1 + 1 + 1 = 1

So when does 3 = 1? When you take three single plies and make them into a 3-ply yarn! I spun the three bobbins of very fine singles of hand-painted superwash wool to the left and then spent the past few lunch hours plying them into the yarn on the jumbo bobbin to the right. The yarn on the right is very fine in diameter and hopefully, after handwashing and air drying, it will measure out to fingering or sock weight yarn. This was my Tour de Fleece challenge that I didn't finish in time. I think I may have way more yardage than I need for a pair of socks; but with hand spun yarn, it's not like you can go to the store and get another skein.

When I was running road races, I used to dream about coming in after the race was all over and every one had left. Fortunately, that never happened - until now. I finished up the challenge about a week and a half after the end of the race! I'm looking forward to making this yarn into socks.

On the Needles: Currently, I have a stealth project on the needles. A new toe-up pattern which works up very quickly. Hopefully, I'll have the pattern posted with photos for the next blog. It took some doing, but I am finally down to doing one project at a time. The loophole in that philosophy is that I have one project on the needles, one project on the hook, one project on the spindle and yet another on the quilting machine.

Off the Needles: I have finished the Knit One Below bag, and will photograph it after it's been felted. After my last disaster felting, I can't quite bring myself to put it in the washing machine - quite yet at any rate.

Also, off the needles is Pair No. 13 of the 52 Pair Plunge III - another pair of Waterfall Socks. This pair was made with Tess of Maine Designer Yarn. Love the base yarn, love the color, hate that color came off in my hands. I will have to wash these before wearing them - probably using a Color Catcher sheet or I'll have blue feet! I think the Waterfall Socks (designed by WendyKnits) look much better in this yarn than the Mini-Mochi.

52 Books in 52 Weeks/Book 34: The Dark Horse, by Craig Johnson. This is the latest in the Sheriff Walt Longmire series - another one of my favorites. The characters make this book and the plot's not half bad either. In this one, the Sheriff goes undercover to investigate the murder of the husband of a woman sitting in his jail. This series reminds of a modern-day Lone Ranger, complete with an Indian sidekick. There's great action and while the endings may not be a sappy as the Lone Ranger, they are good, strong resolutions. I got to the end of this one on a Sunday night, knowing full well I had to get up early for work on Monday. I also knew I couldn't sleep until I finished it. So I dragged myself around all Monday, drinking way too much coffee - but it was worth it.

Technical Difficulties

This week does not have an entry to 52 Books in 52 Weeks due to technical difficulties. I thought I finished Widow for One Year, by John Irving, but as I got down to the final minutes of the audible.com recording, I quickly realized the there were a number of issues that were unresolved. I've read enough John Irving, like just about everything he's written, to know that he just does not leave folks hanging for an eternity. Then I heard it: "End of Part 1." But that's all that was on my iPod! Fortunately, Audible.com, like Amazon.com and eBooks, keeps my library for me. I'd forgotten to download Parts 2 and 3. So stay turned - it's a great book. John Irving can set a scene like nobody else. I can picture everything - it's better than a movie!

So onto my upper midwestern listing of what I've accomplished this week!

Tour de Fleece: In conjunction with the Tour de France, Ravelry has a Tour de Fleece for spinners (the kind with one wheel and a treadle, not two). I joined the Spin Our Socks group and started spinning the Embers fleece. On the bobbin is what I accomplished after Day 1. I think the goal of the group is to spin 3-ply sock yarn, however, I may have to be happy with a 2-ply. We'll see if I have enough fleece for a 3-ply.

Off the Needles: Pair #7 of the 52 Pair Plunge III is another pair of mini-socks. These little socks are great for working out patterns.

On the Needles: For Pair #8 of the 52 Pair Plunge III, as well as the July pair for the Great Sock Off, and my stress-free pair for Summer of Socks, I started the Knaughty & Knice socks for Interweave Fall 2008. It's a fun pattern, but is a little slower going than the patterns that got me to seven pairs in one month-but maybe slowing down a bit is a good thing. I have some more ideas for mini-socks to catch up.

