Done!!

The shawl - the purple monster- is done, blocked, and nicely wrapped in tissue paper and stored away for Christmas wrapping. I finished knitting it on Thursday and blocked it Thursday night (I left it soaking while I chatted on the phone... there was no water left in the sink when I got back!! NTS- wool is absorbant, if you don't want to be wringing water out of lace for hours don't abandon it in the sink....). I had to fold it in half to block it and then it only just fit on the towel/foam mats combo that I wanted to use.

Yesterday I started on my mitten blitz. I'm doing three pairs for my sibs - not really that big of a deal. But naturally I decided to try stranded colour work (which I rarely do and never do well) and that I wanted to do Norwegian style stars on them. Unfortunately the only patterns I have are for adults (one pair is for a 7 year old girl and one for a 3 year old boy - adult sizes not so much). So generic mitten pattern to the rescue... sort of... I used the template to create a scaled down template in excel and then did the design on that. Then I tried knitting it, first version too small... even for Bertie, so I frogged back to the ribbing and knit again using larger needles, which seems to have worked.

Last night, for some variety, I cast on the tea-cozy. The pattern was great, very easy, and I finished it last night before I went to bed. I really liked the picot hem, I've never done a hem before but this was easy and very smart looking. I think I may modify the pattern in future to make a toque.

Today, more mittens, and maybe working on the socks. Phineas is going slow, the needles are tiny!! So I've been leaving it to the side in favour of projects with greater instant gratification potential. I'm thinking maybe I'll cast on the Hedera for mom....

In my last KP order (which I was waiting for for my mitten yarn and sock needles) I also got the set of metal options. I have loved them, I actually knit the tea cozy on two cables and one set of 5mm tips (I had to switch tips at the end of each half row, but it worked really well anyway). I'm going to have to get more tips (and some doubles I think) and more storage and cables.... (obsessive compulsive much ....) I also got the Teach Yourself Visually Handspinning book. I really like it, though to my mind there is too much attention devoted to spinning novelty yarn. I'd have liked more space given to non-wool fibers (like bamboo), though I did like the sections on flax and silk, and to the properties of different fibers in general. The result has been, the plying of two spindles of singles that I had and pricing spinning wheels. Oh, how I want a Kromski Symphony...

*pout* My connection is being stupid so I can't upload pictures right now...

Progress

Dr. Who scarf - Done (the ends are now sewn in)

Shawl 3 - Done

Facecloth #7 - Done

Two posts in one day... (or my afternoon in pictures)

So, I checked out some older spinning material on Knitty and found a link to a DIY lazy kate, which I modified.

I wound my singles onto 'bobbins' (aka straws on knitting needles).

And plyed it. I must have divided the original pretty evenly (or had the dumbest luck in the spinning) since I only had around a foot extra.

It looks a little like yarn barf, but oh well.

Then I skeined it around a chair.

Soaked it in my sink.

(Wacked the snot out of it against my shower wall - as instructed in Spin to Knit).

Now it is hanging up in the shower drying.

Once it is dry I have two things to figure out - 1. how much of it is there ('cuz, dude, I need that information to enter it into Ravelry) and 2. WTF am I supposed to make out of it?!

So, now if only I could spin something remotely consistent... (on the other hand, the current situation might prevent me from buying lbs and lbs of fiber...)

Spinning and Dr. Who

My most recent trip to yarn store also included a side trip to the bead store. Among the various things I picked up were some beads intended for use as spindle whorls. Last night I went to the dollar store in search of cheap wooden handled paintbrushes.

This is what I came home with (the paint brushes and eye hooks, everything else I already had).

And this is what I made. It spins pretty nicely, with only a bit of wobble at the end of a spin, the only real problem with it is that the handle is too short to hold what I was trying to use it for last night. I'm going to need to hit Curry's downtown to find something with a longer handle (and a wider circumference as the hole in the flat beads was too big). But over all I am pleased.

I spun all of the purple/brown/pink fiber yesterday, trying to do so according to the article on fractal self striping yarns in one of the Spin-Offs from earlier this year. This is what I ended up with.

Now I just have to figure out how to ply these singles...(and also to figure out if I spun one of them the wrong way... should I have done one S and one Z or do I do both the same and then ply them the other way... guess I should have checked that first huh...). I did spin some of the one with my DIY spindle, but ended up transfering the singles to the ashford and finishing it with that. It is uneven and wretched, but an improvement over the last time, so I count that as a small victory.

This week, knitting wise, I've been focusing on the Dr. Who scarf I'm knitting for my sister for Christmas. It is now significantly taller than I am... and I'm only about half way through. She is coming home this weekend so I won't be able to work on it then, but I should be able to finish it up next week. By which time the needles and yarn I need to move on to the next batch of Christmas things will have arrived. (If only my school work were this productive and well organized....)

Fiber, facecloths, and footwear

oh my!

Soo - today I was supposed to go fiber crawling with a friend, but she had to bail - so I went alone.

I visited:

Lettuce Knit - where I picked up: 3 patterns (Thelonius Socks, Gothic Spire Socks, and Baby Bobbi Bear); a Go Knit Yourself magnet; and a pair of 5.5mm circs

Arton Beads- which really is AMAZING - where I got um.. beads... and some charms, I'm hoping maybe I can find some appropriate cheap paint brushes and make some spindles a la Em.

Romni - where I wandered at length and left with fiber - though I did leave the merino silk where I found it...

I have some serious online shopping to do, so I can get into the main portion of my Christmas stuff.

ION- My hand-dyed yarn swap package arrived today:

On Saturday and Today, I finished another couple of face-cloths. I've also charted a design I want to do for one, if it works I'd like to post it somewhere... anyone know of a good way of doing that?

This was my, knitting during parade one.

Here is the 3rd Martini one, finished this morning (cast-on last night).

(Also, I got shoes over the weekend - aren't they fab?!)