The Heathen Housewife

Spiral Sweater KAL Assignment One

2009-06-29T21:33:00.002-05:00

Hi, everyone!

There's been enough interest in a knit-along for the spiral sweater that I'm going to go ahead and try to get this thing off the ground. The first thing you'll have to do if you want to knit a sweater is pick out the yarn. If you spin, you can spin your own crazy color scheme the way I did, or you can search your stash, or you can buy something fresh and new.

I'm going to use some stash yarn this time around - I bought a big pile of Kauni during the crazy rush after the two-color cardigan ran around the blogs. I actually bought enough for two different sweaters, and I'm going to keep the rainbow one in stash.

I think this sweater could be very nice in a solid color yarn, but I do think the long-changing colors make a bigger impact. I know I have more than enough here for a single-layer sweater. After all, when I bought the yarn, I was planning a stranded two-color knit. I've got four 140-gram skeins, adding up to about 2240 meters. I'll have plenty for the sweater, plus some swatches, and even probably enough to start the sleeves at the same point in the colorway.

Now, how much will *you* need? Oh, the variables. There are some great charts out there giving yardage estimates. This one has some pretty good numbers on it. It depends on what weight yarn you choose, and it depends on what size sweater you want, and it depends on how much swatching you'll want to do. I'll tell you this - we probably won't need much swatching yarn, as the very beginning of the sweater counts as a swatch, and we'll be using it that way. Lace patterns stretch the yarn out a bit - you'll need slightly less for each hole left open. It's a v-neck, which cuts a little triangle of fabric out of the total yarn necessary as well.

I like to buy a little more than I think I'll need just for peace of mind. Most local yarn shops are pretty good about taking unused skeins back in good condition and with a receipt within a reasonable amount of time. We can discuss this further if you're in doubt of have questions. More about that in a minute.

Now on to which yarn you might want to dig out of your stash or buy... Noro Kureyon and Silk Garden are somewhat obvious choices. A few others come to my mind. Berroco Jasper is lovely, soft merino and beautiful colors, but the price is a bit dear. Nashua's Wooly Stripes is also very soft merino, with slightly longer stripes than Jasper. Crystal Palace Yarns just came out with Mochi Plus, which just came into the Yarnery. Those three are all fairly similar.

There are a bunch of other lovely variegated yarns out there. A worsted-weight will knit up fairly quickly. If you've always wanted to buy an entire bag of a stripey sock yarn, now would be your chance for that too. I can't wait to hear what you all choose!

Now, on to the organizational part for a moment. I think we need a group and forum on Ravelry for this discussion. I'm going to continue posting assignments on the blog here, but I think it would be easier for people to keep track of ongoing discussions over on Ravelry, not to mention posting links to pictures and yarns. I'll go and set the group up - my first time doing that! But I do need some help with the Ravelry user names to include in the invites. Would you please either e-mail me shellyk@shellykang.com or post a comment with your user name, and I'll send you an invite if you want one?

Oh, and I want to respond to a couple of comments on the sweater. First, thanks again for the amazingly positive response! Second, I love all the ideas of how you might tweak the concept in your own knit. That's definitely encouraged.

One commenter asked if this could be converted to a cardigan. Well, I have to say that it's probably possible in some way, but I don't think I'd recommend it. At least not in its current form. It really is meant to be knit kind of in the round, and splitting it down the front would sort of ruin the lines. I'm a huge fan of cardigans myself, and tend to knit them before pullovers. This design just wouldn't get out of my head, though, so I stuck with it. I think if I were going to knit something like this as a cardigan, I would skip the spiral bit and just knit the main body in one piece side-to-side, all the panels at once. you could then pick up stitches and knit the yoke just like I did and get a similar effect. If you want to do that and join the knit-along, fine by me! We can talk about it more, and I can draw a little schematic.

Another commenter said that she wished I'd kept the spiral theme going in the arms instead of just running the design up the sleeves. I considered that option, and I wouldn't discourage anyone from trying it if they wanted to. I chose to do the sleeves the standard way for a couple of reasons.

I wasn't sure how the spiraling seams would bend and flex in a sleeve situation, and I didn't want to have an uncomfortable line of solid fabric where the elbow stretches. Having knit one up, I'm not sure that'd be such a huge problem, but the added bulk at the underarm might be.

Also, I think that the spiral around the arms might have kind of fought with the spiral around the body. There is a lot going on in this here sweater, and keeping the sleeves a little more simple seemed right to me.

Oh, and I really wanted to run that line of patterning right up over the shoulder to the neckline, and it wouldn't have worked out that way with a spiral up the sleeve.

Plus, honestly, after knitting that spiral body, I was ready to knit around and around without turning to purl for a while on the sleeves. It made them less mindful and a little more portable.

Finally, I think there probably is a fancier/different/perhaps better way to do the yoke. I had a slightly different idea in mind at the beginning, but it was half-assed and I still haven't figured out a way to implement it without going insane, despite an ongoing conversation with one of the master knitters at the store where I work, and constant back-of-my-mind pondering. I would love to hear your ideas on that one too!

I'm sitting on my couch surrounded by stitch pattern books once more, and I hope to have the original stitch pattern charted out for you and a couple more recommended options to choose from by early next week. You should feel free to flip through your own pattern books and think about patterns that appeal to you.

Silly Sunday Parade

2009-06-28T15:14:00.000-05:00

This was the scene in the back yard as I was leaving to shop for
groceries just moments ago. My girls are nothing if not creative in
re-purposing their toys.

Hopefully, I'll have a post up tonight ramping up the sweater-along.

Good News Bad News

2009-06-25T13:01:00.000-05:00

Good News: I still love my bike. I took the girls for a ride to the park
and back this morning. One of them whined almost constantly that she was
hot and uncomfortable, but I still manage to enjoy myself (despite my
own purple, sweaty face) in the knowledge that I was getting a little
exercise and doing a teeny tiny bit for the environment by skipping a
car ride.

Bad News: Both of the giant elm trees in our backyard are marked for
destruction. We knew this was coming, but the reality is sinking in, and
they'll be gone by the end of summer. No more backyard shade for us.
We're doing our best to enjoy them while we can, even though they're
dropping leaves like it's October.

Hot off the Needles

2009-06-23T22:24:00.002-05:00

I finished the spiral sweater this afternoon, and the moment the last stitch was cast off, I glanced out the window and saw that my friendly knitting neighbor was outside with her son. So of course I tossed it on (despite the mid-80's hot, humid, sticky weather) and ran outside with my girls and the camera.

These photos are obviously not "styled", and in fact I still haven't woven in the last couple of ends or even taken the last stitch marker off the hem.

Also, the sweater needs a good blocking, which will smooth out the decrease lines on the shoulders and make the whole thing look a lot more put-together.

But - I am quite happy with the results of this little experiment. I think another spiral sweater may be in my relatively near future. I want to refine the shaping a bit, experiment with a different stitch pattern. I also want to think about how to explain this process a bit better. I do want to write this one up, but not in the normal expected way. This is more of a recipe than a pattern, and it is not the kind of recipe with exact measurements, but the kind of recipe where you add ingredients till it looks, feels, or tastes right. This is the kind of pattern that can be adapted to any shape or size of person, any weight of yarn the knitter desires with relative ease. I don't want to limit it to a specific set of exact directions.

