Damn You Garter

My hands and wrists are going to hate my decision to knit my brother a blanket for Christmas. I'm actually almost finished, which is sort of a relative term at the moment. I'm working on the Moderne Log Cabin blanket from Mason Dixon Knitting, and it's a great pattern. I'm modifying it slightly because the way I chose the color order has left an overwhelming amount of the cream color instead of the green, which was supposed to be the focus of the thing. I'm on the antepenultimate block, which doesn't include the edging I plan to add too. Two months left, and I really just want to finish this thing so I can knit something that isn't garter stitch.



Very early progress shot. It's much bigger now.

It's going to be awesome when it's done and I know he's going to love it, but if anything gives me carpal tunnel in my life, it'll be this blanket.

I'm itching to make myself another shawl or 10. I figured out what I want to do with the Sanguine Gryphon laceweight I got at Rhinebeck--the Aeolian shawl (shawlette size) from Knitty. I'm really excited about it, and may start it soon just to have some variety in what I'm working on.

I've been neglecting taking pictures of my spinning. I started using my wheel a lot more in April this year and have spun a lot of my fiber in the meantime. I'll have to haul it all out when the sun comes back for some pictures. The lighting in my basement isn't ideal for showing off the colors. Right now I'm working on a naturally chocolate brown merino that I got from SVFF a couple of years ago. It's very nice as a squishy three-ply and I think I may have enough for a hat and mittens, and maybe a small scarf or cowl.

Fiber!

Each year I go to two or three fiber festivals, mostly with other people from LSG (our group on Ravelry). You can see my post about MDSW below. This year I also helped out a friend prepare for her first fiber festival--SVFF (Shenandoah Valley Fiber Fest). I spent a few weekends at her house prior to the festival, helping package her signature stitchmarkers and playing with her puppydogs. Festival weekend I essentially fetched and ran and watched the booth while she got food and shopped. It was an extremely exhausting but amazingly fun weekend, and her yarn and stitchmarkers are fantastic. (That's my subtle hint to you readers to go to that link and buy stuff. Now.)

This past weekend I went up to New York with LSG friends to the NY Sheep and Wool festival, affectionately known as Rhinebeck. It's probably around the same size as MDSW, and it's definitely in a more wool-friendly season. We stayed in a rented house on a lake and had a great time. The festival was really crowded, as always. Saturday was pretty chilly and really windy, but it was nice and warm on Sunday. A little too warm, and I wasn't really prepared with a lot of warm-weather clothing. Oh well. The only unfortunate part was on Saturday when we went to leave. We got into the car around 3 and finally got out of the lot around 4:30. Yup. Traffic leaving the festival was awful. I don't remember it being that bad last year, and I've never had it that bad at MD. I really hope that next year they have a better way of directing the crowds, because that was a huge downside for me, and I didn't even have to drive.

Want to see my haul?

 

You can click through to the flickr page to see the notes, but I got some sheepskin slippers to wear in the basement this winter, a skein of Spirit Trail Fiberworks  fingering weight merino/silk (the red), a skein of Sanguine Gryphon cashmere/silk laceweight (dark blue, at the top), some BFL/silk from Misty Mountain Fibers (natural colored, in the bag), a go-monkey design project bag, some blue/green BFL top from Fiber Optic Yarns, and some gorgeous alpaca/silk top from Gale's Art. 

Not pictured is another pair of slippers for my brother for Xmas, and a skein of Albuquerque yarn from Maple Creek Yarns (who either don't have a website or I can't find it) for Kellie of the aforementioned Lizard Toes. It's got sequins! And Kellie, if you somehow stumble across this, it's meant to be a surprise because I know you loved it at SVFF and you're going to be so awesome to teach me to use my loom. So there. 

Oh yeah, I got a loom. A friend's mom had it and hardly used it, so she wanted to get rid of it and wanted it to go to someone who would get use out of it and love it. I'm not really sure what kind it is, but it's really nice and pretty big. I'll have to get a picture of it.

Answers, Sort Of

I have one answer I'm excited about: the mysterious breathing issue is...asthma. I was surprised that it could just start up one day like that, but I've been assured it can. Apparently I always had the potential to develop it, it was just a matter of time/circumstance to see what flipped the switch, I guess. You could say I'm living up to my potential. I've got a rescue inhaler plus a maintenance medicine and things seem to be getting back on track. I'm coughing more than I'd like, but I have a follow-up appointment in late October, so I'll probably wait to address that until then. Still nothing on the other stuff, but it's not horrible to live with and tests that come back negative are better than no answers, I think.

