Back to knitting, at least a little

I really really did not want anything to do with knitting for the past few months. Since April, when I closed my Etsy shop. But I have been doing other crafts; I did a whole needlepoint (pictures to follow) and have been working steadily on my English paper piecing project (ditto).

Finally last Thursday I was willing to get near knitting enough to go to the Sit and Knit at Stix-n-Stitches in Montclair; it was really nice to see people. I didn't buy anything, nor do anything other than kibbitz with a couple friends who were there, but at least I got the proverbial toe in the water.

With the needlepoint done I finally started to feel like it was time to pull out the pieces of the purple sweater I had been working on in the spring. I read the instructions for finishing (sewing seams and working the collar and button band) She insists on blocking pieces before sewing together. I usually skip that, but this time I decided to go ahead with it. I got out the blocking board that my mom gave me a couple Christmases ago and laid out the front and back. When they were done, tonight, I laid out the sleeves. Here are pics.

How to cut out a sewing pattern and preserve other sizes

Another sewing post! I really missed sewing, clearly. I took the day off from work and one thing I knew I wanted to do with the day was at least start the new blouse I have planned. I bought the fabric on Spoonflower and the pattern from Colette patterns. I bought 2 yards and was just able to squeeze the pattern pieces into the yardage.

The pattern is drawn out for 9 sizes, and although I am making the largest size I am hopeful that in the future I'll fit into a smaller one. Denial? It doesn't matter. The point is, I wanted to cut out the pieces in such a way as to keep my future options open. There's a way to do so, and I took pictures to document how I did it.

You would think that because I am using the largest size, all the smaller ones just nestle inside them. You would be wrong; in lots of places they cross each other. Here you can see on the right, all the larger sizes' outlines are outside the smaller ones'. But on the left, there is some crossover; if I were to cut along the largest outline I would lose some of the pattern info for the smaller sizes.

Here I show how I have folded back the other outlines. Because of the curved edge, it won't just fold back naturally; you need to clip the paper several times to allow it to expand along the curve. (This one is a concave curve. For convex curves, not shown here, clipping the paper allows the edges to overlap each other along the curve.)

Clip to the innermost outline, which is going to be the fold line.

Fold the pieces up along the fold line (your cutting line). Then when you cut out the pattern, carefully cut along the edge, making sure not to cut the folded paper.

And at the bottom of this picture you can see that the extra pattern information has been saved! This will also work if you are cutting out a size that is not the largest and you want to keep the larger outlines intact.

Okay, maybe I won't fit into a smaller size, but maybe my mom can use the pattern next time and take advantage of the smaller sizes (she's teeny tiny).

Happy sewing!
 

Why I'm closing my Etsy shop

I've been operating my Etsy storefront for about four years now, and I've never been over the moon about its performance but I always assumed that was because I didn't do enough work to promote it. Last August I met a woman whose year-old Etsy shop was doing hundreds of sales, and it made me realize that just hoping that my shop would magically get noticed was, well, magical thinking. In our conversation she was super enthusiastic and encouraging, and passed on a few great ideas for improving my traffic. I started putting those ideas into practice. I started relisting items frequently; I posted on my FaceBook page for the shop about various items; I bought ad space on FB for my shop page (and later for my other project); I cross-linked between this and my other project; and I offered free shipping for "likes" on FB page. I worked on improving my photography. I read articles on succeeding with an Etsy store and tried to put their ideas into practice. And my sales did improve, but only a small amount. From a few a year to one a month or a little less.

The turning point came at my tax preparation appointment this year. My accountant gave me the usual speech about how I'm not making much money from my business and if I don't start making a profit it could be a problem. I said, "Okay, if I don't do better this year I'll call it a day," and she said "Fine, but we had this exact conversation last year," and I realized she was right. It was a moment when I woke up a little bit, and I decided to redouble my efforts to bring in more sales, and also to spend less on raw materials and instead just use up what I have on hand. I've done well at spending less and using what's in stock, but there's been no improvement in sales.

I have been mulling over this in earnest for a few months, and I have started to come to terms with it. Last week I said to my husband, "I think I'm going to close my Etsy shop," and the very next morning I checked my email and had gotten another sale, and I thought, well, that's ironic! Maybe it's a sign? I sent out the fiber to the buyer.