I want to write it up in a way that even knitters who are afraid of math, have little to no confidence in their own imagination or ability to improvise, can succeed at it. This is truly an advanced-beginner project for anyone who is willing to simply follow the directions. Even the lace - it is a simple, single repeat knit with only 20-some stitches per row, which makes fixing mistakes easy as pie.

I've proven the concept. Next time around, I want some company to knit along with me. I'll use a fine-gauge yarn and knit it in my own size. You'll have plenty of time to keep up, and we'll do the math together. C'mon! You know you want to!

Darn Sweater!

2009-06-21T21:22:00.001-05:00

I've been spending most of my free time since my last post working on my spiral sweater project. Well, actually, most of my fiber-related free time.

Last weekend Joe and I spent a couple of hours cleaning all of our windows, and it crossed my mind a few times that I was risking my lazy-housekeeping credentials. Honestly, though, I actually enjoyed the chore. I got to spend a couple of hours hanging out with my husband doing something together, with immediately gratifying results. The girls followed us around for most of that time, watching the goings-on and playing wherever we were. Luckily, our house came with awesome windows that fold down to the inside for cleaning, so we were able to do the entire project, with the exception of the bay window, from the inside. We dirtied almost every single one of our now-raggedy cloth diapers on the project, and they worked quite well. I felt so *green* getting the extra use out of them (and then washing them and drying them on the line outside.

A few other little projects have also gotten in the way. Last night, I spent the evening filling an electronic photo frame with choice family photos as Joe's Father's Day gift. I think it was a successful one, and I topped it off this morning with a breakfast specially catered to my man, including bacon (which is one of his favorite foods but which we almost never have), biscuits, and country gravy (which I despise but which he seems to enjoy), among other things.

Still, I have spent many hours on this sweater, enough so that it should be well done and blocked by now, but that is not the case. I'm a little frustrated, but I'm taking it in stride as one must do when designing a sweater on the needles. Let's back up a bit and start where we left off.

Last I mentioned, I was halfway through knitting the second sleeve. It didn't take long to finish the one and while I was finishing it, block the first to double-check gauge and fit. So then I had three parts that lined up like this:

It was time to join them all together. I started by picking up and knitting stitches all around the top of the main body. I started by picking up one stitch in every chain link of the slip-stitch selvedge...

And then I went back around, knitting that first row of stitches and also knitting an extra stitch into every-other purl-looking bump left at the back of the fabric by the first round of picked up stitches.

I know, clear as mud. I am not in any way claiming that this was the *best* way of going about things, but I started the process late and night, and it did work out okay. I ended up with the right ratio of stitches to rows, or close enough to it.

The next day, I found myself in a lawn chair in the back yard, watching the girls play. Which gave me a chance to do a little math and preparation for getting down to business. Here's what I had with me:

The pink book is Elizabeth Zimmerman's posthumous The Opinionated Knitter, which contains some great instructions on saddle-shoulder sweater shaping, which wasn't exactly my original half-assed plan, but which I thought would suit my purpose well enough. Except that I didn't exactly follow her directions because I had my own special reasons. Still, the base steps before joining it all together are about the same regardless of the shaping to follow.

First you need to put some of the stitches from the body and some of the stitches from the sleeves on hold to serve as the underarms. Elizabeth says 8-10%, and I agree. I multiplied out 8% and rounded up, which gave me 16 stitches to place on hold in each spot. I have never in my life owned any of those giant-safety-pin stitch holders, and have no desire to get them now. I like using waste yarn to hold my stitches because it is lighter and more flexible, which means that it stays out of my way and also doesn't stretch out my stitches unnecessarily.

Lately, I've been using bits off this skein of crochet cotton and loving it. It was dirt cheap from Michael's, it's white and non-shedding, so it's not going to leave funny colors on my project, it's smooth and strong so it's not going to break while holding my stitches, and it will come out easily when I want them back on the needles. What's not to love?

I took the following picture to remind myself to point out that it's a very good idea to leave rather long tails of yarn on the sleeves, and to end the knitting at one of the points where the underarm stitches start. I use this end to graft the underarms together once everything is joined. In the mean time, I wind the end into a little mini-skein blob to help it stay out of the way while it's waiting.

Since I had my darning needle out, I went ahead and wove in the ends on the sleeve cuffs. See the pretty moss stitch there? Much nicer than those nasty i-cords I tried on the sweater bottom before. Once the top business is all finished off, I'll go back and add some pretty moss stitch to the bottom of the sweater and (hopefully) all will be well with the world.

So here we are wtih the underarm stitches all on hold...

And the body of the sweater is all ready to go, with Elizabeth keeping an eye on me in the background...

I have no idea what I was trying to show with this picture...maybe that the center front is right where the spiral join left off? No clue.

True to form, I had several late-night trying-on sessions. At this point I was thinking "Okay, it's going to work out fine. I know I'm not following EZ's directions, but knitting is flexible. It'll fit!"

Well, you can tell from the way I've been talking that the top did not end up working out the way I'd hoped, but at least you can see from the picture that the sweater is going to look pretty cool once I do iron out the issues.

Daisy says "This looks like a great place for a cat butt."

And this is the sweater, almost done, right before I ripped the top back to the sleeves. The collar turned out way too wide, and the whole top was way too big, which in turn made the sleeves too long. Blech.

That was days ago. It's been ripped, and I'm well into try number two. We're going with a raglan shaping this time.

Meanwhile, I joined my first spin-in yesterday. The group of ladies that meets at the Black Bear pavillion by Como Lake in St. Paul were nice and welcoming. I was a little flustered and very late when I got there because traffic had been a nightmare. 94 was down to one lane because of construction and then there was some crazy auto show at the State Fairgrounds, backing traffic up worse than the actual State Fair does.

Still, it was a nice day, there were lots of pretty wheels and fiber to see, and the ladies made me feel at home. Thanks!

Spun: A Pound of Alpaca Lace!

2009-06-10T23:02:00.000-05:00

Anyone remember this giant bag of alpaca roving I bought at Shepherd's Harvest last month? It's so funny saying that. I was catching up with a spinning acquaintance yesterday, and I mentioned that I'd finished spinning a pound of alpaca from Shepherd's Harvest, and she just about spit out the drink she was sipping. She definitely did a double-take, and that made me realize that it really is a bit crazy having spun up this crazy pile in less than a month.

And then I mentioned that I spun it into two-ply laceweight, and my friend was really impressed. Really impressed with how incredibly obsessive-compulsive I must be to spin that much in one month.

A total of 1958 yards of two-ply laceweight alpaca yarn.

It is so soft, so fuzzy, so naturally lovely, lovely, lovely.

The really cool thing about this project was that I learned something new, something that I'd been really curious about since I started spinning, something that intimidated the hell out of me and seemed almost impossible that I'd actually learn to do myself. And it happened kind of by accident.

For the first half-bobbin's worth of singles, I sat there struggling with my normal worsted inch-worm approach to drafting out the roving. And then, magically, I don't know how, I sort of accidentally started spinning woolen. The twist ran into the fluff, and continued to stretch. I was getting great consistently thin yar

This sweetness is about 19 or 20 wpi, and I spun it mostly on my Rose. I did about half a bobbins' worth on the Earl, but Rose just works better for skinny, skinny yarns with the higher ratios.

