Day 112: Careful consideration

A few things have come together for me:

• Taking a break from my devices this past weekend was tremendously useful to me.  I'd almost forgotten how much I value that space.  I'd almost managed to forget how often I get sucked into a device for embarrassingly long periods of time, at the end of which I feel like I've achieved nothing - even if I have read more New York Times articles than you can shake a stick at.  But honestly, how many articles about the ongoing impeachment hearings do I need to read in one day?  Or even in a few days?
• Also of note: I have been working nearly every weekend this semester to stay on top of an overload of commitments.  (Also of note: I have psoriatic arthritis which isn't entirely under control, and I don't live my life as if that were true.)
• Yesterday, the humidity plummeted again (it was around 1% at the local airport, which is - get this - near the ocean, people, but still the air is so dry that it sucks the moisture out of every. single. thing), and I woke up with a headache that could only be described as an extinction level event.  I always hesitate to use the word "migraine" (I'm not really sure why), but it really can't be called anything else.  I got it under control, but between it and the Advil, I was walking the fine line between unmanageable pain and nausea.  It wasn't a fun day.  
• As a result of which, I didn't post here.  Which, interestingly, felt more like a relief than a regret.
• Last week, someone suggested that I try a mental practice, just to see what happens: instead of framing things as a question, I let a statement happen instead.  This basically has to do with my lifelong habit of overthinking and overanalyzing everything - I can think of 20 sides to a square.  It's nice to be able to see nuance, but it's not particularly useful for checking in with my gut.
• On my day away from digital devices, I also felt relief not to have to post here.  And it occurred to me to maybe think about rethinking my magpie year.  And I started thinking about commitments and what I said I'd do and meeting expectations and and and.  Lots of questions: should I make a new plan, with a different kind of commitment (I will post every other day/every Thursday/whatever)?  What will people think if I say, after 100ish days, that I'm not doing this anymore?  Is it actually in keeping with the lighthearted magpie spirit to allow my shiny-object-distraction soul to be distracted by other things?  Is it OK to say that I've learned some interesting stuff about myself and now I'm going to lighten up?  Should I/can I/ought I to?  And then I remembered: statements.
• And the statement is: I don't want to post every day right now.  Or, at least, I don't want to feel obliged to.
• Ah.  OK.  I can work with that.

So, there it is.  I'm not saying that I didn't go around a few more times.  I have a lot of trouble giving myself grace (we've talked about this), and so there's been quite a bit of: but you said!  However, the statement part of me knows this: I said it to myself.  No-one will die or be harmed if I now say to myself that gentleness and kindness means renegotiating the terms of my engagement with writing.  There are times when "I don't want to do it" doesn't cut it - but this isn't one of them.

The fun thing for me about having initiated this project is that I am writing again - not only here, but in my journal, and other scribblings that I hadn't been giving myself permission to try, and that I now am; I'm looking forward to having more time for that.  I'm spinning again.  And there's a small part of me that is thinking of trying a creative sweater-sized project again.  All of that, I think, came out of the project of committing myself to doing this one creative thing every day.  I'm good with letting that creative thing be wider than writing here.  So, I'll be here, and I may keep that day count because I'm finding it interesting, but it won't be every day.

Meanwhile, with my "blogging time" on Sunday and Wednesday, I wound up that yarn and cast on for a hat.  It's getting cold in Seattle, and Kiv needs to keep her head warm.

Day 103: Yarn!

So, I don't know if you remember the lovely braid of BFL/silk (75/25) I got last spring at Northwest Yarns in Bellingham Washington?  Well, it turned into this:

It's the Bold Spectrum colorway from Elemental Fiberworks; I'd definitely spin with their fiber again, it was beautifully prepared, and the results are lovely.  The colors aren't quite right (I'm taking this at night) - they're more vibrant than I've captured here.  I spun it worsted and then, in order to preserve the gradient, I chain-plied it.  I haven't yet figured out the weight, but it looks like maybe sport, to me?

 It's not always my favorite way to ply - any unevennesses in the singles run the risk of being emphasized, but I really don't know another way to preserve these long color runs quite so well.  In the event, I think it turned out to be fairly even. 

I'm actually quite pleased with that, given that this is my first spinning project in a really long time.  It's destined to be a hat for Kivrin, so it'll be heading back up to the northwest as soon as it's knitted up.  I'm thinking just a plain stockinette beanie, unless anyone has another suggestion?

Day 87: More color

You may recall that I got a yummy rainbow braid of (if I remember correctly; I don't have the label here) BFL/silk this summer.  I haven't had much time to spin lately, so I sat down today to listen to Krista Tippet talk to Joanna Macy, and worked my way through green and into blue.  So, that's Red, Orange, Yellow, Green done, and Blue and Violet to go!

As you can see, I sat in the shade on my front patio, and enjoyed watching the butterflies and my chickens, and listening to the sounds of the neighborhood while I spun.  A good way to spend some time on a Sunday afternoon.  I hope you're all getting some peace and beauty today, too!

Day 3: Pride

My younger daughter and her friend went downtown today to celebrate in San Diego's Pride parade and festival.

