[spinning] Pigeonroof Fiber Club

This past summer I bought a 3-month Fiber Club membership from Pigeonroof Studios.

June - "Legerdemain", BLF, 2 ply.







July - "Squall", SW merino, navajo plied







August - "Char", corriedale, single ply:





And a group shot:



I enjoyed spinning them all. While the legerdemain and char fibers looked similar to me color-wise, I like seeing how different they look as finished yarn. Also, the corriedale spun up SOOOO lofty as a single. They're all 4 ounces but the char is a big squooshy skein of softness.

[spinning] Meriboo

I picked up two 4oz packets of Frog Tree Yarns Meriboo roving (70% merino, 30% bamboo).



Which were spun into two bulky 2-ply skeins:



This was effortless spinning. The fiber drafted so smoothly at the wheel. I like the sheen from the bamboo:



I didn't wash these skeins like I normally do, but decided to just twist them up right away. I want to keep the smooth shine (I know washing it will fuzz it up a little bit).

I've been using my Kromski Minstrel and Ashford Joy regularly, switching up between the two depending on how much fiber I have and how I want to spin it. My Minstrel bobbins are small, but I have a WooLee Winder, which fills things up evenly. I use my Minstrel for worsted to bulky spinning.

My joy has huuuuge bobbins (can probably hold 5 - 6 oz depending on how thin I spin) but the wheel only seems to want to spin lace to fingering to dk weight yarn. When I try to spin slow and bulky, the singles still end up being thin.

So, I don't fight it. Most of the time I sit at the wheel and start spinning whatever fiber I grab. Within the first 10 yards or so, I know how the yarn wants to be spun. I rarely say, "Okay, I will spin this yarn dk-weight" and check and recheck how I'm doing with my spinning card. I spin and however the yarn turns out is how it turns out. But I've learned that it's easier to spin thick on my Minstrel and fine on my Joy.

[spinning] Natural

I picked up some BLF natural mix at Rhinebeck this year:



And spun it up into a bulky two-ply:





This was easy spinning. I didn't go anything in terms of pre-drafting, other than splitting each 4 oz bundle into 4 smaller lengths. The off-white and brown streaks in the fibers make a pretty interesting yarn.

[knitting] Yarn I dyed

Here are the two skeins of yarn I dyed at last month's Green Mountain Fiber Festival. This was with Ellen from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. I was actually the only one who signed up for this class, so it was good to have all the one-on-one attention, but kind of too bad as well because there weren't other people painting skeins with you, so didn't get to see how their color combinations might come out.

I bought another blank skein and did two:



I did the one on the right first. If it looks a little wild... that's because it is. It kind of looks like tiger colors in real life. I don't really make of (or with) it.

The blue one I did second, as a tonal experiment. I dyed one end dark blue and as I started running out of dye, Ellen added more water (instead of dye) to reduce the intensity bit by bit. I like how it turned out.

[misc] Murderface Tuesday

More Murderface pictures today because I have no new knitting/spinning to show. My hands are still a mess. The skin is peeling, which is a good thing (I hope) but I can't knit or hold any knitting without the yarn fibers catching and snagging. So sad. I need to take pictures of the yarn I've been spinning. Seriously, it's like... three pounds of fiber I've spun over the past few weeks. I hang out and spin while Murderface is all:



He's on the spare bed behind me. After a while, I can hear, "zzzZZZZ... zzzZZZZ... zzzZZZZ" coming from him. Awww. Then I get up to take his picture:



Oops. Go back to sleep. It's only 11 am on a Saturday. You've got... 7 more hours of napping to do before suppertime. You should probably rest up for that.

[misc] Murderface Monday

Things are feeling pretty wintery around here. I tried putting Muderface's sweater on him this weekend. We got up in the morning, went downstairs. Murderface went to the kitchen and starting banging his head against the dry food bag, like he normally does. I grabbed his sweater-vest-thingie and quickly put it on him. Then I gave him some dry food to distract him and convince him that wearing a sweater is no big deal. He ate his food while I made coffee. By the time I turned back around, he was gone from the kitchen.

I went out into the dining room and saw him. He was looking a little terrified but I told him to chill out while I got the camera. When I came back, he was running across the living room, jumped up onto a speaker, onto a set of drawers... then ran up some of the stairs.



He tried squirming out and I tried tucking his arms back in, "No, you're wearing this thing- OW! Don't bite me, you little... Just wear it!!"



He eventually wiggled his entire body up and out the neck. I think the armholes are the hardest for him- they aren't quite placed right. I think I might make another but add sleeves. I want him to want to wear the sweater as much as I want him to.

[knitting] Multi-directional scarf

I love buying variegated yarns- all the colors look so pretty and mixed-up in the skein. Then when I go to use it, I usually get pooling. This can happen when the yarn is dyed in regular/precise intervals (usually by a machine) and the knitter doesn't change the stitch count- the same color(s) can stack up and group on top of one another. Let's see if I have an example...