I've been wanting to knit something out of Knitted Lace of Estonia since it came out. Maybe this will finally be the yarn for the project.

Meanwhile, back in real life...the girls and I were headed out to run an errand this afternoon, and Sophie stopped to glance at the cocoon that's been sitting in our garage since last September when the giant caterpillar we brought home from the State Fair wrapped itself up and went nappy-nappy for the winter. Hello, giant moth!

We've been waiting for so long, glancing at the container just about every day and wondering if and when it would come out, and what it would be like when it did.

And then there it was, all of a sudden. Look at those crazy-fuzzy antenna! It was still flapping its wings to dry them fully, and I was hoping it would sit on the girls' hands for a few moments before it flew away...

They were pretty excited about it, but the experience was over pretty quickly.

We stood and watched it for a few minutes, and I was just about to suggest that we leave it be and continue on our way to buy shoes (and oh, my gosh, didn't we just buy new sneakers and now they've grown again?!?) when the moth fluttered its wings and flew off out of sight.

I blocked the first sleeve and finished knitting the second on that sweater, so now I have to face the reality of knitting up my half-assed idea of how the top is going to work. More on that next time.

Shelly's Spiral Sweater

2009-06-08T23:15:00.000-05:00

As promised, here comes the dish on my new sweater project. New in the sense that I haven't told you all much about it yet, not exactly new in that I've been working on it for a few weeks now and have already finished the main part of the body and one and a half sleeves. To be honest, I've been dithering about whether to put this sweater up on the blog at all, and if so, how to do it.

I really want to do a tutorial on this sweater, as I think it's going to be a pretty awesome design, something that I think is a fairly new concept of my own (although with a little subconscious influence from Nora Gaughn - here's a Ravelry link to the pattern in question - not even a sweater but a poncho, and I'm making a bit of a leap here.) And the thing about this design is that it can easily be modified to any size and any weight of yarn, and changed by switching out lace or other texture motifs as you'll see in a moment.

The only reason why I hesitate to to this is because of a tiny bit of negative experience with the Blankie. I wrote a post about it a while back when a woman started claiming that the blankie was her creation and teaching classes on it without crediting me for the design. Turns out, the same woman did it with the February Lady sweater, as have many other shops. It really does make me sick to think about people capitalizing on my idea, which I gave away freely as a way to say thank you to my readers who sent me their yarn.

Well, I've decided that the knitting terrorists have won if I let that hold me back from sharing this idea with all of you, and maybe just maybe someone else will decide that it's a fun idea and knit it along with me. The prototype sweater isn't finished yet, so you might want to wait and see the final result before casting on, but I want to go ahead and start the tutorial process while it's all fresh in my mind.

The idea for this sweater came along as I was finishing the spinning for this yarn:

which I documented in full detail here. I sat there thinking that this yarn was going to make some lovely, slowly-shifting stripes somewhat similar to Noro type yarns, only with the added interest of barber-poling effect of three plies. I love those slowly striping yarns, and have brainstormed many times about how to use them to their best effect. I think my brain was in that special creative place (theta?) that activities like spinning and knitting help us find, which led me down a train of thought that included the fact that narrower strips do a better job of showing off the stripes, that I sure would like to do something more than plain stockinette, and hadn't I seen something knit semi-modularly with kind of a spiral shape somewhere in the past?

At some point not too long after that brainstorming-while-spinning session, I sketched out a little picture that looks almost just like the one below on the upper left. This isn't the same one, because it was before I'd decided on a stitch pattern, and the original sketch was a little sloppier and on a post-it note which is now long gone after having been scribbled on by one of my kids.

Between that original sketch and the notes you see above, several things took place. First, I dug out a huge stack of stitch dictionaries and spent a couple of evenings paging through them and marking every single pattern that caught my eye as a potential match for the picture in my mind. I wanted something kind of leafy, or maybe reminicent of something floral. But I had a couple other criteria in mind at that point too. I wanted something on a stockinette background, and without too much ribbing-type texture. It needed to make a nice not-too-wide panel, and I wanted it to be something fairly easy to remember. After my first pass, I had about twenty pages marked, but my second pass narrowed it down to a single favorite pretty quickly. I'd really like to try this concept with a cabled design next time, though.

And then I wound off some yarn and knit up a quick swatch, which as it turned out was also the beginning of the sweater. This, to me, is a huge advantage to this design. I love it that you can jump in and start knitting, knowing that if you like the way your blocked swatch looks, then it will very likely make a great start to your project. Same as the blankie. Shown here is my swatch after it had a bath and a very gentle blocking.

I measured that sucker up and down and sideways, getting both stitches and rows per inch as well as repeats of the lace pattern per inch and a good idea of the strip width total. One lesson that I've learned in my knitting years is to take good notes. I'm still learning it, actually. Always write down more than you think you'll need to know later, even if you think you'll remember it. I always forget little details about what I did unless I write them down, and every time I race along without stopping to document them, they come back to bite me.

Next, I pulled out a sweater that fits me well, that is shaped generally the same way that this sweater will be, and knit in a similar weight of yarn. In this case, I used my Ingenue sweater, which is a tiny bit longer than I'm planning to knit and has some waist shaping in it. I knew I was safe using the bust measurements, though, because this new sweater isn't going to be long enough to need more width for the hips.

I layed the model sweater out and measured chest diameter, length to underarm, length of arms, and diameter of arms both at wrist and at underarm. I noted all these measurements on the sketch pictured above - not all the measurements are listed in the version shown, but that's because when I took the picture I was still focused on starting the sweater body. My little brain prefers math in small chunks!

In the mean time, I knit my strip longer and longer. I'd started with just a couple of stitches, then increased by making one after slipping the first stich on every right side row until I had enough stitches to start my lace pattern at the center of my swatch. I continued increasing until I had a nice little margin of stockinette stitches on either side of the lace pane. In retrospect, I think I would omit a few columns of knit stitches next time to make the stripes a little longer and to increase the lace in the overall effect, and also it would have added room for an additional spiral on the body. You'll see what I'm talking about in a minute. Also, I think I would change the initial increases to every other right-side row, to create a more gradual slope. Still, this concept is fairly forgiving, and I like it enough that I'll be taking a second try once this sweater is done.

Alright, once the length of my strip measured the diameter I wanted for the body of my sweater (and I measured this by adding the post-blocking length of the non-patterned part to the number of pattern repeats multiplied by the repeats-per-inch I'd noted from the post-blocked swatch) I joined the thing into the round.

But not in the normal way, even though I was still careful not to twist. I joined them together by working across a right-side row, then picking up a stitch from the nice slip-stitch selvedge edge. Then, I turned my work, slipped that newly picked up stitch, worked my way across the back. I worked my way across the front again, until I reached the last two stitches - the last stitch of the strip and the newly picked-up stitch, and I worked them together by (and don't ask me why I did this or where I got the idea from - it just seemed right at the time) slipping the first stitch as if to knit and inserting my right-hand needle through the back of the newly-picked up stitch, wrapping the yarn and bringing it through both loops. It makes a surprisingly nice, flat, non-bulky join. Oh, and then before turning, I picked up another stitch in the next selvedge chain.

There were many repeats of that joining and knitting, during which lots of family life took place. The girls looked super-cute in their matchy-matchy dresses one weekend afternoon, and I got them to pose for me.

