This and that.........

I haven't written all week because I just don't have anything to say or share.........in one of those moods where I wonder if I'll keep with my blog or not, but no decisions need to be made one way or the other, I'll just post when/if I feel like it.

A few nights ago I started knitting the Bella Shawl by Annie Lee-Baker. I was using one of those hand-dyed knit blocks with a color gradation. I love the colors but did not like the way the knitting was looking. The knit block is unraveled to knit it into a new project, well it leaves crinkles in the yarn, which in turn makes for messy looking knitting.  I pulled it out yesterday evening and wound it all into a skein, it's been washed and is now out on the blocker drying. In the meantime I still wanted to knit one of these shawls - it's a fun to knit pattern. So in my stash I found some Berroco Boboli Lace and started knitting last night and since I have 2 balls of it I may make the shawl a bit bigger.......I actually call patterns like this shawlettes since they're not full blown shawls. It's hard to tell in this photo but the colors are incredible and will look striking when worn over black. After I finish knitting this one I'll start on the one using the knit block color gradation yarn.

I started working on our holiday cards - they are not woven this year, instead they are fabric and based on quilting - no pix until after the holidays. I've worked on some small gifts, have some more to get to but am not inspired at the moment.....the story of my life right now, no inspiration or motivation - I think summer got to me this year.

On the fire front - since a bit of rain over a week ago and cooler temps the growth of numerous fires has slowed. They are still fighting them and we still have smoke but we've had some relief. Rain is moving in this week which should help even more with the fire fight. It's been a heck of a summer - more than the usual fires, lots of smoke, and so much heat most of the summer that I never got outside to do any dyeing.......maybe it will happen before winter hits, maybe not............I won't fret over it..........

This and that........

Not much happening here on the fiber front, loom still not warped and have no desire to do it at the moment. Many skeins of handspun are sitting out for a woven afghan project.....once I get off my butt and get it on the loom.

 I did get the knit Saratoga Shawl blocked yesterday. The pattern and yarn came from Greenwood Fiberworks. I used Yakity Yak yarn which is superwash merino/yak/silk. Jury is out on if I like this on me. It's ok on my mannequin which must be a size 0000 but on me, not so sure, it's really quite small. I think I need to try it on again over a black dress.  I also blocked another Pei Cowl knit out of my handspun but I put it in our education fair display on Saturday before I took a pic of it.

I finished up the small felt applique stockings which should hold a gift card.......I say should because I haven't tried to fit a credit card in one of them yet. They turned out cute. A lot of handwork that bothered my smarting hand more than spinning or weaving does.

Still hating fire season - way too many weeks left of it.  Saturday evening I heard sirens and the horn honking of the fire trucks - they stopped way too close. I called a friend who lives close by and whose husband has a scanner - yes, grass fire just over the hill on a street coming off the side road behind us. And Bailey and I were alone as Sam and a friend were on the coast to do some work on the cottage and golf. Talk about panic time. I was preparing to pack up the car and leave if necessary. A few hours later she called back with an update that all was quiet on the scanner, a spreading fire averted. They were more on the ball than I - they had turned on their sprinklers and had opened their gate in case fire fighters came to tell them to get prepared to leave. We have sprinklers mounted on wood to set up on the peak of the roof but they're not up there right now, Sam only puts them up if we may be in dangers of flying embers........hmm, might have to think about that this week.

The fire close to us, Shan Creek Fire, continues to burn slowly. I've found very few details on it compared to other fires in the region but this morning there is 20% containment (that's new info since yesterday) but it is actively burning with flanking, torching and uphill runs in steep terrain. As of this morning there are now structures threatened - not us, I'm assuming those actually on Shan Creek Rd but I don't really know. The smoke smell this morning is horrible - I had to scan the sky to see if there was another fire close by when I walked out the door - not seeing anything so it must be a shift in the wind this morning. I wish updates were more often but they are better than in year's past - I am grateful for them.

Now off to try and get something done today other than letting fires consume my thoughts.........

Blocking......a necesssary job

Yesterday I blocked two of the shawlettes knit a few months back - it's a necessary chore or the lovely lace design will be totally lost and the knit item will just look like a scrunchy mess. These are still pinned out, can't wait to unpin them and see how they turned out. These are holiday gifts for later in the year - I can show them as these two don't read my blog but once I start blocking other ones they will not be seen here as they are also gifts.  The shawlette I started last week is almost finished, the peachy one, I worked on it while riding in the car on our road trip.

Yesterday I also did another chore, a dreaded one...........weighing out a big order of roving to sell in one of my etsy shops. Sam helped me which makes the job goes three times as fast as just one person doing it - as he says, we have a 'process'. Then I spent much time on administrivia putting it into inventory and updating the etsy shop. So, glad to have that behind me........until I place the next order........or decide to call it quits on the roving side of my business.........

