Too Much Wool

feels like spring cleaning

I came home Sunday night to my house being just the way I left it. The usual somewhat cluttered piles in every corner.

I'm frustrated. I have way too much crap.

With the weather acting like spring, I found some energy to start going through some of my quilting stuff. Mostly the fabrics. I've wanted to downsize in that department for a while, but I wasn't really sure how to do it. People have suggested eBay, but I just plain hate eBay and really would rather not do it that way.

So for now, I've made an album on the sidebar. I'm not sure if anyone is going to be interested, but for now I have some groupings of fabrics listed for sale. I'd like to sell them in batches, exactly as photographed, rather than splitting them up. I think the prices are way more than reasonable (please note: prices don't include shipping, they're big piles of fabric and I'm going to have to weigh them and figure out the shipping costs afterwards).

If you're interested, please take a look at the photo album HERE, and if you'd like something please email me at toomuchwool(at)verizon(dot)net.

SOCK REPORT

About the progress on the Trekking socks. I was really pleased. Totally contrary to what I had expected, and certainly had not planned, the socks were turning out to match quite nicely.

I'd heard stories about the impossibility of matching up the stripes on the gradually fading Trekking patterned yarns, and had decided I wasn't going to bother trying at all. As luck would have it, they wound up matching fairly closely with absolutely no planning on my part. The bright yellow stripe on the right sock is not repeated anywhere that I can find in the entire 100g ball of yarn. But the stripes are quite similar in sequence and color, and I was thinking how lucky I was.

Of course, being proud of myself always has a way of biting me in the ass. As I got farther into the ball, I saw that there was a knot lurking. This is the first 100g ball of sock yarn I've knit with that had even a single knot - does this qualify me as lucky?

So, I'm going to have to weave in ends and deal with the disruption of whatever pattern was going on before. As I'm almost up to the second sock's heel, I figure I'll just let whatever happens happen. The legs match; that's more than I planned for. But the irony of that little knot is still irking me.

whole lotta spinning

Once again, there's been spinning. Lots of it.

This is the Crosspatch Creations handspun, all plyed and washed and done. 370 yards of 2-ply from a 4 oz bag of roving. I love it. Soft, springy, with lovely shine from the silk content. I'm not sure what its going to be but its still talking to me, even after I finished spinning it. I realized after uploading this picture that I can clearly see a few spots that are underspun. This roving was a challenge to me, and in spite of some imperfections, I really learned a lot in the spinning of it and am in love with the yarn. However, its not flawless.

For a change of pace, I switched to some more rustic wool. I had bought a whole bunch of roving from Tongue River Farm a few months ago at Rhinebeck, and I started spinning some of it.

This particular blend is Icelandic wool, alpaca, and merino. I had tried spindle spinning some of it to sample, and wasn't too happy. However, the minute I sat down with it at the wheel, I fell in love with it. I had 8 oz of this blend, and have spun and plied about 5 oz. Does anyone else find a significant difference in their experience between spindle and wheel? I've found that things that are slightly trickier to draft are easier for me to spin on the wheel than on the spindle.

I have to admit that I'm trying to knock off the 8 oz of Icelandic blend quickly, because I have something extremely tempting waiting on the sidelines.

These are two different custom blended rovings from The Woolen Rabbit - Kim is spoiling me. The ball on the left is Polwarth and angora, the one on the right is BFL, alpaca and angora. I'm trying to control myself and finish what I've started before I treat myself to spinning these up.

And there was also some knitting. Last week I started a Trekking sock, which was mostly relegated to subway knitting. But over the weekend I had commuter train knitting time, and got a whole chunk of knitting done.

One sock finished, the second one about 2.5" in. I love my first pair of Trekking socks - actually, so does my daughter, she stole them just the other day when I pulled them out for reference for this pair. I'm really looking forward to having another pair in the sock drawer.

