Thanks!

I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has watched the first episode of 90% Knitting already. Your comments have been so encouraging! Thanks so much!

At this point, I'm planning to do them weekly. I'm still decided about keeping it on Wednesday or maybe moving it to Thursday instead. Honestly, it may morph back and forth between the two, depending on my schedule each week...the schedule that seems to have forgotten the meaning of the word "routine." :::sigh:::

In the mean time, I finished these...

I started knitting this...

And I've been spinning some of this...

All will be featured on this week's videocast.

See...now here's my dilemma. I still want to share things via the blog between videocasts about what I'm doing, but I don't want things to become too redundant. What do you think? Any opinion?

Is it too soon to play catch up?

Seriously, it's only mid-January, and while I'm feeling quite on top of some things, there are other areas where I feel behind. I've been mentally composing a blog post for days now. Too bad that doesn't automatically get it up here. ;)

So, we're home from our third and final trip to North Carolina. We spent two 14 hour days in the car with two days of time with our son and grandson sandwiched in between. It was an interesting visit, as we were based out of our hotel room the whole time we were there, and we were driving a vehicle that seats five, only we had six people. So anywhere we went with the whole crew, it involved me driving everyone there in shifts. As it turned out, a major snow and ice storm came through Jacksonville the Monday we were there, making everything a grand mess. Many businesses and restaurants shut down that day because they get that kind of weather so infrequently that they aren't prepared for it.

The weather made it necessary to say our goodbyes to him earlier Monday than we'd planned so I could get him back to base (which was also closed to all non-essential personnel) before the next wave of ice came through. I'd had my major emotional meltdown the week before when I'd returned him after New Years, but it was still hard to say good bye again. What was harder, though, was having to watch him say goodbye to his five year old son. I'm not sure how much our grandson understands about where his dad is going, he just knows he'll be in first grade before Daddy's back home again.

Our drive home Tuesday was nerve-wracking due to the bad roads and continued snow and ice. I was so thankful Kevin was driving and not me, but even I was tense. It feels so good to be home. I spent the rest of last week taking the Christmas stuff down (finally) and trying to catch up on laundry and cleaning as well as getting us all back in the swing of our school routine.

In the midst of all the crazy, I have been knitting and spinning! During the ride down to NC and the first day there, I made a pair of worsted weight socks for our son to take with him...he won't be able to wear them in uniform, but they'll keep his feet warm when he sleeps!

Yarn: Gedifra Fashion Trend Color; Generic toe-up sock

I started this Moody Kerchief shawl while we were in NC, and it was my drive home knitting, during which time I got most of it finished.

Moody Kerchief by Kirsten Kapur; Yarn: Three Irish Girls Springvale Super Merino, Ginger Honey colorway.

I ended up modifying the pattern a good bit. I was using two sets of color gradient mini-skeins from Three Irish Girls that I got in the Pick of the Knitter club a couple years ago. That gave me far more yarn than the pattern called for, and I wanted to use as much of it up as I could. I added a lot of extra rows to the straight knitting sections, and then I ended up adding some extra sections as well.

I'd envisioned the color changes happening at section changes, but that didn't work out completely. Still, I'm really happy with how it turned out. I finished it the day after we got home.

And right now, I'm in several swaps. I try not to do swaps too often because the pressure of getting the right things for my swap partners tends to stress me out. LOL But somehow, I managed to sign up for three swaps going on simultaneously, two of which involve the requirement of a knitted item. I've never done that kind of swap before, so...extra pressure! Ahh! I do have my first knitted item finished, but I won't post pictures of it until after it is received. I will say I'm happy with how it turned out. I hope its recipient likes it too!

For one of the other swaps I'm doing, I decided to spin my own yarn for one of the yarn requirements. I must say, I am totally loving this yarn...

The fiber itself looks good enough to eat...

It's BamHuey, a bamboo/merino blend dyed by NewHueHandspuns. I've worked with this fiber before, spinning the Sun Beams colorway for my Caricia shawl. It spins like butter, seriously. It is fabulous! And I think the color will be perfect for it's recipient.

Oh, and just another note about our deployed son to bookend this post. He actually called us last night...from Afghanistan! Seriously? I was tickled to hear his voice (and he seems to be doing just fine), but do you know how surreal that is? I mean, I know technology has changed the face of war in so many ways, but I can't help but think how in the not too distant past, families waited weeks or months just for a letter home from their loved one who was off fighting. Now, they're just a phone call or e-mail away. I'm having a lot of philosophical thoughts about that, but I'll spare you. Because honestly? I'm having a lot of philosophical thoughts about many things lately. My brain is working overtime, and it's all I can do to keep up.