Question: Why is San Diego's Pride celebration in July instead of June?
Question:  Is this a metaphor?
Question:  Or is it a kind of cool way to remind us that none of these X Month celebrations should ever be restricted to just one month?
(Or maybe both?)

By happenstance, I had the opportunity to indulge my inner magpie with an unplanned stop at a yarn store sighted in Bellingham (while taking my niece to visit WWU; no, yarn stores were not meant to be on the itinerary).  But the logo for Northwest Yarns is an octopus holding knitting needles - I had to go in, right?  I may have walked away with a few things (but not the Majacraft Little Gem that I have long coveted - good for me, right?), including (speaking of Pride) this lovely braid:

which is destined to become something warm for my daughter to wear this winter in Seattle, where she'll be a freshman at Seattle U.  I really should be working on her college blanket (ahem), but I am trying to spin a little bit each day while we watch the Tour de France.

I'm actually done with the red and orange and am into the yellow.  This will be chain-plied to preserve the nice long color changes.  Knitters out there, any recommendations for something in the neck-warming realm that would show this off suitably?

Welcome, new year!

Like everyone does at this time of year (I assume - maybe I'm overgeneralizing), I have been contemplating The New Year Post.  Somehow it seems like, when posting at this time of year, one is meant to look over the last year, contemplating resolutions kept, and resolutions not-so-much kept (and why is it that that list always seems so much more front-and-center than the other?). 

You know:
Did not lose weight
Did not Achieve Enlightenment

Oops.

To be fair, I did some things this year that weren't so much resolution-oriented, as finally doing or trying things that have always been on the back burner.  I started horseback riding, racewalking, went to Turkey, was promoted to Full Professor, established an inconsistent but real sitting meditation practice, established a more-consistent home yoga practice.  All of those are desires that have been kicking around in the back of my head for a long time - some (like horseback riding) since childhood. 

Mostly, I tried to focus on the word I chose as a touchstone last year, instead of establishing resolutions: mindfulness.  That's been a word I've chosen a few times now, as something to keep me on track, and this year I feel like I made some pretty significant breakthroughs in finding that place of mindfulness more often.  Sometimes, it means being mindful of sad feelings like those I wrote about last time; sometimes, it means being open to being happy; sometimes, it means just sitting with the squirrel that apparently resides in my brain, flitting its tail and chittering at every insult.  It's a busy busy squirrel.

So instead of that list of future resolutions, I've been trying to decide whether I want to re-up on the mindfulness, or add something else.  In the end, mindfulness is the key to focusing on any concept that I'd like to bring into my life, so I decided to throw caution to the wind.

Abundance.

That's my word for the year.  Not seeking abundance, but seeing it where I already have it, which is in so very many places in my life.  Feeling a lack of abundance is something that drives me to grab opportunities when they come up, out of the fear that nothing like that will ever come again (not always a bad thing, but not good when I am overcommitted; this is something I have been working on), to buy things that I don't need, out of the fear that I'll never get the chance again (I have this SO much more under control than I have in the past; it is one of the reasons why I have passed up several interesting yarn and fiber clubs over the last few years, for example - I already have a STABLE stash), to eat things that I don't need or want, because I feel a need to reward myself, and fear that I won't have opportunities to "treat" myself in the future.  That one's a kicker for me.

I can't be the only one who feels that way about food, right?  There are so many times when so much of my life is utterly overwhelming, and I feel that I "deserve" some kind of treat, or reward for surviving.  And so many treats and rewards require time or money, and I don't feel like I have time or money (to get a massage, take a riding lesson, sit quietly and knit, read a book).  In the end, I have to eat anyway, right?  It's not like I'm not spending time and money on food in any case (my little squirrel brain says), so I may as well just indulge a little...

Is it just me?

So, abundance.  A good focus, and one which I think will remind me to be mindful of the things in my life that I have already: daughters, husband, friends, activities I love, opportunities that fulfill me instead of leaving me drained.

This past week has been one of quiet crafting and contemplation, which I think is exactly what I needed to come to the realization that I have this habit of living in a state of persistent fear of scarcity, even when surrounded by abundance.  It was good to give time over to being quietly creative.

I spun.

That's FiberOptics gradient, in the Midnight colorway.  I spun this one woolen, and chain-plied it, for a lovely round plump three-ply yarn.  I wasn't able to get the whole thing onto one bobbin, alas - which tells me just how much loft is added in the woolen spinning, compared to the worsted.  The last braid of FiberOptics gradient I spun, I spun worsted, and it all fit (barely) onto one bobbin, both the singles and the three-ply. 

The colors are a little darker and more saturated than you can see here, but this is close.  This is destined to become a Spectral cowl, which I saw and immediately fell in love with.  I started to go down the rabbithole of needing the yarn that it was knitted in, and then remembered that I already had this beautiful stuff in stash, and went this route instead.  I am glad that I did.

On New Year's eve, just before the ball went down at midnight New York time (as late as we manage to stay up these days), I finished a project that has long been hanging out in the WIP pile:

This is the second of the Bias Before-and-After scarves (Churchmouse Yarns pattern), which I started an appallingly long time ago.  But they're both done now, and I am looking forward to wearing them separately (I wear the purple one all the time) and together.

