Go on with your knittin'

I love this irish knitting poem; it reminds me of the Beatles. Hubs is obsessed with music, and a million times I've heard the story about Yoko Ono sitting in a corner during a recording session and being told by John to 'tend to your knitting, bitch'. It's a good suggestion!

IRISH KNITTING POEM
When the folks next to you act like those in the zoo
Grumblin', growlin' and spittin'
It's a pretty good plan
To be as calm as you can
And do something useful like knittin'.

When a gossipin' Susan with poison barbed tongue
Comes into the room where you're sittin'
And starts to defame
Some neighbor's good name
Count your stitches out loud and keep knittin'.

When there's been a slight misunderstandin' at the church
And others hint broadly of quittin
Why the very best thing
You can do is to sing
And stay at your post and keep knittin

When Satan moves in with his cohorts of sin
Say, "You'll never find me submittin'"
You irk me I find, so get thee behind
And please don't disturb me, I'm knittin'!

I'm also very excited because I've been asked to have my yarn sold in a new online yarn store being opened by a couple of lovely Portuguese ladies. The store isn't quite open yet, but theres a preview of it at:
www.knit.com.pt
My two latest skeins of handspun will be going up there.

I know I'm a little lackin in the picture department today, but it's for good reason. The knitting project I've been most involved in lately is a sock of my own design.
I'm also working on something that will be a personal project. Hubs and I are huge M*A*S*H fans, and he has always wanted a University of Illinois letter sweater just like the one that Col Henry Blake wears. Well, he's getting one. I stopped at the lys for yarn and some new addis last night, and I've nearly finished the bottom ribbing section. Pictures to come when the progress is a bit more...interesting. I'm using armhole and neckhole steeks for the sweater, perhaps I'll post a tutorial when I get to them.

Knitting Craze

The tides have turned, and after a month or so of obsessing over fiber and spinning, while almost completely abandoning my knitting, I have flip-flopped.
I find my needles and yarn calling me the instant they come into my sight, and my wheel and pile of fiber to be spun sitting jealously in the corner. I still visit the fiber every once and a while, but right now I am in the midst of a renewal with my knitting mind.
By the advice of Kelley Petkun's KnitPicks podcast, I went and got myself a subscription to audible.com. For $22/month, you get to download ANY two audiobooks, regardless of the retail price. I've always adored reading, but abandoned my books when I discovered the world of knitting. Having a wonderful book on my ipod to listen to makes me want to do nothing but sit on my overstuffed couch, with my ipod and knitting all around me. Also per Kelley's advice, I started with a series of books by Diana Gabaldon. I just finished the first book this morning, Outlander, and I'm obsessed. I can only describe it as a mix of non-stop action, romance, and the rich culture and history of 18th century Scotland.


Anyway. Turning back towards knitting, I found myself noticing that I have very *little* yarn in my stash, especially nothing that would be enough for a larger project.
A few weeks ago, I went to my local craft store, where I found a huge yarn sale. Most of the yarns were fugly novelty, eyelash yarns, but there were a few colors of this silk/acrylic blend. I got 12 skeins of this brown, and 12 skeins of a light tan. These were $1/skein!
Because of the silk content, I wanted a possibly summer/spring garment that wasn't quite a sweater. I've been interested in the construction of the knitting pattern, Ester, ever since I first saw it. So, here it is. I've knit through the whole back section, and am now continuing it with the addition of the "sleeve" sections. This pattern is perfect for tv/movie knitting. Interesting enough to keep me entertained, but easy and repetitive enough that I could easily remember the pattern, and do not often have to refer to a chart.



I had a few blue, yellow, and green scraps of rather scratchy wool leftover from the pound of fiber that came with my carder. I carded these with some super soft white merino and some shiny blue/green firestar. It's being spun up on my joy, I'm thinking that it will remain sock weight singles, or be 2 plyed. I'm not sure yet, I'll see what mood hits me when I'm further along with the spinning.





I received this nice big box stuffed with 2 lbs of border leicester wool. It is well skirted, but still full of small debris and tons of natural oils. I've been slowly plucking the locks apart from each other in those small moments I find myself not wanting to knit or spin.
I had never washed raw fiber before this, and I found that its not nearly as tedious as it seemed from the sets of instructions I had read. After finding myself a small plastic shower basket at target with slots in the side, it was really easy. I stack some locks in the basket with the tips all facing the same way. I brew some hot water in my coffee pot, and fill a white tub with dishsoap and the hot water. Since the basket the fiber is in has slots, it can just be lowered into the hot water without agitation, avoiding frustrating felting. After the locks are washed, I press the water out of them with old towels, and set them aside to dry. I then card the dried, clean locks, and pull the batt gently into little nests of roving.

The clean wool is beautifully white in contrast to the dirty locks.
I'm still not sure what to do with all this fiber! It may ALL be prepared and dyed into tons of small amounts of different colors as filler wool in batts, or perhaps I will spin it undyed first, and hand paint the yarn.
I haven't decided. In either case, I'm sure I'll be working on this 2 lbs for a while.

It's been a while...

