Hooray for fluff!

This last weekend brought the most wonderful time of the year again. That's right; Maryland Sheep and Wool. I don't celebrate holidays, and I'm not much of a shopper. I think the amount of glee that I get out this event is why; I use up all of my shopping in one fell swoop and I'm done for another year. (Unless I could get to another fluff festival, where I'd totally do it all over again.)

Laura and Jennie came up from Atlanta to join us for my annual pilgrimage to Mecca...er...West Friendship, MD. We also met Dave and Brittany at the show, and I had a lovely time with my fluff posse.

Unlike previous years, I had a budget. A nice budget. A budget containing the money that I've been earning by working my fingers to the bone tying women into corsets. Even better, it was a cash budget. When there was no more cash, there were no more purchases. It was a lovely way to operate. The credit card never had to leave the wallet, and I loved it.

Of course, there were a few hiccups...we ran into some intensely retarded traffic going through Tyson's Corner, and ended up missing out on introducing the girls to Colleen (and seeing her myself, pout pout). And when leaving the show, the cops wouldn't let us go left, claiming there was a horrific backup that way. So, we went right; the way we didn't know. The way that a certain sugar-crashing amazonian type insisted would take us to places that we would never go to. Jennie was trying to be helpful with her GPS, but by that point, Daven and I had both reached the "No, we are large and dumb and we will FIGURE THIS SHIT OUT, DAMMIT." point of the day. We eventually got on the correct road and ended up at the same "hideously backed up" intersection. ... So, either these cops had never seen traffic in their lives, or 20 cars was a big backup that necessitated our going way the hell out of the way for. So much hate. So much. Grr. We eventually escaped the "terrible" traffic and got some food at our favoured Mexican joint in Vienna. Food and drinks. Mm. Drinks.

Anyway! The actual festival part!

We got there around 12:30, and Daven kindly offered to park the car whilst we scampered out to start the perusal 'o stuff. As there really was horrible traffic at that point, we went for it. Some 20-30 minutes later he finally rejoined us, after parking waaaaaay off in BFE. I must say, this is the fourth year I've been, and it was the most packed I've seen it. This, with the threat of rain looming over us all day! I can't imagine what madness would have occurred if it'd been sunny.

We saw many lovely things. Highlights include: jewelry made out of antique cutlery, a beautiful spinning wheel that was going up for auction that I valiantly resisted, a felted yurt with incredible wet-felting going on inside (this was Art, man), giant sheep that looked like small cows and bellowed like death metal singers, and, of course, an incredible amount of gorgeous fluff and string.

We hit a few standards; the giant eclairs (shared between Jennie, Laura and myself; Dave and Britt each got one on their own, and Daven stood watch to make sure no ninjas attacked us and took our fried sweets), the funnel cake, and the corn dogs. Because I love me some fried fair food, y0.

I've got a picture of most of what I've bought, which I'll try to upload at some point. For now, the list:
Sock yarn: 2 Skeins from Creatively Dyed Yarn, one that is bright orange/red and one that is bright red/black variegated. 2 skeins from Tess, one deep forest green tonal and one chestnut tonal. (Surprise! That's all of the yarn I bought all day!)
Fluff: 2 oz baby camel down. 2 oz yak (softer than anything I could possibly imagine). 2 oz cashmere/silk blend that is to die for. 3lb 9oz of unprocessed black/dark brown alpaca fleece. 4 undyed silk hankies. (Actually, all of the fiber that I bought was all natural coloured; I can dye my own now, thanks.)
Spinning: I got another drop spindle, made out of some beautiful wood with an incredible grain to it, as well as a little ebony. It spins like a dream, and I was trying out all of my delicate fibres that I'd picked up over the course of the day with it.
Jewelry: (This was a surprise category.) 1 pair of spinning wheel dangly earrings that I couldn't resist, and a ram's head necklace for Daven.
Food: In addition to the fried delights, we also picked up a metric buttload of jam (6 jars) from the Lion Potter, who does wonderful things with jam. Also, apple butter.
Household: Art! I bought 3 prints from the sheep artist that I'd been admiring for years. (Not that we can hang artwork in our current house, but when we move, stuff is going back up on our walls.) We picked up two sheepskins, as after spending an evening wrapped up in a sheepskin many moons ago, I decided I wanted one. There's one incredibly soft "cheapie sheepie" chestnut coloured skin that we're not sure what we'll do with, but it was too soft and too cheap to turn down. (We were a bad influence; almost everyone we were with bought a skin from that place.) Then there's the luxurious long, fluffy black sheepskin that I want to poke a hole in and attach a button to and have a really ridiculous (but warm) shawl.

