Etherknitter

And socks and baby blankets and spinning and and

Long time, no blog.  I just haven't been feeling amusing.  That means I am not immune to missing the point of this knitblog thing.  I am also missing the FIT/NYC/Yarncrawl/Central Park Extravaganza, so I've had to string together my own amusements.

Saturday spinning was silk.  I am suddenly loving silk.  Tussah has enough tooth, so it is easy to draft.  Some of the colors created by the handdyers are stunning.  (There is no other word, and I mean it literally and figuratively.)  Thesilkworker.com sent me tussah top, shiny, scintillating, mesmerizing.  The picture barely shows you what has transfixed my spinner's eye -

I practiced with GypsyGirl 'FreshLemonade' first.  Toni of The Fold is responsible for my initiation here.  For those of you who are cheering that this is not about blue, well, relax.  The fibery parts of my blog are not about blue as much as they are about interesting, different fiber challenges that make me think and force me to figure things out about what I'm spinning and knitting.  When I'm dead and gone (hopefully not soon) I hope to be remembered for the journey, the challenges, and for having provoked thought.  It's just not about blue.  That's the subtext that keeps me happy, but indeed, it is just a subtext. 

Carrie won the Posh cashmere/merino yarn via an auspicious random number.  I've just changed her fate in the universe, as she said she never wins things like this.  Blogs are wonderful things.

The Ellen's Half-Pint Leapfrog socks are done, with yarn to spare.  I don't think I'll leap to buy lots of merino/tencel yarn.  I did enjoy the knit, but the lack of elasticity made some of the needle junctions rather unforgiving.  When I went to whipstitch some of the laddering into oblivion, I created humps of fabric that looked worse than the ladders.  I gave up.  Time is on my side, as I will soon forget which side, which sock, and which defect, and enjoy them despite the imperfections.

Ellen's Half-Pint Farm 'Stormy Skies', merino 50%/tencel 50%, on Crystal Palace 1 1/2 bamboo needles

The skein had 475 yards, my feet are big, and the cuff was 6" high.  I had reasonable amounts of yarn left at the end.

I have become obsessed with knee socks, and with unusual fiber blends for sock knitting.  Clessidra has me planning and plotting.  What yarn is suitable?  That much sock needs a stronger yarn so it won't wear out any time soon.  The Regia Silk is expensive, so can I substitute Knitpicks Gloss?  There is no nylon in Gloss.  I found a lush wool/mohair/nylon/silk blend in lovely colors.  It will be strong, but not resilient, as the wool component tops out at only 50%.  I learned my nonresilient lesson one paragraph back.  Some of the Cherry Tree Hill solid colors have waved their ballbands at me, but the pure merino may lack durability. 

Then, looking through LoopyEwe's website, I see MORE kneesock patterns.  And then I am waylaid by Lisa Souza's wool/angora blend sock yarn.  (The wool/angora will not be used for kneesocks.)  Such pleasure in deliberation! So many choices beyond merino and superwash.

The timesucking baby blanket is almost done.  I'm going to try EZ's sewn cast-off, and then you will have the blocking pictures.  Can we hear trumpets?  The baby isn't due until June 7th. 

The FreshLemonade silk was last Saturday's spin.  I'll have some stuff done on the wheel this coming Saturday to show, and some plans to make room for more fleece.  Fiber season is approaching.  I know my (our?) inability to turn my back on a beautiful fleece.  So I'm hatching ways of making sure the Rubbermaid bins don't top out at ceiling level.

Spring is only slowly approaching.  The local farmstand had a display of hopeful pansies.  The spring vegetables aren't in the local  market yet.  Snow still covers my garden.  I'm impatient.

Unaccustomed dithering

It was 69 degrees yesterday.  The landscape is a sodden, dripping, draining, soggy, squishy mess.  If spring fever could be measured with a thermometer, I'd be pushing the ex-mercury past 105 degrees.  The soil is unworkable.  I knew that, but tried to pull a few weeds.  It was futile, as clods of mud spotted  my gloves and sleeves.  I knew it would be like this, and could not stop my hand.

