So many hobbies!

A toe

So here's my new sock.  Impressive, isn't it?  Yeah, well, tonight was the first time I've tried Judy's Magic Cast-on and I don't learn very well from written directions and pictures.  I'm one of those people who learns best by watching and then doing.  Anyway, this is the result of tonight's efforts.  I think I've got it figured out now so things should speed up from this point on.  For anyone planning on trying the Magic Cast-on for the first time, it helps a lot if you have two different colored circs.  The directions refer to needle #1 and needle #2 and it is very easy to get confused if both needles look the same (ask me how I know).  Next time I'll use one wooden circ and one metal circ until I start knitting the foot, then I'll switch to two wooden circs.

A bit of swatching

In my excitement to finally start a sock from my own handspun, I forgot I needed to swatch to get gauge.  Tonight was swatching.  Tomorrow is knitting.  Swatches are boring so I didn't bother taking a picture.

Last year I started collecting ornaments from Old World Christmas.  My friend Heather and her mom are responsible for turning me on to these wonderful ornaments - thanks you two.  Each one is beautifully made and the details are all hand done.  Heather and I met for dinner tonight and she talked me into checking out a local store that now sells them (I didn't really need much convincing).  Here's what I came home with:

Aren't they adorable!  I'm pretty sure these two are new this year.  Each year they introduce new ornies (I got that one from Heather, too) and retire old ones.  I went a bit nuts last year in my collecting but this year I'm much more restrained.  I've only bought a few so far.

Re-plying

Remember I said I needed to find a happy medium between too much twist and not enough?  These two skeins needed more so that's what I did tonight.  Tomorrow the bottom skein will start it's new life as a sock.  Oh, yeah!  I've been so antsy without a project to work on.  I sat in the doctor's office today (he was running 45 minutes behind) feeling irritable that I was just sitting when I could have been knitting.  Fortunately, I'm pretty sure the circs I already have will be the right size for the yarn.

I'm still looking for a project for my luscious angora/wool/silk yarn from the weekend.  I'm trying to decide between hand warmers and a neck wrap similar to this one but probably looser like this one.  I don't like things tight around my neck because it usually makes my neck itch.  I didn't find anything in any of the one-skein books at the bookstore so it I guess I'll have to make it up myself.  Creating it yourself is more fun anyway.

Middle Kingdom Fiber

The upload to the store happened without a hitch on Friday - eleven different rovings and three skeins of handspun.  My logo isn't finished yet but I expect it to be ready this week.  Thank you to Georgia and Jessica for making purchases.

One of the skeins that went up was the Carnival yarn.  I knit up a gauge swatch Wednesday and finally understood what Beth had been telling me about too much twist making a yarn rough.  I had plied it too tightly for my personal taste.  I want soft comfortable socks I can slide my feet into.  While the yarn will make hard-wearing socks due to it's tight twist, they won't be soft enough for me so I put the yarn up for sale.  I now have to find the happy medium between too much twist and not enough. 

After Friday's upload, the rest of the weekend was a lesson in frustrated projects.  I tried to start a Christmas present only to realize that the yarn I had purchased wasn't going to work.  So I ordered something else.  Then I tried to start my first fingering-weight socks only to discovered the circs I had were too big and I had to order a smaller size.  Gah!  Next was another pair of socks using the yarn I spun from a Yarn Wench roving and, you guessed it, I didn't have the right size circs.  Thank goodness I got paid this weekend. 

This was the one project that was happily and successfully completed.  The yarn is a wonderful, soft blend of 60% angora, 20% Cormo wool and 20% silk from two batts I bought at the Michigan Fiber Festival in August.  I ended up with about 100 yards and now I'm trying to figure out what to do with it.  I was going to make a pair of fingerless gloves but I don't think I have enough for a pair.  Now I think I'm going to make a short neck wrap that will close with buttons.  The yarn is plenty soft enough that it won't make my neck itch.  Tomorrow I'll probably visit my local Borders and look for a pattern in some of the "one skein" books they have for sale.

My mom has been painting china for more than 30 years.  Every Christmas, the women in the family are gifted with one of the plates Mom has painted that year.  This was mine.  We were all together for Thanksgiving this year so the plate gifting was done on Thursday.  We'll be scattered to the four corners for Christmas.  Mom's plates are one of the special things I look forward to each holiday season.  Isn't she good!  Thanks, Mom.