All in all, this was a totally different shopping experience than what I've done in the past. The first two years were all about the yarn. Last year was mostly about the yarn, but also turned out to be about the spinning wheel, and buying a lot of lower-quality fluff that I felt like I could handle. This year was more about high quality items that I'd lusted after last year, but didn't feel like a good enough spinner to buy. To quote the Yarn Harlot in her Sheep and Wool Festival guide on Knitty: "Buy the best that you can afford." This year I did, and I don't regret a single bit of it. :)

Surprising to no one.

With my recent obsessive reading up on Vikings, it was only a matter of time before I tried my hand at naalbinding. (Vikings did not knit. They tied extremely complicated knots with the assistance of one large needle. Totally different.)

Luckily, I came across this handy website, which pretty much spells out how to do it in very easy terms. Once you get going, it goes pretty quickly, though I've not made anything more than something the size of a quarter. It is fun, though I'm not sure what I'll do with it.

Just one more way to play with string. :)

In which there are links and rambles.

I learned last night/this morning that there is such a thing as too much knitting, as evidenced by the pain I had in the top of my left hand when pinching. I've been a good girl and laid off the knitting today. Which means, of course, that I spent an hour or two spinning the random bits of fluff I'd dyed as samples, and have returned to the kitchen for more Adventures in Dyeing(TM).

This has been a spectacularly underwhelming week, so I decided that coping was best achieved by knitting like a mad woman (ok, there was a lot of WoW, too), thus the hurty hand.

Due to some contractual issues last Friday, I got sent home from work, and didn't receive word to return until Thursday. This of course came when I've been having some nuclear powered PMS and am generally an unpleasant person to be around. Stress and unhappiness caused me to lash out/vent at someone who didn't deserve it, and though I hope I've smoothed over the ruffled feathers, it was quite the indicator that I was on the edge and lacking in control.

When I'm lacking in control, I take what I can get. In this case, I cast on this in this. (No beads, as I didn't have any on hand and wasn't willing to wait to get some.) The gauge is all wonky, since the handspun isn't very even, but I'm still enjoying the hell out of knitting something somewhat complicated with yarn I spun myself.

Since the last post (dear gods, it's been a while), I've knit a pair of 2x2 stripey socks for a friend of mine, another fish hat for Dave (stripey, because I'm a little obsessive with stripes just now), a single black/flamey stripey sock for myself, another sock and a half in some hand painted yarn that Darcy and I dyed a while back, re-finished the sock for Daven that I'd had a fit and torn out the foot on, knit a kerchief for my friend 'drea and spun a few batts of fluff that I'd made more reasonable on my drum carder a while back. (I have a plan for this yarn, assuming it turns out reasonably.)

I've got a backlog of stuff to make for people (that craft meme thing where I owe 4 more folks crafty things, in addition to agreeing to knitting a couple of hats for another friend and and and... gah!), it is of course totally reasonable to start working on a shawl. Honest.

And back to the dyeing. I've got plans involving playing with blending, we'll see how those go. Oh, and I've got the saga of taking my first raw fleece from bag 'o goat to something reasonable to look at, but that's a story for another post.

Grr. Argh. *gnashing of teeth*

I don't know why, but I suck at baby hats. Invariably, they either fit me or are so incredibly tiny that they'd cause an orange brain damage via compression.

Just because the gift I've been working on somewhat revolves around a baby hat, I was very confident in achieving my goals.

Oops. Too small. *frog*

Too big. *frog*

This one seems to have the shaping right, but it fits me, and I have no need of it. *frog*

*contemplates, decides to simply knit a beanie, and then add on from there*

Amazingly, the beanie works. It doesn't fit my wee head, but won't turn the recipient into a conehead.

Now, to add the shaping. Short rows sound good...look good for quite a while, until the last few steps, at which point it all looks like hell and I'm frustrated and pissed off again. I have one more idea left in me, and then I'm just going to rip all of the shaping out and simply send a plain beanie and no explanation why it doesn't look right.

Nothing like wasting most of a day working on something (really, I was very single minded in it) and having it Not. Work.

Grr.

"Finish him!"

Or them, as the case might be.

I was reminded by my darling husband that the sweater I had knit him oh so many moons ago had no collar. This came up because there was this cold snap, ya'see, and a huge heating bill and, well, we're trying to remedy the one of those that we can control. Our (rented) house is huge, and though all of the other levels stay nice and toasty, the one that we actually spend most of our time in is bloody Baltic. So, abruptly, a sweater was a very desirable thing for him to wear. Without the collar, it looked like he'd escaped from an ill-conceived 80's flick, so collar it was.

