Posts from — March 2007

I always think I’m ready to leave town and yet on the day of departure I am still always in frenzy.  Today was supposed to be one of the better departure days …we didn’t leave the house until 6 pm.  Plenty of time to get ready to go, right?  Wrong.  Somehow the day still got away from me.  Part of it was a surprise visit from Duke Energy to put a new gas meter on the house which required them coming in to shut off all the gas and then coming back in to relight everything.  Part of it was a quick lunch with a friend that turned out not to be so quick (note to self…do not go to have a quick lunch at a small diner that employs one person to take care of the lunch crowd…better yet, don’t go to lunch on a day you are leaving town).  Part of it was the arrival of new items from The Alpaca Yarn company (the Forest Path Stole pattern and Suri Elegance Yarn) that just “HAD” to be put up on the website today.  Lastly, part of it was the darn Forest Path Shawl itself. 

Yes, the lovely Forest Path Shawl.  I got the yarn and pattern late yesterday and wanted to get it on the needles and started enough to be able to knit on the plane.  Twenty rows of seed stitch with yarn that has 875 yards to 100 grams (can you say THIN?) on size two needles, no problem.  Did I mention this is entrelac?  Did I mention this is my first attempt at entrelac?  No worries mate, I am now an “advanced knitter” right?  Wrong again.  How can one possibly be an “advanced” knitter when one does not know the right side from the wrong side?  Yes my friends, I believe this was my problem.  When going from the first triangle to the second I somehow lost my mind and forgot which side was the right side.  I am still not entirely sure this is the true explanation for my stupidity, but when I started the second triangle with my new orientation the directions sure enough worked out.  I am still not sure this is the correct explanation for my futility due to the fact that I began the new triangle so many times that I may have very well preformed some voodoo that allowed me to move on.  By the time we were ready to leave, I had wasted a couple of hours total on this endeavor and was not yet at a place where I could easily knit on a plane.  Thus the reason for this post…I cannot possibly knit with black yarn on size two (slick metal) needles on a dark plane on a pattern that I have already screwed up mega multiple times.  Hrrph!

Other than my wee socks, I haven’t posted much about knitting lately due to the new interest in the wheel.  However, after finally producing some usable yarn I had to begin knitting with it immediately.  I’ve yet to learn how to estimate yardage on handspun (I only briefly ran through a search on the topic) so I figured I was safe with a scarf.  I knew I wanted something that wouldn’t bore me to tears but since I was in a hurry to get started no time to contemplate the “perfect” project for my first usable handspun.  Which is how I ended up choosing “Branching Out“.  I’ve seen it many times, always thought it was nice but was never in a hurry to make it.  I knew I’d need to spin more yarn but wanted to get started anyway.  I made it through to the end of the existing yarn and I’d say I need at least that much more to finish it.  I hope to get the rest spun this afternoon.

My next project is the Forest Path Stole.  La and Deb are making me do it are offering their support for this complex project.  They are both part of a Knit Along for the Forest Path Stole.  Apparently, there is no real deadline to the KAL so you can still dive right in!  I’ve been wanting to start another shawl type item for a while now but just hadn’t found the right project.  I think this stunning stole fits the bill perfectly.  A year ago I inquired with the Alpaca Yarn Company about establishing an account and I decided this was a great time since I’m using their pattern and yarn for this project.  If anyone else wants to join in this KAL you’ll be able to order the pattern and yarn from me if you like (should be arriving this week)!

In addition to all the nice things blooming and growing outside, I also have some new little sprouts inside!  This is a new pack of herbs for my AeroGarden.  I’m so in love with this thing!  It seems like a silly time of year to get these started when my outdoor herbs will be up soon enough, but I’m going to try transplanting these this year.  I’m not sure how well it will work since these are hydroponic but I’m going to give it a shot.  If I can get that done successfully my next batch is lettuce greens…a perfect indoor crop for the summer since it’s too hot to grow them outside then.

I finally have some handspun yarn to show you that doesn’t make me want to puke.  I’m not sure if it’s the practice or the new fiber but this yarn is by far the best I’ve produced.  It hangs perfectly straight and is not too twisty!  It’s 100% Suri Alpaca that I just got for the store from a local farm called Alpaca Meadows.  This fiber is so nicely prepared that it really seemed like it spun itself.  I was nervous about trying such a nice fiber while I’m still such a newbie, but I’m glad I did!  I can’t wait to do a little more but I have just one problem.  I just discovered this…my beautiful Alpaca roving reduced to a pile of fiber.  VERY BAD DOGGIES!  They don’t usually show an interest in my yarn but apparently the smell of farm animals was quite enticing.  Glad this happened now and on a small amount of fiber so I am more careful in the future.  Is this going to spin just as well now?  I don’t have carders so I hope I’m not supposed to start all over with getting the fiber prepared?  Please comment on that if you happen to know!