Technology vs. Fibery Goodness

I'm coming to you live(ish), from my new desktop, which I took my good old time setting up this past week. Seriously? It used to be that when I got a new computer, I HAD to set it up RIGHT NOW, and get all of the software loaded onto it RIGHT NOW, and get all of my old files transferred to it RIGHT NOW and it had to do everything I wanted it to do the way I wanted it to do it RIGHT NOW. This time? I just didn't have the energy for it. Technology has beaten me down enough lately that I knew this was going to be a long, tedious process, and that if I tried to hurry it, it was just going to be ugly. So I took my time. I didn't even open the box of the new machine for a day. Then I plugged things in, and set up the basics. I added some extra software the next day. I transferred files a little here and a little there. After a bit of arguing with our wireless router, which had suddenly decided that high speed Internet was optional and would be dispensed according to its whims, we are mostly good to go. I'm still not done transferring files, but at least the computer is functioning and I don't need to do a special dance involving the sacrifice of a small bird or animal in order for the monitor to work.

That concludes the technology oriented section of our blog post. Let's move on to something far more fun, albeit not always less frustrating. First, some spinning...

I finished spinning and plying my mystery fiber. It's so fun and candy colored. I really wish I remembered where I got it, and I wish I knew what it was! (My hunch, based on the feel and how it spun up, is that it is at least partly Shetland.) I ended up with about 300 yards of a worsted weight (seems after all that test knit spinning, I'm having trouble going back down to a lighter gauge...argh...) Not sure what it will become, but I enjoyed the colors while I spun it. It was great therapy, and sometimes that's enough.

Also, I finished the first of my Spring Wind socks in Enchanted Knoll Farm sportweight yarn, Red Dirt Girl colorway...

This is going to be a Christmas gift, so I'm busily working on sock #2.

I also finished up my test knit sweater this week, and while I would love to show you a picture, I haven't taken any yet. Plus, I think I'm going to frog it and knit it over. Gauge and I ended up not being on friendly terms on this project. I think my WPI was off, because I got a different number every time I tried to figure it out. And my stitch count was wonky, thanks to my yarn being less than consistently spun. Anyway, it's way, way too big for me to wear comfortably, but I love the yarn soooo much, that I can't bear to leave it as it is. I mean, look at that yarn...

...I loved it as I was spinning it and knitting it, but then I took it outside into the sunshine, and it was like magic, it just warmed up and got all beautiful on me. It deserves to be knitted better than I knit it. So, we'll check back in with that sweater a little later on.

I've been on a bit of a book buying binge lately. I finally finished reading Brave New Knits, which I bought in Kindle version because I was mainly interested in the designer bios rather than the patterns. It was fun to read about all these designers, many of whom I've followed for a while now. I kind of hope the author does a Volume 2 with some of the many other knit bloggers out there who design who I think are more than worthy to be featured in such a book.

Additionally, I've picked up...

Warm Knits, Cool Gifts by Sally Melville and her daughter Caddy Melville Ledbetter. I haven't had a chance to read through this one completely yet, but on first glance, it's got a lot of great projects.

The Red Collection by ZigZagStitch's Mandy Powers . Ohmygosh! The red/white/black/gray color schemes of the projects in this book just thrill me to no end. Clearly, you could knit them in any colors you wanted, but...why would you WANT to? (OK, maybe that's just me. But still. They're perfect!) The Drifty and Holly Jean hats and mittens? MUST. HAVE. THESE. I love them! I don't even wear hats and I want to make them. I am particularly smitten by Drifty. The design just makes me completely and utterly happy to look at. I bought the digital pattern pack of The Red Collection, which gets you the print book but also the ability to download all of the patterns immediately in digital form as they are stored in your Ravelry library. Awesomeness. You can also just buy the print book, or you can buy single pattern downloads.

New England Knits by Cecily Glowick MacDonald. I've been eyeing this book for a while and finally gave in and bought it. I love New England, and this book has fabulous photography, which will make me buy a book nearly every time, even if the patterns don't excite me. Thankfully, there are a lot of patterns in this book that make me happy, so, bonus!

Gifted: Lovely Little Things to Knit and Crochet by Mags Kandis. I love this kind of book. I've used my copies of Last-Minute Knitted Gifts and Handknit Holidays a ton, for inspiration if not for the actual patterns in them. I think this book will make a nice addition to that little collection.

Sock Yarn One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant. I bought the first two One-Skein Wonders books (the first of which I used a LOT). I skipped the Luxury OSWs book, but this one I couldn't pass up. I have more sock yarn than I will EVER use to knit socks, so I'm always looking for new ideas and projects to make use of my stash. I haven't had time to go through this book completely yet, but I have high hopes for its usefulness to me.

Lastly, magazines. While I'm eagerly awaiting the winter issue of Interweave Knits to make it's way to bookstores, I've picked up these two to keep me occupied...