Two days later she emailed me on Etsy to say that she was "very disappointed" because the fiber was "very felted," she couldn't use it, and how did I propose to rectify the situation? Naturally, I realized there was no point in arguing with her. I didn't agree on the condition of the fiber (and will be spinning it up as soon as it arrives back to prove it), but there is nothing to be gained by arguing, and possibly she would give me a poor rating as a result, which I would like to avoid. I told her to send it back to me and I would refund her the purchase price plus the return postage. She put it in the mail and I gave her the refund.

And I thought, that's it! The last straw. I realized that this is just a complete waste of my time and money, I'm making NOTHING from it, losing money in fact, and I don't see a need to give the owners of Etsy another dime. (Unfortunately I then had to pay my fees for the last month, but there wasn't much I could do about that.)

Finally I went into Etsy and put my store "on vacation." I don't know that I am ready to Close it but I can and did take an action to take it out of circulation, from Etsy but more importantly from my mental processes. I realized how every time I look at my yahoo mail account, I'm scanning first of all for emails from Etsy in hopes of a sale. Every time I buy something via Paypal I hope to see a balance in there. How much energy that takes! I can stop doing that now. I have started to feel a weight off my shoulders.

I don't have to feel guilty that I haven't done any dyeing in a while or that I haven't relisted my products lately. I don't have to feel lame that I am not making any sales. Well, I feel like I failed at this endeavor, and that feels lame, and I feel disappointed. But I also feel like I finally admitted defeat and I can take this energy and put it in some new direction.

The one remaining issue that I'm not sure about is whether to continue the dyeing workshop project as well. Because the truth is, I don't feel like dyeing fiber very often. After interviewing a bunch of dyers, and reading about their processes, and how much time and energy they devote to their work, I also realized that I'm just not as interested in doing it as the pros are. (Or even as much as the serious amateurs are.) I like it … okay. Not a lot.

What I still really love is looking at pictures of beautiful colorways. And maybe that is where I will stay - a devotee of color and fiber who loves to look (and occasionally buy). Maybe I'll keep experimenting in my dye lab in the basement, but without any pressure to have it Be Something More.

So that's what's been going on. I'm closing down the Etsy shop. As to the inventory: I took a bunch of skeins of yarn over to Stix 'n' Stitches in Montclair, and they are always so complimentary to me about them and happy to sell them on consignment in the shop. Which amazes me in itself! And the fiber? I can spin it! I made a bunch of colors that I like!

I'm going to keep posting here, by the way. Lately I've been doing some sewing and have posted about some of it, and now that I don't have to be all professional about the shop I can just post what I like and that will be that.
 

Vinyl Repair. Vinyl Repair! THE FIXER!

Okay, not vinyl - microsuede, much nicer than vinyl. (The title is a call out to an ad in the '70s they used to play constantly on TV. Anybody remember it?)

We have this sofa that is going to charity tomorrow (although they didn't call to confirm so I'm a little nervous that they won't show up). It's a great sofa - sofa bed, actually - but after we put in the door in my office, it was too wide for any wall in our house. So we have to get rid of it. Now, I was eventually able to curb them of the habit, but for a while the cats were sharpening their claws on one corner of it. Here you can see the damage they did to the microsuede cover.

They only damaged the cover, though, not the sofa itself underneath. So that's one good thing. Anyway, when I called the charity that is taking it I told them that the cover had some cat scratch damage and said I was thinking of patching it, and they said it would be a good idea if I did so, otherwise the foreman picking up the thing might not take it if it looked too damaged.

So I removed a piece from the center back pleat, and then just sewed the pleat halves back together without folding them back. I removed the worst-scratched piece from the corner pleat, and replaced it with the piece from the back, but in front of the folded side pieces. It looks fine, if you didn't know you might not even notice.

I had to patch the corner as well. Here is a closeup of the patch:

One great thing about ultrasuede is you don't have to worry about edges fraying, and you can just top sew the seam and let that be it.

I didn't want to spend a huge amount of time doing this, and I think if I were doing it for us to keep I probably would have been a little more "precious," as Adam accuses me of being, but at the same time I was thinking of the people who would get the sofa and I hated to think of them getting something that was crappy. You can still see a little bit of scratch damage on the right side, but it's not horrendous, and hopefully will pass muster.

