You are currently browsing the monthly archive for April, 2008.
Congratulations to commenter #7, Flowox, who won the drawing for the buffalo fiber! She is a beginning spinner with both carders and a drop spindle to assist her. I’ll probably get the package in the mail next week–have fun with it!
For some reason, random.org was really fond of the numbers 9 and 19, which it generated twice each (picking non-spinners Gleek and Hilary) before coming up with winning #7.
So I think I may have fixed the situation with my Butterick dress by sewing on some little lengthening pieces on the front and back waistlines. The print is probably busy enough that it won’t be too noticeable, particularly once the buttons are on to further disguise the area. Fingers crossed! I hope to have a nice summer sundress to show off soon. But to compensate, several more, non-dress-related frustrations have happened to me since my last post.
It’s still 80+ degrees here. To make matters worse, our AC broke, so my apartment has been sauna-like, at least 85 or 90 degrees, for the past couple of days. I set the thermostat to 50 degrees, and I think there may have actually been hot air coming out of the vents during the night, because it felt pleasant and refreshing to go outside in the 80-degree air when I left the house.
I went to knitting night last night (finally got the day right!) and had a great time, as usual, except for having to frog approximately 50 bazillion stitches of the lengthwise scarf I was knitting because I wasn’t paying attention and knit too many rows.
Afterwards, I went down to a local bar called Crazy Horse to meet up with Rahul and his business school friends–he’s graduating this Friday, so this weekend is all about the crazy blowout farewell parties–where he accidentally spilled an entire pitcher of beer down the backs of my legs and all over my knitting bag. While it was very wet and unpleasant, I think the knitting is OK, and the school paid for the beer. Silver linings!
And today, worst of all, I got stuck inside my house today and had to be rescued by the DHL delivery guy.
At least a week ago, our door swelled or the doorjamb shifted or something, and it’s now a total pain in the ass to open. The bottom part will move, but the top of the door is firmly wedged into the frame and sticks every time you try to open it. I called maintenance a few days ago to come and fix it, but they hadn’t gotten around to it yet. It hadn’t been a serious problem for the most part, but today was beyond the pale.
Normally, yanking violently on the door for about 30 seconds will do the trick, but I was inside for a good five or ten minutes using my entire weight to pull at the door handle, with one foot braced on the doorframe, rattling and cursing and shouting at the door to OPEN, GODDAMN IT. I got an iron spatula from the kitchen and tried to insert it between the door and the door jamb to pry it open, feeling increasingly panicked and claustrophobic from the 90-degree heat and the tantalizing sunlight shining through the tiny sliver at the base of the door…
I looked through the peephole and saw that the DHL delivery guy was picking some packages up from my neighbor.
“HEY! HEY!” I screamed through the door. “HEY! EXCUSE ME! Can you please help me open this door?”
“I was just about to offer,” he said, because he had probably been watching this door pulsating and hearing my screams of impotent rage for the entire time he had been standing there.
“OK, are you ready? Stand back!” he said, and with a mighty kick (or probably just a firm push–it’s much, much easier to push a door open than it is to pull it), the door finally swung open and I was free, free like a bird. A humiliated, weakling bird who can’t even open the door to her own house.
The maintenance guys apparently came by today to fix the AC, but they didn’t say if they’d fixed the door at the same time. If they haven’t yet, until they fix the door, I’m going to call the apartment leasing office people to drive out and open the door for me every time I need to get out of the house. That should be a good incentive for them to prioritize this in the maintenance queue.
I also just had a totally awkward experience in the cafe I’m sitting in. I was sitting here at this great corner window seat, doing work, minding my own business, when a mom, a dad, and their college-aged daughter came in and sat down at the table beside me, effectively fencing me in. They started discussing the daughter’s summer plans and it rapidly became a crazy family meltdown. Mom and Dad were yelling at the daughter and the daughter was sobbing and alternately putting her head down on the table in despair and yelling back at them. Topics included:
- “You’d better come home for the summer unless you find a real summer job in Bloomington. And I don’t mean one of those 20-hour-a-week jobs, either.”
- “I don’t care if you paid for a lease through August, you should have thought of that when you signed a 12-month lease.”
- “How could you possibly have put 700 miles on the car in this town? Are you letting other people drive it?”
- “I want to go to Boston over the summer. This guy I know from the J. Crew store said I could stay with him. His name is Jake. He has an apartment there. And he’s my age, so it’s OK, he’s not, like, some 25-year-old sleazebag.”
- “Mom, Dad, oh my God, I’m, like, almost 20 years old! Don’t you trust me? What would I do at home, anyway?”
