A few projects on and off the needles

One nice thing about a long holiday break (which has been over for a while now, but still), coupled with no longer being chair of my department (the email load dropped off almost instantaneously with me handing the chairship over in the fall - I can't tell you what a relief that was), is that I finally had time to get excited about knitting again.

It's not that I haven't been knitting all along - last fall, in fact, I knitted a sweater for each my girls, and then one for my niece for Christmas.  It's more that I wasn't engaged in the joy and fun of thinking about new projects, weighing the options, looking at yarn; and I definitely wasn't anywhere close to thinking about playing around with designing anything.  One thing I know about myself is that I absolutely loathe last-minute pressure; I hate being late.  So, as chair, I realized pretty quickly that the only way to be ready for the inevitable late-notice, oh-my-gosh-oops-we-forgot-to-tell-you-this-is-due-tomorrow stuff, was to be veryvery on top of everything else, so that I'd have room for the last-minute things when they arrived on my plate.  I got into the habit of keeping an ongoing list of big-ticket items (the kinds of things that I know I need some serious time to get through: curriculum, meeting agendas, personnel reviews, etc etc), and the smaller things that I could knock off in five minutes here, ten minutes there (email, email, email).  Which meant that any time I had five or ten minutes, I was trying to get through those things so that I'd have longer chunks of time for the bigger stuff, and at the end of a day of getting through all of that, I really just wanted to read something mindless or knit something mindless or go to bed.  The nice thing about that strategy is that I did get enough sleep every night (no last-minute all-nighters to get something done), and I did get to walk my dog on a trail almost every day, and I had dinner with my family, and I spent time with my horse.  So, it wasn't the worst survival strategy in the world.

But what I almost never had was several unscheduled hours with nothing planned, and no to-do list that I felt strongly about getting to (to avoid emergencies later down the road).  And another thing that I seem to be learning about myself is that I need that kind of time - that kind of I could almost be bored here so what could I do that's interesting kind of time - to feel that there's enough space to poke at a new and exciting project, or a new craft, or a new instrument.  I'll also admit that things like Facebook, the New York Times crossword puzzle, solitaire, and Instagram all make it really easy to fritter away the smaller chunks of time that could become bigger pieces for sinking (in the sense of slipping into a lovely warm bath) into the creative.  As I write this, it occurs to me that I need to use time the way I did as chair - except, instead of getting the little work done in small chunks of time so I could create big chunks of time for the hard projects, I need to stop spending my small chunks of free time on little relaxingish things, so that I can create for myself the space, and spaciousness, to settle into a creating place.  Something to mull over.

The fall didn't really give me room for that - the chair transition and a few other things got in the way. But knowing that I had a sabbatical this spring, once I finished teaching an online intersession class (my first fully online class, and one of the "other things" whose preparation was on my mind during the fall), I was able to take a few weeks to not-work, and to start to get my legs back under me.

I knitted cowls for me and the girls:

That's me and Older Daughter; Younger Daughter has one, too.  These are all knitted out of Baah Sequoia, a super-chunky and super-soft and lofty yarn dyed by a friend and local dyer.  I have discovered recently the pleasure of cowls, in that they never fall off, and you don't have to deal with ends flying about or not staying put.  Of course, there is also great pleasure in a lovely neck-warming small shawl, so I knitted one of those, too (and used it, in progress, as a header shot for an article that was just published on knitting and food in socialization).

The yarn for this is a lovely little skein I picked up from the Yarnover Truck during the Vista Fiber Festival.

I don't have any pictures of me wearing it yet; I'll have to get some.  I'm surprised I've managed to hang on to this one - a lot of people have threatened to steal it.  The yarn is Apple Tree Knits Plush Gradient, and the pattern is Imagine When.

I also (finally) finished Rick's winter socks:

These are just a plain pair of socks, knitted out of Candy Skein Delicious Fingering, in the Sour Apple colorway.  My only complaint about this particular skein of this yarn (which I've used before and love) is that it stained my fingers blue-green every time I worked on these socks.  They are therefore due a good soaking before Rick actually wears them out and about, lest they turn his feet and shoes irreparably green.

