KnitMe

I Ply

I spy a 3 ply yarn. This is an astonishing development, believe me.

What's even more astonishing is that once I'd fine-tuned my wheel setup, I think it won't be that difficult to finish the batch.

I really wanted to stick with scotch tension for plying this - I don't want to have to go back to double drive for anything. This means that I use the larger bobbin end - more surface for the brake band to grab on. At first I left the small whorl on - reasoning it'd give me more twist more quickly. However, I soon decided that was not the best decision. In order to keep the whole flyer going around with the brake band set for a strong takeup, I had to screw up the wheel tension so much that it was getting hard to treadle. When I switched to the larger whorl, I could relax all that, and the reason was the same: more surface for the drive band to grab on. Once I got there I was fine.

I did break my hemp brake band in the process, but a quick trip to the drawer for cotton twine fixed that.

The spice cap was an incredible thing - I am not sure I could have managed this otherwise. With the spice cap I could always see the little triangle where the twist was taking the singles, and manage it evenly. And, if I had to stop I could push it all the way down to the lazy kate and it would stay put. This was a good thing, as at this gauge it took me about 2 hours total to fill that bobbin.

I plyed hard, so when the hank came off the niddy noddy it had quite a torque in it, but a very hot bath and good tension while drying straightened it out nicely.

In the end I got about 320 meters of yarn and I'm guessing it to be fingering weight. If I keep up at this pace I should get 1500 or 1600 yards of yarn, which would be quite respectable and useful.

I'm sort of amazed by this whole thing. There was a beautiful hank of natural-colored fingering weight corriedale yarn hanging up at a booth in the main building at MS&W and I said to Sam, "This is what I want my cormo to be like." It is actually coming out kind of like that. The experienced spinners will laugh at me, but when I looked at the hank all dry, I thought for the first time as a spinner, "I would actually buy this yarn."

It will probably be a month before I can show you a whole pile of little hanks like this, but won't it be delicious when it happens!

Oh Mount Holyoke, We Pay Thee Devotion...

No knitting content here, sorry. Just pretty pictures. This is going to be a lightly captioned photo montage of the 25th reunion of the Mount Holyoke College Class of 1980. I'll put most of it in the extended entry, so if you want to skip it and go to the fiber-related entries everywhere else, it'll be easy to do that. Knit on...

Friday

Registration

Click to see this one larger.

Saturday

Alumnae Parade

The college president reviews the 'troops'.

Senior class officers, followed by the class carrying their laurel chain.

Laurel Chain

The senior class winds the laurel chain around the supposed grave of the founder, Mary Lyon.

(Click to see a full size copy.)

Alumnae Association Meeting

Class of 1930 presents its comments.

The president addresses the alums.

A picnic for about 700

Some of my favorite campus places

Click the small one to see a big copy.

The library:

Sundial in the chapel garden.

My second home: Pratt music building, all growed up with a six million dollar renovation.

The sock before dinner, admiring Lower Lake.

After dinner, jazz favorites by Beth (who sang opera and oratorio back in our day) and her combo.

Finished Objects and Educating a Sock

Wool Peddlers (my second) is complete.

It's not blocked yet but I've already worn it once or twice because it's so cushy.

The yarn is Knitpicks Andean Silk, in 'sangria.' I used exactly 9 skeins. This allowed me to add two repeats of the lace. I shorted myself two rows on the final garter border so I wouldn't have to break into the tenth skein.

I liked knitting with this yarn. It's velvety soft - the garter sections were especially delicious. It is a little hairy as you'd expect from the alpaca content. The project took from April 20th to May 23rd. I used size 7 needles, but I think this yarn could be done on a size 6 to get a firmer fabric, depending upon your taste.

I also finished my scarf for this project - a group of Fibertraditions knitters have signed up to contribute scarves. Mine is a loose representation of the flag of Vietnam, in honor of Emily.

Intarsia is not my thing and duplicate stitching isn't much better, but on my second try I managed to duplicate-stitch something resembling a star.

Finally, in honor of Stephanie (whose name came up two separate times at my college reunion! now THAT's fame!), we have The Conwy Sock Contemplates Lower Lake at Mount Holyoke College.

I took about 40 pictures during the weekend, none of them with knitting content. Maybe I will post something with an extended entry to put them out there but keep them from displaying unless you go looking for them... Right now I'm a little put off by having to upload and identify 40 pictures...