It was really awkward sitting there, and the mom kept glancing at me, but I felt like it would be even worse if I packed up all my stuff and left instead of pretending to be completely absorbed in my work and not noticing any of this. Not to mention I had the plum window seat and I didn’t want to be forced to abandon it because of their drama. Thankfully, they eventually got either tired or ashamed and left the cafe, and the person next to me is now peacefully reading Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
Here’s what went wrong with my day yesterday.
It was hot. Really hot. 80+ degrees. I went downtown to run some errands–depositing checks, voting early for Obama–and thought to myself, even though I had clearly been looking at the date several times in the day and in fact had signed papers attesting to the date when I voted, “well, since it’s Thursday, I’ll just stay downtown and work here until knitting night!”
I worked for a few hours. Spent a lot of money on refreshing iced drinks. When 7 PM rolled around, I happily ran up to the Copper Cup to meet my pals. Sat there knitting and reading a magazine for about an hour and a half. “Where are they? Surely I’m not the only one wanting to knit tonight? They would have said something if they weren’t coming, right?”
Eventually I decided to take a little Ravelry break… and hovering my cursor over the time, it hit me. I was a day early. It was Wednesday.
I knew I had nothing in the house to eat, so I called Rahul to see if he wanted to grab a bite downtown with me before I went home, but he was working at school, and it was past the hour when normal folk eat dinner, so I didn’t bother calling anyone. I glumly ate some tacos and biked home.
“Well,” I said to myself. “It’s not a total loss. I can work on a sewing project now!” Because it’s so hot and sticky–wonderful weather for swingy skirts and light cotton sundresses. And I’ve been so inspired by gloriana’s and knottygnome’s recent posts about sewing.
So I located the washed and ironed fabric and the pieces of the supposedly super-easy Butterick Walk-Away Dress (Butterick 4790) that I’d cut out about 6 months ago, and set to pinning and cutting. There are only 4 pieces in the pattern, so it didn’t take too long. I spent a long time puzzling over the pieces as I cut them out–the dress layout is pretty enigmatic–trying to figure out if they would fit. The verdict seemed to be yes.
I got out the machine, wound a bobbin, set it up, tested my tension on scrap fabric. So far, so good. I sewed the darts and the skirt seam and went to try the pieces on again.
Disaster! The pieces were about two inches too small–that is to say, they fit around me, but without any room for seam allowances or ease. (The darts were perfect, though!)
How could this have happened? I’m between two dress sizes–my hips and bust are one size, and my waist (I’m sorry to say) is the next size up. I chose the larger of the two sizes and marked all the darts according to that. I’d gained some weight between when I chose a size and cut out the pattern and last night, but I didn’t think it was enough to completely derail my sewing. Surely I had not gained so much weight that I now required the waist size that went with a bust size 6 inches larger than mine? I went to bed feeling very hot, fat, and crabby, and stayed up way too late reading Flowers in the Attic
This morning I woke up and decided to measure the actual pinned and darted pieces of the pattern. They were exactly the same as, or perhaps a bit smaller than, the stated waist size on the pattern. Wait a minute… I went back to the pattern and looked at it again, more carefully. I’d cut out the smaller size. And, of course, since I’d done that, the larger size was now lost to the ether, because I hadn’t wanted to buy muslin or tracing paper. (The darts were all marked for the larger size, though, and they fit just fine.)
Now that I’ve screwed up about 4 yards of fabric (and let us not speak of the half-sewn size-too-small Burdastyle dress and lining hidden in my cabinet, similarly ruined!) I’m not sure how to remedy the situation. I guess this dress is more suitable than most for resizing the waist outwards, and I could probably tape some paper onto the pattern to adjust it to my size if I make this again.
For those of you familiar with the pattern, I’m thinking of either sewing extension panels into the sides of the front piece (the one that wraps around and fastens in the back) before putting the binding on, since it will be hidden behind the back piece, or just making an extra-long button loop for the back closure.
The back piece (the one that wraps around the outside to fasten in the front) is a bit more tricky. I think I might replace the snaps and front buttons called for in the pattern with a set of sort of frog closures–making some self-covered buttons and sewing them on both sides, then making loops to span the front and hook over the buttons on both sides. Does that sound like it would look ridiculous? Could I get away with doing extension panels on the back top piece–maybe in a contrast fabric, or with lace sewed on top? If that wouldn’t look too weird, I could probably cut a wider waistline out of the circle skirt to match, and sew a shorter hem.
The dress, by the way, is a medium cornflower blue cotton from Jo-Ann printed with little white daisies, with a chocolate brown bias binding and (or so I’d planned) white molded plastic flower buttons. If I can get it to fit me, it would be so great for this weather.
