Day 2: Doubt Sets In

Do I really have enough yarn?

Is a size 42 big enough?

Why am I casting on for an Aran sweater when an unfinished Celtic Dreams lies moldering away not three feet from me?

Answer: Cast on, my child. In fact, cast on for socks.

More is Better, Right?

Since casting on for an ethereal scarf made me happy, I thought I'd take more of that medicine.

I decided I'd cast on for another pattern from A Fine Fleece.

I consulted the Table of SABLE. The first yarn I came to that was a suitable weight and yardage for a sweater was four enormous (1560 yards total!) skeins of off-white Chuckanut Bay wool, acquired in December of 2006 at my LYS, Emily's Needlework.

I went looking for it in the stash. My stash is not particularly organized, so I was surprised to find it in the first bin I opened, right there on top. Already wound into balls, interestingly.

I opened A Fine Fleece and went looking for a pattern that takes 1560 yards of aran-weight (18 stitches to four inches) yarn. Now, the pattern I like best, of all the cabled sweater patterns in this book, is Halcyon.

Halcyon calls for 1,550 yards of 18-stitches-to-4-inches yarn, in my size. And I have short arms and a short torso, so I'm willing to take the risk that I'll need more than the pattern calls for.

It's fate, I tell you. Fate indeed.

Better Now

Apparently, I needed some fun. To do what I wanted to do (heh. I just typed "needed to do,' even as I thought 'wanted to do.' Talk about your Freudian slips!).

So late last night - I was already snuggled into bed - I cast on for something new. Yes, there are maybe 15 knitting projects (maybe more) lying around in various states of disrepair; yes, there are piles of roving, top and fleeces waiting to be spun; yes, the rigid heddle is not yet warped, I've only done one more repeat on the 8-harness runner, and that shawl still needs its fringe twisted and beaded, but screw it.

I cast on.

I cannot do this yarn justice with my lousy photography skills, and the breeziness today is not helping to bring natural light to bear on this exceptional yarn. I'm sorry.

This is kid mohair, with a touch of nylon, dyed by the Kangaroo Dyer, Gail Callahan. This is ethereal mist made incarnate, the fragility of life held in one's hands, hope become yarn. Good stuff, in other words. I bought this at Metaphor Yarns in Shelburne Falls a month or so ago. I cast on for the Road Not Taken scarf from Lisa Lloyd's new book, A Fine Fleece. It's a simple pattern, essentially just yarnovers leading right, then left, but simplicity becomes this yarn.

Somehow, it is doing my soul good to start something new. Knitting, like gardening or spinning or weaving or raising kids, or life itself, I suppose, is the triumph of hope over experience, as somebody notable once said. I cast on, with beautiful yarn colored by someone worth supporting, bought from a new yarn store worth supporting, for a pattern offered by someone worth supporting, and I'm hoping for joy and beauty. I might just find it.

Despite All This

Despite the fact it's a beautiful warm weekend...

Despite the fact I bought the new book A Fine Fleece this week, and it has brought back my enthusiam for casting on something new... I don't know what yet, but there are a few piles on my bed, dug out of the stash, which is a good thing. Go buy the book, it's worth the $30.

Despite seeing Pat's lambs last night...

I'm cranky. Out of sorts. Questioning my role in the universe. Not Happy. The fact I just jammed something sharp under my left thumbnail whilst cleaning around the microwave didn't help. Nor does the fact that I really, really need to cut my hair - it's down to my shoulder blades and doesn't look good - and I hate getting my hair cut, it makes me feel as though I'm incapable of keeping up with the female standards in this society, which is true, but also beside the point. Work is still a slog of unbearably boring proportions. I need more people time - anybody wanna get together and knit? Spin? (assuming my frigging thumb heals) (oh! I forgot! I've applied to go to SOAR, I really hope I get in, I need a fiberish vacation) Weave?

Anybody?

I'm really tired of being this out of sorts constantly.

