Keep going

As directed, I have been practicing for half an hour each day.  The results are…well, let’s just say it will be interesting to see if my teacher can teach me to ply this lumpy twisty thing.

I do have to say that it is taking less time each day to get from the cursing stage to the “is this right?” stage.

It clearly isn’t yet, but I feel like it is just a matter of practice.

Spinning lesson

Keep the wheel going.  Don’t worry too much about how fast just yet.

Pinch

Draft

Slide

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Draft

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oops, keep the wheel going.

Draft

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If your hands stop, your feet have to as well.

Draft

Slide

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Don’t let the wheel tell you what to do.

Draft

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Keep your hands moving

Draft

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I think I will really like this spinning thing, although right now it is far from a relaxing process.

Draft

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I have to practice for half an hour each day, and go back next week, when she will show me how to hand card.

Draft

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By week three I will be plying, and will know how to wash fleece and will be a fabulous spinner.

Draft

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She said I did very well for the first time.

Draft

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It looks like a twisty lumpy mess. (I don’t have to worry about not getting enough spin in my yarn.)

Draft

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Did you know there are right handed and left handed wheels?  I didn’t.  The one I am using is right handed.

Draft

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I am left-handed.

Draft

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I think I can get it anyway.

Draft

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I want to go home now and practice.

Draft

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Debbie at the Purple Fleece in Stockton Springs Maine has the patience of a saint.

Draft

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The lesson was almost two hours long.

Draft

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For most of an hour of that she patiently said

Draft

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Tonight

First spinning lesson immediately after work.

 

Wheel and change of clothes in car.

 

Not. Too. Excited.

Not much exciting going on here!

This weekend was busy busy, but I feel like nothing got accomplished.  It was like knitting a mile of stockinette – you know you are making progress, but it is hard to see.

Saturday we got an early start, because we had things to do and we had to be in Brewer by noon time for A’s sister’s birthday lunch.  I managed to get the bathroom clean, my hair cut, some of the tree bits out of the pool before we headed out.

We came home afterwards, and it wasn’t until we drove in the driveway that we realized we forgot to go to the grocery store.  Sigh.  Did some household chores before retiring to the knitting couch – working on some baby hats for sale.

Today I felt ambitious, and while A did a special project for work, I cut up some old pallets and loaded the car with a lot of junk and trash for the dump, then went there and to the grocery store, which had way too many people for a beautiful Sunday!  I’ll have to remember that.  🙂  A went off for her weekly golf game, and I worked some more on the pool and in the yard, but everything looks the same.  Then I quit because it was hot, and went back to knitting  🙂

It is amazing to me that it was hot. It seems we are back into normal weather.  I notice the flowers are working really hard to get on track – lilacs are starting to bud, and might hit their normal bloom date of Memorial Day weekend.  Lupine are sending up flower heads, as well, they are usually blooming early in June.  Bleeding heart is blooming, trees are suddenly quite green. Everything is growing like mad, and so next weekend, I will need to weed whack, which I do instead of mowing this mess.  🙂 And finish getting the pool ready because I think swimming will be happening soon.

I did block Reyna, and she is packed up, ready to ship out tomorrow.  She is smaller than I would like, but I used the yarn they sent, so I hope they are pleased with it.  Once blocked, the shawl is 46 inches across, 21 inches tall at peak. Big enough to wear as a scarf or kerchief, certainly.

 

Here’s a picture of something you won’t see often on this blog –

My boss brought me in a bag of rhubarb last week, so I made a pie on Friday night.  Pie is not something I excel at, or do often, but I LOVE rhubarb pie, so I managed to bake this.  🙂  It seems I come from a cake family, and A from a cookie family, so this was a rare treat.

I think I will go have a slice now before I brush my teeth.

Hope you all had a good, productive and fun weekend!

 

A little bit different

Not my usual knitting busy post – I’m attaching a link to an interview piece written about a local author, Penny Guisinger.  I know her at best superficially, but have always been so impressed by her abilities, and this makes me even more eager to read her work.  I thought I would share it with you.  If you get a chance to read anything she wrote, or to hear her do her own reading, or to attend her conference – DO!

 

Losing at yarn chicken

Just had to bind off the rest of those stitches. 😖

However it is not as bad as it seems. The instructions for Reyna tell you where to adjust if you think you will run short. I put a lifeline in at the spot I knew I was safe and then I did 2 more rows. I was weighing the yarn after every row and I thought 10 grams would be enough for 5 rows and the bind off. Apparently it will be enough for 3 rows and the bind off, which won’t happen until Wednesday.