I love the autumn shades of this yarn:



But knit up into a cowl, the colors had a tendency to group:



Not such a big deal for a cowl that sits scrunched around your neck... But still. I gave the cowl to my sister because she doesn't hate pooling like me. It's the bane of my knitting existence (along with knots in skeins).

So what am I supposed to do with all the variegated skeins? How about a multi-directional scarf... The stitch count changes every row, which would prevent colors stacking up:



I like it. It's easy to customize to whatever width scarf you like. The pattern is fast and easy to memorize. The edges look a little unfinished, so I might go around and crochet a border.

But I think I may have found a go-to pattern for variegated yarns!

[misc] Murderface Monday

Murderface, catloafing on his cat-mat:



He's probably relieved that Dollar and I are going back to work today. I only had last Thurs/Fri off work, but Dollar had the whole week. He tried to ignore us, but it didn't work.



I hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. I was still dealing with my allergic reaction to something in those naturally dyed skeins on yarn. I had to go see my doctor and she told me that I had chemical burns all over the insides of my hands. I also had a rash breakout- from the top of my feet to my face. I'm nearly all better now, but I'm still in a continual state of sloughing/molting my top layer of skin. This shit was f'ed-up, for real. The palms of my hands are turning back to a normal human shade- they've been bright red and inflamed for a week. And they felt burned- as though I placed them down in a hot pan. I wasn't able to put my hands in hot water (an upside to all this is that Dollar started doing the dishes, heh) or open bottles. Anyway... it was f'ed-up.

I spun a lot these past couple weeks and have lots of new, pretty yarn to take pictures of.

[misc] New House

For the past months and months and months (I'm not sure when we started talking to the bank to get the ball rolling... June?), we've been jumping through all the necessary hoops to acquire a home construction loan. We were FINALLY approved and the building has started. I went up a couple weekends ago (when the weather was nice) to check out the progress on the foundation:



That's the foundation for the house. The attached garage will be at the left end of the house. The right end there is going to be a family room. It's going to have a full basement under the house.

The land has been in the family for... 100+ years, I think. My grandmother sold 99.5 acres to my mom years ago, and that where we'll be. Most of the land is hilly forest, but there's lots of open fields and pastures that my uncle has been maintaining:



Here's a picture from back in 2007, looking down at the old farmhouse and barn from one of the fields:



The new house is going basically where the barn was:



Both the house and barn came down. The house currently looks like:



It's sad, but it had to come down. It was falling down, no one had lived in it for years, there was black mold growing... We're salvaging stone blocks from the cellar and old wooden beams to incorporate into the new house:





There's even a little pond:



The new house is going to be a modular, delivered in 4 - 6 pieces (probably some time in January). It's going to be a trip moving from "urban" Hartford Village to rural South Royalton but it will be so nice having the privacy. I wonder what Murderface is going to think...

[spinning] Vineyard

I've been spinning quite a lot recently. I finally finished up 8oz of superwash merino from Sereknity that I started way back for the Tour de Fleece:



I spun it really thin on my Ashford Joy (in the pic w/MF yesterday)... I loooooooove the huge bobbins on this wheel. It can hold at least 50% more than one of my Kromski Minstrel bobbins (even w/the WooLee winder!).

The final yarn was navajo-plied:



I used this video as reference on how to navajo ply. I did one skein just the way she showed- holding the end of the loop back in my right hand, guiding the twist forward and back with my left hand. Well I wasn't doing something right, because I could barely bend my left thumb after I was done with one bobbin.

The next day, I sat at the wheel to do the 2nd skein. I set things up, made a loop and started chain-plying. Only, I was surprised to notice that I was holding the loop with my left hand and pinching/guiding the twist forward and back with my right hand. I wasn't even thinking about it- I had completely switched hands. I think this might be because when I'm spinning the singles, I'm drafting the fiber with the left hand and lightly pinching the twist with my right.

I wonder if the person plying in that video drafts with her right and pinches with her left. Also, maybe she's left-handed? I wonder if that has anything to do with anything.

Anyway, I felt 100% better doing it the way my body naturally wanted to do it. No hand or finger cramps after I was done. Also, n-plying does empty a bobbin fairly quickly, which is nice.

[misc] Murderface Monday

Happy Birthday, Murderface!



Happy Birthday, Dollar!

We don't know when MF's birthday is, so we just gave him the same birthday as Dollar. MF is turning 6 today. I need to stop by the feed & supply store on the way home to get him some gifts.