In Progress...

I'm in the middle of everything. I still haven't dealt with the fringe on the overshot shawl.

I haven't quite finished warping the rigid heddle loom for the first of two edging strips for the leftover-knitting-yarn blanket.

I've started on the fancy twill runner on the 8-harness table loom. I'm not so sure I'll be thrilled with this when it's done, as the diamonds and v-shapes in the yellow stripes are not at all distinct, so all you'll see will be those blue shapes down the runner, with semi-random mishmash (as called for in the pattern) separating them. I put on enough warp for two runners, so maybe I'll try a different weft color for the second runner. This is a pattern from Handwoven, by the way; all I've changed is the colors - another in a series of my following published patterns till I think I know enough to design on my own.

My tennis elbow has let up enough that I can return to spinning up the fleece's worth of brown wool I started in January. I've completed two big skeins' worth, plus another half skein, but I'm afraid I've been over-plying. I may need to run these back through the wheel to take out some of the excessive twist.

I still have plenty of this fleece yet to go. I'm thinking of using the yarn as weft in a big woven blanket - we'll see.

Lastly, I do still knit, you know. This is a twin to the afghan I knit for a wedding present last summer. This one is for my parents. I had planned on giving the first one to my parents, but then I met their cat, Binky the Vicious, who quite clearly would have clawed this loosely spun merino into shreds in short order. Alas, Binky met an untimely end, and luckily, WEBS still had more of the yarn, so now I'm knitting a second one.

That's all the excitement around here for now.

What is Wrong with Me?

So, I live an hour from WEBS, I'm there all the time (at least once a month) - what is wrong with me that I have not the slightest interest in buying any of the lovely stuff they have on sale right now? Normally, I'd be making lists of what patterns take how much yarn and dreaming up new patterns to buy yarn for, and they even have some weaving yarns on sale - you'd think since I just started weaving, I'd want to buy lots of coned yarn, but no. I'm not interested. There are no lists and charts and graphs scattered about. Do I need drugs?

Or is it that I already have waaay too much yarn already? And thank the gourds nobody's pregnant this year to knit for (5 or 6 babies last year, I've lost track). Or is it just that it's been a long hard winter and I've had too much work to do and my elbow hurts from spinning and when I knit (yes, I still knit), my fingertips start tingling, and all three of my looms have something going on, and I'm just sated? Is this what contentment is?

It sure doesn't feel like contentment.

Here's a pic of what's being threaded on the 8-harness loom:

It'll be a fancy twill runner - blue and yellow stripes in the warp, with a white weft, I think. It'll go with my dishes. It's bright and spring-like and cheery.

Back to mal-contentedness... I am so restless. I want sunny days - it's sooo gray here right now. I want warmth - it's raw out. I want a cleaned-up and cleaned-out household. I want, I want, I want.

I want to be a grown-up and know what I want.

While I'm at it, I don't want to be getting old either (I'm 54).

I think I need to go play with my friends - not my friend-substitutes (yarn, fiber), but real friends. Enough whining on the blog for today.

Post-Partum

I've never had kids, so I don't know what I'm talking about here, but I think I'm going through post-partum depression. I finished weaving the shawl...

and once I cut it off the loom, I had a day's worth of thoughts like "Is that all there is?" and "No more overshot shawl to weave? Waah!" and "Damn. It's not perfect." and "Oh, OK." A bit deflated and a bit disappointed it's over with (well, aside from the fringe. I promise modeled photos once I've finished braiding or twisting the fringe and adding beads to it.). I really enjoyed weaving this.

And yes, I know and believe it's gorgeous - that's my cue to give you more photos.

But note how the borders differ from one end to the other, particularly in the width of the stripes. The colors interchange from back to front as a result of the weave structure - that's not what I'm talking about - I'm talking about how, in the very first photo above, the patterns next to the purple stripe that extends all the way to the edge are different. Apparently, I didn't quite interpret the pattern correctly when I started (I started at the end that's shown on the right).