With the pillow on top, the patch is hidden, and the whole thing looks pretty much restored to decent shape.

Oh yeah - one more thing: I have to give credit where credit is due: My Kenmore, yes that's the Sears brand, sewing machine is fraking badass and can sew through half a dozen layers without complaint. I couldn't pin through it, but I was able to sew. I love my Kenmore (made by Janome, behind the scenes).
 

Some cool links

I know I usually post about yarn and so forth but I am also a seamstress from waaaaaay back. So I have a few links to share, the first couple of which are sewing related.

This sort of bent my mind, it was so cool: Bias Binding Tool from Bitter Purl

I just read about a show, Fashioning Fashion, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) that, sadly, has already closed. But it looks like it was gorgeous:

Not only is there a monograph available for the show, which I might have to get, but there are sewing patterns available! Download PDFs from here.

And finally, here's a dose of squee:

Juniper Moon Farm's snuggle puddle.

 

Progress, not perfection :)

There was a discussion of goals on Ravelry in January where I posted some stuff along with everybody else and promptly forgot about it. Then today I suddenly remembered that discussion thread and I wanted to know exactly what I'd set out as my goals so I went back to dig it up:

I want to finish my red and cream colored tea-leaves-cardigan, which is stalled (again) on the sleeve, because with the number of sts it says to pick up, the sleeve is much tighter than the rest of the sweater. I want to create three designs and publish them for free on Ravelry. I want to enter one design for consideration at Twist Collective (fear of rejection really holds me back). And I want to spin the pound+ of fiber my mom gave me to knit into a sweater, and then overdye it so it’s not the color of a band-aid. :) And finally, I would like to keep up with the spinning part of the STF [Spirit Trail Fiberworks] combination fiber & yarn club!

So, I hate the red and cream colored tea-leaves-cardigan, and I haven't finished it for the same reason as above even though I tried redoing the sleeve st pick-up. The second time I picked up too many stitches. Ugh, it is so frustrating. I've more or less decided to frog it but I just haven't done so yet.

I have created one design and put it up on Ravelry - the cowl. I've got plenty of time left in the year so I will probably complete that one.

I have an idea for Twist, but haven't worked on it yet.

I have done NO spinning on the fiber from my mom in months, but I hope being reminded by this post will help me get myself going on that again.

I have spun and plied the first installment of the STF club, a lovely sea blue with green notes. I just got another shipment from her - prolific woman! It's a skein of Orihime (fingering weight, my favorite) in a stunning crimson colorway. Not a flat solid, but just the slightest variations across the skein.

The effect is the platonic ideal of red.

And on the project that I really wanted to work on, which I wanted so much that I was afraid to mention it in the post on Ravelry, I've done a LOT of work! Yes, I am talking about Baba's Fiber Dyeing Workshop. I have been really good and consistent about posting once a week, or about that, and I've been putting out interview Q's to people and publishing new ones. I need to reach out to some people, as I have no more pipeline at the moment. That part - the "cold calling," in essence - is definitely the hardest part. I've been very lucky that so far nobody has said no. Sooner or later somebody will, I know. But so far, so good.

And I've been doing a lot more dyeing, been a lot more regular at it. When I read over an interview I suddenly find myself super motivated to get into the studio!

I've been irregular about updating my Etsy shop. It's really hard to be consistent with it.

So that's my status at the moment. Not all A's; a couple C's, even a couple F's. And I'm okay with that. "Seriously," I say to the voice of my dad that is haranguing me in the back of my head - "back off!"

Perfect is the enemy of good enough!
 

Awesome sewing machine tat

via Fuck Yeah, Tattoos!

New post over at Baba's Fiber Dyeing Workshop

"Dyeing yarns vs dyeing unspun fiber" on Baba's Fiber Dyeing Workshop; check it out!

Also, iPad, changing "unspun" to "unseen" - why, baby, why?
 

New Pattern (beta edition): Winter Wildflowers Cowl

My newest pattern, and it's free!



download now



I was all excited because I read yesterday that a blog I follow was having a contest, "What to do with 150 yards of yarn," and I had already been working up this pattern over the past few weeks. So I got all industrious this afternoon and wrote it up. Then today I checked back to see where to post to enter the contest, only to realize that I misread, and in fact the contest was over a week ago and I missed my chance. Ah well. You win some, you lose some. It motivated me to get the pattern written up. My friend Babs is going to knit it in a different colorway for me - sort of my first test knitter!

