Finally Got It Right, I Think

It's been about two months since getting my spinning wheel, and I've been practicing, practicing...you get the idea. I've finally created a yarn from which I actually think I can knit something. A small something, like maybe a hat, but it is way better than anything produced so far! The picture doesn't do it justice: it is light green, pale yellow and orange. Kool Aid colors. I played around with dying the combed top, rather than the spun yarn as I wanted to have a more gradual blend of colors into each other. BTW, when dying multiple colors, be aware that allowing complimentary colors to bleed together will produce some shade of brown or brownish grey. Separate the complimentaries with a color that will blend with either. In this the complimentaries were green and orange (I know, red is the opposite of green, but orange is close enough to red to produce the brown effect)and the separator was yellow. Allowing the yellow to bleed into either the green or orange did not produce any unwanted effects, just enhanced the contrast. I'm also spinning a blue shade that looks like denim spun up and I can envision making a denim-look Einsenhower jacket, if there is enough. And that is a problem with spinning, rather difficult to tell how much product one has until it is at least on the niddy noddy. With the blue, no matter how much I end up with, that is the amount I'll have to work with, since there is no more top available. It is promising to be a very lovely yarn. I've not forgotten either about my knitting. How could I? Right now I'm focusing on finishing some of the five projects I have active: A cotton summer shell is almost off the needles, only lacks finishing the I-cord on the bottom edge and it will be done...after two years! I'm pushing on finishing the wedding shawl since that must be done by September and I will still have to attach blue crystals to it after finishing and that involves fishline, blue Swarovski bicone crystals and--eeekkkk--a cigarette lighter or candle flame. Half-finished cotton socks may get done by winter (hah! They are taking so long because I'm doing both at the same time), a lovely varigated green shawl sits lone and forlorn in its bag, awaiting some sort of attention, and I try to regularly work on the prayer shawl/lap robe/cuddler I started for a friend with a dire diagnosis.

Taking a Left Turn

Just when you think life is going to settle down and there arises the specter of boring sameness, a new thing comes along to pique your interest and get you sidetracked from what you normally do. I fought it for years, determined I wouldn't give in to it, steadfastly turned my back and mind away from any thought of undertaking yet another hobby. Then my sister took me to visit the Eugene Textile Center (http://www.eugenetextilecenter.com/) and all my resolve dissolved. There was a type of spindle for sale I've been sort of (well a lot) interested in for a long time and I ended up buying it, along with enough combed top to get started with spinning. I had already made a spindle out of some weird round plastic thingy--no clue what it was in its former life--and it worked pretty darned well, but I expected better of the one I bought: a supported spindle that sits in its own brass bushing in a wooden holder. It didn't live up to expectations, so the shop was kind enough to take it back, and in lieu of a refund, I had the shop send me more combed top. The next time I visited my sis, we again went to the shop (I really need to stop doing this)and I ended up buying an Ashford standard wheel along with lots more top. You see how this gets out of control? That was in March and I've been working away on learning to use the wheel (I do wish it was as easy as using the drop spindle) and using up lots of cheap top and batts. You see, I also found there is a shop on Gresham, OR that sells end-of-run top and batts for a very reasonable price and I go there and load up on all kinds of practice fiber, including even some bamboo and mohair. The only thing I can't do right now is blend fibers and colors because my carding combs (dog combs in reality) are packed away deep in storage. But I have begun dying some of the white top with Kool Aid, super easy and fast, and the results can be anything from wonderful to gag-me-with-a-spoon. It's a learning curve. So, expect to see a lot about spinning here in the blog as well as knitting: no I haven't lost my love of knitting, still think it is a most wonderful craft and pity anybody who doesn't also think so-- :) -- but I have found as much passion for spinning as for knitting. I suppose it is the whole fiber experience thing going on.

I sincerely hope that this doesn't end up with me pasturing sheep in my son's backyard!

This just in...

Knitted for a friend in a wheelchair who is a redhead, so I figured that the greens would be a good match, with a bit of punch provided by the red. And,since I found the yarn just after Christmas, I got it at about half price.
The pattern is entrelac. Because of using alternate colors on every other square--entrelac usually follows one color across an entire row--I wasn't sure what to do with the opposing color. I first tried weaving the unused color along the side of the block I was working on but that was way too much confusion. The only solution I could come up with was to make the color change knots a part of the design by tying in the new color then unplying the yarn ends and fluffing them up, so there are little puffy "ties" at each corner of each block. I think it looks kind of cute.
I added some crochet ties on each long side so the robe can be tied to the chair and as an added benefit, the robe is in the proportion of a shawl, so in a pinch, my friend can drape it around her shoulders if needed.

Not Enough To Do...

