Starting up

I think I mentioned last time that I have been working to remedy my (formerly) projectless state. I'm being a bit more circumspect about it than I would have expected of myself (I mean, talk about an excuse for a serious bout of startitis!) and have so far only cast on for two projects. I think a third may be in the works, though, as you will see. In the meantime, I've been puttering and reading quite a bit (as well as prepping for classes, which start on Wednesday), and as I read, I've been thinking about whether this might be the year to invest in either a Kindle or a Nook (my birthday's coming up, after all). Imagine: I wouldn't have to worry about making my books stay open while I knit if I had one! But I also wouldn't be able to give my books to Rick or Older Daughter to read when I'm done, as we usually do (no, buying a second e-reader is not an option), and I just can't figure out whether I'd miss the feel of paper in my hands to distraction or not. Opinions? Experiences?

So, in the meantime, I've been working on the first sleeve of Older Daughter's sweater. The plan is to knit a bottom-up raglan, so I'll get the sleeves done and then start the body. It's to be fairly plain, although I'll probably put cabling up the raglan lines, and add an applied i-cord to the edges of the sleeves and the bottom of the sweater. I haven't decided whether I want to put a cable along the v-neck edges or do another applied i-cord there, too. I'm nowhere near that point, so I can dither a while longer.
You'd think I'd knit this up faster, as I'm using heavier yarn on bigger needles than I usually do, but somehow bigger-gauge knitting and I don't get along as well as smaller gauge knitting. What keeps me going is how much I love both the yarn and Older Daughter. She's going to be so happy with this (she's been wanting a sweater), and it's going to look great on her, and the colors of this yarn still make me tremendously happy, even after knitting the Urban Aran out of it for myself. Yes, this is the rest of the Urban Aran yarn, Briar Rose Charity, in one of Chris' gorgeous colorways. I don't know how she does it, I'm just delighted that she does.

I'm also knitting a shawl/scarf for me. This is the Silk Alpaca Bubushka (Rav link), and I'm knitting it out of Jade Sapphire Silk Cashmere laceweight yarn. The single most common comment about this pattern on Ravelry is "oy, the seed stitch!", and I can see why, as almost the entire body is knitted in seed stitch, but that's OK. I can put myself on automatic for that, and knit this in meetings or while reading, so it's not a problem.
This is going to knit up into a very light and very warm little shawl that I think I'll wear a lot; it's a perfect layering piece, or one to throw into a bag in case the day or an office gets chilly.

I also made two purchases this week. I know that I thought I was sure I'd decided to spin myself the Tibetan Clouds Beaded Stole, but then I saw this:
Just sitting there, coyly, at Sundara Yarns when I went to look (it's the one on that page called Indian Blanket). It's the exact color I've been imagining for this stole, and it was clearly waiting there for me to find it. So I snapped it up (I'm not stupid), and when it came, it was even better than the pictures make it look; it's like molten chocolate. It's perfect. As you can see in that picture, I've put a few of the beads that I've bought for the stole on it, and am trying to decide which ones I like best.
I have more of the ones on the left (which is the bead that shows best in the picture above, and is the most central bead in the picture above that), but I should be able to get more of the ones on the right. Those are varied, and all three of the other beads on the skein come from that bag. I just can't decide, so I'll probably knit my gauge swatch with a few beads on it, just to see how they look in the knitting itself. Since my other two projects are fairly mindless knitting, this is about to become my concentration project.

I admit that there was a part of me that was wondering what the heck I am going to do now with the alpaca top I'd bought for the stole, but then, serendipitously, I wandered by Stella's blog, where I was reminded of EZ's Green Sweater, which I wanted to knit the minute I read about it on the Twist Collective. In fact, when I went to Schoolhouse Press to buy the pattern, there was a sample, all knit up in alpaca and looking lovely, so now I know exactly what I'm spinning that yarn for. I'll spin it up slowly as a four-ply cabled yarn, and then knit the sweater; with luck, it'll be done by next year at this time (please, don't remember that I said that next year at this time!).

I also bought myself a little present last week. I've been waiting and waiting for more of these to be available, so I snapped one up when they appeared.
That is a Kuchulu, from Jenkins Woodworking. It's 9 grams of spinning loveliness, made out of black and white ebony. Isn't it absolutely gorgeous? And of course, Wanda sent it out right away, wrapped in that gorgeous silk, which is the first thing that I will spin on it. I'm in love, and I keep picking it up to play with. My bigger Turkish spindle, also made by Ed, is a favorite of mine, and I can tell that this one will join its ranks. I think that this is going to spin stunning laceweight, and it will be fabulous for travelling, as it takes up no space to speak of.