My other plan is to lose 2 inches from my waist, but I’m not holding my breath for that one to happen. Why is that store-bought clothes tend to fit me, but whenever I try to make something from a pattern it’s always too big in some places and too small in others? Next time, I’m sewing myself a bag to get my sewing confidence back up.
Anyway, as a reward for making it this far through my bitching about my dress, here are some choice excerpts from Amazon reviews of Flowers in the Attic. They’re possibly more entertaining than the book itself:
“this book is excellent although a little strange that the brother and sister hook up but the book is great.” –lovestoshop82 “eastie girl82″
” i remembered that i loved this book when i was young, so bought it for my god daughter who is 11 and she freaked out”
–Mia, age 40 “stuff lover”
“When I tell people the plot, they are not convinced of the love story, but when they read it, they understand fully how the characters feel and that they have made the best choices possible. It is still my favorite book!!! 
“
–Hilari
“If you are even thinking of reading this book please don’t. Something, anything is better then this book. Something off the Opera book club list is better, or the bible or even the owners manual from the glove box of your car.”
–General Pete
“WODERFULL WONDERFULL WONDFULL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
–A Customer
” This is probably the 4th book I’ve ever read in full. I first read Oliver Twist, Hook, the To Kill a Mockingbird. [several paragraphs snipped]… I really couldn’t keep the book down for more than a day.”
–scaiajedah
“The book that became my life.
This book is absolutely wonderful. I couldn’t put it down. I have become obsessed with the characters now, so much that I have taken up ballet….okay…alright, I admit it, I took up ballet cuz I wanted to…But, still..I’m just really crazy over this book….and I’m just really really obsessed, okay? But, I think that everyone should read this book, cuz it’s just awesome, and well, you’ll become obsessed too. Read it, so we can all be obsessive together…Please? Please…oh, c’mon~! Just read it already~!……..
Why aren’t you gone yet??? HELLO~! LEAVE~! GO GET THE BOOK ALREADY~! Okay, that’s it, I’m gonna go read it again. Bye~!
READ THE BOOK~”
–A Customer
“Yeah, ok, so this book was a little far from my tastes. I mean, I am not really into this stuff. Actually, male/on/male stuff is my personal favorite.”
–Yuki Shinobi
“THE BEST BOOOK I READ
ITS WONDELFUL, I LIKE IT A LOT, FROM THE BEGINING, YOU CAN STOP READING, YOU GO ON AND ON, UNTIL YOU FINISH.”
–A Customer
“In the sequel,”Petals on the wind”, I just wished Cathy would wake up and realise that Chris was her true love. Its not disgusting; its beautiful.”
–A Customer
“Oh look: She’s a world famous ballerina without a Gulag training. Chris: MY didn’t you do well. I seem to remember some strange Bart creature who couldn’t feel pain, although there was no explanation how he became a rich & handsome stud.”
–A Customer
“The perfect book for having tissues!!!!!”
–A Customer
Should a Unicorn Pegasus Rainbow scarf not be enough for you, you can now sew yourself an entire Unicorn Pegasus Rainbow outfit.
Over the past couple of days, I spun up the last ball of roving I had sitting in my stash–a fluffy gray ball labeled Cotswold-angora-bamboo, with angelina glitz, but (I think) mislabeled, as it seemed like just plain gray wool to me. I overdyed the roving with Kool-Aid to a nice red, but this was not entirely successful–I made the formerly fluffy, easy-to-draft roving kind of crusty and sticky. Even with tedious hours of pre-drafting, it came out very thick-n-thin, which I’m choosing to view as adding character to the handspun two-ply rather than as a drawback. I’ll put up pictures later.
It’s amazing how nice it feels to use up everything in my fiber stash–even if it means I’ve added a few hundred more yards to my yarn stash. (We won’t talk about that part–shh!)
To replenish, I mail-ordered the Autumn Oak roving from Jehovah Jireh that I’d been drooling over at the Fiber Event but didn’t have the cash for at the time–it’s a pretty wool-alpaca blend in autumn colors: red, orange, yellow, brown–and threw in 4 oz. of their “Cappucino” roving, a wool-alpaca-tussah silk blend.
I had a wonderful surprise the other day: my Prickle moebius cowl won “Best Original Design” for the Malabrigo March design contest! I’m getting a skein of merino worsted and a skein of the new Malabrigo superwash sock yarn as prizes! I was so thrilled. I’ll post pictures of the sock yarn as soon as I get it, and pass it around at knitting night to get some thoughts on the yarn from real sock knitters’ perspectives. I suspect that like the rest of the sock yarn in my stash, it will be slated for something other than socks, like a lace scarf or some fingerless mitts. (I found these Cranford Mitts on Ravelry the other day and got really excited about fingerless mitts again. The photo on the site is uninspiring, but all the color combinations in the finished projects are just gorgeous.)