I also started playing around with the Knit One Below method from the book of the same name by Elise Duvekot. It's been a challenge for me to follow the excellent directions provided in the book. When it comes to knitting, I tend to assume I know how it goes. I'm usually quickly humbled, as I was this time. It's a super-easy technique, if you follow the instructions. I'm working on a bag using the technique, in Green Mountain Spinnery two-ply black worsted and Brown Sheep Lamb's Pride in teal. The Lamb's Pride is a second, because it's not colorfast (although my fingers aren't turning teal), so I wanted to use it with something that wouldn't show if it did bleed.

On the Hook: I'm not much of a crocheter, but I do still have a lot of scraps of washable sock yarn. I'm doing this modified granny square in hopes of using some of the scraps. Actually, I'm hoping to use all of them. My sock yarn stash is significantly reduced because of the Sock Yarn Marathon I've been working on since February 1, but I want it reduced more! Hopefully, this will help.

Last of All: I was totally surprised and extremely pleased with the shout-out my Etsy shop, Sheepish Hand Knits, received on the Daily Chum on Friday. I recently started a new line of sock yarn called "Big Foot" and as a result of the Daily Chum piece, I've been busily packing and dyeing up more yarn this weekend. You can see the the piece here:
http://www.limenviolet.com/blog/?p=6731 IdaW, Limenviolet and all the Daily Chum folks - thank you!

New Socks

It seems as though everyone that sees me do two-at-a-time toe-up socks comments at this point that it looks like a bikini top - and I guess they're right! These socks are part of three Ravelry Challenges: The Knitting Purls Toe-Up Knit-A-Long (KAL), the 2009 Sock-Off Marathon (March sock) and the Limenviolet Sock Yarn Marathon (the one I found out I had 12 3/4 miles of sock yarn for). I'm going to use the Pillars of Fire pattern by Terry Ross for this pair and I'm holding off on knitting much now because I wanted a pair to work on at Stitches West, which is coming up this week.

The yarn is Lime & Violet Shuanmi2 Sock that I purchased from the Loopy Ewe (a button to the Loopy Ewe is conveniently provided in the sidebar). It's the Babies Blues colorway which while it has pink the blue is more of a dusty blue than a baby blue.

Since I've been holding off on knitting until I leave for Stitches West, I've been spinning. I bought some teal roving a few months ago off eBay. When it arrived it seemed a bit too intense for even a teal lover like myself. I barber-poled it with some natural and am very pleased with the result. The first skein is off the wheel and weighs in at 5.5 ounces, 480 yards and 18 wpi. I have plenty more of it to spin up so will be back at it when I return.

52 Books in 52 Weeks/Book 10: Dog On It, by Spencer Quinn is a the first in a new series - A Chet and Bernie Mystery. Chet is a wash-out from the K-9 division of a police department and he's partnered with a private detective who is former member of the same department. What is unique about this series is the mystery is told completely from Chet's perspective. The storyline itself is like many on television for the past 30 years, but I was drawn to this book because of the narrator. I really like Mrs. Murphy mysteries because much of those are told from the cat's perspective, but Chet did not strike me as being as intelligent as the dogs I've been around, and I found that disappointing.

Pokey Fluff

Nope, it's not a cloud - it's Pokey Fluff. Pokey is an whitish alpaca that lives on a farm near Montevideo, Minnesota. I purchased his four-pound fleece at the North Country Fiber Fair last fall, but I was waiting until I found my drum carder to do anything with it. I finally found the carder around Christmas time. (It was hiding in one of the few unpacked boxes in the garage.)

When I found it, I remembered the drive band was broken and years ago and a few moves ago, when I packed it away the manufacturer, Clemes & Clemes, was into skateboards instead of drum carders so I had no idea how to get a new one. Shortly, after I found the drum carder, I discovered Clemes & Clemes was back into drum carders, carders and spinning wheels and a new drive band would only cost me $20. The rest is history.

