I'm Just Sayin...

Look! It's a poorly lit picture of Annabelle modeling the kitty hat taken in the tan van. I have given up. My woe is pure, Julia....my woe is pure.

What Have I Been Doing?

Well, Friday I was sick with a migraine most of the day, so not a whole heck of a lot. I did manage to finish the Experimental Single Sock Of Doom. I feel like I completely understand sock construction now so next time I'll make two. I'll also do more than an inch of ribbing at the top because this is one droopy sock. haha.

I still don't have a photo of the Kittyville hat because SOMEONE (Julia) didn't take one for me yet like she promised she would. I am now working on item #3 from the list of things which must me finished. In case you forgot that's Julia's big black poncho. Unfortunately it is really boring to look at right now so you don't get a pic of that.

Spinning
Early on Saturday I plied my second skein of yarn. It is white and a little more poofy than I'd like it to be, but oh well...still learning and all that stuff.

Sunday I played around with the Kool-Aid dyeing some roving. It went pretty well. FYI those 13 cup giant disposable food container deals work GREAT for this. I just put the roving in a big pot with some lukewarm water and a little soap till it was totally soaked. While it was soaking I mixed up the koolaid colors. (one envelope of mix per ounce of wool in a disposable plastic cup of lukewarm water) Then, I put the wool in the plastic containers, poured the color over the wool, and stuck the lids on with three sides pressed down and one left up for venting. One container at a time I zapped it in the microwave for two minutes, let it rest one minute, then zapped two more minutes and took it out.
So here it is cooling on the stovetop after the zapping:

Once it was cool to room temperature, I blotted it as dry as possible by rolling it up in towels then hung it to dry in my bathroom. This morning it looked like this:

All together there is about 5 ounces. I plan to spin it together and ply it with another single of the natural color Jacob wool like the skein in the middle there.
So yeah..that is all the news today.

That Really Rips My Knittin!

This is a pretty lame excuse for a post, but I just had to share this funny thing with someone so here ya go.
I was watching The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson and he was talking about something pissing him off. He exclaimed, "That really rips my knittin!" then said, "Cause you know like if I was knittin, and somebody came up and ripped it off the needles I'd be pretty mad!"
So yeah, I'm officially adopting that as my new pissed off euphemism of choice.

Actual knitting content will be here tomorrow.

Thanks Secret Pal!!

I got my first package from my Secret Pal last night. I meant to take a picture of it, but I got all excited and started opening stuff up right away before I even left the post office. :)
My pal sent me 3 skeins of Kureyon in a pretty brown/earthtones color 149 for a multidirectional diagonal scarf, a cute little "counting sheep" package of bath goodies from Lush with sheep on the wrapping paper, and a great Halloween Salem, MA postcard which is now on my fridge. I used one of the yummy smelling bath melt things last night. The Kureyon is happily sitting on the stash shelf, and I'm really glad I got a great pal! So, THANKS PAL! yay!

EEK! WARNING! Fizz is way flammable

This is a public service announcement.

If you have anything made out of Sirdar Fizz keep it way away from open flames. That stuff catches fire easily and may possibly be recalled from stores soon.
Read all about it here.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog reading.

Last night I went to Hobby Lobby intending to get dowels to make 3 cd drop spindles with which to teach people at SNB how to spin this week. I ended up with materials for 6 wooden spindles instead. They had packages of 6 pre-cut 12 inch dowels for $1.49 and the wooden 2.75in wheels to fit on the dowels for $.99 each. A package of 6 little metal cup hooks was $.99, so for about $1.50 each once they are all polished up I have 6 really nice wooden drop spindles. They work great too. I already tried one out.
Did you people know that Hobby Lobby now has 100% merino wool yarn at $5.79 for a little over 200 yards? I thought I was hallucinating. They didn't have many colors just natural cream, black, brown, and a country blue, but it was up there on the tippy top shelf. I got 4 skeins of the natural color to play around dying.
I haven't been knitting much on anything this week, and I feel really really guilty about it ok? The experimental sock is now almost to the toe decrease part thanks to the two hours I spent at Ian's school band concert sitting on hard bleacher seats. I tried it on the other night, and the gusset part is kind of poofy so either I did something tragicly wrong or it is just stretched out from me mauling it for weeks. Hopefully it'll stop looking poofy when I wash it.
I tried to work on the kittyville hat last night, but I'm on the i-cord for the first earflap, and i-cord is really boring so I fell asleep instead. I just can't get motivated to do the ears and flaps and stuff. I will try to finish it by the weekend though because I'm going to see Julia (the hat's intended recipient) probably on Saturday.

I need a plan for finishing these things so here it is in order of finishing. I plan to just work on each thing in turn till it's done. Do we think I can do that?
#1 Kittyville hat
#2 The sock of doom
#3 Julia's Poncho
#4 Cheap-Fab
#5 Klaralund
#6 The Irish Hiking Scarf
#7 The seed stitch Noro Scarf
#8 That k1c2 shawl the cats almost killed
#9 I will start the Dr. Who scarf again and finish that thing this time.

Then and only then will I be free to start a new knitting thing.
I can spin anytime I want. So there.
I figure this will all take a while since I have gardening and yard things which will soon be taking up my weekends & after work till dark time. The smooshy Rowan Polar scarf and the Little Lola scarf are both getting frogged. It's just not working out...I'm not feelin the love, and I want to use the little lola yarn for socks. Um...socks that I won't knit till all that other junk is done...yeah.

