Etherknitter

Tour de Summer

The Tour de Fleece ended well.  I didn't finish and I didn't crash.  Much.

The wrap-up:

1.  EKF Mocha batts, 2.5 oz x 2, worsted spun singles, final yarn 2 ply, 436 yards of shiny, coppery, glinting beauty.

2.  EKF Farm roving.  The plan worked.  The thick/thinness was evened out in a heavy worsted/chunky three-ply yarn.  There are tweedy bits from the silk and recycled sari silk.  I fulled it enthusiastically with my plumber's helper.  I learned a bunch from this yarn.

3.  Handspun by Stefania, Jacob roving.  Caroline is saving the day on this one.  She solicited a trip over the pond on its behalf.  She will weave....something.  It will come back to me in rejuvenated and lovely form.  When I wound it off onto cardboard rolls, the twist wasn't quite as bad as I remembered.  (Of course, it was dormant, so maybe it IS, and will be, as bad as I remembered.  Human memory is an interesting phenomenon that rewrites itself as it attempts to encode itself into the neural nets we call the brain.   So I will put assessment and judgment on hold for now.)  No pictures until then.

4.  Felicia fleece:  I spun 3 oz of the 13.5, knowing this would be the epic fail.  I'm okay with that.  I got the bobbin started, and will finish it before the next TdF.  Probably.

5.  The dark horse reared up and broke out of the stable.  I plyed several ounces (must weigh) of dark green Ashland Bay merino that I spun in 2006.  The singles transformed into two-ply fingering weight yarn.  I love it.  I finger the strands, and wonder why I can't spin like that anymore. I had notes about what the fiber was, when it was, and on what wheel.  But I neglected to include stuff like woolen vs worsted technique.  Therefore, I did not full the yarn.  It is vera vera nice.   Dark green is a bear to photograph well.  I'll try when it dries completely.

All that yarn up there looks suspiciously neutral.  The Tour de Summer involved a daytrip to Gloucester, which defines summer in Massachusetts.  We wandered the Rocky Neck galleries and stores.  The colors enveloped us on the 90 degree day.  The brilliant air defined the hues.

Hydrangeas reach a periwinkle/blue/purple apogee in the sandy soil that no amount of inland acidification can duplicate.  The camera barely got it.  And Amy's ice cream shack deserves to be immortalized on the blog to show genius in color mix and matching. 

And if you are still here, go see a link my MIL sent me.  Forgive its commercial nature, and hope that it comes to a clothing store near you.

My summer of Lace

At the start of the Hot Times, Pat declared this to be the summer of socks, lace, and mitts.  A sock was in my hands, two lace shawls were already taking shape at home, and mitts are always an easy sell.  I always listen to Pat.

Since then, socks have filled their usual ecologic niche:  knitting in the car, on vacation, or in planes and airports.  The lace!  Oh, the lace!  After finishing Foglifter, a lace obsession began.

The downstairs lace is Featherduster.  Carefully.  Slowly.  So I don't have to tink.  Exquisite fabric.  I have worn Foglifter almost to death in cold restaurants.  The idea of another Susan shawl that slips into my handbag weightlessly for such temperature emergencies keeps me going on the mohair/silk tightrope.

The upstairs lace is Onerva.  Written only in Finnish, with key words translated by intrepid knitters on Ravelry, charts by NeedleDiva have made all the difference.

Lynn contaminated me in June.  She showed me Grace Anna Farrow's shawl booklet.  I initially fell hard for Dusk, then switched to Volt.  Do you know that impatience of waiting for the kit to arrive?  I checked the front door over and over, day after day. Despite knowing better, I even checked it on weekends.  Last Thursday morning, I saw a grey bag propped at the garage door.  The UPS man should burn in hell for that one.  Who looks at the garage door?  I found it on the day that I would not be home til 9pm.  The bag sat quietly in the car all day.  A cursory glance just as I fell into bed that night,  back to work the next day. 