I finished my February Lady Sweater. At the moment you can still see it in the sidebar under my Ravelry works in progress, because I haven't woven in the ends and blocked it yet. I think I like it. I think I'd like it more if it were at a tighter gauge. It's worsted on size 8 needles, and I think I like this yarn better on 7s. I'm going to think about it and decide whether I want to reknit it. I think if I do I'll go with a rounder yoke instead of the square one. I have some other sweaters I want to do, though, so this may get put aside until I have more interest in fixing something already existing rather than making something new.

I've also finished a Multnomah in a really cool colorway from my friend Kellie at Lizard Toes. I need to get some pictures of that. And I'm making good progress on my brother's blanket, which will be huge. I think there are 10 blocks and I've done 5. Not quite halfway because of the size of the blocks, but I hope to be finished by Christmas.

This weekend I'll be at SVFF (Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival) helping the aforementioned Kellie out at her booth. I'm really excited and I hope everyone loves her yarn and stitchmarkers. And buys them, of course. I hope the weather cooperates. The last few days have been unseasonably warm (hot). I even had to turn on my AC again after having it off for almost two weeks. I'm so ready for fall.

Rhinebeck is in a couple weeks, and I'm getting really excited about that too. I have a modest shopping list, and I can't really go too crazy, but after this insane summer and all the stress I've had, I'm really looking forward to a weekend of fiber, friends, probably a little drinking, and lots of laughter. I'm counting down the days.

Sweaters

I've got two sweaters in mind that I'm really excited about. One is the February Lady Sweater, which was adapted from an Elizabeth Zimmermann baby sweater pattern. I've liked it for a long time, but I was always concerned about where the garter yoke/lace pattern line would fall on me, and whether it would accentuate my, ahem, voluptuous bosom in an unflattering way. The other night I was thinking about it, and decided to see what it looked like knit in stockinette, rather than garter/lace. Only a few people on Ravelry had done the sweater in stockinette, but I liked what I saw. I decided to do the two-inch garter border at the neck, bottom edge, and cuffs, and do the rest in stockinette. I guess it would be similar-ish to Margot from Knitty, but as a cardigan. On the plus side, no unfortunate line placement, plus more usability (for me at least) as a fall/winter sweater. We shall see.

The other one I'm thinking about is Cecchetti, from Twist Collective Spring 2010. I'm not entirely sure, and I think I want to see it in larger sizes before committing to it. It's fingering weight on 8s, so it'll be a looser fabric, and may not work well for me. If not that, then I'll get more of the yarn I have in mind (KP Stroll Sock in Burgundy, which is redder than on the preview page at knitpicks) and maybe do Harlow, which is a gorgeous design by a fellow LSGer (and all-around excellent person!).

I'm excited about these new projects. Last year's sweater is still a bit of a disappointment, with the sleeves too big for the armholes. I learned a lot in making that sweater, so I'm not upset about it not turning out perfectly. I think it's worth another shot at that pattern, because I do love it, other than the sleeve part. It may even be worth ripping out the sleeves and readjusting to make those fit better. I'd love to have it be something I wear more often instead of something I keep at home for when I'm chilly.

Luckily the FLS is a top-down raglan, so there's no seaming. I hope it works out because I'd love to wear it at Rhinebeck this year.

Reading

Because of the nature of my job, I find myself wanting to do pretty much anything other than reading in my free time. Staring at words all day makes staring at more words less enjoyable for me. But I miss reading. I used to read voraciously, often finishing a long book in little over a day. Now I work on the same novel for weeks, and it's one I've read before. If I were reading something new, I'd have forgotten what the first part of the book was about by now.

I need to pledge to myself to read more frequently, even if it's crap literature or Harry Potter. At least it's something. I have half a shelf of books I want to read but haven't started yet. I was an English Lit major in college for Pete's sake! Where has my love of reading gone? I plan to spend at least a little bit of time every day reading a book. That's my promise to myself, my education, and my sanity. Losing myself in a book is an experience I dearly miss.