Of course, I forgot one important thing about collars: stretchy bind-offs. What had previously slipped effortlessly over his head abruptly stopped at his temples and he made sad, muffled noises about being trapped forever in a sweater. Fiiiine, whiner. Tear back bind off. Try same bind off on bigger needles. Now it got to his ears. Swear excessively about not learning from my own mistakes. Knit a swatch and try a different bind off, as the yarn was getting to that point where I really only had one more knit left in it before it started being problematic. Success, albeit somewhat frilly success. I decided I did not care. I queried the husband as to his state of caring, he seconded that he did not care, was simply cold and would like his sweater now. I slipped it over his head to make sure it fit, and lo, I was pleased to see it went over his head. I asked "Does it come off easily? No, nevermind, I don't care. You're wearing it forever." More whining, and we figured out that yes, it fit, came off and on easily, and no, it didn't look frilly when being worn. Hooray!

Continuing in the "finished" vein, I finally used up all of the warp on the loom. This was a goal prior to having many people in my home, as the loom has been transported up to the craft room, instead of hanging out in the middle of the living room where it had become accustomed to residing. Now, I have many, many tiny knots in my near future, but I have more options on how to make the tiny knots look awesome due to (of course) my faboo SiL and her imparting a crapload of fantastic info sources to me over Christmas. (And our visit, too. She gave me a great book that she knit swatches for, and can't wait to try some of the techniques in it out!)

So, yay! Finished a few things (including the fun stripey socks that I bestowed on Heather, as when we'd visited she showed off her stripey socks and noted that they were already wearing out. This was Unacceptable as a knitter and friend, so socks had to be made!), and haven't cast anything new on as of yet. We'll see how long that lasts...

A bit of column A, a bit of column B.

Things that I do not love:
Short row heels on socks. They leave this weird little nubbin of loose fabric at the very bottom of the heel that drives me insane.
Short row toes. I actually like the technique, but I don't like the look or fit.
Socks that call for both a short row heel and short row toe that leave a big weird seam to kitchener on the bottom of the foot of the sock. I don't care how good of a kitchener it is. It feels weird and looks bad to me.
Tearing out a sock after hating it quietly for the better part of a year and refusing to knit its mate out of sheer stubbornness.
The fact that I cannot get 2 matching socks made for Daven out of 100g of yarn. Grr.
Finally getting all of the peices in place to start dyeing like a madwoman, and feeling singularly uninspired. Meh.
When a simple plying project goes well 75% of the way through, then turns into a mess.

Things I do love:
My new toy. Last weekend I picked up a Strauch "Finest" drum carder, and it is oodles of fun. I was cheerfully blending random things from my stash, and I'm loving the batts I'm getting. "Well, there isn't enough of this superwash fluff to do anything with, and it's the same colour family as this crappy roving that I bought off of etsy, but when their powers combine, I get fluffy batt of super improvedness!"
My sister-in-law, who is a fabulous crafter buddy and an all-around awesome person.
My husband, who dragged his laptop up into the fluff room so he could sit with me as I used my drum carder and listened as I squee'd about the results a lot. He also attacked the bathtubs with bleach this morning, so that's good, too. (Mostly. Bleach hurts mah brains.)
Pretty much getting over the fear of altering patterns. If I don't like an aspect of a pattern, and I can adjust it without changing the entire nature of the project, I can bloody well change it so that I actually enjoy working it.
These totally simple, yet intensely satisfying and fun, socks that I'm knitting.
The new 1x1 rib/2 row stripe scarf that I'm making to use up the fiery yarn I bought at MD Sheep and Wool a couple of years back. This will match my floompy brioche beret.
Waterbears. Just 'cuz.

Gonna have to face it, I'm addicted to...

Navajo plying. I just love it to bits. I love the roundness of the finished yarn, I love the trickiness of doing it, and I love only needing two bobbins to get finished yarn. As someone with a whole whack of bobbins that were (until last weekend) full of lots of lonely singles that didn't go with each other, navajo plying is the awesome answer.

How bad was it? I plied until I reclaimed 6 of my 8 bobbins. I have a short attention span when it comes to crafts, so I kept trying Neat New Fluff (tm), and then not making anything that corresponded with it. This ranged from some relatively heavy teal/purple mystery fibre, to a super-fine spun natural mohair/jacob blend, and the first of the fibre sent from the fluff of the month club I joined. (Mohair/alpaca/tussah/tencel blend that is just lovely and soft. Can we say "yum"?) I'm most impressed with the results of the latter; it is the first handspun that I've made that if I came across in a store, I'd contemplate buying. It's still not perfect, but I'm getting a helluva lot better. Squee!

