COMBS

Last year I was given many many fleeces from a herder friend who raises a small breeding flock for lamb meat. I still have bags that need to be washed and we are coming closer and closer to this year's shearing season...but now I have a new set of tools to help me get through it all and hopefully not end up with a house full of raw wool.

These are my lovely combs from Paradise Fibers. This picture was actually taken for a friend after she shared that she had had some combs, but as each one was over 2 pounds she lacked the motivation to use them and they were sold. In case you can't see, these are 11.25 ounces together.

They certainly make the wool combing go much quicker. Before I was using sort of similarly shaped dog brushes, and the results were useable, but not ideal. The real combs work much faster, allow me to get out much more veg, and produce those nice little "birds nests" I had heard about when I first started processing wool.

Overall, everything is working better, and as long as nobody gets too close, I can happily comb wool through a whole TV show (as long as I've seen it before, otherwise my attention kind of wanders... :)).

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As far as the blanket goes, I am going to try to get a new picture up this weekend, but little progress has been made this week. Last week was good and I got through the first two borders (37 rows) and started about 6 or so rows of the pattern. However, once I had done those 37 rows and started the first row of the pattern, I learned that I had not actually cast on the required 164 stitches...I only had 150. I was not about to rip out all those rows and start over, and since there were effectively two borders, I just made the inner border thinner...a lot thinner, but it's still there. Hopefully it works out, and my sister-in-law-to-be likes it. Anyway...here's hoping for a new picture this weekend!

Countdown to September

Last, um, October or November I went to my LYS and picked out some yarn to go with the PERFECT pattern for a wedding present for my brother-in-law's wedding this September. Last Wednesday, I went and picked it up (there was apparently an issue with the yarn companies shipping services, it's not an issue for me- I still have 9 months to knit this thing). The beaver has kind of taken a back seat, partly because I know my husband will still love me if I give him a birthday present with dpns still in to, but my future sis-in-law probably has higher expectations for a wedding present- and rightly so- and partly because I am over the circular linen stitched tail.

So I've been working on the blanket for the wedding. My goal for now, is to post weekly updates, mostly to keep me coming back here and posting. They may end up just being photos, but hopefully I will be inspired once I am here, because....I also got wool combs! But that is another post, or two.

Anyway, since last Wednesday, I have been able to get all 164 stitches cast on (with a knit-on cast on) and I am 20 rows into the 24 row seed stitch boarder. I had originally (on Wednesday) considered starting the blanket now, thinking that 4 rows won't make much of a difference in the look of the blanket, it will save me 8 rows total knitting, more importantly it will save 8 rows of SEED STITCH, and will save me some yarn since I had irrational fears of running out. But now I am thinking that it's only 4 more rows, the seed stitch hasn't been terrible (far better than the linen stitch beaver tail in time out), according to the estimates on the pattern I think I have about an extra 300 or so yards, and the extra 4 rows, in a chunky yarn on size 10 needles will make enough of a visual difference, that I should just do all 24 rows. Whew, so much information that no one ever cared about :).

Anyway here is the first of hopefully many photos...

The needles are very curly, I'm hoping that works itself out as it gets longer and more blanket-y.

Hopefully I will have some more time this week to fill you in on the wonders that are the wool combs, so until then...thanks for reading!

A Beaver for A Birthday- The Ultimate Free Gift

So a couple of months ago, my husband and I were bored and on Netflix, so we decided to watch this documentary on beavers. Hey, they're cute, fluffy when dry, and build crazy things. What better show for an engineer and his wife? So after this viewing, my husband became pseudo obsessed with beavers. Nothing major, he just makes frequent remarks about wanting to get one for a pet, though not as often as his remarks about wanting to get a bobcat, but that's another story.

So fast forward to this year, and I am killing time one night on Ravelry or Pinterest, or someother place with way too many choices and ideas than could ever be finished, and I found this beaver pattern.  It called to me, so I decided that I had to make it for my husband for his birthday. I started it on January 7th and figured that would give me plenty of time to get it done by May 1, his birthday. I originally planned on just working on it at my Friday Night Knitting gatherings, but between my daughter having dinner issues after Friday gymnastics, and general socializing, not much knitting was getting done.

Luckily, I am currently home most of the time, as my main employment is home based. So the beaver came out while he was at work, and wow, between its general small size, largish gauge and the fact that my daughter considers it playing as long as I talk for the toys, I was able to make some great progress.

As I was working, I found it odd that the pattern starts with the body, then you leave live stitches for the tail on waste yarn, and go back and pick-up stitches for the head. After a few more seconds of actually reading the pattern ahead of time, I soon saw that you stuff the head and body before knitting the tail, which explains the segmentation. I still don't understand, however, why you don't just start with the head and knit from end to end. Maybe the designer didn't think that a cast-on would be secure enough to hold the stuffing at the nose... Oh well.

So here we are, January 21, and I am on the tail. To be fair, it is going much more slowly than the rest, but I feel very comfortable with my progress.

So it's a free pattern, I used stash yarn, and I stuffed it with some of those fleeces I got for free. I guess I did spend money on the yarn at some point, but not recently, and since my husband is horrible to get gifts for, I figure this is as good as just about anything else.

Pacman Rug

Here is the beginning of the newest project. That whole no new projects until my brother-in-laws afghan gets done worked out real well didn't it...