But my selvedges are splendid! And I threaded all 450 ends absolutely perfectly! And I didn't break a single warp thread! And I had no real problems with the edges drawing in! In short, I'm improving with every piece I weave and I'm pretty damned proud of that.

Pattern Details: This was woven from a pattern by Patricia Palson in Handwoven, May/June 2000. I followed her clear and accurate directions almost entirely, except:

• I chose different colors for the weft, which is Jaggerspun Zephyr. (Um, and I also used Zephyr for both pattern and tabby wefts; Ms. Palson specified Zephyr for the pattern weft and Jaggerspun 18/2 merino for the tabby, which I didn't realize until after I had started threading. No big deal; it's fine.)
• The pattern called for using 16/2 unmercerized cotton for the warp; I used UKI 20/2 mercerized cotton, which worked just fine.
• And I made a few mistakes, but then, I'm only human.

I was so pleased with myself (or so possessed by my obsession) that I rewarded myself. Meet Ethel...

Ethel is a 24-inch-wide, 8-harness, Tools of the Trade table loom, which Donna from the North Quabbin Textile Studio sold to me at a steal of a price ($200!) and for which I was able to get three 24" reeds (8-, 10-, and 12-dent) and a raddle for a very good price on eBay. I'm already winding the warp for Ethel's first project - a fancy twill table runner. Matilda (that's the Purrington floor loom) seems pleased to have the company. I'm kinda worried they're plotting to take over the house, though...

Where to Begin

No, I have not dropped off the face of the earth. And thank you very much for all your kind words for my weaving. As you may have guessed, I have been sucked even more thoroughly into that pleasurable morass known as weaving, probably in response to an unbearably long winter and to excessive stresses at work. (And we can also blame a touch of tennis elbow keeping me from spinning, and a touch of carpal tunnel kepping me from knitting.)

So what have I been weaving? Ohboyohboyohboy I am bouncing up and down in my chair, literally, I'm so excited to show you this. I am weaving this!

With these colors of JaggerSpun Zephyr!

And it's going along just ducky!

There are four repeats in the main body of the shawl, with borders on either end - I've just started the fourth repeat. Stay tuned!

Wow!

Boy, just when things get exciting and I want to chat with you all, the home computer dies. The computer was quickly revived, but not without a trip to the computer doc. He said it was a Windows issue. Fancy that! At least it's March now, I'm so much happier.

So! This is the pretentiously named (by me) Necessity of Creation (and a close-up), which I finally got off in the mail today to Lynne Bruning. I was simply driven to make this, I think by the cold virus that was infecting me at the time, and I enjoyed every moment of it. I beat down the mohair weft a little too much, such that this does not have the lovely drape of the pink mohair scarf Lynne sent me - here's her scarf, which is just lovely:

And! And! I wove a rug! Me! I'm simply astounded I made this.

Details:
Size: 3 feet by 6.5 feet (before washing; I expect it to shrink up some) with an inch or so hem on either end.

Warp: Basic Maysville 8/4 cotton carpet warp, sett 12 epi, of three colors - dark green, turquoise, and medium blue - wound together on the warping board and sleyed through the reed in whatever order they came.

Weft: Most of the weft is a deep teal Tahki Soho Bulky Tweed wool knitting yarn, doubled. The thin dark stripes are some mystery blue tweedy coned wool from WEBS, six strands held together. The pale skinny stripes are Classic Elite Waterspun, a slightly felted (on purpose) merino (I know, I know, but hey, the colors worked and it's only a little bit of my very first rug) worsted weight knitting yarn, 4 strands held together. You know what this means, right? Yep, I did indeed rearrange my yarn stash, such that three bins of what were knitting yarns are now labeled rug yarn. I may not have reached SABLE (Stash Acquisition Beyond Life Expectancy) after all, if I can weave rugs this fast. Plus, all that quilting fabric under the bed and in the back closet? I've already started tearing some of it up into 1 inch strips (I wasn't really ever going to make a slipcover for the sofa, was I? What a daydream that was) for rag rugs.

