"I'm so sorry baby, it's just you drive me crazy"

-from a Bittersweet song.

In a desperate attempt to stop my brain from running itself into the ground, I figured I'd do an update here. I've finished my first ever hand spun, hand knit shawl that I designed from scratch!



It's not blocked yet, more teaser photos this weekend.

Why yes, I will sell this pattern, but first there has to be a pattern to sell. Which is what I've been working on for the last 3 hours or so. I was dreading writing up the pattern, because even though I took copious notes I forgot to record with meticulous detail how I negotiated the increasing edges. Yeah. About that. Oops.

Gamely, I plugged away at the shawl, getting the basics in. I was proud of myself, I had at least charted the main section repeats so aligning the different motifs was done. I was figuring my stitch counts for each section, determining how I would start the shawl; and, of course, writing this all down. Because no one else lives inside my head and if other people want to knit this pattern, I have to give them something that resembles cohesive instructions. I figured out a wee little short cut and I have high hopes to get the shawl out to test knitter(s?) in a week. Wish me luck.

TL;DR - the handspun shawl is knit on size 6 needles using a yarn that's approximately sport-weight. (No, I did not count wraps per inch. I was too eager to knit with it.) I had about 345 yards of handspun total, and after the shawl was bound off, I had 1 yard and 3 inches left. Talk about a nail-biter!

Gimpy McGrumpypants

That's who I've been for the last two months or so. For some reason, my knee started hurting so badly that it hurt to spin. Really! I know you're not supposed to spin for 3 hour straight without breaks, but it hardly seemed like a gigantic task after all the sports I used to do. What's 3 hours of treadling compared to training in kung fu 5 days a week a month before the tournament? I know, I know, it's been at least 5 years since martial arts, but the gimpyness shocks me. After a week of constant knee pain, I caved.

I finally caved and went to the doctor who sent me to the physical therapist. After 8 weeks of physical therapy and no real reduction in knee pain, they sent me back to the doctor. Once there, I finally got an appointment with an orthopedic doctor this monday. We'll see how that goes.

It's just.... hell! I'm 30 years old, how did I get this gimpy? It shouldn't hurt to exercise on a recumbent bike for 1 hour. I haven't a clue what's going on with me knee, other than I should fall on the cat instead of take a bad fall to avoid landing on the cat. Follow that one? Heh. I think it all started when DelilahDamnit, our aptly named cat, flopped on her belly in front of me. While I was walking, I might add. To avoid crushing her innards, I twisted to avoid stepping on her and wound up in a crumpled heap. She's fine, by the way, fluffy and furry as ever. Me on the other hand? Not so much.

It's so frustrating to have to remember every day that there's a list of things I can't do anymore. I can't sit cross-legged. I can't spin on my wheel for more than an hour. I can't exercise for over half an hour. I can't wear heels. I can't stay on my feet for hours on end. I have to remember to take medicine or my knee will ache for 3 days. Really? I thought this stuff was... well... supposed to happen in like 30 years, not within the first three decades of life.

It feels better just getting this out there. I don't know where I'm going next with this. Crafting makes it better, especially if I'm knitting something sumptuous. It's hard to remember that I have new, smaller limits that before. I'm really hoping the doctor has good news, because I can't make rhyme or reason of this knee injury.

Spinning my wheel(s)..

Sorry, it's been a while! Life has been delightfully busy, and I've neglected my time here.

A few weeks ago, some friends and I went to a Wool Gathering at Young's Dairy near Springfield, Ohio. If you haven't been, I highly recommend going, even if you live 4 or 5 or 6 hours away. It's a lovely collection of vendors selling everything from enameled jewerly and shawl pins to historical reinactors, wheel dealers, and fiber. Did I forget to mention the yarn? LOTS of yarn, including a ball of cashmere lace for $20 at 1000 yards a ball. That one came home with me.

So did this.

That's right, I've finally bought a spinning wheel. It's an Ashford Kiwi, a beginner's wheel to be sure, but I couldn't be happier with her. That skein hanging on the wheel is my first handspun. It's BFL. I've got high-flying dreams of decorating her, which is difficult to do right now, since I can't bring myself to stop spinning on my wheel. Even a serious cut on my thumb hasn't stopped me from spinning on my wheel. FTW, always cut away from the hand holding stuff. Ask me how I know. Atleast this time, I didn't need stitches. You'd think I'd have learned that by now, huh?