Went to the Green Mountain Fiber Festival this weekend- it was great. I got to dye lots of yarn and fiber. It was a good atmosphere and a good location. I was too tired to cook supper last night, so we ordered out. I got some kind of horrible food poisoning or something. I was barfing all night (Dollar wasn't barfing but his stomach was not good) and woke up this morning with a swollen, red, itchy, painful hand. Is that a side effect of a food allergy? The only other thing I can think of that would mess up my hand was handling naturally dyed skeins of yarn right out of the dyepot. Two skeins, one dyed with goldenrod and the other dyed with jewel weed. I'm not allergic to either plants... so why might the dyes bother me? I don't know, but wtf. I need to get some benadryl.

[knitting] Gothic Paths

Another finished hat:



Pattern: Crooked Paths by Knitting School Dropout

Needles: US 5 (3.75mm) for ribbing, US 8 (5 mm) for main body.

Yarn: Dream in Color Classy, 'Gothic Rose' colorway

Mods: Did two repeats of of pattern, rather than three.

Blocked:



These pictures more accurately show the color. I love this hat. Still turned out fine w/out the extra pattern repeat after blocking around a large dinner plate.

Love the pattern on the crown:



Looks like a flower to me. <3 <3 <3 this. Will be going to my mom for Christmas.

[knitting] Turning Beanies into Tams

This past April, I finished a few hats:







They've been hanging out in the "finished bin" in my craft room ever since. I wanted to block them into more of a tam/beret shape. Which I finally did:







I love blocking things- it opens up lace, it smooths out stranded colorwork.

I'm keeping the purple and green/oatmeal ones; the light blue angora one will go to my mom for Christmas.

[vermont] Green Mountain Fiber Festival

This weekend is the Green Mountain Fiber Festival (click the links along the gray toolbar to see more about vendors and classes). It will run 10-5 on Saturday and 10-4 on Sunday. It will be at the Hotel Coolidge in Downtown White River Jct.


View Larger Map

I've signed up for 4 classes that I'm very excited about: Handpaint your own Sock Yarn and Handpainting Fiber with Ellen Maynard from Ellen's Half Pint Farm. I'm taking the Estonian Cast-on class with Lois (from White River Yarns, who is pretty much organizing this whole festival by herself). And Introduction to Natural Dyeing with Kim Goodling.

Come and check out the vendors. While you're here, sign up for a class if there's still room. There will be a casual Spinning Room, so bring your wheel and just hang out.

[knitting] Ishbel

I finished the Ishbel shawl a while ago. After daylight savings time ended, there was just no hope of getting a nice daytime picture in natural light- the sun is setting at 4:30 pm. So here it is...



Pattern: Ishbel

Needles: US 6 (4.0mm)

Yarn: Madelinetosh Tosh Sock, scarlett, used nearly the whole skein.

Mods: Changed the yarn-over spin to make-one left, make-one right. Did large stockinette, small lace.



I loved the yarn. Very smooth, soft, vibrant tonal colorway. Only drawback is the price: $26.70 for 395yd/120g. I got mine from Webs and I was buying enough at the time to get the discount, which helped. But I don't think I'd be buying enough of this yarn for a sweater or blanket any time soon.



This is shawl #7 for my 10 Shawls in 2010 challenge. It's mid-Nov and I have three more to go... Yeah, I suppose I should cast on for my next shawl, rather than staring forlornly at the yarn and pattern on my desk.

[misc] Murderface Monday

Jeesh, almost a month since my last post. I'm sure you're all going through Murderface withdrawal...



We've been pretty busy. We closed on a home construction loan (it was kind of scary signing legal document after legal document for 1.5 hours) and have started building the house. They're going to build through the winter, which isn't unusual, and we could probably move in next April. I hope.

How does Murderface feel about that?



Yeah, he has no idea. He's being as cute as possible to get more treats and more food.



It usually works.

[knitting] Frankensocks

The pattern for the October knitalong at White River Yarns is Frankensocks. Just the spoooOOOoooky thing to knit up for Halloween, right?

Dude, I was having the crappiest time with the pattern. Too many charts and too many twisted stitches. I was having zero fun knitting it. It took me a week to do just the cuff of one sock. (The instructions tell you to do the cuff in twisted rib and I'm 100% certain that the socks being shown in the pattern do not, in fact, have twisted rib cuffs.) So, I ripped. And it was cathartic. I'm doing Franken-simple-socks instead:



K1P1 cuff. K3P1 leg. Regular heel flap. Stockinette foot. So much easier and I was able to knit all that in TWO days over the Rhinebeck weekend. SO. MUCH. BETTER.

I'm still using Frankenstein colors and I have the contrasting red yarn to do the mattress stitches around the cuff, toes, and possibly down the back of the leg. It will still look spoooOOOOOoooky.

[vermont] Paradise Park

Before the weather gets too cold, I went out for a walk around Paradise Park in Windsor. Here's the gazebo at the tip of a field along Lake Runnemede:



It was a really nice walk with lots (maybe a hundred) geese on the lake.