Photo-frustration

It's that time of year when blogging becomes much more difficult due to the fact that I seem to find it impossible to remember to take pictures of things on the weekends when the sun is out. During the week, we end up getting home anywhere from 4:00-6:00 pm, and by then it is pitch black. And I'm no good at taking good pictures with a flash yet.

It's frustrating, because I've got two patterns that are test knit and ready to go, except for pictures. And there is now a large backlog of unblogged finished projects. Bah! For the moment, I'll have to settle for a couple of cell phone pictures of girl stuff from the weekend.

Boo in a handspun hat and Devil in a new handspun sweater

I have grand plans however, grand plans...tomorrow I am going to actually be at home during the day, and the weather is looking like maybe it will cooperate a little bit (i.e. maybe a drizzle early on, but no heavy rain. No sun either, but we'll see how that plays out). The plans involve me, a tripod, Himself's lovely fancy camera, my back porch, a confused dog, and hopefully some good pictures! Although I'm afraid Dev's sweater won't fit me...might have to pin her down for some pictures on Friday afternoon. If I'm lucky, I'll get enough photos for a really looooooooooong post on Friday to update you on all this stuff.

Something is different

Here we are. The second day of December. And you know what I haven't done yet on this blog? (or anywhere else for that matter)

Posted my list of Christmas knitting. And to be fair, I haven't really been thinking all that much about Christmas knitting. More importantly I haven't been stressing about Christmas knitting.

Sure, there's the handspun Fair Isle sweater that I was hoping to finish by December 25th, but since I haven't gone near it in almost a month, I think it's fair to say it's not going to be done. Which is fine - it will be a March birthday present. I've got a couple pair of socks done from earlier in the year, and a vest. I'm not knitting anything for my brother since he just got a sweater. So I'm heading in to this first of the last few weekends before Christmas idly thinking about cranking out a scarf over the weekend to be sent back to the States. Maybe a non-slouchy Fartlek Hat* for Himself out of some handspun I finished in this year's Tour de Fleece.

We'll see. This is the first time in a while I haven't been in a state at the beginning of December trying to figure out exactly what needs to be done and when in order for it to get to where it needs to go in time.

It's a nice feeling, it is...

*Such a gorgeous pattern

Preview

So...you may recall I mentioned something about starting to sell handdyed fiber to the wide world of spinning enthusiasts out there. That is all going to start tomorrow (squee!) (panic!) over here at my new shop Porpoise Fur.

Here's some photographic enticement for you...

Into the wild

Last weekend we packed up and went off to Yorkshire, just for fun. I was very excited because, after looking at the map, it became quite apparent that we were heading into the mother lode of sheepdom. Masham, Swaledale, Wensleydale..swoon

We drove up on Friday afternoon, and Saturday morning found us out and about wandering in the Yorkshire Dales National Park, a place that has now imprinted itself on my heart because there's a sheep head in their logo.

I found out later that it's a Swaledale sheep head, to be specific. Anyway, there we were, wandering about in the hills, and guess what we found wandering around all on their lonesome?

Sheep, strangely enough. There was something very unexpected (to me) about these sheep.

They've got tails! Long, shaggy, kind of gross tails! Once I got over that excitement, I had a lovely time running down the trail, calling out to the sheep and stopping to take even more crappy mobile phone photos (I dropped my point-and-shoot digital camera a couple of weeks ago, and while it still takes pictures just fine, the display screen doesn't work, so I have no idea what I'm taking pictures of).

My family thinks I'm nuts, but thankfully, they still put up with me. The Fleece and Fiber Sourcebook identifies these babies as the famous Swaledale sheep breed, which is both yay! and boo!, because we were in Wensleydale and I wanted to see some sheep dredlocks.

Sunday dawned (and stayed!) extremely foggy, so we wandered around York, walking along the medieval city wall, disturbing Sunday services at York Minster, and checking out the Vikings at the Jorvik Viking Centre.

These would be the disturbances

Twas a fab trip, and has only instilled a desire to go back and wander the Dales until I find some more sheep. Barring that, I have some pictures of what I've been doing with all the dye and fiber that's been flying around my house of late for the next post. Don't miss the pretties!

The importance of rinsing

Yesterday I took a break from all the knitting that is ongoing, and did a wee bit of spinning instead. I tried another new-to-me wool, some mixed English wool that Boo dyed a few months back - same color scheme as her Cheviot socks, but slightly darker colors. However...I discovered that the fiber didn't get rinsed out quite enough, because my fingers turned blue. Oops!

 

That's after an hour of plying this morning - last night after a couple hours of spinning the singles, my fingertips were bright blue!  I gave the finished yarn a good soak, so hopefully all the other excess dye is now gone. I guess I'll know for sure when I start knitting with it.

 

This wool reminded me of the Cheviot in that it was not terrifically soft, but had a nice grippy feel when spinning the singles. The finished yarn reminds me a bit of the Bartlett yarn I'm using for my MIL's sweater, although not as lofty. It's a very rustic yarn. I'm thinking lined mittens for Boo, to match her socks.

In other spinning/handspun news, I've almost finished off Dev's Sprout sweater.

We went to York last weekend, and my yarn-dar did not let me down. While wandering around the city streets, we happened upon a yarn store. Dev and I went in while Himself and Boo continued on. The yarns were lovely, but nothing I needed to snatch up and take home with me. They also had a nice selection of buttons, so after much hemming and hawing, we brought home these.

Perfect buttons for my little English schoolgirl. Hopefully she'll be wearing it by next weekend.