Tricotomania and more

Since at least one person is still reading here…

Today I tried laying out the whole shebang. (Uploaded more photos before doing that, btw, if you want to recheck that Flickr link.)

All squished together it looked too narrow. I was seriously contemplating making another 12 squares so it could be 7 X 12.

But it was also looking busy.

Maybe I need to work on my ideas about the busy aesthetic. Maybe that’s what is going on with the matching florals with florals thing in the first place. But maybe I don’t need to go there right now.

So I pulled things apart into blocks of 4 9-patch squares. (See how the little squares of fabric become “patches”, the 9-patch groupings become “squares” and groups of squares become “blocks”? Helps keep it straight in my head anyway.)

The idea would be that I’ll choose a fabric for the backing and add strips of that fabric to the front. As a border around the edge (which I would have done anyway), and between the blocks.

I think having the white background simulate the strips is a bit weird. We’re more likely to go with a lilac colour. Possibly a print, to keep with my theme of using prints together, but a small one that reads more as a solid from a distance and doesn’t detract from all the other stuff. Also, it won’t be something that is in any of the blocks/squares/patches.

I’m trying to at least decide on what’s in each block. Working on making sure that one fabric doesn’t show up twice in the same block (in more than one square).

Then I might play with the arrangement of the blocks. Not sure.

Sorry I’ve been neglecting this blog. I am alive. All is well.

This week, I’ve been working on a patchwork project.

It all started when I was unpacking the fabric and putting it on shelves. I know, we moved last May but some things are still in boxes.

Anyway, after visiting Andrea and Ron I had been thinking about quilting again. And then I’d been in a local quilt shop and almost bought some fabric. So when I was unpacking fabric, I started thinking.

And I decided to work on some issues I have around creativity.

• I am often scared to put prints together. (so use a lot of solids and semi-solids)
• I don’t use florals much but seem to have a lot in stash (mostly leftovers from things Mom made for F.)
• I get stuck in the planning of a quilt and never get around to actually making one.

So I decided to just experiment. To make 9-patch squares and then figure out what to do with them later.

And to focus on florals and stretching myself in terms of what I put together.

The progress up to Thursday is on Flickr.

Today I did a LOT more but my camera battery died and then I realized that the spares hadn’t actually been charging. I’m fixing that but won’t have more photos until tomorrow or Monday.

But, I think I almost have enough for a single quilt, so pretty soon, there will be photos of actually thinking about how they all fit together.

It seems that sometimes I need to be bullied to do things. Especially on line things.

I started blogging when MamaCate bullied me into it (and set me up a guest blog on her account).

And now I’ve joined Ravelry. Blame M-H.

These two are some of the nicest bullies on the planet.

And my Ravelry bio is competing for most crap bio ever.

I started searching for people I know and gave up when there were 163 Stephs and the one I wanted wasn’t on the first 2 pages.

I’m JoVE (still can’t believe that wasn’t taken. Thanks for saving it for me folks.) so if you are my friend from some other online thing, like this blog, go ahead and friend me and maybe I’ll even start hanging out over there.

Now, I’m off to have a beer and maybe talk to my pigs.

Remember this

Well, it now looks like this

240 yards of sock weight yarn. Blue Faced Leicester. Dyed with grape and cherry drink mix. Spindle spun and plied. It’s a 2 ply.

I also spun up some fibre I got from Blonde Chicken Boutique. It is mostly wool with a bit of angelina (for sparkle) and banana fibre (for frustation) thrown in.

Tara had warned me it wouldn’t want to spin fine. But I wanted it fine enough that a plied yarn looked good.

It took a while to get the rhythm but I am happy with the result, a chunky 2-ply yarn.

I can’t remember how much is there but I think a hat or scarf for Freya will be possible. Mitts are pointless out of anything that thick. Ironically, perhaps, you need thinner yarn to make good mitts. Worsted or DK weight knit at a firm guage is best.

I took these a week or so ago but delayed getting them off the camera because of Freya’s backlog of iCarly-like movies on there.

So both of these projects have advanced considerably since the photos were taken.

So this is the yarn for the vest. With a bit of the swatch. I tried to photograph this on the sofa but it is kind of camouflaged there. I now have both back and front done. Need to block (at least steam block), sew side seams and then make neck and armbands.

This is the BFL that I dyed with drink mix a while ago (grape & cherry). All the singles are now spun up. I put a lot of twist in so I get a pretty tightly spun plied yarn when I’m done. Not sure there is much there (though maybe toddler socks?) Need to decide on 2 or 3 ply. Feeling like quantity is inadequate for sampling but maybe that is what I need to do.

