And hilarity ensued

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Spinning camp, day 3

I kicked some long draw ass today, kids. That was super exciting, since I’ve never, ever been able to do long draw even a tiny bit.

More deer! Even less afraid of humans than yesterday’s deer were! (seriously – I was about 2 feet away from this one when I took this picture)
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Finished spinning the silk, and plied it with the alpaca/merino/silk. That turned out quite nicely. Fascinating thing there – Judith had given us these two fibers and some suggestions on how to spin them. One idea was to hold the two together and spin them just held that way, so you’d get a bit of one, a bit of the other, back and forth in the singles. Another was to spin them separately and ply them together. Tina and I decided to test both and see how different they were. She did the first option, I did the second, with the singles being roughly the same thickness. The two plied yarns are SO different. We are different spinners, yes, but the two different preparations resulted in surprisingly different yarns. I want to knit with mine and weave with Tina’s.

The two spun separately (both spun worsted) and plied together is lofty and fuzzy, the two held together is glossy and denser and darker in color. They’re both really lovely, but completely different. Compare and contrast:
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I made a new friend:
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And there was some really strange things happening at the other end of the room. There was fiber wrapped up around their heads, too, while they were trying to untangle whatever was going on there.
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The best moment of the day, though, was Tina’s daughter responding to a text querying how her day was with:

“Fine
Learned some shit.
Fucked some bitches. Made some money.”

Yeah. I love these people.

Spinning camp, days 1 and 2

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Seriously. Spinning camp. At Camp Orkila, no less – the camp I managed to completely avoid my entire childhood, and now I’m here for a week as a full-fledged grownup. Hilarious.

Monday: Up since 4:30am, spun 4 (miserable) ounces of merino/tussah that I got at… Sock Summit? Probably. It was so pretty in the braid, and was, sadly, a bit felted, incredibly sticky, didn’t want to draft for ANYTHING, and spun up into 120ish yards of 3-ply sport-dk weight nastiness. Yuck.

Boggled at the deer. They are ridiculously unafraid of humans, and you can walk almost up to them before they give you a nasty look and amble a few feet farther away. Also: humans are not the only ones who make stupid faces when being photographed.

derp

Amused at the distribution of spinning wheels present. There are 18 people, and the only wheels here are Jensens, Lendrums, Hansens, and pocket wheels (there are actually two others, a Majacraft and a big production wheel of unknown manufacture, but I’m not counting those).

Tuesday: Learned all kinds of cool stuff from Judith, spun some extremely satisfactory (and skinny!) stuff, and walked on the beach.

The rest of the day, in pictures:

The beach, looking at Canada, where my cell phone thinks I am
That's Canada way over there

If Judith had spun this, this would be two plies instead of the one. She did dye it, though.

The first half ounce or so of the polworth/silk mix from above, on my wheel.

The pretty little wheel to my right.

The rest of the pictures from camp are here if you’re jonesing to see.

The Craft Pit is All Grown Up

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Welcome to the new studio space!
Check it out - bonus accidental self-portrait!

There’s still a bit of work yet to do, but it’s done enough to start moving into at this point. We have to figure out how to shingle and trim around the new door, and need to get our wonderful window guy back out to do the window trim, put in baseboards, move the ends of the light fixtures to better distribute the light, and get two more drawer units to put in the corner near the ironing board. That seems like a lot of work, now that I’ve written it all out…

We’ve been working on this, off and on, for almost a year now. No, I didn’t take any before pictures. The before on this was too awful to contemplate, let alone photograph.
The building had had an electrical fire at some point, after which the owners had mostly gutted it, and then used it to store several decades worth of random crap, all of which the previous owners just left out there. After several trips to the dump to get rid of all the crap, and a lot of screaming and flailing every time one of the enormous shed spiders was encountered, we finally got it cleaned out enough to use it for storing our own random crap.

A new roof here, some electrical work there, and a considerable amount of standing around wondering WTF (seriously – WHY remove whatever passed for plumbing out there by cutting the pipes off, at an angle, just above the foundation wall? WHY????), and we finally got to start the fun of hanging drywall. The drywall took forever, during which time we discovered that there were no studs out there that were the same distance apart. A few were 16″ apart, but the rest were anywhere between 11″ and 33″. And none of the walls are square or straight. Good times!

I’ve got about half of the stuff moved out there and set up so far. Still have lots and lots of bins to unpack and make sense of, but it finally feels more like studio instead of shed. Hopefully it’ll be done enough to get some drafting and sewing done next weekend. Hopefully.

