Posts (page 2)

My spindle is whispering to me.

It's whispering, "Cathy? You know those Yarn Hollow rovings you've got? The ones where you're wondering what to do with 4 ounces of handspun? You could spin them fingering weight and use them in the Babette blanket you're saving all your sock leftovers for...and maybe get some other rovings to do that, too."

And I'm whispering back, "You have a point, Spindle, but that's an awful lot of spinning, even if I do utterly lack any other ideas for what to do with it. Plus, most of the colors only call for 2 ounces. And I have Hubby's scarf to make."

But it's not working. My brain is plotting. It's doing math (to get 3-ply 18-wraps-per-inch yarn, I'd need 32-WPI singles. Yowza.)* It's planning to ask for advice (the blanket has its own Ravelry group, darnit.) It's wondering about buying a cone of Lion 1824 wool and a lot of Kool-Aid, or how much non-handpaint sock yarn would cost...It's investigating other rovings, because the colors I have are kind of dull and dark. I'd better knuckle under and finish all the other stuff on my plate, because I may have unleashed a monster.

*Also for reference (assuming I can trust Alden Amos's chart and formula, and these are approximate):
16-WPI 3-ply needs 28-WPI singles
12-WPI (worsted) 3-ply needs 21-WPI singles
In general, for WPI's less than 40, an X-WPI Y-ply yarn needs X*sqrt(Y)-WPI singles.

In the past seven days, I have finished:
- The Tux scarf.
- The hat from my class.
- A pair of socks that's been dragging on since MARCH.

The socks were kind of weird. I picked them up, worked on them for a bit, and all of a sudden I was ready to shape the toe. When did that happen? Didn't I have like another inch to knit? Yes, I did, and I've knitted it. I almost wonder if I've made some kind of quantum leap in my knitting speed. Either that, or I was once again in the grip of that thing where the knitting gets done much faster if you actually work on it.

According to Ravelry, the only outstanding WIP's I have are the Future Woobie and the 63-Square Crochet Blanket. The woobie shouldn't take too long, and the big afghan was always intended as a long-term project. In terms of cross stitch, I have the Busy Bee Sampler (which, again, I got a heck of a lot done on just by sitting and working on it for a couple hours) and Tradewinds (again, intended as a long-term project, but we're coming up on five years...) I seem to have a bad case of finish-itis, and maybe I should let it run its course before I start anything new.

(Pictures forthcoming as soon as I find the camera cable.)

I believe I said "Nothing in knitting is hard."

What I meant to say is, "Nothing in knitting is hard, except tightening up the Kitchener on the toe of a black sock."

Maybe I should have practiced English-style knitting on human-sized needles rather than the blankie's broom handles? By the time I was done with the colorwork stripe in my hat, I was pretty good at it. :)

At any rate, the class was a great experience. The teacher was Jane Bigelow, who also is half of Kindred Spirits Yarn Studio; she lives in Pennsylvania but ends up teaching a lot in Michigan because her daughter/business partner lives in this area. We were each issued a copy of a hat pattern with our choice of four charts, and we got a demonstration of two things: carrying one strand of yarn in each hand, and catching the non-working color over long runs.

That's it. That's exactly what the books said you needed to do: "Carry a strand of yarn in each hand, as you would for one-color knitting, and knit Continental-style for your left-hand color and English-style for your right hand color." Somehow there's a world of difference between reading that on a page, and actually seeing it done - and even between seeing it done and watching with intent to learn. So I will quote (or paraphrase) Abby Franquemont again:

NEVER PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE A CLASS FROM AN ACTUAL HUMAN. All the YouTube videos in the world can't make up for the interaction between student and teacher; it's an okay substitute if a teacher is unavailable or unaffordable, but the real thing is worlds away.

I am also reminded that nothing in knitting is actually hard.

The hat did suffer from a problem common to stranded colorwork: I made my floats just a wee tad too tight, especially on the first couple rows where I was still getting the hang of it, so it's not as stretchy as it would be if it were just plain knitting. It wouldn't fit me, so Daughter won the hat lottery: she was the first person to try it on who could actually wear it. (That's the beauty of hats. If you know enough people, who have enough children of various ages, it will fit someone.) It has since vanished into her bedroom, so photographs are unavailable at this time. It also barely made a dent in my leftover yarn from Mom's bag - the pattern says that three hats can be made from 4 balls of yarn. So maybe I'll try another one....later.

