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Doin's

I don't know that they can be characterized as BIG doin's, but the thing is this -- I've been wrestling (wrasslin'?) behind the scenes with WordPress on my main domain. It's still VERY raw, and I'm still learning how things work. So nothing official just this moment, but you can meander on over to take a look at http://www.yarngeek.com, should you be so inclined.

Rumor has it that Santa Claws is bringing me a digital SLR camera, so if this comes to pass, one hopes the new toy combined with slightly renovated digs will let me finally return to blogging properly.

Let me know what you think!

Now I have Prince stuck in my head

It's all darling Niki's fault. Go yell at her. :) (and by the way, dude, check the hottest blog header banner EVAR. So jealous. The pinup thing, I love it.)

Here are the rules:
Once tagged, you must link to the person who tagged you. Then post the rules before your list, and list 8 random things about yourself. At the end of the post, you must tag and link to 8 other people, visit their sites, and leave a comment letting them know they've been tagged.

1. My memory is almost entirely associative -- I hear things and then go off on tangents in my brain relating directly to what I've just heard/read/assimilated. For instance, on seeing Niki's comment in my last post, I instantly had Prince's Darlin' Nikki song stuck in my head, where it will now remain until I can play it off my iTunes and get it OUT of my head.
2. I am in a really bizzare place in my life in terms of where I want to go and how I want to get there. My knitting is suffering as a result, primarily because I can't settle to anything of late.
3. My spinning, however, isn't suffering much at all -- in fact, in the midst of chaos, very little is as soothing as sitting down at the wheel and handling wool fluff, watching it become yarn.
4. I LOVE Fall. I've been so mad that things have stayed so warm, because I definitely want a defined set of seasons -- not summersummersummerOMGWINTERDEATHICEsummer.
5. I think I will be attending the Shenandoah Valley Fiber Festival on the 27th of October. If anybody wants to meet me and the Plum there, feel free!
6. I made Hoppin' John for dinner tonight and mygodsodamngood.
7. I have the counting/sorting of small food items OCD thing. Water from the bathroom at night requires three rinses of the cup before I can drink it; Skittles/M&Ms require sorting by color and then eating only in even numbered groups from each color group, never mixing; if there ends up an odd number, I'll eat that group but it makes me feel off until I can end on an even numbered set.  The only exception to this method is inside a movie theatre, where I am free from any such inhibitions on my behavior for some reason. (I guess because I can't see them?)
8. I am -- in addition to being a mother, a knitter, a spinner, a quilter, a wife, a step-mother, a secretary, a medical/legal transcriptionist, and yoga aficianado -- also an American Tribal Style (ATS) bellydancer-in-training.

I don't do the tag thing, but if you feel froggy, leap, and leave me a comment to let me know you're gonna play along! :)

Long Time No Blog

The list of excuses is long, but let's skip that and get right to the good stuff.

Lately? All my putative knitting has looked more like this:

I was assimilated in to the EZ cult, and it has left all other knitting decidedly dissatisfying. (That and up until yesterday -- no, really! -- it was between the eighties and nineties outside. It just hasn't been knitting weather!) As to whether all that rigamarole above will actually result in a knitted object, I think remains to be seen.

For my birthday this year, my friend Faith and TSH got together and gave me the best present evar for a knitter without such things. In the interests of full disclosure, I had a balky moment and (rather sloppily) photoshopped out all my clutter in the following two photos.

Faith sent a ballwinder early for my birthday:

And TSH spent a weekend day with me out in our backyard, turning an IKEA lazy susan into a yarn swift:

(ok, REALLY sloppily photoshopped out -- mostly -- the clutter in the background. Sigh. Far too lazy to fix it. It's all fiber/sewing related clutter, though, so that makes it ok, right?)

I promptly followed Knitter's Protocol and wound every skein within reach into neat wee yarncakes, which I will now be forced to place on Ravelry.

The crafts that have taken over while Knitting has been in time-out? Sewing. Garb, mostly -- finally got my husband's greenman nobles stitched up, although they will continue to get embellished over the next years, I'm sure.

That's a doublet with lace-in/lace-out sleeves, silk lining, cotton velvet outer fabric with quilting, and Venetian pants, also in cotton velvet. Still to come is a half or full circle cloak, but I haven't decided yet how I want to do that, so it will wait until next faire season, most likely.

I had some baby knitting on the needles for my friend Tristan's baby shower, but the night before the shower I left it out in mid-finishing, and Brutus -- our cat with the wool fetish -- decided that it needed to be his lovey for the evening. He pulled it off the needles in his zeal, and it ended up with a good portion of the sweater kitty-frogged. (is there a term for this? There should be one.)

