More excuses and a new goal

It's the same excuse really; I still haven't found my card reader and can't get photos uploaded (though maybe I could make more excuses about why I haven't looked harder for my card reader, gotten another on, taken pictures on my phone and then e-mailed them to myself, or even worked on anything worth taking pictures of, but who wants to read that?). So, yeah, I'm being a bit lazy with the blogging, but rest assured the knitting/spinning/combing is still happening.

Here's the run down of skills and feelings about said skills:
Knitting- Certainly Competent: While I don't know everything there is to know I feel sure that I could quickly learn any technique needed for any desired pattern. I have successfully completed scarves, blankets, stuffed animals, hats, gloves, mittens, socks, and sweaters; lace, cables, and fair isle projects. There is an endless supply of patterns and techniques, and while they might not be the easiest ,quickest, or most fun projects, I do feel I could complete almost any project out there (though I'm sure I would get an interesting set of results if you wanted to "challenge" me with a pattern or two, though no promises that anything would get made).

Spinning- Worsted Fingering- Fairly Adept: I feel I have gotten to a good place with a worsted style fingering weight yarn, even to the point that I have a finished skein of BFL just waiting for some more friends before it heads over to Etsy. Other drafting styles or weights, well that's a different story, but I am working on it with reasonable amounts of progress. That said, I'm not holding my breath for any ribbons at this year's fair now that I'm not a novice anymore.

Dyeing- It's fun, and alot quicker than anything else: I'm still figuring out how to get professional quality dye jobs, but I like what I've made for myself, and my friend that I did some dyeing for liked the results (which lead to another possibly Etsy-worth idea).

So I feel like I can make just about anything I would want for myself (like most crafters I have lower standards for the things I keep than the things I would give or possibly even sell). I am confident that I could keep my family in woolies in a post-apocalyptic world. So what's next? While my current skills are far from perfect, certainly have room for improvement, and keep me pleasantly occupied with wool as often as I want, I can't help but feel that I should try my hand at designing. I have improvised several things, but it would be nice to plan something on paper so that everyone could know what is happening in my head. For some reason I feel like a hat is the place to start. So before my birthday this year, I want to try and design (on paper) a hat, and then see if someone else can make it. The trick will be making it interesting enough for anyone to care while not making it so crazy that nobody understand what on earth I am thinking. We shall see how it goes...

Technology Issues and excuses

For all of those who actually follow this...thanks Mom! I know I was hoping to have new pictures of the blanket up days ago, but it turns out that someone (who may or may not be 5) moved my card reader so now I can't get the pictures off my camera...But rest assured that when I find it there will be photos of the blanket, the new shipment from the PF Fiber Club (spoiler...Cashmere!), comb blending, and dying efforts. Here's hoping I find it soon!

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.