This also means I get to strike another item on my list:
1) Finish the Blackwork Dragon.
2) Finish the living room curtains
3) Make one useful piece of Irish Crochet work
4) Learn to knit in stranded colorwork
5) Make visible progress on Tradewinds
6) Finish Mo's art
7) Knit or crochet something useful from my own handspun.
8) Frame or get framed or otherwise finish at least three of the stack of cross-stitch finishes.
9) a Tux shadow-knit scarf for Hubby.

The blurb for the class I'm taking on Saturday mentions that they're teaching a two-handed method. And that made me go 'uh-oh'.

Normally, I knit Continental (and purl Cathy - I've never seen anyone else purl like I do, although it turns out that I purl much faster than I knit, but purling is not relevant to the problem at hand.) Holding the yarn in my left hand just always felt more comfortable to me, because I started out crocheting.

I figured "Most of the class will be knitting English and need to learn how to knit Continental for the class - it might be a good idea for me to practice English just a little."

I tried. I did. I looked up videos and everything.

And I CAN'T DO IT. I'm a fairly slow knitter to start out with, and this brings me to a screeching halt. I need to...drop the needles? Wrap the yarn manually? Then pull it all back through? All the while managing the yarn in my right hand? (And people knit this way on purpose, built-in inefficiency and all?) I feel clumsy, like I've never held a needle before. I'm not 100% certain I'm doing it right.

At least the author of knittinghelp.com says the English method is more forgiving of clumsy knitters - I might actually be ahead of someone who's very good at English but has never even thought about doing it the other way before.

Whew. Tux Scarf #1 is done. The final product is huge - 11" wide, probably about 5'8" long. I would say "never again", but I've already promised another one... On the other hand, while I'm sure the recipients will inspire awe and jealousy in their fellow geeks, they will be instructed to repeat the following phrase if someone actually asks for one: "Find your own knitter." At any rate, this one must be photographed and mailed, and yarn obtained for the next one.

In the meantime, I'm working on a baby blanket. When I last went yarn shopping, I said the words "baby blanket" to the shop owner, and she handed me a model blanket she had in the shop and said "Hug this." I did so, and said "Sold..." - this blankie is so soft and squishy and cuddly and huggable that I can only hope it's destined for woobie status. Even better, it's worked double-stranded on size 13 needles; I'll be astonished if it takes me more than a week.

The Jaywalkers are almost done. I think I need to work through two more changes in the color repeat, and then work the toe. Again, shouldn't take me more than a week to finish. (We've all heard that before, right?)

Compared with the #2 needles for the socks, or even the #6 needles for the scarf, the #13 needles for the blankie feel like knitting with broom handles. I've never worked on needles that big before. And I'm thinking I might need to transfer it onto a circ at some point to manage the weight, or maybe learn to knit with one needle in my armpit.

I've signed up for the Fair Isle Knitting class this weekend at FiberExpo - scratch another item off the To Do list! I'm hoping the yarn left over from Mom's bag will work; the gauge looks about right, but it might be a question of "Do I have enough left". I suppose I could weigh the skeins, and buy a new skein of whatever I call the "main color" if I've got less than half left. (Not that I want a hat in '70's colors...or maybe I do...or maybe Mom does, but I don't think she wears hats. But it's a learning project, right? Worst case I can add it to the Hat Stash, and threaten Daughter with it if she loses all her hats again this winter.)

Of note: In addition to Lion Brand putting out Sock-Ease, Patons has introduced "Stretch Socks" - it looks pretty comparable to Plymouth Sockotta, but it has elastic in it. The price works out to be a little, but not much, cheaper than Sockotta. How weird to get sock yarns at the megacraftmarts...

I don't know which is more alarming.

A) The fact that I decided I needed to try spinning the cottony stuff from my ibuprofen bottle, or
B) the fact that I've actually managed to do it.

It's a bit of a pain - the arrangement of the fibers is all wrong for spinning, and so I've got to draft about a quarter inch at a time - and the resulting thread is all lumpy-bumpy, but it is, darn it, thread.

(Next up, dryer lint? Please stop me.)

One state. Two days. Four stitchers. Seven shops. Could we do it?

Yes, we could. Meg, Anne, Sarah, and I completed the 2008 Michigan Cross-Stitcher's Shop Hop in a single weekend. After waking up at the crack of dawn Saturday, armed with shopping lists, a Google Map, and an iPhone, we set out for Plainwell...The car trip itself was uneventful (except maybe for the segment between Jackson and Tecumseh, where Google failed slightly, but I knew another way to get there, and I couldn't stop myself from pointing out all the new stuff in a town where I lived 10 years ago...) so I will stick to reviewing the shops...

