Historic Fibers

A Swatch and a Dream

You know, when I first got my Ravelry invitation last August, frankly I wasn't too impressed. I've never particularly enjoyed forums, and it seemed like I did a lot of things that Ravelry allows you to do already on my blog (showing projects and such). Plus, I keep my own inventories of books and needles and yarn in Excel spreadsheets. But the more I have used Ravelry, the more I have grown to enjoy it. Even though I don't use the forums, I really love the ability to look up patterns and see what other people's finished projects look like, I like seeing a sweater on a variety of body types, and I like being able to search for potential yarns to use for projects easily. And I find that the queue function keeps me organized about what I'm planning to do next. All in all, I'm finding it to be a very useful tool.

Also, I find that updating my projects page keeps me honest about how many works in progress I have, and this has strengthened my resolve to finish up languishing projects before moving on. Case in point: I now have 5 (5!!) works in progress, and I'm really only comfortable with 3 at a time. So I'm speedily finishing up the Fawkes Socks and have turned the heels on both and am racing toward the toes:

Even though I said I would be knitting these in penance for past misdeeds, I have to admit I am thoroughly enjoying this pattern. And maybe it's prejudice, but I love the way my handdyed cotton sock yarn looks in this pattern.

My projects list has forced me to be honest with myself about the Lace Edged Raglan sweater. The Rowan Calmer arrived, and I immediately started swatching. Oddly enough, my gauge was too tight with the recommended needle (US 7), when typically my gauge is too loose and I almost invariably have to go down a needle size. This time, I had to go UP! I got gauge with US 8's. But then I looked at that project list, and I have two big projects in progress - the baby blanket, and the Scotland Sweater. I haven't forgotten poor Scotland, really. I have the perfect buttons and everything. But I think I may wait until my summer break to concentrate on the Fair Isle knitting. Besides, it seems I always finish big projects made of wool when it's 105 degrees outside!

As for the baby blanket, I have taken some small steps. The piping was stitched on by a neighbor and looks great. The lining fabric has been washed and ironed, and is ready to be basted to the blanket in preparation for being permanently sewn on. Perhaps I can get to that tomorrow. But I have promised myself that I will not actually cast on for the Lace Edged Raglan until at least one of these big projects is done, and it will likely be the baby blanket since there is a deadline looming. For now, the project page on Ravelry has temporarily curbed my enthusiasm about starting my new sweater, and it will remain for the time being a swatch and a dream.
 

Mea Maxima Culpa

Okay, so I posted the other day about my ugly socks. And then Susan, the person who actually designed the colorway, left a good-natured comment about how she liked the colors, anyway! I felt like a total jerk. I edited the post to make it CLEAR, as it had not been in the original post, that the yarn was not the issue, but rather the combination of the yarn and the pattern was the problem. Still, I do have a habit of opening my mouth and inserting my foot, so feeling like a jerk is not a completely foreign sensation. I apologize if I said anything that hurt anyone's feelings. That was never my intention. Moving on . . .

I mentioned a while ago that Dan and I were buying our first new car, and we were planning on getting a Prius. You may be wondering if we,in fact, did. The answer is:

We have been enjoying the car for about a week now. I was somewhat disconcerted when the car dealership sent us a thank you gift:

An orchid. I tend to kill all green leafy things, and there were no care instructions sent with the gift. But it did give me the distinct feeling that I had probably paid way too much for the car, since the dealer was sending me flowers to thank me. Note: The preceding story is in no way intended as a negative attack on car dealerships or on orchids. I will likely give the orchid to a plant- friendly neighbor to insure that no orchids were killed in the buying of this car.

I also started a new pair of socks, knit from cotton sock yarn dyed by me. Feel free to taunt and make fun of the sock yarn at will. Call it ugly. Call it anything you like. I probably deserve it. Here is the sock yarn:

The pattern will be the Fawkes Socks, and you can download it for free on Ravelry. Know that I will be suffering as I knit, rip, and reknit this lace pattern, worked in penance for all untoward deeds. Note: The preceding is in no way intended as a negative attack on this lovely pattern or on lace knitters generally. I am simply  incompetent when it comes to knitting anything that involves counting. When I was at Fiber Camp (as I have come to call it) this past week, the owner of a yarn store was there and related the story of teaching someone to knit. She told the new knitter, "Cast on 20 stitches," and the new knitter exclaimed, "Oh no! MATH!" I can totally relate. Note: The preceding story is in no way intended as a negative attack on yarn store owners or on new knitters. Sigh. You get the picture. Carry on.