Embrionic socks

I'm actually thinking lustful thoughts about this yarn.  I can't be the only one who drools over yarn -PLEASE tell me I'm not the only one who gets weak in the knees at a mind-blowingly gorgeous cake of yarn.  I don't want to be weird alone.  Anyway, I'm swatching tomorrow to get gauge.  The yarn is about sport weight.  Oh, my God, I can't wait to start knitting...  I think I need to be alone now.

Okay, better now... I spun up Tis the Season over the weekend before taking a photo of the roving.  I dyed another for the shop last night:

The colors came out better this time.  The green is a bit darker and the red deeper and both are more what I had in mind.  I'm having so much fun creating colorways and dyeing them up.  I have yet to come up with a good system for storage of dye stock and for application but each time I have a dye session, I learn more what's working and what isn't.  I'll figure it out soon.  In the meantime, I need everyone to shop in my store so I can move to working part time and spend more time being creative and playing with color.  Color excites me and makes me feel alive.  The brighter and more intense the color, the more I like it, although I draw the line at dayglo.  <shudder>  Is it any wonder I'm in love with the Carnival colorway? 

No post tomorrow.  I'll be spending the evening with my family.  I hope that everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.  Take care.

Plaid

Tis the Season

I have become a freak about plying my yarn tightly.  These last two were a little too tight, though.   I weighted them both while they dried but there were a few strands that were longer than the others and they dried coiled.  Still, I love how the yarn looks with a tight ply and if you're making yarn for socks, which is what I'm interested in at the moment, you're going to want to spin and ply tightly for better wearing yarn.  A loosely spun and plied yarn will be much more apt to pill and will wear out quicker than a tightly spun and plied yarn.  If you're going to put all the effort into spinning and knitting your own socks, don't you want to make sure they last as long as possible?

The plan was to wait until after Christmas to start knitting another pair of socks, this time from my own handspun.  Frankly, I don't think I can wait that long.  The Carnival yarn is calling to me ever so seductively and because I am weak, I'm giving in.  Besides, I've been itching to have an easy project for taking on the bus or waiting for appointments.  The smoke ring, which I've really screwed up, takes too much thought and isn't a good one for quickly picking up and putting down.  Tomorrow I'll dye up the second 4 oz. of roving to spin for the other sock and spin it over the weekend.  I'm so excited to make my own socks as beautiful as the ones in The Twisted Sisters Sock Workbook.  It was love at first sight when I picked up the book.  You'll never make anything like those socks using a commercially dyed yarn.  That look only comes from spinning your yarn from dyed roving. 

I've never been tapped for a meme (can someone please tell me what "meme" means?) but since I'm in an expansive and sharing mood, I thought I'd pretend I have been.  So, here are seven things about me people may not know:

1. I LOVE thunderstorms.  My condo neighbor has heard me sitting on the front porch and giggling like a maniac watching a big storm roll in - she thinks I'm nuts.  My mother also thinks I'm insane.

2. I love ginger in all its forms:  powdered, fresh grated or candied.  Ginger snaps, stir fries or ginger bread - I love them all.  Did you know that ginger can help calm the nausea caused by chemotherapy?  Patients receiving chemo who hold a slice of fresh ginger under their noses have less nausea than those who don't.

3. I make fabulous biscotti.  I started making my own biscotti in protest to the nasty stuff you buy in stores which tastes like sawdust to me.  I've been collecting biscotti recipes for a while so I've got quite a collection.

4. I have 5 brothers and sisters.  I'm second from the last in line.

5. It generally takes me all of 30 seconds to fall asleep after I get into my usual sleep position.

6.  I'm a Leo and a fire sign.  I find when I'm near water (fire's opposite), whether it be river, lake or ocean, I'm very calm and relaxed.  However, I find wind (fire's compliment) very exciting and energizing.  Maybe that's why I like thunderstorms so much.  I like to stand facing a summer wind and feel it blow around me.  I'm not so enamoured of winter winds - I don't like being cold.

7.  I understand cats and they seem to like me.  I've been known to get strange cats to trust me and let me pet them, leaving their owners amazed because they never let strangers touch them.