Saturday gave the opportunity to immerse.  Joy!  I looked at different provisional cast-ons.   395 stitches.  Sobriety slowly arrived.  It is a counting challenge, then a perimeter of attached I-cord.  I will knit this as a longitudinal project.  The knit is a marathon.  Happily, the other two shawls have flexed the brain lace muscle. 

I have evidently been through some quiet, unblogged startitis.  My MIL and I found yarn for a warmer winter scarf for her:  Manos de Uruguay merino/silk in a colorway she loved.  I am a typical knitter.  It is not blue, but I am entertained by the rapid-fire changes in color as I knit.  She chose the pattern.  The yarn store had a Knitting Calendar on display.  We leafed through briefly.  It took her no time at all to settle on January 5th, Lace Rib.  The pattern is treating the colors well.

Knitting seeps into the fiber of personality.  I chose zinnias at a local farmstand.  When I got home, I found I had selected the colors of the scarf.

The Wine of the Week makes a steamy summer appearance.  Only the hardcores drink the world's hearty reds in July. 

This bottling was sent as an email tickler by a suburban wine store.  It is a delicious, crisp, refreshing, satisfying quaff.   I'll let the wineguy have his say on this one:

"When I tasted the Casamaro Rueda yesterday I was struck by how complete a wine it was for the price.  Not only how complete but how balanced, nuanced and delicious it is.  When I taste wines at this price they seldom have all these qualities and they are rarely this provocative.

One reason this wine is so good is probably because it is produced by a small family winery in a part of Rueda that has sandier soils than the rest.  This makes for better drainage and greater temperature swings from day to night - making for more interesting flavors in the grapes.  The sandy soil also helps protect the vines from the ravages of Phylloxera so this wine is made from Verdejo grown on vines that are 100 - 145 years old!  Older vines means more concentrated flavors and these vines are about as old as you can get.

 

For the uninitiated, Verdejo is the more interesting and characterful grape in the Rueda DO and is reminiscent of Sauvignon Blanc but with a bit more fruit tone and less grassiness.  Verdejo also seems to pick up a stoniness not often found in Sauvignon.  The other important white grapes are Viura and Sauvignon Blanc itself.  Many producers have been blending higher and higher amounts of Sauvignon into their Rueda in an effort to appeal to the New Zealand crowd; but my vote stays with the wines made from mostly Verdejo.

This one is 90% Verdejo and 10% Viura, all free run juice, fermented in stainless steel for a crisp and fresh fruit driven style.  The wine is at first melony, then tastes of nectarines with a nice backdrop of minerality and an orange juice acidity then hints of sweet lime and pink grapefruit.  The concentration of flavor is terrific without being cloying and the finish, the fruit, sits on your tongue for easily a full minute plus after swallowing.  It tastes as good today as it did when first opened yesterday and it is only 12% alcohol to boot.  This wine is refreshing; taste-wise, style-wise, origin-wise and price-wise."

Back to me.  It is the 2009 Garciarevalo 'Casamaro' from Rueda, Spain.  Regular price is $11.99, on sale here in the Commonwealth for $9.60.  For the relentlessly academic among us, this link provides more background on the wine.  It will not age, so buy only what you will drink by Halloween.  The heat will quit by then, won't it?  (Please tell me it will, even if you have to lie to me.)

Tour de Fleece 2010

I am not a late starter, I am a late reporter.  The Tour de Fleece is here, and my wheels are spinning madly.

Last year, my goal was to spin all of Felicia, a Romney/Corrie mix from Ingrid at Ward Brook Farm in New Hampshire.  The fleece may have surrendered 40% of her volume to my twisty ways.

This year, realism sinks in.  Of course, I am an undeclared member of Team Suck Less, because, of course, I am working to suck less.

My goal is to finish.  Short, simple, sweet, just like for many of the less elite riders, it is a worthy goal. 

