Lost: Mojo

I’ve been feeling really listless lately in terms of knitting. I have all these plans for knitting, but actually haven’t done a whole heck of a lot stitching. I’ve been pretty pre-occupied by…

A boy.

There. I said it.

I’ve been spending a good amount of me week with him and work is really kicking my butt so I’ve been coming home and relaxing and not knitting. I started the year off really strong, but I’ve really lost my oomph with knitting as of late. I’m much less bored now that I’m in this great city and I have people with whom I can spend my time.

So! Onto the knitting:

The green Madeline Tosh hat still needs the decreases to be done again. I’ve managed to lose my stitch marker case so until I find that, I can’t really finish the hat without lots of concentration.

I have lots of plans for more hats and scarves and cowls and cuteness. There’s been two skeins of handspun sitting on the coffee table and I finally started knitting something. I’m going to be knitting a cowl with 10 rows garter stitch and 10 rows stockinette stitch. Oh the purling…

I want to knit up a pair of worsted weight socks but I’m not sure how useful they’d be since the weather is changing to warmer loveliness. I’m about ready to kick snow in the butt. It’s seriously the most amazingly ADD weather we’ve had and I really would rather not have snow on my birthday.

I have had a bobbin of fiber waiting for the other 3 oz for a good month or so and I haven’t even thought about spinning up the other bobbin.

I’m really starting to figure out just how listless I am lately.

I know I said that I was going to try harder to knit more often, and eventually I’ll get there. It’s just a matter of time before the ennui subsides and I can manage to finish something or knit anything.

It’s finally Autumn

The weather is absolutely gorgeous outside and, aside from the allergies, I love everything about this season.

I drove home this afternoon from getting coffee with a friend and it all just looked so nice that I slowed to a crawl on the street and took a couple passing-by photos.

The streets are filled with gorgeous trees that are changing colors and making their beauty known.

It makes me so inspired to knit up something reminiscent of the colors of this season; green, red, orange, yellow.

And yet I’m not knitting anything like that.

I finished the Bagheera cowl. I started knitting it with the Cascade Alpaca, finished one skein and went to the handspun, knit up the entire 187 yards I had of it, then finished the second skein of Cascade Alpaca I had. I’m so happy that the color change isn’t noticeable to anyone and it’s so extremely soft and only mildly sheddy.

I’ve worn it many time since I finished it last week and plan to wear it for as long as it’ll hold up for me. I cast on 220 stitches, did an 8-stitch cable with two stitches between and I absolutely adore it. It reminds me of my Big Guy whenever I put it on, especially when I pull it around my head twice to give me a nice and warm cowl.

It’s also wide enough that I can just fold it over and it works perfectly to cut out the chill. I can honestly tell you I have not been so happy with something I’ve knit.

I’ve also started knitting a Tam for those amazing morning when I run out the door with a head full of wet hair because I’m far too lazy and value my sleep far too much in the morning to actually DO my hair. So I’m making another tam. This one is on size 3 needles with the Pigeonroof Studios yarn that I spun for the Tour de Fleece.

I only wish the colors wouldn’t be blown out so much when I shoot the pictures.

And now for your kitten fix:

Louie loves helping me ply some Ashland Bay yarn that hasn’t had the opportunity to get a photo of its beauty- it’s purple and blue over a black base; called Midnight. It’s 350 yards too!

The Tour de Fleece Finals

It’s finally over.

I have spun a little under a mile and a half of yarn during the three weeks of the tour. My hands are dead and I have just about run out of spinning to do.

So! Here’s an update!

The plies of the Ashland Bay and Squoosh Fibers.

I didn’t spin the next day but got a knitpicks order for more than a pound of Wool of the Andes fiber.

6.1 oz of GORGEOUS Alpaca/Merino/Silk blend called Garden Party. It made 390 yards and I’m more than proud of it.