Neither of these magazines are ones I've ever bought before, but these issues are both chock full of color work. Debbie Bliss in particular leaves me speechless with the collection it's featuring of ridiculously fabulous fair isle designs by Anna Wilkinson. I don't know if I'll ever actually knit any of them, but I will continue to stare at them for weeks to come. In fact, the thought occurred to me to frame the pictures and hang them in my yarn room. And that model with the red hair and porcelain skin? Is she not STUNNING? (I admit to Googling to try and figure out who she is because I was curious to see some of her other modeling work. I know she's been in DB before, but I really want to know who she is. LOL Anyone know? I came up with nothing.)

So, yep...that's it. Been a crazy week in a lot of other ways, technology withstanding, but I won't bore you. Oh! I am doing well with NaNoWriMo though! I crossed the halfway mark of 25K words tonight. The story continues to be choppy and probably makes no sense, but I'm having fun writing it.

I love books. :)

Color(work)...

We've been having some dreary weather this week. It seems the start of the gray days of a Pittsburgh winter are quickly moving in, and that means I have to find my sunshine from places other than the sky. Enter the joy of colorful yarn and fiber! Yeay!

Having my yarn and fiber stash in plain view has been having the effect I hoped it would when I bought those cubbies a while back: it's encouraging me to use more of what I have since it's now easier to see what is at my disposal. (It is not, I regret to report, discouraging me from buying more to add to the stash. I'm not sure what might have that effect. :})

After spending several weeks spinning over a pound of gold and rust BFL for a test knitting project I'd agreed to do, I really started to crave some color! So this week, I pulled this out of a cubbie and started spinning it up:

I think I bought this at the Homespun Yarn Party in Maryland back in 2009. (ETA: Nope...just looked at the pictures of what I got there, and this fiber wasn't among them. Not in my Pittsburgh Knit & Crochet pictures or Maryland Sheep & Wool pictures either. Mystery! Hm. I'm not really sure where it came from now! LOL) I was pretty new to spinning at that time, and my main criteria for buying fiber was color. If the colors grabbed me, it was good. That said, I have no idea what kind of fiber this is, because the only tag on it was a handwritten job that said "5 oz." and the price. So...it is 5 ounces of some miscellaneous wool (or maybe a random wool blend) in the most yummy candy colors! (The picture isn't doing justice to the colors. I'll get a better one in non-dreary daylight soon.) It's not the nicest fiber I've ever worked with, nor is it the worst. It's not super soft, but it isn't uncomfortably scratchy, either. I'm guessing I'm going to end up with maybe 300 yards of a DK or light worsted weight two ply when I'm done. Stay tuned!

In addition to craving color on my wheel, I've enjoying a tiny fair isle project that I'm designing as a gift. These three sock yarns aren't overly bright -- they actually fall more into the autumnal color scheme I've worked with a lot the past couple months -- but it's the process of colorwork knitting that I'm finding myself enjoying more and more lately. I've gotten better at it, but it still offers a decent challenge to me, so that is good.

Cherry Tree Hill Supersock Select, Cabin Fever colorway; Sanguine Gryphon Bugga!, an unnamed brown colorway and Yellow Dung Fly.

I'll post a picture of my finished project after it's in the hands of its recipient.

In a non-fiber related topic, I've been keeping up with my 2,000 words per day NaNoWriMo goal so far! I'm not an advanced plotter, so I often have no idea where my story is going until I'm sitting down and watching it appear on the screen before me. This is a good, freeing way to write, but it also has, historically, caused me to back track and edit and change things as I go, which definitely bogs me down. This year, I've decided to take Anne Lamott's sentiment of a "shitty first draft" to heart and just not worry about it making too much sense. Thus, there is discontinuity galore. There some parts of the story written a couple different ways and I'll figure out later which way works best.

My ultimate goal for NaNoWriMo this time is to just write. This story may never see the light of day after NaNoWriMo is over, and for once, I'm OK with that! I realized this year that I think its been the expectation I've always put on myself to do more with my writing that just writing that has taken much of the joy out of it for me. Having been so immersed in writing communities for so long, where publication is at the forefront of everyone's minds, it's reasonable that that was where my mind was too. Now that I've been away from those communities for several years, I'm actually rediscovering the fun in the process again.

Down to the wire...

Socktoberfest is quickly coming to a close, and as I'm waiting for the last clue for the Mystery Sock to be posted at (or around?) midnight Friday, I thought I'd take these moments to post a catch-up blog entry. I'll start with my mystery sock progress...