Cardigan Jones

The weekend was just as eventful as last week. After all the Spring Break excitement, I needed to do something more contemplative. Never mind that there were still papers to grade, the work week comes soon enough (and is, in fact, here now).

First off, I need to show a couple of items that I finished knitting. One is the Elisa's Nest Tote, which I knit out of some cotton yarn that I handdyed perhaps a year or so ago:

I needed a string bag to tuck into the felted bags that I take to the Farmer's Market, because sometimes I have an item that needs segregating, such as to keep the bread separate so it doesn't get squashed. This bag will work perfectly. It is very stretchy and I think it's interesting how the colors seem to have produced a kind of checkerboard pattern.

The second item I finished was a pair of socks knit out of Panda bamboo/cotton yarn. I picked up a couple of skeins of this last year in Ashland while visiting the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I chose a simple feather and fan pattern from Charlene Schurch's Sensational Knitted Socks, since these will be warm weather socks and I can't screw up feather and fan patterns too easily. All the while I was knitting these socks, I couldn't decide whether the yarn in this pattern was hideous or whether I really loved them. I decided that both statements are true. The socks (colorway is called "Seascape") are indeed hideous, and I love them anyway. Here are my lime green, turquoise, and purple socks:

In person, the socks kind of resemble neon camouflage. But they will be comfortable in the summer.

Another work in progress that I have been contemplating recently are a pair of Serpentine Mitts. I have finished both mitts to the knuckles, but I would like to make them into gloves with half fingers, since I find my fingerless mitts tend to shrink up in length and then I have cold fingers. The trouble is, of all the odd things I have knit, I have never knit gloves. So I need to figure out how to divide the stitches for fingers and get going:

The yarn is Rowanspun 4-ply, and the color is "rumtoft," which is, in plain English, brown with flecks of tweedy colors. I love the yarn. I bought some short double points to do the fingers, and will likely get started on experimenting with that this week.

All of this knitting of small items has been an attempt to stave off my Cardigan Jones. (Some of you who are of a certain age may be remembering an awful song called "Basketball Jones"  and you may have it running through your head. I'm very sorry about that, and it will pass.) I have really been wanting to make a cardigan, and heaven knows I need one (or maybe more like six). I have patterns I like, and I have yarn that may work, but I keep hitting snags. The first cardigan I wanted to try was the Bianca's Jacket, and I even found the yarn called for (Muench Sir Galli) on sale, so I ordered it. Unfortunately, I ordered the yarn before I read the pattern. The sizing on this pattern is weird. There is a 38 inch size, and a 46-1/2 inch size. I am somewhere in between. Now, this is not catastrophic because the yoke pattern is simply a feather and fan, which is a very adaptable pattern. You can do it with more or fewer stitches. So I can figure out how to resize the pattern and adapt the yoke pattern to be more me-sized. But it will take some concentration and some math. Hahahahahaha. Maybe I'll get to it this summer.

The next pattern I have been considering is from the Fall 2003 issue of IK, and is called the Lace-Edged Raglan. Sorry there is no picture of the sweater - I couldn't even find one on Ravelry to show you (and incidentally, I am KnittingHistory on Ravelry - clever, eh?). I loved this sweater the first time I saw it, and have been thinking of it ever since. I really wanted it in a cotton blend so I can wear it nearly all year long in my climate, so I finally broke down and ordered some Rowan Calmer in Khaki, which looks to be a sage-y green that will go perfectly with khaki pants and skirts for summer. I'm waiting anxiously for the yarn to arrive so I can swatch it.

And meanwhile, since I was inspired by my workshops last week, I warped the loom. I finally got that blue/green/purple cotton yarn wound on, threaded, and all ready to go:

I can weave and contemplate summer cardigans that miraculously fit without any fiddling! Now that's a dream worth having!

Spring Break

Last Friday, I gave a midterm in the morning, and then came home, loaded up the car, and took off for the Bay Area where I was scheduled to take a spinning workshop and a weaving workshop with Judith MacKenzie McCuin. The workshop was at a beautiful site on the edge of the ocean, and although accommodations were a bit rustic, a great time was had by all.