Saturday, we went to:

Stitching Bits and Bobs, in Plainwell - friendly staff, well-organized stock of patterns, brands of floss you've never heard of, and a broad selection of the ones you have. They were a strictly mail-order business until fairly recently, when they opened a bricks-and-mortar operation apparently by popular demand. I would probably go back again - it's not too far out of the way to the Michigan Fiber Festival in Allegan.

Distinctive Stitches, in Kalamazoo - I wasn't impressed. Their selection of patterns was broad but shallow, and tended towards the kitschy. Didn't like the way they organized overdyed flosses (which was most of what was on my shopping list) - instead of hooks, they hung all the flosses on giant binder rings.

(Side trip to Sweetwater Donut Mill - Voted one of America's top 10 donut shops. I understand why. Anything you could think of that might work when stuffed into and/or smeared on a donut, they've done it. Black Forest (cherry filling, cocoa powder instead of powdered sugar). Reese's Peanut Butter Cup. New York Cheesecake. Yum. I'm disappointed that the nearest branch is in Battle Creek.)

Flying Stitch, in Battle Creek - warm and cozy atmosphere, friendly and knowledgable staff, good selection. Would visit again if I'm driving through Battle Creek and feel a stitching jones coming on.

In Stitches, in Jackson - apparently changed hands in the past couple months, and the new owner is reorganizing things. I might try it again later to see if there's a better impression made. They did present me with my favorite freebie chart of the weekend...

Timeless Stitches, in Tecumseh - OMG if only this shop had been in business when I lived there. Staff was insanely friendly and helpful. They carried the "usual suspect" fibers (DMC, Gentle Arts, Weeks, Caron), but had an apparently complete selection. Only complaint was that they organized them by number, when nobody actually references them that way. Same deal with their patterns - the selection wasn't that broad, but what they had, they had a lot of. Meg, Anne, and I all made impulse purchases here - I picked up a chart from Just A Button Company, "free with purchase of the $10.50 in buttons they decorated it with", and Meg and Anne both picked up quilt-inspired canvaswork patterns and the canvas for it.

Sunday, we hit:
Homestead Needle Arts, in Grand Blanc - unlike the other shops, this one specialized in needlepoint rather than cross stitch. Most of the stock was a) needlepoint canvases (expensive!!!!!) and b) fibers and flosses that most people who exclusively cross-stitch have never heard of. But that was, in a way, cool, for a couple reasons: 1) I'd considered Rainbow Gallery a cut-rate off-brand of fiber because of how it was packaged, but OMG do they have colors! And fibers! Bamboo? Check. Linen floss in actual colors? Check. Silk? Come taste the rainbow. Alpaca? "Non-stranded, available in natural and dyed shades." I don't even know why I'd use bamboo floss over cotton for anything, but dang, just the fact that it exists is kind of cool. And 2) They actually had, in stock, the Au Ver a Soie fibers called for in a pattern I've been hanging onto for five years without even attempting to stitch it because I couldn't find the dang thread (maybe because it's not made anymore, or got bought out by Kreinik?). If I'd known that, I'd've made a list - as it is, I think I'll be placing a web order. (There was one kit that almost got me there, too: a map of Michigan in which each county was worked in a slightly different canvaswork kit. It was even reasonably priced, by the scale of the handpainted canvases on display around the room.)

Lady Bug Shoppe, in Royal Oak: I was disappointed by how much was taken up with Royal Oak-related gift shop material; it's great that they're civic-minded, but I was after cross stitch. Their selection was pretty good in some areas, a little lame in others. If I were heading there, I would probably stop at The Rocking Horse instead; I don't think they had anything Rocking Horse didn't except for a selectino of dust-collectors, and Rocking Horse is closer to me and has free parking.

Overall...we all had a good time, we're all entered in the drawing for a totally sweet prize package, and I managed to not go over budget. I found a new designer I might collect. I might have to go back to Tecumseh for one of those canvas patterns...if I ever catch up on my planned stitching and knitting, which is why I tried to not go overboard on patterns.

When I planted my vegetable garden this summer, I also put in some companion flowers: borage to attract good bugs, marigolds to repel bad ones. In the spirit of eliminating unitaskers, I went looking for other uses for these plants, and discovered that marigold can be turned into a pretty good dyestuff. I checked a couple books on natural dyes out of the library, and discovered the following:
1) It's easy, if a little timeconsuming.
2) A fairly large amount of marigold flowers is needed - something approaching 100% of the weight of goods to be dyed.
3) Marigolds can be harvested all summer and frozen.
4) The results are likely to be a shade that will look good on redheaded Daughter.
...so my freezer has been slowly filling with marigolds all summer, with intention that by the end of the season I'd have enough to dye a Daughter-sweater-quantity of yarn, and then all I'd need is a couple junker stockpots.