From sheep to shins

This evening on the drive home (with Adam driving, not me) I finished the leg warmers I made from the yarn I made from the carded wool I made from the pound of the fleece from the sheep known as Little Debbie, owned by a member of our spinning guild, Essex Spinners. (Yeah, I know that's a run-on sentence; it was a run-on experience, too, so that grammar fits.)

A bunch of the guild members bought the fleece together divided the fleece amongst ourselves; I got a pound. After washing it was about 14.5 oz. (Yes, that means about 1.5 oz of lanolin/sheep grease and dirt! And it wasn't very dirty.) Then I carded it by hand over many evenings while watching TV. Then I spun the carded fiber into singles over many additional evenings. Then I plied two singles together, and plied those together again for a 4-ply, this construction also being known as a cable-plied yarn.

Even though I washed the fleece a couple times, I could still feel a lot of lanolin left on the fiber; it's probably the first yarn I've used where my hands have felt softer after working with it! I had about 450 yards of it, I guess. I have it written down, but unfortunately my notes are scattered around.

Here are the finished leg warmers:

I used a free pattern from Classic Elite Yarns, "Waterlily Leg Warmers," by Andi Clark. For once I didn't do any (intentional) modifications, although I found a couple mistakes in my cabling, which is pretty rare for me. Actually, it's not that it's so rare that I make a mistake, but I tend to be a perfectionist and I usually will rip back to the mistake, one way (several whole rows, if it was pretty recent) or another (a few columns of stitches if it's far enough back), and redo it. But this time I just thought, do I really need to rip back SEVEN repeats of the cable pattern in order to be all perfect about it? Nope!!

For fun I wanted to see how they looked with rain boots:

and with cowboy boots:

 

Baba's got a brand new blog!

I've started a new blog that is meant to complement this one, specifically devoted to dyeing yarn and spinning fiber. I've long wanted to spend more energy and focus on dyeing. I have been working on improving my own abilities, and I am fascinated by others' beautiful products too. Probably more than by my own, truth be told. So I decided to branch off a new blog from this one, and it's called Baba's Fiber Dyeing Workshop. I just made the first post (about Hedgehog Fibres on Etsy), so it's truly nascent, but I'm really excited about it. I have a bunch of big ideas I hope to put into it as time goes on.

I hope you'll check it out and give it some love!
 

Remnants scarf and other cool things

I created a slim scarf out of leftovers from a couple other projects that I'd like to share here:



This was a crochet experiment that originally did not have any particular objective. I just had some extra of the two colors and thought they would play nice together. I made, essentially, granny squares, some with pink centers and brown outsides and some with the reverse. When I ran out of the brown alpaca, I sewed them all together in a single long zigzag (Adam’s idea) and that was the scarf. I love how it came out.



Here is yours truly wearing the scarf:



It's a slightly dark pic but it's an iPhone shot, what do you want.

I'm going to type up the instructions and put it up as a free download in the next few days. It is super easy and will work with many different yarn weights. I used worsted, here, but sock yarn would work, as would even laceweight. If you used laceweight you might want to have two rows of zigzagged squares to give it decent width.

* * * * *
I'm influenced by (read: I'm a huge fan of) Sophie Digard, a French designer of, as her website puts it, "Scarves, shawls, gloves, fingerless gloves, head gears, necklaces, bracelets, brooches, hairpins, bags, 'espadrille' shoes, plaids, ..." She designs gorgeous items that are made using thread in multiple colors. The way she puts colors together blows my mind. I saw scarves by her a few years ago in a shop down in Tribeca but they were outside of my comfortable price range. I got a bee in my bonnet about her earlier this year and finally bought a bag by her:


Click on "Views" to see more detail.

The bag is stunning! It smelled like lavender when it arrived, too. I kept it in the plastic wrapper until Thanksgiving, though, because I felt like it was too nice to use. But when my mom was here she was in my studio using my yarn winder and she saw it stashed in there; she asked me about it and I realized as I said it how stupid it was to buy something and then not use it because it's too nice! Anyway, after that I got it out and I've been using it lately.

