Knitting from Outer Space

22 April 2010

Never-ending spinning

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , — zardra @ 9:00 am

Thanks to a few threads on Ravelry aimed at either spinning down stash or spinning for a lace project, I’ve been motivated to pull my poor neglected wheel out of my fiber room and do some spinning. I’ve even managed to finish(-ish) a couple of projects that have been languishing. On Monday night, I finally finished spinning the singles from those green merino/silk batts that were my first drum carding experiment.  They went sadly unfinished during the Ravelympics, but there is an end in sight now.  Here’s proof:

All that’s left is to ply it.  I think I’m going to try making a plying ball to see if that works better than plying from a center-pull ball.  The only thing I’m slightly worried about is that I know there are some spots where the singles are more than a bit thin.  I’m already anticipating them breaking as I try to create a plying ball.

23 February 2010

Ravelympics

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 9:30 am

How are your Ravelympics projects going?

I can tell you that they are probably going far better than mine.  I have yet to pull out the fiber I decided upon for my spinning project (the superwash Corriedale that was to become socks).  Instead, I have been spinning some green batts that were the first to ever come off my drum carder.

I had received some very, very dark green with touches of red and yellow fiber from Deep Color in a swap several years ago (see the yarn to the right).  It was one of those cases where I highly doubt my swap partner had read my questionnaire because I had listed green as a color I don’t like.  (It wasn’t even until everyone was supposed to be finding out who their secret swap partners had been that I realized that my partner had fallen off the planet.  Oh well.)  So, I had this nice merino that just happened to be dyed a rather unfortunately color.  I tried spinning some of it, but hated the color so much that it languished on a bobbin for almost a year and a half.  I ended up using it as my first attempt to Navajo ply because I didn’t care if I completely screwed it up.

I had spun less  than half of it, so I still had over 2 oz. of this fiber laying around.  Then, I finally decided to get brave and try to use my drum carder.  I bought an ounce of bright yellow silk from Spunky Eclectic; it was a color called Walking on the Sun.  I blended the 2 together and got a much lighter grass green.  The silk also add a great feel.

I have been wanting to practice spinning from the fold and these batts seemed like good practice fodder.  Next thing you know, that’s what’s on my wheel.  The problem?  I started spinning it back in September, so I definitely don’t believe it’s eligible for the Ravelympics.  My wheel got put away after I had spun only 1 of the 4 batts I had made because the new puppy showed too much interest in wanting to chew on the treadles, which I just couldn’t let happen to my beautiful Catherine.  When I got the wheel out to begin working on the superwash Corriedale, I saw the silky green bobbin and couldn’t help myself.  The Corriedale was forgotten.

At least my knitting is going okay… I think.

7 August 2009

End of the week

Filed under: Life,Spinning — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 2:49 pm

After I finished the Rivendell socks, I was a bit listless over what to knit next.  I had bought some Mountain Lace in a nice navy blue that I want to make Aeolian out of, but the idea just wasn’t getting me excited.  I kept thinking I wanted to knit something out of some of my handspun.  I hadn’t done that in some time.  There’s something really nice about knitting with yarn that you’ve spun yourself.

I had managed to get my hands of some Spunky Ecelectic Corripaca before Amy ran out of it several months ago.  The colorway I chose was Estuary, which was a pretty mix of green, brown, and natural.  I spun it up as a 2-ply lacewight getting approximately 509 yds out of the 4 oz.

I thought with the brown and greens the perfect pattern would be Laminaria.  So, I cast it on last Thursday.  I’ve gotten through the star chart and have completed the first repeat of the blossom chart.  So far, I love the way the colors are stripping up.  I think with the edging it will really look seaweedy.

I should also say thanks to BigAlice and Sandy for their comments on my last post.  Since they’ve given me permission to whinge, here it is, in all its silly glory….

First off, I’m an introvert; being around people can be tiring, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like to be social.  Things in my life got a lot better when I accepted the fact that I am an introvert, that I’ll never be an extrovert, and I learned what I needed to do for myself.  However, knowing and accepting don’t always help when I go through periods of profound loneliness.  I lament that I don’t have many close friends; I pity myself for not being invited out to do things.  It leaves me feeling like there’s a hole in my gut for a few days, then it passes.  I have to remember that I probably don’t present myself as someone who is interested in going out and doing things, and frankly, I’m not sure how to even give that impression.  I don’t know how to make instant friends with people, and I have only a slim number of lasting friendships.

I’m not looking for a pity party, but just explaining where my head was earlier this week.  I’m hoping maybe by putting some of it into words I’ll get a better grasp on what it is that bothers me.

Now, on a lighter note… YARN!

16 July 2005

Friday

Filed under: Life — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 12:05 am

The Husband is going out to play Vampire tonight, leaving me home alone with a movie, wine, and my knitting.

But, what I really want to do is spin… and I can’t. My knee is still too sore to use it that way. All the talk about spinning that’s going around is making me miss it. I haven’t spun since the last weekend of May. I had just started spinning up the fiber I had dyed.

