devoted to rationalizing my shameful yarn habit (and whatever else needs rationalizing)
Because I already had these in flickr. I sneaked onto Photo Booth while Ron was on the phone.
My needle felting project from Felt School:
And the undramatic shots. It’s not anatomically correct, but it’s funny.
Now I really am going to go do those taxes.
So at least half of my Interweave Knits collection went missing during Yarn School, including the issue with Cobblestone, which I was planning to make Ron for his birthday this month. Boo. I’m hoping it was an honest mistake and whoever walked off with them will realize and return them to me. Or better yet, that someone was perusing a big stack of them in some isolated spot, which they’ll tell me about now so I can retrieve them (I already checked all the common & guest rooms with no luck, but there are many hidey-holes in this place). I’m positive one of those two things will happen, because I can’t abide the thought of actual stealing. It’s just too disappointing. (Update: It’s looking up! I found a few of the behind the pits, and while many are still at large, including the one I need, I’m feeling hopeful! Now whoever moved he rest of them somewhere weird, email me and tell me where to find them!)
For today anyway, missing half my back issues is probably for the best, since I really should be working on my taxes and I’ve already exhausted most of my other avenues of procrastination.
Oh! And if you left Yarn School before lunch on Sunday, you may well have won a door prize in absentia! Half the prizes went to folks who had scooted already. I’ll be packing them up and shipping them out next week.
The minute I finish my taxes, I’ll gather up my Yarn School pictures and post them. In the meantime, a mere 2 of mine, and a big pile of everyone else’s:
Well, it’s two weeks to Fiber School and I’m going a little nuts. I’m keep bouncing between deliriously excited and a little panicked. Right at this very second, I’m deliriously excited.
And guess what!? I’m finally getting sheep! They’re really coming, can you believe it? Tina’s bringing them out on the 23rd, so they’ll be here for Fiber School! (We have a few openings–treat yourself! It’s going to be awesome!) There will be one black Romney ewe (who apparently has gotten a little snitty of late–but I plan to kill her with kindness), one merino ewe lamb (white, if I remember, but with a spotted mom, so she has the genetics for color), and one Shetland wether (castraded male) lamb with curly horns! He’s tan. Yay!
I only have a picture of Fattypants aka Fancypants aka Trouble, so the others will be a surprise! Here she is in full fleece, looking inscrutable.
But we’ve let it go forever, and now we’re scrambling to convert this playground into a barn. And to help matters, it’s been pouring all freaking week.
This is an old picture, but the current view’s no good, because there’s a big stack of hay blocking it. At present, there’s a nice secure woven wire fence around it, with several gates to make rotating them with portable electric fencing super easy. Clicking the picture will take you to its flickr page, which has notes on what goes where.
All the areas under the platforms will be walled in, with doors and windows for utility/comfort. The large platform to the left of the ramp will be raised a foot so you can walk under it, but human people can still use it as a deck. The two taller platforms, including the one under the slide, will be for the chickens, while the larger area will go to the sheepies. There will be a door in between so you can access either side, but the chicken side can stay warmer in the winter while the sheep get nice fresh air.
Next year, I might even ask Tina & Jennifer to save all their skirtings for me, and I’ll wash them (no worries if they felt), soak them in Borax, and insulate the walls.
Okay, I’d better get back to work! A group from VANS is coming out to do a catalog shoot in the Eskridge school next week (Taj’s gym/classroom segments in Electronical were shot there), and Cathy’s coming next weekend to finish up our collaborative project, so I’m about to be wildly busy for 3 weeks solid. Yee haw!
Dude, I fucking hate election season. I end up enraged every time I listen to the news. The only bright spot is The Daily Show, but it’s reruns this week, so I’m stuck with NPR. Ugh. And I can’t not listen. I whirl into a frenzy of outrage and fact checking and frustration about the millions who get their news from Fox alone, and I end up spending way too much time and energy stewing and seething and clawing around the Internet. A few minutes ago, I fantasized about interrupting a rally by shouting LIAR! at the top of my lungs (which are pretty sturdy, it turns out), and I even tested the volume of my shouting, then did a few crazy, frantic impersonations. Sheesh. I need to put some kind of a politics timer on my machine for the next couple months.
Anyway, to combat the knotting angst and dread, I’m trying to zen out with crafty goodness.
I finished up all my Wildcat Hollow roving. Well, not all of it–I still have a different lot of tri-color and a different lot of fawn for another project; and not completely finished, either as I haven’t yet washed the spun stuff. (Cripes, I’m an irritating literalist.)
Look how pretty!
I used only the first two balls. The other tricolor wasn’t quite as babysoft, so I decided to set it aside for another project. I had 8 oz of solid and 4 oz of tricolor (2oz had a somewhat higher proportion of lighter colors in the mix, producing an overall lighter yarn), then plied it thusly:
I was originally thinking a cardigan, but now I’m thinking maybe a loose drapy pullover with a really long, sloppy turtleneck, not quite a cowl. I’ll wash and swatch it first, then go from there.