Anyway, I was pretty surprised and excited. I knew my pattern scored pretty high on the originality factor, but the other patterns posted for Malabrigo March were really stiff competition as far as basic appeal and loveliness. Here is a list of Ravelry links to all the patterns posted for the Best Original Design contest for Malabrigo March. Check them out!
- Prickle
- Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks hat
- Wrap-Around Scarf
- Haymarket Mittens
- Cable Hat
- Mod Cable Mittens
- 75 Yard Malabrigo Fingerless Mitts
- Dean Street Hat
- Dreams of Spring Hats: 1 and 2
It’s suddenly 70+ degrees in Bloomington, and the trees are leafing out now: drifts of white petals are blowing past my window like snow. I like warm weather, but I wish the flowering trees could have a longer season.
1) Hand-felted teddy bear skulls and other amazing sculptures
2) Upcoming woolly events in Southern Indiana I wanted to make a note of:
- Open farm day at Schacht Fleece Farm, Sunday, May 18, noon to 4. More info at http://www.schachtfleecefarm.com. (Non wool-related, but there is also an open farm day at Harvest Moon Flower Farm every Sunday and Monday in May from noon to 5 PM. Email chapdale at blue marble dot net or call 812-829-3517 for more information or directions.)
- 5th Annual Wool Fiber Arts Fair 2008, May 17, 2008, Daviess County 4-H building, Eastside Park, 9 AM-4 PM, Washington, Indiana, free admission. Sponsored by the Hoosier Hills Rug Hooking Guild and the Daviess County Extension Office. I stumbled onto this last year when my parents were visiting. It was so much fun–we went out there to find the house my stepmom’s dad grew up in, and just happened to drive by signs that said “Fiber Arts Fair” on the way out of town. My dad and Rahul were very forbearing and patient and so we got to go look at yarn and roving and fluffy bunnies. It’s sort of far, and very small compared to The Fiber Event, so I don’t know if I want to go this year, but maybe.
3) I did it! Thanks to a wonderful surprise birthday present subsidy from my dad and stepmom, I signed up for Sundara’s Seasons Club, Autumn. It was tough to choose between Summer and Autumn, but ultimately I felt like the Summer colors were closer to what’s available in her permanent collection, and of the colors from last year, I would have been more disappointed to have missed out on the Autumn colors than the Summer ones. I can’t wait for my first shipment!
4) I went to the Habu trunk show at Yarns Unlimited yesterday! I tried on a bunch of garments, and took pictures of some of them. Some of them were completely the wrong size and style for me. I put on one giant, floaty, white tunic–I think it was pineapple yarn?–looked in the mirror and felt like I was in a mental asylum, circa 1895. I should have taken a picture, but the humor value didn’t occur to me until after I was out of there. With these Habu garments, I feel like there’s a fine line that’s easy to cross. You start out trying to look modern, spare, elegant, artistic, like you throw expensive, avant-garde parties in pure white studios in Tokyo; and with the wrong fit, setting, or accessories, you wind up looking homeless, or possibly like an actor in a performance art exhibit, one with Noh-masked people being birthed from a giant womb made of driftwood and unbleached linen. Perhaps that’s not that bad, aesthetically, in the grand scheme of things, but it looks a bit odd when you’re in the stands at your kid’s Little League game or ordering an Orange Julius at the mall.
Some photos of the garments on racks:
This was hands-down my favorite piece. Most of the garments were airy and weightless, but this had a dense, plush, soft texture. It’s Habu Kit 115, and is knit with 2 strands of ramie and 1 strand of wool.
It had a really cool construction. The back shirtyoke piece was knit sideways, in one piece with the fronts, and the front selvages were folded under asymmetrically and sewn down, so you could turn out the top like a shawl collar. They wouldn’t sell the pattern separately, unfortunately, and I didn’t want to spend $95 on the kit at this point. If you know of any patterns out there that use this construction, please let me know what they are… I’m totally fascinated.
I also loved the Kusha Kusha stainless steel scarf, of course,
and I thought the pineapple top was kind of nice
I tried on a paper jacket and didn’t like it. It was bright red, and had long, trailing jesterish things on the sleeves–shippo tails?–and rustled loudly the way you’d think paper would. But I did love the way the paper knit up when combined with mohair.
This thingy was sort of cute.