When I went out to photograph, I noticed an unexpected color theme here.

(The color of the second scarf is closer to the middle picture - you can see the similarity.)

I have also been plugging away at Green Wood, and I not only made it through the yoke, but the short rows as well.  I have set the sleeve stitches aside, and am now entering into the long slow stretch of the body.

This is very tiny yarn, knitted on size 1 needles (size 0 for the yoke; I could have knit the body on 0, and I think that that makes a nice fabric, too - but this is probably slightly more wearable here in San Diego).

Just in time for all of the meetings that I will be attending next week.  With luck, this will help me keep some of the happy break time glow, even in the face of politics and meanness.  I really appreciated all the words of support and wisdom that everyone shared in the wake of my (admittedly, not very happy) last post.  Thank you for the additional reminder of the abundance in my life.

Happy new year!

The Easter bunny wears fur?

So, true story.  Friday night is pizza and movie night around here.  I was sitting on the couch, watching a movie with Rick and the girls, when I thought I dropped something.  I reached under the couch to see if I had, and came up with...an egg.  Which I found rather surprising, since we were in the den, and the chickens, so far as I know, do not come into the house to lay eggs.  I chalked it up to general weirdness and went on watching.  (Upon re-reading this prior to hitting publish, it occurs to me to wonder what that says about the general state of weirdness in our household.) 

The next morning, Rick came into the living room, holding up another egg.  He'd found it at the foot of the bed, on the floor.

I should be clear here - I'm talking about raw eggs.  Not hard-boiled eggs, not Easter eggs, not chocolate eggs (alas).  Chicken eggs, of the sort our chickens lay.

Fifteen minutes after Rick had announced his discovery, I heard dog paws clickety-clacketying down the hall, and then heard a rather hollow-sounding plonk at my side.  I looked down to see (you guessed it): an egg.  And a very pleased-looking Mathilda.  Who apparently is under the mistaken impression that she is the Easter bunny.

We haven't had any more special deliveries since then (although, given the under-the-couch egg, I am wondering where and in what state I will find other such "gifts" that I haven't noticed yet).  Our best guess is that some of the chickens have stopped laying in the coop (for a while, some of them were very attached to a nest on the side of the house, but then they all figured it out) because one of the chickens has gone broody, and persists in sitting in the nesting box all day, if allowed, making cranky noises at anyone who comes to bother her.  I'm guessing that the other hens find it easier to just lay elsewhere, and Tilly wanted to make sure that we weren't missing anything.  Never a dull moment around here!

In fiber-related news, I finished my first "real" weaving project.  Realizing that I don't wear long rectangular scarves, generally, I knew that I'd need to think of something else to focus my weaving attention on.  So I decided to try napkins. 

For a first-time experiment, they didn't turn out badly.  They are narrower than I'd hoped, as I warped the loom to an 90-inch warp (hoping to weave four 20-inch napkins that were 10 inches wide), using my new 10-dent heddle and a very nice linen warp (FibraNatura Flax).  Alas, the 250 meters that I had wasn't enough, so I ended up about an inch and a half shy of the width I'd wanted.

The weft yarn is Plymouth Grass (a 65% cotton/35% hemp yarn).  I tried a couple of new things on this project, for fun.  I hemstitched each end of the napkins as I came to them (a 2x2 hemstitch).

You can kind of see it there.  Now, I am not fond of fringes in my linens, so I trimmed two of the napkins off very close to the hemstitch (still need to do a bit more neatening up), and left two a bit longer, to see how they wear.  Any weavers out there want to tell me the best way to finish edges so that they look neat and have no fringe at all?

In the main part of each napkin, I started with leno (alternating 2x2)(you can see it more closely below), and then played around with weft floats using a pick-up stick for the rest of each napkin.

I finished them by washing and drying them.  They turned out, as I said, smaller than I'd wanted, but very absorbent and soft and cushy.  So I consider them to be a reasonable success for a first time out.

I immediately trucked off to my LYS to get more yarn for more napkins.  This time I ended up with a linen warp (Habu, L25/3 linen, 331 meters)(this is a finer-weight yarn than the FibraNatura, so we'll see how that works), and a blended warp (Plymouth Linen Concerto 48% rayon/42% linen/10% cotton; this is the yarn I used for the weft of the scarf that was my first project).

What you see there is the loom, dressed after two attempts.  The first time, thinking I'd have enough warp yarn for a longer warp, I went for it, only to find, about an inch and a half shy of my total 10-inch width, that I was out of warp yarn.  So I unwarped the loom, which, it turns out, was not as easy as I'd hoped.  I persevered, however, and rewarped it somewhat shorter, but all the way from one side to the other (hooray!).  I finished the warping and tying on this morning, so this is ready to go.

At the same time, I can't help but think of bigger projects, not to mention stash-busting projects (and more on me and my stash and our recent adventures in the next post).  I think that I want to weave the girls some blankets.  They will, of course, have to be woven in strips, but once I got the idea in my head, it wouldn't go away.  And then I remembered a skein of sock yarn that I got when I was in the Rockin' Sock Club a few years ago - a skein that is not at all my sort of colorway, but that Younger Daughter immediately laid claim to.  It's been waiting for the right time to get out of stash and into a project for her.

