Payback's a stitch. Or two hundred.

Or, What I Did This Rhinebeck.

I haven't posted in a while because, well, I didn't go to the place everyone else went. I went nowhere. I'm not bitter. Nope, not me. I'm not the bitter kind. I'm the go-sob-in-the-bath-with-a-glass-of-wine-
and-a-Barbara-Walker-Treasury kind.

Anyway, I did have stuff to post, but I had a massive cold (still do, in addition to some fun emergency dental work this evening which is now over three hours and a cute emergency dentist later). That, and my pics were not of anything sweetly fleeced and alpaca-eyed, or of a blogger/friend I've been dying to hug in person, or rock-star-sock quality anything.

This is your Rhinebeck weekend on two-ply.
It was Andean bracelet torture. Please note:
If you try to ply laceweight singles, be very, very gentle.

I could, however, make socks out of what I've created, weightwise, but someone would wear holes in them. And thanks to the evil plan for the runes and the llama down, I'll be making a scarf for my husband instead. Viking Patterns for Knitting (not the Designer Choice one...) arrived this week. In addition to just setting about five new projects I MUST DO NOW, my rune-charting ass has been saved by this book, Elune be praised. Dude. If I hear "Elune be praised" come out of my husband's computer one more time, I'll scream...it runs a close second in the "just kill me now" department to whistling for his pet...but I digress.

So. In a silent WHINE that I could not go There and pet Those Sheep and meet Those Bloggers and hug and drink champagne with Those People I'm Very Sad I Did Not Meet Or See Again Because I Love Them, I spun laceweight out of every freaking thing I could get my hands on. So there. Nyah.

Holy crap. With hands like that, who needs hobbits?
Spiff once said, "I could never go with a girl with hands like yours."
Then we had our first real date. He changed his mind.
Laceweight two-ply, baby.

And I'm paying all this spinning forward, back, sideways...heu...in some direction in which the spinning actually becomes...KNITTING!

To explain: There's a wonderful little group of people who have taken me on as their midnight question to answer, their person to cheer on whether fiber is spun on spindle or wheel, their repository of all things fluffy and highly addictive, their...well...

Their friend. Not just their friend, but their friend to miss, to take her name in vain, to wish she was there, to shop for at Rhinebeck. I have been informed that I will be receiving goodies. All of this blows my mind. Especially because half of this little group, which I will heretofore refer to as the Spindicate, I've not met in person. Yet, they are still there for me, their wicked sense of humour and wealth of knowledge at the ready, no matter what I say (or spin, or knit, for that matter. And I've knit some weird stuff. You know this to be true....) Short story, long, you people rock. And so, I wanted to...um...make you a little appreciation gift, Lee Ann style. Which means I have to (a) learn something that would thrill you to know I've learned in the process, and (b) create something that is tailored to each recipient in the slightly off-beat manner for which I have become a little bit known by the first two recipients.

You see, two members of the Spindicate have received little gifts made from the fruits of my labour. All, or mostly, handspun. (Norma is dying laughing at this, I'm sure, because she thinks she can't spin or ply, so why would she be a member of the Spindicate? Duh, Norma? Bullshit. Have you seen Norma's spinning pictures lately? Verily, I say bullshit, Norma, you can too spin and you can ply, too, lady, so kwitcherbitchin and hop to it...and you were the first Spindicate giftee, so you HAVE TO. Sucks to be you, spinning delectable fuzzy stuff....)

Yep, people, I'm talking bunnies. (You thought the bunnies were yesterday's news, I suspect. Clearly, you were suffering from delusions of safety.) And as of today, Lee Ann's Rule of Spindicate Bunnies has now been set: Everything except the "bling" must be made from handspun yarn. Two-ply if I can hack it, singles if I am feeling agitated but still think everything around me must be spun into something.

Lock up your children. Otherwise, they might get spun up and knitted into something that must be tortured into submission via pins and a stack of potholders covered by a cloth diaper state-of-the-art blocking board:

This is my very first lace.
Knitted from my very first laceweight 2-ply handspun merino.
Blocked to show my very first charting fuck-ups,
also known as a decision to cast off and call it a bunny shawl.