Aren’t y’all tired of looking at cream colored yarn? I sure am! I don’t want to do any dying though until my spinning is much better.  This batch turned out pretty well as far as being the “right” amount of twist (I think).  It’s hanging relatively straight on its own…I just soaked and hung to dry.  To entertain myself with something different today, I thought I’d try plying this yarn.  I’m sure there must be a “right” way to do that too but I just wound into a center pull ball and used each end of it to ply on itself.  I basically just let it feed in.  There didn’t seem to be a need to control the twist.  I must admit, this almost looks like respectable yarn, albeit coarse, thick, hairy yarn that really cannot be used for anything. 

 I allowed myself to use some of the Henry’s Attic 80s roving I just got in.  Heaven, I tell you!  I’m excited to be getting all this new roving for the store!  I’m even getting some alpaca from two local Ohio farms.  It’s going to be hard to keep myself from using it but I feel I must since I am so terrible right now.  I will run out of that icky practice yarn though soon and when I do I guess I’ll have no choice.

I’ve also been entertaining myself with an upgrade to Wordpress 2.1.2 and a new template (if you despise geek speak, skip to the next paragraph…if you speak geek though please read on because maybe you can help me????)  Mucking around in code is fun for only so long.  I got everything almost the way I wanted but I still have one problem…the gallery.  When I first started using Wordpress, there really wasn’t a great gallery plugin.  So I got a little help with a template and integrated gallery.  The problem now is I have 2 years of pictures/posts so I’d really like to stick to what I have been using.  Unfortunately, there would be no easy way to transfer the pictures into another gallery without having to go through and update all the picture links.  I got the php code to run in the Galley page but notice what happens when you click a link…there are no longer any sidebars, headers, etc.  I had to put the view.php file in the blog directly just to get them to show at all.  What might be easier and what the person who helped me before did was to take the WP template and wrap it around the actual gallery installation.  I’m having no luck with that either.  Just lots of php errors whenever I try to call the header, footer, sidebar, etc.  I you think you have any ideas about to help, please let me know.  There could would even be a yarn payment involved!  And not the silly Cheryl spun icky stuff either!

Something fun I ran into over at Kristin’s blog today…a little customizable avatar and you can even give it knitting needles. The needles “cost” 2 points but no worries…just use my username as a referral when you sign up “cherylkemp” (no quotes) and you get 5 points free!

Much more spinning practice this weekend and much more sub par yarn.  I finally got sick of the practice wool I have been using and decided it would be ok to use a little of the Henry’s Attic roving  I have for the store.  What a difference!  I’m not sure if it’s that the HA roving is so much better prepared or if it’s just that much better quality but it was infinitely easier to work with.  I just wish the “yarn” I made with it reflected that!  (By the way, look for a bigger selection of roving at the store arriving soon!)

I have tried several different things with the wheel to try to fix my self perceived ”twist issue”.  After some searching and reading I have learned that too much twist is a common beginner problem.  Too bad I couldn’t find anything that actually explained how to deal with that problem better.   All of my practice and research since that has focused on trying to spin yarn with much less twist (balanced?).  I also ran across something that mentioned using the wider end of the bobbin.  Um…duh?  I don’t know about you but to me it looks like the smaller diameter of the bobbin is automatically where the drive belt should go.  Apparently not.  The specs for my wheel…apparently different ratios do different stuff to your yarn…which I now know in theory how it affects the yarn but can’t possibly control it or find anything on the Ashford Traveller (double treadle, double drive) that explains which setting corresponds to which ratio (6.5, 8.5 and 11.5).  I also figured out how to set the wheel for single drive with scotch tension (yes, I used the larger end of the bobbin although after spinning both ways I can’t tell a difference).  Unfortunately it is very difficult for me to control the twist any way I have it set up.  I have slowed my treadling down and that definitely helps, but he wheel is really difficult to treadle at slow speeds.  I oiled everything and that doesn’t seem to make a difference.  I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I am going to need a class rather than just teaching myself.  There are classes at the Cincinnati Weaver’s Guild but unfortunately I won’t be able to go until May!  Wahhhh!  Make sucky yarn until then?  Quit until I go?  Decisions, decisions.

So…the actual product.  On the right picture we have the Henrys’ Attic Superwash wool and on the left the inexpensive wool top on the right.  Both of these were just soaked in water for a few minutes and then snapped.  I read somewhere that weighting the yarn is equivalent to blocking which makes sense.   After that the idea of producing less twisty yarn became even more important to me.  I’m obsessed.  Have you knit with yarn you have blocked/set the twist with weighting?  It seems like the shape could be very iffy with that kind of yarn.  I did find a nice article on low twist yarn by Holly.  I think the yarn she is describing is actually a little different than spinning something you intend to ply but good information anyway.  The picture above and to the right is the Henry’s Attic right off the bobbin.  Too much twist right?  It’s hard to know for sure what yarn is supposed to look like right after spinning which is why I ended up soaking the yarn to get a better idea.