Talk about Easter egg colors!  Of course, that's not going to be enough for a blanket, but I also remembered four ounces of gorgeous Falkland fiber, hand-dyed by Erica, that I bought because the braid made me think of Younger Daughter (I now realize why).

Well, surely something can be done with that combination?  I'm thinking of using handspun yarn from that braid as the weft in the middle parts of the blanket, and the sock yarn for the weft at the edges.  But that leaves the warp.  Well, how about that yarn I bought to take the kilt hose class at Sock Summit, but which I haven't used?

Yup.  I think we've got something there.  I spent some time today thinking about maths.

Which rather made my head hurt.  I think I'll have enough of the two weft yarns, but will probably order one more skein of that sock yarn for the warp.  I have time, as I need to spin the Falkland up.  You can see there my sketch of my plan.  This'll be a twin bed size, so about 76" by 48".  I'm thinking three strips of a textured weave in the middle, and then four strips, arranged log cabin style, around the edges, woven in a colorwork pattern.  I have time to work out which while I get through my current napkin project and the kitchen towel project (planned to be a colorwork one) after that.  Once those are done, I think I'll be ready to tackle something bigger.

Meanwhile, I am plugging away at the Northmavine Hoody.  Whilst watching Paris-Roubaix this morning, I finished the second sleeve and got it onto the needle with the body stitches and the first sleeve, and am now working on the raglan decreases.  Little by little.  I keep reminding myself that this is not a project for the faint-of-heart.  Not only does it have lots of finishing details still to come (knitting ribbed bands along the fronts and then picking up and knitting an i-cord bind off all the way around the fronts, hood, and bottom of the sweater, then installing a zipper and knitting pockets), but the number of ends to be woven in are astronomical (four ends per every eight rows; I am not kidding).  I have been taking time at regular intervals to weave ends in so that they're not all waiting for me.  In fact, I believe that the second sleeve and its ends are calling me even as I type. 

So there's the question.  Do I weave?  Get that spinning started?  Weave in ends?  Fold laundry?

Well.  I think we know the answer to that last one.

Fly-by

OK, only three days off from my intended post.  I keep meaning to stick to posting on Sundays, but this last Sunday I spent getting a lot of pre-holiday shopping done (mostly the kinds of things that need to be made in advance or sent in advance), plus finding a pair of black slacks for an event that Older Daughter had to attend last night - can I just say that it's harder to find black slacks than you might think it should be at this time of the year?  (Can I also just say that it is perhaps time for Older Daughter to stop growing?  5'8"+ seems fairly reasonable to me, it's not like I'm asking her to stay at my 5'(ahemalmost)3", right?  Surely she could just take up coffee drinking like a normal teenager and we'll call it good?)

I've been postponing posting under the theory that it would be nice to have pictures of my finished and ongoing knitting, but I also realize that the chance of me and my camera and my knitting all ending up in the same place at the same time is pretty small right now, so I'm going with what I've got.  I did finish the second Wine Dark Sea sweater, so I'll try to get some pictures of that this weekend to post.  I also cast on for a pair of socks for Younger Daughter for Christmas, and I'm almost done with the first one.  They're just plain old socks, out of very colorful yarn (and, therefore, mismatched), just the way she likes them.  Holiday knitting this year will be minimal - socks for Younger Daughter, a hat (more on that in a moment) for Rick, and the beginnings of a sweater for Older Daughter (I got the yarn, and as she has not yet picked the pattern, I figure I'm not responsible for not having cast on yet, right?).

As to the hat, that will be knitted out of these two skeins of happy handspun.

Isn't that pretty?  That is spun from some gorgeous fiber, hand-dyed by Erica, who does amazing things with color (which you can't see well, in that washed-out photo, but more this weekend, I promise).  I liked the colors so much in this one that I didn't want the whole thing to turn out barber-poled - I wanted some of those colors to stay true, so I tried something I've never done before.  I spun the singles woolen, and then I chain-plied the whole thing.  I am delighted with the way it turned out.  This is probably the squishiest yarn I have ever spun - the skeins feel like marshmallows.  The colors will look very nice with Rick's eyes, so I offered to knit him a hat out of it.  He has requested something warm enough to ski in on cold days, so that's the plan.  The hat will need to be double-layered, but he suggested that he would be OK if the lining were knitted out of something else, in case there's not enough yardage.  I'll wind it up tonight and see what it looks like, but I really can't wait to cast on for this one.

Other than that, I've been spending as much time as possible outdoors.  A friend (who shall remain unnamed but not blameless) turned me on to Instagram, so I keep posting pictures of all the outdoor time I'm getting - something to do with my constant phone photos!  (If anyone else is on Instagram and doesn't mind a daily dose of outdoorness - or an every-other-daily-dose - I'm Knitting Linguist there, too.)

The ocean at La Jolla on Saturday had me dying to cast on for a sweater in the seafoam green yarn I got myself last summer.  Soon...soon...