You can see a selection of other items here at Ped Shoes. I think I have a very good color sense, but I am humbled by the things she makes. I love how she puts colors together that I would never use together, and makes them work and makes them gorgeous. It doesn't hurt that they are made in the tiniest scale. I seriously tried to buy yarn that fine and couldn't - I do think they are made from thread. Check out this amazing necklace at The French Needle:



* * * * *
Over at the Purl Bee they have the most astonishing, amazing, simple technique for two-color garlands:



I love when people are just noodling around and invent something like this and then just go ahead and share it with the world. Go read the instructions - you won't believe how easy it is. I can see many amazing uses for this technique!
 

STITCHES East, part two

While writing the blog post yesterday I was joined multiple times at my table by ladies I had met earlier, because I was sitting alone at the only table with available chairs in the crowded cafe area. Then I was joined by someone I didn't know, Vivian Hoxbro and her companion (husband? partner?). I introduced myself and mentioned I'd seen her books; rather than say I haven't gotten around to trying out her techniques yet, I lied and said I was intimidated. She pointed to my sweater and said if I could knit that, I could follow her patterns. (And that's true, too. I'm not intimidated by any knitting technique. Not even steeks, really. But on the other hand, I am intimidated by famous people, in any interpretation of the word - and Vivian Hoxbro is famous, at least in the knitting world.) And then, Nancy Bush came up and spoke to Vivian, and glanced at me, but didn't say hello. Now, if there's anybody famous in the knitting world, Nancy Bush is that person. She was going to get in the line for the cafe, and implied she was going to come back after that. And I got flustered and sort of shut down. I picked up my trash and said I was just going and now there was room for Vivian's friend, and hustled away down the escalator. And as I went I felt horrid. Here were two people I would have loved to meet and talk with, but because of my stupid intimidation by / infatuation with / resentment of famous people, I had to run away. As I went down the escalator all I could think about was how I would have loved to stay and charm Nancy Bush and Vivian Hoxbro and then tell Nancy Bush about my book idea, and then she would say what a good idea it was and she was going to make it happen. Instead I scurried away into the crowd like a small rat.

It reminded me of the time Melissa told me about having written a song for Emmy Lou Harris when she (Melissa) was still a bartender at Lucky Strike, and then ELH herself came into the bar a few days later, but instead of telling her about the song, Melissa balked and just kept it to herself. Those lost opportunities burn like hot brands in the creative soul. I still feel regret for Melissa when I think about that story. As Mr Rochester would say, Remorse is the poison of life.

Anyway, I tried to put it out of my mind. I was in a huge bazaar of fibery delights. I continued on where I had left off in the aisles and came up to another lady wearing the lovely skirt outfit I am trying to sell Mom on (not really trying to sell her on, but I know she wants to knit a skirt and I think she would like this one). I asked her if I could take a picture, and trying to be considerate I took the picture from the neck down.



As you can see, though, the lady's name is Claudia - as in Claudia Hand Painted Yarns! Which I figured out after taking the picture, and then I delightedly said how much of a fan of her yarns I am, how I've made several pairs of "lucky" socks for my husband out of her sock yarns, and how thrilled I was to finally meet the lady behind the yarn. I also was able to tell her how wonderful her colorways are, how I was a painter in college and now I'm starting to dye fiber myself and how hard I am discovering it is! She was very approachable, and receptive, and gracious. So that went part way toward making up for the Vivian H/Nancy B fiasco.

Then I continued on and finally found the booth for The Sanguine Gryphon, which I knew was there and only found on the last aisle. I met Gryphon, who took one look at my name tag and said, to my surprise, "Oh, Barclay, how nice to meet you in person!" I've written her a few emails about this or that, and I've bought several skeins of her yarn, which are also beautifully dyed. I talked with her for a few minutes, and I bought a pattern, and she also let me take a picture of one of her other designs that I found hard to visualize from the photos on their site.



And then I did something I rarely do, and I asked the person in back of me in line to take my picture with Gryphon:



She has a weird expression here, but I promise you she seemed quite flattered to have a fan ask to take her picture, and she has her arm around me even, though you can't tell. I swear! And yes, apparently she does wear those anachronistic garments all the time, and sews many of them herself, although this very luxe silver one was not one she had made.

After this picture she told me she had heard my name announced as a winner of something, and my next class was coming up shortly, so I raced away to collect my prize (a skein of Miss Babs sock yarn - something I actually wanted!) and get to my class.

