Vortex Crafting

-21F air temperature and -50 wind chill.  School was cancelled for the past couple of days, and I chose to hunker down in the house and cook, clean, sort and most importantly craft.

I am trying to dedicate myself this year to finishing as many long ignored projects as possible.  One at a time.  If I no longer like them, or think that they will not fit, I am prepared to frog them, no matter how far along.  Last year I did fairly well at starting to attack some of these projects, and I must admit that it felt really good.  Not only does it clean up my crafting space, but clears up unwanted craft baggage.

First I decided that I needed to finish this shawl.

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I started it in the late summer of 2015, and was moving along nicely.  That is until I ran out of the handspun yarn.  Being a gradient, I needed to order an additional 2 braids to finish it.  While waiting, I lost focus, and had little time for spinning up the yarn needed.

Here is where it has sat for over 4 years, I am ashamed to admit.  The color is Thistle, a gradient by my favorite dyer, Fiber Optic.

So, while it took a bit of re-education, I finally spun the additional 2 braids over the past couple of weeks, making great progress while housebound.

Plying will happen tomorrow, I tried it tonight, but without adequate light and patience, I gave up.  I will have to learn to finesse my Jensen spinning wheel again.  Then, I had to find the pattern, as it was separated from the project (what a mistake, I always think that I will just be picking it up again in a day or so), luckily I had blogged about it here so know that it was the Pulelehua shawl.  Butterfly in Hawaiian.  Surprisingly I had purchased this pattern, which is unusual for me to not just knit something from a book that I own.  I am now anxious to ply the yarn and get this finished.  The pattern is gorgeous, which I am sure is why I chose it.

My other project the past couple of days, has been to finish this picnic blanket and napkins.  This was left when a friend of a friend passed away; all it really needed was the binding sewn on.  Of course I had to relearn how to do the mitered corner, as it has been years since I have sewn on a quilt binding.

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And here is always a helper at hand, wanted or not.

I have a couple of more free days before work and reality set back in.  This has been a nice respite, and I am happy that I am focusing on being productive with the time.

And staying toasty warm inside.  Hope everyone is safe in this cold weather.

Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Revisited

Finally, after a 4 year hiatus, I was able to return with Dan to the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival (why do people always want to get married on this weekend?!).  We drove up and back in one day, something that we are not going to repeat, it is so much more enjoyable to stay overnight and not have the nighttime driving.  It was a long day, but fun.

 

Sheep judging, interesting as always

 

There was a different sheep shearer than we had seen in the past.  Amazing how docile the sheep get when put on their backs.

And we got to see a new sheep breed being introduced to the US, Valais Blackness, a breed from Switzerland.  Look at that fleece!  Apparently it is a coarse wool, I wonder if it is like Churro sheep.  This was the hit of the fair for breeders.  They are so cute also.

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We also watched the sheep dog trials, which is so fascinating.  I am not sure how they train the dogs so well.  My photos were not great of that event.

And then, on to the market.  The first year that I went to this event in 2010, the market overwhelmed me.  I was a brand new spinner, taking my first class up there, and picking up my first wheel, the Ashford traditional.  That didn’t stop me from ogling over other wheels at the fair.  There were several vendors selling wheels, and so many with big bags of beautiful fleece and roving that you could buy in whatever quantity you chose.  By the next year, I had my eye on a Jensen wheel that was on display at the fair, and finally got it that winter,  I still love my Jensen.  The Traditional was sold right after I got the Jensen, and I still have my Ashford Joy for traveling, both great wheels.

The market, while still occupying both of the large barns, was different.  There were the weaving and knitting and dyed fleece, but much less emphasis on spinning and I only saw one vendor with 2 big bags of roving.  That was a bit of a disappointment for me.

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Fiber Optic, my favorite dyer for roving was there, as they have been for the last several years.  I hesitate to admit how much of her roving I have in my stash waiting to be spun up, so I was not looking at that.  However, I have never knit with her sock yarn, and this seemed like a good time to purchase it, especially after my Clown Barf experience.  The owner, Kimber Baldwin, has a degree in Chemistry, and a great sense of color.  Plus, if you don’t like the outcome you can call her and return it!

Their yarn seems to be more popular now than the roving.  One day I will make it down to her shop, which looks amazing.  I purchased yarn for 3 pairs of socks.  the deep red/brown color is what Dan chose for himself.

I have already wound up the multi-color.

My purchases also were for my Ravelry birthday twin, and then a new book for myself:

It is a lovely book, and I looked through it thoroughly.  Happily adding it to my stitch dictionary collection.

 

 

Thistle

After sitting for many months on my spinning wheel, most of the winter in fact, these braids finally got finished. The color is Thistle from Fiber Optic.