Last weekend, Cathy & I started working on our collaborative project. We’re going to finish up next weekend.
Wheee!
Now I’m off to:
My actual birthday is Wednesday, but I’m celebrating already! This came from Sue, for my LYS! And she’s not even a knitter! How about that for an awesome shopper? I’m going to save this as a post Yarn School reward! I don’t know what she’s implying with the tranny rooster, though.
Yesterday’s mail also brought this:
From Jennifer, so completely spoils me. We’re pretty fucking broke right now, what with the new car (the wait was supposed to be 3 months, so we thought we’d have more time to save up a down payment, but it only took 3 weeks, so we ended up having to scrape it together with zero notice), so it’s very exciting to get a wonderful treat. Not only did she remember how much I admired the yarn, but what COLOR I wanted, too! It wasn’t a birthday present per se, but I’m counting it as one.
And a Bay Laurel from Ron! I’ve heard these are hard to grow here (as is rosemary; both grew like weeds in Texas), so I don’t know whether to plant it in a pot or in the garden. I always fail bringing pots in. I’ve read they’re troubled by scale indoors, and my citrus got killed by the scale inside last winter, after surviving scale the previous two (although I just read that humidity takes care of that; so maybe a humidifier would fix me up). But I really like bay in the garden. I just don’t know if I can pull it off. But I need to decide in the next couple days.
I’m trying not to knit or spin too much because I really want to heal up my arm injury (pulled muscle from 2 months ago that I keep re-hurting) before Yarn School. I made a sling and everything. I even wore it for a couple hours. But I did allow myself a little spinning last night:
I started on my second batch of Wildcat Hollow tri-color roving. This lot has a slightly thicker red-brown strip, which makes for a slightly darker yarn. I plan to ply the two together. I did the first spool with a woolen long-draw, but I’m nervous about my arm and can’t do the long draw on the left side, so I’m using a sort of modified woolen draw that’s how I spun before I learned worsted. I’m keeping it short and feeding continuously, but not smoothing the yarn, and letting the twist run up into the fiber and pulling the fiber back from it. Honestly, I don’t think woolen has to be a long draw, does it? I mean, isn’t it just how you let the fibers meet the twist?
I should do some spinning exercises. And by exercises, I mean lessons, not acrobatics.
Here’s Autumn, my favorite Wildcat Hollow cria from last year. Look at her freckles! Isn’t she a doll? And I have her blanket.
I was busy spinning my yummy new Wildcat Hollow tricolor I started at Spinsters Club last weekend when I remembered: my favorite alpaca growers are going to be at the Lincoln Haymarket Farmer’s Market, so if you’re in Lincoln, go say hi!
Ed & Marta from Wildcat Hollow in Eskridge have formed an alpaca cooperative with a handful of other local growers called Alpaca Endeavors & they’ll be in Lincoln, Nebraska at the Haymarket August 30 and September 13 (in stalls 156 & 157) and September 20, October 4 and 11 (in stalls 129 & 130). They’ll have alpaca yarn, roving (single and tricolor), fiber for felting, fine fiber for spinning, plus handmade articles for sale.
I heartily recommend the new Wildcat Hollow tricolors. I’m currently spinning the one on the left, the sort of latte-colored blend, and it’s so soft and yummy. I’m trying my hand at spinning it woolen, which is how I used always to spin before I got fixated on worsted and forgot how. But it’s so soft and fuzzy and alpaca’s so warm that I want to make a really really weightless lofty yarn of it. We’ll see if I’m up to the task.
So far I really like the yarn. I love how when you spin it really fine, you don’t know what wisps of what color will get drawn in and you’ll have little solid stretches followed by contrasty twirly candycane spans followed by really subtle twisties. I don’t know what it’s going to bet yet. Maybe a garter yoke cardigan? I could either do the whole thing in the tricolor, or the yoke could be the tricolor and the rest could be just solid Marguerit (I think she’s the auburn stripe, but I have her solid roving, too).
(My poor old camera’s been ressurected & is still chugging along. For now. My birthday’s next week and Mama’s ponying up a new DSLR. I still haven’t picked, but I’m leaning toward the Sony after trying Jen’s husband’s at Spinsters on Sunday). The yarn’s too fine on the bobbin to tell how it will look plied, so in the meantime, you get pictures of the nice animals who made it! These were from shearing day last spring. It was the day after Yarn School & I was beat and never got around to writing up my little photo essay, which I really want to do, because I attended a really big alpaca shearing & a much smaller one, and the difference was interesting.
Marta with Autumn. She’s named after their granddaughter, who is also a cute leggy teenager, but much less furry.