That was the same day that we brought home Joe's new-to-us car. It's a 2007 Nissan Altima, which will replace the 1993 Honda Civic that he's been driving since I got the Odyssey and we gave away his old Jetta a couple of years ago. I bought the Civic new and promised myself to drive it into the ground. 16 years is a pretty good record for car ownership, and Joe was not comfortable driving it any more, especially with the rear bumper starting to rust right off the car. Cars are a lot more important to Joe than they are to me, so I was happy that he got to pick out something nicer than my old hail damaged "Red Golfball" as he liked to call it. I just wish we could afford one of the many dream cars he lusts after. Someday, honey!

The flowers have finally been blooming. I love peonies, and our house has some of the first in the neighborhood since ours are planted along the southern exposure right next to the house where they stay warm all day. The irises were pretty too, but they bloomed for only about a week before going all wilty.

Okay, and finally, after all that knitting, I came up with something like this:

That's the sweater body after I knit it up to the underarms, added a couple of rows of applied i-cord at the bottom to prevent rolling, and then blocked it again in the hopes that the i-cord would somehow look a lot more acceptable than it did pre-blocking. Well, it didn't. It was thick and heavy compared to the body of the sweater, and as you can see, it also stretched the width out in a way that reminds me of those crazy clown clothes with hula-hoops in the waistbands.

Here's a not-very-good closeup of the i-cord before I ripped it out.

Part of the fun of designing on the fly like this is knowing that you may have to change things as you go along, and being prepared to hop in the frog pond (rip-it, rip-it!). I have a plan B which I'm confident in, but I decided to try it on the sleeve edging, using that as another gauge-swatch situation, before applying it to the bottom of the sweater.

So, life has continued. The weather here was cold and rainy all weekend, and we all took a little trip to the Science Museum in St. Paul.

Those pink halter dresses have been a big hit with the girls. Julie was looking through a giant crystal ball meant to show something about lenses and light bouncing, and Sophie crawled through a barrel meant to show the size of a plant-eating dinosaur's belly.

The knitting came along in the car while Joe drove, and as I said, I'm more than halfway across sleeve island. (Who coined that term, anyway?) I'll share that part of the design with you in the next update. In the mean time, anybody think they might be interested in trying something like this out? Any questions so far?

Next up is a wrap-up post on the yarn I just finished spinning from the alpaca roving I bought at Shepherd's Harvest. I washed it this morning, and I'll post the details as soon as it's dry and I can count the yardage and take some decent pictures.

Helmet Confessions

2009-06-04T14:51:00.000-05:00

I have never been much of a sports enthusiast. I've always been a bit
awkwardly pigeon-toed, gangly and less than fully motivated to get up
and move. As a child, I mostly preferred to spend my summers reading,
and when I did try the sportier activities, I tended to fail pretty
miserably.

Of course, I want better for my girls. I want them to enjoy exercise and
feel comfortable joining in games. But it's hard, because the best way
to encourage them is to get in there and act like it's fun. I know I
need to suggest regular bike rides and running-around games, but really
I dread them. This summer, I'll be working on my acting skills I guess.

Today I put in a good show, wrangling the girls into a ride around a
couple of our neighborhood blocks. Sophie is big enough to ride her
tricycle with help from me and the mommy-handle in back, and Julie can
ride her two-wheeler with training wheels with only a few extra pushes
from me when she gets stuck.

Still, we do reach the point when we're halfway around the block and one
of them balks, refusing even the possibility that they can go any
farther. By that point, my back is starting to hurt from leaning over
and I get to really exercise my acting chops, remaining cheery and
encouraging.

I know that the more round-the-block trips we make, the easier it will
get. In the mean time, I'm happy sitting here in my shaded lawn chair
while they amuse themselves in the yard.

There's been quite a bit of spinning and knitting going on here - I'm
almost ready to give and update, so stay tuned!

Oops, forgot the pictures!

2009-05-29T13:36:00.000-05:00

Eating Today's Second Lunch...

2009-05-29T13:26:00.001-05:00

After swim lessons, the girls and I usually treat ourselves to lunch at
Panera, which is just across the hall from Foss. I've loved Panera ever
since I lived in St. Louis, where it goes by the name of St. Louis Bread
Company.

The only thing I don't love about our local Panera is the overly
aggressive bussing staff. The hover constantly, asking again and again
if they can take your bowl/plate/mug. They also tend not to respond well
when asked to just leave us alone for the remainder of our meal - I've
had to do that multiple times, as my girls start to worry that someone
is going to take their food before they're done.

The reason Julie and Sophie worry so much about this is that the staff
here have actually taken their food away without asking on occasion.
Very frustrating, and I tend to look and feel like an ass when I
complain, because Panera is doing a socially-conscious thing in hiring
mentally-challenged folks to bus their tables.

Today when we sat down for our lunch and had barely started eating, and
Sophie announced a dire need to visit the Ladies' room (albiet not in
quite such polite terms and despite her visit not ten minutes earlier),
I knew that our meal was in danger of being gone before we came back.
Despite the urgency of Sophie's need, I sought out one of the bus staff,
told her that we were going to the ladies' and would be right back, so
please leave our food on the table for us.

And, of course, when we returned, the food was gone and the table newly
wiped down. The girls immediately started to panic, but luckily I had
already made up my mind that the counter staff was going to give us new
food in this case. So they did, and now we are just finishing up our
second lunch of the day.

A Tale of Two Scarves, Completed

2009-05-28T21:17:00.000-05:00

And nobody loses their head in this story!

But then again, the two heroes of our story aren't exactly look-alikes. I'm a bit of a fan of Charles Dickens.

A few nights ago, I enlisted some help from my two favorite models for a little scarfy photo-shoot. Before I could get them to follow my orders, I had to follow theirs. They wanted a picture of themselves with the little stuffed animals our neighbor from behind us gave them that day - this is a neighbor I don't usually refer to, because he's a quiet guy that I don't see all that much, but like most of my other neighbors, he's very nice. Oh, and Julie was also showing off the Frog visor she made at school. I think it's supposed to help scare the bugs away for the summer.

It took a bit of work to set up this first shot. It's kind of hard to direct children who don't yet clearly understand the difference between right and left. Plus, as soon as I'd get one of them in the right position, the other one would have moved. But we had a lot of fun getting there.

I love how grown up and fashionable they look

Moving on to the individual details...

This is the Raspberry Rhapsody scarf from the Knitter's Book of Yarn knit with two skeins of Artyarns Beaded Cashmere.

I can't remember what size needle I used exactly - I have the memory of a gnat. Maybe a six? Turns out it's a very nice length for a decorative scarf, and it feels very nice around the neck.

As cute as she is in it, Sophie will not be wearing it on a regular basis. I don't think I will ever spend so much again on such a small amount of yarn. It's a very nice scarf, but I am just not the kind of girl used to spending that much money on a scarf.

I really enjoyed this pattern, by the way. It was a bit technically complicated - not a very memorizable stitch pattern, so I was chained to the row-by-row instructions for the whole project. Which was okay because it was a great foil for the easier knitting with the other scarf.

And here comes Julie with scarf number two. That pose is all her own.