Happy Father's Day to all the father's out there. I miss my Dad terribly, we lost him in 2007.

First shawlette started

I started one of the shawlettes - it's called 'Pretty Basic' by Janina Kallio of StudioKallio.com  It's a no thinking knitting project. I've got 3 more repeats of this pattern and then I start a simple lace border. I may do the border as far as my handspun goes to make it bigger than the original pattern - I've got another skein of this. It looks like I missed a yarnover in the photo but I didn't - I had to go back and study it after seeing the photo, but no, it was just the end of the yarn laying underneath that hole that makes it look like it's missing - phew.

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Knitting.........

Two new projects to get started for evening knitting - both shawlettes. The one on the left is with commercial yarn in 5 shades of dusty purple. The one on the right is my handspun. I had also planned on starting a shawl using some of my other handspun - black alpaca with all different colors of silk mixed in but I started it today at my spinning group and it wasn't working so a new pattern needs to be found for that handspun.....need to think on that one for a while.  (photo not so good as I didn't feel like walking in the other room for the camera, used my cell phone instead)

Ginkgo Shawl - Take 2

Take 2 on the ginkgo shawl - it dried in short order from the dry heat after blocking it this morning.  I like it enough to knit myself another one out of handspun.......after I spin the yarn. This one is really autumnal, another not so seasonal will be great. And I may put 3 ginkgo leaves in the border on it.  I'll definitely need to use a shawl pin with this in order to hold it so the ginkgo leaf will show.........I've even got a ginkgo pin I could use.........

Ginkgo Shawlette

The other day I finished knitting the gold/brown shawlette so last night I started on this Ginkgo Shawl, pattern by Connie Peng, yellowcosmo designs. I'm using Madelinetosh yarn. It seems to be a very easy pattern, hopefully I'll still think that when I get to the border/ginkgo leaf. I'd love to knit this pattern again using some handspun - I have two colors in mind, a dusty plum and dijon.  I'm out of the Ashland Bay Plum in my shop right now so will have to wait to start on it after I get my next order placed. I'll have to check my stock to see if I've got any Dijon in stock right now.....if so, I can start spinning that..........

Spinning and knitting...........

 This is what I started spinning last week - 531 yards.  I got the hand-dyed roving in a raffle basket a couple years ago. The only info on the business card from the farm was that they have American CVM Romeldale sheep - so is that what this fiber is? I don't really know but that's what I have to go on. When I started spinning it I thought it felt rough so decided it might be destined for handknit socks but after washing it, it's softened up and I might knit a shawlette out of it. The colors are lovely.

I don't think I posted this shawlette when I first started knitting it. It's out of some of my handspun, a blend of soy silk and merino. I'm coming down the homestretch on the knitting, then it can be added to the pile of other shawlettes that need to be blocked.  I'm doing great on working on holiday gifts for this year although I'm loving this one so it may end up being a gift to myself.

Next up on the needles will be a gingko shawl with some commercial yarn........this one is for me. It is definitely autumn colors - if I love knitting the pattern I'll spin to make another one in everyday colors - I'm thinking a plum and chartreuse.

ACK!!!

ACK!!! Re-entry sucks. We spent the last week on the coast getting back late yesterday afternoon - on the drive home I was already getting stressed over my upcoming week and how much I have on my to-do list. If we lived over there full time would the craziness and stress migrate over there?  Or would it stay relaxing and idyllic?  To make matters worse I opened the big freezer this morning to get something out only to find the door not tight and the entire inside full of frost.......ack, I didn't shut the door completely before we left for the week. With all the frost I couldn't get the door closed back up so I chipped off all the frost from the edges of the shelves and quickly closed the door to deal with it another day. We did need to defrost it but I was hoping to eat everything out of it first, not have to take it all to the landfill..........


Anyhow, we had a great week getting lots done on the cottage (well, Sam got lots of remodel work done on the cottage), many walks on the beach, some reading, knitting, weaving and twisting of fringe of scarves and shawls. The weather was perfect - sunny and just warm enough to have windows and doors open.
 

I have some newly woven scarves up for sale in my etsy shop - another few of my original ginkgo draft. They all have a ginkgo charm on one end.

Here's the process of twisting the fringe, adding little silver glass beads along the way. I've shown my handy dandy hair twister in the past - makes such fast work of twisting fringes.

Here's that scarf finished. I can't begin to describe the sheen in these tencel scarves.

Here's another scarf - twisting fringe underway.

And here it is finished.

Rather than weave another ginkgo scarf on that warp I wove my vines & leaves draft, this one has tiny little gold beads in the fringe.

And here's one of the silver rayon slub shawls - it feels like 'butta'.  This would make for a great wedding shawl with a white gown with lots of bling.........it would make for a great shawl for any time, summer or winter.  I have another one that I used white for the weft but I haven't finished twisting the fringe on that one.