Because I don't have enough to do with my hands, when I was recently in Springfield visiting my sis, we went to a weaving shop (wrong thing to do!!!) and I got caught by a "Spindolyn" spindle and was forced to buy it...there was this invisible thing commanding me to do so, I couldn't help myself.
And, of course, I needed to also buy some roving to spin on it, which I did, rather clumsily, and I'm not at all happy with the end results so I must needs go back and get more roving so I can continue to produce a pretty crappy looking yarn, which is where I am heading to day, to a fiber shop over in Gresham, to sample their wares, so I can keep spinning in the hope that somewhere along the line, something will click and I will begin producing a yarn that will actually look like something I would want to knit with.
Why am I doing this? No clue! I'm a fool for all things fiber. I drag things home from the Goodwill bins just because they are some sort of unique fiber something: fine cotton handkerchiefs, sari cloth, once even tempted to buy an entirely beaded evening dress but since it weighed at least five pounds, I didn't want to pay that price (1.59 lb) just to have something to look at, and I sure wasn't going to try to reclaim all those beads! Maybe some day I'll figure out where or how to hang what I have (I have visions of what the inside of a yurt must look like, to hide the walls, only doing it in the apartment I hope some day to inhabit).
I figure I'm up to about 130 pairs of socks now in my stash. The last two purchases were fully justified: one was a varigated rose/lavender I needed to buy to match a darning job in my sis's glove and of course, it made no sense to buy ony one sock worth of yarn, so I had to buy two skeins. The other was justified by being 30 percent off--how could one refuse?

Then there is this weird heel...

As stated in my last post, the socklet heel got ripped out but only on one repeat of the short rows (the pattern had five repeats of random short rows, something about making them fit the heel better) and when I got that last repeat ripped out, the heel began to look more normal and actually came up to where it should. In the picture that came with the kit, the heel does look ruffly, like they squished too much heel into the space. With four repeats of short rows, it fits much better--or it would if I could get it on my feet but having size 10 feet and a size 8 sock creates incompatability. They were intended for youngest g'daughter but I was so disappointed in their outcome, I decided to bag them and put them away till later. They are finished but I'm not sure I really want to give them to anybody.
I still have six skeins of the yarn left, so rather than redo the same disaster (they all have the same heel), I decided to use two of the colors together to make a regular pair of socks for warm weather wear. The current pair is maroon and grey and is done loosely in a fair isle/fibonacci sequence type of pattern. Much better than the socklets.
BTW, I do all my socks toe up, magic loop. I can't bear the thought of starting a second sock after finishing the first one.

Weird heels!

The socklets are done and they are quite horrible! Not due to my knitting but because the pattern is wonky. What is supposed to be a round heel approximately 1/4 of a circle, turned into a round heel that does a 180 and brings the back of the sock around to meet the instep. That sure isn't right. Blocking won't help (this is a cotton blend yarn). The whole heel is just plain odd. And it is going to get frogged and reknit into a regular short row heel and short top, because the kit only alloted one skein per pair. You can bet the next pair will not be knit with the round heel!
Also finished the socks with Jenny Staimen's (find her on Youtube) very stretchy bind off. It works great. And I plan to use it again when I reknit the socks into something wearable.

What's done is done...

And what is finished is the blue/turquoise/lavender socks. Like EZ instructs us to do, I knit the tops until I couldn't stand to knit any more and (mistakenly) did a reverse knit so the top would curl over, which it does, but it also spreads out the ribbing so it is seriously flared at the top of the socks, so much so that I plan to redo the top again and just cast the darn things off! I will need to look for a cast off that has some elasticity to it, because I've been there, done that with regard to tight top cast offs. I couldn't even get one pair of socks over my heel.
Probably this can be resolved most easily if I were the kind of person who reads the instructions first instead of after everything else fails. I tried one cast off that has a YO between every cast off stitch but it seems to create its own ruffle so that won't do.
Unfortunately that seems to be the one big drawback to toe-up socks...trying to get the top loose enough to fit over the foot and tight enough not to ruffle. I'm still trying. But with what I estimate to be about 85 pairs worth of sock yarn, I may get it figured out by the time I run out of sock yarn (presuming I don't keep adding to my stash--hah!)
At the moment, my new sock project is from a Knitpicks kit. Six pairs of socks, each pair from one ball of cotton/microfiber yarn. They are actually anklets or lower: as soon as the heel is done, you cast off so they are a sort of slipper. They're designed for summer wear. The yarn is soft and lovely to work with, but it has cotton's drawback in that it is difficult to do k2tog and when my hands are more painful than usual it is more difficult.
That is one reason why I keep more than one project going at a time. When my hands are too painful for one, I knit on one that doesn't require a lot of fiddling with. The other projects are the wedding shawl mentioned in an earlier post, and a cotton shell which has been on the back burner for an awful long time, not because I don't care for it (I think it will be quite nice when finished) but because other projects have taken precedence and it is not actually one I can work on when my hands hurt because it is also a lace pattern with lots of k2tog and ssk requirements.