Looking from the corner nook into the room towards the drafting table and the sewing table (the serger is there, but the sewing machine hasn’t been moved out yet):
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Looking from the far corner behind the sewing table towards the nook. All of those bins are still yet to be unpacked or repacked and put on the tall chrome shelving that’s still in the basement:
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Standing in the doorway looking in towards the sewing table end of the room. The books are about the only things that are likely to stay right where they are. The class sweaters will probably go back in the house, and the fabric will get moved around, the swatch bins will move, etc, etc:
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In other news… Nope. No other news. Nothing at all to report other than this. It’s been fairly all-consuming, really.

Another one down

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Totally outside of my color comfort zone
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Details are typical me, though
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Very much my style
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Nihon Vogue classes are coming to an end. Finally. I started this adventure five years ago, and it’s consumed the majority of my knitting time for those five years.

Part of me is really (REALLY) glad it’s almost over. Mostly it just feels weird that next weekend is my last class.

I still have gobs of homework that I have to finish up and get turned in, but at least I’ll have one more piece to get signed off on next weekend (hopefully it’ll get signed off on – I’m never sure until Jean actually signs the draft).

The next sweater is coming along, but needs to have the top half and the sleeves redrafted, I think. I’m not 100% happy with the design now that I’ve got half the back knit, so I’m going to do some redrafting and see if I can’t tweak it just a little bit and bring it around. We’ll see. And yes, that one is firmly back into my standard color range of blue-to-green.

This one was fun to draft and to knit, although I’m still not 100% happy with the center front at the hem. There are a LOT of short rows in this one, but I think it could have used a slightly different approach to even out the bottom of the leaf pattern at the center front hem. I didn’t use any pattern compensating short rows on the sleeves, because I wanted the scalloped hem the bottom of the pattern would give, but mostly balanced it out on the front and back of the body with a few small short rows, and then a couple of larger ones to bring the whole center area down a hair. Add in bust darts to keep the front level, and all of the short rows in the collar, and I’ll be happy to not knit another short row for a good long while.

RSS feed borkage: update

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It looks like a server move at my host did something wonky to my RSS feed. The 12 posts showing that are definitely not mine aren’t actually spam (I don’t think) – they’re posts from another blog hosted on the same server as mine. My web host is trying to untangle things. Hopefully everything will be back to normal shortly.

One warp, two very different scarves

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These are old – made just after Thanksgiving year before last, but I never got around to blogging them.

The warp for both of these is magenta 10/2 tencel set in some sort of not-quite-plain twill. The weft for the zig-zag one is 10/2 tencel in dark grey, the other is rayon chenille and woven in plain weave. The zig-zag one I just went in one direction until I got bored, then switched, so the zigs and zags are totally random. I loved them both, and they were really hard to give away for xmas that year.
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Lara's christmas scarf Tencel and chenille scarf

The loom is disassembled at the moment, and probably going to be sold, since it won’t fit in the new studio (I don’t think). Once we finish the studio out at the end of the month, I’ll be able to tell if it will be possible to put it out there with everything else, or if I’ll need to downsize to a smaller loom. I miss it, and am really, REALLY looking forward to having the studio finished and being able to work out there. Soon. Soooooon.

Maybe after the drywall this weekend I’ll also get around to making some new headers for this blog to match the ones over on www.crankychild.com (where all the non-crafty content is happening). So much to do, so little time.

This not just finished

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This one has been done for several months, I just didn’t have pictures of it until yesterday, when its new owner brought it in for me to photograph.

This one is the Nihon Vogue year 2 Aran, which I drafted and started, and then got really, really, really sick and lost a whole bunch of weight, so by the time the knitting was done, the sweater was WAAAAAY too big for me. It’s a bit too big on the person modeling it, too, but she really wanted to try it on, and happened to stand still long enough for me to take a couple of pictures.

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The yarn is Briggs & Little, in a color I don’t think they make anymore, and the buttons are vintage shell that I picked up at Button Button in Vancouver (I think).

There. One more done. 7 to go? 6? Something.

Not Knitting

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As in “the picture below isn’t”, not “I’m not doing any”. Just so we’re clear.

Three quilt tops done in recent months (and by recent, I totally mean something along the lines of the last 12 months. or so.). Two will be hand quilted, one will be machine quilted. I don’t actually have pictures of the other two, just this one. Pretty sure the pictures of the other two were on the SD card that died on me last month, but one of the hand-quilt ones is on the quilt frame, ready to go as soon as the studio is done and I can actually put the frame back together.

I had to lay it out on the kitchen floor for block placement, since that was the only place big enough to lay the whole thing out
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After rearranging it a couple of times, it was all seamed and loaded onto the quilt frame. Yes, I forgot to mark it first. Go me.

Once the last of the drywall is up (6 more pieces to cut and hang) and taped (just those pieces left to tape) and mudded and sanded and painted, then we can put down the floor and have the electricians come back to do the finishing on the wiring and hang the fixtures, I can move all my crap out there and actually get the quilt quilted.