I liked the button detail on this sweater–buttons all around the hems, along the shoulder and up the side:
Speaking of buttons, look at this great little wickerwork button, and the texture of the yarns:
(I was surprised at how much I liked some of the novelty yarns, like this eyelash fishnet stuff mixed with boucle.)
This sweater convinced me that at some point I need to make myself an airy laceweight mohair sweater. It was so soft and light:
The shape of this was totally bizarre in combination with my shape (see that droopy draping in the front?), and I got stuck in the cardigan for a while because I couldn’t get it unbuttoned, but I liked the button detail at the neck, and the light texture of the raw silk:
This is another one of those garments with a sort of worryingly crazy look, but I liked the texture a lot. It’s cotton on top on size 3 needles, stainless steel and silk on the bottom on size 4 needles:
This yoked garter stitch cardigan was odd; somehow, the back piece fit, but the front pieces could have fit two of me. The tweedy color changes in the double-stranded yarn were fabulous, though:
5) I love Spring, even when there’s gloomy weather.
I was born on April 18, 1980, the 74th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906. This was also the date Paul Revere rode, the date Billy the Kid escaped from a jail in New Mexico, and the date Albert Einstein died.
Despite the fact that I’m far, far from home and major Pacific Rim fault lines, my first present of the day for my 28th birthday was a commemorative earthquake at 5:30 AM! A 5.2 earthquake centered about 100-odd miles southwest of here, in Illinois. I was asleep and registered it only as a huge, loud, scary noise that woke me up. Rahul said the ground was shaking, but I didn’t think there had been shaking, just a noise–I thought it was a tornado, to be honest, and eventually got up to look out the window for funnel clouds or toppled trees. I couldn’t get back to sleep for an hour or so, so I’m super tired now. Ugh.
I had other things to write about before the earthquake came and got in the way!
First: I finished the third variation, took pictures, and published the pattern for my The Water Is Wide scarf! Go take a look–it’s now available for sale through Ravelry! I also put up the non-outtake photos of the main scarf–a mini-tour of scenic spots on the IU Bloomington campus. I hemmed and hawed over the price for a bit on this one, since I think people might find it steep for a scarf pattern, but in the end, I think this is fair considering there are 3 (or 4) different reversible scarf patterns included in the price, and it’s more than just a stitch dictionary pattern applied to a rectangle.
Second: I didn’t enjoy spinning that second bag of buffalo down roving that much, so I would like to give the rest of it away to one lucky reader. I suspect you might enjoy spinning it more if you had some hand cards or a drum carder and could better prep the fiber, or blend it with some wool. I have about 35g left, a bit over half an ounce. If you’d like it, please comment on this post to let me know you’d like to enter in the fiber drawing. I will use a random number generator to pick a winner out of the comments a week from today, Friday, April 25 2008.
Hey, does this feel familiar to anyone?
Here are some pictures of the little handspun mini-skein I made the other day to test out my new roving. Approximately 28 yards, a worsted-weight single. I swatched it on size 7 needles, stockinette and lace. It’s from the roving from Handspun by Stefania that I bought at The Fiber Event. Corriedale and silk dyed with cochineal, madder, and Osage. There was very little dye runoff from this one when I rinsed it, unlike the lac-dyed Corriedale.
The last one put me in mind of plums and blackberries; this one makes me think of ripe persimmons. Gilded ones.
One,
Two,
Three,
Four.
I like how it came out, so I’m spinning the rest to similar specs, if I can manage to reproduce it.
So my birthday is on Friday (April 18th) and I’m toying with the idea of buying myself a subscription to Sundara’s Seasons yarn club as a present this year. You might remember that I have one skein of her sock yarn (haven’t knit with it yet), and I love the pictures of almost every other color of her yarn I’ve seen. I blame Emily in particular for fueling my interest in the Seasons club–look at these socks. And these.
Pros:
- Have you seen this stuff? It’s beautiful! And it looks nice knit up, too, not just in the skein.
- Her yarn is in high demand and generates a feeding frenzy every time she posts new stuff, particularly limited edition colors. If you want a chance of buying any, you have to stalk the site and email her as soon as she updates. This eliminates the hassle of trying to get your hands on her yarn.
- If I want some of her yarn from another season, chances are good I could trade for it if I already had one of the Seasons yarns on hand. If I don’t want a certain yarn, I will have no problems whatsoever getting rid of it since the demand is so high.
- It’s fun getting subscriptions. I always enjoy getting my magazine subscriptions (Readymade, Martha Stewart, IK, Harper’s) in the mail. It would be great fun to get a random, lovely yarn in the mail every other month, too.
Cons:
- It’s $25.50 a month for yarn every other month. I’m not sure if I would buy that much if supply exceeded demand and there was no problem ordering anytime off her site.