It’s  quite a wavy sort of bind off, I am counting on a soak and a block to straighten it out and make the shawl a little bigger, it looks pretty small right now.

Saturday report

Would you be surprised if I told you my Friday list took two days to get through?  And I didn’t really get through it all, I haven’t been outside.

But, I did do this:

I know, these painting pictures all look the same.  But here’s what’s done – four of the five wooden cases are painted (insides only, outsides will be covered by trim) the fifth one has two coats everywhere it needs it, and just needs a third coat on the bottom shelf.  I’ll do that first thing in the morning.  Also complete are the 5 backs.  Four have been done for a week or so, I did the fifth one yesterday and today.  I really love the blue, which dries much darker than it goes on, thankfully.  Doesn’t the color look great with the blue of the walls? Encouraging A to remember our compromise, I haven’t painted any of the actual shelves.  🙂  I can do that when the boxes are installed.  Most of them are primed, and just need finish coats (3) and the ones that aren’t yet primed can wait until that 6th box is ready to be painted, as the primer is oil based and a pain to clean up.

I also took the Danse Macabre from this:

to this:

to this:

I am so in love with this shawl and thrilled that I get to keep it!  The designer is Boo Knits; the pattern is Danse Macabre.  It is the MKAL I did in April, and while I didn’t finish with the gang, I did push hard on it, and I learned some lessons.  The big one is not to do a Boo Knits MKAL – I can’t do her patterns in a month.  I love them, they are unbelievably easy to follow, she charts and writes instructions, thinks about everything.  She creates beautiful lace.  It is my second one, and I will make more.  But not in a crazy month.  I think my speed is more like 2-3 months. And that is with focus.

I also learned that I love tussah silk, which this is not.  This is Juniper Moon Farm Findley which I already knew I loved.  But the pattern called for tussah silk, so before the month was over, I ordered some of what the design called for.  And I can see that it will make a very different cloth. I love all the photos of my fellow KALers’ projects, and I can’t wait to make a shawl from the stuff.

Meanwhile, here’s my art shot of the day:

So.  You might be able to see in the blocking photo all the empty boxes that once held pins.  I had some blocking squares left, but Maluka had to wait until this morning, for want of pins.

This was a much easier job – wires at the top, a pin at each point, half an hours’ work, as opposed to the two plus that was Danse.

I am hoping for a couple of things to happen with this blocking.  The first is that merciless stretching will gain some width in this – it seems more like a scarf than a shawl.

The second is that the top will not roll, also the result of merciless blocking.  I thread the wires through every single stitch, and pinned it tight, so it isn’t rolling now, but I bet when I release the tension, that top will roll.

This is a pretty shawlette, in yarn I love – it is called “like lichen”, but it really is aqua and blue (are lichen blue and aqua? I always think of them as silvery, or bright orange), so of course I love it.  However – if I do this again, I will do some heavy modification.  That thing that looks like a cable is really wrapped stitches, and it was a pain in the neck.  I’ll put a cable in if I do it again.  I will also do the eyelet more like Kate Davies Hap for Harriet than this is.  They are very similar, YO in garter, but this uses a double yarn over in the last one to create the extra stitch – Davies just does one more YO than she does SSK.  I like it better.  And I would do one more row of eyelet in each point so it isn’t so clunky.  Then I hope I will remember to bind off the proper number of stitches in each point, since I will have increased more than the three the pattern calls for.  Lastly, I will make it wider.  That will require a second skein, of course.  And the edging did take me forever, so making it bigger means longer than forever.  But I think the finished garment will be more useful.

Also, thinking about using a different color for the border and the body.  Not sure about that, but as this is far down my queue now, I have time.

For now, I will work on Reyna and baby hats for sale.  Reyna is almost done – or rather, I am almost out of yarn.  This will be a good game of yarn chicken as the skein the store sent is 50 yards shorter than the yarn recommended in the pattern.  Glad I got my fancy scale for Christmas!  I’ll weigh after each row and try to use every inch.

I will leave you with these photos of my supervisor.  Normally, I don’t let her in while I am blocking, but today she snuck in when I wasn’t looking. Apparently, pin cushions are wonderful toys.  She even got a pin out and was batting it about.  That got her evicted.

 

PS. The clothes came and everything fit!  Miracle.  And the new blue skirt matches the Danse Macabre shawl perfectly.  Life is good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Brace yourself!

Due to an inordinate amount of work done this week and a couple of late in the day meetings, it turns out I have today off!

And if you have been around a while, you know what that means – a Friday to do list.  Since A will not be home, it is a pretty standard list for a “me” day.

