The Thrifty Knitter

I’m contemplating getting a deep freeze for my fiber. I know that sounds nutty, but I’m so scared of getting months. Whenever I buy new fiber, I’m always nervous about what could be tagging along. If I had a deep freeze dedicated to fiber, I could cycle everything in for a month at a time to make sure nothing survives, just like I do with rice and chiles. They say a regular household fridge isn’t really cold enough to do the trick, but when I checked our old chest freezer before it crapped out (which is totally my fault, and a long, boring, and embarrassingly stupid story), it went way below zero not ever cranked all the way up. I can’t remember the exact number, but I think 5 or 10 below was plenty for a moth egg death squad.

Hm. Actually, there’s still an old freezer in Eskridge (our extra buildings that are waiting patiently). I think I’ll go plug it in this weekend and see how cold it gets. If it does the trick, maybe the boys who use the gym for basketball will haul it over here for me…

Yay! It’s no energy star, but I could just run it when I’m cycling in new wool.

What do you call the girl version of the loincloth? The one that’s more like a miniskirt toga? I can’t think of anything but loincloth, but it covers far more than one’s loins. Anyway, I’m finishing one up for the cave girl burlesque act.

I met with Amie (Etta Vendetta) yesterday after powwowing with Kelly Sue and Laurenn about the names of each act. We hammered out the titles, and corny set/prop items. And if you’re in or near KC and you’re a magician or ventriloquist who wants to perform for free in between acts, email me! So far, we’ll have some dirty jokes in drag, some bad comedy, and Kelly Sue emceeing. I’m tempted to hula hoop and drink beer as a suitably lame tweenyact, but I’m afraid I’ll get stage fright and drop my hoop. Unthreatened, I can hoop forever. I used to do it to attract people to our garage sales.

When I’m done with the burlesque show, my next big, fun project will be dying the cone on the top right into on continuous string of self-striping yarn for a big wool blanket.

It was from a Webs closeout, I think something like $10 or $12/pound. So instead of being clever and bundling it as I unwound it from the cone, I went into sort of a hypnotic frenzy and unwound the whole thing into a massive bundle, too heavy for my swift:

I used that as an excuse to buy the bigger swift with a Joann 50% off coupon & free shipping. (Yes, I am an elite member of the Joann free shipping club. I think that means I spent $100 or so. It’s not actually elite.) With a lot of fevered negotiating, I got it to stay mostly on the bigger swift so that I could wind it into bunches with a Louet skeinwinder. It was still so heavy that I’d have to spin the swift with one hand and wind with the other until it was 75% wound.

The problem is, you can only hold so many bundled hanks on the winder before you risk a big tangled mess. So I’d wind 5 30-yd mini-hanks, tie them off as I wound them, then stop every five and bundle them into a twisted hank, strap the hank to arms of the winder, and continue. Eventually, I got this:

When released, it’s this: one continuous strand wound as 14 150yd skeins subdivided into 5 30-yd hanks. I’m going to pick probably 5 colors and a few intermediate tones, and lay it all out on the counter, and dye them all in order, wrap each in its own plastic wrap, and toss the whole mess in a roasting bag in the electric roaster at the lowest setting for a couple of hours, and hope for the best. Hm. I also have a beautiful enameled stockpot that I had to take out of cooking commission because of the chipped bottom. I could get a steam tray and steam it all tamale-style instead.

Although, hm. It would probably make more sense to use the pot to make actual tamales. Duh.

So, now that I’ve wasted all that time, here is a very reasonable questions: Why didn’t I just cut the 5-bundle skeins, since it’s wool and would splice easily and then I could dye the colors more conveniently and then splice them back together in my chosen order?

Because I am a fuckwit.

Today I packed up 10# of very soft by really neppy, vm-y roving that was making me depressed and shipped it off to Zeilinger to be reprocessed into combed tops. That will make the final cost of the stuff insanely expensive (original cost + shipping + cost of roving + silk added to it to prevent neps, which didn’t actually work + shipping back to me + shipping to Zeilinger + expensive combing + shipping home). I don’t even want to fill in the blanks on that equation. Math is so mean. And because I didn’t have enough of either to meet their quota, I had to combine the white and the gray, which, who knows? But I figured I’d rather beat a dead horse one last time that to shake my fist and curse the heavens plowing through 10# of it on the wheel, right? Now watch the tops totally suck.

I really should do that math, to punish my stupidity, and as a cautionary tale for future raw fleece purchases. New rule. I may purchase no more than 2 fleeces per year for personal use. (I’ve already met my quota this year.) And no more than 3 for Yarn School, since we really actually only get through one anyway.

Maybe I should also buy some combs. Except: what money?

In other news, The Harveyville Project is in the new ReadyMade, but I haven’t seen it yet, since my subscription is always weeks late, and I’m not driving 40 minutes to get a copy when there’s one (eventually) on the way. But I have seen some of the pictures here, and ReadyMade is generally pretty positive, so I’m crossing my fingers. We’re also going to be in the summer Venus!

I’m going to go back to panic knitting for the burlesque show. Good day.

This box came on Friday, stuffed to explode. Here’s what was inside:

2# of fleece from a llama called noche. Soft and beautiful, like the beautiful, beautiful hair of a beautiful, beautiful lady. Can’t wait to try it! And also:

9# of fleece from a Rambouillet/Cormo/Corriedale called Ray. You can get an idea of how much there is by looking at my shoes. I surprised myself and packed it right back up and shipped it off to Zeillinger’s for roving. I have some neppy roving I want to see if they can improve with combing (which will make it stupidly expensive per pound, but whatever–chalk it up to experience), and I was going to send them some samples of that anyway, so I thought, what the hey. I don’t really want to deal with 9# of stinky, and I want to try as many different processors as possible. I’ve learned my lesson about that basket of eggs. But no matter what, I am NOT going to turn into some crazed maniac buying a zillion fleeces again this year. In fact, I’m swearing off fiber lists for the present [breaks into a light sweat].