Even though Pokey's fleece had been picked and washed, there is still quite a bit of guck in it, so I'm guessing I'll have a little less than three pounds of batts. I originally planned to dye the batts and then spin them, but since the batts are so fragile, I think I'll spin them up into a two-ply lace/fingering weight and then handpaint it. I'm only doing two batts a day, so this is will be a long-term project.

Rescue Chair

I rescued this chair this afternoon. Okay, I really didn't "rescue" it in the true sense of the word. But it has been severely abused and neglected. It's solid wood and probably the sturdiest chair I've ever encountered. I'm not sure yet what kind of wood it is because it has so many coats of paint on it. It appears that in addition to its original dark stain, it's been red, gray, off white and it's current coat of white enamel. It's going to be a challenge, but given it's strengths, I think it will be well worth.

It's biggest positive (which is almost oxymoronic - if that's a word) is it's size - it's small, so it fits me perfectly. Not that I'm a little person, but let's just say I'm small for my age. Because of it's smaller size, it is very comfortable and will be great for spinning. The best height for spinning on an Ashford wheel (of which I have two), is 17 inches. This one, once I get the paint off the seat will be 16-1/2 to 16-3/4 inches high. It appears the seat is contoured, as is the back; but again, given the layers of paint it's a little difficult to tell.

I'm not sure of the period of furniture or when or where it was built, but given the color of the stain, I'm guessing it's from the early part of the 20th century.

Spinning Update

In addition to all the top secret knitting I've been doing for the holidays, I have been doing quite a bit of spinning. I've completed the gray-overdyed-with-blue I purchased at North Country Fiber Fair. It ended up as a 1 pound, 13.5 ounce/1142 yard bouncing ball of Navajo-plied wool.

As for the Vulcan & friend spinning, it wasn't consistently working out the way I wanted to so now I'm spinning the alpaca and wool separately and then plying them together. It took a little bit to get used to how slippery the suri alpaca is, but it's fine now and I'm loving the results.
For a little bit, I was wondering why I bought so much; but now, I'm really glad I did.

Wool Kitty

Here's the yarn I spun from Sally Sue, who belongs to a friend about 75 miles north of where I live. The fleece was just beautiful and just about spun itself. Since it had a bit more suint than I like to knit with, I washed it in Dawn before setting the twist. The photo to the right shows what happened to the yarn after the twist was set. I hung it over a chair before winding it. Neither of my cats was particularly interested in it up to that point. As I walked into a nearby room, I caught both of them heading to the chair with the yarn. I heard their chatter and thought they were getting ready to play - wrong! When I walked back into the room, Hans was all rolled up in the skeins and making little noises. Greta, his partner in crime, was watching from a safe distance with a look on her face like she couldn't believe that's why he wanted her help getting the skeins down.

North Country Fiber Fair

I had a wonderful weekend at the North Country Fiber Fair in Watertown. Here are a couple photos of my winning entries. I took two firsts, the Booga Bag with Nicky Epstein flowers and the yell0w-orange skein of handspun from a roving I painted. The yellow-orange skein also took best of show, which is called the Kay Cheever award.

The two third place ribbons were for the Aran knit sweater and the bluish skein of handspun from my painted roving. (Incidentally, one roving of each winning skien is on my Etsy site - http://sheepishhandknits.etsy.com). I've never received any ribbons before, but that's probably because I never entered anything, anywhere before!





Even better than receiving ribbons was the time I could spend renewing old friendships. People were there whom I haven't seen in a number of years and conversations just seemed to continue from when I saw them last. It was truly a winning weekend!

Quivit

A few years ago, a friend dropped off a bag of cleaned quivit at my office. What a gift! Not only was it quivit - but she'd picked and washed it too! It has sat in the bag it arrived in hooked on to my spinning wheel until this past week. Now look at it!

About a week ago, I fixed the drive band on my wheel and found the "10 Minutes A Day" site on Ravelry. I can't just spin for 10 minutes, it's usually for the duration of whatever I'm watching on television or the pile of fleece in my lap.

This skein is 396 yards of lace weight/2ply/16 wpi, weighing in at a little over 4 ounces. I'm thinking scarf - stay tuned!