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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.

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

Pinch

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oops, keep the wheel going.

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

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

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Keep your hands moving

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

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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.

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

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She said I did very well for the first time.

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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.)

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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.

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I am left-handed.

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I think I can get it anyway.

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I want to go home now and practice.

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

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The lesson was almost two hours long.

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For most of an hour of that she patiently said

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First spinning lesson immediately after work.

 

Wheel and change of clothes in car.

 

Not. Too. Excited.

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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!

 

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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!

 

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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.

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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.