KnitMe

City of New Orleans

The Crescent City is under water. It makes me sad. I was there once and have always wanted to go back because my camera was fritzing and most of my wonderful pictures of the Garden District didn't come out. (The picture above is from this wonderful slide show of somebody's vacation photos of the area; there is also a slide show of the French Quarter.) I wonder how much of it will be left. I put a penny on the grave of Marie Laveau. Bet you can't even see those cemeteries. It's a fragile city.

Meanwhile here is what (not)my president was doing, Tuesday August 30th while Louisiana and Mississippi were starting life after the hurricane. I'm so glad he cares about his people. What an embarrassment. Do you suppose he called out the National Guard before he went off to pretend to play guitar someplace? Oh, wait, they're in Iraq having their tours extended, and extended, and extended...

P.S., Dub, if you were trying to play a G chord - you're one fret off...

UPDATE: Want to find an organization to donate to, in support of hurricane relief? Visit Network For Good, they have a large directory of organizations working in the area now.

UPDATE AGAIN: Try this and this on for size if you think I'm overreacting.

Further distracted

In between keeping up with the cats I managed to finish the body of Arches.

I did the first sleeve cap last night but the instructions for the short row shaping in combination with the underarm gusset are confusing and I think I need to rip it out and do it again.

Meanwhile the temptation to start Something New increased on Saturday with the arrival of some of Lisa's Sock! yarn.

This is Pacific and Mardi Gras. Yummy colors! Can't wait to get started!

The cats were released from their room yesterday, whereupon they went nextdoor and got underneath Emily's bed where they remained for 6 hours. Bridget slept through Toby's tour of the house and didn't wake up till they were safe under the bed. She figured out they were under there, hunkered down in the doorway and watched them for awhile, then got bored and went to my bed and went to sleep. I would have left them there except I didn't want any theatrics to begin under Emily's bed while she was sleeping, so I hauled them out when she went to bed and stuffed them back in their office. Maybe I will let them out tonight but keep Emily's door closed so they will set themselves up someplace else I'm better able to leave them. Stay tuned.

Distracted

Sorry for the lack of weekly entry on Monday this week - we've been a little distracted here. Here's why.

These beautiful kids were on a poster at work that I saw every time I left my cubicle, 5 year old cats being given up due to an apartment issue. I finally couldn't stand it and I ended up being the only person who even tentatively stepped forward. When the choice was me or the humane society I decided I just had to go ahead.

They've been in isolation here in the computer office since last Sunday because I'm terrified of upsetting Bridget's elderly little applecart. They love it when I come in to use the computer, as they have company. I think tomorrow we will try taking another step toward getting them integrated into the household, because I think they are getting depressed in here. I've found a lot of info online about how to do this.

Bridget has taken all this quite calmly, mostly I think because she gets a treat whenever anyone comes out of this room. She does all her normal stuff and only occasionally seems to be monitoring the door, only approached it once that I know of to have a hiss. Tomorrow we may put the cats in their carriers, put the carriers in the hallway, and open this door, and let Bridget have a chance to check stuff out. It makes me nervous but it can't go on like this forever either.

Naming is still an issue. In advance of them coming, I thought about names and tentatively decided on Betsy and Jerome (because of the Baltimore connection there), but the names just sort of bounced off them once they got here. I wasn't interested in calling them Merlin and Nimue which were their names previously. After some days it seemed to me that the boy is a Toby, which left me with no obvious girl's name to match. I thought of Sally. Emily likes Bonnie but I think that needs a Clyde... we're sort of stymied on that for now.

They're very sweet and friendly and love company. I hope this all works out. But scooping two litter boxes every day in two different rooms, plus putting out food and water and having visiting time, is cutting down on the time to do much blogging... All of last week's WIPs are the same only bigger, so you aren't missing much.

Tangled Up in White

I finished spinning my pound of white merino.

