Oh, what have I gotten myself into?

I've gone and officially signed up for the knitting Olympics on the YarnHarlot's blog.

Well, hopefully I'll have a nice blue sweater to show for it at the end. Pity it wasn't this week, when I've been out of work due to snow.

Huh.

So, it isn't the pattern that bothers me here, though it isn't my thing.

What I'm looking at is the size of this woman's hands. Yikes. Those are some paws she's got herself.

Uhhh...

Yeah, two posts in one day. That's called being snowed in, babycakes.

So, this is horrifying. It appears that she has tripe, or possibly strips of a brain, draped around her neck. That is a really unfortunate colour choice for it. Maybe I'm just not a ruffle kind of girl.

We interrupt this radio silence with an important announcement.

Well, no. Not really. But I have been quieter than normal; nearly two months without a post seems a little excessive.

I'm going to try a new thing, though I'm not sure how well it'll work. I'll post everything that I've worked on/completed each month. Since I was a little slow out of the gates with this, these are the photos of everything I've done since around the first of the year.

Some of the spinning that I've worked on. I'm poking around at making more of the flame coloured good stuff.


Stuff That I dyed: Three hanks of sock yarn (the one with the red is a 10 yd hank, which was fascinating to wind off on my warping board, and will be an enormous PITA to turn into a ball once I start working with it) and three 100g hanks of ramboulliet fluff.


Adult Surprise Jacket. I'm not in love with the button holes so I'm putting some ties in to have it in more of a kimono closure. I also made the pockets deeper. There will be another photo of this next time, most likely.


Sweater for Daven. This has been slowly creeping along for the last couple of months. The front is done, and this is the back. I knit this in the round so I wouldn't have to do much finishing up, but going back and forth for the back is...boring. As Daven put it this afternoon "So long as it's done before next winter, I won't give you too much shit about this." OK, love. You'll have a sweater by then. Promise. :>


Socks! Yes, I've knit all of these since the first of the year.


I have a Sock Scheme (tm) that I stole whole cloth from the YarnHarlot, and I've set up a bunch of sock kits. And when I say "A bunch" I mean that I have more than 20 kits set up with the yarn and pattern matched up. The tricky bit was that every pattern is one that I have never knit before. I admit it, I'm a comfort knitter, which means I haven't been learning much lately. I'm sick of that, so, this is my new strategy. Also, because I'm a picky bastard and I didn't like any of the options available to me, I ended up merging several things together into an entirely new (to me) sock pattern. It is serious business when I drag things like Traditional Scandinavian Knitting out.

In addition to finishing the Adult Surprise sweater (I hate you, I-cord), I'm working on the second sock to match the solitary guy up above, I continue to plug along with the Daven Sweater (when that gets done, I'll probably have a nice image heavy post of it), and I've purchased a sweater kit that I couldn't resist. Though I'm not much of a social crafter, I think I'm going to try and make that sweater during the knitting Olympics. This would probably go better if I, oh, watched the Olympics (no telly reception, yes, on purpose), but such things have never stopped me before!

Unrelated to crafting: I am plotting about chickens when the summer comes. I'll probably ramble about that in the future, so be prepared.

Truth in Advertising

Ah, Ravelry. How I love some of the crazy shit people post to you.

To humiliate the Dog

What a thing to do to a canine companion.

Why do I even ask?

My mother and I have had the same conversation multiple times.

"I'm knitting dad socks. What do you want?" "I want socks too!" "What colour?" "Black!" "Black sucks." "Blaaaack." "Aw, c'mon, you're killing me." "Blaaaaaaaaaaaack. Maybe white." *nrgh*

So, because I love my mother, I am going to take a pair of lovely teal and purple and blue socks off the needles (I'll put 'em on a stitch holder for later) and knit my mother a pair of blaaaaaaack socks.

Blaaaaaack. >_<

*Bwee-ooo*

We interrupt these wool reviews with the following news flash:

This is an awesome pattern. It is just the right amount of fiddly to demand your full attention until you get the hang of it, and has a few bits that are quite clever. It's a chatty pattern, but I had a heckuva good time knitting this today. The end result is super cute and squooshy. Hopefully the little person it is intended for likes it, too, or at least said wee person's parents do.