Weave Structure: Cord Weave, from Marguerite Davison's book. Remember I said that the little Cord Weave sample of pumpkin Lopi and purple Harrisville Shetland looked like it would make a good rug, if bulked up? Well, it did, but interestingly, the lengthwise stripes so evident in the Rowan Tapestry scarf did not show up at all in the rug. Instead, this combination created a lively mixture of warp and weft. The deep teal Soho is a strong color all by itself, and the thin lines of the warp arcing over the weft picks really enrich this surface for me.

Hem: Three inches of tabby woven with three strands of carpet warp held together, zigzagged along the edge by machine once the rug was off the loom. Then I turned under the hem twice and stitched by machine a straight line near the wool weft to hold the hem in place. My dear old Bernina rose nobly to the occasion, especially since I haven't used it in years and years and had even forgotten how to thread it, the poor neglected darling.

My loom also performed nobly throughout this rug-making. The weekend before last I took myself first to WEBS to get a rug shuttle and then, since they didn't have a temple the size I wanted, I zoomed off to Becky's Vavstuga in Shelburne Falls, an hour from home, which did have the right temple. And a whole lot more, too! Wow, that place is heaven! I'd never been before and, clearly, I'm going to have to save up my pennies and take a class there sometime.

Over the work week, I wound the warp, dressed the loom with it, and started weaving. This last weekend, I had nothing scheduled, no major errands or chores, all my buddies seeemed unavailable, so I wove. And I wove. And I wove some more. Sunday evening at 8:30 - done! Now, I'm not sure this rug will last through the centuries, but it's pretty damned sturdy and once it's washed, I'm going to put it by my bed and snuggle my toesies into it every morning for years and years.

Or until the next rug comes along....I'm already plotting, obviously!

It's February

I don't like February. (I don't like August, either, but that's a ways off.) February is cold, wet, icy, dark, achy, stuffed-up nose, too much work, gray, grey, and gray. I don't like February. I especially don't like February when I have a long-lasting cold, my arms ache from the cold plus spinning too much in January, and I am stressed out, waaaay stressed out from too much work.

So I stayed home from work today (technically, it's a holiday, but I feel guilty anyway, because I have too much work to do) and I'm going to blog. Take that, oh cares and responsibilities of adulthood! I might go buy some ibuprofen and chocolate, too, because I would be very pleased if my body would stop aching. Yes, I've been to the doctor (my annual physical was scheduled for last week) and I don't have the flu, bronchitis, or pneumonia. I don't have any real excuse for feeling like shit, I have a cold.

But I have been fiber-ing along like a madwoman (wait, I am a madwoman) anyhow, because that is who I am, apparently. So, there's lots to tell you. Go get your tea now (thank you again for that Lapsang Souchong, Terry, I'm really loving it!), because I'm going to yammer on for quite a while.

Last weekend:

Scared you, didn't I? Heh. That is the shed skin of a dragonfly, a Black-shouldered Spinyleg to be precise, a common dragonfly of rivers in these parts. For those of you who have forgotten your invertebrate zoology, dragonflies start out as tiny eggs, lain in or near water. The eggs hatch into nymphs and spend a year or two or three growing, eating every living thing in sight and molting their outside skin - their exoskeleton - every now and then, until they are big. Say, an inch and a half long, if you're a big species. Then the nymphs crawl up out of the water, burst out of their skin, and emerge as adult dragonflies with wings and beautiful colors. That thing above is the shed skin left behind when the Spinyleg emerged.

Now, it is possible to tell one species by another by their shed skins, if you want to pay attention to the size and shape of the dorsal and lateral spines, or the number of setae on the prementem, and so on (hey, some people care about the pointiness of their knitting needles - don't snicker at my measuring the lateral spines of dragonfly nymphs). The shed skins are called exuviae, if you wanna go technical.

