3 FOs and a 30-Year Photo

My sister and her partner Erik made it down to the parents' to visit this past week, so my brother and I both took time to visit also. First time in over a year I think we've all three been there together. And in chatting over the supper table, somehow the subject of family photos came up, and someone mentioned the time we all went to get one taken at the photography studio in Malone (which, even though it's in a different country, is actually the closest place we had a movie theatre or a large library or chain restaurants or such things). And then the notion of recreating it came up. So we did - kind of. Mom found the old picture, and my sister even managed to find the same little teddy bear she had been holding in that photo, and we all headed for the living room couch with Erik for our photographer.

So this is us, roughly 30 years ago, based on how old us kids look in the picture. (Apologies for the flash).

And now you get this.

Teddy is obviously the one who's changed the least!

Our generation is the one with kids now. My knitting for the visit included two baby sweaters - one for my sister to give to a friend who is expecting, and one in handspun for a cousin's baby. And I finally cast off  the shawl that's been on the needles for a while!

Backlog - Knitting

Before I forget - the Birkeland Brothers woollen mill I mentioned supporting a couple posts back? They got their target money and more, largely thanks to Ravelers by the looks of it. And now I have 5 lbs of carded lambswool coming from them this month sometime...which is one really good reason I didn't buy any fleece for myself at Rhinebeck. Planning to spin lots of skeins to natural-dye next season.

Right now, though, it'll be knitting until after Christmas. Did I tell you about Joan? Lovely lady, who I've taught in spinning and dyeing classes. She had a few knitting projects on the needles that she KNEW she would never get round to finishing, but she really wanted them finished, so she commissioned me to do them. Starting with a sweater for her daughter, cast on 2010, which she wanted for her birthday in early November. I got that one started ASAP, steam-blocked the pieces the night before I left town for Rhinebeck, and spent Friday and Saturday evenings and driving time knitting the hood and sewing it all up. Chantal modeled it for me in the hotel room so I could send pics to Joan, and the sweater (and a mitten I knitted Sunday to finish another commission) were dropped off for delivery.

It's Paton's Hooded Pullover, if you're curious.

Between Rhinebeck and the end of the month got reserved for Guild Ex and Sale knitting. Not that I got a huge amount done. But I reckon a hat and mittens and fingerless mitts is decent for two weeks when there's a job involved also.

The Ex and Sale went off really well, and now I'm back on commission knitting...Joan's remaining projects (2 pair of socks and 2-3 of mittens) for starters, which are to be Christmas gifts. Then a pile someone ordered through Johanne at the ranch - also for Christmas - which I will pick up the supplies and info for this weekend. And two pair of fingerless mitts ordered by a former classmate (thankfully quick knitting and not for a Christmas deadline). Any holiday knitting of my own may be a little late getting done, and no way I'm getting to do the NaKniSweMo KAL I had considered.

I'm happy to have the extra work, especially in the off-season - but first thing I cast on in January is dang well going to be something for me, and preferably with one of the new skeins from Rhinebeck! Because the last thing I knit for me? Was the Alpha Socks I finished last February.

Something New

A friend of mine wanted a hat, so she was over looking at patterns and yarn yesterday. I'm very happy with the fact that the pattern that caught her eye was the Something beanie by atelier alfa, because I had been eyeing it previously. It looked like a neat construction, I just had no excuse to make it - until now.

And it is just as neat as I thought it would be. I'm not normally a magic loop person, but I'm wrestling a slightly stiff circular (it's an old Aero, but the only one I had of the right size and length) into service, and the hat is coming along nicely.

See that? The hat's kind of like a shaped ribbon, attached to itself as you go. You're working in basic back-and-forth garter stitch, but coming out with a round hat. Reminds me a little of the Baby Surprise Jacket, but with no seams involved. And like the BSJ, stripes are good. Which is perfect for me, since the yarn going into it is some handspun I had natural-dyed last summer - 4 colours but only about 60-70 yards of each.

I really like the construction. The designer has a matching cowl, but I'm wondering now...can I use it to make mittens? Socks? Suddenly, I see more magic loop in my future. Definitely Something fun.

Lambs and Llama

The baby sweater is done! Or at least as done as it can be for now. I went looking for buttons while it was blocking, and found (aargh!) that I don't have enough of any one type of button in stash that would work. So they get postponed until I can check my mother's button boxes as well. But I think I like the way blue buttons would look:

It seemed like it took the sweater forever to dry, presumably because I was waiting until after it was blocked to embroider the sheep's faces. So I started on my second Ravellenics project while I was waiting.

More handspun from the Tour de Fleece. Fiber from Bertha's llama, and it's going to turn into the Arcadia shawl - or at least a modified version. I know there's not enough spun to knit the shawl as written, but the original is quite long, so I'm making a shorter version. At the rate it's going, I should be on the edging by tonight...

Fiber and Color

What a lovely couple of days. Yesterday was meet-up for spinning in the park, and yummy lunch stuff. I didn't bring my wheel, since I was coming from an errand beforehand, but I brought some knitting with handspun. Mittens in alpaca, in a nicely textured bubbly pattern.