This is what it looks like after Clue #4. I've since finished the second sock up to this point as well. This marks a coup for me in this Socktoberfest Mystery Sock knitting challenge. In both of the past two years, I went gung ho on clues 1 - 3, but then when I got to the foot clue -- which always feels like the longest part of the sock to me -- I've petered out completely. I didn't finish my 2008 mystery socks until March 2009, and I didn't finish the 2009 pair until February of 2010. That I am on track to finish the 2010 pair not only IN 2010, but within the month of (S)ocktober, well, it's just a miracle! It's a Socktoberfest miracle! ;)

In other sock knitting, I'm still on the gusset increases on my second Riff sock, but I remain optimistic that I will also finish that sock before midnight on Sunday as well.

All of this tiny sock needle knitting is starting to get to my hands a little (ever since I've learned to knit continental when doing socks, I find my hands stay very tense as I knit, I think due to the tensioning needs of the finer gauge yarn), so I decided to cast on another project using US8s.

This is the start of the Caldavos cardigan, pattern by Thea Colman. Can I say that Thea is quickly becoming one of my favorite designers? I loved working on her Nantucket Red design earlier this year, and this pattern promises to be as enjoyable, as far as I can see. Her patterns are very well written, nicely detailed, and I love how she includes notes on how each person can best customize the garments to her own body. I know that is something a lot of us try to do anyway, but if you're a less adventurous knitter, or just aren't confident enough to make your own modifications to a pattern, having those notes within the pattern is a really nice feature. I'll keep you posted on my love affair with Thea and her Caldavos pattern as I progress through it. Right now, my focus remains on these two pair of socks, so it will still be a few days before I made major headway on this project.

And soon there will be another sweater in the works. I can't say a lot about it right now, as it is a test knit, but I will say it will be made from handspun...

This shot represents approximately 24 oz of BFL from Briar Rose Fibers that I (mostly) woolen spun to a heavy worsted weight. The yarn at the back half of the shot is all for the main body of the sweater. The foreground yarn in the rather mustardy shade is, tentatively, set to be the contrast. I'm conflicted, though. Something about the shade of that contrasting yarn just does not jive with the main colors. My other option is to use some Plymouth Tweed in a dark brown, which, colorwise, works much more to my liking, but the spin of the Plymouth yarn is very different than that of my handspun, so I'm not sure how it will look. I'm still toying with the configuration of colors for this project. I know the answer is there. I just need to wait for it to show itself to me. (The answer will not involve either over-dyeing nor buying and spinning yet more fiber, even though both of those options have popped into my brain.)

I will add that this spinning project has taught me one thing: I do not enjoy spinning heavier weight yarns nearly as much as I do lighter weight. DK, fingering...those I truly enjoy. Worsted, I don't mind. This heavier worsted? Meh. Not so much. And I'm just not sure why. I think part of it is because it seemed to take forEVer to spin enough to get the yardage I needed for this project. Granted, spinning finer yarns take a while too, but at least there is more yardage for the effort.

Lastly, a whim...

...crocheted spiral hexagons from leftover sock yarn. As evidenced in my yarn room pictures recently, I have a lot of little leftover balls of sock yarn. I've been hoarding them not only as decorative items, but ultimately to be used for this sock yarn blanket. Now, I love making mitred squares. Honestly, I do. That's often my go-to pattern if I have to make an afghan square or a dishcloth. However, the thought of knitting several hundred of those puppies out of sock yarn just really hasn't excited me, thus I never bothered to start the project. (Well, that and the fact that I already have an afghan WIP that I swore I'd finish before I started any more blankets, however I have this sneaking suspicion that I'm going to run out of yarn before the afghan reaches it's target size, so I've been ignoring it. Plus it's being knit on US11s, which pretty much feel like tree trunks in my hands. I'm not a big needle kinda girl.)

However, I started watching the Round the Twist videocast several months ago, and Carin often shows her little crocheted hexagons that she's making, presumably for a blanket (I'm honestly not sure, but that's my guess). I thought that was a fantastic idea! I'm not a very experienced crocheter, but I do enjoy crocheting on occasion. It's a nice change from knitting. So after the last RtT videocast, I pulled out my Crochet Stitch Bible, found a pattern for a hexagon that looked like I could handle and gave it a go. The next day, I made another one and seamed it to the first. Oh my goodness! These are too much fun to make! I can do them while I'm sitting here at the computer reading or watching something. Easy peasy.

After making the second one, I went and measured my bed, then I came back and did the math. I would need to crochet 1190 of these hexagons to make a coverlet for my queen-sized bed. If I make four hexagons a day, seaming as I go, I could have a coverlet completed in under a year. For whatever reason, that strikes me as incredibly doable. I know, logistically speaking, I won't make four a day, but it's still a goal to work with.