I've been accumulating huge piles of handspun. I was a little horrified and/or awed by it the other day when I was moving things around. Finishing the handspun shawl last week and then knitting with commercial yarn made me miss knitting with my handspun. With everything I've got spun up now, I'm can look forward to knitting with more of it soon. If I can stop spinning long enough to match handspun yarns with knitting projects.

Old Shale in the family

Well, having finished my Old Shale shawl, I guess its time to talk about some other Old Shales in my life.

I blogged recently, after finishing the skull hat, about a bright orange scarf that my grandmother had made for me at least 20 years ago. It was a red/red/orange photo, and I don't think any detail came out, so I took another picture.

I haven't tested the fiber - the scarf may be acrylic or it may be wool, I'm really not sure. Probably wool - my grandmother actually hates acrylic and rarely knitted with it. I had a funny conversation with her recently where she went off on fun fur. My grandmother at 87 is still quite opinionated and hates, among other things, fake fur yarn. Although her best rants are reserved for the current government administration (gotta love her), the fun fur rant was pretty amusing.

So, lately I've been spending one afternoon a week with her. When the weather is nice, we go out, walk, shop for groceries, etc. When the weather is bad we just hang out and rant about various things.

And sometimes we try to knit.

My grandmother taught me to knit when I was three or four. My mother and I lived with my grandparents until I was three years old, and even after that, until my grandfather died when I was 8, I spent at least a couple of nights a week with my grandparents.

My grandmother always knit. Its what I remember her doing. I have distinct memories of holding skeins of yarn while she wound them into balls. A childhood activity that resulted in my buying a ballwinder and swift about two weeks after I started knitting again.

When I was younger, I remember that every year at Christmas, there was A Sweater. It was a big deal in my family. My grandmother basically knit one sweater a year to give away, and whoever got it was considered very lucky. I do remember a bit of jealousy over it. Sometimes there were hats and scarves and smaller knits too - she knit a lot on the train, although she never knit socks and continues to be impressed by my knitting them.

I have a few sweaters that my grandmother made. Two of them are mine - one that she made for herself in the 50s or 60s and passed down to me, and the other made for me when I was about 16. I also have a sweater that she made for Jon a little while after we got married - about 17 years ago. The joke in the family is that no divorce was allowed after that - getting a sweater from my grandmother essentially made him a non-divorceable member of the family, for life.

Here's the white cardigan that my grandma passed down to me, as well as the moss stitch sweater my grandmother made for Jon. (note that this was a Big Deal - she rarely made men's sweaters and Jon is 6'2" - way taller than any of the men in my short Italian family).

In the past few years my grandmother's knitting has slowed down to a trickle. Sciatica, osteoporosis, and other things have made knitting far less a part of her life than I ever remember it being. She has been working on an afghan for a while. The pattern? Old Shale, of course. A variation on the version of the pattern that she used for the scarf, above.

The problem is that she can't really follow or remember the pattern anymore. She lost the pattern sheet she had started it from, and although we found an old photocopied page from a Barbara Walker book with an Old Shale pattern on it, it was a different stitch count than the one she was using for the afghan. A few weeks ago I sat down and worked out what she had done for the afghan, and wrote it all down for her. The next week, I had to do it again. She couldn't remember how to do a SSK (which the entire 3.5' already knit on the afghan had used). I suggested she just K2tog instead - six of one half a dozen of the other, right?

The following week we ripped and started again - she had made a bunch of mistakes. A few days later I got a call, asking me if a yarnover went from front to back or back to front. And yesterday, I ripped back 6 rows on the same afghan, put in stitch markers to indicate the pattern repeats, and knit about four rows on it for her. Leaving her with the pattern written out and hopes that she could keep it going from there.

I'd say that this makes me sad, but in some ways it doesn't. She doesn't mind at all - says she knows its two steps forward and three steps back, but she's got nothing else to do with her time. Her words, not mine. However, given that she's the person who taught me to knit in the first place - it does have a tinge of sadness to it.

blocked for the blog

My, my. What have we got blocking here?