Yeah, I know, I've done an awful lot of white spinning this year. And I like this fiber so much, I went and ordered another 8 ounces so I can maybe have enough for Eris after all.

Of course, watch me spin plenty of yarn and then not solve the Mystery of Gauge...

I have found that I can spin and ply 4 ounces of this in a weekend, taking advantage of the fact that in the morning after breakfast Emily tends to remain quite occupied with her own play for a couple of hours. If we don't have to run off anyplace, we both play with our toys and by Sunday night I can have a skein of yarn.

When I first bought that pound of merino, I split it into one-ounce chunks, planning to use it as a sort of spinning training exercise. But it spun so nicely that I abandoned that idea and just spun it. I found it psychological very encouraging to chew through those one-ounce hunks and will do the same when the next 8 ounces shows up.

Meantime I've almost finished the upper back of Arches.

It's a lovely effect achieved by deceptively simple means - long columns of a simple 1x2 twist, topped with the same horseshoe lace that serves as the border of the Wool Peddler's shawl so many of us have knit. Two more repeats of the 8-row pattern and I can start on the upper front. I'm looking forward to getting to the sleeves, which are knit top-down and have short-row shaping at the shoulder.

Venus is also progressing, although much more slowly due to the gauge. I can tell this is going to turn into one of those slog projects... Here you see about 5 inches complete and maybe you can see the argyle pattern taking shape (this is very hard to photograph).

Bridget got a bath on Saturday and so considered herself clean enough to check out white knitting.

I had a detail photo of the texture also but can't find it right now, I'll post it later in the week if it turns up.

(UPDATE later - this is the detail photo...)

Finally, Emily.

I almost started singing, "How do you solve a problem like Maria..."

"What do you do with your homely hand spun..."

"...felt a homely cat bed!"

This is what happens when you have too much old hand spun hanging around, and spend your evenings perusing the Barbara Walker Treasuries. I was looking through Volume 4 when I came across her directions for a short-row hexagonal pinwheel. Hmmm...I thought. Pretty soon, I was gathering up all the bits of natural, purples and pinks that I have. I figured out a rough formula, given the percentage that knitting generally shrinks when felted, and using Walker's guidelines for circumference, I started knitting. After completing the hexagon, I picked up around the edge, did a purl row to give good definition to the corner, and knitted up the sides in a random stripey pattern. I did an applied I-cord bind off in a wool that I was reasonably sure would felt a little tighter, hoping that it would curve the edge in a bit, and threw the beast in the washer to do its thing.

Given that I had different grists and types of wool, I wasn't sure how firm a felt I would get. It came out pretty well, though the sides were not as tight as I would have liked. Hmmm...I thought again. With a thrift store fabric remnant, and some combing waste wool, I made a bolster. It fit around the inside of the bed perfectly. Yay! Without further ado, The Homely Catbed:

And the sheepy aroma from the bolster is very attractive to Miss Emma:

It was a silly, whimsical project, but all in all, I'm pretty happy with it. The other two cats now stare at me accusingly, so I guess I'd best get busy making a couple more.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Some very lovely friends gave me an even lovelier gift last night: my very first Hebridean fleece! The sheep itself can be seen here: http://www.ansi.okstate.edu/breeds/sheep/hebridean/index.htm, and here is what they brought me:

and a close up:

I'm still trying to decide how to process this. It's a smallish fleece - no more than three pounds, I'd guess, so I'm afraid of losing a great deal to waste. I'll probably scour it myself, but might send this one off to be carded into roving. There are several processing companies that I'd like to try out, and this seems a good opportunity.

AND IN OTHER OTHER NEWS:

Here is the fleece that I won at our local St. Distaff's Day spin in this last January:

and a close up:

I tried to send this one off for commercial processing, but it had weak tips, so the processor just scoured it and sent it back. She believed it to be a CVM fleece, and who am I to argue with her? It's very soft. It still seemed fairly dirty to me, so I gave it one more scour. I got a quite a bid more mud out of the tips, which should help. I'm hoping it will be dry enough by tomorrow to start combing. I've run samples through both my two and five pitch combs, but again, waste will be an issue, so I'm going with the two pitch on this one.