Yes, ladies and gents (speaking of gents, have you seen Ted's laceweight on Franklin's Friday post? I have to meet this Ted guy and find out where he got that roving and that spinning talent. His blue laceweight makes me get a serious case of the shakes). In the tradition of all good shawl-knitters, I have posed "Birdseye Lace MiniBunnyShawl" in two orange "trees" my kid grew from an orange whose seeds she spit out on the floor, later discovered, and surreptitiously planted the greenery of nature.

Wow. Nature really covers up the charting mistakes, eh?.

Okay, I'll be truthful: I cast on and ripped this freaking shawl about ten times. Taking a Barbara Walker no-chart set of instructions (oh, did I mention I just treated myself to the four-book series? whoops, my VISA did it again...) and transforming it into a triangular shawl is proving to be a wee bit hard. So I'm winging it bigtime. And thus the learning experience requirement is fulfilled. Still and all, I feel like the worst knitter on earth, having to rip something TEN times when I've only started with SEVEN stitches on the needle.

Despite, or perhaps as the benificiary of, my struggles with lace, the third member of the Syndicate, who asked for a bunny, gets one made especially for her, lace-pattern tailored to blow a kiss to Alice the Beautiful Blogging Bird:

She gets my second spindle-spun singles (body), wheatsheaf ears,
first laceweight handspun, first real lace (re-knitted over ten times)
and a button from my great grandmother's mid-1800s silk dress.
Bling with history. Perfect for her. Happy Blogiversary, Cassie.

The backside shot not only gives you the "bunnycrack"...
it also shows that if you bail out when the mistakes get too rough,
you can hide them via artful draping.
You think Coco Chanel never made a mistake? Feh.

And then there were four. Fear not, ye Spindicates...I have special accessories in mind for all of you. Just as you have kept me in your minds and done special things for me, well...Payback's a stitch, baby.

October 22, 2005 1:15 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (37)  | Print

Every good bolognese deserves fiber.

I could say I did this because it's Self Portrait Tuesday:

Or I could just admit it: I'm too damned cheap
to buy a niddy noddy. Why bother with a niddy noddy
when an arm will do? Besides, it's Wednesday now....

Heh. I'll tell you why to buy a niddy noddy. First, it's really fun to say. Niddy noddy niddy noddy.... Second, arm-as-niddy-noddy means you have to walk around the house winding wet wool onto yourself (or in this case, wet llama down).

Oh, wait, you wouldn't have to walk around the house winding wet wool around yourself if you freaking remembered to tie off the skein before you soaked it to set the twist...wasn't the untangling process torture enough? Now you want to turn yourself into the human equivalent of a time-tested, extremely useful, and, to be frank, not very expensive tool? What, are you crazy or something?

Don't answer that. Just look deep into the llama down....
Suddenly, you have an inexplicable desire to get a spindle....
buahahahaha....

Before I had this brush with handspun death minor accident which could have been prevented with a little butcher's twine and a little forethought (forethought? is that like fore...nevermind), I had what could have been worse:

It's hard to see, but trust me, when one single broke
and its end disappeared into this Andean bracelet abyss,
it was not a pretty sight to behold. Cooking dinner
wearing an Andean bracelet was worse.

The mnemonic for learning musical notes changes a bit once you cross my threshold, thanks to my inability to Andean-ply without a massive accident. I am, however, in love with llama down, despite its tendency to break while plying. The resulting yarn may look a bit like hemp twine in these pictures, thanks to the colour, but it feels incredibly soft, and it's a much thinner weight than I've been able to get before. Which then led me to completely rethink a special project...but more on that later.

This is a sample of what I'm getting with the llama down.
Hypersoft. And there's a lot of it. It spins up very fast,
even though I'm using a spindle.

Yeah, okay, I have the use of a wheel, but I'm not daring enough to try such an expensive fiber as llama down on it. Yet. For now, the three-sheep periwinkle wool is gracing the wheel.

Some of you might be wondering if I still knit. Duh, why do you think I'm spinning so much? Yarn, I'm makin' yarnnnnn.... So far, in the knitting department, I have evil scarf plans for this llama down. They involve elven runes and a secret love note. And in the meantime, I knit these bootees out of RY Classic Yarns Soft Tweed, a slightly chunky mix of wool, silk, and a few other things:

Shake your bootees, baby. Colourway is Bramble.
Ties are Classic Elite Something or other which is discontinued.
Pattern is a total rework of a Quaker-style bootee, thanks to yarn thickness.

