Posts from — April 2007

Yesterday I continued to spin the lovely Ashland Bay Merino/Tussah roving.  I am not having the trouble I initially had with spinning this now that I’ve had a chance to work with it more.  The more I work with nice fiber, the more I really believe beginners should start with nice fiber…it’s so much easier to draft and I feel like it inspires me to better spinning.  I’m really happy with the way it turned out.  It’s well balanced, soft and the color variation is lovely.  I’m still  just soaking and then giving the yarn a couple of good whacks in the bathtub…no weighting the yarn for me. 

Now to figure out how many yards I have!  This turned into a little obsession today.  I’m not ready to shell out $160 for a yardage counter, so I began to do a little research.  There are several ideas online about how to make one using a measuring wheel.  It seemed like a good rainy day project so off to Home Depot I went.  Then another hardware store.  Then Walmart.  Save yourself some time.  If you decide to do this project, just order the damn thing.  I found the perfect one (CST - MeasureMark 31-108 Single 4-Inch ABS Plastic Wheel Measuring Wheel in Feet/Inches) at amazon for $24.  Sure, no instant project gratification but it’s pretty hard to a project without the main ingredient.  If all goes well I’ll have it Tuesday and my very own yardage counter shortly thereafter.  Of course, there will be documentation.

FPS Stole Update:  Halfway through tier 7…31 hours.

I can’t believe it.  Saturday I met the Yarn Harlot at the Bluegrass Festival of Books.  I finally decided Lexington was as close to Cincinnati as she was going to get so I made the pilgrimage.  I got in line with the rest of her disciples and waited patiently as she examined their knits, posed for sock pictures, signed books and generally being just as gracious and sweet as you imagine.  I was very nervous, although I suppose I should have expected that.  Getting to meet someone you admire very much and feel like you know even though you’ve never met is bound to make one a little anxious.  I don’t remember what I said but I’m sure it was completely stupid while she on the other hand was completely charming.   Jim (who drove down so I could knit…of course the FPS… and sat patiently through all of the knitting festivities) acted as paparazzi as I got my books signed and chatted with the harlot and posed with “THE SOCK”. 

Side Note:  Unfortunately, I have been so caught up in the FPS saga that I had NO socks on the needles.  I seriously though about throwing sock yarn and DPNs in the car but blew it off at the last minute.  I have never felt more in need of knitting a sock in my whole life.  Everywhere I looked in the Lexington center people were knitting.  Mostly socks, a few garter projects and one afghan.  Of course I had the FPS in my bag but there was no way I was whipping out that thing while distracted with all the harlot business.

I could have left the festival a happy woman, but instead I dragged Jim to a session entitled “A Good Yarn — Knitters, Fiction, and More!” with Susan Anderson, Stefanie Japel and Ann Hood.  I mainly just went because Stefanie was there.  I recently purchased her first book,  “Fitted Knits“.  I rarely can say this about a pattern book, but I would wear/make almost anything in there.  The authors talked about how they got into knitting/writing, what it meant to them and knitting as a career.  All of them had different stories but in common the obsessiveness that is knitting.

After a break for lunch I tried to go to Stefanie Japel’s booth to get my booked signed.  Apparently she had some lunch issues of her own and didn’t make it back to the booth.  I waited as long as I could but I didn’t want to risk not having a seat for the harlot talk.  I needn’t have worried…this venue actually devoted to her a space worth of her following…not one but THREE connected convention center rooms.   She again was completely delightful as she warned us all of the the CHOKE (c-something harassment of knitters everywhere…can’t believe I forgot the acronym) movement.   As she spoke, everyone (ok me and and like maybe 10 others out of hundreds weren’t) everyone knit.  I have never in my life felt so out of place NOT knitting.  Strange experience, that.  It gave me a chance though to take in the wonder of that moment…all of these people there to see her and all happily knitting away.  It was cool.  There was also a sit and knit afterwards where I finally could have vindicated my nonknitting myself by working on the FPS but sadly we had to leave right after she finished.  The dogs were home alone and I fear Jim had reached his absolute maximum threshold for knitting related events (in all seriousness…the man is practically a saint…he acted interested in all of this and was very happy for my having the fortune to meet the harlot).

Side note the second:  Herald Article 

FPS Totals: As of today (more car knitting on the way to and from Miami for a baseball game…payback for Saturday from Jim) starting tier 6.  Total hours: 23 (including one hour Saturday night in which I almost started crying because I whipped out the shawl again after the car knitting to find the needle missing. Patiently Picked up stitches and unknit until I could be sure all stitches were properly back on the needles.)

