Double whammy

So, there are a couple of big events coming up in the wooly world, and I'm trying to come up with a plan of attack/list of goals that will not result in me either A) spending copious nighttime hours spinning and/or knitting or B) having a nervous breakdown as I try to spin and knit and move house right in the middle of it all.

Up first is my favoritest wool-along ever, the Tour de Fleece. It combines spinning of the fiber variety with spinning of the cycling variety. Spinners set themselves a challenge, i.e. to spin four miles of laceweight cashemere on a Country Craftsman (!), and spend the duration of the Tour de France (30 June - 22 July) trying to meet that challenge. Last year, I spun up 2425 yds/51.3 oz of fiber. In 2012, I spun up 2420 yds/39.4 oz*. You can perhaps see the trend in the weights? So initially (that would be back in August of last year), I thought I'd aim for continuing that trend - could I spin up 60 oz in 3 weeks?

The second event is, of course, the Ravelympics. Knitters choose a challenging project, cast on during the Opening Ceremonies (27 July) and try to finish before the Closing Ceremonies (12 August). The first time I tried this was in 2006, when it was run by the Yarn Harlot from her blog, and called the Knitting Olympics. My challenge was Adamas, my first ever real lace project. Didn't manage to finish. The second time around (2008) it was the Summer Games, and somehow that didn't quite work for me (oh yeah, summertime in Houston = no knitting! Too damn hot!) In 2010, I boldly ventured into Ivy League Vest territory, and yet again managed to not finish within the allotted time.

Given that 1) we moving in July, and Himself and I are bailing out for a week to go chase some guys in spandex through the mountains, 2) I have a tendency to FAIL at the whole Knitting Olympics thingie anyway, 3) I will actually be going to Olympic events (hooray!) and 4) did I mention we're moving? By which I mean some lovely gents will come, pack up all our stuff, drive it three miles and unpack it, leaving us me to sort everything right again, it's safe to say that I will not be spinning 60 oz of anything. I also will not be knitting any lace shawls or steeked colorwork masterpieces. I do, however, have a plan.

To celebrate our three years in the UK/the Diamond Jubilee/London 2012/going to play in West Wales in October with cool knitting people, here are my combined Tour de Fleece/Ravelympics plans (which were actually first voiced in March...).

1. Spin up my Gotland and organic Hebridean fleece goodies into approximately 1200 yds and 200 yds respectively of 2-ply fingering weight yarn. 
2. Knit up said yarn into the Stasis Pullover. Which will then be my offering for Today's Sweater at P3.

That's it. Of course, since what I currently have is about 1.5 kilos of unwashed, unprocessed fleece, there is some serious prep work to be done. But I think this is challenging enough to be worth trying, but not so out of reach that I'm going to be sobbing into my knitting late some dark evening around 10th August.

Do you have goals for the Tour de Fleece or Ravelympics? What are they? Are you doing any prep beforehand? Or just jumping in on the first day, guns ablazing? Post a comment with your challenges for either or both events, and we'll see what everyone's coming up with. Good luck!

PS - between 15th-20 July, while I'm brutalizing myself in the Pyrenees, I will hopefully manage to do some spindling of some of the masses of Hello Yarn fiber I've got lying around, just so I can post something on the team thread. If I can make it through 4 oz, I'll be pleased. And if I finish off all the natural fleece, I'll start on a sweater lot of HYFC I've got lying around. But I'm making no promises on that score...

* I have only just noticed that I spun almost the exact same yardage both years. It's those damn laceweight singles from 2010 bumping up that statistic...

Random bits and pieces

Random bit #1: Having finished the sweater that would not end, and weaving in all the damn ends (!), I am now having a really tough time finding the will to photograph it on Himself. This is unfortunate, because I would like to show you pretty pictures and bask in the glow of having it really, totally, finally finished.

