Signs of spring

Texas redbud

What we call the Grape Bubblegum tree - please let me know if you recognize it

Azaleas

And summer sweaters resting in the Mexican Heather

The Summertime Tunic halves are joined and the body is started. Unfortunately what you see above is 2 balls of the 5 available. Hmmmm...might be an awfully short sweater, and God knows my midriff doesn't need that much baring. The good news is that I'm knitting the 37.5 size, and it looks to me like it might be quite big. First chance I get to take it off the needles (probably after ball #3), I'll try it on. I might be able to go down to the next smallest size successfully, since I don't want a whole lot of ease.

Unfortunately, this weekend has been a knitting-free zone - my right hand/wrist have been sore for a few days. I've got a bone deposit on the back of my hand that normally doesn't bother me at all, but if I'm doing a lot of hand motions that involve flexing my wrist, the tendons on the back of my hand get annoyed. I guess there's been too much rabid Firestarter knitting in the last week or so (in addition to getting back out on my tri bike which also puts my wrists in a slightly uncomfortable position). In an attempt to let the tendons chill out a bit and recover, I replaced knitting with spinning over the weekend, and now I've got this sitting on the bobbin.

Last month's (January's actually) HY Fiber Club, Verdant, 50/50 merino/mohair, in my first attempt to spin laceweight. It's a pain in the ass. The fiber is beautiful, and the actual spinning is going fine, but it's the winding on to the bobbin that ain't working so well. I'm currently adjusting the tension between the long-draw and wind-on portions of the program, and it seems to be working ok, but it's not terribly efficient. Plus it takes a really long time to spin 4 oz! No instant gratification here...I just hope I like the end product.

I'm off Wednesday to Portland, OR for a conference, so this may be the only post for the week. However, I have grand plans for finishing off multiple socks while I'm gone, so next week should bring many FOs (famous last words, right?)

A Cricket in a Frosted Forest

Two different handspun FOs this week. First up is Cricket, from the very first installment of the HYFC. I had spun up most of the original 4 oz when I received it, to make my grandmother's Branching Out, but I had a bit left over. This

became this,

which, after washing became this:

Fiber: BFL, colorway "Cricket", Hello Yarn Fiber Club May 2007 offering
Spun on a bottom whorl spindle.
13 wpi, 72 yds in 1.4 oz/40 g (about DK weight)
I spun the singles fairly tightly and overplied (that would be picture #2). The twistyness was tamed pretty well by a hot-cold shock wash, and hanging to dry unweighted. Not much yardage there, but could work for something small for the kids.

Just off the wheel and finally dried is Frosted Forest:

Fiber: 50/50 wool/soy silk top, colorway "Frosted Forest", HYFC December installment
Spun at 9:1, ST Lendrum, not plied.
16 wpi, 128 yds in 4.2 oz/119 grams. I was aiming for DK weight but ended up closer to fingering weight.
I wanted to preserve the intensity of the colors, so I decided to spin this as a singles yarn (my first). I pulled off chunks and spun from the fold, semi-long draw, but smoothing down the single as I went. To finish, I again did a hot-cold shock wash to felt the singles a bit and keep them together. The felting part definitely worked! - I tried to rewind it on my niddy noddy after washing to get everything aligned again, and it took me three evenings to get it untangled and back in a skein! There are sections that are a bit overtwisted, but on the whole it's fairly balanced, and I love the shininess of the soy silk. I'm not sure I'd want to spin 100% soy silk (holy slippery Batman!), but 50% was ok. And the colors are gorgeous. Now I have to find a pattern for 120 yds of fingering weight.

Verdant is on the wheel now, in the "laceweight" incarnation, and I suspect it will be keeping me busy for quite a while. And the secret project is done, I'm happy with it, and now am in the throes of pattern writing so I can submit it and see what other folks think.

Fiber Friday: I am the rate-limiting step

How is it possible that I haven't posted since last weekend? Sheesh...

In the last round of Adrian's fiber club, she offered a double option for the fiber. Wicked, wicked woman! So of course, I opted for the double option. And now the fiber is pilling up.

