Look, look, it's me again!

Okay, so what have I accomplished in the last day?

This:

This is made from Kristen Kapur's (FREE!) Thorpe pattern. I dyed the fiber a few weeks ago, then spun it over the weekend, and between my last post and now, it turned into this, as if by magic. I'm disgustingly proud of the fact that I turned a hank of 3.5oz of ecru fiber into this, and am wearing it right now, despite the fact that it is 75 degrees farenheit outside. 

"But Lindey", anyone who's listening would say, "this isn't one of the things you were talking about working on at all!"

To these imaginary people, I say... "Look, I have another shiny yarn over there, let's start something new out of it, too!"

Seriously, though, I have worked on something I said I would. I've gotten this far on my Pogona:



Impressive, no? And now I'm working on a pair of socks.

Look over there, shiny!

February Who?

So yeah, February is all gone, with nary a single word from me. I'd say people wondered where I went, but for that to happen, you have to show up regularly first. To that end, I am going to attempt to start updating on a regular basis. I am notoriously unreliable on the intrawebz, though, so we shall see how this works out.

Anyway, you remember the wondrous shawl I was working on? Can you guess where it is right now? If you said on my shoulders, you're dead wrong. Yep, it's still right here:

"Why is this?", an interested party might ask confusedly. Well, the truth is that I sort of hit a wall. I'm near the end of the third chart, which is really pretty good. But then I made a stupid mistake, and was faced with the prospect of tinking an entire row. So it sat, unloved for nearly a month before inspiration struck. Leslie of the Knit Girllls has started her own Evenstar as a wedding shawl for a friend. She has been powering through it, unlike me, and I stopped by their forum to whine about my pathetic issues. Pretty quickly, they had me back on track.

Leslie suggested that I tink a few stitches at a time, while interspersing it with simpler knitting that kept me from going bonkers. (Ok, this isn't exactly what she said, but it's the essence of the matter.)

So the row is tinked, and hopefully, more will be finished in the near future.

In the meantime, I've become hopelessly addicted to spinning. It seems to take up more and more of what was once my knitting time, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I tend to burn out on everything, so moving back and forth will help keep me focused. Even if it doesn't, spinning has given me such gems as this:

A Fiber Fancy BFL/Silk mix that spun through my hands as fluidly as the ocean waves its colors represent. It is almost 600 yards of two ply laceweight from 4oz of fiber. I think it deserves for me to make it its own shawl pattern.

A small note: as of the time of this posting, Etsy seems to have lost Fiber Fancy's shop. I'm sure it'll be back posthaste, though, as she has years of good feedback, and is a wonderful seller. In fact, I just finished her Beatles Fiber club, and am now signed up for the next year of her 80's fiber club - thank you, IRS.

And my favorite thing I've spun yet:

That's 550 yards of navajo plied fingering weight yarn, spun up from a Loop batt. If you don't know of Loop from Round the Twist or The Knit Girlls, your probably don't spin or knit, so I don't know why you're here. But in all seriousness, if you haven't checked out Steph's shop, do it. I know the bullseye bumps seem a little expensive, but they're well worth the price. I'm just waiting for the 15th to re subscribe to her bullseye bump club.

I've started a Pogona from this, and so far, it's knitting up very well. This is my first Stephen West pattern, but I'm enjoying it so far. I usually try to avoid knitting the same thing as everyone else, but the shape of this shawl just sucked me in. The yarn is the softest thing I've ever spun by hand, so I'm excessively proud of it. I suspect this shawl is going to get worn to death.

Okay, that's all for now. Hope everyone is having a lovely spring!

It's a good thing elves are immortal...

At this rate, my Evenstar Shawl might get finished before the entire species becomes extinct. Wait, maybe not.

I started strong, what with the choosing and buying of items to make the shawl. Then waiting for them to arrive is always convenient for me, since it involves me doing nothing but whining about how I can't start the project yet. Then, when all had arrived and the time came, I pounced! I pulled out my size 4 DPNs and made the called-for swatch. Yeah, I jumped up a needle size from the recommendation right away. That's how this tight knitter rolls. Oddly, the swatch came out a teeeeny bit smaller than guage. So this left me with a choice. Do I knit it on the 4's, and end up with a slightly smaller Evenstar? Or do I go up a size, and risk making a very expensive mess?

This, as always, is where things always go ugly for me. Technically, both answers are right. According to my math, making them on a size 4 would make the shawl something like 58" in diameter instead of 60". Using a size 5 will make it a little bit more than 60". Is either bad? No. Can I make this very simple decision that makes no difference to anything at all? Nope.

