Etherknitter

One skein, down the drain: 2 FOs

One skein of Euroflax linen was moldering in the stash.  I rode the tide of washcloth frenzy, and cast on.

Yarn:  Euroflax linen, Aqua, sport weight, ~1/2 skein

Pattern:  Knitter's Stash, Horseshoe Lace Washcloth, page 77

With half a skein left, I talked it up to Suzanne at work one day.  She is a connoisseur of handcrafts.  Her craftiness lies in different directions, however.  She is subtle and effective.  I left the conversation having agreed to knit her one for tabletop decor.  We discussed choice of pattern.  I extracted the motif from Japanese Waves.  Half a skein, and two aching hands later, she is done.  (No more linen yarn for this knitter, despite the seductive sheen and the stitch definition.)

Typepad won't allow more text placed after the pictures are up.   My soliloquy interrupts Japanese Waves. 

The blogosphere is vibrating with tales of knitters' and spinners' project angst.  I feel it too.  After SOAR, and Rhinebeck, I am experiencing uneasy stirrings of wanting to knit and spin it ALL.  NOW.  It has little to do with recent stash acquisition.  Somehow more powerful than startitis, disquiet rather than excitement is invading my inner fiber world.  I don't know how to solve this. 

I've set two goals.  I am going to finish or frog everything other than socks by December 31st.  I am hoping you have a short memory, because I made the same vow last year, and failed miserably.  There is no sense is having unpleasant stirrings in one's soul around the activity that is supposed to provide balance and serenity.  I started ONE project - Starmore's Birdfoot scarf in Hebridean Strabhann.  It's been in stash for about three years.  It is time. 

Does anyone have any other insight or solutions for this?

Rhinebeck 2008

Rhinebeck started differently this year.  I continued spinning immersion with Judith MacKenzie-McCuin in her Friday class at the Fairgrounds.  Marcia, Margene and Terry and I constituted 25% of the class. 

I'm percolating 17 hours spent with Judith in the past two weeks.  That deserves a separate post.  Her class on spinning exotic fibers was sprinkled liberally with Marcia's cookies, Terry's quiet intensity, and Margene's calm and vehement participation.  (How Margene can be both at the same time is one of the amazements of knowing and loving her.)

Left:  Judith spinning a silk blend off her Clemes&Clemes handcard,  Center:  Judith demonstrating a three ply technique,  Right: spinning from a puni.

The crowds were epic.  Sparkling moments with people and roving and yarn stacked up quickly enough to feel like emotional fireworks.  And it lasted ALL day, Saturday and Sunday. 

Sadly blogless Connie (who started spinning April 26th) and Lorrie (who has a blog in name only) confessed to buying six Border Leicester fleeces.  SIX.  That was after the purchase of at least two Shetland fleeces. 

The quality and quantity of exceptional knits parading on the Fairgrounds was a testament to how cold it was.  My head snapped around innumerable times to see beautiful sweaters pass by. 

If anyone recognizes this woman and her beautiful FLAK, leave a shout in the comments. 

The WryPunster had a beautiful Wisteria.  Her FO post shows it off to advantage.  (I am always amused that it is socially acceptable to accost perfect strangers. )

The antique engine display at the Fairgrounds belched smoke and stink and noise.  The engines sounded a cacaphony based on only 2 1/4 cylinders each.  The rhythms of sputtering and firing were random.  Men were glued to the rails of the corral that enclosed belt driven oddities and dinosaurs of the machine age.  Only Stravinsky and Bartok could have written the music that entertained them while their women immersed themselves in fiber.

SOARites greeted each other with hugs, and the secret handshake.  (Yes on the hugs, but no, there was no secret handshake.  I lie.)  Bonds are made tighter before winter because we gathered again so soon after the last time.  At SOAR, Lynn and Cheryl and I were Marcy's SOAR virgins, like comet dust trailing in her wake.  At Rhinebeck, we traced our own paths through the fiberverse.