There will be no spindles involved in this Tour.  Spindles are fun, and have no timelines associated with their projects.  My goal is to finish three of the following four spinning WIPS:

1.  Finish Felicia.  I thought this would be easy.  I have one bump left.  Then I weighed it.  Thirteen point five ounces.  Ouch.  Pretty close to a pound, so a big bump = a BIG hill.  This does not include plying.  (The singles are pictured at the end of this post.)

2.  Finish my Mocha Enchanted Knoll Fiber batts.  This DOES include plying.  Two ounces x 2, one on each bobbin.

3.  Finish my Enchanted Knoll Farm roving.  It has wool from all the sheep, sari silk, silk, and whatever else it has in it.  This has been tough to draft.  I started playing with long draw, which worked marginally better.  I divided the 10+ ounces into three parts, am on the third bobbin, and will finish with a rustic three ply.

4.  Ply Handspun by Stefania indigo/osage Jacob singles.  I bought the roving after fondling it several Rhinebecks ago,  and thinking that it was extra soft Jacob.  Not so much.  The prep was neppy and irregular, so I used it to get acquainted with my cherry Schacht last year.

I started in double drive.  I tried and tried to be happy with double drive.  The roving was a victim of my misery.  For the last part of the bumps, I switched to scotch tension.  Plying the singles should be interesting.  I am not expecting much, but I do want it to be DONE.

In order:  

EKF Mocha batt, EKF farm roving, Stefania Jacob (the scotch tension part)

I have spent some monkey-mind time thinking about using the TdF for finishing stalled stuff.  I threw up my hands, said something along the lines of "Whatever!" and forged ahead.  If I finish ANY three of the four, I will be content.

I had my brain stretched:  I attended the TKGA conference in Manchester, NH this weekend.  I have lots to say about that in another post.  Key words:  Austrian knitting, Candace Eisner Strick, Norwegian Purl, Beth Brown Reinsel, Miss Babs.

Ten Ways to Enjoy Summer

A week has passed.  Your empathy and comments helped ease some of the weight.  "Thank you" doesn't seem to really say it well enough, but it is all I have to offer.  Thank you.

Onward.

Carole told us to list Ten Ways to Enjoy Summer for Ten on Tuesday.

1.  Knit or spin in the house in air-conditioned comfort. 
I lie.  I'm a Yankee.  I can count on two hands the number of times we turn on the main A/C each summer.  That means I cower in the house, sweating, wishing that the temperature really isn't 93 degrees. 

2.  Grill dinner.  Love this.  I should be honest about this one, too.  Mr. E grills dinner.  I eat grilled dinner on the porch.

3.  Sit on the porch after work as twilight deepens.  We keep the hummers,  cardinals, goldfinches,  chipmunks and squirrels company.  Wine is often served.  This is my favorite way to enjoy summer.

4. Watch the daylilies bloom in sequence.  I have gone overboard in the daylily department.  They survive voles and deer.  They bloom when no other flowers think that blooming is a seemly thing to do.  Each one is different in some way: numbers of petals, shapes of petals, ruffles, color, height. 

5. Have ice cream at least once.  (Remember that weight I was going to lose?  Four pounds down.  So only once.)

6. Think about all the sheep growing new fleeces!  This may be hard to imagine today, a 93 degree day, but it is what they do, so they keep doing it.

7.  Plan dinners around locavore produce.  The farms do a stupendous job no matter what weather is thrown their way.  They are the first place I shop, and I pay higher prices so they will keep growing things for me.  It is a fair swap.

8.  Watch Carole and others enjoy the heat that is making me wilt.  Srsly.  At least someone is enjoying these temperatures.  Mr. E's smartphone told him there was a heat advisory posted.  I could have let him know that he didn't need a smartphone to tell us this factoid.  But I didn't.  I'm such a good wife.

9.  Hummingbirds!  We love our hummers.  They are now dividing their time between the feeder and the deck bloomers.  Mr. shows up much more than Mrs.

10.  White wine is appropriate more often than in the winter. 

This is one of summer's challenges.  He thought no one would be up at 5am.  He technically isn't a rodent but he acts like one.  This baby coon found a source of easy food.  We are working hard to  discourage this sort of oafish behavior.  