It is an expression of my deep love for a pregnant friend that I used dpns to make these bootees. I have an unreasonable hatred of dpns. Still, the magic loop was not working for me with this pattern, so I had to fade back and punt. It hurt. Small porcupine not entirely swallowed by tweed. But I like the result, and I hope she will, too. Matching sweater to follow. It's getting freaking cold around here.

In other fiber news, I tried to teach Twinkletoes to spin, because at Vermont, she picked up a spindle at the Bosworth booth and fell in love with it. How can you not want to do what Sheila Bosworth is doing? She walks around with her drop spindle, making it look so easy that you can't help yourself...and Twinkletoes is an impressionable seven-year-old. So we did a little community-effort spinning, because Twink is too short to hold the fiber and spin the spindle at the same time. So I was the official fiber-holder, until she had to do the mantra: "Park. Pinch. Draft and pinch. Let go of first pinch. Magic! Spinnnnnnnnn...."

Et voilà. The product of a fiber addict in the making.

Then we knitted it into a mini-mini-neckwarmer together. Four-handed knitting. She'll do fine if she can get over the "Maman, you can finish it faster" phase...because, you know, Barbie's needs are rather immediate. NORma. Okay, I have to take it one further: fucksake. Was I this impatient as a child? Don't answer that, Mum.

Speaking of my mother, she's not having a good time right now...my stepfather, who just had his second heart surgery, fell off his roof while trying to shingle it, and has descended into a vortex of torn aorta, broken arm, and congestive heart failure. While at first, we were all thinking, "buddy, you are SO a candidate for the Darwin award," right now we're just glad he's home and healing. Meanwhile, what did my mother do to deal with the stress?

My mother learned to knit. Of course. She was an excellent seamstress when I was a child, she taught me to crochet, and she is a fabulous illustrator and portrait artist, so, you know, it was only a matter of time before someone got needles into her hands. And it wasn't even me. Thanks, Melissa Weeks. I don't even know you, and I love you. Thanks for helping my mum retain her sanity through this crap.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned a special knitting project. It's a small-scale project, but it's special, and it's going to be replicated a few times, with, uh, special modifications (you know I'm good for it) to suit the recipients. Meanwhile, I get to learn some new techniques. So in my quest to make these gifts exactly right for their recipients, I'm trying to make laceweight yarn. Ready, experts? Tell me, is this sort of close to laceweight singles?

I feel like I'm spinning a mending kit. It's freaking awesome. This is Fleece Artist merino, and I hope the hell they keep making this colourway because I didn't buy enough of it and I deeply want a whole roomful. It spins into thread and I'm just in awe. Fiber preparation necessary, though. I separated the roving bigtime to get to this. Edited to enable the curious and the lustful: the spindle is a Cascade Tiger lightweight. Cascade spindles are stunningly gorgeous, smooth spinners, and I love them.

Holeeeeeee crap. My husband just told me he wants to try the spindle. How'm I doin', Madame SyndiCate?

October 12, 2005 12:47 AM  | Permalink  | Comments (27)  | Print

One of these thighs is not like the other.

Or, a very good argument for a double-treadle wheel.

But before we discuss the thigh-toning merits of jumping into anything with both feet (she said, trying to sit in the computer chair without that very tiny muscle that used to not exist twitching furiously and painfully...) I should warn you: sentimentality ahead. It couldn't be helped. Wooly people rock. And I suppose I should also tell you why I can't use my kitchen table right now:

The "Fairy Tale in Vermont" table. Word is,
he won't marry me until I spin all of this.
Oh, wait. He already did marry me.
Heuuuu...shall I take you out tonight, darling?

Yes, truth is stranger than fiction: I went to the Vermont Sheep and Wool Festival and didn't buy a single skein of yarn.

A few people who heard that I bought no yarn at all would like to know if I'm sick or something. Well, my right inner thigh is quite sore, but other than that, I feel just fine. Here's the breakdown of the proof:

I think the llama down had something to do
with just how fine I feel.
Bosworth spindle, too. Awesome, both of them.