But the most exciting event of the last little while was last night.  A few years ago, a dear friend of mine told me about an amazing program here in San Diego, called BEWiSE (Better Education for Women in Science and Engineering, I believe), whose goal is to get girls involved in science and technology earlier in life, so that they're comfortable pursuing careers in those fields later.  Older Daughter applied and got in, and since then, she has had opportunity after opportunity to participate in truly amazing workshops.  This August, the best one of all came along, and she applied and was accepted.  Fifteen girls are (get this) building a micro-lab which will go up to the International Space Station.  Inside that lab is an experiment that they have designed and implemented - the goal being to observe some phenomenon in micro-gravity.  There are only a handful of other schools doing this.  The girls decided to grow alum crystals to observe the effects of micro-gravity on the structure of the crystals, and they're working on their prototype lab right now (these labs are 2 x 2 x 4 inches).  It will be sent up to the ISS in March, and when it comes back down, they'll be able to examine the crystals under an electron microscope. 

Dudes.  She's designing and implementing an experiment that's going into SPACE.  For real.  Does it get cooler than that?

Apparently, it kind of does, because last night, the organizers of this project hosted a celebration event at UCSD's CALIT2, where not only did all sort of people who are heavily involved in advocating for science and technology education in the US come to speak, but there was a member of the astronaut corps, Dr. Yvonne Cagle, an amazing woman who spent 15 years as an MD before realizing that her dream was to be an astronaut, and then pursuing that dream.  That woman stood up in front of our girls and called them an inspiration.  I think it was a mutual admiration society, because you could see them light up when she stood up there - a woman who had gone before them, paving that road and making it a little clearer, a little easier to walk.

I don't even come close to having the words to say how thrilling it was, how proud I am of my daughter, and, when I saw those pictures of that astonishingly beautiful structure out there in space, built by people of often-warring nations, together, how much hope I have for humanity.

Learning something new

I'd meant to post about my new learning experiences last Sunday, since I had a weekend of some very productive new learning, on both work and fibrous fronts.  But one of the new learning experiences is best conveyed through a short video of me engaging in my new-found fun, and I didn't have a chance to get me, my tools, a videographer, and a machine capable of videotaping all into the same space at the same time until today.  Now that I've do so, today's post involves a quick knitting update and some spinning fun.

I should mention first that one of the new learning experiences involved my fieldwork, and it means that we can move forward with a big task that we've been planning for some time.  Last weekend, one of my work colleagues and I headed up to Tehachapi to spend the day getting our heads around a transcription program called Elan (available for free through the Max Planck Institute).  One of our huge goals for Kawaiisu (the language whose speakers and learners we're working with on documentation and revitalization) is to gather high-quality audio- and video-recordings of conversational speech among the three remaining speakers, and then (and here's the really tough part) creating equally high-quality and detailed transcriptions of those conversations.  That, in essence, involves creating a word-perfect transcript of everything everyone says, whether they're speaking Kawaiisu or English, including an indication of when and for how long people are speaking over each other or interrupting each other, etc (with as many as six people involved in the conversation at any one time).  That alone is incredibly intensive work.  But these transcripts then need to include a breakdown of all of the meaningful pieces of each word spoken (called morphemes - not to be confused with morphine, even though people often want some during this part of the process), then providing a gloss for each morpheme (i.e., its exact meaning), then a translation of the sentence.  It can be incredibly hard to organize all of that data into something usable, and very few programs exist to help with that.  I've used Word tables in the past, but Elan looked like it was going to do the trick.  And I think it will - but it took three very smart women five solid hours to get it set up and ready to go (after some prior weeks of processing time separately), and in a few weeks, we'll head back up to train all the transcription teams in its use.  We felt pretty darned smart at the end of our work session, I have to admit, and very excited about how fabulous this level of documentation has the potential to be, both for the purposes of revitalization (the number one purpose), and also for understanding how this language works even better than we already do.

With that level of accomplishment under my belt, I decided the time had come to finally give a new spinning technique a shot.  In the Summer 2012 issue of Spin-Off, I spotted a really interesting article called "Navajo Ply on the Fly", by Rosemary Thomas, in which she describes Tammy Rizzo's technique for both spinning and plying on a spindle, in one pass (in other words, no need to spin all the singles for a yarn, and then ply).  I read about it, and tried to visualize it, and mulled it over for quite some time, and then re-read it, and mulled some more (this is how I tend to learn anything new). Once I'd gotten my head around it (and I admit, I found Rizzo's sidebar made more sense to me in some ways than the version described in the article), I sat down to give it a shot.  I fully expected to make some very serious errors in my attempt - after all, it's a new technique, and (in spite of the caveat that one ought to be familiar with Navajo plying before trying this) I'd never Navajo-plied anything before (oops).