So here's what I have, and have had for about a month now:

More than 100$ in yarn and beads, a lovely swatch, and a beautiful project bag that is languishing with no knitting being done.

For anyone who knows that they could do better than this given the same lovely items, here's where to get them:
Evenstar pattern, by Susan Pandorf
Silk Thread II in the colorway Ravenscroft, by Blue Moon Fiber Arts
Metallic Teal Green Iris 8/0 beads from Earth Faire
and last but most definitely not least,
Gorgeous black and toile project bag from Buttermilk Cottage on Etsy

No, you can't have mine. I am getting out the size 5 needles, and I am casting on for the actual shawl tomorrow. Then I'm going to stamp my little (shuh, size 10) feet and complain that I should have used the 4's, and it still won't make a difference.

As a side note, Susan's bags are AMAZING. I have two bags and a matching case for my DPNs, and one of the bags has been used as my everyday purse for a few months now. Also, Susan the person and business owner is a lovely human being to deal with. She made my first bag as a custom order with exactly the fabrics I wanted, and in this era of nonexistant customer service, she has been accomodating, kind, and all around wonderful to do business with.

For the record and as always, I am receiving no kind of compensation for shilling talking about any item or business. But go buy a bag from Susan anyway.

Anyway, I did promise last week that there would be an update that included a Loopy Ewe order. And the order was made, sent, and received. Why am I late? I am a klutz who tried to kill myself by doing a faceplant on the ground in the garage. Fortunately, I am again walking and no longer dizzy and lacking in focus... well, no more than usual.

So here are the lovelies from the Loopy Ewe:

Handmaiden Sea Sock in Topaz, Malabrigo in Aguas, and String Theory Caper in Periwinkle. They are all lovely and will make beautiful socks. Yes, I am going to make socks out of them. Yes, I think that would be considered a crime in some countries. In this house, though, we call it 'YAY, SOCKS!'

I exist outside my own mind!

What am I so excited about that I had to post in the middle of the night?

The lovely and personable Mary from America's Knitting contacted me yesterday to ask to post my Stripe Study shawl as an example of their shawl and beading projects.

After nine months of occasionally being convinced that I was largely talking to myself here, I have proof that there is life in the universe! A picture of my shawl has been posted, along with some of the loveliest things anyone has ever said of my crafting ability. Personally, I blame Madelinetosh, who makes incredible vibrant colors that are impossible to dislike.

Speaking of which, I think I need some more Madtosh sock yarn.Maybe some green. And purple. And blue.

Catch a Falling Star

We're going to try a little time travel here.

First, this is what I unpinned from my impromptu blocking area (read empty carpet with a sheet spread over it) this morning:

It is the Yvaine Pattern by Liz Abinante, whose patterns I wholeheartedly recommend. Even this, a free recipe for a very simple shawl, was written out in an easily understandable way. The original pattern was named after the main character in the Neil Gaiman book, Stardust. If you have not read this book, I strongly recommend that you do so. The movie is good also, but as in nearly every case, the book is superior. Especially when the book is by Neil Gaiman.

I followed Liz's instructions for the first section, then when the color repeats started, I began each color repeat with 4-8 rows of the seed stitch, then stockinette until reaching the next color shift.

A few weeks ago, this bit of lovely was this yarn:

This yarn is possibly my favorite thing in the universe. It is 550 yards of navajo plied polwarth that contains a total of nine stripes of color, from deep purple/red to grape green and back again, with dark, almost blackish shades in the color shifts. I also made it. It used to be a beautiful braid of polwarth fiber dyed by the most excellent and skilled Cloudlover.

This is a picture of a braid of the fiber in question:

I apologise that this is not in fact a picture of my braid of fiber, because the genius that is me forgot to take a picture before starting. This is the picture that I totally stole from Cloudlover's website, sorry about that. It's pretty well representative of what I spun, but really, stealing pictures is bad! I was so impressed with the fiber, that immediately after finishing spinning it, I ran out and signed up for the Cloudlover fiber club.

I got my very first braid from her a few days ago, and am very pleased. It's not a color I would have ever bought, but I'm completely in love with it. I really want to spin it next, even though I have other plans for my next project.

Next up, hopefully Thursday or Friday:

~I have once again expanded the stash by making an order from The Loopy Ewe, and I suspect it will be here by then.

~I have my very own spinning wheel, who is so beautiful that she deserves to be spoken of.

~There is more knitting to be discussed, as I am taking on the project of doom: EVENSTAR.