We're getting a bit more formal in our park set-up. Drinks used to mean a thermos of whatever. But this time there was a portable Coleman stove, and a table, and all the fixings for tea and coffee. Wonderfully luxurious, really. And happily, the rain which was threatening held off, but there was enough breeze to keep cool by. Of course, then I didn't notice until I got home that I had a bit of a burn, and a funny one. Heavier on one side, and with the position of the necklace I was wearing clearly marked!

After a quick stop home to drop things mid-afternoon, I headed for Colonnade. Warehouse sale at Wool-Tyme, and I kinda found a few things. 

I have this little problem resisting pretty colors. All fingering-weight alpaca and alpaca blends, and my excuse is that they will turn into colorwork mittens for selling at craft fairs. Having done that damage, I met up with a friend and we did a flying tour to Brockville, as the Thousand Islands Guild was having a quilt show. I forgot the camera in the car, but there were so many pretty things, and we were so pressed for time, that I barely had time to see everything myself, and only glanced at the vendors. Really, the quilters are expanding their creative range as fast as the knitters - every time I see a quilt show there's new and interesting ideas to take in. 

Off again this morning to the annual Glebe Garage Sale. And oddly enough, the fiber and dyeing theme continued here, as I found three books on the topic.

 Casselman's dye book I've heard cited as a good one, the Weaving and Dyeing book looks intriguing, has the old recipes, and weaving patterns, so will be of interest to my mother as well, and Women's Work I had from the library and loved, so was thrilled to find a paperback copy. Besides my book pile, I found a few movies, but nothing big. I did, of course, get some edibles...lemonade from a kid's stand, a hot dog from the Scouts, and half a pound of homemade maple fudge by way of dessert. Really, the limiting factor for the Glebe sale is how long my feet will hold out. Otherwise I could really spend longer there, listening to bands and buskers, nibbling at various bake sales, seeing what treasures people have found, looking at the houses and landscaping...but as it was, I was very happy to get home, and put my feet up for a bit. 

Hibernating

There are library books due, and I was debating going out to return them, and having a swing by Knit-Knackers for their weekly knit night at the same time.

However, despite the fact that it's sunny and really decent outside, I think I'll stay in. The library books can be renewed online (thank goodness for internet), and anyway, I'm not done with all of them yet. And no travelling means more time to work on things here. I've been good today, and done some carding, and some picture taking (Deb and Christine, y'all had better appreciate the new pic of the pysanky on Rav!), and checked in on the testers for my tam (4 done so far), and a little housework, and sent a job application. Now I want to do a little spinning, and a little knitting, and maybe work on those library books...

The February project for spinning is some grey mix pastel wool. I actually carded the stuff and separated all my nice neat little rolags probably 2 years ago.

It's half grey wool and half indigo, greenweed, and cochineal dyed wool - a color blending exercise, if you will. For spinning, I then do one rolag pink, one peach, one yellow, etc, in rainbow order. Plied against another bobbin of the same, it makes a long-repeat yarn shading through all the colors.

There are a couple skeins done, which I spun initially. Of the remaining 3-4 skeins worth, I've spun close to half, so it shouldn't (knock wood) be an issue to finish them this month.

And after having to rip out once, the body for the peacock sweater is progressing nicely, and the sleeves are done. I'm still very excited about knitting it, (and wearing it) - the fabric is looking so nice! Really, it would be going faster if I didn't stop to admire it every round...

Recalculating

I promised myself that I would get the last of the peacock batt spun by the end of January. Came pretty close - I plied the last of it yesterday. 23 skeins total, and I figure about 1550 meters. Plenty for a sweater. Almost a sweater and a half, really.

I have been thinking for months that I want to make the Borealis sweater out of it. Only one tiny problem. I had started spinning rather before I decided on the sweater pattern - and didn't check what size yarn the sweater used. I just saw a friend's version, went, 'Ooh, pretty, that would probably work with my yarn', and acquired the pattern. Um.

So I went to cast on last night and had my first indication of trouble when I saw the pattern called for 15mm needles. The largest I own is 9mm, and when I tried a sample with them, my yarn looked really tiny. Seems I had been thinking of it as a bulky yarn when it's really around aran-weight. It's only bulky by comparison to what I usually spin.

Well, a quick look around Rav convinced me that the Borealis was still the type of thing I wanted - plain knit, fairly fitted, cowlneck. Out came the calculator, and I plugged in numbers, and swatched, and got a sleeve started. I think I can still do this.

Happily, the yarn is lovely to work with, and has the same quality as Noro or fair-isle, in that you just want to keep going to see the next color-change. All I have to do is remember to not get too into it and forget about things like supper...

Brilliance in Action

A couple summers ago, I dyed a bunch of fleece with logwood and indigo, and got it all carded together on a drum carder to make nice tweedy batts. I finally finished spinning and plying it, counted the yardage and decided there's enough for a sweater. I think it's going to be this one.

So I set the twist, and then noticed one of the skeins looked a bit funny. Most of them looked like this:

One of them looked like this:

It was still all kinky and hadn't smoothed out at all. Now occasionally I try to ply something in the wrong direction, so I checked and that wasn't (quite) the issue here. Turns out I spun one of the singles S-twist and one Z-twist. Yep. And didn't notice anything wrong before this. Some days ya wouldn't think I managed to make it through grad school, eh? Now I'm going to have to take the plies apart and ply each one to itself if I want a decent yarn. Good thing I wasn't planning on starting the sweater right away!