The biggest catch to this theory is that I know I do not have enough sock yarn leftovers to accommodate an entire coverlet. Each of my hexagons have used about 2 grams of yarn, which means I'd need the equivalent of nearly 24 100-gram skeins of sock yarn to finish the project. I'm quite sure my leftovers don't come to anywhere near that. Will need to consider how to beg, borrow, or trade for more, I suppose. But I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.

All you wanted to know about flax but were afraid to ask...

...or perhaps never even thought about?

This past Saturday, Kevin, Emma and I went to the Stahlstown Flax Scutching Festival. Kevin's been to this one before with his antique farm equipment group, but I'd never gone, as it always falls on the same weekend as the Pittsburgh Irish Festival, and that's where Emma and I usually go to get our annual Gaelic Storm fix. This year, we opted out of the Irish Festival and headed out early Saturday to check out the festival of flax. It's a small festival, easy to see all there is to see in just a couple of hours, but it was pretty neat. In addition to being a beautiful day to be up in the mountains, there were buckwheat pancakes & sausage to be had, as well as several vendors selling all sorts of crafts, as well as some selling honey and maple products. (Mmm...maple candy. I love maple candy. Reminds me of my childhood.)

The centerpiece of the festival, however, is the flax demonstration. Apparently it is a very well known festival for this very reason, attracting people from all over the country and beyond, which seems odd considering how small Stahlstown is.

I admit, I was curious about how flax was historically processed into thread and then fabric. I knew very little about spinning plant fibers, and nothing about flax. I can't say that now, though! And I have a little pictorial essay to share my new found knowledge with you!

The gentleman who gave the presentation here is holding the flax as it appears when it is harvested, which is done by pulling it from the ground by its roots. The roots contain some of the finest flax fibers, so to cut it off above the ground would mean losing valuable fiber.

The first step in processing the flax then takes place out in the field where it is retted, or laid in the sun and turned over periodically so that bacteria that live inside the flax can begin to break down the woody part of the plant, thus helping to free the flax fibers.

The second step is breaking, which I didn't get to photograph. It's done on large frame-like tool with long wooden teeth between which the flax stalks are beaten. That breaks up the woody part of the flax even further and removes it from the flax fibers.

Once the fibers are free of the woody part of the plant, the third step is the scutching, which is what this girl is doing. It's basically beating the flax with that paddle to remove the more coarse fibers. This results in a tangle of the coarse fibers, which are called "tow," resembling the hair of small blond children, hence the term "tow-headed." The tow was used for a variety of things, including cleaning gun barrels and for insulation in homes.The tow could also be spun and made into coarse fabric used for sacks and other non-garments.

The next step before the flax can be spun is to remove even more of the coarse fibers by hackling (or heckling...depending on whether you are using the German or Scottish version of the word, I think). Hackles, or heckles, are those iron teeth sticking up like a big brush and the fibers are combed through it, producing more tow.

Finally, the spinning! Unlike spinning wool, in which you generally hold the fiber in your hand, the flax fibers are held on a distaff while they are being spun.

Also unlike wool, flax fibers do not have scales, therefore in order to get the fibers to hold together as they are being spun, the spinner must wet his or her fingers and the moisture then helps form the spun strand. That's what the little suspended water bowl on the side of the spinning wheel is for.

The ultimate goal for the fiber is to be spun into linen thread, which can then be woven into fiber. Initially it is spun onto a bobbin on the spinning wheel, then the thread is transferred from that bobbin to a longer bobbin that goes inside the shuttle used in weaving on the loom. This is accomplished by use of a much larger wheel, the walking wheel. Apparently it was possible to spin directly using the walking wheel, but it looked like that would have been a major pain, considering how often the drive band slipped off!

Thread being transferred to the longer spindle for the shuttle.

Finally the thread is used for both warp and weft on the loom and woven into linen cloth. Sometimes they would warp the loom with linen thread and weave with wool, resulting in a rather coarse fabric they termed linsey-woolsey. The very last step was for the fabric to be put through a linen press, but I wasn't able to get a picture of that, either.

So...cool, eh? They were selling various flax/linen souvenirs, and I asked if they had any of the prepared flax fiber for sale, as I'd have liked to have brought some home to try and spin it. Alas, they did not. It's hard to come by and they only have enough on hand for the demonstrations. I wasn't the only person who asked about it, though, I was told...so maybe in the future I'll get lucky?

Interestingly, when I was a kid, my mother's aunt gave me a bundle of flax fiber. It looked and felt much like a long, golden pony tail that got lopped off of someone's head. That both fascinated me and kind of creeped me out. I had that flax for many years, but my mom finally decided it should be thrown out because she was afraid it would attract bugs. I don't know if it would have or not, but I really kind of wish I still had it now. :}

September is off to a good start...