- I like selections from all of the seasons, and I can’t decide which would suit me best. If I pick one, what if I end up regretting it? (I’ve been reading the Seasons group on Ravelry and many people are signing up for multiple seasons, or for multiple subscriptions to the same season!)
- I would be systematically stashing yarn for stashing’s sake, not buying for a particular project.
- I would be devoting $25 a month of my yarn budget to this yarn in particular rather than keeping that money open to buy whatever strikes my fancy from month to month. Plus, I’m moving soon (Rahul made the decision, we’re going to Madison after all, probably in late June/early July) and I’m not sure how our cost of living is going to be up there.
- I don’t knit a lot of socks, and there’s a lot of sock yarn in this club.
A Summary of 2007 Seasons Colors (cribbed from the Sundara Seasons group)
Spring
- Group photo
- Gooseberries Silk Lace
- Tickled Pink Sock
- Hyacinth Sock
- Robin’s Egg Fingering Silky Merino
- Daffodil Sock
Summer
- Cornflower Silk Lace
- Tomato Confit Sock
- Delphinium Sock
- Blossom Fingering Silky Merino
- Sour Apple Sock
Autumn
- Copper over Bamboo silk lace
- Bronzed Sienna Sock
- Autumn Rose fingering silky merino
- Mossy Sock
- Bronzed Forest Sock
- A group photo
Winter
- Black over Fuchsia Silk Lace
- Emerald over Charcoal Sock
- Burnt Cranberry Sock
- Winter Sky Fingering Silky Merino
- Candied Chrome Sock
I really like all of these except for Spring, which is too candyish for me. I didn’t think I’d like Summer much from the description, but I think Delphinium and Cornflower are two of my favorites out of all of these. I like all the Autumn colors, but there’s very little variation in this season; they’re all predictable (but beautiful) warm greens and browns. I like the Winter colors the best in theory–complex, smoky, weird combinations–but some of them, like the Emerald over Charcoal Sock, seem too dark and dull in practice. What to do? I was considering perhaps making a deal with myself to order as long as I try to design something new for every shipment–one pattern every other month. This is blinding speed, as far as I’m concerned, but if I sold some of the patterns it would offset the $25/month cost and keep the yarn from just going into my stash and marinating there, and be a fun creative assignment for myself.
I suppose, too, if the money does seem to be too much, I could always destash the yarn to someone without a problem. I’d just be out the time and trouble of doing so.
Decisions, decisions! I know I was just ruminating the other day about how much better life would be if I didn’t lust after things. This is probably one of those occasions.
Other stuff: I finished the 3rd and final variation of The Water is Wide last night (Sailing the Sea, with reversible cables), which means that as soon as I take some pictures of that version I will be releasing the pattern into the wild. I’m excited about it–it came out really well.
The holdup on this third variation was that I had bought one skein of Jewel Blue Malabrigo from a destash on Ravelry, then ran out of yarn midway through; I had to order a second skein online. It’s a bit more variegated than the first one, but they look fine together, I think. I ordered the second skein from sandrasingh.com. Despite the wacky site design, everything went well with my order and I received my yarn quickly, and she sent me a note with my order informing me that if I send customers her way, we will both receive $5 off an order of $25 or more.
So if you are planning to order $25 of stuff from Sandra Singh, if you enter my full name (Huan-Hua Chye) in the Comments box during checkout, you’ll be refunded $5 and I will receive a $5 coupon. Dooo iiiiit.
You can also get $5 off a future order if you send a photo of a project you’ve made with a purchase from her site.
The new Knit on the Net is up. I haven’t looked through all the patterns yet, but the two things that caught my eye first were the gigantic sleeves on Miss Scarlett–really stylized and cool! if not really very wearable, and the Barbarella tunic, which I think is very wearable and gorgeous. I love the trim pattern.
The Radio Reader is reading a book called Soul Catcher
The bad news first: Rahul lost his Very Plain Hat at the Little 500 on Saturday. That was quick.
The good news:
I already spun up most of my fiber purchases from Saturday, and I am in looooove with the lac-dyed Corriedale. The buffalo, surprisingly, not so much. The second bag of it turned out to be less well-prepped. I was finding it really hard to spin and hairier than the first bag. So I’ve probably spun only about a quarter of the second ounce.
I haven’t checked out the WPI yet on either yarn (and I know my grist is not very even), but I’m guessing the buffalo is about a DK to worsted weight, mostly, a two-ply with a lot of twist. I was hoping for downy softness, but it has too much hair and VM to be really soft–perhaps a few hours picking stuff out of it will improve the feel of it. It might turn into mittens, combined with some green Cascade 220, or maybe with some gray handspun I have lying around. I haven’t decided yet. I have about 65 yards of it. You can see the lumps and bumps where I was having issues drafting the second bag of fiber.
