Etherknitter

CTS&W 2007

Knitigator drove.  I rode shotgun.  I forgot to navigate (Julie filled the breach) as I squinted at the Fleece Artist sock I was reknitting.  Sixty-eight stitches turned out to be baggy floppy, so a sixty-four stitch restart was starting.  One cuff later, we arrived at Connecticut Sheep and Wool. 

Jess did the linkfest.  She speaks for the lazy linkers like me.  Smaller fiberfests are simply wonderful.  We shopped, ran into each other over and over again, shopped a little more, spindlespun, attracted crowds to The Wheel Thing booth, then sat on the grass and rested.   We translocated to folding chairs in the bandstand.  Life was good.
The usual suspects were in attendance.  I barely escaped camnesia.  Judy, Marcy, Jess, in order.  Jess was wearing her handspun tencel Flowerbasket shawl.  It glowed.

I was happy to enable SadlyBloglessManise and Kathy with beautiful Polwarth fleeces.  My selections were somewhat less grandiose than a fleece.

Rambouillet/green silk from A Touch of Twist.  A sampler's niddy-noddy from The Wheel Thing (Tabachek-crafted), and hand-dyed bombyx silk (A Touch of Twist). 

Sun, sheep, fleeces, fiber, yarn, knitters, spinners, bloggers, toys.  Perfect.

"Every year, back comes Spring, with nasty little birds yapping their fool heads off and the ground all mucked up with plants."*

Spring comes to different people in different ways.  Judy marks the season with peepers and hummingbirds.  Both tap elemental, euphoric, visceral memories of spring where I grew up.  Peepers are holy and astonishing.  My rite of spring passage was the search for frog eggs in the local wetlands.  In that time, we called it a swamp.  The water levels rose and fell with the spring rains.  Mud sucked our sneakers into the mire, and empty coffee cans were soon filled with the ebony-spotted gels.

Sam Allis, in the Boston Gl0be on Sunday, voiced our relief and euphoria.  Go read his "Soft Spot for Spring".  It is perceptive and funny.

I find that the blog is picture-driven.  No pictures?  It's harder to write blog posts.  The FOs stack up, waiting for the sun.

Whisper Rib and Shepherd Lace Socks

Lorna's Laces, Island Blue

Needles:  Crystal Palace 1 and Knittingsmith Lorrie's sterling silver beauties, size 1

When Wendy blogged about Celtic Forge's sterling silver needles, I almost ordered a set.  Molly asked me to draw the point I wanted.  How do you draw a point for a non-sockknitter that is somewhere between a Crystal Palace 1 1/2 and a Knitpicks Options needle? Lorrie stepped up to the plate,  instead.

She is a metalsmith, an artist, a knitter, a spinner, an editor, and a knitgoddess.  She made these, AND the silk case.  They are sensu0us knitting tools.  She blogs just enough to escape being sadly blogless.  The watch cap in her most recent post is a deceptively simple FO that makes the prospect of future cold weather almost bearable. 

Woolapalooza on March 31st was a fiber-tease.  I thought the full-fledged fiberfest fever would start with Connecticut Sheep and Wool on April 28th.  (Yes, I will be there.)  This year, my fiber season started with a "Baaaaa" on April 18th.

Beadlizard Sylvia pointed me to WhiteFishBay Farm for Corriedale fleeces last year.  Word on the blogstreet was that they sell out immediately after posting the spring's shearings.  Ms. Lorrie, who works near a computer all day, took pity on me, because I don't.  She snagged a beautiful fleece for me, sweater-sized, and had it sent to the Wooly Knob boys for processing straight from WhiteFishBay. 

I have used "In Sheep's Clothing" as my informal shopping list.  I'm done.  The occasional coup de coeur is allowed, but I now have the wools I want.  Spinning the Coopworth fleece (he was a BIG boy) has given me graphic respect for just how much spinning each fleece represents.  I think I have about three years of processed fleece stockpiled.  I am happy.

Cabled-vest-monogamy didn't last long.  I cast on for the obligatory mindless st st sock in Fleece Artist burgundy, 3x1 ribbed cuff. 

And finally, I am THRILLED to present this picture of the Etherknitter spring garden.  White bells start the festivities, and herald the yellow trumpets close behind.

*Dorothy Parker, 1893-1967

Grey skies, grey vest, grey Coopworth, grey Icelandic

Yesterday was WIPathon day.   I met at sadly blogless Connie's house with Lorrie.  The overt goal was to tackle stuck WIPs and get unstuck.  The covert goal?  Fiber and friends, of course.