 ...mostly. I'm not counting the cold I've had this week that has been kicking my arse. Moving on...

I finished my Nantucket Red on Tuesday, which is not red but a pretty golden color...

Nantucket Red by Thea Colman done in Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool.

It was a pretty quick project. I finished it in less than a month, and that was in the midst of the house stuff and some other knitting. There are more pictures of it on my Rav project page, along with my project notes. I'm 98.9% happy with it. I am having issues with the sleeve caps laying right...I think I could have made them about two rows shorter and they'd have been perfect, but clearly, that isn't a big deal. The fit in the left bust area is a little snug (yes, just the left...I'm slightly lopsided, LOL) but there really wouldn't have been much I could have done to make it bigger on just that one side without it looking odd. I'm confident that with wear, the Silky Wool will open up and it'll be fine. The only other issue is fixable...I may need to move my hooks/eyes closer to the edges. You can't tell as much in this picture because of the way I'm standing, but they aren't as gappy as they are supposed to be. We'll see how I feel about it after I wear it a few times. Again, though, overall...very happy with it, it was a terrific pattern, and I'm glad to have another Silky Wool cardi to take the place of my February Lady Sweater that is now way too huge on me.

I also finished my first Norwegian Rose sock this week...

I started this sock back in May, after Spring Fling, as part of a KnitGirllls KAL. I started off strong, finishing the foot part in no time, but when I got to the heel, I flagged. It's that whole toe-up heel thing. This pattern called for a short-row heel, of which I am not a fan, so I kept debating about doing a different heel and essentially paralyzed myself with options, so I just pushed the project aside. I finally pulled it out again a couple of weeks ago, deciding to just do the heel as written and see how it went.

Now that it's done, I have mixed feelings about it. The sock is definitely pretty, my stranded colorwork has enough give that the sock fits snugly but comfortably (and I can get it on, which is always a crap shoot with colorwork socks), and the short-row heel is ok, but the pattern called for a "mini-flap" above the short-row heel, which essentially made the heel too high for me and kind of boinks out unless I really pull the sock up, and it will never stay that way. I could omit it on the second one, I suppose, but then the socks won't match, and that will bug me. I could rip out the first one, get rid of the mini-flap and re-knit it, but....hahahahaha! I am not ripping out 6 inches of colorwork. Sorry. Not happening. I'll live with the boink.

As for other projects, I am working on another pair of socks (Norwegian Rose #2 is going to wait a while, I think), which will be a Christmas gift for a friend. First sock is done, second about 1/3 of the way. No pictures yet, though. I am planning to start a Haruni shawl for another gift (I am so on the ball with gift knitting this year...it's amazing!) -- the yarn is wound and the pattern printed out -- and I'm going to start another Traveling Woman soon, I think, for yet another gift, but I haven't decided on yarn yet. In the mean time, I've started a random cardigan with some Lorna's Laces Swirl DK I've had laying around forever.

And I do mean it is random because I have no pattern. This is some of the first yarn I ever bought when I first started knitting a few years ago, but I had no idea what I'd made with it. I finally decided to swatch to see what the colors would do, if they'd pool unpleasantly or what, but the only way to do that for a garment is to make a really big swatch. So I cast on enough stitches to accommodate the back of a cardigan for myself. I've got about 15" now, almost far enough to bind off for armholes. So...yeah...that's what I'll do. And then I'll try to mimic the same design in the front, I suppose. (Really, it's that random.) The sleeves may be a bit of an issue, as I have never tried to fake an entire sweater pattern before, but I know how to measure and divide and count, and I'm hoping that will yield functional and pleasing results. LOL It's actually kind of fun to be knitting something in this way. And I have to say, I LOVE how the yarn is working out. I love how it looks, and I love how it feels. The colors are awesome and not pooling unpleasantly.  So...I'll see what I end up with. Stay tuned!

On the fiber front, I had the day to myself on Tuesday, and though it was one of the days I was feeling kind of punk, I thought, Hey! What better to do today than make a giant mess in my kitchen! So that's what I did. I broke out the fiber and the dyes. By the end of the day, this is what I had...

I've been wanting to learn how to dye roving for some time now...it was on my "to do" list for the last two summers, actually. I've been gathering materials and equipment. I've been reading, reading, reading about the process. I finally decided that the only way I was really going to learn anything was to just give it a go. I chose some Southdown/Shetland cross fiber that, frankly, I don't think is of great quality. It's rough and very neppy and I'm not sure why I thought it was a good idea to buy a pound of it, but I did, so I used some of it as my guinea pig fiber. It dyed beautifully, but it's still a rough, neppy mess that is not the least bit fun to spin.