I spent time weaving while over on the coast too - this batch of towels came off the loom and were washed - they're now awaiting pinning and hemming.  I'm doing great with weaving up all my cottolin stash.

I also wove this warp while over there of checked twill towels in brown, some in red and some in a charcoal gray/green. These are now in the queue to be hemmed......it's a big pile now.......

I started another shawlette using some of my handspun - this is merino and soy silk.

Bailey wanted his pic up today to show what a great time he had on the coast last week - today he's totally exhausted sleeping the day away.........all that running and playing on the beach wore him out.

 

Re-entry is the pits.......

We're just back from 6 stormy days on the coast. It was great but 're-entry' always sucks. We're both thrown into trying to play catch-up with work, phone calls, the emails we've ignored while being gone. I've done all I can do today, will pick it back up tomorrow morning when I pull and box up orders to get in the mail.


Sam was pulling up vinyl and underlayment in preparation for new flooring we'll be installing. It's slow going but coming along.  Since I determined working with a crow bar was a one person job I went to the spinning group at The Wool Co and spent time weaving. We did get in walks in-between squalls, we had hurricane force winds but were able to manage not to get wet until this morning........as far away from the house or other shelter as we could be the skies opened up - we got drenched..........although Bailey didn't mind.

Here's the cottolin towel warp I was working on - very beachy colors - this one I used the seaglass aqua for the weft. I'm still working on this stash of cottolin although it's getting smaller. Maybe 2 more warps and all that will be left will be small bits on the spools.

Here I used the sand color for weft. Forgot to say - this is a 4 harness point twill.

Sure wish I had mentioned to someone before I decided to tie this new warp on to the previous warp. A friend would have reminded me that I don't tie on to warps because I can thread the heddles and reed much quicker. It's been years since I've done it, hopefully I won't forget how much I dislike it so it won't happen again. And then there was one warp end that the knot came undone as I was winding on the back beam.........now there's a warp end with a weight hanging off the back of the loom.  I won't get into warping methods because weavers are very divided on this subject.......other than to say I'm a back to front warper and tying onto the previous warp is too much like front to back with tangles as the warp ends have to travel both through the reed and heddles - argh.

But I got it on and started weaving on a new towel warp. I like these colors although they're not very spring/summery. They'll actually go well in my kitchen in the woods here so I'll keep a couple.

I started knitting another shawlette, this one using my handspun. I got a little further on it on the drive home.  This yarn was spun from some of my hand-dyed merino/bamboo - it was my Baltic colorway.

Change of plans

 Change in plans yesterday in the ball of yarn I planned to use for the next shawlette. I was just a bit too worried about how the striping would turn out. I wasted a lot of time fretting over it before I pulled out this ball of Zauberball singles in reds. Yes, this will make a striking shawlette.

Current fruit infused water in the pitcher - mandarins and limes.......very light and fresh tasting......I need to buy some other fruit and some mint soon........

Feeling blah.........

Not sure why but I'm feeling blah today. It's not the torrential rains because I'm loving them, every rain drop and snowflake up in the mountains is good for fire season this year. I had a great past two days, one of them spent with my spinning 'peeps', the other spent with a friend knitting and watching episodes 4 thru 6 of  The Borgia's on Netflix........can't wait for our next get together to watch the next 3 episodes.


I had planned on winding a shawl warp today but I just can't seem to do it - what I want to do most is nest at the loom but by the time I finished up other mundane chores and pulling roving orders to mail I just didn't have it in me to start winding a warp.

And then there are 4 knit shawlettes waiting to be blocked. Although not productive at the loom I am productive working on holiday/birthday gifts. But who feels like getting on the floor to get the first one blocked........not me, at least not today.........

So I've pulled another ball of yarn to knit yet another shawlette, not sure how this one will look at it moves from color to color - will be fun to find out. I am pretty excited about getting gifts made early this year - no panicking for me come November this year. I might just go turn on the Sunday evening episode of Downton Abbey and get this shawlette started and not worry about being productive at the loom today...........

Bits and pieces in my life........

This week I'm spending most of my time getting together with friends.......well, with the exception of the dreaded tooth sharpening (cleaning) stuck in there. I have several get-togethers planned for the month so although I won't be getting much weaving done I will be having fun.

Right after Christmas I started knitting on a Ione Shawlette in blue - that one is done, awaiting blocking. I've got this one in progress in this pretty rose color. Both of them are in a merino/alpaca/silk noil blend I picked up a couple years ago at a local yarn shop sale, I think it's a Louisa Harding yarn. I'll eventually show these again after I get them blocked......whenever that is........the two recipients of these don't read my blog so I'm ok posting them. My goal this year is to work on holiday gifts throughout the year - I'm not sure how long I'll keep up with it and not get sidetracked but already I'll be miles ahead of where I was this past holiday gift making season when I was in panic mode come November.