I was finished with “Branching Out” before I left for vacation, but I never got to photograph it.  Today I enlisted Loki as a model.  He was not cooperative.  He and Bodhi were way too busy sniffing the hand spun alpaca to provide a proper pose.  Instead, I have a boring “Scarf on Door” and an equally boring “Scarf on Tree” to show you.  I am not sure how many repeats I did…I basically just went until I ran out of yarn which happened to be just long enough for a scarf.  Final measurements are approximately 65″ x 7″.

I also got a little spinning done.  I am trying some new fiber I am getting for the store…Ashland Bay 70% Merino 30% Tussah Silk blend in Reds (looks moer purple to me).  One of the things I love about this roving is that the colors are preblended.  It’s really fun seeing what the next color combination looks like as every few feet is spun (I am easily amused).  The fiber is wonderful but I am not doing it much justice.  I decided to try to spin it much thinner than I have been lately…time to learn new skills, right?  The first small

batch I did was quite pitiful.  Since there wasn’t much and it wasn’t a usable yarn anyway I tried Navajo plying for the first time.  The technique is not hard at all and would probably even be easy with good yarn.  My yarn broke several times.  This does not make for a good plying experience.  I had much better results spinning this fiber on the second round.  I was careful to put quite a bit more twist in it and not allow thicker areas (the weak spots in the first attempt).  It will definitely need to be plied to be usable but I think this batch is quite a bit better.

It’s a good thing I’m still out here in Arizona.  Otherwise, I am quite sure that the Forest Path Stole would have been temporarily cast aside in favor of a project that was not sucking the life right out of me.  Instead, having no other choice, I cast on again. 

I can’t believe I’m going to say this aloud, but I think I’m glad I had to frog my first attempt.  In my hurry to get FPS on the needles before I left town, I did my typical long tail cast on.  Generally a good all purpose cast on.  Maybe not so good for FPS…or future lace projects (do you think I’ll actually be able to retain this idea?)  It made the seed stitch border all wavy and made me worried that when I went to block the thing that the border would be so tight as to prevent all the blocky goodness from making a wad of crap into beautiful lace.  Then there were the mistakes.  So. Many. Mistakes.  Now…perfect.  At least for the time being.  (Did I learn nothing of angering the knitting goddess?  Saying the knitting is “perfect” would mean impending disaster and lots of swearing and wine.)  Now the knitting is going “well.” 

I also now have the opportunity to prepare for the inevitable question that be asked when this is finished.  “How long did that take you?”  It first occurred to me to keep track of the time on this project when I was already about halfway through tier 1 of the first attempt.  Since I had the fabulous luck of getting to start over I am keeping track of time spent on the FPS.  Bottom border and set up triangles:  4.5 hours.  Total FPS time so far:  14 hours.  It’s currently taking me 45-1 hour per lace chart (including potty breaks, television, wine and the occasional tinking).  If I knit the stole as written (may shorten a bit depending on how it looks) that will be a total of about 99 more hours…which doesn’t include mindnumbingly boring seed stitch top and side borders.  Does that even seem possible?  Maybe I really need to do that whole backwards knitting thing.

Home tomorrow…lots of knitting time on the plane and two hour layover.  I may have to try to find one of those nifty ear lights before I leave.  Someone should really talk to the airlines about better lighting for us knitters.

I leave you with this: 

Ten Top Trivia Tips about Cheryl!

1. Pacman was originally called Cherylman.
2. More people are killed by Cheryl each year than die in aeroplane accidents.
3. Early thermometers were filled with Cheryl instead of mercury.
4. Contrary to popular belief, Cheryl is not successful at sobering up a drunk person, and in many cases she may actually increase the adverse effects of alcohol.
5. Cheryl was the first Tsar of Russia.
6. The state nickname of Iowa is ‘The Cheryl state’.
7. It took Cheryl 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.
8. Banging your head against Cheryl uses 150 calories an hour!
9. Cheryl can sleep with one eye open.
10. The first Cheryl was made in 1853, and had no pedals!

Although there has been lots of fun activity to talk about the last two weeks, I have neglected to write it all down.  All of the hiking, walking, eating, hot tubbing, drinking, running, shopping and knitting in the perfect, dry 80 degree heat of the desert prevented me from it.  You may now curse me openly.  You may even feel I need to be punished in some way.