One funny thing about these is the heel, which I knitted in my usual eye-of-partridge stitch.  (I knit these from the toe up, with a heel flap on the bottom of the foot.)  On one sock, the eye-of-partridge turned out beautifully visible.  On the other, not.  I can't figure out what the difference is between the two - same needles, same stitch, same everything, different outcome.  It's weird.

And for my birthday, I treated myself to a sweater that I've been admiring: Evelyn.  This was a fun and easy knit, and the yarn is soft and plush; I'm a bit worried that it's looking a titch fuzzy already, so we'll see whether this turns out to be something I can wear constantly (which I'd hoped - it's good-looking AND cuddly, which is a winning combination, in my book), or whether I need to be more careful of it. 

This was a fun knit, for the most part.  The cable up there at the top of the back felt a bit fussy (mostly because that much cabling in that small of a space tends to lead to tight stitches when I knit), but boy does it look nice:

The sleeves are more of the same, but narrower...

As is the button band.  (A snap will eventually go in there at the top.)

The only part of this whole sweater that kind of annoys me is the collar, which would not lie flat for love or money.

I have since tacked it down.  (That'll teach it to be contrary.)

There are a few other small things I could post, but I think I'll save them for another day.  I'm wrapping one of them up today (I hope), and, if all goes well, the yarn for my next sweater will arrive in the mail.  (Arrive, yarn, dang it!)  If not, Younger Daughter has mentioned that she'd like another hat, so perhaps that'll go OTN instead.

And that's all the knitting news that's fit to report.  What are you all working on?

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!

I do knit, it turns out

 I just don't have as much time for it as I wish I did!

As you can see, though, I did finish the Side Impact Sweater this weekend.  Or, at least, I finished it once. Then I finished it again.  And wearing it to work today, I realize that I need to finish it one more time.  (I can't be the only knitter who needs to fuss with things after "finishing" them, right?)

So, you may remember that I saw this sweater at the Yarnover Truck during the San Diego Yarn Crawl, and fell instantly in love with it.  Then I saw this yarn (Indigodragonfly in the 20,000 Lawyers Under the Sea colorway), and fell in love with it, too, and decided that the two were meant to be together.  The only problem (because there always is one) is that this is a fingering weight yarn, and the pattern calls for something more like DK.  But I fussed around, and got something just a bit tighter than the gauge called for, which made a fabric that I liked, so I did some maths and decided that if I knitted it one size up from my planned size, everything would work out fine.  And, from a size perspective, it did, indeed.

(Bad photos, I know - but it's this or nothing right now.)

I knitted it several inches longer than called for, because I knew I wanted a fitted sweater that wouldn't ride up.  It took a whole skein (plus a bit of the swatch) to finish the body (whew!), but I got the sleeves and funnel neck done with plenty to spare from the second skein.

Then I realized that the real problem with knitting a sweater that was designed for DK weight with a fingering weight yarn is that fingering weight knit at a looseish gauge isn't going to have the body that a DK weight yarn knit at a tight gauge is going to have.  That doesn't matter for the body of the sweater (and, in fact, I like it), but for a funnel neck...

You can see in the first picture that I knitted the neck just a titch longer than the 2.5 inches called for in the pattern; I also decreased about 12 stitches over those three inches, to try to help the neck stand up a bit.  Well, it just rolled up like a roller shade and left me with nothing.  So, I took out the cast-off edge, picked up the stitches again with a needle a size smaller (three, instead of four), and set off again.  I knitted it to 8 inches, and I have this.