How long does a fleece fume high last?

Good Mail

Thank goodness for mail. It livens things up when they're dull and makes up for too much heat and humidity. Well, sort of.

My Knitpicks package came Saturday.

There's been a bunch of buzz about Perendale fleece from the folks who went to Salt Spring Island's fiber festivities a few weeks ago, which reminded me how much I liked a small lot of Perendale yarn I have in my stash, so I went looking for some Perendale. A lock out of the package looked like this.

After a quick dip in a mug of hot soapy water it looked like this.

It has a very low luster and a nice wide crimp. It's medium coarseness - probably finer than Romney but not silky like the longwools. I think it'll make a nice worsted weight yarn to knit a jacket with. The sample lock is about 4 inches unstretched.

I hope it's a quiet week at work, I need some time to sit still that I didn't have over the weekend!

Welcome to WIPland

Having freed myself of the silk from hell, I got all giddy last week and started two new things.

This is the very beginning of 'Venus' from Jaeger book 18, in the three ply cormo handspun. It's basically an argyle pattern worked in knits and purls instead of colors.

Since this is handspun I have had to work around some gauge foolishness. I have to admit that after knitting off and on for almost 40 years (eek), I still don't really understand the physics of gauge. How can a yarn knit to a specified stitch gauge and be wildly off on row gauge? Is yarn not ROUND? Perhaps all these years I've been unwittingly knitting with oval yarn?? Anyhow I finally decided to use the needle size that made the nicest feeling fabric, and was closer on row gauge although a little off on stitch gauge, and make a smaller size than I planned. We'll see how it works out.

The pattern called for 28 sts x 36 rows in a 10cm sample. I am sure I was getting something like 28x48 on size 3.25mm needles, and the fabric was a little dense. On 3.5mm needles I had about 26 sts and 42 rows to 10cm and the fabric was nicer. We'll see how it works out.

I also gave in to the need for a lace quick fix and started Flower Basket (from Interweave Knits Fall 2004, by Evelyn Clark) in some Colinette Marinette that I had lying around following a trade with Elizabeth.

I can see the reason why this pattern has been such a hit. The lace is simple, so you can almost knit it while talking to other people. It works up quickly, so you don't feel like you're signing up for a four month masterpiece when you cast on. I can see myself knitting this pattern for a gift, it's so easy and nice looking.

The yarn is hard to photograph but it's an interesting mix of brown and olive shot through with teal and wine. Not what I'd usually like, by any means, but I really like how it is looking in this pattern. It feels just like Shetland, which means it will wash up nicely and hold a block. I am beginning to form an idea of giving this to someone as a retirement present in the near future....

Meantime I've been continuing to knit on Arches (by Sidna Farley in an old Brown Sheep pattern book).

I'm about 2 inches below the armholes, at which point I understand this pattern becomes very interesting in terms of construction. It calls for 11 inches below the armholes, but since I have plenty of yarn (blue Cotton Fleece, the yarn called for, of all things!) I'm going to give myself an extra inch since I tend to be long in the waist. I hope to have this done for wearing in October or November when cool weather finally returns.

On the spinning front, the grey Shetland on the upstairs wheel looks pretty much the same except the bobbin is a little more full. Last night I plyed the second hank of white merino and will wash it out today. That means I'm half done on the merino. I would like to have enough yardage to make this (in the pullover version), although I doubt I will manage it.

As I was passing by the stash on the way to empty the basement dehumidifier, it dawned on me that I am now able to spin a pound of yarn faster than I can knit it (well, unless I'm spinning 3 ply fingering weight, but that's a special case...). I was reasonably astonished by this realization. What about you, can you spin a pound of average weight (worsted -> sport) 2 ply yarn faster than you could knit it up?