Night Swimming

Ok, all right. It's been a long while.

I haven't stopped knitting or spinning like a mad fiend, just stopped blogging and uploading Flickr/Ravelry photos... A big reason why is a recent trip to the North woods of Minnesota.

Extended family and friends joined us, although this was the first trip since 2003 with my brother. He loooves to fish. So, we fished every.single.day. We had a lot of success on the Little Big Fork River. For the first time in my life I caught something other than a lake Perch. I couldn't believe this tiny river had Walleye, Northern, Large and Small-Mouthed Bass, and an armada of massive Suckers.

He's a Rosie-Grier style needlepoint guy, but I did teach him to knit:2008 is a wet, buggy year. The boys had tons of fun in the mudd-
My brother did not.
hee.

I bought these shoes for him during the last holiday. Looks like it's time for another pair!
At the lake I knit in and out of the water. These are Wollmeise socks that have recently been finished, and I love them. Also, I worked on a pair of Cashbah socks for my aunt in lace from the far-right skein.

Mid-vacation there was a slight canoeing mis-hap, and my once-lovely Canon took a final picture of the weeds ---

--and now produces images like this!

It's an impression of my cousin, and yes- this is as good as it gets!~ Once again, time to re-learn that water and electronics don't mix.

So, I'm shopping for a camera. Any recommendations?

Just Two Years!

Spinning update:

There hasn't been much going on in this category. I'm still upset with my stupid drive band that keeps on growing in size. (Note to self, must try sewing a cotton drive band.) A week ago I did force myself to give navajo plying a go, though. I've watched others do it, and after a few minutes of frustration I found a rhythm. This is four ounces of targee/bfl, merino, and angelica from Traveling Rhinos in "Chasing Rainbows". The photo below gives you a sense of how the yarn gradates from color to color.
After Two Years, Who's Counting?

Four-ish? years ago Knit Picks came on the scene. I was fascinated by how cheap their alpaca prices were, and quickly ordered four skeins of their laceweight in Tidepool to compare to Misti Alpaca Laceweight, which sold for $4.40ish at the same time. If memory serves me right, I paid $3.49 per skein, approx. $1 difference. The KP yarn was the same quality as far as I could tell, exept the yarn had a fabulous heather in each color - and Misti only had the same in their dark mossy grey/green. (The same holds true today.) The skeins I received appear to have much, much longer yardage than 440 each. I used 2.2 balls only double stranded for a 78 x15.5"
stole/scarf.

After swatching with the yarn, I decided to knit a shawl with two strands held together on a US 6. Madli's Shawl from IK was calling my name.

I started the shawl and loved it. After two weeks I was bored. Over the next TWO YEARS I worked on it here and there. Finally last weekend I wove in the final ends. As lovely as she looks, she's much better on your neck. What a joy to wear!

On the Road Again

just can't wait to get back on the road again...

In the last week we were forced to leave our beautiful workspace where previous sock kong citings occurred. The new space is just too depressing to show, although I did get a promotion. (Woo for sustainable, & livable wage!) On top of this, I'm back to traveling 'round the state- and the next few weeks are full of travel days.

****

Last weekend I finished knitting the short version of Laminaria. Aside from the first row of the last chart not printing (prompting an emergency rush-hour phone call to Deepa to save the day), it's a stellar pattern. Someday I'll probably knit the longer version. During all of last week I asked friends and co-workers what they thought of the army camo-ish variegation. There were 12 likes and only4 dislikes. Here's a reminder of what it looked like:

Minutes after finishing the shawl I knew I hated it and started drawing up a dye bath. Bright, light lime-y green didn't cover the tan/brown, so I blued-up the solution and darkened just until it covered the variegation just enough for a monochrome green. I tried to maintain as much color intensity as possible, and am really pleased with the results.

The tips were dyed lighter than the center, thus a slight ombre to the finished piece.

Go on, knit one or two Laminaria shawls yourself!