 

Auntie 6/12/1913 - 6/28/2010

I don't understand why I am still here.  Thought my blood pressure would have killed me years ago.  That sound of blood rushing in my ears?  The doctor said it wasn't anything to worry about.  I thought I was going to have a stroke every time I heard it.  He was right, nothing ever happened.

My memory isn't what it used to be.  At first, I couldn't recall names.  I would get to the grocery store.  If I didn't have a list, I was in trouble.  Then, I forgot that I had a list.  Made sense to buy orange juice and milk, since that seemed to be what I always needed.  After a few weeks, my refrigerator was full of orange juice and milk containers.  I knew I wouldn't run out, so I left them.  I suppose now, I would have to sheepishly admit that you have to remember they are there in order to throw them out.

Memory is like long tentacles that reach out through my thoughts.  I can grab this or that from my past and present as I need.  One day, some of the tentacles seem shorter.  I can't quite find a word, or a name.  Later, it comes to me.  My doctor said this is nothing unexpected at my age. 

The tentacles shorten slowly and steadily.  I know those parts of me are still there, those memories, those facts, but I can't find them.  More and more disappear.  I'm worried.  Where is my checkbook?  I have to pay my bills!  I call my niece, who tells me she has the checkbook and is paying the bills. 

But then, I call her again the next day.  She tells me she has the checkbook.  Didn't she tell me that yesterday?  I think so.  I can't remember completely, but I think so.

Seems to take awhile, but the tentacles are gone.  All I have is the big octopus body sitting in the middle of my head.  I can remember some things and I don't know how I do that.  Some things are automatic.  Eating isn't a problem.  The woman who hands me yarn and needles seems to like what I knit.  I had forgotten I could knit.  I just don't think about it, and there it is.  Most days, I can't remember having cast on.  I'm sure I've picked up someone else's knitting, but no one seems to be complaining.  I'll just keep knitting.

I have some pain in my stomach.  The nurse tells me I'll be taken in an ambulance to the hospital to see what is causing the pain.  I hope it's nothing serious.  I've had a good life.  I'm ancient.  I think I'm 92.  Maybe I'm 95.  No matter. 

I hope they give me dinner tonight at the hospital.

"Waiting for Fleece"

The day arrives.  Your email contains a notification and bill from Morro Fleece Works.  Your fleeces are done!  They are on the way!

You have waited MONTHS for this day.  You will finally see how your gleeful and optimistic purchase has been transformed.  Caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly? 

You track the FedEx shipment throughout its circuitous and endless eight-day trip.  You are at work.  Your husband is home.  It is on the truck and scheduled for delivery THAT DAY. 

You email the DH.  "Watch for the fleece delivery!  Tell me when it arrives!"  You don't want to see it sit out on the step in the sun or the rain. 

He sends you an email.  It is titled "Waiting for Fleece".  A picture is attached.  Did he take a picture of himself waiting for fleece?  No.  Did he take a picture of the empty step?  No.  Did he take a picture of the step with the box just delivered?  No.

He mocked me.  He took a picture of:

the competition.

Seven on Twednesday

A drive-by post.  I tried to think of ten, but no.

1.  Black Beauty.  I loved horses. 

2.  Frog, The Horse That Knew No Master.  The horse always had fire in his eye.  He bucked everyone off and attacked them with his hooves until the handsome lieutenant loved him.  Boy, talk about transference.

3.  The Phantom Tollbooth.  This is nominally a children's book.  Jumping to the Island of Conclusions?  The disappearance of Princesses Rhyme and Reason?  Very fun. 

4.  Ditto Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Of course.

5.  LOTR/Hobbit.  I think I read it as a teen.  Total immersion. 

6.  The Lion, Witch, Wardrobe, and all sequels.  One of my teachers read all these aloud to us.  Magic.

7.  The Enchanted Castle.  E. Nesbit wrote this about a hundred years ago.  It is still in print.  Compelling when I stumbled across it in the middle school library, I ordered it from Amazon last month.  Very fun story.  Might be a touch scary for today's tender ears and eyes.  We were built stronger back then.