Here's the deal, I'm working the Ten Stitch Twist with a whole bunch of handspun longwools that I had in my stash, along with spinning a bunch of my friends wool for it.  So my basement is really cold and has tile floors, so it needs a nice squishy wool rug for the floor. I have a fairly large stash of course(ish) longwools, some already spun, some still as fiber, but I figured this would be a good project for them.

The plan is to work up a reasonable amount and then throw it down and use it while I spin more yarn. The fact that it only has 10 working stitches was a big draw. I was thinking about crocheting a rug, but I'm not very good, and I didn't feel like learning a whole new craft for one project, though I'm sure it'll happen some day.

I'm not sure if this rug will ever get "finished." The room it's planned for is, I think, about 12 feet wide, so I certainly have plenty of room to work with. I do want it to be a rather large rug, but mostly it's just a home for all my courser handspun yarn. We'll see how it goes.

Merry Christmas...so many things done!

Merry Christmas to everyone out there! I know it has been a while since my last post, but wow so many things have been going on. Between the many jobs, child, husband, house, and life, there has even been a bit of crafting going on. Here is at least an update of what went out today.

 Here's a bit of the play by play in the Everything is Ducky Convertible Mitts. I knit them in a natural merino yarn, and then dyed them to look like ducks. I just had to add in some button eyes and it all went swimmingly!

Here's Alcazar all finished. It's been a process, but it's done now. The new owner is a lovely girl who really seemed to appreciate the effort that went into it. It's good to have that one off my to-do list!

Here's a nice hat that I threw together in literally 2 days. The Everything is Ducky Mitts and Alcazar were for the oldest and youngest daughter of some family friends, so of course the middle daughter had to get something as well. Here mom said she was into the slouchy hats, so I grabbed a bunch of yarns I had around, including that Triple Berry Jam Thick 'n Thin hand-spun from the 2014 Tour de Fleece and knocked it out.



Now I am in that great in between place, where I'm not sick of knitting, I have plenty of WIP's to work on, and the next "deadline" I have is the end of July for next year's fair and then my brother-in-law's wedding in September.

I ordered yarn for an afghan for the wedding, but it's on back order, so I still have a while to get some other things done before that starts. Any suggestions on what I should work on next, a scarf for the DH, the Red Riding Hood cape for the tiny one, a hat for myself? Let me know if you have any thoughts.

Alcazar

Oh I will miss you! This is such a beautiful sweater, but I felt it was a bit too trendy for me at this point in my life, so it's going to Tiny's 16 year-old summer babysitter.

I'm not sure how it is really going to turn out; I'm not sure this girl knows how/where to take measurements. She gave me hers, and they were very similar to mine... she's a size 2 and I'm an 8. But I am knitting according to the measurements she gave me. Worst Case Scenario: I have to keep this one and try a smaller size for her, oh darn.

The body is actually quite easy. It's top-down with saddle shoulders, and then knit-in-the-round. Appropriate decreases and increases, but pretty basic.

Then you get to the flounce. It's not HARD, but 8 row cable repeat on top of a 12 row, short row dart repeat with the short row darts between the 6th and 7th row that is being joined to the bind-off of the sweater body. Not something you can knit in your sleep.

I was reading the pattern with my knitting group last night, and while I got many supportive groans and eye rolls, one even suggested that I stop knitting the pattern...

Well it took a few minutes, some math, and a bit of paper, but I think I got it figured out. But still, not for knitting in your sleep.

Anyway, according to revelry, I think I've been working on this about 6 weeks, and I'm certainly making progress, but I keep finding little bits of time, and instead of knitting on this, I cast-on new projects, because that is really what I need right now.

We'll see how much longer it takes to finish this, since I start teaching science and math after school programs this week, so time is going to get even tighter... and I only have this and two other projects to get done by Christmas, though one is already started. But yeah, certainly don't have way too much on my plate these days.

Oh, also, I have plans to clean my Prelude, because.... it's 1! Yay, it's been about a year since I got my wheel, and oh my, the amount of yarn that has been made, but between yarn coming from animals, oil, and just life, it is time to give it a wipe down.

The DH helped me get some wood cleaner specifically for woods treated with tung oil, so we'll see how all that goes. In the meantime, thanks to the good folks at Paradise Fibers, my stash will be ever increasing, and I will try to do a better job of posting about the great new fibers I'm getting!

Fiber Club Win

So now I remember why I didn't really knit while I was working full time. I'm still knitting and spinning, but between working 4 jobs that I get paid for, plus homeschooling Tiny, keeping up the house, and being the new librarian at church, finding time to post has been difficult.

But, I got a new shipment from the PF Fiber Club a week or so ago, and I was in love. I was also sent some natural mohair and shetland, but this dyed merino was so amazing I had to get more.

It's by Becoming Art, who is apparently a local to PF indie dyer who has become their in house dyer. Yay for all of us, these colors are awesome!

This colorway is called Time, Time and is reported to be one in a line of Alice in Wonderland inspired colors (is it just me or are Alice and her friends popping up all over lately?).

This is the first time I've actually bought anything that was featured in the Fiber Club, though I certainly have plans to do so in the future. This color was just too amazing to get stuck with just 4 ounces, I needed more because I knew I was going to want something big out of it.

The plans for now are to fractal it in a sock/fingering weight and tackle another shawl from Malabrigo Book 4. It's going to be a while before all of that gets done, but now I have what I need to do it!