Can. Not. Wait.

Cleanup on aisle 6

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A lot of cruft has been removed, and everything not craft-related has been scrubbed. Now that this isn’t a place I’d rather avoid, I’m going to try to revive the blog and start posting again, since there’s been a godawful lot of crafting going on around here. Also? Only two more Nihon Vogue class weekends. So close to being done, and yet so very VERY far away still. Eek.

Skwerl. Was gift.

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skwerl sweater

Yes, I need to get a better picture of it.  I didn’t have time, though between finishing it and sending it off with the folks who were moving across the country.  Vintage 60′s (50′s?) Patons pattern, Cascade 220 superwash, vintage buttons.

Cats in socks

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There was an awesome trip to Canada, written up over on crankychild.com.

On top of the excellent trip to the beach, there was some actual finished knitting. No, really. Duck from Knitty, done up in some Socks That Rock in an orange colorway the label for which I lost ages ago. Not Sun Drops, though, that much i know for sure.

duck booties

duck booties

We tried to get the cat to sit still and have his picture taken with them on. This is about as still as Looshkin gets when being held, though:

Looshkin has no appreciation for knitting

Looshkin has no appreciation for knitting

Gir, though, was much more cooperative, though he had to be held, since the booties are slippery and his feet wouldn’t stay under him.

Gir, as duck

Gir rockin' the duck socks

Another one finished. Finally.

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The narrow yoke cardigan is finally done.  Once again, this was totally one of those “it seemed like a good idea at the time” projects.  Those super dark grey stitches?  They are TINY.  It needs buttons still (the ones that I originally got for it are too big), but other than that I am quite happy with how it turned out.

nv_narrowyoke_yoke

When I started this project, I asked O to pick out the colors she wanted in it, and about stroked out when she added that BRIGHT red into the mix.  She insisted that it would be great, and since I (mostly) trust her color judgment, so I went with it.  She was right.  The one line of red in the yoke really does work.  Since I had a full skein of it left, I decided to do the inside of the cuffs and hem in red, and I couldn’t be happier at how that came out (well, ok, I could – it could be flatter, but it’s a turned hem, so it’s never going to be and that’s just fine).

nv_narrowyoke_hem

In other exciting knitting news, the evil top down raglan is also done.  And blocked.  And I don’t hate it any less.

Nihon Vogue progress update #2! ZOMG.

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Moving right along to year 2. Chop chop!

On the agenda for this year:
puffy sleeves (ick)
dolman sleeve (ick)
matched pattern raglan (ick)
Aran
Gansey
crochet collar (seriously?!, yes, apparently so)
Fair Isle yoke
decreasing cable skirt/cape (no, really)

Puffy sleeve evilness is 95% done. I have 1.25 button bands left to go. Yes, I hate it. Kind of a lot. I was not meant to wear the poofy sleeve, no.

Dolman. A word that strikes terror in the heart of anyone with sense or boobs. This was probably the one project of them all for this year that I dreaded the very most. There have been previous posts on how I thought what I’d come up with to make it less awful was a good idea. It was, really, aside from the ELEVEN HOURS OF GRAFTING. But see? Worth it. (and my that needs blocking again)
dolman_front

dolman_back_detail

 

The matched pattern raglan was another one I figured I’d never wear, but that turned out to fit reasonably well, and is (holy crap) warm and soft and has buttons that I absolutely ADORE.
matched_raglan_front

 

The seams? They are all very matchy. So very matchy.
matched_raglan_front_detail

The Aran and the Gansey are languishing at the moment. The Gansey is swatched and drafted and ready to go, the Aran… let’s not talk about the Aran.

The crocheted collar is… DONE. I kid you not. Me. I crocheted. (and yes, I still refer to it as “crotch-etted”. It amuses me. Get over it)
crochet_collar_front

crochet_collar_back

The Fair Isle yoke sweater we had the option of doing two ways – one as a narrow yoke with set-in sleeves, or a more Lopi style with a wider yoke and raglan style sleeves. I opted for the narrow yoke with set in sleeves, and am sooooo close to being done with solid-colored body bit. I should be able to start picking up the many hundreds of yoke stitches tonight or tomorrow. Excitement! But no pictures yet.
The last in the list there, which still pains me to read, is the decreasing cable skirt or cape. I have decided (and Jean is going to let me get away with, primarily because a)Lara did it and b)it means WAY more work for me) to do this as the wide-yoke sweater instead of a cape or skirt, neither of which I would EVER use (ICKAY!). I have a cunning plan, but no picture or swatch or yarn for yet.

So. There you have it. Progress. With proof. Go me.