Last week at our spinning get together I started spinning some Ashland Bay merino I've had in my stash for a while. It was one of their specials a few years ago and I had the sense to put some aside for myself.....which I often forget to do before limited colorways sell out.  I had wanted to get some blending done on the blending board for spinning but that didn't happen so pulling from stash was a good thing. Not sure what this will grow up to be - I've got a pound of it to spin.

Now off to knit and gab/catch up with a friend that just drove up the driveway........decisions, decisions......can I knit on that shawlette without errors, resulting in ripping and correcting errors while watching a Netflix movie and gabbing. Yesterday another friend came over to sit and knit and catch up and I had trouble concentrating on the lace pattern while gabbing and we weren't even watching a movie. I might have to pull out the simple sock knitting or spin instead..........

A bit of this, a bit of that........

....to start the new year. We decided to head to the coast after Christmas for a week. We walked the beach each day looking for treasures, Sam painted, I wove, knit, finished listening to an audio book and read......I've had it with painting at the moment.

I finally finished up the cottolin towel warp that was on the loom over there - brought this stack home, have washed them, they're now waiting to be hemmed and photographed for the etsy shop.

In my continuing effort to blow through my cottolin stash I put this towel warp on. I don't know if anyone will like pastel towels but they're really pretty, I might even keep 1 or 2. It's getting tough mixing colors from what cottolin I have left but I'm always up for a challenge.

Here's the first of the towels - I'm guessing I'll get 4 of them in this plaid design, the rest will have solid color wefts using up spools of the colors I've got.

In my effort this year to be ahead when the holidays come at the end of the year I'm starting to work on gifts - ask me again in a couple months how this plan is working out. Here's a knitted shawlette in the works. It's a very fun pattern to knit, soon I'll be at the stage where I do short rows to shape it. Not liking these Lantern Moon circular needles - they're beautiful, feel great in my hands but, and this is a big but, the join to the cable is horrible, not smooth at all so I'm fighting with them as I knit. I think I've got another size 5 circular in my stash so I'll be looking for it this evening.

We had to take a different, way too long, route to the coast due to a huge landslide. The upside to it was seeing different scenery including at least 60 elk and hundreds of geese at an elk viewing area. Unfortunately on the way over we didn't stop for pix when they were all standing majestically for photo ops, today they were all laying down. I'm still trying to figure out how they know to congregate in the area where the viewing stations have been built.........

Back to the steamers......

Beautiful day out, in the 70's so it was back to the steamers with 6 pounds of blueface leicester roving. So nice to finish up dyeing, replenishing dye stocks and weighing out more roving by 2:30 rather than killing myself dyeing 15+ lbs in a day. Tomorrow will finish up the rest of this fiber. Then the heat is returning so will watch the forecast for nice weather again to finish up wool dyeing for the season - still have 6 days of dyeing ahead of me.

Here's the Traveling Woman Shawl after blocking yesterday.

Beautiful day......

It's a beautiful day.....a bit cooler, breezy, kind of feels like autumn.....although I understand this is temporary, will be very hot again by Friday. So, I'll take advantage of this good weather for the next 2 days - will spend Wednesday & Thursday dyeing BFL.

Just now I blocked two recently finished pieces; the traveling woman shawlette and another mesh crocheted scarf.

Here's some of my hand-dyed Polwarth I recently spun, I added in some sparkle with hand-dyed firestar. I'm not sure what I'll make with it yet, I've got 574 yards. Originally it was to be art yarn.....I added the firestar while  spinning the singles, added hand-dyed silk ribbon in plying and then tried to add a binder of rayon thread with beads in another ply. Well, it didn't work, I should have added the rayon thread with beads at the same time making it a 3 ply yarn. So halfway through I stopped the 3rd ply, ran it through the wheel again to unspin it a bit and pulled the thread with beads off. Then with no binder the silk ribbon wouldn't stay put so I pulled that out. What a lesson learned........

Current reading - Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver

Shawlette in progress

I started knitting a shawlette this weekend, a shawlette is smaller than a shawl, meant to be an embellishment for the shoulders....and will keep me warm too. This pattern is Traveling Woman by Liz Abinante, a free download off of Ravelry. You can see my lifeline in at the beginning of the lace section, I'll put one in at the beginning of each repeat in the pattern as insurance. The yarn I'm using is from Lobster Pot Yarns, colorway is called Lobster Bisque. It's mostly wool with some angora and cashmere, so soft, such a pleasure to knit with. Theresa brought it back from the NE for me when I said to bring me back a lobster! What a surprise! The label says "This yarn was hand-dyed in a lobster pot and hung to dry in the salt air of Cape Cod".