Margene dragged me bodily out of the Brooks Farm booth.  I was attracted by blues that made me weep in joy.  I would buy no yarn without a project in mind (Knitigator's Rules).  She had to pull me by my sleeve, another time by my collar, a third time by my arm.  I was allowed one purchase, and the color is Etherknitter.

I fell hard for a sweater at Foxfire Farms' booth.  The winter edition of Twist Collective will have a simple and exquisite sweater designed by Nathania Apple.  It's been bumped into the immediate queue for its simplicity, and the yarn (merino/alpaca/silk).  The stockinette means airplane and post-work mindless knitting ease.  My knitter's Pavlovian responses kick into high gear.

The Poop Scoop was the final chapter of the Black and Tan story.  I won't soon forget the musical collapse of beer bottles every time Carole's mini-refrigerator door was opened.  It was a miracle that floor wasn't shampooed with alcoholic suds each evening.

And so continues our Rhinebeck, year after year.  We are such fortunate fiberistas.

So, the spoils of victory are next:

-baby camel/tussah silk top (Spirit Trails)  Judith had us spin some of this.  I was smitten.                         -Sea Pearl (merino 50%/tencel 50% from Briar Rose)                                                                                                   -American cashmere, plum over taupe (Springtide Farm)                                                                                          -Spinner's Hill top, signature wool cross                                                        -my first Golding spindle, 0.6 oz.  I'm loving the laceweight honeys.

-Tongue River Farm, laceweight and sock yarn, a purchase made in tribute to an exceptional shepherd who has passed from among us;

-and last, an uncharacteristically soft Jacob bump, dyed with indigo from Handspun by Stefania.

Typepad will inevitably scramble all this.  The exercise of what description matches which picture is left to the student.                                             

SOAR 2008 #1

This is exactly as impossible as Charlene said it would be.  She shook her head when I asked her how people blog this, and smiled ruefully.  Maybe she smiled sadly.

I understand now.

I was in the three day workshop on Spinning and Knitting Estonian Lace, taught by Judith MacKenzie-McCuin, and Nancy Bush.  Judith handed us a skein of 850 yards of laceweight rambouillet from her flock.  Nancy had us wind it into a centerpull ball, by hand, on our thumb.  We alternated knitting Estonian patterns with spinning bootcamp for lace for the next three days.

I came in prepared to scoff at worsted spinning.  I had always thought it was too slow, too unrewarding, too limited a technique to think about seriously.  After three days, I understand the technique, the uses, how to do it, why to do it.  I can evaluate whether worsted or woolen will suit a given fiber and project.  Spinning with intention has deeper meaning.

She deconstructed the techniques I have been using.  It is certainly possible to literally spin backwards.  I did that while plying lace, and had a fix on my hands.  She taught us to master such dilemmas easily.  I made backwards progress because now I know what I am doing poorly (wrong?) and what I need to do to fix it.  I need some relearning.  This makes me very happy.

SOAR is like summer camp for spinners.  Intense immersion really rewires the neural pathways, and digs that learning deep into your soul.

I knew few other than my group of intrepid travelers.  By the end of the first day, that mattered not at all.  Words are worthless.  I suppose I will have to do this in visuals.

Knitting tools are whatever you happen to have at hand.  Cheryl is using her thumb and knees as ballwinder and swift.

Nancy Bush is teaching us the finer points of nupps in the second frame.  Judith and Nancy are modeling Haapsalu Estonian shawls at the conclusion of the workshop.  She had a copy of her new book on Estonian lace knitting for us to preview.  It is excellent.

Abby is spinning on her new Lendrum.  It came equipped with a special flyer.  Gord Lendrum said it provides a ratio of 60:1.  The only brake on the bobbin is the friction of air.

Stop and think about that for a moment.

There are about 20 in existence.  Abby is spinning cotton.

This is Gord Lendrum and Jan Louet looking at a pocket wheel from Washington state.  They took it apart, put it back together, becoming boys again figuring out how the wheel maker did what he did, and why.  The building could have burned down around them and they would not have noticed.

