Puttering

It feels like I've just been puttering, doing small projects.

For starters, some years ago, I wove this yardage for curtains. I don't remember why I took them down, but our old front door curtains needed to be replaced and they did the trick!

I finished the last baby blanket on Sophie.

And I've been playing with more of the crocheted creatures from Edward's Animals. Here's a Lakeland Terrier,

 

a Cocker Spaniel,

and a gray cat.

 

My grandbaby needed a hat for Groundhog Day.

And he definitely needed a Dude sweater!

This may not look like puttering to you, but for whatever reason, this time around, each step to dress Julia has felt like a separate project. This Tencel basketweave will be yardage.

 

This is the first time I've ever knitted up a swatch and actually washed it. My usual is to knit it up, measure to make sure I'm getting the right number of stitches per inch and rip it back out.

I just finished spinning this fiber with Gingie and plying it with Suzie.

And next up is this cotton.

This "wool" was spun up, but not plied, because I didn't know what I wanted to do with it. Typical. Anyway, when I realized I needed a hat, I went ahead and took the singles and Navajo plied it (finger crocheting the spun fiber while spinning it some more). 

Knitting it up took no time, so, here we are!

 

Doing and Re-Doing

I guess I haven't learned life's lessons for me, yet.

1. shortcuts take longer
2. sampling is learning by doing
3. I learn by doing
4. I don't like learning by doing (I want it perfect the first time)
5. I enjoy doing, it's the worry about possibly having to re-do that's stressful

So, since our trip I've been doing and re-doing.

I made full-sized samples of bath sheets from the 8/2 cotton I had on hand. De-stashing! I finished off a couple cones of yarn! For what it's worth, with this weave, I have to use both towels to dry my 5 foot tall self. They're absorbent, but there's just not as much surface area as terrycloth.

I spun up this silk with my Suzie and stylus.

My husband fell in love with this yarn, Caribou by HiKoo, and kitty pattern when we were in the yarn store in Kalispell. It was so much fun to make (although with all the fluff, it's hard to count rows so I had to pay attention).       

My niece and I got to knit together.

Here are the first pair of socks I've made for my daughter's fiance. I made them on our road trip. I only had to rip out the first sock once.  No more shortcuts! For toe-up I have to do the math first! Clearly, toe-up is not as intuitive for me as top down. I did use all but a few yards of the yarn. And, what a brave man he is to try wool socks on in July!

Now, here's where we talk shortcuts. This is from the yarn I originally bought to felt slippers. After knitting up 1 1/2 slippers, I decided to sample. This yarn does not felt. It's Columbia by Imperial Yarn.        
 This is my first sweater with a sewn in zipper ever! I'm pleased to say that it went in perfectly on the first try. It did take me just under two hours, because I kept having to step away from it and worry about if I was doing it right.          

The pattern is Gwendolyn by Twist Collective. For whatever reason, the sleeves were HUGE. I didn't realize this until I'd sewn the sweater together. I had to redesign them. In all, I knit FIVE sleeves for this sweater!!! 

 And by the way, where did I get the zipper? That's right! I went to Mood!!!

 In one of the areas of our front yard where I started to dig up the grass, we planted cantaloupe. 

This is my current spinning project (If I can force myself to keep at it). When I bought the wool, I didn't check the length of staple or how it's prepared. I like to spin fine yarns. This fiber wants to be at least worsted weight. I bought a trash bag full. Sigh. No shortcuts next time!  

Zero to 60 in...

Well, it seems like I've gone from zero to sixty. Being ill this summer brought my activity to a screeching halt. As soon as I had a little energy, I started back on my needlepoint seen here. It's already about two thirds done. But I had to slow down, because my hands were starting to hurt from too many hours working on it. I did get to work on a few other projects:

I finally finished weaving those !#@$% mohair scarves and took them off of Sophia. I'm not at all impressed. The light blue is not as washed out as it looks here, but they're still "eh". I sent them to my daughter and suggested she either claim them, find a friend in need or donate them to the first homeless person she comes across. 

 

I finished spinning up two ounces of this supima cotton from Chasing Rainbows that I bought at my favorite candy store, Village Spinning and Weaving. The colorway is called Morning Glory. As usual for me, I didn't quite get an accurate picture of the colors. The pinks and purples get all the way to almost an orange. Exquisite! I'm spinning it on the stylus on my Susie Professional and getting a nice fine yarn. I'd love to be able to use this as singles on the loom, but I'm not brave enough. I have another two ounces that I'll spin up next to ply with this. 

A couple three years ago, I gifted a chenille scarf to a friend. I had it back to repair some of the twisted fringe that was coming undone.

Since I was lucky enough to have it in my possession, I took the opportunity to photograph it.

No, it's not your eyes. The picture's blurry. This is one of the sweaters I knitted that I actually finished. It's from a denim cotton. I got the pattern from a book, but I can't remember where I put the book after I copied the pattern into my Kindle. If I find it, or someone really wants to know, I'll go looking. The other sweater is just a shell. No pictures until I finish the edges. I'll get there.

And then there's Big Foot or Yeti. I bought the pattern as an e-book, Cryptozoology, from KnitPicks. Because I do Nothing the easy way, I knit up one and a half slippers before I decided to do a test swatch and wash it to make sure it would shrink and felt enough. ...Um. No. ...Sigh. I had to go to the yarn store and buy another yarn that Would felt. I made two pair of these to gift to both my daughter and her sweetie. They are under orders to photograph the feet once they are nicely shrunken.   

Fighting Inertia

As beautiful as the wildflowers in the back yard are, I've been trying to make myself go into the front yard to get some weeding done.

I've finished another pair of socks. My youngest son has claimed these. I think this is going to have to be it for a while. I only have two sock yarns left in my stash, but I just can't face them right now.

Instead, I've been making time for other things. A couple of months ago there was a yarn crawl here in L.A. I insisted I wasn't going to go. Does going to only four stores count as not going?              Anyway, in the last store, I met Donna Nelson . She's been working on making chinchilla fur into a spinnable fiber. Oh, my! or Yum! While we chatted I petted and squeezed and rubbed the luscious stuff. It's a combed blend of 70% cormo, 20% chinchilla and 10% bombyx. She sells it on ETSY. Buy some for yourself for a special treat! 

I used the stylus on my Majacraft to spin up lace weight singles. And here, I was plying it from both ends. I'll post a finished picture as soon as I can get back to it.

And the main reason I haven't touched my looms is this lovely stuff from my stash. It's from Ironstone Warehouse (does that company even still exist?) 78% mohair, 13% wool, 9% nylon and 100% pain in the butt. It's been on Sophie for Months. Just dressing her was WWIII. I couldn't wind the warp onto the warp beam with the lease sticks in, because it got so snarled. The plan was to make a few scarves out of it. Then, the plan was to give it One More Try. If I couldn't get it to unstick, I gave myself permission to toss it. And I NEVER toss anything! I finally got her dressed. Then, I was afraid to even try weaving. What if I couldn't get a clear shed? We've finally made our peace with each other, but next time I weave with a mohair, it'd better be either the  short hair or bald variety! 

Spinning, Socks and Garden

Playtime.

Ready for the Majacraft stylus.

Lace weight, two ply. I'm thinking a wool/silk, knitted shawl. Hmmm...

And another pair of socks, toe up.

Roses and wisteria gone wild in the front yard.

The new backyard garden in bloom.

I'm loving this!

This is only a year's growth!