-I intend to paint the 5 book case boxes that are all primed.  I also want to paint the fifth bookcase back, so that these five can be assembled and perhaps installed this weekend.  We had a bit of conversation about the next step.  A thought we would install these 5 bookcases and begin unpacking books.  She would measure for the 6th and final case that will complete the wall.  She wisely waited to do that so it could fit exactly.  It will also be the one that is not permanently affixed to the wall, but will be removable to provide crawl space access.  So it will be fussy.   Once that case is done and installed, she will put the face trim and top shelf on the whole works.

All of this made perfect sense to me except the part about unpacking the books before the end. We went back and forth about it, and we each have valid reasons.  Mine are about painting.  I don’t want to be painting trim around the books. Hers are about boxes of stuff weighing her down.  She wants them unpacked.  I think we have reached a compromise, and that is that we will install and trim what we have and I will paint trim before it goes up, so only touch ups are needed.  Then we can START loading shelves while we await the finishing case and trim bits.  I hope that this will keep us moving forward on this project, and I really fear that if the boxes are out of her way, forward momentum will halt as other projects grab her attention.

-Head to the PO where I hope I will find several packages.  A and I ordered “scads” of new clothes while we were on vacation.  Our favorite plain knit shirts were on sale, so we got some replacements and some new colors. I also ordered a few new skirts as it seems I haven’t got any.  Well, maybe I do, but I really could use some additional year round ones, my winter wardrobe is pretty limited. I hope the ones I ordered fit!

-Block Danse Macabre and take photos of it for you. I know this project will take at least a couple of hours, better to do it while I am home alone.

-If there are any blocking squares and pins left after that, I will also block Maluka.

-knit on the Over the Rainbow store sample Reyna – I am on the last section of openwork and hope to get it done this weekend.  It calls for one skein, 400 yards of sock-weight yarn.  The store provided one skein of yarn that is close to the proper weight, but only 350 yards, so I will be carefully weighing it toward the end to make sure I use every bit and get as big a garment as possible.  Right now it feels like it will be a bit small, but I know it will grow when blocked.  The color is really pretty – a green, teal, brown, blue variegated.  It has a nice sheen to it, too, so the finished product will be a pretty piece.  Can’t wait to show it to you!

-maybe get outside and work on the yard and pool a bit. It is supposed to be a gorgeous day, and I have been neglecting spring outside chores for inside painting.

-do a bit of planning for knitting stock for the Creatively Maine shop that will open in July, not that far away!  I hope to have a supply of cotton baby booties and hats to include there, along with jewelry, and maybe a wool hat or two.  And a couple of shawls.  Where will I find the time for this knitting?  Good question. I do have two shawls ready to go, one that has been done and for sale for a while, one that is done but hasn’t been shown anywhere for sale. And hats are quick, right?

I’ll try to post this weekend and show you photos of some of this work I will be cranking through in one long day.

 

I made it nine days

Kind of hard to believe that without trying or not trying, it was ten days into May before I wore something I made.

Getting dressed this morning in my favorite but boring-est outfit – navy blue skirt, white shirt, navy lace up oh so comfortable old lady shoes I realized wanted some sparkle, and that I had just the thing – a necklace knit up in Laura Nelkin’s Rippled pattern, but using different beads than she called for.  This one has Swarovski Crystals at the edge instead of matagama beads.

As soon as I fastened it on and I  realized it was, in fact, the perfect touch. (Photo cropped to hopefully hide hideous wrinkles – who put that old lady neck on me???? uh, I mean, to accent the necklace.)

 

Almost as an after thought, I stuffed my blue lace cardigan in my bag on the way out the door.

Glad I did, it went on as soon as I got to work. Then as I sat a little longer in my freezing cold office I added old blue mitts I always keep in my bag (it snowed yesterday.  I mean seriously, what is that about???? Don’t tell me 70 coming on Thursday, I don’t care.  It freaking snowed yesterday.)

So now I resemble a bejeweled blue and white bag lady.

Wearing three things I made and really wishing that I had also grabbed a pair of warm hand knit socks.

 

 

 

Eternity is this bind off

I knew I had a lot of stitches in the needle. I didn’t count them because it would make me put it in time out, and what this really calls for is dogged determination.

This morning I gave it a good chunk of time, maybe more than an hour.

Here is my progress.

I did 5 pattern repeats. Each one is 29 stitches. Sort of. Thing is that it is a picot edge, so most of it is cast on 3 bind off 6. Yup, double the stitches.

Been working on it every evening this week and this morning and I can see the end but am not there yet.

7.5 repeats to go. You can do the math but please don’t tell me the answer.

 

It is awfully pretty, isn’t it? Worth every minute of blinding, finger cramping, bead dropping knitting. 😀