It's only sitting like that (which I consider to be medium-nicely) because I fussed with it.  It's not doing that generally speaking.  That still isn't quite what I'd hoped for.  (I was wanting something like the cowl neck on the Easy Folded Poncho, with which I am lately obsessed - thanks, Ellen.)  So I think the plan for tonight is to pick up the stitches from the cast-off, and create an i-cord edging.  That messes a bit with the raw edge of the lace, which is part of the charm of the sleeves and bottom hem, but since those edges aren't currently showing (what with the rolling up of the edge and all), I would rather see if I can give it some structure so it will slump becomingly, rather than rolling up.  We'll see, and any thoughts and suggestions are welcome.

Other than that, I am very happy with the whole thing (barring one glitch in the arm lace on the side you can't see here that I only noticed today.  But as I'd have to rip the entire sweater apart to get to it, I'm going to decide that the fact that I didn't see it before now means that it's not glaringly obvious.).  I love the color (which is truer in the blocking photo than the others - a very nice seafoam green), and the lace makes me happy.  It's also a lovely light weight while still being warm (hooray for that touch of cashmere!), and I think I'll wear it a lot here in San Diego.  I would knit another one (and may keep an eye out for some yarn to do it in; come to think of it, I have two skeins of Malabrigo sock that might work, hmmm...), especially if I can get this neck thing figured out.

But before I can do that, I have a few other things to get to.  Whilst in the Yarnover Truck, I also picked up a skein of Indigodragonfly in the Tardis colorway, for my Dr. Who-obsessed older daughter.  She wanted Tardis mitts.  I poked around online and wasn't really happy with any of the options.  I wanted to do a cable and lace version of the Tardis, but she was charmed by some of the colorwork versions, and I happened to remember a stray skein of white sock yarn in the stash, so I spent some time looking at pictures of the Tardis and playing with my knitting notebook, and came up with this for the backs of the mitts:

(The darker bits will be the white, actually, and the slashes are 1x1 cables.)  Older Daughter thought she might like a Dalek on the palm, so I fiddled around:

But she decided that simplest was best, so it looks like the final palm will be this, with some white flecks.

I'll be casting on for these as soon as I finish fiddling with my sweater neck.

I also have become a fan of cowls, out of the clear blue, and recently saw a pattern for one that I must have: Song of the Sea.  It turns out that the long version needs exactly as much yarn as is in a skein of SeaSilk, and that I have a skein of lovely gray SeaSilk that's been sitting in stash, calling to me, for quite some time.  Some things are meant to be...

ETA: And this is why it is so lovely to have knitting friends.  One such friend who works here as well popped up to my office to admire the sweater.  She suggested turning the neck under, and lo and behold:

It is exactly as I had wanted it!  I am still going to put the icord edging on, to help it stay where I want it, but I am now content.

Reboot

Thank you for all of the comments and feedback on my sweater conundrum.  My final conclusion was that the whole thing was trouble (very precise and technically-oriented, I know), so I ripped out both halves of the edging and started again.  Slowly.  I picked up for the outside facing, and then ran a lifeline through the stitches (which wasn't easy, as these are small stitches, knitted relatively tightly on small needles), so that I'd be able to find them again easily when I went back.  Then I knitted the front facing, put it evenly onto two needles (to keep from squishing all the stitches and making them unmanageable when I went back for the inside facing), and went back to pick up the purl bumps just above the legs of the original stitches (the legs being easy easier to spot now that they were on a lifeline).  That took eons, but it worked.  I should mention that there was also some very careful (and time-consuming) counting (and re-counting) of the 497 stitches on both sets of needles prior to the knitting of the inside facing.  Then I knitted them all together for the three needle bind-off.  That took the better part of all the knitting time I could devote to it last week (about 15 minutes to rip out everything I'd done, and then hours and hours - literally, though I wish I were exaggerating - to get it all done again).  I had that pretty much done by latelate Saturday night, when Older Daughter got home from this:

(Some of you may recognize the signs of prom.)  In fact, much of Saturday was spent on the getting-ready part of prom (getting nails done, for example).  There was even hair-doing.  I'm not much of a girl, really, and you've all seen how short my hair is these days, so that involved going out to actually purchase a hair-dryer and curling iron (!!).  I think Older Daughter was deeply concerned that the curling iron part of things might end up like this, but I finally let her know that I did, in fact, once upon a time own (and even use!) such a thing on myself, and it all turned out OK in the end.