The spinning workshop was on spinning silk, and since I have only studied spinning with one other teacher, it was great to see how someone else does it. Everyone develops their personal style, and it is fascinating to try new things. I ended up with some nice silk samples:
The weaving workshop was similarly enlightening. Judith had us warp our looms with all sorts of crazy, disparate fibers - looped mohair, silk, fine mohair with a big halo, and a smooth wool yarn sett fairly wide apart. We wove off our scarves, and then fulled them, beating them to death in hot water with soap. The resulting scarves were beautiful, and every one was different since people had chosen to use different fibers or had warped them in different ways. Here is mine:
I also took a photo to show you the texture of this scarf, but of course the color is natural unbleached sheep color, not grey as this photo shows:

This is an incredibly lightweight scarf, but very warm. I'm sure I will enjoy wearing it. I have plans to make a larger version as a shawl, since I have all sorts of bits and pieces of handspun silk, wool, and plenty of looped mohair that I have never known what to do with that I could easily throw into a warp. The workshop really reinvigorated my interest in weaving, which has been stagnant since the trauma of warping and weaving off four boring dishtowels!

The workshops were great, but the day I came home was particularly eventful. First off, I got lost and ended up having to backtrack quite a distance to get back on the right road. I am directionally challenged, so getting lost was not a total surprise. At least it happened on the way home and not on the way there. Once I got home, I unloaded the astonishing amount of equipment one needs to haul to attend both a spinning and weaving workshop, and in the process of getting the spinning wheel out of the car, a crucial wooden part splintered in two. Catastrophe! Dan arrived home shortly afterwards and had just enough time to hear my tale of spinning wheel woe before he had to leave for a meeting. On the way out of the house, he encountered a not-quite-dead critter, and I will let him tell you about this in his own words, since I happen to think he is one of the most hilarious writers I have ever read:

"The magic words, when you really really need the Animal Control truck to arrive quickly for whatever your animal emergency is, are these three:

"downed live bat"

Yes.

When you tell the Animal Control office that there is a bat on the ground in your neighborhood, not dead -- the operator of the nearest truck will stop whatever they are doing, the truck will use its flasher roof lights if it has them, and the equipment will be at the
address you give quite quickly.

In the meantime, you will be instructed in no uncertain terms that this is a Very Serious Matter and you will be told to put some box or bucket over the critter in the meantime, Not Touching It.

And you will be asked, twice, whether you or any animals have been Touching It.

And when the Animal Control officer arrives, shortly, you will be asked again and repeatedly just how much Touching of It has or has not occurred, by you, or by animals. That is, if there actually is a  downed live bat and you're not just using that to get the officer out
quickly to deal with a raccoon or something.

You will also be told that the Health Department wants your phone number and will be in Touch with You, soon. This is after the poor critter has been flipped into the "downed bat transport container," which is in fact a plastic emptied-out turkey jerky jug. The officer
will make a variety of faces as she does this. It'll take, maybe, a couple of minutes. At the end of this time, if you live near a greenbelt, the officer will comment that in the brief time she's been working at least three dogs on leashes and one without a leash has gone by about 30 feet away, and that the Health Department will be calling Very Very Soon. The officer will not be happy as she says this.

Just so you know how to get that quick response out of Animal Control. Just don't Touch It."

It's Julia again here. I think the phrase "turkey jerky jug" is what makes this story art. Just my opinion. Anyway, my homecoming was quite eventful, to say the least, but it had a happy ending. The Health Department did indeed call, and once they were reassured that no one had been Touching It, they pretty much lost interest in us. I have just heard from the wonderful and fabulous Robin Lynde  of Meridian Jacobs, loaner of extraordinary table looms and teacher of  miraculous dyeing and weaving classes, that the part for my spinning wheel will cost a grand total of $4.50 and will arrive early next week. It's good to be home.

Baste

I finally made it to the fabric store to find the notions needed to finish Lacy's Baby Blanket. At one store, I found a lining fabric, although it was not what I was looking for at all. Lacy loves parrots, and I really wanted to find a tropical print for the lining, preferably with parrots. I went to three different stores and while there were tropical prints with lions and tigers (no bears, oh my!), there was not a single parrot to be found. Don't people wear tropical shirts anymore?

Disappointed, I did find a nice lining anyway, and turned my attention to the piping. Apparently people don't use a lot of piping anymore either. I asked one employee at one of those mega fabric stores where the piping was, and she directed me to the home decor aisle where there were fringes and all sorts of edgings, but no actual piping. After wandering aimlessly around the store for a while, looking for the bias tape (I figured the piping would be by the bias tape) I finally found the piping. I picked up a couple of packages, and headed to the looong line to check out. Just as I was the next person in line, I noticed that the I had two different shades of red piping. Back I went to the piping display and then got back in line again. Yes, I was cranky when I got home.