On the plus side, though, I managed to dye it without felting it, nor burning it. I did, however, use WAY too much dye, thus it took two more batches of fiber afterward to exhaust the dye baths. I also succeeded in dyeing my hands purple during one of the rinses because I forgot to put my gloves on. Live and learn. I feel cautiously optimistic about what I did, though. Next time I think I'll try it on some better fiber. Life is too short to mess with unpleasant fiber, period.

Oh, the reason I had the day to myself on Tuesday is because Kevin took an extra day's vacation for the long weekend. His big project for the four days was digging up his parents' yard in order to install a new water line. We were all over there on Sunday for dinner, and afterward I grabbed my camera and said to the kids, "Hey! Let's go have fun with the ditch!" This sentence would probably seem strange in most contexts, right? It says something about our family that the kids just shrugged and said, "OK!" So...here you have it...fun with a ditch...

Now for the real pictures...

Since no one was else was home at picture time, model-less pictures of my Berry Berry Citron will have to suffice for now! ;)

Citron, knit with 654 yards of 3-ply fingering weight handspun created from 4 oz. of Tempted merino/silk, "Positivity" colorway. I Navajo-plied it to maintain the nice, long color changes.

This is so soft and light and yet cosy and warm! I may have been a little overzealous in my blocking, as the ruched areas aren't quite as dense as I've seen them in other versions of this shawl, or it could be that my gauge was just looser. No matter, I do love how it turned out.

I often wonder what my neighbors think when they see me outside taking photos of my knits. Especially when I'm outside on a Sunday morning, still in my PJ's, zombie socks and gardening shoes...

Oh, and wild hair and no make up! Yep! That's got to be an attractive thing to watch. Or at least mildly amusing. I suppose I could have really put on a show and set up the tripod to take pictures of myself modeling Citron...

Um...yeah. Maybe not. ;)

Instead, my pretty Morning Glory vine was more than happy to play model!

Speaking of pretty plants, I think this Coleus is one of the prettiest things growing in my flower beds this year! I've always loved flowery flowers and never used to be a big fan of variegated greenery, but it's really growing on me lately (no pun intended!).

And I've noticed something else this year. The Butterfly Flowers I planted? They have been attracting more bees than butterflies. And some big bees at that! Look at this dude!

Lastly, let me just say that I am loving - LOVING - that it is starting to feel fallish. Being able to open the windows at night and have the air conditioning off...wonderful! And having the need to put on some hand knit socks and wrap myself in a shawl or afghan early in the morning? Fantastic! Our new school year is going to start two weeks from today, and I'm by no means trying to rush these last two weeks of summer, but weather-wise, give me fall and I'm a happy, happy girl! :)

Dude...that was close...

Apologies now for the total crapazoid photo...used my laptop camera and the lighting pretty much sucks in here at night. But I just needed to share this...

If you're a knitter, you can probably figure out the significance of this shot, but I'll elucidate anyway so you know the whole story.

I finished my Citron tonight, which I knit out of my own handspun (with fiber from Tempted Yarns). If you've knit Citron, you know that there are five ruched sections, each of which double your stitch count until you decrease again for the area between the ruched sections. But then the last section you do is the ruffle, which also requires you to double your stitch count. So, if you do the pattern as written (meaning not doing fewer or more sections), the ruffle is worked on 540 stitches. DUDE. Yeah.

When I finished the fifth ruched section and the decrease section that followed it, I weighed the idea of adding a sixth ruched section, but I feared I'd then run short of yarn and end up with a dinky little ruffle, which would look funny. So instead I went ahead and did the KFBs for the ruffle and decided I'd simply knit the ruffle as long as it took to use up all of my handspun. The pattern called for 11 ruffle rows before binding off. I ended up doing 23.

Near the end, I tried to decide if I could get one more row out of the yarn before binding off. I did my default estimating process of stringing the yarn out along the length of my working stitches, tripling it and then adding some extra to be safe. I was able to do that twice and had maybe one more length left over, so I felt confident that I could get a row plus my bind off out of my remaining yarn. (I'm pretty sure bind off rows use more yarn than regular knit rows, at least that's my hunch.)

Heh. What you see me holding in the photo is what was left after I bound off the last stitch. Twenty-four inches. Or, in fiber-speak, less than a gram. (Seriously...it will not even register on my digital scale as one gram!) DUDE!!

I was starting to sweat there for a while, because I was soooo close to the end, but all I could think about was having to tink back 1,000ish stitches because I'd miscalculated and run out with, say, ten stitches to go. (And no, there wouldn't have been enough yarn from my cast-on tail to have used to make up the difference! LOL)

I love when I can use up all of the handspun in a project like this, but this was just a little too close for comfort! ;)

Better pictures of Citron (and me...yikes!) forthcoming after blocking and a good night's rest. (Citron and me, respectively. ;) )

And June comes to an end...