The alpaca didn't hurt either.
And somebody whispered in my ear
that (dude,) I could get it for a buck an ounce.
The bottle is motherwort. Shh.

This stuff is from The Spinners Hill Shop (no website).
It's made from three types of sheep fleece.
What kind? Ummm...the three types Spinners Hill has....

This roving is from I forget who.
But I'm sure I was there at the time.
Twinkletoes chose it. It's colonial (mostly merino).
Good girl, eh? Plus some chocolate from Norma. Yum.

This little guy wants to give me a fleece.
His mother said so. Really.

But before I snarfed all that (no, no, I didn't steal the baby from its mama), I sat down to try Cate's HEN wheel. I wish I had a picture of it, but if you go to her site, you can find a shot of this wonderful wheel, I'm sure. I'm so happy it was the first wheel I ever got to try—very special, and I had no trouble at all using it. It felt like I'd done this before in some past life, except for I don't believe in past lives, so I decided it happened that way just to annoy the hell out of Norma. Juno stood by, just gloating. She did a lot of that...which is why I love her so much. She gloats beautifully, and does things like make sure I'm hip to a good price per ounce. Dude.

My knitting group, the Montreal Knits gang, was there in full force on a weekend field trip, and they surrounded me while I was in the middle of my first roving purchase. The guy selling me the stuff started stuttering a bit, and I looked around to see what was the problem...I was surrounded by women laughing at me, and it took me a full minute to pull myself out of roving haze to realise they were my knitting group.

Of course, this meant that it was perfectly okay that they were catching me in the act of spending a shitload of money on wool. I had to explain to the guy that I actually did know them, despite the completely confused look on my face. It was cool to see everyone there fondling fiber, even though I didn't manage to come find them at lunchtime. (I blame my kid, who wants an angora rabbit, and my serious addiction to a llama or ten....) These lucky ladies got to stay an extra day, and I'm trying not to be jealous, although if I had stayed an extra day, in addition to losing the kitchen table, I might, say, lose a seven-year-old....

But I was in this for some serious all-in-one-day shopping and spinning action, because I had to be back home by suppertime, and we ain't got roving in Montréal. And you may have guessed from the headlong dive into spinning on an antique wheel, my roving guides for the day were Cate, Norma, and Juno (and Norma's wonderful friend, Michele, who was going to buy a little black lambie that we all wanted badly, but some of us have partners and landlords with aversion to sheep shit and others were not sure how we could avoid the neighbors wondering where the bleating was coming from). If you want great people pictures, visit their blogs. Mine didn't come out so well, and I promised not to embarrass anyone with, say, a picture of us drinking motherwort or somebody trying to convince Mr. Hitchhiker Wheel Guy to build her the Dream Wheel Of All Time, which I'll let her tell you about.

These women are simply amazing, and what you read on their blogs is what you get. "A joy" doesn't begin to cover the experience of meeting them. It was so strange to feel like I had known each of them all my life, except that their faces were not as familiar as their personalities. Two of them drove a long, long way to spend time with me and the sheepies, and one played host and all-around wonderful enabler/organiser of this fuzz-fest. And if I keep talking about the experience, I'll get all weepy and felt the roving. And if I do that, I can't show you my new alternative to Pilates:

Meet Cate's Hitchhiker. Temporarily mine.
To go to a deserving new spinner of Cate's choice
as soon as I can afford my double-treadle.

This is my first spinning on this wheel.
The three-fleece periwinklish stuff.
Long draw, twitchy inner thigh, and pure bliss.

This wheel went to Laurie at Etherknitter before it went to me, and she put a talisman on it for me before she sent it my way. When I give it to the next spinner, I'll make a talisman or mark of some kind as well. Cate has asked that each spinner who tries it do the same. Coolest idea I've ever heard, and the work of a kind and generous soul who knows how to lobby with the best of them.

Laurie placed two gold beads in her talisman:
one for my heart and one for Cate's.

I personally think there ought to be an enormous gold bead for Laurie's heart in there.

Thus endeth the Tale of Twitchy Booty. (Take that, googlemeisters.) Time to read another story...the story of Teaching Seven-Year-Old to Knit. If I can find her, that is....

October 3, 2005 4:59 PM  | Permalink  | Comments (25)  | Print