Truth be told this shawl should have been done in ten days. It wasn't, but it could have been. The pattern was easy and well written - a chart would have been nice, though - and the handspun was absolutely divine to work with. Ahem. (I guess I'm tooting my own horn here, sorry. That wasn't my intention.)

I was worried that I had pulled off another one of my looks-like-a-shawl-but-its-really-a-scarf tricks (this post of Julia's has the only extant photo of me wearing that Icelandic shawl). As always, the blocking surprised me a bit and it wound up far larger than it had looked on the needles. Pinned out, it was 58" across the top (that's almost my wingspan) and 30" from the center back to the point.

The pattern was from the Jan/Feb 2005 issue of Piecework. Designed by Evelyn Clark of Fiber Trends pattern fame. The pattern called for Misti Alpaca laceweight and 4mm/6US needles. I used my handspun and 4.5mm/7US needles. It took less than 500 yards, although I'm not sure how much less. My shawl did come out larger than the sample, and to be honest, I like the look of it better. Because of the angora content and the thicker than laceweight yarn, my shawl has a more solid look to it than the lace version.

Just in case anyone was worrying, I haven't switched sides - the shawl isn't for me. I haven't been converted to the blue lovers team. Its actually for ... well, I don't know yet. I had a few thoughts while working on it, but I'm still not sure who it will go to.

And for the modeled shots

And my personal favorite, with wings spread

You know you're spinning too much when....

• you type 'whorlwind' instead of whirlwind when emailing a friend
• you leave the house and realize there's fiber sticking to your black wool skirt - and think, "Oh, good. I brought some with me."
• you use finishing a project with handspun as an excuse to order some custom blended roving
• you find stray pine needles from your Christmas tree and your first thought is "VM"
• you collect pictures of the angora rabbits who are donating their fiber to your cause
• you start calculating the time to the next fiber festival and wondering if your fiber supply is going to last until you can replenish it
• you begin to register 'extra' money and monetary gifts as part of the fund for a new spinning wheel
• you find yourself in tears because you missed a gathering of spinning friends
• you try to talk a local yarn shop out of carrying fiber, then buy one of the first spindles they offer for sale
• an email from a new spinner saying that "I know a wheel is in my future" makes you cackle with glee for over an hour
• you start planning to throw yourself a birthday party (for the first time ever) as an excuse to bring other spinners to your house
• you keep little bits of handspun in your purse so you won't go into withdrawal

some progress

The Old Shale shawl, handspun bunny/silk/merino from The Woolen Rabbit. As yet, unblocked. The weather was damp, cold and rainy all day, and to my way of thinking, there's no point in blocking a shawl if its not going to dry. Hopefully the weather will cooperate later in the week.

And another start to the Trekking sock(s). This time, I cast on with 2.5mm needles, and then switched to 2.25mm about 2.5" into the leg. (This is something I've done before, but it took JoVE's reminder in the comments to spur me to action.) So far, so good. I went on and on yesterday about the sock fairy/knitting goddess smiting me for trying to start another sock while I have a couple (or so) pairs on the needles. In the end, I decided that the cure for my sock rut was more in finishing something (the shawl) than a problem with sock-startitis.

There was also the small issue of my stubbornness. I mean, I couldn't let a stockinette sock get the better of me, could I?

The yarn is Trekking XXL color #105. I realized that I haven't knit many stockinette stitch socks in the last year or so. I think that was part of the problem. I was trying to compensate for size and fit without a lot of recent experience to go on. Although my preference is for patterned or lace socks, sometimes you just need something simple to knit on the subway.

I forgot to mention yesterday that I finally did spin in public, although I can't say it was a life-shattering experience. On Friday I went with a friend to The American Antiques Show, which is something we do together almost every year. This is a top notch folk art antiques exhibition, and I go mostly for the textiles. Antique samplers, hooked rugs, quilts, Navajo weaving and Native American beadwork. It's fun but a little like being stuck on an alternate planet (my favorite piece of furniture? a painted chest - $135,000). However, we sat down in the concession area and relaxed for a while, and during that time I pulled out my spindle and spun for about ten minutes.