Sunday morning (after coffee and croissants, my requested mother's day treat), Rick and I headed out (leaving prom-exhausted girls behind) to this:

The start of the Amgen Tour of California.  In downtown Escondido.  Where it topped 100 degrees before the race even started at 11:15.  After a quick lunch at home, we went out to the last King of the Mountain points banner to watch the riders come up their last big hill (they'd already climbed Mt. Palomar in the heat, poor guys); it was still over 100 degrees, under 25% humidity, and they looked pretty beat.  We stood in the shade and cheered (we even showed up on the TV coverage, heh).  I love a good stage race - we'll see how this one turns out.

Then home we went, where I finally (finally!!) picked up stitches around the bottom of the sweater, completed an i-cord cast-off around all of those stitches plus the ones still on the needles around the front and hood (it felt amazingly like a walk in the park after the facing debacle), and then did the same thing for the sleeves.  And wove in the ends.  And then this morning, knowing that we were in for another scorcher, I soaked and blocked the sweater before leaving for work.  The sweater is now, of course, quite dry.  All that remains is to put in the zipper.

(Bad picture, but it was that or nothing.)

That, my friends, is a sweater.  Ends woven in, i-cord edging complete.  Ends woven in (have I mentioned how many ends there were in this sweater?).  And double-sided front/hood edging?

Done.

At a total loss

I was going to write a post today about all of the projects that have required re-dos in the last week or so, with the good news that things generally seem to be back on track. But my mental composition came too soon, apparently.

I have been struggling with the finishing work on the Northmavine Hoody, which requires, let me tell you, a LOT of finishing work. Mostly, I have been doing it with good cheer. There was the hood, which required unkitchenering and further knitting (because it was too small), but I did that. And then there were the endless ends to be woven in (four for every eight rows of knitting for the entire sweater, arms, and hood), but last weekend I put many hours into that job and got it done. I kitchenered the underarms. I knitted the pockets. And then it was time to pick up stitches to knit the facing around the fronts and hood edges. I did that. All 500+ stitches, then six rows of knitting. So far so good.

Then it was time to turn to the wrong side and pick up stitches in the purl bumps left by the first round of pick-up-stitch. That was not easy. It was so not-easy, in fact, that I resorted to another option: I turned to the right side, picked up one leg of every knit stitch in the original pick-up row, and then turned everything back around and worked from there. That seemed to work, but knitting the five rows for the inside facing was fiddly, fiddly, fiddly. Partly because it's just long row after long row, and partly because each of those long rows had to be completed while working around the needle that was holding the front facing stitches. And (it must be admitted), partly because I was working with stitches squeezed tightly onto several shorter-than-optimal needles, because I just cannot see buying yet another pair of needles for this project, just to do this one thing (believe me when I say I have, one way or another, already bought an unconscionable number of needles for this project).

But I persevered. Through knitting the two facings, and then through the endless three-needle bind-off to attach them, leaving live stitches that now, in the almost-final stage of finishing, should be available for an i-cord bind-off. Except not.

Because something just is not right, and I haven't a clue why not, and I could really use some help here.

If you look at that first picture, you might be able to see what I'm talking about. See how the stitches look all lovely and straight on the left, and then start biasing increasingly as you go right? The biasing continues about halfway around, and then the stitches mysteriously line up neatly again.

The second photo shows the neatly lined up stitches. And the third, the neatly lined up inside facing stitches. But then, presto chango: bias.

And I don't know why. All the stitches were picked up the same way. And they line up, no biasing at all, along both fronts, biasing increasingly along the tops of the fronts and the hood. If I'd misaligned the stitches, I'd expect the biasing to continue all the way around once it starts, but it doesn't. At this point, the only option I can see is to rip this all out (a week of work!), and start again, but I hate to do that when I don't know what I did wrong in the first place - because how will I avoid doing it again? Any thoughts? I could use some advice here...

