Soggy feet and disappointment

So I have two hat design prototypes left to knit for this hat ebook release due in November. And, despite the size of my stash, I don't have any suitable yarn for these (the mind boggles!). Actually, it's not that I don't have suitable yarn: it's more that I have specific yarns in mind for these two designs (Cascade 220 and Madtosh) that is not in my stash, so yesterday I took a trip up to the Yarn Store (Not Local Except That Technically It's In The Same City).

There I was, trooping through the rain that suddenly arrived on Sunday after a couple of weeks of glorious fall weather, with no umbrella, having dropped one child at the bus, and one child at school. I emerged from the Tube station to find that the rain was pissing down. Waded through the puddles to the door of the shop, my mind full of the rainbow of incredible colors that are Madtosh, wondering what color is going to work best, only to find that...

...they aren't open on Mondays. Talk about a buzzkill. Not only was it raining, it was cold. And truly London-in-Autumn, which is to say, icky. And I had no lovely yarn to lift my spirits!

I've come upon the only possible solution however: clearly I need two skeins of Madtosh, one for the new design, and one to reknit a previous design (originally done in angora-blend, waaaaay too halo-y). Makes good sense, right?

The Ultimate Lanterne Rouge

The Tour de Fleece ended almost exactly 2 months ago. And Thursday night, I finally limped across the finish line, and finished my raw-fleece-to-yarn spinning. At the beginning of the week, I weighed the fleece I had left - I'd been washing it an ounce at a time, and trying to spin on it fairly steadily. Lo and behold,

almost done! So I washed up the last few ounces, and got carding. I found it to be much more effective to card a rolag, spin it straight away, and then card some more. On Wednesday night I finished spinning the Gotland.

I only had 70 yds of the black Hebridean yarn, so I sorted through my bags of colored top that I'd bought, just to try out, and decided that the Black Welsh Mountain was the closest color match to the Hebridean. That got spun up on Thursday.

Can you tell which is which? The Black Welsh Mountain is actually a dark brown, and when put next to the Hebridean, is noticeably lighter. The Hebridean is really, really black. I think that when I knit the sweater, I'll use the BWM for the hem and yoke colorwork, and the Hebridean for the cuffs. I think they'll be fine in isolation, but together the color difference will be noticeable.

The final pile. Yardage stats: 68 yds Hebridean, 115 yds Black Welsh Mountain (I have more of this top so if I run out, I can spin more),  1163 yds Gotland. Total yardage needed: 1125-1270 yds grey, 180-205 yds black, depending on whether I want positive ease or not. Hmmmm...I think I'm going to knit the body up to the armholes, provisionally cast on the sleeve stitches, work the yoke, and see how much yarn I have left and knit the sleeves down until I run out. Hopefully that will work!

In any event, it's a really good thing that I finished the spinning for this project on Thursday. Because you know what arrived on Friday?

My new toy (and 40th birthday present to myself). And since the Gotland/BWM spinning was done, I got to start playing straight away.

I have since finished this BFL, and am working on some Wensleydale that is going to be a present for one of my P3 hostesses in a couple of weeks. It's taking some getting used to, but it sure is fun!

Commuting knitting

I went back to work yesterday, and noticed a serious shortfall - I have no commuting knitting. There I was, on the train to Waterloo, with no mindless or small knitting project in my bag.

You'll be glad to know that this shortfall has since been remedied. I've had a couple of skeins of Malabrigo Lace marinating in the stash for about three years now, and it's time to convert them into a Whisper Cardigan.

This is one of the few instances when I've bought the yarn with a project in mind and actually ended up casting it on. True to form, I am modifying the every-living Bejeebus out of this pattern. After looking at the schematics, I decided that I wanted to have the option to make the body and the sleeves a bit longer. I've only got 2 skeins, so I've decided to start from the middle of the back and knit outward to the sleeves (instead of starting at one cuff and knitting across). I'll put the stitches for the sleeves on holders, and knit the rest of the body as long as suits me, then go back and finish the sleeves off.

That's the plan at least. But knitting laceweight on US 7/4.5 mm needles makes for quite the change from 3-ply handspun on 6s!

Incoming!!!!!!!!!!!

I have been spending far too much time tracking a particular parcel on it's way to me from some lovely folks in Washington state. After a few days of forgetting to check, I just noticed this.

So. Freaking. Excited. And preparing to spin ALL THE THINGS! (And believe me, these days, that's a lot of things. Like, somewhere around 20+ lbs worth of fiber hiding in my house.) (Of course, some of that I'm supposed to be selling, not hoarding for myself...)

Oy...my poor hands. Y'all should start buying stock in Nurofen/Advil, if I have anything to say about it.

Sampler packs, get your sampler packs right here!

I've just finished loading the update into the shop (after a couple hours of photo editing after the girls finally went to bed), and I'm really excited about the sampler packs. Each bag has half an ounce (approximately 14 g) of each color in my semisolid Vital Dyes series. There are three fibers available in the sampler packs: Dorset Horn, Humbug BFL (shown above) and Shetland. Grab one and let yourself play with some new colors!