This is my own two-ply handspun yarn made from 8 ounces of Mountain Colors Targhee roving. I knit it up in Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's One-Row Handspun scarf, which is really a single-row pattern that is so easy it's a little silly.

And yet, it makes a very nice reversible non-rolling scarf.

Especially when combined with the slowly, randomly shifting colors of the handspun yarn.

I still have no idea who is going to end up wearing this one, but it's nice having it in the potential gift-giving pool.

More Housewifey Stuff

2009-05-27T22:09:00.003-05:00

Oh, friends. Thanks for all the support with the judgey stuff. I really wasn't looking for all that, but it's nice nonetheless. Really, I was talking to the turkeys with the judgey comments. Wanna know what's really funny? The one additional judgey comment that came from that last post? The nice, dear lady sent her e-mail directy to me so it could be "private".

I was so tempted to copy and paste the e-mail here and really piss her off, but it's not worth the effort. Count yourself lucky, Marguerite.

Instead, I'm going to follow up with a perfect example of how what y'all see on the blog is less than the whole story.

That hateful old biddy from next door totally earned her title. I shared the story here on the blog when it happened, and I'm too lazy to dig through old posts and give you a link, but if you're really curious you can go find it. She stood in *my* yard while I was holding my mixed-race baby and told me how wrong mixed-race marriages are. That, and that alone is plenty of a reason for me to never want to speak to her again. Just for kickers, I'll share that every conversation I ever had with her involved her criticizing everyone else she comes in contact with, then smiling at me and pumping me for information. And because I'm close with all our other neighbors, I know that she took that information and ran around the neighborhood trying to dish dirt on me. I'll call her a hateful old biddy on my blog if I damned well please. And the fact that she is so bitter and mean? Just makes it easier for me to laugh at her lawn ornament collection, which actually I kind of find amusing, tacky as it is.

Let's move on to some other minutia from my oh-so-exciting life.

We've had a little ant problem every spring since we moved into this house. Every spring, the ants wake up, rediscover some crack in the outside wall of our kitchen, and swarm in to enjoy the buffet under our kitchen table. Considering that we've had small children since day one, there is always a nice buffet going on down there. Fighting the ant invasion has become an annual sport around here. Every other year, I've done my best to wipe down the floor after meals, and I've used a non-toxic orange-based spray to help confuse their sense of smells and keep them away. It worked fairly well, but I also ended up squashing a lot of the tiny little pests.

Now that the kids are old enough to fully understand the concept of hey-I'm-putting-some-dangerous-chemicals-over-here-on-the-floor-don't-eat-them. I decided to try a trick I read about a long time ago and was afraid to try. A line of Borax powder along the wall where they crawled in.

Works like a charm! I've seen hardly a single ant since I laid it down a month ago. And I've been less than perfect about cleaning up the breakfast crumbs.

Moving on, look what I found for dinner at the co-op the other day.

I'd never had morel mushrooms before, and there was a swarm of customers oohing and ahhing over them, so I decided to grab a few for myself. Everyone there said to slice them up and sautee them in butter, so that's what I did. They were incredibly tasty, but unfortunately a bit gritty - I'd wiped them down with damp paper towels like all the gourmet chefs suggest instead of washing them under water the way I normally do all my mushrooms. I was right, they are wrong. I'd rather have a tiny bit less flavor and no grit. The asparagus was good too.

On to the next item - something I definitely didn't find at the co-op. This is totally an anti-co-op type product. In the beauty aisle at the co-op you find all kinds of natural products with no petro-chemicals, instead containing things like beeswax and shea butter and tea tree oil. I love the idea of all that.

However, my face likes this stuff. I've been using this brand of moisturizer since I had that horrible face rash a while back. I've always had trouble with sunscreen on my face because pretty much every sunscreen I've tried either gave me a rash or burned. This stuff is crazy hypo-allergenic, and 60 SPF is exactly what my insanely pale skin needs. I'm going to finally get in the habit of wearing sunscreen on a daily basis.

I know you're sick of hearing me brag about my awesome neighbors, but I saw this scene the other night and melted a bit.

The kids were playing with this airplane toy that one of the neighbor boys was sharing. The hill across the street was perfect for gliding it off.

And finally, a yummy yummy dinner from another night last week. My neighbor M shared her recipe for chicken satays and peanut sauce. This was easy, kid-friendly and delicious.

I thought I was going to find a very-similar recipe online and just link to it, but all the ones on my usual favorite sites were more complicated, and this one is so perfect you really need it. I'll take a picture of the recipe and post it soon, I promise! Yum Yum Yum!

Tomorrow, a knitting post about scarves. It's already written and scheduled to post. Pinkie swear.

Go Ahead and Judge...

2009-05-26T14:54:00.000-05:00

I have to tell you that I've gotten several judgey comments over the
last few days, and I can't help but respond a bit to them. So, in no
particular order, here are a few responses that have been rattling
through my head:

A) who the hell do you think you are, and what the hell do you think you
know about my actual life, my actual situation, my thought process, my
family, anything of importance really? That's a rhetorical question by
the way.

B)well, there are a bunch more, but A really does suffice.

Whew! Meanwhile, guess what I've gone and done...picked up a new laptop
to replace the ever-more-rapidly-failing old one. Details soon once I've
got it all set up, plus maybe something of actual knitting-related
interest (see blob between computers in photo)

Go ahead and think what you want, see if I care...

Housewifey Stuff

2009-05-21T22:30:00.000-05:00

I have a bunch of random non-knitting related stuff I've been meaning to throw up, so brace yourself - here it comes.

For Mother's Day, Joe got me an awesome new knife. It's a ceramic chef's knife from Kyocera. I wanted one after I read about them on Samurai Knitter Julie's blog a while back.

I love having a good, sharp knife. Chop, chop! I've only had it for a couple weeks now, but so far so good. It's very nice. Now let's hope I don't drop it on the floor or find some other way to break it.

***

Look how cute these girls look using their little stencils and pencils and markers to make pretty pictures. Don't they look just like sweet little angels?

Yeah, and ten minutes later, one trip by me out of the room for five of them the stencils, pencils, markers and paper are all over the floor, and nobody knows how they got there. Oh, I love my children, yes I do.

***

Last weekend we did the semi-annual wardrobe switcharoo around here. It's finally warm enough for summer clothes more days than not. When I pulled out the Crocs from last year, it was clear that we had none for Sophie. Julie's hand-me-downs covered the sizes above and below the one that currently fits Sophie's feet. Damn!

We went on a search for new Crocs, which turned out to be a little more difficult than the last time around. Long story short, after three other stores and two other malls, we ended up at the Maul of America. This was my first trip to the MOA with the girls sans stroller, and WOW! They did just fine.

I wasn't planning on buying new Crocs for Julie because I was thinking that hers fit just fine. But then as I was helping Sophie try on her new ones, I glanced over and noticed Julie's toes sticking out of the holes of her old ones. New shoes all around, and a couple new sets of Jibbitz too.

Do we care about the fact that my kids are wearing new pairs of ugly but very comfortable and versatile summer shoes? No, I thought not.

***
We had another little neighborly dinner party last weekend. It totally rocked. I never can get over how great my neighbors are. We had this spontaneous idea to get together for a potluck centering around barbecue ribs, and three days later there we are feasting and hanging out together.

The budding young saxophonist from across the street gave us a little concert over dessert, and the little ones even did some dancing along with him.