Now I had to deal with the issue of how to put this thing together. I have some sewing experience in my distant past, but I am not good with a sewing machine. I am much more comfortable with handsewing. I plan to ask a neighbor who IS good with a sewing machine to actually attach the piping for me, and the lining is attached by hand, so I'm good with that. I started pinning the piping to the blanket, and got worried.

I can't think of many reasons you would need to sew handknit fabric to woven fabric, except maybe lining bags, but you could do that by hand. Would my neighbor understand that she should not stretch the knit fabric? Would she be capable of attaching the piping without puckering? I had my doubts, not about her abilities, but just about the fact that there are few people likely to be experienced in combining these two types of textiles. I decided to baste.

Basting, for the non-sewing amongst us, is using a highly contrasting thread to loosely sew two things together. The thread is removed after the two things are permanently attached. I figured if I basted the piping on, then I could be reasonably sure the knit fabric would not be inadvertently stretched. I also had the advantage of being able to neatly add more piping, since there is a trick to adding additional lengths of piping without ending up with a lumpy mess. Oddly enough, somewhere in the mists of time I did learn the concept of attaching two pieces of piping without lumps, and I am grateful for this knowledge, although I have no idea where it came from.

Piping is a piece of bias tape folded around a piece of cord, and then stitched together just below the cord. If your piping is not long enough to attach in a single length, you have to take apart the stitching on the piping, cut a half inch or so off the cord, and then fold the cordless fabric around another piece of piping, stitching the fabric just below the cord to secure it. That way, you don't have two pieces of cord overlapping and causing a bulge. It's fiddly, but I didn't spend eons knitting a mile of stockinette and weaving in 2000 ends to flake out on the finishing. Here is the basted piping:

Now I just have to give up my control-freak tendencies and hand it over to the neighbor to attach for me. I have done everything possible to ensure that I will get the results I want, and I am fairly confident it will be okay.

Aren't you curious about what fabric I chose for the lining? The original pattern called for a gingham check, since the grid pattern on the fabric supposedly makes it easier to attach the fabric so that it is straight and lined up with the knitted stripes. Choosing an all-over patterned fabric, as I had intended to do, would have given me some leeway in the straightness department, but again, I couldn't find the fabric I wanted and I am willing to take the extra time to finish this well. So I went with a windowpane check, in a lime-y green with blue and red windowpanes. Lacy likes green. I hope she will like THIS green! Here it is:

I like it. I'm looking forward to getting the piping attached, and then I will find true center on both knitted fabric and woven, and I will baste some more. I will baste quite a lot, I expect, to make sure that everything lines up without puckers and bubbles. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Dark

Believe it or not, I have not dropped off the face of the planet, and I have been knitting! I had a cold a couple of weeks ago (you know, that cold that everyone had) and since I was stuck in bed, decided to do a project that has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while.

I had some really evil wool yarn. It had been badly handspun (not by me, incidentally), and when I got it, it was a less than inspiring color. I decided to overdye it with madder, and threw it in a mordant pot with some nice fresh roving. Yup, it bled all over my lovely BFL. I proceeded to overdye it anyway, and in the process, the skein came undone. So then I had a lump of orange tangled badly dyed wool. It took a couple of hours to get it untangled and skeined, and it sat atop my yarn storage shelves, getting only a glare from me when I thought about it. I actually took it to spinning class one time for show and tell, but I wouldn't pass it around because I was fairly well convinced by this time that the wool would work evil magic on anyone who touched it. My spinning instructor suggested I make a voodoo doll out of it.

So there I was, in bed with a cold, and I decided to make the doll. It didn't take long to knit, and I had some fleece that I never liked the feel of, which I had just happened to dye blood red. I decided the fleece would be the stuffing:

Once knitted and stuffed, I proceeded to the decorating phase. The pattern (Bad Juju from The Anticraft) gave directions for a cross stitched heart, but I am terrible at cross stitch, so I just used a regular chain stitch to fill in the heart.

I decided that this doll would not represent an actual person, but rather Disappointment itself. There is a pin for my graduate school experience, my dissertation, and another for my so-called teaching career. All disappointing, thus far. But maybe the doll will ward off the evil spirits of disappointment, impaled on the sharp end of a pearl-ended pin. One can hope, anyway.