When we came back from Christmas break, this was waiting for me:

Frosted Forest, 50/50 soy silk/wool top. I have 4 oz of this stuff. I'm spinning a sport/DK weight single from this stuff, from the fold. We'll see how that works out.

Then a couple of weeks ago, this arrived at the door:

Verdant, 8 oz of 70% merino/30% fine mohair top. I'm kind of stunned. What do I do with this? It's absolutely beautiful, but I have no idea how to spin it. Laceweight? I could do a two ply laceweight and knit up a nice leafy shawl (Ravelry links). Or DK weight to mix with some leftover Silky Wool from the Peapod? Do I have enough to do some of both? I've never spun any laceweight (at least, not on purpose), and the prospect is somewhat daunting. But I haven't knit any lace in a while, and it's getting to be the time of year when light frothy things are much more appealing then, well, anything wool.

I'm at a loss. Anyone have any suggestions?

Irons in the fire

I'm home today with a (not so) sick Boo and decided to take advantage of the lovely weather to get some photos of the current works in progress. There are many.

A new blanket for Devil, to replace the one lost a few weeks ago. I'm through the first border and staring down the barrel of 120+ rows of mindless blue and white intarsia. I'm already pretty certain that I hate intarsia. This is not going to be pretty.

Ivy, 90% seamed, ties done (note: I did not knit the required 52" because then they would be dragging on the ground), neckband left to be knit. The pattern calls for the neckband to be knit separately and then sewn in, but I'd rather knit it to the sweater as I go. Need to think about that a bit more.

The rest of Cricket, my first installment of the Hello Yarn Fiber Club almost a year ago (May 2007). I'm halfway through the hunk I had left over.

Socks for Devil from the Rainbow sock leftovers (there were lots of leftovers, 30+ grams). I started these while waiting for my Blue Moon package, but they are now on hold for a while. There are also the StR socks, of which I've managed to knit and rip most of the foot. Hmmm...hopefully I'll have something finished soon!

Toxic finally finished

Fiber: Superwash corriedale top
Colorway: "Toxic", Hello Yarn Fiber Club November fiber
Specs: 3-ply, 14 wpi, fingering weight, 515 yds in this skein, not sure of the weight
Spinning: singles spun with short forward draw, worsted style, at 10:1. Plied at 5:1 (this was my first "real" 3-ply (i.e. not chain plied), so I did it slowly.

I actually had a plan when I started spinning this fiber (more details here). I wanted to end up with a yarn that had two plies more or less the same color, and one ply of a varying color throughout. I'm not at all convinced that it worked out terribly well, but I like the finished product.

A couple of notes about the plying: usually I end up over-plying to some degree. I don't mind overplied yarn, and it's never bad enough to be an issue, but this time I decided to do something a bit more technical. I counted treadles for each length of yarn, putting in the same amount of twist for each length. I think the end result is a bit underplied - it doesn't obviously twist in the skein, but the plies look a little loose to me. It also doesn't seem as round as the chain plied yarns I've done previously, but that may just be due to there being less plying twist. While I didn't mind the treadle counting (much), next time around I will use a higher ratio so I can get more twist with less treadling.

I've still got some singles left, which I'm going to chain ply in sequence for a little mini-skein. No idea what yardage I'll get, but it will make a fun stripey something. The intensities of the colors are just amazing!

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I stumbled across Deb's blog recently, while looking for sock patterns, and I've been inspired by her monthly tallies. Well, it's more like I've been amazed by her monthly tallies - talk about production! - but it struck me as a good way to keep track of what's in progress and what's actually been finished. So here are my stats for January:

Finished:
Rainbow socks for the gift pile
Toxic superwash sock yarn

In progress:
Ivy - I started seaming this up last night, hoping to finish it in January (and completely forgetting about the whole knitting the neckband issue...), so it's going to be done soon. I only hope it's done before it warms up to 75 degrees for good.

Started:
Blanket for Devil - to replace the precious blanket lost at the Houston Marathon Expo
(planning stages) Sock submission for summer Knitty - waiting for the Blue Moon fiber goddesses to ship out my goodies.