Random bit #2: This has not stopped me from suffering the acute pangs of sweater start-itis. In the last two days I have spent far too much time online looking at patterns and yarns and poking around in my Ravelry stash to see what might work, not to mention getting out the Vine Yoke Cardi yarn and my Timber sweaterlot and fondling them longingly. This trend is not helped by the fact that it is a) raining (again FFS!) and b) 10 degrees out. In mid-May. Thank you, London.

Random bit #3: My swearing I was never going to knit a fingering weight Fair Isle sweater again, ever, has been sorely tested by my discovery of Kate Davies' designs and blog. Actually, I'm currently coveting a sheepy blanket knit in nine natural shades of Shetland. And maybe a matching hat. Would this not be the perfect thing to cuddle under next winter while I'm knitting and watching TV? Le sigh...this might have to be a birthday present this year. Look, there's even a kit!

I have also been enjoying Kate's blogging about textile history and recovering from/living with stroke (she had a stroke two years ago at age 36). And her pictures of everything (flowers, knitting, steeks, yarn, Scotland, her dog) are absolutely extraordinary.

Random bit #4: my grand plans for knitting design domination are going to be complicated not only by the fact that, as Aquaphilic pointed out in the comments, I've only got 7 months to finish them off (and really only 6 months if you count that I want to get the hat collection out in November), but by the sad fact that we are going to be moving at the end of July. Not out of London, just out of the lovely (huge!) house we've been in since we got here. It's been coming for a while, but is now definite. And next week, I get to spend a couple of days with an estate agent looking at new possible homesteads.

Oh joy.

Random bit #5: I am a lucky little shite, because when I checked last night at 8:30, there were 5 spots left for P3. 40 minutes later? All gone. Thankfully,

I am going to Wales in October to hang out with Brenda. And Amy. And a whole host of other people. So. Excited!

A glutton for punishment? Or just plain crazy?

I finally managed to take a browse through the new Brooklyn Tweed pattern collection, Spring Thaw, last week. I always like looking at these just for the photography alone, but the patterns are usually pretty nice, and the yarns are gorgeous. This time through I had a sudden brain wave that pretty much guarantees many future post bewailing the drama of knitting handspun colorwork sweaters (cause you guys haven't had enough of those, right?) (No, I haven't finished weaving in all the ends, thanks for asking) (don't ask again, ok?).

I was very taken with the Stasis Pullover in my initial look through. And I must have been in a somewhat weakened condition, because I suddenly found myself thinking "Hey, wouldn't it be fun to spin up the yarn for that?" Quickly followed by the sound of the clue by four hitting me smack upside the head with "Hey! I've got raw fleece that is the exact right colors for this!"

One kilo of Gotland, purchased at the iKnit Weekender 2010.

And some lovely dark brown/black Hebridean fleece (organic!) that I received in a Secret Santa swap this past Christmas.

What I really need is someone to follow me around when I have these ideas so they can smack me and say "Get a grip woman! The last thing you need is a raw-fleece-to-hand-cards-to-yarn-to-sweater project! Lie down, have a cider, and get back to us when you've renewed your grip on reality." Sadly, such a guardian angel has not seen fit to grace me with her wise presence, so here I am, frantically finishing off my secret knitting so I can begin washing fleece. And getting the handcards ready to go. All the while ignoring the fact that there are two sweater lots of handspun yarn waiting desperately for attention, and at least two more sweater lots of fiber begging to be spun. Denial is my friend, while also being a river in Egypt.

The only upside to this whole plan is that I only need to come up with 1200 yds of fingering weight for the main color, and about 200 yds of the contrast. Totally doable from over two pounds of raw fiber, right? And I don't have to do any dyeing of anything. No problem...(those of you with comments about famous last words can just keep them to yourselves, ok?)

So, the girls get out of school on Thursday, and then it's washing fleece time! I will be sure to document the process for your edification never-ending amusement at my folly. Enjoy!