It's been forever since I've done anything etsy related, besides making items. Last week I got a brand new toy! A strautch petite drum carder. Here she is with my first test batch.



















I've been carding up a storm since I got it, and have some very pretty fiber to add to the store that will hopefully start going up in the next few days.

Last weekend we had our nieces (Samantha, 6 months, and Katelin, 3 years) while sister and brother in law were at a dart tournament. The kids were perfect little angels like they usually are for uncle and auntie, but unfortunately Michele had gotten sick the last night of their trip, and proceeded to give it to Rick, Katelin, and I. So for the last 3 days I've been at home throwing up again. I'm so sick of the stupid flu, and the fact that every time we have a nice springy day, it SNOWS again! Its April. Quit it. I really need to take a bucket of disinfectant to the entire apartment and let it air out, but I'm sure as hell not going to do it when its cold and snowy yet.

Lazy Sunday

Its a nice, lazy sunday. I have too many things I want to do today, though!

Like work on this yarn for the store. I dyed white wool in pink and purple, then hand carded it with some white wool. It turned into a pretty skein; I think I'll leave it as singles, because its about a sock weight right now, and it will have enough yards to MAKE a pair of socks! (I think I still have almost an ounce of this fiber left before the spinning is done!)








You may have seen this before! It was posted in my store as roving, but it sat for a few weeks without any buyers, and I started getting antsy because I've wanted to spin it for myself since I dyed it!
Last night I finally took it off the store, and started predrafting.

I'm kind of glad I did; it got a little felty during the dying process, which is weird because I always take extra measure to make sure I let the fiber cool in the dye bath to avoid felting while trying to cool it down with water.


It's making a wonderfully squishy yarn though, and I still love the colors.

It should be reappearing in my store in the form of a skein this time.

(Photo note: Hubby in the background playing Madden '08 on our Wii)






In knitting news, I started this pair of socks last week.
Hubs and I work in the same place. He has to start work at 7; I don't start until 8. Normally my department offers overtime and I just start an hour early. Last week, the corporate office put the kabosh on that, so I get an hour of knitting time every morning. Its pretty nice, even if I do have to do it in the break room.





It's a blurry picture, but a totally cute one of hubs playing football =)











I'm also working on some handmade knitting needles. I love working with polymer clay, and I have tons of it from making beads for hemp necklaces we make that my dad sells to his crazy hippie friends in South Dakota, so I figured I might as well take some lessons from my carpenter father in law and start whittling my own knitting needles, using clay for cute toppers. Today I'll be getting my first couple pairs of needles baked and varnished, and they should be making their appearance on etsy very soon as well!

We just got a 37" TV in near perfect condition from a friend for only $200. I think hubs and I will have fun putting together the new entertainment center for it today, not to mention lifting the huge sucker up onto that thing. Guys, this tv is MASSIVE. Its sitting on the floor in our living room right now taking up about the entire walkway into the kitchen. I'm excited to get it set up; that means we FINALLY get to have a tv in our room again. Yay!

Happy St Pats tomorrow, all! Don't forget to wear green and drink lots of guinness. I know we will.

Just what I needed..

After spending a week stuck in our apartment, alone with the flu, I was looking forward to spending time with Rick (hubby!) this weekend. He ended up having to help sister in law with an easter photo shoot she was doing on Saturday and Sunday, and it ended up being HOURS and HOURS longer than either of us expected. I got the worst headache ever and couldn't help but just sit here and cry because I have such bad cabin fever. Dare I say, it will even be nice to go to WORK tomorrow, just to get out of this box we call our apartment.

My entire day was saved by a lovely etsian who bought two items from me this evening, which was my first sale of March. It is amazing how much joy you get from knowing that something you put a lot of effort, time, love, and soul into making can find a good home with someone. It made me feel mountains better.

I also finally figured out today how to use my hand card to produce roving that is nice enough to sell, instead of having to just sell it in the form of rolags. I know, rolags are nice to spin from, but I don't know if I would buy fiber in that form if I had a choice between that and roving. Call me obsessive, but I did figure it out.

Flu Day

Today is the 4th day in a row I've had the flu. Both hubs and I are home right now, sick. At least I'm not so bent over the toilet that I can do some things. Yesterday I threw some fiber in the crockpot and rainbow dyed it. After some drafting, I have a big pile to spin


It's a little over 4 oz of fiber, but I'm kind of sick of spinning really thin sock yarn, so I think this is going to stay as a chunkier single. I love it so far.

I'm off for some sprite. ugh.

Colonel Mustard

Well, today started off not so good. I had to run to the bathroom as soon as I got to work; the flu is going around. So now I'm just going to sit on the couch with my 7up and work on a fiber project; this mustard colored roving. It started as about 2 oz of bare fiber. I separated it into 4 little chunks and dyed each a different color. Yellow, dark moss green, a salmon/tan color, and left one white. I carded it all together once, yielding this big mustard colored batt.


It's still needs some processing and more color blending, so it's getting one more carding before I pull it into roving, like I have with these:
They'll eventually be a skein of yarn for the shop.
I'm hoping I keep feeling *ok* enough that I can have some studio time today!

Also check out the new skein that will be posted today to my etsy store!