Oh My GOD...You Have GOT To See This

Go ahead. Click on the title and read the article. I'll wait.

Isn't that just the coolest/freakiest/most offputting, and yet at the same time awesome thing you've ever seen that relates to knitting? These people knitted A WHOLE ROOM. I especially like the cakes and doughnuts and the bread fascinates me.
Thanks to the person from Livejournal who sent me this link. FABULOUS!

Pictures & Spinning Goodness

My new chunky scarf:

Brown Sheep Lambs Pride Worsted + Lion Brand Landscapes = smooshy goodness!
Here is a close-up:

Isn't that just the deal?
Meanwhile, the sock is going right along. Ignore that weird twisted stitch cuff there. This is an experimental sock. That part of the experiment is stupid looking.


Spinning

Ok, so yesterday was the spinning workshop thing. I was SO FUN, and I learned a lot too. I was the only student who showed up so we just went over all the stuff I wanted to know.
I got to use some hand carders and watch Jan put stuff through the drum carder. I can see why people would pay $300 for one of those things. The hand carders are a real arm workout.
I also got to learn to use a drop spindle. I had never used one before, and I've been meaning to learn for a while now. It's slower than the wheel, but I did have better control with that. Jan gave me a free cd drop spindle as part of the class, so now I can spin wherever I go.
I spun on the wheel for a while, and she helped me fix some of the frustrating little lumps I was getting. I think half my problem was trying to use the combed top right from the start. That stuff is more slippery than the carded fleece I was using in class. So, I bought 8 ounces of carded Jacob fleece to practice up with at the house. They sell it for just 60 cents an ounce so I couldn't resist that. By the time I get through it I should be ready to handle that combed top.
After I had enough singles on the bobbin, Jan showed me how to ply it to itself using the ball winder. Then we wound it on the niddy noddy, set the twist, and I had my first little skein of yarn! It's a little lumpy, and not enough to make anything at all, but I'm insanely proud of it. That is a pic of it up there.
I'm thinking about dying it with a pack of kool-aid and putting it in a little display thing with my first swatch of knitting. I'm so hokey.
I also learned about angle of twist and wraps per inch and all that techinacal stuff that you need to know to be able to duplicate your yarn. I was really excited to find out that once you've been through one of her classes, Jan lets you come back any time and take the class again for free so if I have any friends who want to take the class next time she offers it I get to go along for the ride.
Besides the fiber, I also bought an unfinished Ashford niddy noddy (for just $13.50!) and a 4oz skein of merino sock yarn that looks like undyed Koigu KPM even though it isn't.
They have a great selection of yarn and needles now. You local people really need to go check it out. The yarns they have are mostly solid color wool and wool/cotton blends. There was also a wool/flax blend yarn. I forget the brand names, but they were all at very reasonable prices. Their website isn't finished yet, but contact info and stuff can be found here.

EEEK!

Who has been reading this blog from Atlantis Plastics? I was looking at the stats this morning and saw hits from that domain. Man, I hope it's not my sister Donna because I talked about the throw I was trying to make for her birthday that I totally didn't finish in time and that she isn't supposed to even know exists. So whoever you are out there if you aren't her then don't tell her or show her anything on this site. OK? Crap.

Ahhh Much Better!

I feel way better today. Somehow I managed to not only finish the main hat portion, but actually pick up stitches and knit an earflap onto the Kittiville Hat while in my medicated haze yesterday afternoon. I didn't touch the sock for fear of screwing something up on it. I've just picked up the stitches on the sides of the heel and started the gusset decrease part...it's all gravy now right?
In between messing with this stuff over the weekend I also knit a big fat scarf out of Lion Brand Landscapes in the dark blueish color and Lambs Pride Worsted in something called peacock if I'm remembering correctly. I held them together, and it came out awesome. I'm planning on adding fringe tonight at SNB, and then you'll get a photo. It's nothing special, but I like it. I might do another with the same landscapes yarn held with something dark brown to see how that ends up looking.
Why am I not working on Klaralund you ask? I don't know...it's boring maybe? I WOULD like to wear it, but at this point I'm kind of sticking it in the WIP closet and hoping the knitting gnomes will take care of it for me.
Oh, speaking of the closet...one day last week I came home to see a trail of sagey green K1C2 Meringue from the closet, across the living room, and into the hall where I found the sad remnant of what once was a neatly wound center pull ball of the stuff that had been attached to that shawl I was knitting back in the summer. I was horrified, but luckily the shawl itself is still safe in it's ziplock baggie in the closet. Somehow the cat or cats (I suspect Bungee as he has been guilty of this type crime in the past.) had broken into the WIP closet, carefully climbed up on the mountain of suitcases I store in there, reached down into the knitting bag and extracted ONLY the ball of Meringue. Seriously..nothing else was disturbed at all.
I just gathered the tangled mess up and stuffed it back in the bag. I didn't have the stomach to untangle it just yet. Maybe the gnomes can take care of that while they're finishing up the Klaralund for me? More likely I'll just have to do it when the weather heats up and I feel like working on that shawl some more.
What will I do if they figure out how to break into the stash room? eek!