However, this post has taken up lots of space, so I will stop here. I hope you are all enjoying a three-day weekend, full of much fun and fiber.

Links

I had all kinds of post thoughts for today. I wanted to (and am about to, in that wonderful way that language allows us to do something while saying that we no longer mean to do it; sort of like those insults that go, "I didn't want to hurt your feelings by telling you how bad that looked...") write all about the fabulous day I had on Tuesday with Anne and Kim, how nice it was to have a chance to spend time with friends whom I just don't get to see often enough. But lucky for me, Anne did a fabulous job of it here, with better pictures than I could ever take (even if I did remember to take my camera along, which I didn't), not to mention photo documentation of both of us in our versions of Sprossling. (Also, for another gorgeous version, go check out Rachael's right here -- stunning.)

And I was going to talk about what I'm knitting (two new projects OTN), and how much I absolutely loved Invictus, and how the start of my semester is looming in imminent fashion.

But I think that what I want to do instead is to send you here, where Stephanie has made an appeal that speaks to what I'm feeling right now. The news coming out of Haiti is horrifying, and I can only imagine the terror of being a mother and a wife and a sister and a friend there now, wondering where my loved ones are and if they are safe. There isn't a lot I can do from here, and talking to my friends and colleagues, I don't think I'm the only one who's feeling helpless in the face of such a catastrophe, but I've sent what I can to Doctors Without Borders, along with my thoughts and hopes.

Sampling

The oddest thing happened to me on Saturday night. I cast my scarf off as I was watching a movie, and then it hit me. I have absolutely no active projects on the needles. (Yes, I do have a couple of those lurking sorts of projects, but there are only two, which isn't bad. But I don't want to be working on those; if I did, they'd be active projects.)

None.

Talk about weird.

So I spent a pleasurable Sunday morning puttering about, setting up to get a couple of new projects on the needles (winding yarn and swatching), and doing some long-neglected spinning. First, the scarf I finished:
This one's for me, and I'm quite happy with it. The colors are very nice.
This (Rav project page) is another Barb's Koigu Ruffle, from Churchmouse. I really do like the results of this pattern, although I admit that the first few and last few rows are a bear. I knitted the whole thing on size six needles (instead of switching to fours for the middle part), using (I am pretty sure, and will correct if I am wrong) Schaefer Nichole yarn, which is quite lovely, having a high twist and gorgeous colors.

So, there I was on a Sunday morning, wondering what to do. I decided to think about it while spinning up the rest of the sock yarn that I started oh so long ago, which resulted in this.
Those are both three-ply yarns. The yarn that's already washed and skeined has one ply each of silk, cashmere, and a long-staple wool. I ran out of the silk without having enough yardage for socks, so I spun up more of the long-staple wool, and the yarn on the niddy-noddy has two plies of the wool, and one of the cashmere. You can see the difference between the two; the new stuff doesn't have that lovely silk shine in it.
I haven't checked wpi yet, but I think that's a fingering weight yarn there. I washed up the new yarn yesterday, and it's bloomed a little bit since then, so they're closer in weight to one another than they look in that picture. I have a total of about 350 yards, and I'm thinking that I'll knit the legs of a pair of socks out of the yarn with the silk, and the feet out of the rest. There's a great pattern that I got ages ago from BMFA that I may use for this; a linen stitch seems like it would show this yarn off beautifully, and the legs and feet are already separate in the pattern. So I may wind this up and add this project to my newly-enhanced list of Things I Am Knitting.

I also started sampling the alpaca for the Tibetan Clouds Stole. I got a terrified lurchy feeling when it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if a) alpaca is going to be too drapey for this, and b) if it's going to do the surface fuzzing/felting that alpaca tends to do to me (see the sweater I'm wearing in the scarf pictures above? Alpaca). If so, it won't work for lace. But I decided that the only way to find out is to sample, and then knit little swatches and throw them in my purse and carry them around for a while. Right? That won't answer the drape question, but it will answer the fuzz question.