Last weekend here in Athol, we had a Nymph Fest. Fifty-six people showed up from as far away as Ohio and listened to people like me talk and give workshops about identifying the nymphs and exuviae of northeastern dragonflies. 56 people! That's a lot! We capped registration at 50, because we couldn't envision teaching so many people. Anyhow, it was a lot of work and stress, but it all worked out in the end.

So why am I telling you this? Well, at the conference, I discovered that Maria, who is getting her Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island, is a knitter! A GOOD knitter! Look at what she made!

She said it was from Vogue Knitting. I thought it was astounding. I want Maria to come work with me when she finishes school, so I can have more knitters around me.

Speaking of knitting: I haven't been doing much, because I'm resting my overworked hands and arms. Ditto for spinning.

Weaving on the other hand: Yep, lots. First, I finished the fifth of five panels on my rigid heddle loom, for the worsted-weight, heathery, knitting-yarn blanket (could one of you please come up with a better name?).

I still have to wash the fifth panel - it's amazing to me how much softer and better a fabric this is after washing - and then stitch the edges of the panels together. Oh, and then hem the warp ends, but then I'm definitely going to weave two panels to be sewn along those warp ends as well, as this blanket looks a little unfinished to me without some sort of bracket on the ends.

On the floor loom, you'll remember I was on the third of three scarves from the purple Harrisville Shetland warp, blithely weaving away with shiny, pretty Brilloso.

Well, so much for that. I said the hell with it after 15 inches or so, because the damned warp threads kept breaking on the selvedges and because the hand of the fabric was too stiff for a scarf. So, now I have a Brilloso sample.

I suspect I also said the hell with it because I have a cold that is sucking the life force out of my brain and which doesn't even have the good graces to turn into something bacterial like a sinus infection, so I can get me some good drugs. Chocolate and ibuprofen only go so far, you know.

So, there I was with maybe a yard or so of purple warp left on the loom. Going back to the idea I had when I first tried the Brilloso, I pulled out some mustard Lopi and tried making this Cord Weave pattern move right and left. You can see here...

...that it worked. The bottom two inches is the straight Cord Weave; above that I tried treadling as if for a point twill, not too successfully, and then as if for a continuously rightward twill, which I like indeed. Still too stiff for a scarf, so I quit while I was ahead and trashed the rest of the warp. Hey, it's only yarn, right? Actually, I think that a rather nice, sturdy small rug could be made using this undulating Cord Weave with Lopi (maybe doubled) and a heavier warp yarn. I'll just tuck that thought away in my wonky brain for future re-visiting.

Which leaves both looms unwarped. I think I'll leave the next floor loom project for another post, but here's what I'm up to on the rigid heddle, since it'll be a while before I can finish up the heathery blanket monster.

I don't know exactly why, but I got it in my head yesterday that I could weave a mohairy, dark fuchsia/red/pink wrap, using the many suitable balls of yarn I have stashed here and there. This 3-yard-long warp is a mixture of about 12 different yarns - mohair, rayon, chenille, linen, viscose, alpaca, wool, etc. - all of which have been around for a decade or more, just waiting for the call. The call came out of my frustration with being sick and thus unable to be as productive as I'd like, and the call was for something warm and creative and complex and fast. I'm calling this the Necessity of Creation, if you'll pardon the hubris. Here's the first foot or so of it woven up, with part of the first color of weft out of sight around the cloth beam at the front of the loom.

These colors aren't quite true - the weft colors are not quite that strikingly different, but you get the idea. This is a very sticky warp - the threads keep hanging up on each other when I change threads, so I'm constantly fiddling with the warp. I don't mind, though; I'm enjoying the feel of these different yarns.