No comments from anyone (not in that crowd - even if they did notice, no one would say anything), but there I was, spinning in public. The idea of subway spinning still seems impractical  - I couldn't even manage to wield my sock needles in the amount of room I had yesterday - but it seems like I have made a start.

over adversity

I've totally lost my sock powers, if they ever existed. Maybe I used them all up when I was doing my holiday knitting? Whatever the reason, I spent Thursday through Saturday trying to work on two different pairs of socks, and wound up ripping out everything I'd knit.

Now, both were newly cast on projects. Maybe that was the problem. One was a pair of plain stockinette socks in Trekking XXL. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, I was too smart for my own good and tried to cast on a little bigger (72 sts) so I could have a longer sock than my last pair of Trekking socks, and it turned out too big. R.I.P.

Then I tried to start a pair of very short ankle socks out of some black Koigu I bought last week. I figured I'd stick with my tried-and-true, oft knit feather and fan pattern, as I've knit that out of Koigu many times and it seemed foolproof.

Well not for this fool, anyway. I got down to turning the heel, tried it on, and the ankle was way too big. Not too much time had been invested in it (although I must admit, I had a fantasy of showing a finished sock today in my post), so once again - R.I.P.

Things were getting pretty bad. I finally picked up the Old Shale shawl I'd put down two weeks ago, out of desperation. It was getting to the point where I wasn't sure I could even knit anymore. Socks being the "easy" option, and a total failure, I was getting near the end of my rope.

Thankfully, I was also close enough to the end of the shawl to get the last 30 or so rows knit, with some serious knitting time put in on Sunday.

I started the crochet bind off as well, but I'm only about three repeats into it. I got sidetracked by a bunch of TV watching and so I did some spinning as well. Crochet not being my favorite thing, it was pretty easy for me to lose my concentration.

I had some roving, from Crosspatch Creations that was a gift from Jan months ago. The colors in it were lovely, and it was a very tempting blend of Merino X Romney and Corriedale X wool, angora, tussah silk and silk noil. When I first attempted spinning it, several weeks ago, I got frustrated quickly by the silk noil (think lumps, but in pretty colors). I put it down and worked on other things for a while.

I finally decided a few days ago to sit down and really concentrate on this beautiful roving. It was incredibly soft, a layered batt with different fibers, colors, and textures in it. After some time learning how it wanted to be spun, I felt I had finally gotten the hang of it, and finished up spinning and plyed the first two bobbins late last night.

Let's put it this way - I think it talked and I listened. Either that or it was a war, and I won. Either way, I'm thrilled with the resulting yarn.

ahh... icelandic

Due to an annoying Typepad (at least I think it was them and not AOL) glitch yesterday, none of my comments were emailed to me until yesterday evening, which made it very hard to respond to anyone. I'm going to try to catch up, but if I don't, I apologize ahead of time.

I had the pleasure of having tea with my friend Laura yesterday. If there are pictures, she's got them. I've said this before, but the opportunity to see people in my own city - even or especially people I've met before in other places - is something I really enjoy. Ridiculously, they become more real here. Not that New Hampshire isn't real, but people take on a different quality when bathed in the light of NYC. Or something. Maybe I'm just odd. Or provincial. Or .... something.

Otherwise, not much going on. Juno said something yesterday about being exhausted by introspection. Kind of like that here too, and somewhat being consumed with various real-life nightmares that all (thankfully) seem to have evaporated in the light of day.

We do, however, have the Icelandic wool.

I'm Alice and I'm proud of the wool.

Three hundred yards of 2 ply, thel-only Icelandic wool. Spun under stress, yet fairly pleasing in the end result.

spinning in the Times, not so much about NY

The New York Times published an article today on spinning. Wonders never cease.