Of course, I also want my knee to get better, so it might be time to pull out a drop spindle.

I’ve got 2 increases left on the first sleeve for my Ribby Cardi. I’m not sure if I’ll continue working on the sleeve or if I’ll try to work on Birch tonight.

Fun car news
Last week I discovered the chrome on the inside passenger side door handle was peeling off on my car. How did I discover this? Why I managed to slice 2 fingertips open on it while trying to get out of the car. While chrome may look insubstantial, it’s rather quite sharp. Thankfully, neither injured finger is terribly important for knitting.

So, yesterday I took my car in for it’s 35,000 mile oil change and asked them to take a look at it. Wouldn’t have been any problem except the warranty that covers such things expires at 36,000 miles, and I was a bit late bringing my car in at 37,000. I managed to use my blonde powers (don’t worry I only use them for good) and the nice car guy ran off to speak with his supervisor about. He was back within a minute to inform me that they’d cover it. Woot! So, they replaced the door handle assembly; no more sharp chrome.

The Husband took a co-worker out to lunch today and discovered that the new, shiny door handle doesn’t work. You can’t open the door from the inside. Unfortunately, he was unable to get it in today, so we have an appointment Monday morning to have them look at it again. *sigh*

3 March 2005

Tulips!

Filed under: Life,Spinning — Tags: , , , , — zardra @ 2:44 am

My tulips seem to have weathered the rainy winter much better than the iris bulbs I planted. My crocus bulbs seem to have been hit or miss. I’m afraid that for several of the bulbs the rain just made them rot. My bearded irises are starting to shoot up, too. Yeah, for spring flowers. I had to drive up to San Bruno to see my chiropractor this afternoon and the dandilions are blooming along the Palo Alto section of 280. Very pretty.

Meanwhile, there was yarn…

This is about 140 yards of a 60% silk/40% wool yarn. I haven’t measured the wpi, so I don’t know if it classifies as lace weight, or if it’s fingering weight. The silk is multi-colored: pink, yellow, green, blue… I got it from The Silk Worker. The blue ply is a 80% wool/20% silk that I got off eBay.

Okay, I’m going to go have soup now… soup is good.

2 March 2005

It’s coming… I can feel it

Filed under: Spinning — Tags: , , , , , — zardra @ 1:11 am

I think I’m coming down with something. My husband’s been sick since Sunday, and now my throat has that scratchy, warm feeling. *ick* Thankfully, my manager let me work from home today cause my husband was running a 103.6 fever this morning and I wanted to keep an eye on him. It’s coming down slowly, but it is coming down. I just hope I don’t have something like that to look forward to… I’m a big baby when I have a fever (that is anything over 99.8).

On a happier note, I have pictures for sharing…

Here’s the stuff I dyed at my sort-of dyeing class. I carded it, mixing the colors slightly and started spinning it up. I used it to practice a long draw… lesson: works very nicely with rolags, doesn’t work with combed top, which is what I usually sping with. The singles are nice and fuzzy looking; quite different from the yarn I get normally with my short draw technique.
 

I got a package from my secret pal on Saturday. Pretty roving from Deep Color in Berkeley and a couple skeins from the Himalayan Yarn Co. They’re 60% wool and 40% recycled silk. They’re soft… softer then I would have expected. I had heard rumors that recylced silk could be unpleasant, but I think that’s really when you’ve got the skeins that are nothing but the silk. The wool is a nice match for the rainbow of colors in the silk. I have no idea what I’m going to do with it yet… maybe something felty.

8 February 2005

Let there be pictures

Filed under: Dyeing,Spinning — Tags: , , , , — zardra @ 11:13 pm

Here you can see the baby alpaca and silk I spun up awhile ago. The dark bit is the alpaca, and the light bit is the silk. What was kind of weird about this one is the silk is more than just one color, but because the alpaca is so dark in comparison, the color changes don’t stand out. I only think this is funny cause I had spun up a different alpaca/silk set of rovings from the same person and the silk looked bland by itself, but once I plied it the color variations jumped right out.

Next, we have the roving a dyed at the dyeing class that wasn’t a few weeks ago. I know the picture looks a bit off but the camera was yelling at me about the battery being low, and using the flash made it look radioactive… probably shouldn’t have put it on a dark background either. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with it yet… I’m thinking I might card each into rolags, throw them all in a bag, stir it up, and spin them in the order it comes out… or I might blend them together.

Norma was going on today about jinxed yarn and how she’s crap. But I’m inclined to say it’s not her… everything lately seems crappy. I’m sure Stephanie’s unmentionable problem is also part of the ensuing crapage. Things I have seen recently that support this theory are 1) I got paid last Monday, and they shorted me 16 hours, 2) A friend of a friend lost his daughter in a car accident on Jan 30th (thankfully, they have the alleged drunk driver in custody last I heard). So, see spectacular crap all around.

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