What about torture?

Okay, I'd like to preface this entry by saying that I love this knitted item, I'm sure some people would enjoy knitting it, and I have nothing but respect for the designer. The pattern is pure elegance in its simplicity.

Here's my finished project:

Beautiful, no? Not to toot my own horn at all; I honestly don't think it took any effort on my part to make it lovely. The yarn is Madelinetosh Merino Light from The Loopy Ewe, for their 4th quarter project. The pattern is the Stripe Study Shawl by Veera Välimäki. The yarn is a stunningly dyed multi-dimensional single-ply, but quite sturdy - case in point is that it was supposed to be a Catkin. When I got to row seventy of said Catkin, I realized that I'd made a mistake early on and would have to start over. Needless to say, I was not keen on starting the same pattern over. I'll go back and make a Catkin someday, but I think not too soon. So I frogged the whole thing. I decided that since I was going into finals week, I needed something simple to take my mind off tests. This pattern fit the bill and then some. During finals week, it was amazing and meditative. Afterward, I quickly lost patience with garter stitch over and over and over and over and... you get the point.

It turns out that eight hundred yards of garter stitch is not for me. So much for my plans to make a log cabin blanket. (disclaimer: I love Mason Dixon, but I honestly never had plans to make one of these after watching Carin from Round the Twist working on the same project forever. I am so impressed that she just keeps going on it. I'd be in a fetal position crying about how my brain has abandoned me in rebellion.)

I don't know why the Yvaine I'm currently working on isn't making my brain melt, but I really want to get back to it now. Hopefully, there will be a long post in the near future about the adventure it has been.

Spinster!

I know, I know. Spinster is a slang term these days, for a woman who never manages to get her evil claws into a male of the species and proceed to force him into marriage, followed by the running of his household, the spending of his money, and occasionally 'the vapors'.

Why yes, I did grow up in the south, why do you ask?

Anyhow, I have recently become interested in spinning. (Jasmin of the knitmore girls, I blame you for this.) I started by ordering a cheap spindle from etsy, and buying some fiber from my LYS. This turned out to NOT be the way to get into spinning, as the fiber was insanely hard to work with, and I ended up with a nasty tangled mess instead of yarn. I complained of my woes at Hogwarts at Ravelry, (yes, I know I'm a nerd, thanks), and a lovely member there, Raederle, suggested that perhaps I should seek local spinning classes. I started looking around, and then as if by magic at my local Celticfest, I met a spinner who recommended that I join the local craft guild for help. After one session at their spinner's group, I suddenly 'got it'. Needless to say, my dues check was in the mail the next day.

After this, I went out and looked for some natural coloured fiber, something that they recommended because of the way that dye affects fiber, and got to work on the first thing I found, some oatmeal coloured CVM. (That's California Variegated Mutant, a breed of sheep, for anyone interested)

Now this was the experience I'd been expecting out of fiber spinning! I got myself two spindles: a greensleeves barebones spindle and a mid-sized ashford spindle, and it started spinning up beautifully. Then, I made a Woolery order for another 2 greensleeves spindles, and they were out of stock. Oh no! But Nancy from the Woolery called me and asked if it was acceptable for them to substitute a different spindle for the greensleeves. Well sure, why not? What do I know about spindles?

Let me tell you, I knew a few minutes after the other spindle arrived that we were going to be very good friends. It spins smoothly, and for longer than the greensleeves. Absolutely perfect. After finishing one ply on the ashford and one on the greensleeves, I plyed it all up on a Ky spindle, and then skeined it on my swift, as I hadn't yet gotten myself a niddy noddy.

After that, I washed it in warm water with a bit of Eucalan, and wound it into a proper skein.

Yep, it's uneven and overspun and a bulky 2-ply, but it's mine, and I made it from fiber. Me! Now, to knit it into something that I can show off... but what can you do with 160 yards of bulky 2-ply? I know I can do a Rav search, but the results aren't terribly impressive. I wonder if a Starcrossed Beret would work....

Ahh well, I'm sure I'll find something to do with it. Either way, I'm inordinately proud of it. I'm also now the proud caretaker of my local craft guild's Lendrum single treadle, which is growing on me like a welcome fungus. I've started saving for a wheel, but on the salary of a starving student, who knows when that will happen?

As in all posts so far, I have been paid by no one, nor given anything in compensation for any reviews I've offered. Nonetheless, buy a Ky spindle as a starter, they are awesome. Go to the Woolery, their customer service is some of the best I've come across after years of working in the field myself. I doubt you'll be disappointed.