Lalala…

Probably past time for me to post pictures of the things I’ve been spinning. Someone was asking me about the BFL I was spinning at Distaff Day while we were playing at the Whole Nine Yarns last Saturday.

Here’s about 100g of 2-ply BFL in Humbug from Wingham Wool Works. Iris sent this to me ages ago and I absolutely loved spinning it. (Quarter for visual reference.)

Something else Iris sent is some mohair from Fyberspates. I’d begun spinning this on my drop spindle but then transferred it to the wheel. I believe this may have been my first spinning project on the Clemes & Clemes. It’s a bit on the overspun side, even after a long soak, but I didn’t want to ply this. I’ve been working on not putting so much twist into the singles lately.

This is at the very least 300 yards of an angora and merino blend Rebecca had laying around from Twin Ponds Fiber Farm. I did not enjoy spinning this at all as the fiber could have stood to go back through a carder. I only picked out about half the nupps and VM. The water turned an “interesting” shade of yellowish-brown through several rinses. Then I threw some Wilton at it.

This is what I’m currently working on. It’s some luscious combed Handspinner’s Dream from Alpaca with a Twist. I also have this in a natural white. I’ll do a 2-ply and make a scarf for my older sister from the black and a white hat for the younger sister. Of course, I’ve never knit a single thing from my handspun, so I’m not holding my breath that those projects will make it out of my head.

It occurs to me that I’ve never posted shots of my finished Pirates hat. I went wonky on the tension, so the pattern isn’t as clear as it could be, so I’ll distract you with the innards. The pink is also an alpaca yarn whose name currently escapes my mind. Yeah, Iris sent that, too, because she rocks.

I still have to pick up and do the inside band in some absurdly loud color and block it all out. I have no idea who this hat is for, but if it’ll fit over my mop of curls, it’ll fit anyone. Heck, I may keep it.

The husband came home Friday very, very sick. I even called his mother for recommendations on keeping Tylenol in him as I have never dealt with a sick child. I spent the evening and into the early morning doing the wet cloth on the forehead, temperature check, Tylenol routine until the fever broke. Then I stumbled into bed around 4am.

I was planning on going to a holiday party Saturday, but realized almost immediately that it wasn’t going to happen as I didn’t get a chance to wrap a gift, cook a dish or even sleep the night before. I did start my Colorwork Challenge knitting in those slap-happy early morning hours with alpaca yarn left over from other projects. I knit on and off yesterday; it’s going surprisingly fast.

I have every confidence the fabric will smooth out post blocking. I also got started on a pair of Over the Knee Stockings for the little sister. I’m doing a picot hem at the top and will sew in an elastic band to help keep them up. The yarn is a sock weight merino from Malabrigo (before they were Malabrigo and when they did sock yarn) in their Molly Pink colorway that I picked up a couple years ago with the express intent of making stockings for the sister.

Do any of you know where I can get some basic weaving information? I was digging through some things we were storing at the boy’s parents and found this.

My mother bought this back in the day when we were living in Berlin for us girls, around 1988. It’s a little tabletop loom. It’s come apart while sitting in a basement all these years, but I want to glue it back together and give it a whirl. It came with zero instructions. As an aside, I found my first ever knitting attempts in this box. I’ll pull everything out and take some pictures in the next few days. This was the sample attached to the loom when it was purchased.

I’m thinking this may be a good way to use my handspun.

Because the perfect cure to finishing up projects is to immediately start a pile of new ones until you can’t remember all of them, I joined Stranded: The Colorwork Challenge. Hooray for knitalongs with loose rules!

I’m planning to start Adrian’s We Call Them Pirates Hat, which I’ve been meaning to knit for nearly a year now. I’ve even swatched for it. I suppose this will by my third colorwork project, the first being Oberstdorf with a little Pilve thrown in for good measure. I should probably finish Pilve, so that’s also on the schedule. The sister took Oberstdorf into work with her yesterday to show it off to her coworkers (awww!). She reported that they didn’t believe I’d knit it for her and that it must’ve been store bought.