A blast from the past, aka productive procrastination

So...last week I finished up the first of this year's secret knitting projects, and have it mostly packed up to go out in the mail tomorrow. I'm jonesing to get started on the next secret project (which has a killer-soon deadline - I will be mainlining ibuprofen and icing my wrists on this one I think), but I'm waiting for the yarn to arrive. Thus I entered the weekend with no active projects on the needles. Woe is me!

I rummaged through the active stash (otherwise known as the massive pile of crap next to the couch in front of the TV) and came up with a number of options: 2 different pairs of handspun socks (one for me and one for he whose birthday is coming up in a couple of weeks - eep!), a sweater design that needs to be ripped back to the armholes and redone, a hat for Boo that needs finishing (which seems less serious given the remarkable fact of Blooming Daffodils in February!) - all very worth projects, some with that almost irresistable shine of New! But then I got to the bottom of the pile, and realized that I had something that would suit my requirements admirably. In other words, I had a project that was not-terribly taxing intellectually (garter stitch), was easy to pick up and put down (small modular construction), was in horrific need of being finally finished (started in gulp 2008), and would be perfect for someone who's birthday is coming up quickly (like tomorrow). Behold, I give you, the long lost Sock Yarn Blanket (of Doom).

That was the progress I'd made as of 19 January 2010. When I picked it up on Saturday, progress was more at this stage,

which means I must have worked on it at some point between 19/1/10 and 25/2/12, but I have no idea when. It took me several tries (read: ripping out and reknitting 4 squares twice) before I managed to remember how I did the decreases before. God forbid I go look at my notes on Ravelry and save myself some knitting time, FFS. Anywho, several tries later, I'm now at this stage.

Three more squares to go, a bunch Metric Crapton of triangles (30 to be exact), and a border of some kind. I think I've figured out a plan for the triangles, and the border is just going to be more garter stitch. If Boo is lucky, it will be done by Devil's birthday.

In 2013...poor Boo!

Whiplash

So on Monday, I was pondering as to what I could dress up as a semi-entertaining little tidbit of wooly ether to share with you. And then my brother came through in the most serious fashion with a load of gorgeous photos of him in his new sweater, and suddenly the Monday blog post was taken care of. Ok, I still had to write it, and finish the final pattern editing and get it uploaded to Ravelry, etc, etc, etc (why does that always take so much longer then I remember?).

Now it's Wednesday, and I feel like I've been running as fast as I can on all things fibery and wooly, and I'm still in the same place. I have serious startitis cravings: some folks on the Hello Yarn group are going on about a steeked-striped-handspun vest-along that I am absolutely salivating to cast on. And I've got two test knits ongoing that I'm anxiously looking to for feedback. In the meantime, there's the soaking-dyeing-cursing over-drying of fiber stuff going on, and regular life things (i.e work, school, laundry, more dishes then are really necessary in any universe). Thankfully, instead of feeling overwhelmed, I'm more or less enjoying it all, although my enthusiasm for discussion of said events is somewhat less then existant. So my apologies to those in the real world if I've been less then forthcoming about it all.

Here is the earthshattering revelation that I was going to share on Monday that is now postponed until Wednesday: I have too many sweaters in progress.

One is a vest, two are handspun, and three (of the four) need to be done by Christmas. Ehem. Thankfully, the two handspun sweaters are lacking four sleeves and a neckband. Two of the four sleeves are pretty straightforward (it's a sweater for the 6 year old), but the other two...the less said about them and their attendant neckband, the better. The vest should be pretty quick, but as of this writing, I'm three 9.5 inches* (out of 18) in on my way to the underarms. Not exactly breaking any land speed records with that puppy. Ehem, take two.

Sadly, the sweater that doesn't have a firm deadline is the one that is working up the fastest, on the biggest needles. I started last week, and in three days, I had a sleeve. It's also a side-to-side construction, which I haven't done before, so that's pretty intriguing. It's the thing that I find myself gravitating towards, and it's the last thing I should be working on! Aaaargh!

Sometimes I can't even believe how knotty my problems are! /sarcasm


*Today was more productive then expected on the knitting front. On the work front however...