Where does the weekend go?

I'm not quite done plying the Tis the Season roving.  I may have to spin some of this for myself.  It's so cheerful.  It would make great holiday socks or mittens.  I'll have a better photo tomorrow of this and the Plaid yarn.  Plaid spun up well, too. 

I had such plans for what I was going to accomplish this weekend.  Now that it's Sunday night, I only managed to cross off half of my list.  Still, I managed to do three loads of laundry, cook and demolish a turkey (mmm, leftovers), finish spinning and plying Plaid, and dye, spin and ply (mostly) Tis the Season.  Seli and I also managed to get in a nap on Saturday.  Napping is good.

The opening of Middle Kingdom Fiber is on track for Friday morning.  Monday and Tuesday nights I need to dye up another Plaid, Tis the Season, and Boysenberry and I'll have my dyeing done for Friday.  Until I know how things sell, I'll be dyeing each colorway as I sell the one in stock. 

I won't be posting on Wednesday as I'll be spending the night at my parents'.  My sister and brother-in-law will be in town.  I haven't seen my sister in months so I'm pretty excited to see her.  My niece will also be there.  When my family gets together, there's usually quite a bit of laughter and teasing.  I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to it.

Clue the Movie

Yes, I'm suggesting a movie for this weekend.  If you've never seen Clue before, I highly recommend it.  It's got a stellar cast and it's two hours campy fun and slightly lame humor.  I don't know about you, but I need a good laugh on a daily basis.  Besides, Tim Curry plays the butler.  I adore Tim Curry.  Hurry, add it to your Netflix queue!

Okay, I got nothin'.  I spun more of Plaid but I didn't do any dyeing.  I really need to get 8 hours of sleep at night and I haven't managed that once this week.  As a result, I'm rather boring tonight.  So, I'll leave you with more roving that'll be up on Middle Kingdom Fiber a week from tomorrow.   These are all BFL roving I dyed in the crockpot over the summer.  I think you'll find these photos are much better than the ones I posted in July.

Berries.  This one is my favorite.

Bluegrass.

Tutti Frutti.

Still testing

I still have hopes that Plaid will turn into a nice yarn but we shall see.  I've got it about 2/3 spun so far.  Tomorrow night I'll be dyeing another colorway, this time for the holidays, called Tis the Season, in green, white and red.

I'm working on not enough sleep and not feeling terribly eloquent so I thought share a tip.  I like to ply from a center-pull ball but since I fill my bobbins pretty full, and the singles are now pretty thin, it takes me two to three hours to ply one bobbin.  Plying from a center-pull ball, you have to keep your thumb through the center or it collapses and eventually barfs its guts out and makes a huge knot.  This is bad.  So, when I have to get up (you try a three-hour ply job without using the bathroom), I take an old, unused test-tube and with my thumb on the rounded end, slide the ball from my thumb onto the test-tube.  When I'm ready to return to the job, I just reverse it and slide from the tube onto my thumb.  If you don't happen to have a test-tube laying around, a taper candle should work just the same.  I'd use a new one and slide the ball onto the wick end.  Make sure you keep your thumb pressed against the candle so you don't loose the center of the ball.

Deep Glade.  I cooked this one in the crock-pot attempting to recreate Muppets.  The recreation didn't work but the resulting roving is pretty and has lots of shading.  Oh, and it's BFL.

Calypso and Plaid

This is Calypso.

This is Plaid.  I'm not too sure about this one.  The idea for the colorway came from the plaid dress I remember having as a kid that was red with yellow and green stripes.  I'm going to spin this one up next and see how it looks in yarn form. 

The "grand opening" of Middle Kingdom Fiber will be Thanksgiving weekend.  I'm shooting for Friday.  I should have at least 10 different colorways by then.  Some of them will be roving I had up for sale over the summer.  This time I'll take much better pictures before putting them up.  A friend of mine is working up a logo for me and promises it'll be ready by next week.

A skein of Ming.

And a Carnival ride.  This one is staying with me.  After the store is up and running, I'm dyeing and spinning up more for a fabulous pair of socks.  Well, after the store and Christmas.  I've got several Christmas presents to start and finish by the 25th.  Oh, yeah, definitely AFTER Christmas.