Crochet?! What?

This is what my living room floor looked like Saturday night.
That blanket, it has been crocheted. I started it last summer after I did a little crochet experiment to see if I would like it. Apparently I liked it enough to go buy some cheap acrylic yarn and an afghan pattern book... I found the blanket with all the blue made up, just needing a border.
I realized that this would be a great house-warming gift for a friend that was moving to a new apartment on Sunday, so I finished it. Granted the weather is now consistantly in the 60s and 70s so she probably won't be needing the blanket, she liked it.

A little aside, I actually do enjoy crochet, just not with acrylic. I have a set of 5 hooks and a desire to produce more crocheted products. I've been toying with the idea of a granny-square afghan using just a few colors to match my living room. This would allow me to crochet a little bit every once in a while, just when I want a small change from knitting and granny squares are perfect for that! Does anybody think that is just incredibly dorky? Are granny-squares awful and not to be seen in a 20-something's apartment?

This same friend is getting married in late June and expressed a desire to knit up something to wear for her wedding. She's fairly new to the knitting thing (she didn't even finish her first scarf) so I said she probably shouldn't try to knit up a sweater and plan her wedding at the same time. Also, she really liked the whole idea of the lace hoodie I'm knitting for myself. Well, a little light went off and I decided to knit her a similar lace-y summer shirt. She's not a fiber whore like I am so she's perfectly fine getting acrylic knits. While I was looking through my stash on Saturday I found a whole whack of white acrylic yarn (don't ask) and thought there might be enough to make a sweater. If I run short I'm fairly certain I can run over to the nearest Walmart and pick up another skein. Anyway, this is the pattern. And here a shot of the finished back.
The pattern is knit on size 10.5 needles. That's HUGE! So while I should be able to crank this project out pretty fast, I hate it. I'm just slipping it in the knitting queue before my own lace hoodie.

I geuss that I prefer smaller needles, no matter the size of the project. Also, I HATE acryilic yarn! It's all stiff and scratchy and makes my wrist hurt to knit it up. Still, it'll be nice to get rid of all this acrylic. See, before I became a fiber whore I collected quite a bit of cheap acrylic yarn and this blanket as well as the white yarn relieves me of at least half of the acrylic cr*p.

Anyway, back to the picture of my floor Saturday night... You can also see my cardigan blocking. It took until Monday morning to dry because I blocked all the pieces in twos to make sure everything matched (sleeve on sleeve, front on front, and the back folded in half). Well, yesterday I set out to seam it and ... realized the eye of my needle was too big. I'm a little worried now because I've never seamed a sweater before and I think if I don't get started soon the sweater might be doomed to wander around in pieces forever! I noticed that my yarn store sells needles up by the register for 25 cents a piece. I'll pick one up when I'm in Boulder tomorrow for Wednesday knitting with Val and Maria.

Last night after binding the back off of Rachel's sweater, I was really craving some small needle knitting with something of more color. So, I pulled out my green sock yarn and swatched for Hedera.
I love this yarn! It's superwash/acrylic... But it's much softer than the 100% acrylic and the green is so pretty! I'll be knitting these up as ankle socks for some summer sock wear.

An update on my spinning activities. This is the variegated merino that I navajo plied.
I quite enjoyed this method of plying, especially when compared to triple-plying with three seperate skeins of yarn; trying to keep every single seperate and unknotted really stressed me out. While this skein is a little over-twisted, it is still quite soft and the overtwist really isn't a big deal. The thing that really gets me is the way all the colors were distributed after plying. I originally did not like the way the singles were spinning up when I pulled out the various colors and spun them seperate. So I switched to just spinning up a piece of the fiber, letting the colors do what they wanted. I think I've changed my mind again, the navajo plying would work best with the first method. I've started spinning with the first method again and hope to have another skein to show some time next week.

Also, I bought 2 lbs of black merino fleece from morehouse merino. I hope to see it in the mail soon!

Also, I've been really bad with Eye Candy Fridays, so here is a picture that I took at Rachel's new place. Such pretty blooms!

Not feeling too bloggy lately...

Since it is a Friday I thought I'd post some pictures of what I've been up to lately. And then it's straight back to my shawl... I'm trying to have it washed, blocked and ready to wear for my two year anniversary date on April 7th! It still just looks like a bunch of lace... but it has certainly grown. And now, the pictures.