The next day I spent with the stove on; I dyed three rovings in blue and two in red. They spent a day in the bathroom drying and they’re only a little felty–nothing I can’t handle. It’ll make enough probably for a shawl and a cardigan, if I get really good soon.

I helped Murphy pack up her apartment in preparation to move in with her now fiance and she donated a very big chunk of clothes to goodwill and I took two knit sweaters, one of which became the sweater above. It was hideous and was knit with the yarn held double so I took it apart relatively easily and it’s now a single ply so I think I’ll have more than enough to make myself a sweater. I still have to separate the other two balls but I plan to have plenty to soak.

They haven’t taken a dip yet but I plan on doing that this weekend. I fully expect the yarns to sproing back to become something floofy that I will knit up eventually.

Since then I’ve been working on my clapotis- which is taking forever and I’m still mad at it- and I’ve been knitting…

The size 1 needle green sock. It is taking FOREVER but I’m finally almost up to the heel. I think I actually like these ones. No, I’m not addicted to socks; I can just appreciate them in the heat of this summer. That and they always fit in my purse.

one mile

The Tour de Fleece is still going on strong and I’m having a lot of spinnerly fun and I’ve hit the milestone of spinning a mile of yarn. That’s 1760 yards and I’ve beaten it by 10 yards. SO!

Day 9 was a pretty big spinning day for me. I spun the entire four-ounce roving of this soft Merino and I made it into a gradient. While mom and I watched Angels & Demons, I split it up into 16 piecesand started spinning it up by color gradient. I wound up with a very pretty looking yarn and I can’t wait to spin up something to show off the gradient.

George was my model for this one. He totally hammed it up that afternoon. The following day (day 10) I chain plied the singles at Knit Night and took a picture the following morning as the sun was coming up and I went to work.

I took the next couple days off because I had migraines and I was exhausted and I went to Port to visit The Chef and it was just a long couple days. I picked up the wheel on day 13 and spun up 2.2 oz of Pigeonroof Studios Superwash Corriedale.

The next day I spun up the other 2.2 and then did a 2-ply of the yarn. I am absolutely in love with the coloring. 

Day 14 was a great day. I spun up all four oz of Ashland Bay Colonial Merino in a blue base with greens, pinks, yellows, etc. and it’s pretty great. I finished all four ounces in four hours and I was extremely proud of my abilities. 

I then went to dinner and shopping with Mom and came home and spun up 2 ounces of Squoosh Fibers Superwash Merino in Everglades. It’s extremely soft and vibrant and I am loving it.

I would have spun up the rest of it tonight but I spent my day counting and then I went to see the new Harry Potter (uhm. Amazing!) and now I’m just plain tired so I won’t be spinning anymore.

Tomorrow I’ll be putting the wheel in the car for Knit night where we’ll freak out the muggles by spinning again. That, of course, is if I get out of work at a decent hour.

Days 1-8 of Tour de Fleece.

As a nice little catch-up:

Day 1 was a last ditch effort for spinning so I added more spin to the skein of Baby Alpaca I called Bagheera. I finished it quickly and ran out the door to Port Washington.

Day 2 was skipped because I was spending far too much time with my boyfriend. You understand, I’m sure.

Day 3 I spent with the Stitch n Bitch ladies hanging out, grilling out and spinning. Jenny also sold me a ton of roving.

I took it all out of the freezer and have since started spinning up a good chunk of it. I expect it to be gone by the end of the month and I’ll be in need of more by the end of the Tour. This conundrum doesn’t seem to faze me.

Day 4 featured me teaching myself how to chain ply and finishing off the four oz roving after fighting through the nepps and felty bits.

Day 5 meant I finished off the blue merino and started on some bare alpaca. I got ADD with this fiber  and plied it up before finishing the roving. It’s still in a bag on the floor waiting to be spun up. I can’t tell when it’ll get done.

Day 6 meant I could dive into the new stash of roving! I chain plied the alpaca, it’s scratchy… and I spun up all four oz of the Miss Babs Fiber (called Chocolate Roses) that I’m calling Mulled Wine.