Nope.  This technique makes so much sense, and is so intuitive, that it just happens.  It's more fun than a basket full of kittens, quite frankly, because you spin an arm's-length of singles, chain-ply it and add plying spin, wind it on the spindle, and off you go again.  It's a funny thing to see when you put it down - a spindle full of three-ply yarn, with a length of singles and fiber hanging off the end.  It's harder to describe, I think, than it is to do or see, so this morning I grabbed my iPad and my older daughter and asked her to record me doing it (sidebar note: does anyone else still call that "taping"? I do, and my kids always look at me funny).  I expected that to take a few tries, too, but it turns out she's a natural at this, so here it is.  It's my first effort at this kind of thing, so please let me know what you think.  (And again, because I am big on citing my sources, let me be clear that this is not my technique.  It is a combination of what Thomas shows in her article with what Rizzo describes in her sidebar to the article.)  And if you're a spinner with spindles - I highly recommend giving this technique a shot.  Note: because it's a big file to upload here on Blogger, I've put it over on YouTube - the link is here.

I've also been knitting away at Scoria.  I hadn't thought I'd finish it so quickly, but the front, back, and sleeves are all done and blocking, and I'm knitting the neck right now.  It might even get seamed tonight, depending on drying time, and whether this neck knitting goes quickly.  That would be great, since tomorrow, we're heading up to Burbank (yes, during Carmageddon II, alas) for one of Younger Daughter's feis, so not a good day to being doing things like seaming (although it will be a good day for simpler knitting, of which more in another post).

There are all the pieces, waiting to dry.

 I am pleased with the combination of yarn and pattern.  The yarn is Plymouth Vita, and it's got a fabulous hand - very cushy, and not as hard on the hands to knit as cotton and cotton-blend yarns usually are (at least for me).  (The 15% cashmere probably doesn't hurt.)  I was very worried about having enough yarn, and cut the sleeves a little shorter than they already were, but it looks like I'll have enough, which is a relief.

And now, I will adjourn to my knitting chair to work on that last piece.

Round two

Today's post: Our second summer trip, a knitting project (almost done), a spinning project (done except for soaking), and a few more bits and pieces.

Our second trip of the summer was to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, where my SIL has family, and where her family was kind enough to give us all a place to stay for the better part of ten days.  It's hard to go wrong with a view like this:

The kids loved it - they could pretty much do what they liked, when they liked, so they spent lots of time in the water, canoeing, kayaking, swimming, or just hanging out.

We also hiked.

And went to Lake Superior.

Lake Superior never ceases to amaze me.  It's just so...big.

And really, really cold.  Which didn't stop the girls from going in.

Brrr...  I preferred playing with rocks.

Oh!  And I learned to drive an outboard!  No photographic evidence, though.  (I know, this is not a big deal if you are a person who grew up around lakes, but I didn't.  So it was.)

It was an awesome week.  We do not get to spend enough time with Rick's brother and sister-in-law, or with our niece, so having a whole week together (and we got to have our niece out here with us for ten days before that!) was an absolute treat.  Younger Daughter and our niece get along like a house on fire, and spent three weeks together happily.  Do you ever have the sense, even as something is happening, that this is one of those things that your kids will remember later?  That's how I felt about this trip, and about having our niece here beforehand; days at the beach, going to the movies, boogie boarding (an achievement for my niece, on the list of the summer's achievements - she got really good at riding those waves!).  I always feel lucky when I recognize those moments even as they're happening, and so get to feel grateful both for the moment, and for the memory that it will be.

Younger Daughter also achieved a long-held goal this summer.  She became the proud owner of five chickens.

This is an older photo; they now have all their feathers and are, as of today, probably ready to start living in their coop full-time (until now, they've spent nights in a smaller cage with a brooder lamp on them).  I should also say that the girls did nearly all of the building work on the coop, too, working from the directions that came with it.  They're pretty proud.

As for me, I picked up a long-languishing sweater, with which I am (finally!!) almost done.  I started it last summer, when I couldn't talk about it yet.  But the pattern is out, so it's fair game, and I'm almost done with it (hooray!).  It's the India Print Henley, by Anne Hanson, in Ann Budd's new book The Knitter's Handy Book of Top-Down Sweaters, which I think I will have to get.  I don't have a picture of the whole sweater yet, but here's the body:

I am finishing the second sleeve now, and then it's all done except for weaving in the ends (I already did the button bands and collar).  I'm pushing it hard on the yarn (which is why I did the button bands, etc, before the sleeves, figuring if I had to go to 3/4 sleeves, that would work), but I think I'm going to make it.  The pattern is fabulous, but what's slowed me down on this sweater is the yarn - I'm knitting it from Fibranatura Flax, in a lovely lime-green color.  I know I'll love it once it's done (I already washed the body, actually, because it looked too big, and I wanted to be sure that my swatch wasn't lying to me before I knitted the rest, and it's softened up beautifully), but it is tremendously hard on my hands to knit with, and it makes all the muscles in my shoulders tighten up.  So I haven't been able to make myself do the kind of marathon knitting that I usually do at this stage of sweater development.  Today may be the day, though.  I'm sooooo close...

Last weekend, I also got through a spinning project that I have long been contemplating, with some fiber that I bought nearly two years ago at Lambtown.

