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