So that morning I tossed together a baby quilt with some fabric I tie-dyed many years ago, and other cotton in stash, and managed to salvage the present. Now I have to re-knit the baby sweater and will post that when it's done. (assuming Brutus doesn't manage to drag it out from my hiding places)

Also recently completed was a Pittsburgh Steelers fleece blanket for the eldest Rat, who for some unknown reason has decided that Pittsburgh is his team. (he's never been there, but that's who he has decided he roots for. And no, he didn't only get on the bandwagon post-superbowl a while back -- he has been a fan since making this decision for himself many years back when first interested in the sport) The fleece blanket thing is so cozy that I think I will now have to make another for everybody else in the house.

I apologize if my blog neglect has negatively affected anybody out there...it's never on purpose that things go this long silent. I'll keep trying to do better and hopefully you guys will still come hang out when I manage to have something to say. :)

Friends don't let friends

...go without wool this lovely.

Charmed, on the left; Valkyrie on the right.

Something with Angora in it on the left, I forget the name; Flaming Phoenix on the right. (apparently the obsession with fall colors has waned not at all since finishing the Harvest Moon yarn last weekend.)

Can you SEE how soft that is? It's insane.

And finally, the piece de resistance, Magick, henceforth known as the Ravenclaw wool:

If you're in the market for some wool, or handspun yarn, or batts, or really anything fiber related, I would highly recommend this shop. If you're NOT in the market for any of the above, may I respectfully suggest that you stay far away from Flawful Fibers, lest you, too, suffer some accident involving your credit card and her shop checkout.  (and if you choose to stay away, HEY! More for me, woohoo! Or rather, ~whimper~, but in a happy sort of way.)

She shipped very fast, each braid of wool came with a lovely, hand-written tag on it denoting fiber content, weight, name of the color, etc.; it was all wrapped prettily up into wee rounds, and she included two samples that she refers to as "Micro Batts". CUTEST EVAR. Checkit:

The black/red/white blend there in the background is one micro batt already opened; the other is still in its wee baggie.

No Rhinebeck again for me this year, because Albannach will be at faire's closing weekend, and since they've never come to OUR faire before,  and this is the only weekend they'll be there, I can't not go. Maybe next year? Go frolic and buy stuff on my behalf, ok?

(Why yes, I AM studiously ignoring that school starts next week, why do you ask?)

Shine on, Harvest Moon

After opening day at the Maryland Renaissance Faire upwards of 105 degrees with the heat index, you'd think coming home and spending Sunday with wool would be the farthest thing from my mind.

Oh, but not so!

Remember this?

Sunday, I pre-drafted the remainder of the harvest-colored wool I got at Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival this year from Cloverleaf Farms:

That's Hal under all that wool, by the way -- so named by my friend Eugenia, who says that my sewing machine looks like it ought to be telling me what to do. "I'm sorry I can't allow that, Liz. Might I suggest a zig-zag stitch for this application instead?"

Anyway, so I sat down thinking, I'll just spin up a bit of this before our friends come over in four or five hours from now.

The next thing I knew?

This:

Turned into this:

I took pictures before I soaked this yarn, so the overspinning is pretty evident. I started out the plying thinking what I wanted was a two-ply barberpole, but ended up deciding that, yardage be damnned, what I preferred was the tweedy look I got in the sample skein. So, chained singles I went instead, and I am SO pleased with the result. This big skein is approximately 247 yards, and the sample skein was (totally not making this up) 47 yards. Therefore I have a fairly usable portion of roughly-sport-weight hand spun with which to play. (although chances are pretty good that it will just sit around and get petted a lot for while)

It's been thunderstorm-y and grey the last few days, so much that several sections of our back fence were blown down, so I hope you will forgive my desperate attempts to give you reasonably-lit photographs of this yarn I'm so sinfully proud of.  :)

Soon I will have to show you how I had a little accident involving my debit card and a web shop I'm not entirely certain I want to share, because then I'd have to fight more of you for the wooly crack sold therein. (*coughcoughFlawfulFiberscoughcough*)

Dear Shannon,

Sock Pal Shannon, (she of gringa.org) you rock MOST mightily. Today brought us rain and drizzle and it's actually cool in my house instead of just under sauna, so I put on my socks to blog. Bliss!!

(um...sorry about not having shaved the legs first. Yikes. Avert your eyes from that, okay?)

Dude, even the soles of these socks are wonderful, all stripey-variegated-semi-solid. My favorite part is the reason I'll be knitting this pattern for myself, though -- check the wee not-cables. (get it? Not? Knot? HA. I slay me.)

I think it's time to go read for a bit. (and watch out for bubble emergencies, naturally.)