Paying attention

This is just a quick post (I think - who knows what'll happen once I start typing).  It's that time of year when things can start to feel sort of frayed and scattered.  And of course, what I'm feeling is nothing compared to what the people of Boston have been going through, or those in West (Texas).  Last week was a terrible week for so many people.  I spent a lot of last week having (as one might imagine) a lot of reactions to what felt like a deluge of around-the-clock bad news; I wasn't sure what to say about it, but it turns out I don't have to, because Erica wrote a post that really says everything I could have wanted to say, except more clearly.

I was feeling pretty frayed and scattered even before that, and I've been working pretty consistently on reminding myself to be here and now, not all the other places that my mind wants to go.  For me, the best way to remember that is to get my feet onto dirt.  So I've been trying to get myself (and Tilly - honestly, there is no better companion when seeking mindfulness than a dog; dogs definitely know how to stay in the moment) onto the trail at least a couple of times each week.  And my trails have certainly offered me a lot to pay attention to!  The weather has been a bit crazed.  Lots and lots of fog for a long time.

Is it just me, or does that look like Britain?  That's one of my favorite places to hike.  The other has been equally foggy - one morning it was so dense I couldn't see around the corner.  But I did get one moment of clearing.

It closed in again right away. 

The hillsides have shifted from purples and greens to reds.  The monkey flowers are out in full force.

And I've even found some Indian paintbrush (at least, I think that's what it is?  Willow?  Can you confirm?) in a drainage on the west side of the hill.

The sage will be out soon, bringing purple back to the color spectrum.  And I know that the blue-eyed grass is out, except not when I'm on the trail - at that time of the morning (and in the fog instead of sun), the flowers are shut up tight.

Knitting continues.  The sweater has grown large and unwieldy enough to make bad meeting knitting.  I thought I'd finished the hood, but when I tried it on, it was too small, so I picked out the kitchener stitching in the top and am adding some length.  I'm worried about the sleeves, as well, as they seem short to me (even though they're the same length as the body to the armscyes), but I'm going to finish up the zipper bands and icord trim and see how it fits with that added width in the body.  If that doesn't straighten out the fit of the sleeves, I'll snip out a stitch and add some length before grafting the cuffs back on (and thanks to Erica for that suggestion!).

It's gotten so big that I finally treated myself to a basket from the farmer's market (I've long been thinking about getting one for exactly this sort of large colorwork project that requires lots of balls of yarn to be carried around with the knitting at all times) so that I could have everything in one place.

See?  Perfect!

But, as I said, it does mean that this no longer makes good meeting knitting.  So I cast on for a pair of Lady Treymour socks (from Clara Parkes' Knitters Book of Socks).  Pictures of those next time, but I have to admit that the charm of knitting socks again (which I haven't done for some time) means that I haven't just been saving them for meetings - I need to start focusing on this sweater again if I want to finish it before I run out of fog.

A theme

I was taking pictures of various things I've been working on, and looking at pictures of some of the non-fiber pursuits I've been engaged in recently, and I think that there's a theme arising.  Let's see if you see it, too.

Maybe?

It's all purple and green around here, apparently.  I've been gazing out of my office window longingly these last few weeks, noting that the ceonothus are in bloom, but unable to get out there to enjoy them.  Last weekend, I took a nice long hike in the hills behind my house, and, as you can see from that top photo, they are blooming away.

And buzzing with bees.  Walking along the path bordered in these bushes is like walking through a giant beehive.  The bees are so focused on the flowers that they almost never actually fly into the path.  I went again this morning, much earlier in the day, and found that bees' alarm clocks must ring later than mine.  It was quiet on the way out, and I got up to the top of the hill to find a lovely view waiting for me.

Mist-covered hills and mountains stretching away to the east.  And back down again in time to catch the sun making it over the big hill I'd just climbed.