The vest with ladders was transformed.  Uncrossed Eastern technique on the first and last purl stitches of each rib/cable junction helped.   A switch to bamboo needles from Addis (tighten up those stitches) and wrapping the stitch around the tip of the needle rather than the shaft made for smaller ladder junctions that just skivved into the territory of acceptable knitting. 

Monogamy feels right.  There seems to be propulsive forward energy in a long-stalled WIP that suddenly becomes active once more.  I'm feeling this *voooooooom* sensation that keeps me going back to it.  "Just one more row....."  over and over.  It feels good.

The second bobbin of Coopworth is spun and done.  It looks very much like the first.  I've switched out to Frelsi Farm Icelandic/angora roving.   The fingers (and the mind) need a break.

I'll have pictures of a hat and socks when the sun returns.  And the fingers are faithful, but the mind casts on with Fleece Artist merino in Burgundy for reflexive stockinette stitch socks.   

Mellow yellow

Spring colors mean new life.  It was mere coincidence that the baby blanket, now an FO, matched the ONLY thing blooming in the garden.

Pattern:  Estonian Lullaby Baby Blanket, Fibertrends, Evelyn Clark   Yarn:  Shelridge Farms Superwash worsted, colorway Mango, four skeins (same dye lot)  x 200 yards each, dimensions 29" x 42"

Multiple pictures seem appropriate for a WIP that took so much knitting time.  It was remarkably easy for something that looks unique and special.  I'm pleased with the results.

The tides of winter are receding.  The sere landscape releases a beacon of promise.  This is what is visible when the earth breathes a sigh of relief, then the frost and rime and snow are gone.  I'm not the only creature waiting for the spring garden.  The lone crocuses (croci) blooming near the front door show evidence of residual rabbits.

I have 1700 feet of sweater-worthy Coopworth spun on one bobbin.  I mini-swatched early.  As several commenters noticed, the grist was too small for my three-ply worsted goal, so I increased the diameter of the yarn.  I plyed back multiple times, checking consistency, and mini-swatched close to the end of the bobbin.  Five stitches per inch switched from fantasy to reality, and it was good.

I'm finding it challenging to maintain a good, consistent grist.  It is difficult to maintain the visual memory of what the fibers look like in the drafting zone for a given yarn goal over yards and yards of spinning time.  I speculated whether I was overly obsessing about consistent grist.  Caroline M offered some veritable wisdom:

"The only way that you get good at doing something is by doing it.  By the time (you've) finished the last bobbin (you'll) be much better at spinning a sweater weight single than (you) are now...At the end of the day it doesn't matter if the yarn isn't perfect, it is enough that it is fit for its purpose... 'Perfection' is something to aim for but 'good enough' works for now."

That just stopped me dead in my tracks.  I'm much calmer about this project as a result.   The bobbin below has my finger for scale.  I'll be the first to point out the absence of manicure.  I left that fingernail long on purpose.  It's the one that picks out the VM from the fleece.

Sheep to sweater

Sadly blogless Manise and I inaugurated the 2007 fiber season at Woolapalooza.  Advertised as a sheep to sweater event, the local Audubon facility hosted carding, spinning, shearing, dyeing, felting and knitting demonstrations.  There may have been a vendor or three.  (Ask Manise.)

Their flock of Romneys is in the middle of lambing season.   

Shearing was done by hand.  The cap seems just right.  His physical ergonomics were interesting.  His straight knee/bent at waist posture suggests a history of protecting painful knees at the expense of future back pain.  Or was it easier to control the sheep against elongated legs?  I was too enthralled to time his performance.  It was well under ten minutes per sheep.

Saturday spinning last week was Teyani's pencil roving in the 'Ol Blue Eyes' colorway.  Smooth, well-prepped Corriedale, it requires no pre-drafting.  Spun on a Woolee Winder with no need to change hooks, it feels like cheating.  The experience is seamless.  I got ~600 yards from four ounces.

Yesterday's spinning came from an elemental, deep, voiceless push.  The Coopworth fleece HAD to be pulled from the stash.  I made the sampling card from the prior spin.  I dissected out the plies to match the grist.  All journeys, regardless of length, start with a bold, clueless step.

Here is mine.  This is the start of Mr. Etherknitter's handspun sweater.