When the plying was done, and I pulled the skeins off the skein winder, this is what they looked like:

Notice the green, which was the first spun, twisted the most upon plying.  Not to fear though, a nice hot bath, some snapping and hang in to dry produced a very beautiful yarn.

Total yardage: 1,070.  I thought that my spinning was very fine, but this seems to be my usual as of late.  At least the colors were a perfect match from braid to braid, and I had very little left over on 1 bobbin.  My thought is another faroese shawl, or perhaps something long and lean.

Shawls to Excess?

Can one person own too many shawls?  Especially when they are handspun and hand knit with a beautiful Fiber Optic gradient.  I do believe I am testing this hypothesis firsthand.  My Reef Shawl is finished and off the blocking boards, fiber was spun using the Reef gradient that happened to be the first Fiber Optic gradient one that I purchased.

I know that this post will generate lots of offers to take these shawls off my hands.  Not happening people, too much time involved.

I was reluctant to spin this for 2 reasons, at first I thought the colors to bright for me, and second, I didn’t want to ruin the fiber.  It seems I should have had no worries. The colors are gorgeous, and the fiber is wonderful.

I chose the pattern, Poppy Shawl from Brooke Nico’s new book Lovely Knitted Lace, as I wanted to maximize the use of the yarn, and I often find that triangular shawls do not sit well on my shoulders.  The unique shape of this shawl is intriguing, 3 triangles separated by a thin rectangle that sits on the shoulders.  Sort of a simplified Faroese styling.

The shawl rests naturally on the shoulders.  Love the Nupps in the long, thin rectangular panels.

Using this mannequin helps me to see what the shawl looks like on the backside while being worn.  I changed the bottom edging, the pattern called for simply finishing a repeat and binding off.  Preferring a more detailed bottom edge, and wanting to maximize the use of all my yarn, I improvised a variation of the pattern for the end of the shawl, and bound off with the stretchy bind-off.

I will wear it today, although it will have to be as a shawl scarf, as it is rather cool outside.

Pattern: Poppy
Pattern Source: Lovely Knitted Lace
Yarn: Handspun gradient Reef from Fiber Optic
Needles: US 5
Date Started: 3/28/14
Date Finished: 4/27/14
Finished Dimensions: 48″ wide x 20″ deep from back neck

3rd Fiber Weekend

First there was YarnCon, then Lorna’s Laces sale, and this past weekend was The Fiber Event at Greencastle, the kick-off to the county fiber fairs in the area.  Located just west of Indianapolis, it is an easy drive down and back in a day.

2012 was my first trip to Greencastle, and I loved it.  Andi went with me, we had a great drive, talked, and shopped, and found GeeGee.  My impetus at that time was to find the Fiber Optic booth and see all of her wares firsthand for the first time.

A torrential rain the night before we were to leave last year made getting out-of-town nearly impossible.  So, this year I was even more determined to go, and really wanted a knitting buddy.  My husband would have gladly loved the trip, but he does better when there is also a livestock display involved.  Lynette agreed to go with me, and we got a rental car early and drove off to get there in the morning for best selection.

First on the list was to make a beeline to GeeGee and score some of her aprons while the selection was still good.  I could have left with many more… I chose this lovely apron, from the early 1950’s for me.

I really love the pocket that goes all the way through both sides.  I think it will be great to toodle around the house in and have things (think knitting) close at hand.

Here is Lynette purchasing from GeeGee, we made quite the dent in her booth.  I absolutely love her aprons, and she has such a great sense of color.  75 years old, and full of life and optimism, a great inspiration.

 

Then it was off to take a first pass at all of the vendors and see what caught our eye. There were a lot of Alpaca vendors this year, many more than I remember 2 years ago.  We saw someone from the Champaign-Urbana fiber guild demonstrating a Chakra, that was really interesting.

I knew that I would be returning to Fiber Optic, just what to buy this year? A gradient of course!  My 2 favorite colors together, green and purple.  This is a definite Frances shawl! Lynette is trying the paintbox gradients, it will be fun to see how they knit up.

I have always wanted to knit the Sheep heid tam, so found the pattern and knew that I needed to get that.

Then, it just so happens that we passed by a Shepherd who had many colors of Shetland sheep, perfect symbiosis.  I scored these 7 colors, couldn’t be better than handspun for this project!

And keeping with the Shetland theme, I purchased a beautiful book, that deserves its own post tomorrow.

 

 

Reef Shawl

Work has been steadily progressing on the Poppy Shawl by Brooke Nico.

If you decide to knit this pattern, look for the errata.  I found a mistake in the first row of Chart 3 and in the repeat width (it is 8 not the 9 std boxed out). When I emailed Brooke to ask if I was correct, she concurred and issued a correction on Ravelry.  It is a lot of knitting of the same pattern repeat, which is fairly straight forward albeit a bit boring at times.  I am very intrigued with the shape which is 3 triangles separated by 2 narrow rectangles (those are the sections with the nupps).  It should sit nicely on my shoulders and have lots of fabric to wrap.  One thing that I would like to change is the ending, rather than just casting off.  I have plenty of time to mull that over, still not finished with the first skein of yarn, my spinning was wound in 2 sections.