So far, I have worked out a plan to stain the wheel. First, I wanted water based stains and seals. Miniwax makes water-based stains and varnishes, for the record, which dry much faster than the oil-based ones. Plus, there's that whole issue of compatibility. I did my homework and found out that paint on varnish will not stick if you use things with different bases. Not surprising, since oil and water have never mixed well together. I plan on painting on the rim of the wheel after it's stained, but I'll be using water-based acrylics. I'm hoping that all this water based stuff is easy to clean up, given my lack of gracefulness lately. Plus, since it dries faster, it means less down time on the wheel. I'd get started this weekend except for the whole-cut-on-my-thumb issue. I have a slice on my wrist, too, but that one's shallow and I have no idea how I got it.

After getting dizzied and disoriented by the wide variety of supplies at Michael's where I bought my stain and varnish, I decided to lengthen the finishing process by holding off on purchasing the paints. I'll varnish the solid wood parts first, before continuing with the actual wheel. The actual wheel is not solid wood, but medium density fiberboard (MDF), and won't look like the rest of the wood once stained. I think I want to paint the wheel to resemble wood grain after I stain it. Depending on how much I like it, I may or may not decorate it with further stenciling in vines and flowers. Then I'll seal the wheel with varnish to protect the paint.

That's the plan anyways. It's harder to enact because I'm stuck more or less spinning until my thumb heals. Knitting hurts right now, but thankfully, I don't need a thumb to spin.

Things I don't understand

This is a list which is unfortunately growing. Quantum mechanics will always be on top of that list, but lately, there are a few other things adding themselves to that list. Like spinning pencil roving. I was having the most difficult time spinning my first ounce of pencil roving. I had gotten a hank of it from Fibresphere in Alexandria, VA when I was on a business trip in DC. Glorious colors dyed by Miss Babs in green and purple in a 50/50 merino/tencel blend (MerSea #16). It's a well prepared batch, dyed with two strands of roving next to each other so you don't have to worry about matching roving for stripes. I split the hank into 2 oz, and then separated one set of strands from eachother. This more or less gave me 1 oz pencil roving strands to spin, and I set back for what I thought would be an easy spin.

How wrong I was! I swear, I've never had a fiber break on me so many damn times! I'm sure part of it is because it's a completely new blend for me to use. I was using one of my lightest spindles, 3/4 of an oz, and still it was breaking all the time! I expected part of it towards the end, because I was spinning fairly fine and the spindle was getting fairly heavy. So I expected more of the same suffering when I got to the second oz. Wouldn't you know, that damn thing is spinning beautifully? I want to know what fiber fairies came in and replaced my roving with something that behaves better.

Tips for Knitting Lace

Just a few words things that have saved me time and effort as I've knit lace.

Now, you must understand, I love to knit lace. As a matter of fact, a lace scarf was the first project I ever started. It may have been the 10th or 12 project I completed, but it was the first one I started. Once upon a time, I did start knitting a swatch. I got knit and purl down and was bored out of my mind. That swatch probably got ripped out. So then I decided I wanted to knit lace. You heard me right. Lace.

FTW, lace is almost always a bad idea for a first project, because it requires a larger knowledge base than plain knitting. There are whole books out there about the different kinds of stitches possible in the different styles of lace knitting. Estonian lace enjoys a high degree of popularity right now, and makes unholy stitches out of things like purl 9 together through the back loop. Don't get me wrong, it looks absolutely lovely in the finished project, but oh dear god, is it ever difficult to master with just 2 needles.

I digress. I started knitting lace, and learned along the way, some things that would have saved me hours and hours.... and hours of time. Here's the short list:

• Lifelines - a piece of smooth yarn (I recommend crochet cotton) that you thread through your stitches. Here's a video on how to put one in your knitting. I highly recommend them when you're about to start a row with a new pattern repeat. It saves much time otherwise spent tinking.
  
• Stitch markers! Good stitch markers for lace are hard to come by. If you find one that doesn't snag your lace, doesn't slip around the YO's, and doesn't dangle or tangle in your lace fabric - STASH UP ON THOSE BABIES. They are worth their weight in gold. They're very handy for putting at the end of a pattern repeat. Let's say you have 30 stitches, and 4 repeats of a 6 stitch pattern, with 6 border stitches on either side. You'd have a stitch marker after the first 3 border stitches, another after 6 stitches, another after the next 6, and so on until you're left with a stitch marker and 3 border stitches. Granted, that sounded way easier with only 30 stitches. It saves much time otherwise spent counting when the row is 120.
  