But then I saw the newsletter from The Spinning Loft, a local fiber/spinning/weaving supply shop, listing a class on the topic. And right after that, I saw a comment from Abby Franquemont on Ravelry suggesting that no amount of books, YouTube videos, and internet forum posts will substitute for a good class from an actual human being, and I saw the wisdom of her words. I had money in the budget. So. Away I went. And I'm so glad I did. And I'm so mad that I forgot my camera...(Beth, the shop owner, has some pictures posted here...I'm the differently-spelled Cathy, in a pink shirt)

My books were correct to say that, for most plant materials, the process is easy, if a little timeconsuming; the instructors had thoughtfully pre-prepared a bunch of 10-yard skeins of yarn, both measuring them and soaking them in a mordant solution overnight. (A "mordant" increases the bond between fiber and a dye pigment; for most dyes, without a mordant, you'll get very subtle colors that fade very quickly. A combination of alum and cream of tartar is generally safe and useful for this purpose). Most plants do need about the same weight as the goods to be dyed - but look what we were using: goldenrod (a weed!), Queen Anne's lace (a weed!), sumac (basically a weed!), and marigolds (astonishingly easy to grow!). Purple loosestrife (also a weed! and one the Powers That Be are encouraging people to uproot!) and black-eyed susan (also astonishingly easy to grow!) also yield pretty good dyes. And they all freeze - one of the teachers said she'd gotten good results with sumac berries gathered in the winter, after a frost.

The process is a lot of hurry-up-and-wait. Scour the yarn (i.e., as-hot-as-you-can-stand water and soap), because commercial yarn has been lubed for spinning. Mordant the yarn - this can take overnight. Simmer the plants for an hour. Strain it. Dunk the yarn, simmer for another hour (except for goldenrod, which is very quick and actually changes color the longer you leave it in the bath). Dip in an afterbath if you're using one; tin brightens the color, copper greens it, iron greys it. And as far as the color - your mileage not just may, but will, vary, because there's so many variables you have little control over, starting with the soil the plants are grown in...we got a very orangey-gold color from the marigolds, but I'd contributed a lot of orange flowers, and if we'd gone with more yellow it probably would have been reflected in the outcome. The goldenrod pot gave us a very bright, cheery yellow; the Queen Anne's lace had just a tetch of green in it. The sumac gave us a deep, rich, warm brown (which the teachers said was a little odd - it's normally more of an auburn), and wasn't changed much by the afterbaths.

The indigo pot uses a completely different mechanism; it involves chemistry so complex it might as well be alchemy, and when you consider the rituals and superstitions that have sprung up through the centuries in various cultures...yes, this is a dye that can be activated by fermenting it with urine, but let's not and say we didn't... We went for a less-traditional method, but one that wouldn't take two weeks or more: add freeze-dried indigo to dye pot of tap-hot water, add reducing agent (thiourea dioxide), add alkali (we used lye, but ammonia also works [see urine fermentation]), let it sit until it turns just the right shade of green (which involves all kinds of cool bubbling and interesting odors), and watch the magic: the yarn, right after immersion, was a beautiful green color (more than one student asked "Can we stop it there?"), and as it was dried and exposed to air it turned blue. The deal seems to be: You will get this color, lighter or darker depending on how long you immerse your goods, but the exact mechanism for getting there can be a little fiddly. Other plus: only needs one pot and no real external heat source; I could do this in the driveway on a warm day. Indigo also makes a very good overdye - it turned our yellows into lovely greens, and the sumac brown into a kind of bronzey color.

I brought home a big bag of sumac (it's considered a "substantive" dye - it can be used without a mordant, as can indigo), but I've absolutely reconsidered the idea of dyeing a sweater-quantity of marigold yarn for Daughter; I think, instead, I'm going to pick up some Henry's Attic Andromeda and dye enough to make a Bombshell with indigo.

...and Abby was right (as Abby usually is, on almost any fiber-related topic); there's no substitute for taking a class. Doing it myself, I'd've ended up with some marigold-dyed yarn, but I wouldn't've been able to try out all the different materials and afterbaths, and it wouldn't've involved a day in the sunshine hanging out with a bunch of other fiber nuts. I think I'll be signing up for more...