The completion of Wool Peddlers freed me up to get a little done on my Noro cardigan. I hope to get a successful sleeve edging done within a few days and start working downward from the armholes. I sort of wish I had it done already, to wear - is it my imagination, or has it been the chilliest, dampest month of May ever? I turned the HEAT on in my house last night. Usually at this time of May I'm putting in the air conditioners.

The Single Life

I finished spinning my pound of Cormo last night - only about 6 months after I started and over a year after I bought it...

Now that I have two wheels I have 2 lazy kates, which is great because I can load them both up and just ply without having to move anything.

On the right you see the scrap of paper on which I planned my bobbin use so I wouldn't end up with three lots of single left, but two of them one on top of the other on the same bobbin...

The little 6th bobbin in front can serve as 'extra' to use to balance out what I'm sure are unbalanced amounts of single on the full bobbins.

Now - to find the time to 3 ply it. Unfortunately I'm going to be gone for the weekend (at my mumble-th college reunion) so I can't just dive into it as I'd like - this will be a very new thing for me and I know I shouldn't try to be rushed about it. I plan to follow Sam's detailed instructions but I have a unique way of screwing up everything, especially the simple things....

Next week: a completed Wool Peddler's. I'm within about 20 rows of being done.

Going underground (by sweatergirl not Prudence)

Another Finished Object?

Why, yes, I do believe the Sweaterbaby is wearing a new sweater while trying to open the porch door (caught you!).

Now I am going underground for a bit - well, to the basement to check out the yarn stash and plan a second-birthday sweater in a much bigger size.

In case you are knitting for babies, most of the things I have knit for her are not too small width-wise, but have armholes that are too shallow. Nothing less than 6" deep fits now (age 13 months, but on the "bigger-boned" side). The gussets in this sweater are essential - thanks, Beth Brown-Reinsel, for a great pattern!

Sheepish

Maryland Sheep and Wool is over for another year. Despite how exhausted I am by the time it's over, I am always ready to do it all over again within days. I've been four times, and every year it's been new to me in some way because I've expanded my fiber repertoire. Last year I went as a spinner for the first time and this year I played among the fleeces for the first time. But the best thing about it is always the people.

My festival weekend got off to a great start Friday afternoon when this came to my door:

It's a Kromski Mazurka that I got from Chris who was driving from Connecticut to MS&W and kindly drove it right to my door. It's the cutest thing, fits right in the corner next to big-sister Symphony, and spins very smoothly.

In the small-world department, Chris happened to mention how hard it was to get through home-town traffic from her house to the highway, and it turns out she lives in the same town where I lived from age 5 to 11. How likely would you have supposed it to be, that you'd google for someone with the wheel you want for sale, and the one you found would turn out to be in your former home town?

I didn't have time to play with it, because I needed to run to the airport with Emily to pick up Sam and Jen. We ate dinner and when we got done we found Melanie sitting on my doorstep calmly knitting while she waited for us. We stayed up way too late gabbing in our excitement.

Although I had this with me all day long on Saturday (felted two more times, it's now the perfect size), I neglected to take my camera out of it even ONE time while at the fairgrounds. (UPDATE 5/10 - Luckily Helen took LOTS of great pictures! You can see them here.)

So not only are there no pictures of Emily with sheep (she was sleepy by the time we got to the sheep) but there are no pictures of Louise and Chloe, or Stephanie, who were unable to attend the evening festivities.

I didn't get myself together to take pictures until dinnertime when the Fibertraditions contingent converged on my home for pizza and snacks and treats. I somehow managed to miss photographing Kerry and her traveling companion - sorry guys! I don't know if you were just always in the other room from where I had the camera, or if you'd already left by the time I woke up and realized I needed to take pictures!

Helen (from New Hampshire) was knitting a baby blanket out of what I believe was her handspun yarn.

Helen's friend Sherry and Tina's mom Georgiana found a peaceful corner where no one would step on them.

In the dining room, we had: Lisa and Laura:

Melanie, trying out her new Hatchtown spindle with some Targhee she combed herself, while talking to Karen (and am I ever chagrined to realize this is the only photo I took of Karen! Sorry I didn't catch your face!)

Tina, Jen, and Sam:

In the living room we found Liz and the other Jen:

Morgen knitted in the armchair after having delivered a pile of things for Ryan's Dulaan Project:

Lisa's husband Rod circulated around taking lots of pictures so I'd watch her blog in the next couple of days as he was much more on top of things than I was!