I took day 7 off because I was deathly ill, had a Lia Sophia show that went until 10 so I didn’t get home until 11 and I was exhausted and feverish and wanted to just crawl under tons of quilts and go to sleep. So I did. I slept until my alarm went off, still had a fever, called into work and went back to sleep until my fever broke and I started being able to breathe.

Today, day 8, was awesome. I chain plied (I’m obsessed) the Miss Babs yarn, wound it on the swift, pulled it off to find it’s the most calm spinning I’ve ever done! Usually the yarn has a tendency to spring back on me and wind up but this one laid calmly and it was a miracle. It’s also so well spun and balanced that I just sat and stared at it for a while.

I then started spinning up some more from the stash. The purple mixture needed to be drafted so I could make a proper yarn, so I made it into 16 little balls of drafted roving, so it will make a gradient of light, medium and dark purples. I got to the point of the medium purple last night before getting too tired and the kittens wanted to sleep on me, so I stopped.

So that’s it! When I finally wake up, hopefully feeling better, I’ll finish spinning up the purple yarn and keep up my spinning mojo.

Le Tour de Fleece and a massive update

I finally have a moment to write and it’s not even going to be the best post I could write.

During most all of my free time I have been…not knitting. I’ve been in Port Washington with The Chef, having far too much fun and not even thinking about knitting until Sunday night when he watched a really gorey movie that gave me the willies. No good photographic evidence of us has surfaced as of yet (mostly because I took pictures when both of us were half asleep and it was still dark out. Soon, grasshoppers…soon. He’s a cutie though, so no worries.

I’ve also been avoiding my stash because I’m woefully uninspired by it. Don’t get me wrong, I have plenty of yarn and I love most of it, I just don’t want to knit anything from it. It’s quite the conundrum if I do say so.

Instead, I’ve become inspired (and obsessed) with cosplaying Amy Pond in The Pandorica Opens/The Big Bang

For those of you who don’t know, Cosplay is Costume Play. It’s a nerd thing. Basically we dress up as our favorite characters and go to nerd conventions and have a blast. My friend Andy does an amazing Matt Smith Doctor and his girlfriend will be going as Idris; the Doctor’s Wife. I knit the Amy Pond scarf many moons ago and decided that I could totally pull off orange hair and go as Amy to GenCon this year in Indy. The Chef has just agreed to be my Roman Centurian Rory and I must say, I can’t wait to see him in that outfit looking all sexy and Roman-like.

Anyway– I had the scarf, jeans, black leather jacket and dark purple under-shirt. I needed the red hair, brown cowboy-esque boots, orange nail polish and the red fingerless gloves (with a full thumb) and light purple v-neck shirt.

I went to Target and magically found the orange nail polish and light purple shirt. I found the boots on shoes.com and whimpered when I saw I’d have to fork out 60 bucks for a pair of boots that I’ve never tried on let alone seen in real life. I knit up one of the fingerless mitts in less than 10 hours and I’ve since started the second while waiting for work. I bought temporary orange hair-color-spray and I’ll be experimenting with it soon to get the perfect orange shade. I also bought red to mix with the orange in case it gets too traffic-coney.

I also cast on the mitts on Saturday before going to see Larry Crowne with Mom at the Majestic. The movie was awesome and I finished up to the thumb gusset (very long arms) on the mitts.

After a trip to Michael’s in Grafton with The Chef to get DPNs to finish the mitts, I finished the gusset and hand and set to figuring out how to make fingers on my own. It wasn’t too hard but created a lot of ends that needed weaving in.

The nail color is wrong, but that’s because it’s REALLY orange and I don’t bode well with orange nail color.

Once all that is done, I’ll have the outfit complete. I have a month.

I have also been knitting on two socks. One pair is on size 1 needles and one a pair on size 1 needles. Pictures to come

These socks are very slow going, mostly because I’m not totally invested in them and mostly because my mind is elsewhere.