And then the super-cool kicked in. We sent the whole pack of kids out to the yard to run around (little ones supervised by big ones). The grown-ups got a good 20 minutes of adult conversation while we watched the kids' antics out the bay window.

I swear I live in a Norman Rockwell painting.

***

Except at the moment, because we are in the middle of a crazy construction scene right now. Here's a picture of my roof yesterday afternoon. See the pretty new chimney up there? That's a $2500 new toy, so I did my best to enjoy it. We knew we needed to rebuild the chimney when we moved into the house, and since we have to replace the roof due to last year's hail damage, the time is perfect to get it over with.

Then, this morning at the crack of dawn, a giant dumpster appeared in our driveway, a work crew arrived to tear off the old shingles...

And make a crazy mess while they were at it...

And by this afternoon, they were already bangin' on the new shingles

Those guys worked hard, and at this point they're close to finished with the roofs of both the house and the garage. Hopefully the neverending noise will actually end some time around noon tomorrow.

***

Hey, look! I'm doing another tiny little bit of my own part to keep the earth healthy or something. I'm finally putting my ugly laundry line that came with the house to good use. Now that the weather is bearable, I'm really going to try to use my dryer as little as possible this summer.

I feel so warm and fuzzy inside. I just hope my family doesn't rebel at the somewhat stiffer fabric and whatever other issues they might come up with related to clothes dried in the wholesome fresh air.

****
While I was out taking pictures, I snuck a couple new photos of the house next door. It's even more insane than last year.

Oh, the tacky! Do you see the two geese statues there on the porch? They have many different outfits to wear depending on the season and weather.

Don't even get me started on the hateful old biddy that lives inside.

****

And finally, for those of you who are still here after all my little ramblings. The beginnings of a new knitting project. More on that next time.

A Spinning Answer

2009-05-20T21:31:00.002-05:00

My spinning has slowed down just a bit since I finished that first project on Earl - I mean, it sort of had to since I'd been spinning pretty much nonstop for the week since he arrived. Now, I've moved on to that pound of luscious alpaca, which is wonderful, but not very interesting for blog purposes. I'll spare you from that for the moment.

In the mean time, lucky me - I got a very good question from reader Missy.

I was wondering if it's possible to spin a 'balanced' single ply yarn? What would you recommend, as far as reading, or practical info regarding this?

Well, to be honest, I've never created a single ply yarn without then going on to ply it before finishing and knitting it. This is something that I'd really like to change. Maybe after I finish my pound of alpaca, I'll pull a smaller chunk out and experiment with spinning and knitting it as singles. Because really one can't claim any sort of expertise in a thing without firsthand experience start to finish.

Luckily, and this is something that I find translates well into all areas of spinning that I've delved into so far, I have lots of experience with knitting different yarns. Even luckier is that I still have some of that yarn laying around and a knitted object or two as examples for photos.

First, some crazy quirky sock yarn, which I knit for the first time a few years ago and liked so much that I bought another skein when I saw the seller again at Shepherd's Harvest a year later. It's Sandy's Palette Pair of Sox, and the socks I'm showing you are Jaywalkers that I made about three years ago and have been wearing regularly ever since.

If we look at this yarn a little closer, we see that it's a highly energized single. See all the little kinks in the skein? I bet they were much more pronounced before this yarn was washed to set the twist.

This yarn is clearly, clearly unbalanced. If I recall correctly, those little kinks were slightly annoying while I was knitting the socks. I'll admit it. That said, this yarn made some awesome socks.

All that twist in one direction makes for some cool stitch definition. The fabric is sproingy and warm. We need that twist to hold the fibers together, especially for hard-wearing socks. Mine are in great condition, well, pretty good condition - the heels are getting a little threadbare after something like 100 wears or so.

Okay, and here's the opposite end of the spectrum on the singles yarn front.

This is what's left of that Mini Mochi I knit up into a sample pair of socks a couple months ago. This yarn comes just about as close to balanced as a singles yarn can get without being roving. But that's because it almost *is* still roving. I know I mentioned in my post about those socks that I actually had to add some twist to the yarn as I was knitting along just to keep the wool from drifting apart. And yet, there were other spots where I had to deal with the annoying kink-back business that I dealt with in the Sandy's Palette skein.

So, obviously, for socks, don't even dream about a "balanced" singles yarn. Those Mini Mochi socks will last for less than 20 wearings before they get their first hole, I'm guessing. But what if you're less obsessed with socks than I happen to be, and you want to knit a sweater or a lace shawl with singles?

Well, about a year ago I knit a sweater out of Nashua's Wooly Stripes yarn. It's a singles, with just a little more twist than the Mochi - enough to hold the wool together throughout, little enough so that I had to deal only with minimal kinking. It's fine yarn. Very soft. It's wearing pretty well, although it certainly has its share of pills. It's a soft wool, maybe merino - which is going to give you pills even in a 3-ply, so who knows what to say.

So. Back to the question. Can you spin a balanced single? Technically, no. By definition, all the twist is one direction. But I'm here to argue that unbalanced is not necessarily a horrible thing, and that even if it looks incredibly unbalanced on the wheel, once it's washed, it will relax quite a bit and settle down enough to knit with. Just make sure to spin it enough to cross the line from roving on into yarn.

All of the above comes straight out of my you-know-where. I'm sure I've read a thing or five in the many spinning books I've skimmed, but I can't remember what or where, and I'm too lazy to go dig them out and do the research again right now.

Thanks for the awesome question, Missy!

A Tale of Two Scarves

2009-05-15T21:13:00.000-05:00

I have not knit all that many scarves over the years - maybe a handful or two. I don't have a special reason for avoiding them, really - other than lack of a passionate calling to knit them, or a particular love of wearing them. I mean, a good warm scarf in the winter is pretty much a necessity around here, and over the last few years, I've been warming up (yuk yuk) to the idea of wearing a pretty scarf to liven up a boring t-shirt.

The only thing I really have against scarves as a knitting project is all that flipping back and forth, and the longer the project gets the more annoying it can be to deal with the thing danging and twisting. Small irritants, really, and no real reason to avoid them overall.

Still, it's a bit of an odd coincidence that the only real knitting (plain socks don't count!) I have on the needles around here is a pair of two very different scarves.

I've mentioned this first one here before - I cast on for it months ago and have knit on it sporadically between other projects or when I needed some easy at-home knitting. It's the Yarn Harlot's One-Row Handspun Scarf pattern, which is easy as pie, knit in my own two-ply spun from Mountain Colors Targhee wool.

It's getting quite long, obviously. But it's also a bit on the narrow side for a warm outerwear scarf, so it will probably be worn doubled. In which case long is good. I still have maybe a third of the yarn left, and I keep meditating on whether to call it a day on the scarf and make a matching hat or mittens. So far, my gut keeps telling me that long is good and to stick with the thing a while longer. I just hope I'll find someone to wear it when it's done.

Now this second scarf - it has its own little story. I bought some insanely expensive Artyarns beaded silk-cashmere last year for my birthday. This yarn is beautiful. It is gorgeous. I have had it on my desk since then, petting it and admiring it on a regular basis. I've been looking for the perfect pattern to knit with it ever since.