Eye Candy Friday

I was having a hard time trying to come up with some eye candy for today. I usually like to go outside and look for something exciting or pretty or whatnot. But I was really having a hard time thinking because it was all cloudy and things were really noisy! I thought that there were tons of planes flying around today. Then it hit me.... RAIN AND THUNDER!! I really like the afternoon rains that we get through out spring and really enjoy the smell and the dewy look everything gets afterward. So today I give you the best picture of the rain clouds that I could get without exposing my camera to possible water damage! Also, it's REALLY hard to get a picture of rain!

Eye Candy Friday

Not much to blog about since the post last night. I knit another inch of the cardigan and a couple more rows of the shawl. I realized that if I didn't get going on the next chart of the shawl I would get something similar to second sock fever. Speaking of socks, tonight I plan to work on my Jaywalkers while Michael and I drive a friend to the airport and then while we are out hanging with some friends.

So, for Eye Candy all I have to offer you is some pictures of Fez being Fez.

Eye Candy Friday

Another delivery came today!
It's the yarn that Maria, Val and I bought for our spring cardigans. Maria's will be in green, Val's in white, and mine in pink. I've already knit up a swatch for gauge and let me tell you, this stuff is awesome! It's 100% cotton from Webs and the swatch came out perfect and has such wonderful drape and minimal curling even in stockinette. I can't wait to cast on for this project! Maria is tweaking the pattern tons to make it fit just the way she wants it to and I was going to as well. But then I did a lot more measuring and got all ready to make some calculations but found that the pattern was perfect as is!

Here, is a picture of 250 yards of that orangey-red merino top I spun up. I think it turned out beautifully! Each strand has some red and some gold in it and overall the skein is pretty even! I took some pictures of the yarn in the daylight but they weren't true to the color, so I snapped this picture as a last resort and it came out perfect!
Happy Friday!

Late Eye Candy

Wow, I didn't know that the problem I was having with the Jaywalkers was a normal occurance! Perhaps my problems with the first pair of socks that I knit for my grandma were a lot more normal than I thought... I geuss I'll just have to start thinking a bit more about my knits. And here I thought that socks were going to be a break from that whole step of thinking and just be a quick FO!

When I restarted my pair of Jaywalkers, I decided that I wanted a little less of a pooling effect and have been alternating balls on each row. I like this look much more.
I've really been enjoying knitting these up. Then I was talking to Val and Maria (my two knitting friends) and we ordered our yarn for the spring cardigans that we want to knit together. We are following the pattern from Glamour Knits and I have chosen a pale pink yarn. I will only be knitting a three-quarter sleeve in an attempt to make a more 'springy' cardigan than most. Now, this pattern is knit up on 2s or 3s, I can't remember which exactly. I don't have both of these needles, but the Boye needle set does. I own a Denise needle set that I have been less than happy with. I wanted to trade my set for a Boye, but that seems harder than I thought. I just bought a Boye set online but really need to unload my Denise set so that I can break even on the needles. Before I can sell my set I realized that I need to finish my McQueen Knockoff Sweater because of the slight differences in needles across manufacturers.

SO..... even though I really enjoy knitting up my Jaywalkers, I have got to finish my sweater so that I can get goin on a sweater that I'll be able to wear MUCH sooner. This whole thing makes me sad. I cast-on for the last piece of the four piece sweater on Friday and I finished the ribbing as well as most of the first diamond repeat. Now there are about 120 rows left. If I knit 12 rows a day I'll be done in 10 days.... The only problem with that is I tend to knit REALLY tight on this sweater and the pinky on my left hand tends to lose some sensitivity and it feels really wierd if I knit for too long. I'll try to knit 6 rows in the morning and 6 rows at night then. Hopefully I can finish the sweater without amputating my pinky!

I also want to start on an afghan that will displace the HUGE red fleece blanket that takes up too much space to keep out on the couch every day. I bought a book of afghans quite a while ago, before I really got into knitting so I figure I'll go ahead and knit another project from it. This is the one I had in mind:
I want to knit this in a rusty-reddish color so that I can add some, well, color to my living room. Right now I have a beige-y couch and have ordered a beige-y chair from Target (that will hopefully be coming today!!). When I ordered the chair I knew that it would match much better than the hideous green Popesan chair we have now, but I didn't realize that I would be losing a lot of color in the room and I need to make up for it.