On the "bitch bitch bitch" front, the huge bump of fluff I bought on Dec 22nd is still not here. *twitch* I really prefer not to misplace very large, expensive packages that certain expecations hinge on. USPS is non-helpful, as their last update was on Dec 27th as "Acceptance", and then it was eaten by their system. I did send an email to the woman I bought it from to see if she had any experience in terms of how long it normally took for stuff to get from Washington state to Virginia, but I've not heard back from her yet. Even taking the holiday into account, there has been 10 USPS business days from then until now and unless they are shipping it via donkey, it should bloody well be here by now. *fume* I am stymied, and I do not like it one bit.

Continuing in the irritation, I started spinning the red/dark red fluff I dyed, and it is sticky. Really sticky. And did I mention that my hands go all red after I spin with it? Insufficient rinsing. Meh. So, I'm re-rinsing (with the goo I forgot to use last time) to get the rest of the dyed fluff into a reasonable state. An astonishing amount of dye remained. It'll take some trial and error on my part to make sure things are better in the future. Of course, I'll do the chemical'y rinse right after the fluff comes out and has cooled down, so I don't have to keep re-drying it in my middle floor bathroom. I'm learning, but without new supplies, it makes things a little more difficult.

Back on the "yay" front, Daven and I head down to visit Darcy tomorrow, which I'm really looking forward to. Geeking and big new toy and wine tasting and a yarn store visit. It should be a lovely weekend. :)

A little tedium goes a long way.

Way back in November, I was weaving away, and I screwed up my pattern. I went "feh, I'll get around to it later." Since I've returned, "later" continued to be "not now". Weeks passed. Visitors came to the house, ooh'ed at the loom and asked if I'd been working on it recently. I'd hem and haw and mumble about the pattern screw-up, then mention it'd be very tedious to tear back the 5" or so of the pattern to make it weavable again.

Eventually, after the third round of guests to ask about it, there was a firmly planted seed of discord in the back of my mind. Today was finally "later". It was tedious, I assure you, even though it wasn't as bad as, say, warping the loom will be.

So, I've finally got a loom that is useful again! I celebrated by weaving a foot or so of the pattern, and accepting that it ain't perfect, but it doesn't have to be. I'm just glad that I can make progress on it again. :)

Oh, what the hell.

Another Ravelry WTF moment.

This fits the person wearing it (I refuse to call her a model) like a feedbag. She's doing some sort of wringing thing with her hands along the bottom hem and...GAH! BAD KNITTER! NO COOKIE!

In other news, I have organized my Stash. This was...humbling. I have a lot of yarn. A lot of it is bad yarn. I need to work on getting what no longer appeals to me out of it. But, it's now organized in such a fashion that I can see damn near all of it. (I have two plastic tubs full of yarn that you can't quite see, but I know what's in there.) I even organized my weaving baskets AND my fibre stash. I feel quite pleased with myself, and inspired to do stuff every time I walk into the stash room. Mostly that stuff has been "clean up", but eventually it should be "make things". It's embarrassing how many projects I've got in my stash, needles and all. I WILL DEFEAT YOU, BENCHED UFOs! Someday. :)

I love lists!

As promised, a boring list of active WiPs. I might get fancy-pants and eventually do this on Ravelry, but I'm not holding my breath. Keep in mind, these are just projects that I'm actively working on. There are a bunch of things that have been benched for various and asundry reasons. These are in no particular order.

- Grey & Black sheep One-in-all - 6 mo size. One leg and one foot done. Mostly parked for the moment, as I'm doing a modified version and knitting the same thing in different colours at the same time would drive me insane.
- Multi-colour fish hat. Only the tail, fins and eyes are left. This is my WoW knitting, but I've not been playing much lately, so it's stagnated. Stagnant fish, eww.
- Crocheted baby duck blanket. This is about 1/3 done in terms of crochet, and needs all of the embroidery to be done. I occasionally poke at this due to my sister really wanting it for the nephew Smurf, but making the same blanket more than once is tedious business, even if it's been a couple of years.
- Seekrit modified version of the one-in-all and matching hat. The main portion is about 2/3 of the way done, and the hat basically has just been started. This is in the 6 mo size, and I've been informed the nephew is growing like a weed, so I need to pick this bastardly thing back up again and finish it off, or it'll never get done.
- Pink & blue chunky braid scarf. I think this is about 1/2 way done, as I've only got one skein, and when it's gone, I'm done.
- 1x1 rib stripe'y scarf that is normally done in Noro, but I'm an infidel and using something else that doesn't offend my "This is really expensive, but itchy" sensibilities. Hey, more for those of you who like Noro!
- Sproing'y socks in my hand-dyed green/blue/purple colourway. One is done, the other is just past the gusset. These are my most active knitting, as the pattern is stupidly easy to memorize.

Hey, that's only 7! As long as you don't look at my dyeing, spinning and weaving habits, that's almost reasonable! :)