Back to Blogging

Hello dear readers,

Sorry for the recent 2-week blogging hiatus. No, I wasn't on n a fabulous vacation --haven't had one of those for years. We're in the midst of transitioning work spaces, so it's been busy-ish, but I shouldn't have neglected you or the blog for this long!

Before talking about recent knitting projects (I'll save spinning for another post), there was one really exciting event that I was lucky enough to attend last week in my hometown on 6/3/08. Any guesses?

We waited in this massive line for a few hours.

Eventually we walked in serpentine fashion, deposited beverages & umbrellas outside and found seats. Via cell phone texting & mini web page browsing during the wait we learned that Barack Obama was the Democratic party nominee. Wahoo!

Shortly thereafter the headliners arrived on stage.Here's a view of what it's like to see Obama speak from the nosebleeds. The crowd was fired up and ready to.... make lots of noise. At times it was soo noisy that I 'heard' the speech by reading the prompts on screen.

serious yay!

***

A co-worker of mine recently gave me a lovely gift - basenji sock blockers. They were patterned after a Fiber Trends blue blocker size medium, although these are thicker and taller than the pattern.

He used oak for the foot/leg, and used walnut to join them together. Apparently he also made the brass hanger, too. (He is not taking orders for future blockers. Sorry.)Here's how it looks in action -

(and yeah, I finished the Monkeyfish socks too. :)***

Since it's summer, I'm back to lace and sock knitting full-time.

Laminaria projects kept popping up all over Ravelry, and I just couldn't resist anymore. Laminaria is a form of kelp, and it seemed to want to be green-- you know?

Last week I pulled a skein of yarn from the stash purchased from an (unknown) etsy seller for a short shawl to match a green wool tulip skirt that I wear in the fall. The yarn itself is a lovely 2-ply. One ply is silk, the other is wool. It does have the dry, papery feeling of some wool/silk/cotton blends. (Think Jaeger Trinity)

Once received, the color was much too bright for the skirt. The more I knit with it, the more this variegated shawl started to look like nasty military camo gear. Uggh.

So, once I finish knitting Laminaria, I'm planning to over dye the shawl via immersion- perhaps ombre green, darkest at the tips?

At lunch-time, I've gone back to a one-time loser project to start anew. So far, so good.

Modern Libraries, Gaping Fish?

Modern Libraries: quick thoughts on E-books & opinions of librarians

I let my political leanings slip earlier when I mentioned how fabulous I think Al Giordano's The Field is - so I'll share a recent situation from the week:
A few nights ago I decided to walk 10ish blocks to the local libe and pay off that overdue fine from 3.5 years ago to check out a few books. I was pleasantly surprised to not only find the books I was looking for on the shelf-- but one was available as free e-audio books as well! Shocking. I asked about this feature in depth (again, shocking!), and both librarians had no idea it was offered. period. After reading the fine print, about 400 books are currently free to download in the St. Paul public library system as long as you have a personal PC or MP3 with media player formats. (I have a mac book and ipod at home.) These downloads don't expire after a set period of time, either. Anyone else shocked at this? It's really cool - but no end period, ever? Suffice to say, I checked out the books pictured below:

Once one of the librarians looked at them and made a Ferraro-esque comment to me. [That is, words G. Ferraro has become infamous for saying during this primary election.] I'm sorry --and perhaps this is post-feminist of me-- but should one forward primary gender-based vitriol onto patrons of the library? Aren't you there to help people find resources and inform the public-- not offer your opinion (in an offensive way) to the people? I just smiled and said, 'check me out please' instead of offering... well, my strong feelings on the subject.

***
Since this is a knitting blog, do these socks look like gaping fish just out of the pond & on the dock? I can't knit them without thinking 'fish', 'gaping fish drowning in oxygen'. Last night I started decreasing for the toes, and I'm hoping to finish them at lunch today.