Shannon, you did SO great! When can we DC neighbors meet up? :) Thank you, thank you, THANK you! (and dude, you totally didn't make me wait that long. The POST OFFICE makes me wait longer than you did.)

Sockapalooooza: Finis!

So my husband absconded to GenCon (annual midwestern mecca for geeky gamer types) with my camera, and thus I will have to owe you pictures -- but I didn't want my pal to worry about whether her package arrived!

I received in the mail this past weekend a mysterious box, seemingly from Amazon.com. Now, don't get me wrong -- we get stuff from Amazon all the time, perhaps more often than is strictly healthy for the pocketbook -- but I was fairly certain that I hadn't ordered anything lately that hadn't already arrived. Still, a box is a box, which makes me happy, and it was addressed to ME, which makes me even more happy. (Am I the only one who has this obsession with getting the mail? It makes me crazy when anybody else in the house picks it up, and I am giddy whenever I get mail of my own of any sort.)

I saw from the address label, once inside, that it wasn't a box from Amazon, and then I knew and was pleasantly surprised to see that it must be my Sockapaloooza package from my pal. My pal had written to ask for extra time, and I'd told her (truthfully) that I was in no hurry and to take whatever time she needed. So I was very happy to see a box so soon.

Inside, I discovered that my pal is from Washington, D.C., too (we should try to meet up!), and she knit me a pair of Conwy socks! Gorgeous, squishy, perfectly fitting Conwy socks in this fantastic semi-solid yarn in a soft blue-green. (I believe she said the yarn was Claudia handpainted yarn, in which case clearly I don't have enough of the stuff in my stash and will have to remedy the situation pronto) Words do no justice, and I will dig through TSH's luggage this evening to find the camera and show you even in the low light all this rain we're having will bring.

My pal also sent me Alison's Harry Potter knits book, which is PERFECT timing, as I'm participating in the Hogwarts Sock Swap! And she also included a wee gift for Sophie in the form of bubbles, a gift which Sophie has carried around with her "just in case" for the last three days. You know, because you never know when you might have a bubble emergency. :)

So THANK YOU, Sock Pal! You did SO good!! I shall post links to her blog when I'm home this evening along with the pictures, but I wanted to make sure I got this thank you up before life got away with me for the day. :)

Sockapal4za: Happy Pal with Happy Feet!

Since I know my assigned pal Monique has gotten her goodies, I think it's safe to post the Sockapal4za socks!

I had a bit of a moment when, one sock and a second sock's cast-on into the pair, my pal posted that she was knitting the same socks (albiet in Trekking sock yarn, the colorway for which I am exceedingly covetous, and not the Koigu I'd chosen) for herself. Come to find out she'd decided later she didn't like her own pair, so it all worked out in the end. :)

I had some issues being between computer access when I made a sleeve complete with YarnGeek logo and a photo of the socks in progress on the sleeve, and then promptly left the sleeve on the home computer on mailing day. So I had to improv a sleeve, for which I used an image of a painting by Karen Fincannon. I emailed the artist asking about purchasing the painting in question, because I LOVE it, but I haven't heard back from her as of yet, so I won't post the image on here yet. You should go see her website, though, because her paintings are wonderful.

I tucked in some  chocolate from Belgian chocolatiers Neuhaus, whose confections I highly recommend, and  two skeins of Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock in the Knit Happens colorway. This last was evidently the piece de resistance, because my pal seemed totally giddy to get it. Score! I win at making the sock pal happy!

Since this technically counts as an F.O. post, the details are on the sock sleeve up there -- but since I wear contacts and *I* am not sure it's readable, here's the lowdown:

Pattern: Embossed Leaves Socks; from the book 25 Favorite Socks from Interweave

Yarn: Koigu KPPPM, Color P514, dyelot 171

Needles: Addi Turbo 24" circulars, US size 2

Mods: The only real change I made was to knit fewer rows of ribbing at the top; and on the second sock, I knit the cast-on on a needle size (or it may have been two) higher than the size called for, as the initial sock's ribbing was a bit less loose than I'd have liked. I also used Magic Loop rather than DPNs.

****

Yesterday's mail brought the happy to me in book form from my chosen crack dealers, Amazon -- a copy of the annotated Alice in Wonderland, for my husband's upcoming birthday; a recording of Peter and the Wolf narrated by Sir John Gielgud for Sophie, and then Vogue Sewing and Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Around for me. I've only skimmed over Knitting Without Tears, so this is my first real headfirst dive into the joy of EZ waters. I can't wait to cast on!