Leucojum aestivum, summer snowflake, from the garden several weeks ago.  Good green foliage that stays fresh, no pests, survives voles and deer.  (I have not finished my morning tea, so sentence structure is elusive.)  Snowdrops are a close relative.

Cummington 2010

The day was perfect.   Morning cool became afternoon sun and breeze.  Fiber friends crowded the booths.  Manise and I prowled, then wandered.

Marcy brought her twin nieces, Lydia and Erica.  They spin. 

Lydia had an African porcupine quill that she made into a spindle.  She had fired a ring of clay in her baking oven to counterweight the quill.  She was spinning cotton. 

Some small part of me, the part that started spinning later in life, wishes I could be 25 years old once more.

I have an FO that has reached its recipient. 

At the TKGA Marketplace in 2007, I purchased stainless steel/silk from Habu.  I watched Takako knitting a fine mesh on #3 needles with her fine hands.  She made it look simple. 

I unvented a version of Kushu-kushu.  Even if I had known the pattern was available, my scarf path would still have been different.  Four inches of steel/silk, then fine merino and metal held together, then finish with four inches of the steel/silk yarn.

The knitting was epic.  Three or four needles were trialed, until finally an Inox coated aluminum version allowed stitches to slide in a controlled manner from needle to needle.  I worked on a row every few weeks.  (Really.)  Finally, this spring, knitting monogamy seemed like a more productive plan.  (I found a picture of the scarf's start in October 2007.  Time to get it DONE.)

Yarn:  Habu stainless steel/silk, grey; Habu extra fine merino, rust
Needles:  Inox coated aluminum dpns, #3
Pattern:  60 stitches, 4 inches of steel on each end, steel and merino held together, total length, approximately 32" per MIL request, st st throughout

The yarn required no patterning for visual interest in the FO.  I did not felt it, and do not intend for felting to occur. 

My MIL sent an email thank you:

"I can't believe this incredibly supple network!  How do you even knit such a material?  It seems to stretch endlessly, can be configured a myriad ways, and has a memory! 

 

I certainly would have never thought of such a sci-fi material- where do you find it?  

I can't imagine tricked-up silkworms producing steel-reinforced fiber.

 

 I have to admit I have been using steel cable covered in nylon for stringing for a long time, but was never able to knot it successfully as it is too stiff.  So to see a steel fiber being knitted boggles the mind.  And a combination of steel and silk!  Who uses it? 

 

I am obviously delighted to be the recipient- I'm thinking  the piece  can be used many ways, even shaped into a flower to wear on the lapel.  I even wonder whether it will keep me warm in winter, but think probably not, the steel might conduct cold! We should put it in the freezer briefly and find out!

 

I really like the  artistic color combination.  Can you send a small piece of the silk/steel material for experimentation?"

I have offered to make a scarf suitable for winter wear.  I'm thinking lace...intricate patterning...but it will be hard to top this one.

    

Deliberate Practice

I sent an ungodly number of fleeces to my favorite processor last month.  (The vow to decrease the amount of fiber flowing into the stash only referred to yarn.)  Cummington will see me in attendance.  It will be my fifth spinaversary.  MAS&W is where I usually fall down hardest in fleece purchasing.  I can't do that this year.

My use of spinning fiber has reached a bottleneck of frustration.   Spinning a default yarn is going beautifully.  I finished Enchanted Knoll Farm's Bliss merino65%/silk35%, colorway Esmaralda, purchased at SPA 2010.  Two ounces of turning the colors of a peacock tail into yarn felt lush.  Fingering weight, I can use it for a scarf, mittlets, or combine it with a solid for a colorwork hat.

Fleeces require more commitment.  They are purchased in pound(s) quantity with a sweater intention.  Two fleeces are in process on my wheels. Goal:  three ply woolen yarn, worsted weight.