I took a break after I got the loom warped, as my energy level is low and warping even this smallish loom is intensive work. I went blog-hopping, as is my wont, and found out why I felt compelled to weave this wrap right now. Lynne Bruning, who blogs at The Twisted Warp, posted on Valentine's Day that she was getting back to her loom by weaving a pink mohair scarf, and that she would send it off to someone who volunteered to be the recipient "with love and appreciation ... on this beautiful Valentines Day." I thought about it for a bit, I resisted saying yes because I am always getting myself into too much work by saying yes (not that Lynne wanted anything back), and then I said yes anyway, because I feel honored to be the recipent of someone's creativity. And when I finish the Necessity of Creation, I'm going to send it to Lynne, because I want to and because her name is Lynne, too, and because knitting and spinning and weaving have brought me wondrous connections with people, and I wish to honor that by giving Lynne this wrap.

As soon as I finish it. Assuming it turns out OK. And if this damned cold doesn't kill me first.

Bright Spots in the Viral Fog

You know how when you're mostly over a cold, you're restless and want to be doing something, anything, but your body isn't cooperating and so you are bored to tears? Yep, I've been there. Recently, too, as a matter of fact. So, I was particularly happy to get two different packages in the mail which cheered me up immensely and kept the boredom at bay.

A month or so ago, Terry at Knitting the Blues had a little contest for her readers - guess the number of different teas in her tea cupboard and you win the prize! Well, I didn't guess the correct number (which was 142) (I want to see Terry's fiber stash, if that's her tea stash), but I did get drawn as the random-number entry, so Terry sent me this:

Perfect. Perfect in every way. So perfect, the chocolates in that little turquoise box with the brown bow were gone before I could focus the camera (or as close as I ever get to focusing). And did you notice that mug-warmer? It's essentially a little hat, slipped onto the mug from the bottom. Perfect. See what's under that little mug hat?

And Terry remembered that I commented I loved Lapsang Souchong tea, so she sent me some, which I really appreciated because: a) she remembered - sniff; and b) I can't find any Lapsang Souchong in my usual haunts (OK, that's only your basic grocery store, but still, I used to be able to get Lapsang Souchong in grocery stores). Lapsang Souchong is a very smoky, heavy tea, perfect for cold, raw, virus-laden January. Thank you, Terry, your gift really warmed my heart! And I am so glad she's posting to her blog every day, too ... now if only I were that focused!

Next up: Now, as you've noticed, Dear Reader, apparently I've gone over to the dark, aka weaving, side. Thus, when I saw that the Manasota Weaving Guild in Florida was selling off their extra weaving magazines, I ordered me a bundle:

Boy, there is nothing like a stack of fiber magazines to keep me out of mischief. See those yellow sticky notes in most of the issues? I want to weave everything. Everything, I tell you - rugs and placemats and napkins and shawls and scarves...

Speaking of scarves, I finished Scarf #2 off the purple Harrisville Shetland warp on my floor loom. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out! Many fewer broken warp threads, a gorgeous interplay of the Cord Weave structure with the Rowan Tapestry weft, a nice handle of the finished item (weeell, maybe a little heavy), much better selvedges - I'm a happy weaver.

As I wove that scarf, I thought to myself: Hmm, you know, this weave is basically like overshot - one plain weave row followed by a twill row. Which means I could gradually move over the lengthwise columns formed by the twill rows and maybe I'd get an undulating sequence of columns. So I tried that with the next length of the purple warp, with some needlepoint yarn I have, but the needlepoint yarn was too thin to make even the nice thick columns the worsted-weight Tapestry yarn did. I pulled out the needlepoint yarn and cast my eyes about, landing on a couple of cones of Brilloso I bought at WEBS a year or so ago. Pretty! Shiny! Close at hand! So, I tried it, still using the same Cord Weave I used for the Rowan Tapestry scarf:

I like. I like a lot. The Brilloso is still not thick enough to really define those nice columns, much less allow any undulations to show up, but I'm committed to weaving the last scarf off this purple warp with this weft.

After that, who knows where I'll go!