Well, spring seems to be coming rather early this year. Of course there was much less snow to get rid of than last year. But it still seems really early.

I absolutely loved Sarah’s March needs… posts, especially the first one.  Although things are so bad here in Ottawa, I really liked this bit in particular:

March isn’t the beginning of spring.  It’s the end of winter, but  a long, drawn-out end that needs a stern editor to take it in hand.  All these “extreme windchill warning” plot devices are childish and should be deleted.

My snowdrops are out. This is not a sign of spring. They have the word “snow” in their name for a reason. But they are a sign that spring will be here soon. I’ll let you know when the crocuses are out. That’ll seal it.

I was going to post some photos of yarn and stuff that I took but when I went to download them from the camera it said it was importing 99 photos. I decided Tigger has to download all of that to here computer and then let me have the half dozen that are mine.

She’s been watching iCarly on YTV and on the internet. It is kind of cute. Especially if you are almost 12. And it has inspired her to make little movies. Which is why the camera has so much of her stuff on it. Grrrr. We’ll have to have a word about taking stuff off the camera regularly.

Of course the photos I took the other day are now out of date. I had intended to post a “my yarn is here” post with my lovely camo yarn (only camo on my aubergine coloured sofa but wonderful. And now I’ve got the back of the vest finished and have cast on the front and knit a few rows.

I’m also in the middle of Marge Piercy’s The Third Child which is excellent. Romance. Political intrigue. Coming of age. Women’s identity. If you don’t like Piercy you won’t like it but I do like her (though I have never read Woman on the Edge of Time).

Okay, back to whatever useful stuff I need to do.

What with the lack of knitting yarn, I decided to pull out another project.

Several years ago I bought some Blue Faced Leicester fleece. Not a lot. But enough to give it a good try. Some white. Some brown.

Sometime before Christmas I decided to dye what is left of the white stuff (which I weighed and figured might be enough for socks). Drink  mix. Grape & Cherry. Then stripped and wound into little partly predrafted thingys.

I started spindle spinning it, mostly because I had spindle spun a hank of something lovely and hand-dyed that I got at Rhinebeck and I really enjoyed the process.

So, yesterday I dug out that bag and did some more. When I started, I wound two of spindles-full into centre pull balls for later plying before seeing an old receipt lying around and remembering something Ted had posted (a long time ago) about putting a strip of paper round the spindle before spinning so you could just pull the singles off and ply later. So I’d done that. The receipt is in the bag with the fleece and singles.  So I’m still doing that.

I’m making some progress. Though I wish I had an audio book or a DVD I wanted to watch. Somehow we get inundated with stuff Tigger has ordered and there are no girly movies for me to watch when I need them. Otherwise I love Zip.

The dye job is interesting. Seems to be more pink than I’d like but then there are also some lovely purples and burgundies. I’m hoping that when it is all spun up and plied, the pinks will be blended in more and the overall effect will be more purple-y.

I’m trying to spin it fine with lots of twist. Partly so it’ll wear well for socks. And partly because I’m still getting the hang of plying and I think part of the problem is that I don’t have enough twist in the singles so plying takes too much of it out. We’ll see. I’m thinking a 3 ply. But I might do a little sampling and see how thick the finished yarn would come out. I want socks, I think.

I’m not experienced enough to be able to spin exactly what I want, though, so I’m keeping an open mind.

All this work work is taking over my days. I’m feeling unbalanced. And now that the website has launched, I should be able to get in a rhythm of doing a few hours a day to keep things going and then do other things.

But the only thing on the needles is a pair of socks for my dad. They are moving right along, not least due to a long and boring meeting earlier this week

And I wear that vest I knit a lot. I had even considered joining in on Vest-u-ary but didn’t get my act together.

So the other day I decided to look around in the Knitty archive and see if anything grabbed me

This vest looks like a good option. But then I needed DK weight yarn. I figure it might look good in a handpaint or semi-solid and I’ve wanted to try some Briar Rose yarn for a while… So I ordered a skein of Glory Days, described as “dark cranberry” colours. With all the difficulties of judging colour on a computer monitor, I decided that there was no interpretation of “dark cranberry” that i wouldn’t like. And it is BFL! One of my favourite fibres.

It’s in the mail. Which means I can’t knit with it yet.

I also found something that would look really cute on Tigger. She can wear a women’s extra small now so that opens up a lot of interesting possibilities. We like  Yosemite. And I think Elann has some cotton/hemp that would work in colours she loves. (She ooh’d at the orange but then saw that deep purple, so I think it might be purple.)