It's the last day of June, yet it feels like a late September day. It's a whopping 65 degrees here today, which I'm not complaining about at all. It was just 90 degrees the other day, so I'll take a day like this to balance that out. Any day in the summer when I can have the air conditioners off is a good day. :)

I'm happy to report that my groove has returned. Or, at least, a groove. I've managed some decent productivity lately, and that is a good thing!

On the gardening front, we have garlic just about ready to be dug...this was a test bunch Kevin dug last night...

In all honestly, this garlic has nothing to do with my productivity, other than me saying to Kevin the other evening, "Isn't it about time to dig the garlic?" ;) As for the rest of the big garden, aside from the broccoli that the #@!$ ground hogs ate off, everything seems to be doing well! I got some peas, which is better than some years, and the tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, cukes and zucchini all have baby fruits on them. My salad garden is still producing some lettuce and onions, and the herbs are doing fine. Praying no Acts of God come and destroy things this year!

Where my efforts did go earlier this week were to this area of our yard...

This spot is at the back of our house, next to our porch. Of all the areas of our property, this has probably been the most neglected for the 17 years we've lived here. What this "before" picture does not show is all of the crap that had accumulated here over those years! Saturday night, I had the kids help me clear it out...lots of old lumber that had leaned up against the house, an old pool wall from when the kids were little was rolled up and sitting there, and lots of other weird, yucky detritus left over from various other projects. If it didn't have a home, it often got tossed there.

I make an effort to have the back porch be my "happy place" during the warm months. I like to sit here and have breakfast or coffee or journal or knit (or write in my blog, as I am now!). I decided, however, that the happy place would make me far happier if I was not looking at a garbage dump right next to me. So, getting the crap cleared away was a good first step. But on Sunday, Emma and I set to work taking it a bit further. We spent over four hours digging up close to 100 bricks that were embedded in that patch of ground (I think the previous owners used this spot to sit their garbage cans maybe?), and then we dug up all of that ratty ground cover & transplanted it to our front embankment, which is very rocky and the rain causes regular landslides to occur (hoping the ground cover takes root and helps stem that trend). Then we hit Lowe's for mulch and flowers, and behold...a truly happy, happy place!

It isn't perfect, but it's WAY better than it was! And it's pretty to look at now, too! The bonus was spending the day working with my 13-year-old daughter on this. She even told me she had fun helping me. Total bonus! :)

On the fiber front, I don't have any new knits to share right now, but I should have a new shawl finished up pretty soon, so stay tuned. I did, however, finish plying the never-ending fiber two nights ago!

Sorry for the crappy nighttime cell phone picture, but it's all I have at the moment. This is 654 yards of 3-ply fingering weight that I spun from 4 oz. of Tempted merino-silk in the Positivity colorway. It is destined to become a Citron shawl, which I will cast on as a reward for finishing a test knit project that I need to work on.

I am going to be taking part in Tour de Fleece again this year, though my chosen project is anything but exciting. Can't remember if I mentioned it here before or not, but when I showed my finished Caricia to my mother-in-law, her response was, "I want that!" Only she wants one in all white. I'm not sure she even cares if it is the same pattern. But she wants a lacy shawl, in all white. ALL WHITE. I cannot emphasize that enough. ALL WHITE.

There are two solid colors that I hate knitting: black and white. Black, because it is very hard to see the stitch definition, and white because...it is boringboringboring! Any solid runs the risk of boring me after a while, frankly, but white is just so...white. There is no color at all to keep things interesting! The fact that I'll be doing a lace pattern with it is all that will keep me from wanting to jab the knitting needles straight into my eyeballs, I promise you. But I digress (kind of). This tells you how much I like my mother-in-law that I am not only willing to knit a white shawl for her, but I'm going to spin the #@!$ fiber for it, too. I have a hard time finding pure white yarn that I like to work with, and for this kind of project, I have to like the yarn. It is imperative! The white fiber I'll be working with is the same BamHuey fiber I used for the Caricia yarn, only in its undyed form. (Thanks to Cheryl for being willing to sell it to me that way!) Six ounces of it. Yep. Check in with me at the end of TdF to see if I'm still sane. ;) (Though my sanity might be in question for even taking on this project!)

Should I survive the spinning of the white, I think I may move on to a stash of various natural colors of Icelandic wool I picked up at a fiber festival last year. I want to create a color-graded yarn that I will then knit into a (wait for it)...shawl. I know, who'da thunk it. Me, knit a shawl. LOL I don't yet know what pattern I'll use for this as-of-yet unspun fiber, but I can envision the general project in my head, looking soooo pretty going from the lightest shade at the top down to the darkest shade at the bottom. It's visions like this that make me giddy. I'm such a dork. ;)