• Chart holders! Of any kind or variety. I'm partial to clear plastic folders or sheet protectors with a sheet of cardboard inside it to give it some rigidity. I take lace knitting pretty much everywhere, and I need something durable to protect my chart. Knitpicks offers a magnetic chart holder as well. Because without a good chart, I'd be lost and having to tink. It saves much trees lost in reprinting.
  
• Post-it notes! They come in all shapes and sizes and are great for marking where you are in the pattern. Place it right above the row you are knitting so you don't lose your place or read the wrong line and start knitting the next row instead. I cannot tell you how much time I've lost tinking because I knit the wrong row. Post-it notes live in my supply bag.
  

That's it for now. Dinner calls.

Miss Adventures

So.

I'm baaaaack. Craziness intact. Proof of concept?

I was taking pictures for the new pins going into the shop this week. For the life of me, I cannot find my two-toned Icarus shawl that I prefer to use for pictures. The lovely blue-green transition serves as a wonderful foil for metal. Terrible pun, I know. Anyways, I have no idea where it is. If you find my Icarus, please tell it to come home. I wound up using my Panache shawl for pictures instead, and the fuzzy alpaca halo created this intriguing warm tinge all over the white spaces in the picture. While it was an interesting effect, it was not what I wanted. So what did I do in response?

I casted on Bitterroot by Rosemary Hill. Clearly, this is the sane response to a lack of cool-toned shawls. When lacking shawls in the blue, green, or purple variety, one should simply cast on another one. As if I didn't have enough projects on my needle to begin with. Ha! To make this more challenging, I'm knitting in Malabrigo laceweight. You know, that gorgeous, single ply, soft yarn that's almost as impossible to frog as Rowan Kidsilk Haze. Clearly, I'm touched in the head.

I do love this pattern, though. Anyone who's knit an Icarus will feel alot of similar design elements and the rhythm of the lace will breeze past your fingers. I'm nearing the end of the repeats for chart A. I'm doing the shawlette version, so hopefully she will make her debut in the shop photos within a week.

Yes, you heard me right. A week. I knit a disastrously small Damson by Ysolda Teague in 6 days. It's how I fell in love with Malabrigo in the first place. Originally, it was intended for a friend who's going away to vet school. I had cast it on size 4 (3.75mm) needles because I'm a loose knitter. So I thought it would come out to a reasonable size, which it did. Once blocked, it was almost exactly the size in the pattern. Except, that size would have been perfect for my friend's first born child. Whoops! I also advise against starting the lace section after 10 pm at night, two hours after your flight's been delayed. This is not a clear-minded time, for separating out 8 repeats of 36 stitches. Just sayin'

Knitting break over, though. Time to resume happily knitting obsessively.

Tour de Fleece

So.

I've decided to commit to Tour de Fleece, a Ravelry hosted event that corresponds to Tour de France. Every day they spin, is a day we spin. As spinners. Who make yarn.

You didn't really think I was going to bike ride for 100+ miles, did you?

Anyways, I'm going to do some goal setting, just to make myself accountable. I want to spin at least 8 oz, which can occur in any combination of the following projects.

4 oz - 70% merino, 15% silk, 15% firestar pink roving. I started it in May, and it's languishing, because I got distracted. It's something that happens more often than I can remember. So I want to finish this yarn, in a 2 ply, at sport weight. Don't ask me what I want to make from it, because I have no idea.

Franquemont Fiber - So, my very, very wonderful friends have donated their samples to me (we were all very luck to receive an Abby batt sample at a teaching event). I've spun about 0.75 oz so far, and I should have an oz or less to spin. It would go very quickly, except... all of my spindles are full.

8 oz - 75% BFL, 25% Silk. I bought this roving, hoping I'd have enough to make a sweater. I only need 600-700 yds of dk weight yarn. Here's wistfully hoping!

Honestly, if I spun just 8 oz from all of this, I'd be really happy. Oh, did I forget to mention, I'm spinning all of this on a spindle?