I think the Corriedale is an aran to bulky weight. It’s a two-ply, spun much softer and bulkier than I usually spin, and it’s squooshy and plummy and gorgeous. Most of these pictures came out slightly too blue–the yarn has more red undertones. It took a lot of rinsing to get all the excess dye out, but I think it’s pretty clean now. It’s next-to-neck soft, and I have about 100 yards of it, so my plan to make a scarf out of it should work. Oh, and I soaked it in grapefruit Eucalan and it smells really delicious, too. Look at all these pictures. I love it!
Also, Knitting Daily has their Reader’s Choice awards posted. You can download 5 free patterns between now and Wednesday afternoon, so go get them while you can:
Cable-Down Raglan, by Stefanie Japel
Nantucket Jacket, by Norah Gaughan
Sunrise Circle Jacket, by Kate Gilbert
Tweedy Aran Cardigan, by Norah Gaughan
Swallowtail Shawl, by Evelyn A. Clark
I’ve knit two of these (the Sunrise Circle and the Swallowtail Shawl) and highly recommend both of them!
So we went to Tales of Hoffmann at the IU Opera Friday night, and sadly, it was not a resounding success. I looked up halfway through the first act, and Rahul and our friend Trevor were both fast asleep, not having been captivated by the singing, flying glow-in-the-dark wine and beer bottles, the song about a crippled dwarf, the manufacturer of magical eyes (yet another Blade Runner-ish element in this opera), or the tale of doomed man-robot love. Trevor left after the second act, and Rahul complained bitterly that I was making him stay for the entire opera. On the plus side, I enjoyed it, and I got to wear my Swallowtail Shawl, which I knit sometime last year and haven’t ever gotten a chance to wear since then. It’s Handmaiden Sea Silk in “Forest,” one skein, and is fastened with a beautiful Perl Grey shawl pin from Robynn. Afterwards, we went to a couple of local bars (Bear’s Place and the Root Cellar at FARM) to meet up with friends.
Bright and early on Saturday morning, I met up with Kalani, Nicole, Leigh, and Norma at the Sample Gates, and we drove about an hour northwest, for a field trip to The Fiber Event in Greencastle, IN. It was so much fun!
We saw a sign for Live Nude Bait on the way. (also gold panning and cigarettes!)
The weather was somewhat cold (around 40 degrees) and rainy, but thankfully a lot of the fair was indoors, and all of it was at least under a roof of some kind.
We saw some sheep being sheared!
One of the more experienced shearers was teaching a woman how to shear sheep, grabbing a sheep and flipping it over onto its back in one deft motion, like a judo master.
He righted it again and when it was his student’s turn, the sheep did not want to be turned over. It dug in its heels and resisted.
Mostly, though, once the sheep were upended, they lay there quietly as the electric clippers buzzed.
Inside the fair, there were piles and piles of raw fleeces and rovings all over, and skeins of hand-dyed yarns dangling from hooks or piled in bins.
We saw fluffy angora bunnies:
We made friends with alpacas and llamas:
Doesn’t this one look like it’s on the red carpet at an awards show?
I’m actually sort of afraid to take pictures of llamas, particularly flash photos. They always stare at me intensely and put back their ears, and I’m afraid they’re going to spit at any minute.
We saw this antique New England braiding machine (from the 1800s, but I forget exactly when–1816, maybe?) whirring around. On a related topic, apparently there’s going to be a conference for owners of antique sock knitting machines, this June, in Nashville, IN. I see people using these around town every so often, at fiber arts events or in the yarn shop. They seem like fun.
We saw Kalani’s Shibuiknits patterns for sale at one booth, and thought she should surreptitiously autograph them and put them back on the rack. Here’s the famous designer herself, posing with her patterns!
I saw this sort of creepy-looking needle-felted creature–not sure if it’s a bear or a dog. The sign says: “Hello, My name is Secret. I’m named Secret because I have a secret. It is up to you to figure out what it is. You may have to pick me up to find out. Good luck!”
When you pick it up, the secret is that there is a smaller needle-felted creature embedded in Secret’s ass.
We ran into Elli, from our knitting group, and Wendie, who lives up in Indy. I was looking at a sign on a table and a woman there said “Excuse me, are you Huan-Hua?” Startled, I said yes, and she introduced herself as Holly, one of my test knitters for the Botany Baby Sweater! I saw Suzanne, who runs one of the yarn shops in town, and Diane, another spinner and knitter from Bloomington, and met an indie dyer I’d seen posting on Ravelry.