Lovely, isn't it?  That's a two-ply yarn, heavy fingering weight (I think - it still needs to be washed).  One ply is spun out of 100% Bombyx Silk, dyed by Dreamy Goat Design Studio with natural dyes, and the other ply is spun out of a superfine merino/bombyx/tussah blend, also dyed by Dreamy Goat Design Studio; both were spun worsted.  I spun the 100% silk from the fold, which I guess means it's not a purely worsted-spun yarn, but it helped tremendously with drafted and control.  What you can't see in that picture is that there are shades of green and blue in among the more dominant osage orange.  I love it.  It looks antique.  There were 2.5 ounces of the bombyx, and 2 of the blend, so I had some silk left over, which is spun up in that little skein on the bottom.  I have about 400 yards of the mixed two ply, and a bit less than 100 of the pure silk two ply.  I will need to find some kind of beautiful shawl pattern that will allow me to put in the occasional row of the 100% silk, don't you think?

And that's nearly all the news that's fit to report.  Last Monday, Older Daughter started her sophomore year in high school (!!), and Younger Daughter started middle school (which is grades 6-8 here), and I took over as department chair (probably best not to talk about that, but let's just say that "congratulations" is probably a less-appropriate response than, "ooooohhhhhhh.....").  Tomorrow, classes start. 

But today, the sun is shining, I have some chicken wire to buy and make into a portable run, and a sweater to finish.  It's all good.

A little leeway

I'm plugging away on the shawl for my friend's daughter.  I had in my head that her graduation was this weekend, and I was thinking that there was no way it would be done in time for my friend to take with her to Berkeley, but was consoling myself that at least it would be here when they came back.  So I checked in with my friend today, and it turns out that the graduation is a week from this weekend.  Hooray!  It suddenly seems like I have all the time in the world.

The colors aren't quite right in these photos; they're taken with my phone in my office.  As it's a gray day here, the light is very diffuse and (as always with gray days) surprisingly bright, in a dim sort of way.  The lighter color is much closer to a sea-foam green than anything, and I think between that and the pale gray (not to mention the wave at the edge, once it's cast off), it meets the specified liking for ocean colors.

This is moving along fairly quickly.  It helps that I love the yarn (Frog Tree Pediboo), and that most of the rows are stockinette, so I can read while I'm knitting (which I did this last weekend; Nook finally has my favorite Bujold books available, so I got a couple, along with Reich's latest ebook release, which I highly recommend, if anyone is looking for something that will make them think, and perhaps foam at the mouth, in a good sort of way).  It's not a difficult or mind-consuming knit, but a fun one.  I'm done with the striping, so now it's only the gray border to go.  And I have a two-hour Senate meeting this afternoon, which should translate to some progress.

In fact, here you can see the meeting prep corner of my office.

Usually, it's just the spindle (for quiet moments in my office - rare, but nice), and the bag on the left (with an endless stockinette scarf); the Whippoorwill is in the bag to the right, which I'm pleased I remembered today.  (I actually took a few more office pictures today; perhaps a virtual office tour may be forthcoming at some point...)

And speaking of spindling, tomorrow night and next Thursday, I get to teach another spindling class at my LYS!  I always look forward to these classes - I just wish that there was some always-good time to offer them.  Whether I do the two-part series on Thursday nights or Saturday mornings, there's someone who was hoping to take it who can't make it at that time (scheduling college classes is the same way, alas).  But if there's anyone local who is interested and available, there are still spots left.  Not only is it a fun class, but I happen to know that we still have some fiber from DesigKnit, and I'll be bringing the yarn I spun from a combination of her BFL and Polwarth, for petting and inspiration.

Happenings

The semester is rolling on, and all of the things that seemed so far away in January are now here.  In some ways this is good - some of those things are exciting and good things - but in some ways it's not so good - some of the things that need to be done aren't done at all.  I think this must be pretty normal (at least, I tell myself that it's pretty normal - I can't be the only one?).

I am still finding time to knit and spin, though.  I have now completed the body of Vitamin D and will be on to the sleeves soon enough.  However, as I cast the body off, it suddenly occurred to me that I have had plans to knit a shawl for a young woman of my acquaintance, a young woman who (just yesterday, it seems) used to babysit the girls (in fact, it just hit me that when she started babysitting the girls, she was about the same age that Older Daughter is now) - and now she's graduating from UC Berkeley.  How cool is that?  I asked her mother, a friend of mine, when graduation is, and she said it's in early May.  Eek!  So I have cast on for Whipporwill, in very much the same colors as the one I knitted for myself, and I will dedicate myself to that for the foreseeable future.  It may not be done in time for her mother to bring it to graduation, but it will be done by the time she moves back down here.

I have also begun sampling more fiber.  This is the Brown Merino from my fiber sample box.

I split the ounce of fiber in half.  The goal is to spin one half into a worsted two-ply and three-ply, and the other half into a woolen two-ply and three-ply.  Above is the worsted, three-ply on the left, two-ply on the right. I think you can see just how much rounder the three-ply is.  This is some gorgeous fiber, although with more in the way of coarser, darker hair scattered throughout than I'd expected.  Some of it shook out, some of it was incorporated into the yarn.  I will be interested to see, once these are made into skeinlets and washed, whether it is possible to feel those coarser hairs, and whether they change the range of garments for which I might consider this particular merino.