My thought was that I'd want a four-ply yarn for this, and the question in my mind was whether I'd like it to be a regular four-ply, or a cabled one (in a cabled four-ply, you spin singles in one direction, then create two 2-ply yarns by spinning the singles together in the direction opposite to which you spun them, then ply those two plied yarns together, spinning in the opposite direction of the first plying pass = same direction in which the singles were spun). I really like cabled yarns, as I think they have a lovely texture, and seem geared towards showing off a beautiful gleaming fiber like this alpaca.

After all of my experimenting and note-taking, I have this:
On the bobbin there, I have the singles, the two ply, and the cabled four ply. I haven't done a regular four ply yet, but I did end up liking the two ply more than I thought I would, so I may knit a swatch in that as well. For those who are interested, the singles came in at 30+ wpi (wraps per inch), the two ply at 21, and the cabled four ply at 18, which is a laceweight yarn. I have eight yards of the cabled four ply (2 gms), and 30 yards of the two ply (3 gms).
There they are, two ply on the left, cabled four ply on the right. Isn't that shiny? It has that distinctive oily alpaca feel, too. (This is a good thing, in spite of the way it sounds when I type it.)
Cabled four ply.
Two ply.

I think I like the cabled four ply, but we'll see how they act when I knit little swatches (and whether I can get beads on them, but I think I can). What do you all think? I should have plenty of fiber either way. I bought 400 gms (14 ounces), which means I should be able to get the 1,000 yards I need with no problem, even if I go the four-ply route.

OK, I think I'll stop there, and leave the question of the rest of the list of Things I Am Knitting (none of which are even cast on yet) for the next post. There's some pretty stuff in there, so be prepared.

Oops

So, I think I mentioned that I really want to knit the Tibetan Clouds Beaded Stole by Sivia Harding from The Knitter's Book of Wool? (BTW, that book? Seriously the most awesome book ever. I loved everything about it: the discussion of wool in general, the discussion of sheep breeds in particular, the patterns -- the patterns! I want to knit lots of them, which isn't always the case in a knitting book, you know? If you don't have it, go out and buy it. I'll wait.) So I've been poking around, looking for yarn, thinking that I'd just take my time since I really love that pattern in a sort of obsessive kind of way (beads! it has beads! 732 to of them, to be precise), and I want it to be exactly right (no pressure, though).

Well, it turns out that I secretly wanted to spin this shawl (who knew?), because I just bought 14 ounces of stunning brown alpaca top (the one in the middle, called "bark"). Oops. I also went to our local bead store to get beads for the girls' hats and to look for beads for the shawl. I bought a small bag of something that might work with the alpaca, although I’m not sure; I'll have to wait until I've spun up some of the top and then test it out. And then, just in case the beads don't work with the top, I also bought some copper wire that would definitely work with those beads because I’ve always wanted to try knitting with wire, and hey! $2.95 ain’t bad.

Oops.

Am I the only one who has these problems?

A very productive weekend

It was only a three-day weekend (for Rick, that is; I'm still out of school, as is Older Daughter, Younger Daughter had to go back this morning), but we got a lot done. And we got it done in spite of the fact that I am currently sick as a dog. (Yes, I went to the doctor this morning, finally. And yes, I am now on drugs; this sinus infection is apparently so bad that the idea of taking X-rays was bandied about. I have been told to get better quickly lest they carry out their threat.)

First, we (finally!) painted Younger Daughter's room. She's been waiting patiently, and we've been holding off on moving the set of cubbies that Rick built into her room (for desperately-needed storage) until the painting was done, as they were to be bolted to the walls (a hangover from living in earthquake country; we bolt all tall furniture to the walls), and we didn't want to have to unscrew them to take them out for painting. She picked a green color that none of us was sure about (except her) until it went on the walls, and then we all loved it. It required two coats on the bottom half of the room, as the past owners had painted the walls in two colors, darker on the bottom and lighter on the top, but it was worth it. Her room looks like springtime.
That's a little washed out, as it's cloudy today, and her window is shaded by trees; I'll try to get a better picture when the sun is shining in the window, as the patterns that the leaves make on that wall are really lovely. The best way I can think of to describe this color is to say that it reminds me a bit of the color of key lime pie. You may not be able to tell, but those bedspreads are pink, and the pink and green combination is much nicer than I'd have thought it would be. She's completely thrilled with the whole thing, happy that we would let her choose a color and then would spend all that time painting her room. She even invited her sister for a "sleep over" last night to celebrate (this is something that they do, occasionally), and they went to bed early, as they were so excited to be sleeping in her "new" room. It was worth all of the painting with a sinus headache to see her face when everything was put together, no doubt about it.