The colors are so gorgeous on this fiber, that I had to go back and see what the inspiration photo had been.

Which generated this colorway:

 

 

Because I love color!

This long, dreary, cold, icy, snowy, interminable winter is getting to me. My spring break last week was hardly that, and they are calling for snow this week! Color is a great comfort. So, I pulled out the yarn that I had spun this winter, Reef by Fiber Optic.

And I turned to my new book, Lovely Knitted Lace by Brooke Nico to choose a pattern.

While this is not the pattern that I really want to knit from the book, I like the look the yardage requirements were almost perfect.  Poppy Shawl.

 

Here is my start.  At least the sun was shining for photos.

Reef

I finally have spun up the Reef Gradient from Fiber Optic.

This was the first of Kimber’s gradients that I purchased (I was already a fan, and had been in her club for 1 year).  This sat on the shelf, as I felt while the colors were beautiful, that it was too bright and just not ME.  Well, times have changed, and this long long winter has me looking for bright and sunny and anything that feels like warmth everywhere.  

I have also come to appreciated the bright colored shawls and how striking they actually are.

My spinning was not as even as normal, so I had to pull it out a few times to bring the colors back into closer alignment.  I do like some overlap to transition, but a couple of times it was too much.  After plying it was washed and set on the bathroom radiator to dry.  990 yards of 2ply.

And then the photographs.  The colors were so beautiful and intense that I took tons of photos.  Enjoy the splash of brightness!

Now, I really want to knit this into a shawl quickly.  I have a couple of ideas…

Honey to Fig

I cannot believe that I have not posted for 2 weeks!  Must be that all of my energy is going into shoveling snow and attempting to stay warm.  We are on the 3rd snowiest winter ever, and it is not yet halfway through February.  Everyone is hoping that we do not break the record books.

During this hibernation phase, I have finished up my Semele shawl using the Honey to Fig gradient from Fiber Optic that I spun last Fall.  There were several false starts with various patterns, so the real knitting with the final pattern chose actually was only about 2 weeks.

Having a pattern that was knit from side to side for this gradient became an obsession with me, not quite sure why.  Three different patterns were tried before I settled on Semele, and I couldn’t be happier with the results.  This pattern allowed me to knit 1/2 of the shawl increasing and then start to decrease.  Either my calculations were incorrect, or the 2nd half of the braids were spun thinner.  In either case, I am still happy and I have some leftover deep purple for future use.

Here is a photo blast for this yet again cold day. Colors were hard to capture, as it went from a golden-yellow to a very deep purple.

Pattern: Semele
Pattern Source: Downloaded pattern
Yarn: Handspun gradient Honey to Fig from Fiber Optic
Needles: US 6
Date Started: 1/9/14
Date Finished: 2/8/14
Finished Dimensions: 68″ wide x 37″ deep

Knitting TM

Knitting is the new yoga is a phrase often heard amongst knitters, and we like to point out that we accomplish things at the same time.  As a yoga student, it has the meditative properties, but my abs and triceps benefit little from my knitting, try as I might.  Today I was watching a talk show and they were taking about Transcendental Meditation and the associated health benefits.  I was working on my current shawl, at a point in the middle of each row, where it is mindless stockinette stitch, and thought this is TM also.  A quick google turned up this yoga retreat site that taught knitting as a meditative part of the retreat.

Knitting relieves stress for me, and comes out in times of crisis to keep me centered.  It always is my solution for people going through difficult times in their lives, whether they be personal or physical.  Some heed my advise, most look at me as if I were crazy.

This is my current shawl, Semele.  I have added extra increases to make it a true shawl, you all know my less than passionate feelings towards “shawlettes”.  Seems like any “ettes” are simply excuses for not having the completed full thing.  The other rational was to use all of the yarn that I have, this is a handspun gradient from Fiber Optic, Honey to Fig. There were many false starts to this shawl, as I was determined that this gradient wanted to go side to side.  This pattern was perfect, as you knit increasing until you have used almost 1/2 the yarn, then start decreasing.  I might have pushed the envelope a bit on this one, but I do have a back-up plan in my head if I run out of yarn at the end.

Here is my progress, I am approaching the end quickly, having knit the majority of the body.  I was in a fog, took me quite awhile to get the hang of the pattern repeat. And the cast-on befuddled me, as the first leaf is backwards, I kept thinking that I had made a mistake.  It is advisable to read all the directions for a pattern first prior to starting to knit!

“Like the counting of the rosary, the motions of needlework are singularly well suited to the practice of contemplation”  –From The Knitting Sutra by Susan Gordon Lydon