Saturday also was the first day of the Tour de Fleece. The Tour de Fleece is simple: They spin, we spin and since I have a spinning wheel I’m participating as a rookie. I added more spin to my 100% baby alpaca on Saturday.

I took the day off Sunday because I was with The Chef and spent most of the afternoon spinning at Jenny’s house for our regular knit-night. I lugged my Kiwi out of the house, seat-belted it into the front seat and took it to her house for good food, good conversation and a bobbin of singles.

When spun, I imagine this single will be about a DK-Worsted weight.

Which it was.

Tonight I fought with the other half of the roving and I’ve decided not to buy from this particular vendor ever again because it’s felted and the top doesn’t have a specific direction so one of the ladies actually saw me having to pull hard on the roving so it’s really annoying to get this half to work.

Jenny also showed me her stash and offered me some roving because I’m poor and can’t find quality roving anywhere in Wisconsin unless I order it online so she opened her stores to me and destashed on me for a nominal fee and I made out really well with some seriously gorgeous roving!

They’re being put in the freezer because Jenny had a bout of moths recently and I’m killing them off just in case. They spent the past day in the freezer, then are currently sitting out in my kitchen and tomorrow, I’ll put them in the freezer again. I don’t think there’s going to be a problem, but I’m being safe nonetheless.

I hope all of you had a safe and wonderful 4th. I’m going to do my best to start blogging more often. Now that I have more blog-worthy items to talk about, I’ll hopefully get photographic evidence more often and get it published.

Bagheera

I wish this post didn’t have to be written.

I always think that as a knitter, I require a feline companion to always be in my life. This feline gets underfoot in normal life, let alone in knitting life. He’ll try to eat your roving, will lay on the scarf you’re working on, chase the tail of your piece as it moves back and forth while you knit and so on.

My feline companion has been with me since I was four years-old. Bagheera was found in a pet store by a little me peering over the ledge to see this adorable, fluffy gray and white Blue Tabby with giant green eyes and a white spot on his tail. I instantly fell in love with him and got to name him after my favorite cat; Bagheera from The Jungle Book.

Bagheera enjoyed his lap(s) of luxury and took to attacking feet through the end of the bed. He also loved sleeping ON people. Frequently we would find ourselves with a large weight on our chests and as soon as we moved, he would purr and we would know that the weight wasn’t something to worry about; it was just our furry friend coming to steal our body heat.

Bagheera tipped the scales at a pudge-tastic 15 pounds and we didn’t think anything of it until he started getting sick with crystals in his urine. He was put on a diet and we saw pounds come off slowly.

It wasn’t until about six months ago that he started looking sad. He drank copious amounts of water, including water from our dishes. He had really terrible arthritis everywhere in his body and he was very rickety and had gotten down to a terribly underweight 7 pounds. His thyroid seemed to be the problem this time around and we were given a medication. A month later he looked better and had gained a half a pound but they found another problem; his kidneys were failing. An  IV fluid was given to help his kidneys process and to help bulk him up. For the first month it worked beautifully.

Two weeks ago we realized he wasn’t reacting to the medication; he had lost all the weight again and he was so weak he did nothing but sleep and go to the litter box. He could no longer get up on the furniture and his plaintive cries were heartbreaking. He had no fat on his body so he literally felt cold and he cuddled with us all the time to steal our heat.

This past Saturday we decided it was time to end his suffering; that we weren’t doing him any favors by keeping him alive and it was only for our satisfaction that he was still living. He was in pain and we were doing him a disservice by allowing him to continue in this pain. This information was heartbreaking and I thought I would be OK handling it but it broke my heart and I couldn’t sleep; I snuggled with my Big Guy and cried that night.

Mom and I slept in on Sunday; the thought that we were going to be losing our furry friend was hard for both of us. We decided to end his suffering that day and called the Animal Hospital. We cleaned up, wrapped Bagheera in a towel and I held on to him as we drove to the hospital.