I washed a lock of Ray that sneaked out of the package when I was re-boxing. It’s not as soft as pure Rambouillet or Cormo, but it is very springy and lofty, and a pretty soft gray color. And I’m guessing the Corriedale part will make the fiber less prone to pilling, which I appreciate. But still. I totally didn’t need this. I’m up to my ears. I really am a glutton.

Note: you’ll really need to Tetris these on your swatch. Print out or trace two hearts & 6 dots on paper and lay them out before you start cutting.

Heart and Dot Template for Katamari Queen earmuffs

First cup. I went with stranded colorwork knits & purls, though it’s not my forte, because the results looked better. Originally, I was planning on knitting it in the other direction, with the raised portions as reverse stockinette and the shell’s creases as stockinette, with short rows to flair the scallops, but the Softwist doesn’t pull in all bouncy the way wool does (but I liked its sheen & wanted it for the shells), so it just looked flat and bleh.

Here’s the back:

The bottoms will be the same, but with no eyelets and the bottom of the shell tapering down to a crotch and then a g-string. I might also make larger, tear-away shell for the back bottom. Ooh la la!

I spun this bouncy goodness from Hello Yarn fiber:

Color’s a bit washed out by the sunlight here.

With its source fiber.

I thought I might try to navajo ply it; either that, or keep it a single. But what to make?

So last night in the wee hours when I should have been sleeping (or at least knitting), I bought some fiber. I should really take a picture of all my fiber so you could see just how little I need freaking fiber.

I think it’s time for a little self-imposed intervention.

As I witness to the depth of my need, I have to confess that I just left my post to go buy a bunch of fiber before I officially proclaimed my intentions to moderate my fiber purchases.
I’m an asshole.

But now that I’ve already bought everything and there’s absolutely no sacrifice involved, hear ye, hear ye.

I’m going to start a fiber stashalong with the same rules as my yarn stashalong, to wit:

1. eliminate 1500g/month by selling or spinning
2. only replenish 10% of what I destash.

The tough part is that I need to figure out how much fiber I have, and I need to include those cowardly additional purchases I made mid-post. And they’re substantial. Yikes.

I might double the elimination quota, since it’s much faster to spin than to knit. Spinning is a nice loophole for adding to my stash without counting it.

I also bought 3 skeins of dark brown heather mulespun yarn with my yarn destash earnings.

They’re 4oz skeins & my destash ball count is based on 50g balls, of which I’ve earned 8. But since I’m going by grams, my 4 skeins count as 7 of my 8 earned balls.

I have some natural chocolate Rambouillet roving blended with some pink dyed wool and a leetle bit of pink nylon sparkle. I thought I might spin that with some additional dyed pink top or roving and use it as the handspun element for yoke and cuffs in a yoke sweater.

I’m rotten with procrastination. I really can’t stand myself. Maybe I should buy a book on self-hypnosis (yay! all new fake self-help procrastination) and zap myself out of it.

Today’s form of pathetic and supremely boring form of procrastination involved HOURS surfing spinning and fiber sites from the new Spin-off. I am so fucking dull, I can’t stand it. This is what happens to me when Ron leaves town. I also bought a cheap wheel on ebay. For Yarn School. It was too cheap to blow off. I hope it’s fine.

A more productive form of procrastination (earlier in the week) was adding a bunch of yarn and fiber to our etsy site.

I had a lot of trouble pricing the yarn. On the one hand, handspinning is very labor-intensive, especially when you figure in dyeing or blending and plying and washing and listing and packing it up. On the other hand, I’m a complete beginner, and while I’m only selling the stuff that I’d actually knit (balanced, reasonably lofty, etc.), I’m also not experienced enough to really know my flaws. You don’t want to go too high out of modesty, but you don’t want to go to low and be the jerk who makes the fancy stuff look comparatively so expensive (when it’s expensive for good reason). And it’s not like anyone but other spinners can tell anything by looking at pictures. Anyway, I was wringing my hands about the whole thing, when I ran across this, which very eloquently articulates the quandary of pricing handmade goods. So I decided I’d price at about commercial yarn store prices (which in most cases pretty much just covers materials and listing/selling expenses) instead of what I think of as handspun prices, and consider it a learning experience. After all, I must make a bunch of different yarns to learn/amuse myself, but how many orphan skeins can I possibly use? But I’m also a big, apologetic nerd, so I included this goofy disclaimer under all the yarn descriptions, which will probably be off-putting enough dissuade anyone from actually buying my yarn:

P.S. Just as a little sidenote, without going too far into the complicated ethical considerations in pricing of handmades: I’m a beginning spinner, so I’m pricing my yarns on par with nice commercial yarn rather than fine professionally hand spun yarn. While I’m only selling yarn I’d be pleased to knit myself, I am definitely still learning the craft, and don’t feel I’m ready to charge much above my materials. I just wanted to make the distinction out of respect for the really fine, experienced professional hand spinners out there, who ask and really deserve much higher prices. Okay, enough with the dorkiness! Go knit!

But on the bright side, one of my skeins of handspun ended up in my destash pile and I picked it up and squooshed it and said (out loud) “Oh, this is nice! What is this?” before I realized it was mine.

I submitted a pattern to MagKnits today. I hope they pick it! My goal is to submit 4 patterns this year to various places. I also have a new very good book idea (I get one of those every 15 minutes, but seldom write anything up) that I want to suss out this weekend, but I need to quit adding new things to my to-do list. Okay, back to Spin-off surfing. Wait! Holy cow! It’s 4am. Nevermind. Off to bed!