Here’s a group picture we took outside:
From left to right: Nicole, me, Kalani, Leigh, Norma, and Elli. Leigh is clutching a large ball of roving. She bought two balls of roving. The funny thing about that is that she doesn’t spin. (Yet.)
Here’s an equally important group purchase picture–the trunk of Nicole’s car, packed full of our purchases for the day.
Here’s what I ended up buying:
A skein of golden-orange Creatively Dyed Yarn, fingering weight. You can get her yarns at the Loopy Ewe, too. The label says it’s color number Gras #102, 100% superwash merino wool, approximately 500 yards. It’s a four-ply, low-twist yarn and will probably become lace of some kind. However, I’m not sure if it’s correctly labeled–it really doesn’t look like superwash merino to me, as it has a bit of a halo and shine that suggests alpaca or mohair. It also gave Leigh instant pricklies when she held it against her neck, suggesting it’s probably one of those fibers, not just wool. Or it might be a longwool sheep–I think she said it was “Wensleydale merino”–Wensleydale and Merino are two different breeds of sheep, as far as I know, but if it’s pure Wensleydale or a blend, that would explain the shine (it’s a luster longwool breed) and texture.
I got 4 oz. each of some naturally dyed rovings from Handspun by Stefania. I got stuck in this stall for probably half an hour, full of indecision–should I get indigo-dyed Jacob? Cochineal-dyed handspun? A handspun mitten kit containing fluffy white Great Pyrenees dog fur? I thought their prices were really good for handspun–$35 for a handspun mitten kit.
I finally settled on Corriedale dyed in lac (the bug that gave lacquer and shellac their names)–the base wool is a mixture of gray, black, and white, which is what gives the roving that range of dark to light purples:
and also a Corriedale-silk blend dyed in cochineal, madder, and Osage:
But my prize find was 2 oz. of buffalo down for $5 an ounce! I saw it elsewhere at the fair for $18 an ounce, and even that was apparently a bargain, since they’re selling it online for about $25-$40 an ounce. I haven’t seen a lot of guard hairs in it, though there is a pretty good amount of wood and burrs. It’s from Jehovah Jireh Farm. I was also tempted by some gorgeous, autumnal-colored roving, a sample of which you can see on the right in the first picture, $12 for 8 oz. of a 50-50 wool-alpaca blend, if I remember right. But I stupidly repacked my bag before leaving and left my checkbook at home, and only had $25 in cash, so I was prevented from buying from a lot of the vendors, including this one–the buffalo plus alpaca-wool would have decimated my cash supplies, so I stuck to just the buffalo in the end.
Thing is, I hadn’t touched my wheel in months, so I felt really guilty about buying new roving and I was determined to turn at least some of my fiber into yarn before the day was out. And I did it! I must be the world’s slowest spinner–it took me about 2 hours to spin one ounce of buffalo fiber. It wasn’t the easiest fiber to spin, because it pulls apart into fluff really easily when you try to draft it, so before I got the hang of it, I was breaking it about every 30 seconds. It’s still awfully uneven, but I’m hoping it will improve once it’s plied.
But here are the fruits of my labor:
A very high-twist single in order to keep the fiber together, as fine as I could get it without breaking the fiber as I spun (not that fine, really, probably a little lighter than fingering weight), to be plied and made into who knows what at the end. I hope it fluffs up at the end, when it’s plied and set–I have a tendency to overspin and produce kind of ropy yarn. I’ll probably have some tiny amount of yarn at the end, 25 yards or something, but hey. It will be handspun buffalo down yarn!
I also went home with a major yarn crush on Briar Rose Fibers, but was so overwhelmed with the beautiful selection that I ended up not buying anything. Thankfully, they also sell their yarns online and go to a lot of different fiber fairs around the Midwest, so it wasn’t my last chance–I can think of an actual project to make and buy an appropriate yarn and amount based on that, instead of wildly snatching up everything from their entire booth like I had wanted to.
I also fell in love with Sea Silk in Peridot, a color I’d seen pictures of online and suspected I would like. I did. A lot. I’m not sure sea green and silver are great colors for me, but who cares? SO PRETTY. Again, though, it’s available online, so I can wait.
Before I forget, too, I took some experimental videos with my digital camera at the event. Flickr just started offering free video hosting, so here are the videos! I don’t think I can embed them, since I’m using free hosting on WordPress, so you’ll have to click through. Sheep shearing, and sheep waiting to be sheared. Turn up the sound–the main reason I took these was to capture the hilarious bleats and yells from the sheep waiting to be sheared.