I held my best friend of 19 years as the life we had given him left. He went quickly and peacefully and we knew that he was no longer in pain and he’ll be happy and we will see him again.

Bagheera will be returning to us in a couple days when we get his ashes to put next to Sabrina on our grandfather clock.

I didn’t knit all weekend. Monday I spun the gray baby alpaca from Peace of Yarn into a DK to Worsted weight yarn I’m calling “Bagheera.”

I will be making a cabled cowl so I can always have the memory of my furry friend with me.

Is There a Full Moon or Something??

I’m sorry to you, my readers who may have deserted me, for taking so long to write a post. It’s been a whirlwind of events in the life of Amanda.

So here’s some randomness for your viewing pleasure:

Since last posting: I have gotten exactly 10 rows down on Abalone. I am still not yet done with the increases and I fear I’ll never get this thing done.

I have received another 560 yard skein of The Tide is High for Abalone since I’m almost positive I’ll have to start said skein to finish the vest.

I have not knit anything of Clapotis or the baby sweater.

I’m still loving my job, just not so much the office politics going on. The whole high-school mentality got old in high school so why is a grown person tattling on me to a boss in Saint Louis because I watch Rachel Maddow in the morning while working??? Intrigue. Needless to say I keep to myself and shiver through my day, which doesn’t make me a very palatable person.

I have, hardcore this time, started planning for California in less than a month (well, hopefully). This includes buying a dress and other outfits for the week I’ll be out there, keeping my bosses in the know, figuring out the best way to communicate with The Marine while he can’t get anymore minutes on his phone, and trying to handle the stress of my friends not realizing how I’m in a military relationship and these things work differently than the average nuclear relationship.

I also have plans to make this:

The Marine said he'd forgive my knitting obsession if I made him this

I have no idea where my lovely boyfriend found this but I think it’s amazing that he wants one. I have since downloaded the patterns and I’ll figure out what yarn I can use that won’t be too scratchy for him. I also need to find a yarn thick enough to keep his head warm since the Cascade 220 hats I sent him are too thin for him (I believe the line was ‘I’m bald, baby. There’s no insulation like you have’). Chunky wool it is!

Saturday I laughed and walked and protested at the State Capitol again. I came home with two handshakes from two senators of WI as they passed me in the crowd of probably 200,000 people; buttons ranging from a pop-art Walker with “Douche” written under his picture to a pink button for Planned Parenthood; many more amazing memories; three hats finished to be delivered to three senators/assemblymen for their efforts to stand up to us; and many calories burned.

Sunday I cried at the memorial of Leslie Whitaker, my old English professor. I went with my good friend Noah and met friends and classmates Angie and Alicia and we toasted Leslie and her valiant efforts to open our minds and really show us what we can achieve when we just let the words flow. I became a better writer thanks to her. This blog wouldn’t be around if it weren’t for her. I am truly grateful for her coming into my life. As such, I’m dedicating my blog to her and it will stay on the About Me page for the life of this blog.

Tuesday I went to work and came home and spun! I came home from Sheep in the City with a boat load of roving and hadn’t spun it yet.

So I did it last night:

From Peace of Yarn I got some amazing baby alpaca in a silver-gray pillow of lushness that I couldn’t stop petting. I also picked up a few inches of extra things that didn’t spin up into much but they were gorgeous to hold.

Here’s the Baby Alpaca and Suri top: It was very sticky and, as such, didn’t spin up very well. I have a few even spots but a lot of it is very uneven.

I have every intention of buying at least 5 oz of this for my birthday present to myself. It’s Camel and Silk in the most amazing golden hue I have ever seen. In roving form it is so soft I could pet and snuggle with it forever. In knit form it’s just as soft. It also spun up very easily and I was able to achieve a very smooth yarn with it.

This proved to be the most stubborn of the yarns. Angora and Tussah Silk sounded like an amazing combination and it was so soft and cozy. However it was also extremely sticky and refused to come apart from its friends at certain points. This created a very uneven spin and I did not have proper control over this fiber.