Kim was wearing an Orenburg shawl.  I stuck my foot in it: 

Etherknitter:  Did you BUY that from Galina??  WOW.

Kim:  No.  I knit it.

Etherknitter:  *pulling foot out of mouth*  What yarn did you use?

Kim:  I spun the cashmere, and used a second ply of reeled silk from Treenway.

Etherknitter (after an uncharacteristic moment of stunned silence):  How long did it take?

Kim:  A year. 

I don't remember what I said next.  I left a burnt offering in worship at her door early the next morning.  I plan on appeasing this goddess in whatever manner she wishes so that she does not smite me for my knitting transgressions and stupidities.

The shawl in the picture is handspun mohair and reeled silk.  Another Orenburg.  *yawn*  (Go ahead, Kim, smack me good.)

I met a remarkable group of talented people.  I learned bottom whorl spindling (Abby), how to spin mohair without needing carpal tunnel surgery afterwards (Robin Russ0).  I spun my first cashmere (Robin again).  I learned dyeing techniques and algorithms (Sara Lamb).  I learned blending with silk (Judith MacKenzie).  I spent enough continuous time so that I FINALLY got lace.  I finished the center of my shawlet at dinner, at breakfast, yes, in public.   (The nupps were a mere speed bump on that path.) 

Nancy Bush told us that we could not have dinner and we were not allowed to sleep until the shawlet and edging were done.  We would sew them together during the last day of the workshop.  (She was barely kidding.)  The other SOARites pitied us.  All that homework.  The first night it was spinning.  But all that knitting??  I'm sure many wiped their foreheads in relief that they did not take THAT workshop.

When Deb Menz assigned a large bump of merino on Thursday to all her retreat participants, there was an equal amount of plaintive whining.  Homework had gotten a miserable reputation.  But one DID need something to ply, so the labours began.

Marcy approached this task differently.

She baited the gathering room with wine.  She lured in various spinners.  Then she set up her Alden Amos wheel. 

Can you picture this?  Every spinner on the planet wants to try an Alden Amos wheel.  She had her bump of merino set up, and spinner after spinner sat down and did her homework for her.  Deb Menz watched all this, and laughed at the Tom Sawyerly twist that events had taken.

Until she, too, wanted to try the Alden Amos.  And ended up helping Marcy finish her homework.  Someone has a picture of this.  PLEASE leave a link in the comments.

Everything I had dreamed about SOAR came to life.  And more.

Handspun

Mr. Etherknitter thanks you for your encouragement, warnings, and advice.  He had an excellent postop visit last week.  His incision is healing as expected.  He doubts he will take up knitting any time soon.  I, frankly, am relieved.  If he had ventured into the fibery ocean, I suspect he would have headed straight for my qivuit.  I'm not sure our relationship would have survived that.

In the category of "Why?  Because we can!"  I have spun a Very Large skein of sock yarn.  I had a big hank of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Sheep to Shoe, colorway Lapis. 

The instructions are clear.  Divide the 8.5 ounce braid into three equal pieces.  I whipped out my drug dealer's scale, and had three long ponytails that differed by 8 grams at worst.  I dithered.  Is this exact enough?  When I took a less critical, more dispassionate look at the fiber, I could see that no matter how I spun the roving, it was dyed in such a way as to barberpole at random. 

I relaxed.  The Lendrum Saxony loved this fiber.  It hummed.  I sang.  Months later (okay, maybe only weeks), I had three bobbins of laceweight singles.  I wound them onto separate storage bobbins to restore the singles to the beginning of the colorway progression so that the colors would march as closely as BMFA intended.

Plying happened.  I cast on the sock last night.  It is coming to SOAR with me.

The yarn LOOKS good, but doesn't feel lush.  Overspun?  It is definitely not overplyed.  Inadequately fulled?  I will have a stunning array of spinning talent inspect its flaws next week.  And, I will come home a better spinner.  I'm taking the Judith McKenzie-McCuin/Nancy Bush class.  I'm hoping I can survive this group of people who never sleep, rarely pause to eat, drink endless swill, and spin nonstop.