By the time I got back down, the bees were hard at work again.  I was relieved. 

There's also green and purple in the latest knitting I've been doing.

This is the body of the Northmavine Hoody, a Kate Davies pattern from her new book, Colours of Shetland, which I absolutely adore.  Totally aside from the patterns (there are quite a few in there that I'd knit), her writing is lovely, and she has essays about each of the places that inspired the patterns in the book.  It's truly a pleasure to read and look at.  The patterns are also well-thought-out, with the kinds of little details that I enjoy seeing in my knitwear - you can see the turned hem in the picture up top, and this pattern has several other details like that, the sort of thing that make it look professional when it's done - handmade, rather than homemade.  As you can see, I have finished the body, and tonight I will cast on for the first sleeve.  I'd love to finish this before the May Grey sets in around here - I think it could get some use.  It's knitted out of Jamieson and Smith 2-ply jumper weight, on size two needles, so it's a lovely weight, and a nice crunchy wool, in colors that I wear all the time (I admit to a total lack of originality on this one - I ordered the yarn used in the pattern, in the colours used in the pattern - but they are so me!).

And then some of you may have noticed that other picture I slipped in there.  What's that, you may ask?  That is the Cricket loom that my mom bought for me and the girls about a year and a half ago.  We wove the yarn included in the package, and then it rather languished.  When my LYS advertised a weaving class, using exactly this rigid heddle loom, I jumped at it.  So yesterday morning I went in and spent a lovely four hours at the store, re-learning how to dress the loom, and getting some good tips for using it.  When I got home, I spent a busy hour reclaiming my front and back patios from the chickens (have I mentioned that five chickens not only produce a good plenty of eggs, they also produce a good plenty of poop?), and trying to devise some way of arranging various patio furniture and cushions so that the chickens will not think that roosting on my patio furniture is a good thing.  (I'm also working on convincing them to return to their coop at night to roost.  They used to, until they discovered the couch on the front patio, so now they need retraining.  Any suggestions?)  Once that was done, I settled down on the back patio under the blooming wisteria (more purple and green, but no photos), listening to the bumblebees bumble about in the flowers, and weaving.  This morning, I wrapped the whole thing up, and got this.

I'm pretty happy with the final result, especially given that it's my first time out, really. 

The warp is a merino/cotton blend, in a solid seafoam green.  The weft is a linen/rayon/cotton blend, variegated (as you can see).  I finished it by washing it in my washer on the wool setting, and then chucking it in the dryer for a bit.  I wanted to soften the linen up, and figured that tightening up the wool a bit wouldn't be a bad thing, and I was right.  It is much more drapey now, and will probably continue to soften up with wear.  As I was weaving, I got curious as to how this would have turned out differently had I switched the warp and weft yarns, so as soon as I was done, I redressed the loom, using the linen/rayon/cotton blend for the warp.  I didn't have much yarn left - really, this second time around is more in the nature of an experiment, and good practice for locking down in my memory how to dress a loom - so this won't be a "real" scarf.  I also realized that the girls had "misplaced" several bits and bobs (read: the clamps for fixing the loom to the table, and the dent hook), but I managed just fine.

A heavy box pinned the loom in place and, in case anyone cares, an orifice hook works nicely as a dent hook.

As I said, this will be half the width of the first one, but I'm plugging along, and it's interesting to see how different the two yarns look when woven the other way around.

I know I'd said I wasn't going to get into weaving - too many fiber sports already.  But I figure a little bit couldn't hurt, right?  And it seems like a great way to start using more of my handspun, not to mention the rest of my stash.  In fact, to that end, I appear to have ordered another heddle, a ten-dent one this time (I don't think I'm quite using my vocabulary correctly; I'll get there), which is more appropriate to weaving the fingering weight yarn that makes up so much of my knitting and spinning stash.  I may also have ordered a stand for the loom and a book with some ideas for rigid heddle loom projects.

Oops.