:goodnews:  The sock escapee was found!  It wasn’t the dogs or cats but the mouse that ate it.  An explanation is probably in order lest you think I have mice running around the house.  My computer keyboard is on a tray under the desk with a separate side tray for the mouse.  Somehow my little sock fell off the desk and onto the mouse tray where it was then covered with the wrist rest.  In a usual fit of klutziness I knocked the rest off freeing the sock.  It must have been meant to be that I forgot my Sock Swap envelope when I went to the post office…so my pal got all three wee socks.  The pal that sent me a sock might have snuck hers out early because it arrive yesterday from  Alabama.  Not only did Tonni send me the cutest little sock, but she also send the Keychain Sock Blocker and pattern!  Thanks so much Tonni!  It’s my first sock blocker keychain and I now understand the appeal!

Let me take you back to January 12, where I proudly displayed the pieces of an Ashford Traveller.  Driven to it by who knows what I finally today have an actual spinning wheel.  I usually don’t mind assembly much but this one was a bit of a challenge.  I really hate it when holes drilled for a particular screw can in no way accept said screw.  It makes me crazy.  It made me crazy today for a couple of hours!  When I finally finished I of course had no choice but to jump right in. 

Just to refresh your memory, I have never spun.  Not with a drop spindle, not with someone else’s wheel not with my fingers and stray bit of fiber.  Never.  How hard could it possibly be?  Well the IDEA of spinning, not so difficult…but the nuance…very difficult.  I REALLY should have watched the online videos first (um now that I actually look though, I don’t seem to have it bookmarked like I thought I did).  I don’t think I can officially call this yarn.  Yarn barf maybe, but not yarn.  Attempts two and three are only marginally better.  I’m blaming it at least partially on the crappy “practice” wool.  It’s very hard to draft!  In the very little I have read about spinning in the past, I always glossed over the whole “twist” stuff.  Turns out, that is pretty dang important.  Or at least that appears to be the case since my poor yarn barf is so twisted in places that it folds over on itself.  I can see really digging this whole process though once I get the hang of it.  If any of you spinners out there can point me in the direction of good online tutorials and such, I would really appreciate it. 

So briefly back to knitting and then a mystery.  I got my tiny sock finished last night…still haven’t found the “escapee”.  I’m going to go ahead and put the super tiny sock in the pakage to my swap pal.  Why not?  One can never have too many wee tiny socks, right?  For the mystery we have a package of pigs that found its way to my door yesterday.  No note although the box gratefully had the comany name…Moonstruck Chocolate.  I called them and it seems that Macy’s.com also sells thier stuff, which is where this package originated.  TWO calls to Macy’s and one back to Moonstruck and I still have no idea who sent this.  It’s been two and a half weeks since my surgery and it’s two and a half weeks until my birthday so I’m not even sure what it’s for either!  In any case, if whomever sent it happens to read this…THANK YOU!!!!  It is quite yummy and very cute.

If you haven’t tried this before it’s pretty entertaining.  Myheritage.com has a facial recognition program and you can use it to find out what celebrity you most resemble.  I did a picture of my sister and I to check it out.  It’s fun to try multiple pictures and see which celebrity comes up more than once.  Don’t worry about cropping your pictures…it finds the faces automatically! Ahhhh, the wonders of modern technology. If you do it comment and link to your blog so I can see who you look like too!

Well, I did have not one but two tiny socks for your viewing pleasure. However, it appears one has escaped. I’m not sure if it was afraid of going to its new home or if the dogs might have aided and abetted the escapee.  Does Loki look innocent to you?  It’s ok though, I planned on making another one anyway.  The one to the right just something fun…really too small for the exchange…I was just “in the mood”.  The missing one was done top down, something I haven’t done in a while.  I followed the pattern from the swap site and just wasn’t happy with how it looked.  Although technically correct, the foot part just looked funny to me. 

For the next part of this post you should turn away if you are easily offended.  This was a “little” joke knit from last month.  It all started with a picture of three men on the knittinghelp.com forum that we had to moderate away from the post.  The three men were wearing rainbow colored penis warmers.  Maybe you’ve seen it?  Anyway, it got me thinking about actually knitting one.  The timing was perfect since a friend’s birthday was coming up. A friend with just the right sense of humor…he was definitely amused.  I used the pattern from the appropriately named “Dangle Bits” website.  It was a fun quick knit and I really enjoyed using Karaoke (352).  It was even soft enough to wear if one were so inclined. :rofl: 

Ahhhh, things posted on youtube.com. Amusing. Poor hookers. Oh, and I would love to meet a group of “sudents”…wouldn’t you?

I was just made aware of a really fun idea! Emily is hosting a wee, tiny sock swap. Go read all about it and then sign up! I enjoyed the last time I made a tiny sock sock and it’s been a while since I’ve made any sock at all so I think this will be great. Just in case you never got to see my tiny sock (so proud, I am) here it is again.  Don’t’ worry….you don’t have to make it quite that tiny unless you want to and it’s a great way to use some leftover sock yarn!