I have hopes of spinning up the other half tonight (since I'll be spinning woolen, it will go faster), but I have something else to do.  Tomorrow morning, bright (actually dark) and early, the girls will be leaving for New York City for this year's Montessori Model UN meeting.  Younger Daughter did this last year, but it is Older Daughter's first year, and they are both so excited that I know absolutely that they will not be sleeping tonight.  Last Wednesday, we went to hear them practice giving their speeches, which was very exciting for us as parents.  The issues that students in their group (they are delegates from Romania) have to address are varied, ranging from child soldiers to the conflict between Palestine and Israel over heritage sites.  The fact that they have the opportunity to think about these things, and then to discuss possible solutions to these issues with their peers, is amazing enough.  The fact that they then have an opportunity to hear the final resolutions of all of the working groups read out loud on the floor of the General Assembly of the United Nations - well.  That just gives me chills.  Those resolutions which pass are then (I kid you not) forwarded to Ban Ki-moon. 

There is no greater gift to give a child, I think, than to give her a sense of herself as a member of a broader citizenry, and of herself as able to participate in change for the better.  I hope this is something that both girls carry with them.

On a smaller, but, I think, equally exciting note (to Younger Daughter, at least), each school that participates must forward a design for this year's conference T-shirt.  The design for the T-shirt is then chosen by the organizers from among the hundreds that are submitted.  This year, their program sent forward a design that Younger Daughter and a classmate from the program designed together.

And the organizers chose it.

Cold beaches

The weather just can't seem to settle down here.  Last weekend, I spent every minute I could on the back patio, spinning and knitting.  But then, much of the week was gray and stormy - lots of wind and very wet rain (I don't care what anyone says, some rain is just wetter than other rain).  And yesterday, when I went to La Jolla after dropping Older Daughter off at a workshop, it was blustery and cold and the ocean was very big (I don't care what anyone says about that, either - sometimes the ocean is bigger than usual).

See what I mean?  And look at those colors!  Seafoam green, a lovely deep blue-green, froth; all looking ice-cold and whitecaps everywhere.

Those are the colors I'd wear all the time, and surround myself with, if I could.  Cold beaches.  Yup.

It was so cold, even the pelicans weren't doing much in the way of flying.

Look at them all.

So ungainly and dignified at the same time.

So I walked along the shore, watching everyone else, all bundled up, walking along at the same time.  I particularly enjoyed all the parents out with young children, following them along in their boundless energy, heedless of the cold.  I remember exactly what that was like, walking with Older Daughter along the Marina in San Francisco, with Rick's grandmother - as if it were yesterday.  And it struck me suddenly: it does feel like yesterday, but there I was, having just dropped my daughter off at a workshop on seismic engineering at UCSD.  And as inarticulate and dorky as it sounds, all I could think was:

Dude.

When did that happen?  I remember so clearly what it was like when she was barely walking.  Heck, let's be fair - I remember what it was like to be 14, and nervous and scared and doing something new with people I didn't know.  Isn't it odd to carry all of these people inside - each of them an iteration of "me"?

I guess cold ocean air messes with my brain.

Meanwhile, don't those colors look familiar?

The colors in that yarn are actually more saturated than they look in that picture - and are rather like the beach pictures above (the light and dark browns even look like the pelicans).  I think I should call it "cold beach", in fact.  I still don't know what I'm going to make with it, but in the meantime, I did want to show some finished pictures which illustrate that, once dry, it turns out that this yarn did what I'd hoped: the woolen-spun singles puffed out around the worsted-spun singles in quite a nice way.

(The woolen-spun Polwarth singles are the brown-y colors, and the worsted-spun BFL singles are the blue-y ones.)  I'm so pleased that this did what I thought it would do, and did it nicely, to boot.  Overall, the skeins of yarn handle like woolen-spun yarn - very light, and with a lot of bounce and much less drape.  It will be interesting to see how they knit up.

I've been doing some sampling today on my wheel, but I will write more about that next time.  I've also been knitting away on Vitamin D:

I am nearly done with the body.  I just need to cast off, then pick up stitches around the fronts and neck to knit a few garter stitch ridges.  Then it's on to the sleeves.  I'd hoped to knit this as a long-sleeved cardi (it's designed to be 3/4 sleeves), but I'm shorter on yarn than I'd thought.  So now I'm thinking I might do elbow-length sleeves, which could make this a nice transitional piece.  We shall see how it goes.  Once I'm done with the body, I'll weigh the yarn and then see how far that goes on the first sleeve.  I'm not always fond of 3/4 sleeves, so if it looks like I won't make it to my wrists, I'll probably go elbow-length instead.  Ah, the joys of managing yarn supply.

I rather like the radial increases on the yoke; they also are used to make the front panels swingy.  I'm tempted, should I make this an elbow-length sleeve, to do something similar towards the end of the sleeve, to make them a little bell-like.  Again, time will tell.

Meanwhile, dark and stormy seas aside,  I came home to find that Rick had bought these at the farmer's market.  It's clearly spring somewhere!