Autumn’s coat is variegated. It’s her baby coat, so they say she’ll probably be a different color next year. This one goes from almost black to to gray to a reddish fawn. So pretty. I don’t quite know what to do with it, though. I’d hate to have it processed because I’m afraid it would lose its beautiful variation. Then again, it might be a wonderful heather. For the moment, it’s in limbo.
And here’s poor Autumn naked and woeful. Over on the left, I think that’s Marguerit. She’s the darker stripe in the latte tri-color roving. And here’s her blanket, glowing in the sunshine:
This is the shearing table. When they shear alpacas, they either use a table or a system of pulleys on the ground. Either way, the animal has to be tethered firmly. You can’t just flop them on their butts like sheep. With the table, you lean them against it, then swivel it over, strap their feet, and someone holds the wiggly head. Afterwards, they release the feet, swivel the table back down, lower the animal down, and she shakes off and is on her merry way. It’s hard to describe the other way–I’ll try to get pictures up soon. There seemed to be a lot less squalling with the table than the floor method, but that might be because it’s a much smaller farm and the animals are all handled a lot more. At the big farm, most of them are little wild. And the table was a lot slower, but I don’t know whether that’s inherent to the process or because the New Zealanders using the pulleys at the bigger farm were just more experienced. The results are the same either way: naked, puppety critters with mop top hairdos.
YARN: 5 balls Knit Picks Andean Silk
PATTERN: Generic top-down raglan with lace panel, short sleeves, 1×1 ribbing at collar, cuffs & hem
NOTES: No shaping. I wish I had shaped the waist. It’s cute enough, and the yarn has enough drape that it’s not dumpy even though it’s boxy, but it would be way cuter with curves. I have plans to rework this one, making it superawesome! Superawesome. I might give this one to my mom. She seemed to really like it, but maybe she was being polite.
Right now, I’m working on a top-down raglan pinafore dress. It’s not coming along as quickly as I’d hoped because I keep frogging and reworking. My main challenge is really trying to think in terms of a pattern instead of just making it fit me and only me. If I can wrap it up soon (tick tock, tick tock, looking grim), I might have a home for the pattern. The goal is a loose short-sleeved pinafore for winter layering over LS tops, long underwear, summer dresses, etc. And while I do love knitting off the cone, I’m beginning to wonder if I ought to have wound off my donegal and washed it first, since all the stitches lean. And since the skeined stuff is washed, I think. Or is it?
And I’m busting ass getting ready for YARN SCHOOL and FELT SCHOOL! (We still have spots, including some more newly-added private rooms and discounted group rooms! Register now!).
This year, we have 3 official helper bees, PLUS two cooks. I love cooking, but I’m really excited to be out of the kitchen and into the yarny fun this session. Marissa’s menu looks absolutely delectable, and if the weather cooperates, we may get our hands on the last of the bounty of this summer’s CSA for our veggies. And this year, our beef, eggs & some dairy will be local, too!
The best part of all the extra help is that I get to teach a bit more. I’m going to add a prep lesson and a yarn planning lesson to my batt carding demo, and I think I’ll make some yarn samples spun different ways off the same batt.
Speaking of batts, August Cuckoo for Cuckoobatts Club batts went off today. They’re as cute as a button! You don’t get to see them until next month, but in the meantime, here are the last 2 months’ club batts:
July: Head on the Door (alpaca, hand-dyed wool, hand-dyed sparkle, angelina sparkle)
June: Summer Storm (superwash merino, alpaca & wool, with bamboo & hand-dyed sparkle)
And the last exciting news for the week: One of the cousins gave me an egg yesterday! Here it is, artfully modeled by Irma & Wayne (made by moxie):
The cousins are Patty and Cathy, the 2 black Australorps. They’re named after Patty Duke and Cathy Lane, identical cousins. I was going to call them Patty and Selma, but they don’t have a punchy theme song. You can tell them apart only by Cathy’s lighter feet and Patty’s more iridescent feathers, but not just at first glance. One of them was skulking around inside the coop in the middle of the afternoon. I didn’t catch on until she let out a loud BA-CAAAAAAAWK! and came tearing out of the coop. I ran in and found the egg, but by then she had blended back into the group and I didn’t know who had produced our beautiful first egg.
Afterwards, I made a little privacy curtain for the nest box in hopes they’ll use it instead of dropping it in the corner of the coop:
Unblocked and shitty lighting, but aside from the unbearable itchiness (I’ll have to wear a shirt under, as usual), it was a quick & fun knit & I’m well pleased. The lace is from one of those stitch books. I barely changed it & I’m not crazy about it. I’m a literalist. I want leaves to look like leaves. I’d like to rework the lace pattern a bit more & make it with a pocket. I really tried to give it a pocket, but there just wasn’t enough yarn. And I’d like the repeat out of something that can actually touch my skin without making me crazy.
I really do wish I could toughen up a bit.
Pattern: generic top-down raglan with lace panel, no shaping
Yarn: Knit Picks Andean Silk, 5 balls