Haven’t ordered it yet. So can’t knit with it. (There seems to be a pattern here.) But should probably get on that. It does look like an interesting knit. And a cute top for spring, fall, and cooler summer days. (Mat has a hemp t-shirt and I know he finds it warmer than cotton.)

Maybe now that she can wear women’s sizes, I should go through the old Interweave Knits mags that are lying around. I’m pretty sure there are some cute summer camisoles in there…

You know that project that I started on or around December 30th? Well, I have a back and a front and about 3″ of both sleeves. Sorry, I forgot to take photos while it was still daylight. Maybe I’ll add some tomorrow. This project goes quickly. There is something about a relatively simple repeat that just encourages you to knit that next row, and the next one, and …

I’m thinking about what’s next. There is a sweater in the time-out basket that I’ve been avoiding. (backstory here, and here, and here)  Looks like I started it 2 years ago. I had it finished but the sleeves were too long. After a while, I tried it on and the body wasn’t quite right either. I took back a bit at the shoulders, sewed them back on, and picked up around one armhole to knit the sleeve downwards. And then it has been so long that I don’t know what I was doing and the whole thing seems daunting and like it isn’t going to be the sweater I envisioned. Not only that but one skein was redder than the others and I decided to use it, alternating with a bluer skein, around  the waist area. And then it looked like I wasn’t going to need all the yarn I have so I could have just skipped it.

So as I knit this lovely denim-y blue sweater, I get in a kind of calm space. And I think “Why not rip that other one out and start again.” It’s been quite a while. It would be more like buying new yarn and starting a new project then fixing something gone wrong. And I could start from the beginning. The yarn is great. Koigu bouclé. But I think I overthought the design the last time. (It is interesting that I ordered the pattern for this blue sweater when I was planning what to do with that Koigu stuff.)

So my plan is to rip it out, reskein the yarn, wash it and let it dry to get the kinks out. Then knit a sweater bottom up using the Shapely Tank pattern to start because it fits sooooo well. I see in those old posts that this was also my original plan which got sidetracked somehow. When I get to the armholes I’m going to pause and start the sleeves and knit them to there, join it all and knit the top raglan style. Must decide on a neckline but I have a lot of knitting to do before that becomes crucial.

In any case, ripping and reskeining the yarn seems to be the right first move. Gets a half-finished not very satisfying sweater out of the basket and puts very nice yarn back in stash where I might be inspired to do something with it.

I’m also very tempted by Sarah’s Vest-uary.  The vest I knitted recently is getting a lot of wear. I’m wondering about doing something with some Silk Road Aran Tweed that I have in the stash (some of which I used for a modified Otis that was too short-waisted and now lives with J.).

I’m also thinking that though my red Manos sweater has got a lot of wear, I’m not wearing it much this year. In searching the links for the first part of this post, I notice that I was wearing it so much I was starting to get sick of it back in 2006, so maybe I have worn it enough. I’m thinking that ripping it out and reknitting something else might really get me my money’s worth from that yarn. It looks great with both pairs of cords (which I seem to live in in the winter). Maybe a vest in that would be a good option.

Much to ponder as I knit the sleeves of my denim-y blue thing. And I really should cast on some socks for my dad, whose birthday is at the end of February. My LYS seems to have stopped stocking Regia Silk (which he loves) but they have JaWool Silk instead. So I got a brown one. It’ll be stripey but subtle, I think.

I’m on a roll. I think the knitting funk is over.

So, you may recall that the vest project began when I bought a Fleece Artist Celtic Vest kit at the LYS only to discover that it only had enough wool for a small. After some delusional knitting, I reskeined the yarn and it sat in the stash for a bit. Then I went to Rhinebeck and bought the Manos de Uraguay with a vague plan (enough for a vest).

Once I finished the Manos vest, I cast on the Celtic Vest and knit the small. Tigger is almost a women’s small these days anyway. I wasn’t sure if it would suit her but I have at least one friend who wears a women’s small so I figured there was a back-up plan. Well, it is DONE. And it looks GREAT on Tigger.

  We don’t have a shawl pin for a closure but that kilt pin works pretty well (and we don’t have a kilt, either).

I also did that last fiddly bit of Jaali. I though that there wasn’t enough neckband to go around the back so I knit a bit more and then there way and I hate sewing that kind of thing on but …

  I love it. Very soft and comfy. Now I just need to make that pair of pants because this isn’t really the time of year for those chinos.

And some more yarn came from Elann the other day (in denim blue). I’ve already started another sweater for me (the Keyhole Sweater, if you hit the search contents button).

Maybe I should cast on some socks for my purse, as well.