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I seem to have gotten some of my knitting mojo back. I never really took a break from it this summer with all the medical crap, but I've stuck mainly to garter stitch blankets for me and my brother, and haven't had the desire to do much else. The other night I got a wild hair and looked into a couple of sweater patterns. I've started one already and I'm waiting on yarn for the other. I've also downloaded or queued a bunch of shawl patterns and I think I'll add at least one lace project to the rotation too. I feel like a fog is lifting; it's so nice to be interested in something again.

Tour de Fleece

Each year during the Tour de France a bunch of us fiber freaks get together for the Tour de Fleece. Basically, you commit to spinning or working with fiber (not finished yarn) every day that the tour is run. Many people set yardage or weight goals, some choose to work with new techniques or fibers they've never used before. Some try to just spin every day without worrying about amount of time or fiber.

This year for the tour I didn't have any goals, really. I knew I wanted to finish the two projects I'd been working on last year for the tour, but other than that it was just a matter of choosing the fiber that appealed to me the most and going with it.

First up is the BFL/Silk I got at MDSW this year. This was a bag of pencil roving, some of it really felted but pretty nice for the most part. It was around 8 oz of fiber, and it ended up as a worsted-ish weight two-ply (spun on my wheel):

Progress shot. So shiny!

Finished yarn

Next is one of the projects from last year, the purple and gray alpaca from last year's MDSW. This one is roughly a sport to DK weight two-ply and will probably be a shawl to take advantage of the drape of the alpaca. I tried not to overspin when I plied so it's pretty relaxed (scroll down to last year's post for the progress shot). It was spun on one of my Golding spindles and the rest was done on the Forrester I got at Rhinebeck last year.

The singles in a center-pull ball to make it easier to ply.

All done!

Third is a merino/alpaca blend from Bitsy Knits that I got at SVFF in 2008. Again, roughly sport-DK weight two ply. I'm not sure what it's going to be, but I love the subtle color changes.

Blurry shot of the singles on a spare bobbin for storage.

The singles broke when I was plying, so I have two skeins.

Finally, the laceweight merino from Spritely Goods that I was working on last year. Scroll down for progress shots of that one. By the end of the tour I'd finished the singles, just barely, but wasn't able to start plying. I also don't have updated pictures of that yet.

I started two additional projects during the tour, one on my wheel and another on my awesome Tabacheck spindle from Rhinebeck 09, but I didn't make any decent progress on either, so look for those in a future post. I'll have to prattle on about the yarn I spun while I was practicing on my wheel.

Radio Silence

Crap, a year? Really? More than, even. If anyone reads my ramblings, you know by now that I suck at blogging. Either I don't find myself or my life interesting enough to share with other people, or I'm just lazy. It's probably a combination of both. Want a brief summary of the last year? Well, tough, you're getting it anyway.

• Last July I moved into my house and the unpacking began. It's still not quite finished and there are a number of projects I still need to do. Whatever, it's not like it's going anywhere.

• Last October I went to two fiber festivals - NY Sheep and Wool ("Rhinebeck") and the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival - with people I met online. Out of both trips came some new great friends, ones I'm always excited to see again.

• In January I turned 29.
  
• In the winter MD got hit hard by two blizzards and I was trapped in my house for over a week. I was lucky for the ability to work from home and not have to take time off for those days. My basement is freezing in the winter and I discovered the joy of wool socks. I'm going to have to go back on my vow and knit some for myself.

• In March I had bronchitis for the first time in my life. It was awful.
• In May I went to Maryland Sheep and Wool with my online fiber buddies. One of my best friends and her two little girls also came to stay with me for a week. It was amazingly fun having kids around the house.

• In June I started having shortness of breath, which after many tests, doesn't yet have an answer. I'm also dealing with some mystery abdominal pain and digestive issues (don't worry, I'll keep the details to myself). So far all the various scans and tests show that I'm healthy.
  

So that's the past year. In that time I also did a lot of knitting and spinning. I've gotten the hang of my spinning wheel, and I even bought my first fleece at MDSW this year.

Right now I'm just as busy as ever at work. I'm working on a surprise afghan for my brother for either his birthday or xmas, depending on how long it takes:

I'm looking forward to going to Rhinebeck again this year and helping a friend with her booth at SVFF. Hopefully one day soon I'll know something more about what's going on with me so I can have the necessary procedure/treatment and start feeling myself again. (yes, I'm immature and snerked at that last line.)