And in leau of having missed Eye Candy Friday, here is a picture of my newly washed car, enjoying the long overdue sunshine! If you have been living in Colorado, you know that this is a rare sight lately.

I am a weirdo

You know all that stuff about how I would never buy myself a Lendrum? Well......


Yeah... I'm a weirdo. I brought a Lendrum home after Dye Day and did quite a bit of spinning, trying to use up a bunch of fiber before I had to return the wheel the following Saturday. And the Lendrum just grew on me. Maybe I'm just a lover of all wheels. I think I could live with that. Anyway, this wheel serves the purpose of being a first wheel, is easily portable if I should decide to join a spinning group, and is less than half the cost of the double treadle Schacht. It sure sounded like a good deal to me!

I'm really happy with my purchase. If I had gotten the Schacht or the Lendrum, I wouldn't have gotten a choice in the finished look of the wood, so that was a toss up and you can bet that I'll be getting a Schacht in the future when I become a wheel collecter! :)

This morning I've had quite a lot on my mind. I need to return the Lendrum I was using for the class either today or tomorrow. I have plans with my mom for tomorrow, plans that will take up the whole day so I would have to return the wheel before then. But if I return the wheel today should I buy more fiber? If so, how much? I also need a niddy-noddy and a copy of the Sensational Knitted Socks that I was holding captive from Val for so long. But I also want the new book Favorite Socks. I've seen it and love most of the patterns!

Ok, wait. I just bought a new sweater book and have a couple sock patterns that I'm going to knit up. I geuss I won't buy the second book, but I really need the first!

If I do end up going to the yarn store today, I'll post about my purchases. Ok, now I can move on to Eye Candy Friday. If you live in Colorado, you will truly appreciate this weeks selection. I can't post just one, I'm too happy to see so many signs of light and life!

I may have made a mistake...

Last night at spinning we learned how to ply our yarns. I really think that mine turned out pretty good, for a first time. I looked like a fool while doing it, what with all the strands getting tangled up and trying to keep the wheel spinning in the counter-clockwise motion and remembering to move the in-coming yarn to a new hook quite often so the bobbin would still be functional. But I'm pleased with the results! Now, I just have to wash it and let it dry before the dye-day (in two weeks or so).















But the mistake that I made was bringing home the single-treadle schacht:

I tried to ply the rest of my yarn the last night........ DISASTER! I finally let Fez take over, he seemed much better at it than me:


Note the incredibly happy look on his face as he lays amongst all that mess, yarn and bobbins and all. That was nowhere close to the look on my face at the time. I decided that perhaps I should fall back and re-learn how to spin the normal uncarded fibers on the wheel first. That is my goal for today: re-learn spinning.

As for closing remarks about the Ashford, which I didn't get to yesterday, I don't like it. As painful as it is for me to say, it's true. I'm in love with the double-treadle Schacht and if I'm spending that much on a wheel, I'd better be in LOVE with it. Wednesday night, with a new bobbin on the Ashford, I let the wheel do what it wanted. Well what it wanted was spider-thin lace weight yarn. I filled up a bobbin with said yarn, simply because it was the only way that the wheel and I could get along. There was no peace for me when spinning with the Ashford. If I tried to make the yarn that I wanted, the wheel fought me every step of the way. If I let the wheel do what it wanted, I was unhappy with the weight of the yarn being produced.

I also talked to Maggie last night, she convinced me that I should get the Schacht too.. :)

Then I convinced myself that I needed to be certain that the double-treadle was the one for me and that is why I brought home that trouble-some single-treadle.... thing.

I also brought home some gorgeous fiber, something with a little color because I felt like I might be losing my lust for spinning because of all the bland white-ness that I was working with.


I don't think you can tell, but there are subtle twinges of orange and yellow amidst all the red that should make for an interesting spin. I, of course, won't be spinning this beautiful stuff until I can get the hang of the single-treadle.