Finally: The baby alpaca. I bought five ounces of this fiber thinking I could get a good amount out of it and I think I’ll be able to get enough for a really nice and large cabled cowl for next winter. I didn’t take a picture of the yarn after it was spun up but here’s what the roving looks like:

It reminds me of Bagheera. Unfortunately I don’t have a better picture but think of a dulled quarter and you’ll get the right idea. It’s very fuzzy and my pants had plenty of extra fiber on them when I was done with two cuttings. It’s just sticky enough that I don’t lose control of it but I can still keep a pretty good and fast pace.

Here was the results of my Tuesday night:

I was pretty proud of myself.

I had then vowed to spin more tonight but instead got into a huge fight with one of my friends over plans for my birthday. I’ve since changed plans and am going to try to make the best of, what is shaping up to be, the second worst birthday ever. I have three days to salvage the disaster planning stuff has become.

Right now it’s way past my bedtime but the adrenaline rush from confrontation and being told I’m a sucky friend have me wide awake. I’ll be the one staring up at the ceiling knowing I have to get up to work in 5.5 hours.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day to all! I found these adorable shamrocks on Ravelry that I’m going to attempt. Let’s see how that goes…

Spumoni

I’ve been cabling and knitting furiously for days what with not having a job and not much of a life. Here’s what I have to show for it:

Meet Spumoni! I wanted to make a cabled tam so I created this dude to be one of my super-slouchy tams that I can wear in the middle of a frigid winter with my hair up. I spun this yarn in two days and took a long time to decide what to do with it. I finally decided to knit a tam since it would be super colorful and it would be really warm.

I wanted this hat to be relatively slouchy but I was not expecting the level of slouch I received when this hat was finished. When I got to the beginning of the decreases, I didn’t realize the mass amount of decreasing necessary. It took about two hours to finish the hat and I was cheating at the end (k2tog two times instead of once).

The cabled rows were the most annoying as it would take me about 30 minutes and I never really noticed the cables until I was done with the hat. They’re non-descript which is nice because of the loud pop of color the hat gives. I played the rows by ear, only knitting three or four rows before starting the cabled row. This made a relatively tight cable and I really liked how it turned out.

So this is me at the end of a long day which included a giant batch of Spaghetti that made me wish I were cooking for a party, a finished cabled hat, a job which I turned down (a long story) and lots and lots of Cooking Channel.

Last Day

Today marks the last day of my working life here downtown. It’s kind of sad, un-nesting when my desk was so beautifully nested in. It’s for the best though. Now I can go get a big-girl job, like Caitlin says.

I had very little work to do and I finished it very quickly today so at one point my desk looked like this:

I cleaned up everything, boxed it up and then started on this:

It’s going to look like a tam when it’s all grown up. This yarn is Berrocco Vintage in a Berry colorway- it’s dark blue with hints or purple and lighter blues and I’m making it the same as the other one I have. I made the brim a little longer and I’m really loving how it’s coming out.

I also don’t think I showed you all Spumoni. It went from this:

To this:

To this:

I am in complete and utter love with this yarn. It’s 100 percent Merino Wool and it’s gorgeous and I love it so much I can’t even figure out what to make out of it.

My work day is almost over. I’ve enjoyed much of what I’ve been doing with my life here but all things come to an end and this is the end for me.

My brother comes home today (his plane should have landed about an hour ago) for a week of Christmas merriment after not being home for 2?3? years. Marie is coming over tomorrow for Christmas Eve dinner as she has to work on Christmas (the health care business doesn’t take a day off!) and her parents are out of town visiting family so I’ll be knitting and eating and knitting some more.

It’s time to get this Christmas weekend started! So I’ll leave you with this:

Happy Holidays to you and yours. I’ll be knitting away until I find a new job. I expect my productivity to go through the roof. And yes, that’s Bagheera in a Santa hat…