Today is my husband's company picnic, and the day outside look like it cooled down and got sunny and gorgeous just for us. I'm gonna go out and play. How YOU doin'? :)

Harry and Spinning and Sewing, oh my

I promise this will not become an all Harry-Potter, all-the-time blog. I just had to make mention of how amazed I was (though given the publicity machine behind it, I ought not to have been) with the merchandising for this book. I'm grateful that I no longer work in a bookstore, not only because I no longer hand back my paycheck every two weeks to the establishment for whom I work, but also because trying to manage the furor over this book has to have been a nightmare of epic proportions.
My copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows arrived on Saturday afternoon from Amazon; despite having given me a UPS tracking number, it was brought to us by our friendly U.S. Mail carrier, for whom we had NOT been waiting on our front step; she just happened to come by while we were outside letting Sophie run amok. (no, seriously -- I was outside waiting for the UPS guy, I thought. :))

My husband tried to play keep-away with the book, but upon my giving him The Look, he sighed, resigned to my inevitable absence for the foreseeable future, and handed me this box:

That box was branded seven ways to Sunday -- every side of the box had Harry Potter branding on it, from the "Year 7" designation in font on the bottom side you can just see in that photo, to the book title on the opposite side; even the bill of lading was branded!

I am uncertain why this impresses me so much, but it does.

There is something about a book, new and weighty and brimming with possibilities, that makes me happier than little else. Yarn does that, new craft projects in general do that for me, and office supplies, for some odd reason, have the same effect -- but out of all of them, my love for books is the most steadfast and never waning or flitting, as I seem to do with all my other free-time loves.

I started the book as soon as it arrived, which I would guess was around 4:30; and finished at 1:11 a.m. (yay for spooky time coincidences!)

I liked it, I won't spoil it for anybody, but one thing in it that I loved was that she wrote about how the Ravenclaw common room door was not entered by password, as was Gryffindor -- the door knocker would ask a question to which the person wishing to enter would have to answer in a well-thought-out or well-phrased manner. It was small details of that sort which made the series such a fun read.

Anyway, in addition to Harry Potter -- because I am evidently either too obsessed or too fast a reader for that to have taken up the entire weekend -- I also made Sophie a smock from some gorgeous fat quarter fabrics I won from Anna Maria's blog giveaway many moons ago.  Anna Maria, please forgive me for taking this long to get something made up, as a proper thank-you for the gift!

She's growing up WAY too fast -- I was struck by how BIG she seems, when in my head she is still such a baby.

Sorry for the blurriness of all these - she may be learning to pose, but she's not standing still in any of the poses she's learning.

This is where my age -- at least brain wise -- starts to bother me. I think I will end up putting a modesty panel into this, or having her wear a tank underneath it. It's airier for the heat this way, but something about it is bothering all my mom alarms -- kind of like the clothes they're trying to sell in her size that have anything written on the butt. (there's a post percolating about this issue in depth)

Anna Maria sent fat quarters of her Chocolate Lollipop fabric line, so I had to improvise on the smock pattern from Amy Karol/Angrychicken's book, Bend The Rules Sewing by adding a second fabric for the back of the smock, but actually I LOVE how they look together, so it's one of those times where lamenting on not having enough fabric turned into something really cool. :)

I am fighting with myself as to whether I ought to have bound the smock with brown rather than white, and it still seems to need something -- I'd put buttons inside some of the dots, but she still yanks off things of that sort, so I may just leave it as it is, or maybe add a pin-on fabric flower or something. Rick Rack? A ruffle? Something. The brain, she bubbles. :)

Another mod I made to Amy's smock pattern is to add the wee cap sleeves; primarily because I had a wee rectangle of plaid leftover and I wanted it to show on the front.

HA! Even as I type this, I realize that what's needed on the smock are POCKETS. Duh. After I copied the pattern as the book instructs, I must confess I didn't crack it again as I was sewing, being all arrogant and stuff; else I'd have seen that Amy adds pockets sometimes.

THAT is what it needs. I shall add pleated pockets. Two, I think.

I depart, then, with new inspiration (thanks, guys, for letting me spew my way into remembering what I read in the first place. :)), and leave you with a photo I entitle:  Yarn Still Life; Stages.

I wish that roving came just like that, but with more green in it. And the sample skein is hugely overspun and horrible plied in cabled style -- yet still I adore it. The whack-it-on-a-countertop method of finishing works a treat, though, I gotta tell you.  When that skein was fresh off the niddy, it was balled up so tight it took me 20 minutes to untangle it enough to wind it back on, and then tie it off properly, soak it again, smack it around on my granite countertop to teach it a lesson, and dry it ON the niddy before it looked like that fairly pretty mini-skein above, which is approximately 47 yards.

(It would appear I am a spew-and-bolt sort of blogger these days; I'm glad you're reading. :))