Trouble is, first it was very short yardage - a total of only 230 for the two skeins. Second, you pat that kind of money for some yarn, and it sets the expectations for the finished product pretty high. Higher, in fact, than I would expect the satisfaction of a handknit scarf to reach on my own personal expectation meter. Which actually, once accepted, tends to take some of the pressure off if you can understand the futility of it.

The right time to knit it up finally came. I finished the sweater project I'd been working on, and figured it couldn't possibly take very long to knit up 230 yards of yarn into a scarf - it would make a nice little snack-sized project before I dip into the next big one. I scanned back through all the patterns I'd favorited, flipped through all the books I remembered as containing a potential perfect pattern. Aside from intuitive appeal, I was mostly looking for a very open lace design (to stretch the yarn as far as possible) with a visually defined pattern that would off-set the static of the hand painted colors.

I settled on Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer's Raspberry Rhapsody Scarf from The Knitters' Book of Yarn. At the end of the first skein, it's about fifteen inches long semi-blocked, so it's going to be quite short, but definitely long enough to wear either tied or secured with a shawl-pin. I promise it's much prettier in person - the sparkly clear crystal beads make it almost into a piece of jewelry. It's going to be nice, especially if while I'm wearing it I can manage to forget how much the yarn cost. :-)

Spinning

2009-05-14T22:08:00.002-05:00

I've got two finished spinning projects to report! Two at a time! It's crazy!

I hurried up to finish this first rainbow striping stuff the night before Earl arrived, but then once Earl was here, I was too busy blogging abut and bonding with him to report it.

I started with eight ounces of awesomely dyed roving from Vines on etsy. It's an interesting fiber blend of 60% superwash merino, 25% mohair and 15% nylon. It came in two 4-ounce chunks, which I split down the middle, tried to spin evenly, then navajo-plied to keep the colors intact. I ended up with 289 and 346 yards respectively, which means that I didn't do a very good job of keeping my singles the same width. One skein could pass as sport weight, the other one is pushing worsted. Neither is really enough on its own to make a pair of socks.

For some reason, this yarn is begging me to make it into a baby sweater or maybe some pants.

The second batch is my first spinning on Earl. I had eight ounces of hand painted organic merino from Spunky Eclectic. I went a little nuts when she finally updated her store a while back, and this was one of the things that showed up in the box when I opened it.

I love this colorway, but it's not at all something I can wear. I look horrible in black. What was I thinking? Except maybe it was worth it just to watch the colors come together while I plied.

I managed to spin a little more consistently on this project, and the yarn is overall a bit finer two-ply - a light fingering weight. It came out to 990 yards, which could make a good-sized shawl or even a sweater. I feel like a salesperson, but it could be yours for $75 if you want it. I really wish it were my colors, because it's smooth and squishy and quite soft.

I think I'm going to take a couple of days off spinning now, because my hands are doing that repetitive stress injury thing. That, and I want to focus on the little crazy lace project I've been working on. Next up, though, is the giant pile of alpaca I bought at Shepherd's Harvest. I'll be using Rosie for this one, mostly because I have more bobbins for her than for Earl.

Back to Earl for a minute, though. I really feel like I got to know him a bit this past week. It took a bit to get in the habit of starting the wheel in the right direction smoothly, and I have to oil him in different spots and more often than Rose. The drive band broke a couple of days in - he came with what looked like a flax twine, and I scrambled around for a moment before downloading instructions from the internet and digging out some fine crochet cotton as a replacement. It's working fine now, and the process gave me a little more confidence in my ability to take care of this machine in the long run. I'm even more happy with the purchase at this point, and pretty sure that I'll use it as more than a piece of decoration.

Shepherd's Harvest, and Stuff

2009-05-09T20:26:00.002-05:00

I spent the day at Shepherd's Harvest as planned. It was at least as much fun as I'd hoped, perhaps even better. I came home this afternoon happy and exhausted from the wild, woolly fun.

My class was first thing this morning, and despite the chilly weather and working in an unheated concrete-floored barn, I had a lot of fun teaching a full class of ten enthusiastic knitters. It was a bit of a whirlwind fitting the material into the three hours allocated. I couldn't believe how whip-smart and enthusiastic those ladies were! Thanks for a great class, ladies!

I rushed over to the Ravelry meetup, where I got to put a bunch of names and faces together, and I met up with some good friends who were there for the day as well. By the time that was over, I was starving, so I found the food cart that sells the awesome wrap sandwich I had last year - barbecue pulled pork and creamy coleslaw together in a tortilla - oh my!

And then I got to go run amok in the vendor barns. One of the first things I saw was this glorious display of Jensen wheels. I even got to chat with Mr. Jensen himself for a few minutes after I admired his tensioned lazy kates. Maybe I can save up my pennies and buy one eventually - but I'll probably have to order a custom one to fit my Majacraft bobbins.

Okay, and this is a little snarky, but I felt a little superior standing there in front of the beautifully carved, very expensive wheels knowing that I have an even more beautifully carved, very inexpensive wheel sitting in my living room. Still, Jensen wheels are incredibly beautiful, and I didn't even consider sitting down to spin on one because that would be dangerous.

Later in the day, I saw this sight.

Do you know what that is? If so, I'm guessing you've already been over to the Rainey's blog. That, or you are really smart and/or well-informed. This lady is spinning yarn directly off of her Angora bunny, which is happily cuddled in her lap. Joe and I already have had the discussion more than once - I'm not allowed to have a bunny. Alas.

The good news is that I did bring several very nice items home with me. First, a Mother's Day gift for my MIL - a very pretty mug from Jennie the Potter.

MIL SO better like this mug, because it is beautiful and feels really nice in the hands.

And then there was roving, roving, and more wonderful roving. I knew from the Shepherd's Harvest vendor webpage that Cloudlover was going to be there selling her lovlies, and that was one stop I'd already planned for. I've worked with her roving before, and she does a grrrreat job of dying beautiful colors without felting the roving at. all. Go buy some of her stuff one etsy. I've got my share for the time being.

This is two very similar colorways, one on Falkland wool top and the other on Merino. I'm planning to spin them up and ply them together once they've fully marinated in the stash.

Next is a giant hank of BFL from Frabjous Fibers. I think I bought this from the Celestial Designs booth, and she had a huge rack of this stuff, all of them beautiful. It was crazy-hard picking out just one.

This is also super-soft and fluffy. It is so nice getting to buy roving in person, touching it first and getting an idea of what it's going to feel like to draft. I hate trying to spin felty wool.

At this point, I really thought I had enough take-home goodies, but then I stopped by Kim Leach's booth. She had this fabulous little hank of superwash merino that will make some lovely stripey sock yarn and it was only $12. Buying this one was a no-brainer.

And then I was totally convinced that I was finished buying fiber. Really. I'd satisfied my new-fiber craving. But there were so many wool fumes floating around, and I accidentally wandered into the Enchanted Meadows booth and my hand brushed against the piles of alpaca roving.

Yeah, and they only sell it by the pound. But it is soooooo soft and fluffy. I think this will be my next spinning project.

And that was pretty much it. I grabbed the obligatory bag of kettle corn and my close friend and neighbor and drove on home to crash and recover from the excitement.

Now on to the Stuff...all totally random I tell you.

