coreopsis dyed yarn and get it into the stash, and then decided that this is just ridiculous. It's not every day you make your own yarn. I handspun this on my Watson wheel (100% BFL fiber), then dyed it myself using flowers we grew in the back yard. It deserves better than to disappear into the stash forever.
So I hunted around for an appropriate pattern, and came up with Stephen West's Boneyard Shawl. I didn't want something complex and lacy, since this is roughly worsted weight and a bit on the rustic side. I also already have 3 lacy complex shawls on the needles. This pattern is one of those that you could knit with almost any weight yarn, and is adaptable to variable yardage. These are fine qualities when one is knitting with handspun that isn't entirely even, and when one isn't 100% certain of the yardage. An extra bonus is that it's a free pattern. I can see making more than one of these.
Here's where I am.
This is pretty much dead simple. It's mostly stockinette, with a garter row thrown in every so often, and increases along each side of the center spine and at each end. You knit until it's big enough, then knit on several rows of garter stitch and bind off. Bob's your uncle.
And yes, those are little Buddha stitch markers. I made those myself, too, with little Buddha beads I found a long time ago.
Have a happy weekend!
Dyeing Adventure
I realized today that I never blogged about my dyeing adventure a few weeks ago.
I had bought a whole bag of Bluefaced Leicester white spinning fiber some time back, thinking I’d dye it first and then spin. I’ve discovered that it is a whole lot easier to felt unspun fiber than yarn, so after one attempt, I spun it first with plans to dye later. Here is the result.
The dye material is tickseed, or Coreopsis (with a bit of dried marigold I had saved from last year that wasn’t enough to dye anything by itself). John planted these in pots down by the lake, and I’ve been dead-heading them since they started blooming earlier this summer. I simmered in water for an hour or so, then let sit overnight (mostly because I ran out of time). The next morning I strained out the flowers, and in went the wool.
The wool was mordanted with a mixture of alum and cream of tartar to help the dye set. It all simmered for another hour, then I let it sit until it was cool. Then out of the dye pot, rinse, dry, and skein it up.
That is 366 grams of wool, about 790 yards total. I think it will make a nice rustic wrap of some sort.
I’m home from work today with a migraine, not getting a whole lot accomplished. It’s getting better at this point, though I still feel like somebody poured Karo syrup into my brain. It makes for a waste of a perfectly good day off.
And, because it’s my blog, and I can, I’m posting one more photo of my last finished project. I posted this on Facebook, and somebody commented that all it needed was a tiara. Here you go, Dorothy.
Though THIS is the one I really want.
So you suppose Princess Sofia will send that to me when she grows tired of it?
Pink & Sparkly
I finally got around to getting photos of this today.
Project Details:
Pattern: Heaven and Space, by Martina Behm
Yarn: Bouton d’Or Songe, in PINK. 3 skeins. I bought this in a yarn shop in Nice, France when we took a cruise that left from there in 2006. Deep stash. 570 meters out.
Needles: 3.75 mm
Started: December 6, 2014
Finished: June 7, 2015
For: Me!
Modifications: None. This is one of those patterns that you can adapt for pretty much any yarn. I knit until I had just enough left over to do the bind off.
What I Learned: Note to self. Please remember to check the lot numbers on ball bands in the future. This was knit with 3 balls of yarn, after I blocked it, I noticed that the center ball of yarn is just a shade off. Not enough to notice when it’s around your neck, but still.
Here’s another photo.
That one shows the shape better. It starts from one point (the one at the top in this photo, then increases at both sides, then binds off at the long straight side. If you look carefully you can see the very slight shift in color in the center section.
Last but not least.
Lewey says “Happy Fathers’ Day!” He adores his human dad.
Give Us This Day–
The Daily Bread!
Here's the finished bread from Friday;
It was lovely. “Was” is the key word in that sentence. So I made some more:
This one was baked in a bread pan in the oven. I made it partly in the bread machine, but hit the “quick” rise button by mistake so I finished kneading it by hand. This is buttermilk/wheat/oatmeal bread. Here are the ingredients. I made this partly by weight instead of measuring cup, just as an experiment.
2.6 oz rolled oats
1 1/2 cups water
12 oz white bread flour
4 oz whole wheat flour
1/4 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 Tablespoon honey
2 1/4 tablespoon avocado oil
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 teaspoon yeast
1/2 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
Mix the oats in the water and let sit for 10-15 minutes. Add the wet ingredients to the bread machine pan, then the soaked oats, then the dry ingredients. Process on the dough setting. Shape into whatever loaf you want and bake. My baking times tend to be a bit free form. This was baked at 425 for about 35 minutes, but I turned the temperature down about half way through. The milk in the dough makes it brown faster.
And here is some of the last of Friday's bread, toasted and with some peanut butter for my lunch today.
In other news, there might be a finished knitting project around here. Here's a preview:
It needs a light blocking but it is done. This is one of those patterns where you just knit till your yarn runs out, but you need to bind off after a pattern repeat. I wanted to use as much of that Pink & Sparkly as possible, so out came the trusty drug dealer's scale.
6.7 grams left–not enough to do another pattern repeat with! Full project details to follow when it's blocked.
Oh, The Plans I Have!
Even though I made the decision to work part time several months ago, today really feels like “it”. As of this week, I am working 4 days a week, mostly Monday through Thursday with three-day weekends. Today is the beginning of that first three day weekend.
Ahhhhhhh. So what am I going to do with that extra free day?
As I've been warned by many other people who have retired or started working part-time, those extra days seem to fill up with activities pretty quickly.
Knitting, spinning, dyeing, reading, writing, flute playing, blogging, baking. Perhaps even get to the gym now and then.
Let's start with baking, shall we? I used to bake bread quite frequently, but it has gotten so sporadic that some of my bread ingredients have gone past their “use by” date. Here's what's going on in the bread machine today.
As usual, I sort of made this up on the fly. Here's an ingredient list:
1 cup water
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon avocado oil
1 1/2 cup unbleached white bread floor
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour
1 tablespoon vital wheat gluten
2 1/2 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup seed/grain blend
I get most of my bread ingredients from King Arthur Flour. Any decent supermarket should carry their basic flours, I buy the other stuff from their online store. The vital wheat gluten helps lighten up whole wheat or rye breads. I use Saf Red label instant yeast, which has never failed me. The Harvest seed blend is from their store as well.
A photo of the finished bread will follow later. I make this up in my bread machine and then bake it in the oven. Bread machine-baked bread is OK, but I like the texture better when it's baked in the oven.
One last photo for the day.
Our peonies are near the end of their blooming, but there are still a few out there!
I'm off to plan the rest of my day!
Still Working On It
This is the never-ending knitting project, but I am nearing the end of this monstrosity.
I have “only” nine repeats of the edging chart to go. Each repeat has 20 rows, 370 stitches, and 50 beads.
Sigh.
In other news, yesterday was a momentous day. It was my last day of working full time. On Monday I start working just 4 days a week. Of course, in a blast of karma from the universe, I developed a case of food poisoning from a “free” lunch on Thursday, and ended up calling in sick yesterday. All is well today though, and I am certainly going to enjoy this tiny first step towards retirement.
Maybe with that extra day each week, I can begin to make a dent in the 211 MILES of yarn in my stash.