The snowdrops are going to be in bloom soon.

Ellen's Halfpint socks will also be blooming on my feet.  They need only two kitchenered toes before the photo shoot happens.   They are my leapfrog socks.  I didn't know if I would have enough yarn, so I knit the second sock from the other end of the ball.  To midfoot on one, then midfoot on the second.  To toe on the first, then to toe on the second.  SSS is avoided, suspense and drama enter into the knitter's life, and it really IS time to learn toe-up sock techniques.

I do have an extremely delayed FO picture.  I knit an Elizabeth bag a long, long time ago, and started felting it soon after.  My front-loading washing machine made checking it mid-cycle impossible.  It rested, half-felted, spewing guilt, until Lorrie took pity on me.  She finished the felting in her washer, and returned a cute little bag to me.

Pattern:  Elizabeth bag by Black Sheep Bags
Yarn:  Lamb's Pride Brite Blue #57 and Sapphire #65

(Pill container supplied for scale)

Menagerie

This picture of sastrugi is a metaphor for my March.
I'm moving very slowly, being blown randomly by the chance winds.  The patterns of life are being created with little thought or purpose. 

I let this skein of Spunky Eclectic happen.  The color blocks were hard to separate, so I let the barberpoling go.  I liked the interest that flashed on the bobbin.  I knew Navajo plying wouldn't accomplish much in the absence of color separation, so I double plyed as it reeled out.  The spinning technique used was Jenny's description of American sliding longdraw alternating with English longdraw.  I found the Falklands wool prep to be perfect.  It longdrew itself, actually, and I simply cooperated.  The colorway is Claret.

That's when you discover that longdraw that takes the skein into its own hands has flaws.  The picture is an unapologetic, honest shot of the results (prewash).  You can see areas of poof that mean not enough twist. 

I spent some time googling Falklands sheep until I understood it wasn't a specific breed.  It is a mix of fine wools raised in the Falkland Islands.

Saturday spinning for this week looked like a mix of domestic and New Zealand wool.  Margene picked a colorway called Blueberry, and it makes my heart sing songs of ripe fruit from the wheel. 

The Last Ditch Cross-Country Ski Attempt happened two weekends ago.  Mountain Meadows in Killington, VT had great snow and miserable grooming.  When the absence of tracks wore us out (the sastrugi had formed on a pond that is part of the trail network), we went to Woodstock, where I found sheep.

I need a caption.  All entries submitted by Wednesday, March 14th at midnight are eligible for a skein of Posh cashmere 30%/merino 70% sock yarn in the Scuffle colorway.  I'm looking for more creativity than I could muster:  Sheep and Wool Festivals in Search of New Dimensions.

(The skein is a bump of Dorchester Farms Coopworth that I bought at NHS&W last May.  It was beautifully prepped, and a delightful spin.  It is the most Zen yarn I have ever produced.  It lies there, humming balance and serenity. )

I left two sheeps behind at the art gallery.  One was a standing model, called "The Shepherd".  It did nothing for my aesthetics.  Another model was also rejected, and I post a picture for Marcy's benefit. 

It was labeled "Killer Sheep". 

007 - February

We huddle into our parkas, cowering from the high winds that lash our liftchair.  The lift is designed to slow down when the little vanes on the wires sense more turbulence.  The journey lengthens, and it is with considerable relief that we finally reach the top, and ski off the chair.

I am at the top of the Elk Camp lift, in Snowmass, Colorado.  It's a beautiful, sunny day.  I hike twenty or thirty feet uphill, in my skis (foolish girl who thinks she's in shape for this activity at 11,000+ feet) so I can get this picture. 

It's why I fly into these crazy mountain airports, and why I ski.  This, to me, is February.   

My camera is an obsolete 3 megapixel Nikon that fits into my fannypack. The mountains framed by the valleys are the Maroon Bells in Aspen.  I think it speaks for itself.