My computer has been getting wonkier and wonkier lately. I'll be happily working or playing on it, and then it locks up doing this:

My super-smart computer-dude hubby says he thinks the video card is going bad. Probably. I think he's probably right (I used to be a super-smart computer dudette not sooo very long ago.) The question is what to do about it. I can keep using it and hope it doesn't get too much worse too quickly. It's a three-year-old machine, so the warranty is long gone. Is it worth the hassle of trying to send it off to be fixed, probably coming back with all of my data and software gone and have to fix it all again? Or would it be better to hold off as long as possible and then fall into the throw-away consumer trap of just buying a new machine, hoping that it works better than this thang? I have no answers, just more questions. Very frustrating. I think I need to spend even less time using my computer and more time using my pretty spinning wheels.

Uncle Dave came over to watch the girls for a while the other day. They wrangled him into some arts-and-crafts projects, and this is the way I found them when I came home. Sophie had made a monster mask, and Julie made a series of crowns.

I finished another pair of plain-jane socks last week. These seemed to drag on forever, probably because I tagged along other projects with me on-the-go instead of sticking exclusively with the socks.

Joe agreed to take some pictures of them for me as usual, and I told him to go ahead and do it while I stood at the kitchen sink washing dishes. Like the wonderful husband he is, he got down near the floor and took some shots for me.

And then he stood up, looked at the preview screen on the camera and shook his head. "These aren't any good. You can see the sand (from the sandbox) all over the floor." So I took a look at the preview screen and had two thoughts. First, it's a great view of the socks, and second, this is exactly how my kitchen floor looks almost all summer long, even with regular sessions with the broom. The photos are fine. Right?

Here's part of the collection of allergy medicine on my kitchen counter this week. Everyone but Julie is suffering from the seasonal allergies big-time.

Poor little Sophie has been rubbing her eyes constantly, and one day last week her eyes were almost swollen shut. That, and we're all really snotty. I'm a big baby about it, Sophie is in denial (getting her to blow her nose is a big fight, but then when she finally does the results are amazing), and Joe is his usual stoic self. Julie is just suffering the secondary effects of crabby mom and little sister who is getting way too much sympathy. Damn trees and their springtime sexual frenzy.

Oh, and the girls love to pick dandelions.

Good thing we have plenty of them in our yard.

And finally, a couple of totally gratuitous swimming-lesson pictures.

I love those cheezy smiles.

Bedtime Moments

2009-05-08T19:39:00.000-05:00

Bedtime is usually one of the sweetest times of the day around here, and
while most nights we do eat dinner as a family, it is the one time
during the day when the girls get to hang out with Daddy (and Mommy
too.)

Twice this week, the scenes have caught my attention especially for
their sweetness factor, and both of them represent my kids'
personalities well. Sophie is the ultimate cuddler, and Julie and Joe
reading side-by-side is typical for them both.

Tomorrow I'll be at Shepherd's Harvest for most of the day. In the
morning I'm teaching my blankie class (one spot is left and you can sign
up at the fairgrounds in the morning if you're interested.) I have all
afternoon to see the sights and shop till I drop.

It's funny. I've been using this event as a reason to hold off buying
fiber, but I'm not feeling that uncontrollable urge to splurge yet.
We'll see how bad I fall down when under the influence of the wool
fumes.

A New Friend for Rosie

2009-05-05T12:51:00.002-05:00

I know I've hinted around several times about a large upcoming fiber-related purchase, and I was expecting to get my new toy at Shepherd's Harvest, which is this coming weekend. It worked out a little differently, and instead my new friend arrived in my living room this morning.

Meet my new spinning wheel, which I'm going to call Earl after its maker, Earl Oman.

I had never heard of Earl Oman wheels until I saw one being demonstrated by Rebecca of Yarnworks at the Mall of America Knit-Out a few months ago. Yarnworks had the booth next to the Yarnery's that day, and I kept looking at her wheel and trying to figure out what brand it was. Finally, I asked about it, and she told me the story of an elderly (late 80s or early 90s) gentleman who lives in Proctor, MN and who has been making spinning wheels by hand for practically forever.

I hardly dared to ask how much they cost, but when I did, I was shocked at the answer of only $350! As savvy spinners are aware, most individually-crafted wheels out there run at a much higher price, and often are available only after years on a waiting list. Well, Rebecca had one available for sale at her Grand Rapids, MN shop and I had her put my name on it that day. I knew I had to have one of these one-of-a-kind pieces of art.

The only trouble was that Grand Rapids is a good three hours away, and I knew it would be rough to swing a full day away in the car to pick the wheel up. Rebecca was planning to have a booth at the Shepherd's Harvest festival, and agreed to drive my wheel down if I would let her use it as the demo wheel for her booth during the festival. No problem! Unfortunately, Rebecca's family had a funeral to attend here in the Cities this week, which meant they weren't going to be able to attend Shepherd's Harvest, and instead they agreed to drop off my wheel on the way to see their family.

So I have it (him?) I know most people refer to wheels as "she" sort of like with ships, but this weel feels like a he to me, and I think Earl is a perfect name for it. Let's look at some more pictures...

Unlike my Majacraft Rose, this is a double-drive wheel with hooks (versus scotch tension and sliders). There is only one ratio, 11:1 according to my count just now, but somehow it feels much faster.

The bobbin is held in place with two leather tabs, and unlike my Rose, it has a normal round orifice, requiring an orifice hook. The Rose has a delta orifice, and even when I use the lace orifice on the Rose, it's short enough that I can usually just poke the thread through without the aid of a hook.

This wheel came with four bobbins, and a built-in Kate that holds two of them.

Only one treadle, which is also new to me - it takes a little more concentration to get the thing going, but once started the momentum is huge.

The wheel itself is held in place with wooden pegs, and there is the wire orifice hook hanging from one of the pegs within easy reach when I need it.

Here's a top view of the wheel, with the two belts in the wide groove. The wheel is 22", and the various parts are made of several different hard woods - probably some oak and maple in mine. Rebecca says that Mr. Oman gets his wood from his son, who works for either a lumber mill or yard, and gets it for either free or low cost. That's partly how he keeps the price so low.

Rosie and Earl meet for the first time, and Daisy cat checks him out.

Oh, and of course no photo shoot is complete without a posed-toy scene thanks to Julie! The ponies apparently approve of the new addition to our household.

Here's the back side of the wheel, and Daisy was quite interested in the fourth bobbin, which for the moment is hanging from its leader on the wheel's handle.

Proof of where the wheel came from...

I am very excited and pleased with this purchase! I never would have thought a year ago that I'd be buying a second wheel any time in the forseeable future, but this was too good of an opportunity to pass up. Apparently, Mr. Oman himself doesn't know how many more wheels he'll be making, and I am glad just to have one for its looks alone, and knowing that it will likely only increase in value with age.

I wouldn't necessarily choose this as a first wheel, as the treadling is a bit trickier than my Rose and the other double-treadle models that I've tried. Also, it's not as versatile as many production wheels out there (and Rosie is quite versatile, with parts available to make her even more so). It certainly is lovely to spin on, though, and I feel somehow more authentic? or something? spinning on the kind of wheel that one sees in all the fairy-tale illustrations and that I had always visualized as a traditional spinning wheel before I actually got involved in spinning. I love that I'll be getting experience with a totally different style of wheel than I'm used to as well.

More later, I've got to go play with my new toy.