Baritone is a Cummington Coopworth, circa 2006.  I sampled.  I swatched to determine twist and grist of the singles.  I (much later) sampled how much twist to put in the three ply, counted treadles, washed the skeinlets.  I then plyed three bobbins together.  It is barely related to what I saw in my initial sampling.

I check the twist while spinning using JMM's plyback method.  That gives a good picture of a 2-ply yarn.  It is harder to use that technique to get an accurate sense of a 3-ply yarn.

Let's take a break from fleecy disappointment. 

Deliberate practice is a way of evaluating the acquisition of expertise.  How do people who are world class chess masters get so good?  How do golfers rise to the top of their game?  The original article written in 1993 said that people are not naturally gifted at things like golf or chess.  Deliberate practice is what creates world class talent.  Ericsson has examined this across several kinds of expertise.  (Yes, it is very hard to measure, and potentially tainted by memory biases on the part of the subjects.)  The best link is here.  

It takes 10,000 hours of practice to create expertise.  The 10,000 hours have to be structured in a particular way.  That is where the "deliberate" part comes in.

The individual has to perform the skill in question.  Then the performance is evaluated for what is right, and what isn't so right about the performance.  A plan is made to keep what is right, and correct what is wrong.  The skill is performed again.  This iteration goes on and on.

The Olympic skater who falls in practice is pushing at the edge of her skills, and can improve her performance.  The skater who does not fall at all is not trying new jumps.  So temporarily poor performance is almost a given when attempting to learn new skills.  Not spinning my default yarn in hard. 

(Wired Magazine published an article this month that said you will probably click on the links, but you won't finish the article.  And that your ability to learn is decreased by the number of links in on-line text.  I'm laughing as I give you a link to that article.) 

I'm trying to feel better about ruining perfectly good fleece.  I am also spinning Felicia, a Romny/Corrie X from Ward Brook Farm.  Disciplined as always, plying will wait until I have all the bobbins spun.  (One bump remains.)

Waiting until all the bobbins are spun risks Baritone-like letdown.  But it gives the most even yarn.  Potato/potahto, tomato/tomahto.  Deliberate practice continues.

Garden X Fiber

The garden floozies call seductively from the yard each day.  Knitting focus is difficult.  I've whittled the single sock WIPS to a more manageable struggle.  That can only mean that I have finally rewarded myself with another cast-on.

Feather Duster has been in my queue since Susan released the pattern.  At the same time, Loopy Ewe stocked the yarn called for in the pattern:  Shibui Silk Cloud.  I am on a Susan roll.

Intellectually, I knew that the yarn was a clone of Kidsilk Haze.  Memories from knitters' reports of KSH tinking and frogging disasters lingered in my knitting mental database.  Nine rows and one big mistake  into the pattern (the first real pattern row), I thought it would easier to frog and restart than to tink.

Now I know MORE than intellectually about the problems with ripping back mohair/silk.  Chastened, more cautious, I cast on once again.  I'm past the set-up, done with Chart A, and through the first repeat of Chart B.  Lifelines are in.  (I doubt even they will save me from the clawing, grabbing strands of mohair that throttle each mistaken stitch.) 

Slowly.  Carefully.  (Beware of overconfidence.)

Those ladies parading in the garden now are quite distracting.  Leda, Queen of Sparta, Mother of Castor and Pollux, was seducing a wild honeybee.

A more seductive shot of Leda proves that she is more than a one blossom wonder.

Hinode Seki (third picture) tosses her pretty petals around in the breeze, disarray only making her more beautiful.

Beauty is relative.  At CTS&W, the Tsock Tsarina and Marcy did their cross-enabling.  I happened on the Jenkins website as he was releasing Larks. 

Crossing garden with fiber, I ordered one in Lilac.  She is lovely, a close match to the maple of the spindle.

That is an Abby batt taking shape on her (Corriedale, mohair, tussah, angelina).