Now, onto a more knitting front: I have finished the front, or back, piece of my Alexander McQueen Knockoff. This piece is so long that it is difficult to get an accurate representation of the whole in one shot, so here are two:




















And I apologize for the somewhat inadequate quality of these pictures. I had to take them quickly because this was coming soon:

He makes things a little more difficult than one might want and I didn't feel like fighting him today. Also, I think that those last three pictures will have to be my entry for Eye Candy Friday. They are quite hilarious if you play the 'movie' in your head.

Spinning Class #3

As you can see from my late post yesterday, I got to bring home the Ashford Traditional! I didn't buy it, it's one of the wheels in rotation in the class. After spinning on the Schacht last week, I finally got used to it Wednesday night. I think I'm going to experience something like that with this wheel. Once I tried a new wheel I realized that I had actually grown to love the Schacht! I would love to own one, but they are a little too expensive for my budget. Anyway, we oiled the Ashford up in class last night but when I got it home it started to squeak REALLY bad. I'm going to take it back down to the yarn shop today and see if it just needs some more oil.

I also got some more wool last night! And since I am so excited to start spinning on the Ashford, I gave the wool a good washing when I got home last night. Here is a before and after picture:


Because I had already spun all of the clean wool throughout the week, I had to spin dirty wool during class last night. While I hated teasing and carding it, spinning it actually seemed to give me more uniform yarn than I had been getting with the clean wool. So I am going to try an experiment (this explains why only half the wool in the picture has been washed). I am going to spin with dirty wool today and then clean wool tomorrow. This will allow me to compare my carding and spinning abilities. I might just be getting better at carding, picking out the stuff that I know won't spin up well, or it could be something about the lanolin in the fibers that is giving me a more uniform yarn. But we'll find out!

And here is some Eye Candy Friday. I took this picture during one of our recent flurries. The snow is dry and dusty so I knew if I didn't get the picture right away, it wouldn't be there for long.

The Friendly Schacht

As promised, I am posting about spinning class last night. I had quite a blast but was too shy to ask for any pictures... maybe next time?

I had my heart set on trying an Ashford Traditional but Maggie plopped a Schacht in front me:

I think this wheel is beautiful in its own way, but I've been dreaming of an Ashford for several months now. I have been looking through the most popular brands and but I come back to that same Ashford Traditional, time and time again. I understand the practical uses of an axle wheel verses the more traditional forms but I feel like the Ashford speaks to me. I plan to ask Maggie if I can try it next week and if I am still in love with it, I'll put in an order! My only concern is that the orifice is not directly in front of the spinner and I really enjoy that luxury with the Schacht. I know that I won't be truly happy until I at least try the Ashford and even then I don't know if I'll be happy buying anything else.

As for the yarn that I spun last night, there are two kinds: the really crappy all-over the place kind with many lumps and thin spots, and then there is the kind that I spun once I got home and had a glass of wine:


It's kind of a blurry photo but you can see a lot more consistency than what I started with. For the most part of class Maggie walked around and helped people individually if it looked like they needed it. This allowed me to concentrate fully on what I was doing... which turned out to be a bad thing! Once Maggie started talking and I started listening to her, my yarn came out much more consistant and fine. Of course this was towards the end of class and I was in need of a break. However, right before leaving I looked over at Val (who has taken the class before) and saw her technique. She was quite calm and her yarn was very consistant and pretty. I made a mental image of what she looked like and what she was doing and attached a note to give it a shot. Both that image and the glass of wine, when combined with much more relaxing lighting, allowed me to produce what you see here. This was only my second attempt at spinning on a wheel and I am very pleased.

I'm pretty sure that I can spin all of the fiber that we got for the class this weekend and am trying to figure out how to get more so that I can continue to practice through out the week. Plus I really enjoy spinning and while I don't find it that much more relaxing than knitting I get a pleasant, happy feeling that can only come when you are producing practical with your own two hands. I spun quite a bit of crud last night, and previously on the drop spindle, so I am trying to figure out how I can recover that wool. It's not like I'm gonna use it for anything anyway so I'm going to experiment with washing and re-carding it to see if I can get some back.

I am also going to attempt to participate in Eye Candy Friday, so here is the first picture.

It's one of those funky, rubber-y, stretchy balls. I thought it would make a decent entry into the Eye Candy Friday collection.

I'm off to spend the day shopping with my Grandma and Mom. I'm also going to be giving my Grandma her socks, so tune in next time for an update on the Not-From-Heaven-Not-Quite-From-Hell Socks.