We had a couple of little fashion shows. Jen and Tina had both made Gyrid (from Elsebeth Lavold's Viking designs book) in different shades of Silky Wool. It is very difficult to photograph this yarn - the textured patterns don't show up well - but both of them turned out gorgeous.

Sam and Melanie and I all had our Siberian Winter shawls made out of Lisa's garnet laceweight yarn, and showed them off.

And we finally dragged Lisa out to the kitchen to give the English combs a try! She left with her little nest of combed Targhee in her hands. Much as I'd like to give a hearty Bwahaha, I believe her assessment was, "How interesting but I don't believe I'll be doing that again..." Yeah, you may say that, ma'am, but every time I ran into you at the fair you had a bag of fleece in your hands, and it was never the same fleece twice...

While all this was going on downstairs, Emmy and Karen's daughter Alex were upstairs playing things such as dressup and doctor's office (when we stopped up to see them they were weighing themselves).

It was a terrific party and somehow I ended up with more beer and wine in the house afterwards than I had before, and a net gain of $8 on the pizzas (how DID that happen? I couldn't find anyone who felt they missed out on their change).

But what did I BUY, you ask. Although I felt as though I was saying, "I'll take it" all day, in the end I was reasonably well behaved.

In this picture you see a little 2 ounce ball of Wensleydale that I got along with the gorgeous Hatchtown spindle that's down front; a hank of sock yarn from Tess Yarn, a hank of Schaefer 'Anne' sock yarn, and an indescribably beautiful glass button made by Sheila Ernst (this will have to go on some felted bag, I'm thinking navy blue).

This is 26 ounces of Corriedale fleece from a 6-year-old ewe named Hope. Her owner (she came from Curry Farm in Indiana I believe) said this is the longest staple fleece she's ever gotten from Hope, and that she finds a sheep's best fleece is produced when they are around 4-6 years old.

Not shown are the somewhat boring but very important things I bought at the Woolery (an extra bobbin for the Mazurka, a bottle of wheel oil, and a cover for my Viking combs), and the lovely black wood hairsticks from Turnstyles, which I was wearing at the time.

So, not too bad, eh??

Emmy and I also got some unexpected presents brought to us - aren't we lucky?

(Yes, that is 8 ounces of Lisa's superfine merino top in the 'Wild Things' colorway, there in the back...)

Until next year!

April accomplishment

I finished one thing in April (April 30, but still April!):

Here's a detail shot:

This was made from hand-dyed, handspun silk and merino (one ply each) and a pattern from Winter 04 Interweave Knits. For my first niece!

Happy to have this done while it still fits; now back to my daughter's 1-yr-bday sweater, only mmmmmm weeks late (hey, she's one, what will she care?).

$75 later we have a bag

With the leftovers from my Wrixlan jacket, I set out to make a Constant Companion bag. This is what it looks like at this point.

I say 'at this point' because it's not sufficiently felted. The reason it isn't sufficiently felted looks like this.

When the poor washer went to pump out the second rinse, it choked. Today someone cleaned it out and it's good to go again. I guess this Jamiesons yarn gives off one ton of fluff when it isn't knitted tightly enough.

Janet says I can felt the bag some more even though I've sewed on the pocket. I think I shall, as it's too floppy now. (In the photo it's stuffed with plastic bags.) She says putting it in a pillowcase will protect the washer without weakening the felting action. I'm currently knitting another pocket for the inside and when it's done I'll try another 2 times through the wash.

The murky little motif on the front pocket is the cable from Wrixlan, done in 'intarsia' - it would never have showed up as just a same-color cable, and I knew the felting would take care of my terrible intarsia technique. It doesn't look as much like the jacket as I'd have liked but at least I will know what it's supposed to be.

The base of the bag was knitted with a double strand of anonymous blue lightweight worsted that was left over from Cornwall and a sweater for Emily. It felted WONDERFULLY - no crud in the water and a very very firm fabric. I will make my next Constant Companion out of a double strand of something, I know it'll make a really nice bag that way.

I realized while photographing the bag that I hadn't ever posted my second sari silk shawl.

It's much more to my liking in every way. I can't wait to see a picture of Sam's daughter wearing the original one.

Four days till folks start arriving for Maryland Sheep and Wool! Probably my next post will be after the hoopla is over and I can show you all the big fun we had (not to mention the new/used spinning wheel that will be coming to my house...). Stay tuned!