Many of you know that I got the pattern and yarn for the Forest Path Stole the evening before I left for Arizona.  I was excited to be able to take this project on the trip so I immediately wound the yarn and cast on…I wanted to get to the “real” part of the pattern before I got on the plane.  A couple hours on the departure day got me to the point where all of the triangles were ready.  Fortunately, it was too dark and I was too tired on the plane to work on it then.  The “fun” part of the patterned entrelac sections therefore started (to refresh your memory, this is my first entrelac project) at the AZ home on the couch in the evenings after all the hiking, shopping, drinking (do not speak to me about KUI…I am fully aware of the risks involved) etc.  Portions of this went pretty well until I got to the Lily of the Valley chart.  For reasons unknown to me I had to tink on this one little square about 46 times before I finally got it right.  Part of it was those stupid flower buds (knit/make 5 sts in 1 st and then purl them all together on the next row…try that with size two needles, black yarn and the lack of proper lighting…I finally learned to make the stitches much looser…which by the way created its own issues) and part of it was??? (ok, maybe the wine)  My husband kept commenting on the face I was making while knitting this project and “isn’t this supposed to be fun and relaxing?”  Oh, why yes!  I must have forgotten that part while lost in the seeming futility of these tiny squares (which, by the way, have 800 stitches each).  At any rate, I got through that first Lily of the Valley square and then began to make a little progress (at the rate of about one square per night, but progress nonetheless).  All this time I was not blogging, I was still recording the progress thinking any day I would be writing this and saying “Lookee here!  My stole is progressing quite nicely.”  So here they are:

The other thing I keep meaning to write about is how freaking cute the Carefree/Cave Creek area is.  Obviously we love it since we chose to buy a house here but sometime I will share it with you in detail.  Definitely worth visiting if you’re ever in the area.  There are so many cute shops, restaurants and galleries along with plenty of hiking, biking and festivals.  For example, this weekend the Fiesta Days celebration in honor of the western heritage of the area.  A parade and rodeos mark the event.  Yesterday was the Desert Foothills Library sale (something they do monthly) and the farmers market.  Now here is another part where you may want to curse me and wish me ill…I got 18 books for…$40.50.  There was only one knitting book but it is one of the great reference books… Vogue Knitting.  A bit out of date (original version 1989) but a bargain at $3.  The others are a variety of fiction with some other reference books including one on gardening in Arizona.

While I continue to distract you before I go back to the forest path stole, you may be wondering “what is up with that title?”  It was inspired by my dinner last night.  I am not use to the stove out here…it is maddeningly slow compared to my high power cook top at home.  When I added the tortellini to the water it was at a gentle boil…pretty much all this cook top ever does.  Five minutes into the cooking though it was a different story.  With the lid on a rolling boil was reached and there were tortellini guts everywhere.  Fortunately, tortellini still taste good regardless of appearance.  Doesn’t this look tasty?

At this point you may be wondering, “What does she mean continue to distract us?  She already showed us the stupid stole.  We get it…progress.  Quit boring us with the darn thing until there is something substantial, ok?”  Well…ok.  But remember about the cursing and wishing me ill since I am out here in the beautiful warm and sunny desert, on holiday, knitting and otherwise cavorting while most of you are at work and enduring crappy, below average temps and snow?  Well…someone got their wish.  Since knitters are such a caring and lovely group and generally do not go around cursing wishing others ill, I sincerely doubt it was any of you so I instead suspect the knitting goddess.  She must not have cared for my lackadaisical, wine influenced approach to the entrelac.  No…it must deserve much more respect.  Again, on a lily of the valley square, I began to have trouble.  While doing the p2t at the end of the row something happened.  Something I still can’t explain.  All of the sudden there were about 7 stitches live, free and running down the panel.  It’s that stupid edge…apparently one of the stithces slipped off while I was going the p2t…that releases so many of those p2t all down the edge which, trust me, is a BIG problem.  I picked them up and fixed it the best I could, which was no semblance of the original pattern but it would have to do.  I continued on.  It happened again.  And AGAIN.  At this point it was not only a mess but there was the real possibility that somewhere in there a live stitch was hanging out just waiting to run as soon as I had finished and blocked the stole.  I thought about this for a while.  There were about 4,652 mistakes in the whole thing already and so I made a rash decision.  I frogged.  The. Whole. Thing.  I admit, a little crazy but there were several things I wasn’t happy about anyway.  Like the cast on should have been looser.  And where the first triangles joined there was a little hole in one of the joints just mocking me. 

If anyone says lifeline to me I will seriously drop everything I’m doing to come and kick your *#!.  That will be all.

I am way overdue to post will do it very soon!  Until then, two things.  Thing one:  You MUST go watch this video…Gangsta’ Knitter.  Thing two:  I almost hopped on this yesterday and then realized I know absolutely nothing about drum carders.  What is there to really know though?  The handle turns and it has all its teeth.  Is it a good deal at $82?