In case anyone wants more details about the move/life in the UK, I've started another blog here to keep folks updated.
And the book lists will now be making their appearence over here, with my fellow Intercontinental Book Mavens.
Just trying to keep things organized that's all. Now back to your regularly scheduled ridiculousness.
As you may have gathered, things around here have been getting a wee bit out of hand in the last little while. What with the packing and house leasing and travel arrangements being dealt with, my energy for anything even remotely strenuous knitting-wise has been below minimal. Maybe even into negative number territory. So I've been consoling recharging my batteries with simple things; garter stitch and spinning a cubic buttload of singles.
This is 1 lb of Corriedale I dyed at Yarn School last fall that has been calling out to me for a while now. It was the first thing I jumped on in the Dye Lab, and my first experimentation with the color wheel. Adrian's suggestion was to pick 2-3 colors that were on one side of the color wheel, and one from the opposite side for contrast. I went with Violet, Purple and Brilliant Blue, with Pumpkin Orange as my contrast. I was pretty pleased with how it came out, and the singles are lovely.
I'm spinning long draw from the fold, not worrying too much about wpi, just trying to keep things moving along. I've filled five bobbins already and am on to number 6 - I may have to start winding on to TP rolls pretty soon, since I think this is my last bobbin. My goal is to finish up the last of the fiber before the wheel gets packed up this weekend. I may or may not make it, and if I do, it will be because I was up too late trying to finish it up! I hope to have enough for a sweater for moi out of this stuff, but we'll see - I have very poor skills at calibrating yardage vs. FO.
Don't be surprised by a fair bit of radio silence for the next little while. We'll be diassembled/in transit for most of the next three weeks. I'll be able to pop in a bit for the next couple of weeks, but there probably will not be much knitting or spinning to report on, just packing and moving and plane rides with small children. Oh Joy.
I am far from the first, or one hundred and first, or even possibly the one hundred thousand and first knitter to have ever made this observation, but Elizabeth Zimmerman was some kind of genius. How else can you explain how something that looks like this,
becomes this adorable little number.
Pattern: Baby Surprise Jacket by Elizabeth Zimmerman, Knitting Workshop version
Yarn: Knit Picks Swish Superwash in Natural (dyed yellow, orange and green) and coral (overdyed red). I'm not sure of the exact yardage, but probably somewhere around 350 yds.
Needles: US 7/4.5 mm
Comments: I intended this for approximately a 6 month size, so I used worsted weight yarn. Loved the construction and the knitting - mindless garter stitch and spinning are just about the only things my brain can tolerate these days, so this was perfect for the evenings. Total knitting time was approximately a week.
Buttons are small wood ones from my stash.
I ran out of the requested colorway, and had to dye another skein to finish it off, but I think the red fits pretty well with the handpainted stuff. I was worried I was going to get pooling, but somehow I managed to avoid the worst of that.
I love the miters and how they look with this yarn. Very cool.
So when I blocked this thing, it grew. Quite a bit. Now it looks more like a one year old size. But so be it - the niece will live in Boston, so hopefully she'll get some use out of it next winter and spring.
1. My children and their Halloween Trick-or-Treating friends bounced around like pink/purple/blonde bits of fluff scavenging easter eggs out of our backyard.
2. We had really, really good Thai food and Guiness for dinner on Saturday.
3. I finished spinning up the first half of 1 lb of dyed Corriedale for my first major spinning project.
4. Ironman got a new bike,
which means...
5. I now have a new bike*! Well, new to me anyway.
Hopefully this will motivate me to actually do something with said new bike, thereby getting my generous rear in gear. So to speak.
In any event, yippee!
*Both my wheel and my bike are now Canadian. Awwww.
It's another Friday, one week closer to our departure (exactly three weeks from today - someone please shoot me now). I know I'm getting stressed out because I'm tired all the time (sleeping only 6 hrs a night because of the fucking inventory we are doing of Everything.In.Our.House might have something to do with that too), and not really hungry ever - I'm subsisting on large amounts of The Nectar of the Gods/The Evil Bean Water* and whatever seems palatable at the moment, which is not much. I've decided that I am going to put a moratorium on knitting projects for the moment - my plan now is to take with me on the plane the projects that have been lingering for a while (aka the Sock Yarn blanket and a certain shawl that has been sitting on the shelf being ignored for the last five months or so) and commit to finishing those up. I'll send the yarn by shipping container with massive amounts of lavender, and hope that it all makes it there safely.
The wheel, however, will be going air freight. I have (some of) my priorities straight after all.
Another sign that I'm getting stressed out is that my brain is popping out design concepts galore. As of right now, in addition to the Tour de France projects I'm still hacking away on, I've got ideas for four sweaters, another pair of socks, and some mitts. The mitts have been knit in one incarnation, and I'm planning on a proposal to work up for a spin/knit combo pattern for an online magazine. The socks are pretty straightforward, but need to be written up and (gasp!) actually knitted. I've got yarn for three of the sweaters, but have no idea when I'll actually get around to them. I think it's my brain's way of aiding me in my denial of what I really need to be doing, i.e. writing a paper and getting my crap organized.
The good news is that I have three of the four TdF patterns charted and written, and one test knitter has her materials (and 82 row chart!) in hand. I'm working on the first of the two that I'm test knitting, and am rapidly proceeding up the foot. I've got two cuff treatments in mind, and I don't know if I'm going to just pick one or do both. And if I do both, I don't know which order to do them in. So it's likely that the top of this sock will have lots of ripping involved.
Can anyone identify the jersey (color has been adjusted because that's too easy)? And the specific inspiration for the instep pattern? I'll give you a prize if you can...
* My feelings and Ironman's feelings about coffee respectively.