When I wasn't painting, I was knitting (it's hard to sleep with a sinus infection, I find, no matter how worn out and tired I am; not to share too much information, but my nose has been very productive, too...). And Sprossling is finished! That makes this my first FO for 2010. I stayed up last night to finish the making up, and then steam-blocked it when I got back from the doctor this morning. Forgive the photo shoot; I'm not looking so great right now, but this sweater is, so I had to share.
I think I need to block the button bands just a bit more. But I think I got the fit nailed on this one, finally.
The shoulder seams hit at pretty close to the right place (maybe a titch low?), and the length is good, on both sleeves and body, and it's curve-skimming without being tight (the shaping helps with that, as does the ribbing in the pattern).
The sleeve color did end up being a bit lighter than that of the body, just enough that I'm really glad I reknitted the first one; I had to use some of the darker yarn in the top part of the sleeve, but I'd planned ahead for that and alternated, somewhat randomly, between two balls of yarn, which seems to have done the trick, because I can't tell, looking at the picture, which is which.
So, there is it. To recap: this is a test-knit of Sprossling (Anne hasn't released the pattern yet, I don't think), using Lanas Puras Melosa fingering weight yarn (I still don't see this colorway up there; they must be out), on size four needles (and size twos for the edging). I used just under three balls of yarn for the size medium, as promised. I love this pattern; the lace motif is completely intuitive, and utterly memorizable (this from the woman who can't memorize lace patterns to save her life), and it was kind of fun to figure out how much of each repeat to include when doing the increases and decreases -- definitely a lesson in the concept of not doing an ssk or k2tog unless there was room for its corresponding yo (and vice versa). I can tell already that I'm going to be wearing this one a LOT, as it goes with all of the things I most like to wear.

So here I am, no big projects OTN. I do need to knit up a pair of fingerless mitts for my brother-in-law for his birthday, which is coming up quickly (Geri, don't tell), but I have the yarn for that already and just need to decide on a pattern (maybe another pair of the Paris-Roubaix mitts? Rick loves his...). And I've got that list of requests from the family (socks, scarf, and sweater). But I also have my eye on this, maybe knitted up in this? Meanwhile, I'm going to go sit and my spinning wheel and contemplate.

Happy New Year!

It's here. 2010. Weird.

Rick said he heard a joke the other day that the "noughties" were over. It's too bad. I spent the whole decade wishing people would get with the program and start saying things like, "The winter of ought three sure was a dry one!" But they never did.

Along the lines of weird, it occurs to me sometimes (it's actually occurred to me ever since we had Older Daughter) that there will come a time when Older Daughter will seem ever so much older than Younger Daughter, simply because she was born in 1998, while Younger Daughter was born in this millenium (2001). In case you think I'm crazy, think about the sense of difference in first impressions of people born in 1898 rather than, say, 1905. Big difference, right?

Also weird, this is the third start to a decade that Rick and I have shared together. And our second with Older Daughter. Hunh.

Anyhoo, such are my thoughts on a New Year's day.

We started the new year off right, though. I spent yesterday cleaning up the house, getting things straightened out, and tossing and organizing the stash. My wall of the den now looks like this:
The big change was to get a pile of new acquisitions (especially of roving) into the bin there under the baskets, and to put the things that I most want to knit into the top basket, where it's more easily seen and accessed. I also got together those thing that I most want to spin next and put those in the roving basket.
The rest of the stash is in other bins on my shelves.
I even went around the house, gathering up those spare skeins that tend to accumulate in odd corners (or is that just me?). So it's all where it belongs now, I know where everything is, and I just wish I had ten hands so I could knit and spin everything I want to, all at once!

Alas, I don't, so I'm focusing on Sprossling for now. I'm most of the way done with the second Sleeve #1, and I think that I will definitely be knitting Sleeve #2 out of that same ball of yarn. The difference isn't drastic, but it's there, and it'll bug me if the sleeves don't match. See what you think.
The middle piece there is the lighter sleeve. It's not just me, it does show up, but not enough to make things look bad, just enough that I want the sleeves to be the same. It's all right; if this sweater does indeed fit the way I'm hoping it will, it's going to be one I wear a lot (I adore both this pattern and this cornflower blue), so it's worth a bit of time on the front end.