...I might have to make one of these in a Wendi size. The pattern could be translated into socks, too, for extra warm socks...ponder ponder.

Anyway, back to wool soon enough. I've stalled out on the fleece processing, as I'm spinning up some stuff I dyed last spring. I need to get back into that before my time is no longer my own again.

Review 3

Icelandic: This was an enjoyable chunk of fleece to process, but, hoo boy, is the reward limited. Half of the fleece is the hair, and the undercoat is very soft, but not much fun to spin. I wouldn't turn this down if it presented itself, but I don't think I'd actively seek it out again.

Welsh Mountain: Black and scritchy. This was ridiculously easy to process and it was begging to be spun. Pity about the scritchy aspect. This is also the sheddiest fleece I've worked with thus far. *shrug*

Romney: Oh, I am in love. I really enjoyed flick carding this long staple; taking something that looked ropey and tragic and making it giant and floofy was really fun! Once I figured out the trick of spinning this (which took a bit, and I finally broke out my drop spindle to get a better idea for how much spin vs. uptake was needed), I really enjoyed myself. The colour is shades of heather gray, and the end result of the yarn has a good squoosh to it. I will be on the lookout for a Romney fleece at MD S&W in May, as this would make a beautiful sweater.

Next in queue: Wensleydale. Curly, white, and somewhat filthy.

Review 2.0

East Friesian: Nice dark colour, amazing amounts of crimp, but, ugh, so crunchy. This was not a pleasure to spin, and the end result is a resounding "meh". I think I can skip this in the future.

Icelandic: De-haired it pretty easily, which cut down the volume of the actual fleece by about half. Also, I need to pay better attention to doing a final skirt of fleeces before washing them...I missed a few organic bits that...uh...melted. Ew. I haven't spun this, but the undercoat is amazingly soft and floofy. As an aside, the tip about feeding fleece into the drum carder so that it is perpendicular to the teeth really does create amazingly fluffy batts. I'll spin this up soon and give a final opinion, but this has been pretty fun so far.

Currently on the drying rack: Romney

And in knitting news, I finally cast on a sweater for Daven that I started plotting out...uh...a long time ago. I've had this yarn for quite a long time, and it was just waiting for me to get the bug to knit it up. It'll be a gansey'esque thinger, and I'm swapping out the XOX's that ran up the front and centre with some knots that Daven preferred. Yay for cabling! It pleases me. I'm attempting to knit this in the round again, as I am full of hate for seams.

With that in mind, I finished knitting my black cardie a while ago, but it's been waiting on me to finish all of those ends. Poo. I've got the finishing about half done, with just the back and one more sleeve to sew in. Le sigh. Maybe I'll do that today, if I get the motivation.

First in a series of wool reviews

These will be rather random updates as I review the process of cleaning and spinning samples of various sheep breeds that I got via The Spinning Loft wool sampler. (Disclaimer: the box I got has more varieties than the one that is currently offered. Oops.)

On to the reviews!

Finn: Two toned grey shades; a charcoal and a silver. It was very easy to separate the two colours so I could spin them individually. Washing was pretty straightforward, and though it took a bit to pick, it wasn't too terrible. Ran it through my drum carder to make two big fluffy batts, then had a really enjoyable time spinning the two tones. My always favourite navajo plying resulted in a yarn that is right around worsted weight. The yarn has a bit of a sheen to it, and a teeny bit of a halo; it is soft, but has a bit of a bite to it. It might be a little harsh for garments that are worn against the skin (sweaters and such) but hats and such would be quite lovely. I really enjoyed working with this, and would seek it out again.

Southdown Babydoll: Oh, I am so sad. This is also two toned, a light grey and almost-black. This was a simply filthy sample, and had so much lanolin that it was chunky and disgusting. I washed it repeatedly and still didn't have a workable fibre to use. The grey may possibly be usable with a lot of work, but the black had the texture of a brillo pad. This is really disappointing, as I find babydoll sheep to be adorable and was considering having a couple. Well, bucko, if you can't do anything but look cute, you're no good to me. I demand usefulness, dammit! I might look at a fleece in the future, but this sample was horrid.

By the way, this is mostly for my own records. I lose papers, but hopefully I won't forget how to access my own damn blog.

Currently in the sink: East Fresian. Nice dark colour, we'll see how she works out.