During the last post I might have mentioned how much I have enjoyed knitting with Handmaiden's Cashbah sock yarn. Since spinning has taken over at chez Cashmere Dreams, I've been really good about buying only pre-yarn materials, not actual yarn. These socks made me fall, and fall hard. It's the cashmere blend, I swear! The Yarnery had a new shipment in this week.

Weekend Spinning

Over the weekend I was supposed to garden...

Plant, garden, garden, plant. Instead, I played outside without doing any work - and spun a little bit. (Co-workers did come to take some well-propagating zebra grass on Saturday. That counts a little, right?)

So, here's some Crown Mountain Farm BFL roving that you've seen before in Stonehenge.

The singles were spun up - 4 oz. per bobbin last week.

After plying, I washed the skein and placed it in the shower for drying. (Yes, I had to move it to shower last night.)

The 8 oz. spun up into about 475 yards of light fingering weight yarn. What do you think about knitting Laminaria with it?

I had a small amount that didn't fit on the large skein. It dried pretty quickly, and I was able to take an accurate color shot:

***

The Twisted Fiber Art shop opened up two weeks ago, and I purchased a wee bit of roving from them. One was a skein of Guardian-colorway- in 'lively' - superwash merino. (Cathy gets the enabler badge for starting my wee addiction to this fiber line.) My hank of Guardian had dark purple instead of black - which I loved.I used the fractal 2-ply method for spinning the braid. This creates long striping barberpole yarn. Here's a quick how-to I learned on Ravelry:

1. Split the roving in half. 2. Split one half lengthwise in multiple strips. (here, I had 10.) 3. Spin the first half with looong color repeats. 4. Spin the second half -the short repeats- on a separate bobbin. 5. Ply together.

You can get a sense of how the yarn stripes when it's on the bobbin.Off the bobbin and on the stretcher (niddy noddy, although I like to type 'knitty noddy'), it just looks like barberpoling handspun. Ze stripes have disappeared!
***

When I spin, the wheel is right next to a window and the couch. Both dogs like to either wistfully look outside, or seemingly glare at me for spending time with fiber instead of them. Here's a little proof with Paco pics:

Spring! (monkey edition)

In an attempt to prove that I haven't completely gone over to the spin side, here's my latest knitting project:

Yeah, I'm knitter #15,637 to finally knit a pair of Cookie's Monkey pattern. Honestly, I don't know why I waited-- there's noting short of love for this pattern once the purl stitches are replaces with knits. It's great, I highly recommend it-- and yes, I'll be knitting another pair!One more modification here - Eye of the Partridge Heel was used instead of a regular slip stitch. I love the way EOP looks in variegated yarn, and I actually like the fabric it creates better than the semi-ribbed slip stitch version.

The yarn used, oh - again, pure love: it's Handmaiden/Fleece Artist's Casbah. It's a merino, nylon, cashmere superwash heavy fingering blend that can only be described as near perfect sock yarn. Some people (a minority?) may think the blend feels a little velvety - I think it's cushy soft and fantastic. This yarn receives a thumb's up from me.

***

Signs of spring at work-- a large bird's nest directly in view of skyway walkers in downtown St. Paul. Still no signs of life within, though. ...and here's the nest that stopped me in my tracks. Between the 400 Robert and Town Square building there is a marble enclosure with anti-pigeon effects. These include a substantial fake plastic owl hanging by a rope with light-up eyes and a bed of nails tucked into the marble niche to stop birds from seeking shelter in this spot. Low, and behold- pigeons have created a nest of their own poo on top of the bed of nails. I counted four babies and one un-hatched egg stuck between the nails. Two adult pigeons at the nest a few hours later. What a precarious beginning to life.
***

A co-worker gave me an antique men's sock blocker - size 12- a few weeks ago. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it! A woodworker in the office asked me what the heck it was. After a short explanation and demo, an offer to make a set that fits came up. The next week he asked me what kind of dogs I have. The sock blockers aren't ready, but a prototype did end up on my desk this week. How cool is this??? I'm about to have a set of Basenji Blockers!

As always, Toby is thrilled for his human. :)