I'm also quite charmed with the buttons.
I think they're going to look really good running down the front.
What do you think?

So, today started off right. Older Daughter and I went to a yoga class at our studio, which just reopened after a two-week hiatus to install cork floors (instead of the old, not-so-nice carpet). This morning was the first yoga class, and it was very full, not only of people but of wonderful energy. It was definitely the right way to start the new year together.

And now, it's a gorgeous sunny day. The bees are humming in the sage,
and the flowers are all blooming,
and I think it's time to go sit outside and knit.

Happy New Year!

The new year approacheth

On little tip-tapping feet.

Or at least, that's how it seems to me. Where did this last year go? It's hard to believe that at this time last year, I was looking forward to my sabbatical, and now it feels like it's been eons since then, except that I can't really figure out how those eons all fit into one year. The same year that my daughters insist took forEVER (somehow the time between Christmases seems to them to be always too long). Physicists ought to study this phenomenon, it might lead to something interesting.

In any case, I don't know that I'm particularly ready for the new year. Or maybe it's that I feel like I already had my celebration of letting go of the old and planning for the new at solstice this year, when we all handed over those things that weren't working for us, and took up something new to work for this year. I'll admit to all of you that I chose to give up fear, and to work on cultivating hope instead. I don't know that it'll change anything about the world out there, but if it changes how I walk through that world, then it's worth the effort.

The girls and I have had a lovely start to our week; we've been trying to get out of the house so Rick can get work done (now that he works from a home office, these weeks when everyone is in the house at once all day every day can be a bit trying for him). The girls spent all last week begging to go to SeaWorld, and I kept saying that I was absolutely, 100% sure that the passes we got last spring surely would have the week between Christmas and New Year's blacked out. Alas, I was wrong in my assessment of corporate greed, and we were free to use those passes to go, which we did yesterday, along with fully half of San Diego county plus members of assorted other states and countries.

We decided to forgo the rides and to not sit in the splash zones of the various shows (I can tell you here and now that when a 5,000 pound orca decides to splash you, you get wet), as it was rather chilly. But we did get to feed the dolphins and the bat rays, which is always a huge hit with the girls (and I freely admit that getting to stroke a dolphin is high on my own list of Very Cool Things). (Feeding rays is a really weird experience, though, as they act a lot like vacuum cleaners and suck the fish right out of your hand, not to mention the fact that they are covered in a mucus membrane -- who knew? -- so touching them feels like petting a snotty piece of rubber.)(In a good way, though.)

Today we went to the bookstore, where Older Daughter had a gift certificate from Christmas (she's been asking every. single. day. since Christmas when we were going to go), then I took the girls to Q'ero for lunch (such a treat!), and to Common Threads to find buttons for Sprossling. I did find some that I think will work well, but got home too late to take pictures, so I'll have to do that tomorrow to share.

At the same time, I'll take some pictures of the two Sprossling sleeves (both in progress) to get your opinion on colors. All of the yarn for the sweater comes from the same dye lot, but when I started a new ball on the first sleeve last night, it seemed to me that the new ball is significantly lighter than the others. So, I ripped back the new yarn and a little way into the part of the sleeve knit from the other yarn, thinking that I'd start the new ball by alternating rows with the old ball. But then, just to be really sure, I decided to put the first sleeve on waste yarn, and to start another sleeve with the new yarn; I'll knit the whole thing and see if it seems different enough to warrant knitting both sleeves out of the new yarn (at least there'll be some purposeful-seeming consistency, because I'm not ripping out the two fronts and the back in order to knit the whole thing with alternating balls), as well as the collar and button bands. However, if it was just that little part of the ball that seemed particularly light relative to the little part of the other ball I had already been working with, then I'll continue that first sleeve by alternating between balls to start.

I'm not sure if that made sense, but it seems like a plan in my head. I'm halfway through the increases on the second sleeve (which puts me almost to where I was on the first sleeve before I stopped), so I have high hopes of getting through it pretty quickly. Which is what I'm going to go do now.

I was going to share pictures of the girls feeding the dolphins, but the camera ate them (this is what happens when I use the old camera, grrr...), so you can see this picture of Tilly instead.
I think she needs a walk.