Oh, go over and say hello to a very new blogger with a baby blog over at the Knit Factor. Years of careful grooming have taken her from a crocheter to a full blown knit blogger. She started by saying that she’d never have a stash and would only have yarn on hand for the current project. She mocked my lack of fidelity to a single project. And she poo-poo’d blogging about knitting. Now look at her, stash on hand and a three project at a time limit. She’s coming around on dyeing yarn, but still professes no desire to learn spinning. I figure it’s only a matter of time.

Poke. What are you doing?

I am in fact working on some behind the scenes, Secret Squirrel types of things right now. I’ll let you in on it very soon.

Memaw’s shawl has been blocked and just needs all numerous ends woven in. I’ll probably get to that this weekend and get the shawl to the man’s parents for delivery next time they go up to visit Cave Spring. I’ll get a photo up once the ends are neatly away. The hat for the little sister’s guy is also complete (if you’ve seen one ribbed beanie, you’ve seen them all). It was a quick knit, but then hats tend to be.

Get this…I did swatches today. shhh!! Not so loud! I’m really not sure what came over me. I had a thought that the leftovers from Memaw’s shawl would go with some other alpaca I had on hand for the Pirates hat over at Hello Yarn. One swatch later, I appeared to be correct in my speculations. I also wanted to check the gauge on the merino for the Stockings of Doom. I took a gander at the pattern Ms. Mouse suggested and will probably do a slight variation on that. I may have to pick up the book at some point (I bought Nancy Bush’s Folk Socks instead) if “winging it” is a complete failure doesn’t work out. I’m rooting for winging it right now.

I’m still just starting on the second Jaywalker, having been faithful to the shawl for the past few days. The weekend should bring an update on that. Even though it was very tempting, I didn’t sign up for Sockapaloooza. I’m still being haunted by the ghosts of my poor showing from Sockapalooza. I didn’t get my socks finished on time and had my poor pal waiting ever so patiently on me. I go into these things with the best intentions, but if projects are start building up for school, I pretty much give up knitting to focus on my art work. True, I’m only enrolled in one class this semester and am spending more time knitting (and finishing) than this time last year, but I didn’t want to take the chance of disappointing anyone.

I haven’t mentioned the wrap up of SP7 yet. First, let me say that I absolutely adored spoiling Iris (waves!). We had so much in common, from being half-Korean, to learning to spin, to having similar artistic interests. She is a lovely and fascinating woman; I’m enormously pleased to have made a friend through this exchange.

Despite this, I think I’m done with participating in Secret Pal exchanges, having been a bit disappointed on the other end of the exchange. I was so excited to get her initial email and the first package was very thoughful. I really had no communication at all with my pal after the first package and email. I heard from her again in early December to say the second package had been returned to her and that she was sending it back out. Again, once I finally received it, the package contained lovely and thoughtful items. It also contained a note saying I should see the last package soon. Considering it took over a month for my final parcel for Iris to be delivered to her in the UK, I was willing to wait to receive my own surprise. Now that Iris has her parcel, I’m considering this exchange to be finished and have stopped checking the mail with my previous anticipation.

I understand that things come up and when it boils down to it, life can demand more from you than you were expecting very suddenly. After all, how late were the socks I sent for Sockapalooza?. I understand that other things fall by the wayside when this happens. I like to think that’s what happened with my pal, that life is taking precedence. I’d much rather think that than she just got bored with the exchange or something like that. If that’s the case, I wish you all the best Secret Pal. I just wish there’d been a bit more communication between us and you just could have told me you were unable to continue the exchange.

In either case, I’d have taken a pal that completely ignored me through this whole thing for the opportunity to make a friend of Iris. While I could meet another person with whom I click, I’m over the Secret Pal thing.