I didn't take any pictures of the spinning class, but it was a really REALLY helpful class. I learned to spin on a spindle, but more importantly, I learned a lot more about twist, how to tell if you are overplying, and how to draft. I will need to practice a lot more (of course) but I feel like I am well on my way to having much more control over the yarn that I spin.

All in all, it was a great conference and I had a good time!
 

On Location in Hartford

I'm at STITCHES East, a knitting conference, to take a couple of classes and visit the large market of "soft wares" vendors.

I got here yesterday and took a class called The Joy of Steeks (a nervous-making technique wherein you knit for several months, then slice right up the center of your work and, amazingly, it doesn't all fall apart). This was a fun class. I was sitting among a group who were pretty on the ball and we started giggling at our classmates who were all "Huh? What? Where do I baste? Are we supposed to cut now? Do we pick up stitches around the corner?" etc. Despite being in (or probably instigating) the peanut gallery, I did get a lot out of the class, and will not be afeard when I need to use this technique someday.


After cutting between the machine-stitched columns of stitches along the center column


The edge, after picking up and knitting a mitered placket


Here we have basted up another column, and are adding a hand-crocheted edge prep


That same column after crocheting both side columns and cutting

Last night I went to the fashion show, which I was surprised to find was quite professionally done, with "real" models and two commentators. There were some nice designs, some of which I might make. There was also a fair proportion of crap. There were several designs made using yarn with, uh, stuff in it - I believe the yarn industry is foisting Novelty Yarns on us again, as it seems we failed to learn from the '80s. Two or three of the garments looked as though the model fell in a pile of raked leaves and didn't quite brush herself off. Oh well. I don't have to follow where they would lead.

Debbie Stoller is here launching her newest Stitch 'n Bitch book, as well as her line of yarns (which are pretty nice and at a super price point). Unfortunately, at the dinner (after the fashion show) she was seated with the fancy Knitter's bigwigs,* so we couldn't really hang out much. I sat with two ladies from the peanut gallery in my steeks class, which was nice. I generally find events like that pretty lonely and/or very hard work, but my dinner companions were really nice, and I soldiered through.

Today I slept in, which was lovely, and then checked out of the hotel and drove over to the convention center, where I got super rock star parking (at least, if it is a legal spot). This is handy because my second class, Spinning for Knitting, isn't until 1:30 and I am bringing my wheel to it, but I wanted to finish going through the Market and NOT have to schlep my wheel the whole time.

Yesterday I didn't see anything in the Market that excited me, but today I found a booth that is selling wonderful Irish yarns and they had a sweet cardigan pattern that I tried on and LURVED, so I snapped that up. Then I turned a corner and found the Miss Babs booth; I've spun a bunch of her hand-dyed fiber before and I love her colorways. So I got a couple bumps of fiber to spin that I think will ply well together. I introduced myself to Herself but she was super busy manning the register and it wasn't a terribly meaningful exchange.

Now I've had a little breakfast and I'm heading back to finish the Market. After that I have my second class and then it's back home to my lovely husband!

* It's my theory that Debbie is being courted by XRX/Knitter's.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

End of the (tomato) season

Today I pulled up all the tomato plants, which were all close to dead or dying. I had already lopped off the ends of the vines, and all flowers, two weeks ago to encourage the plants to put their remaining energy into the fruit that was already there. We had a few get a little more red, but mostly what we got in the end was this big bowl of green ones.



It looks like pickled green tomatoes or fried ones ... or both ... are in our future!

I also put up the halloween decorations on the front of the house.

Now we are making a pot of Italian sausage, kale, and white bean soup from my sister's recipe. I love sausage & white bean soup - I hope this turns out well!
 

Adam's latest custom gloves - rubberized work gloves

For his birthday (TODAY! HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEETIE!) I made Adam a new pair of gloves. As he already has a regular pair, a fingerless pair, and a pair with caps that tip off the top so you can dial your phone but keep on your gloves, the only thing I could think of to make them different was to make work gloves. He keeps suggesting that I am trying to send the message that he should be doing more yard work. I am trying to send the message that I love the dude. Also that I love knitting gloves.

Here you can see they are coated with a plastic rubber coating, the spray-on variety of Plasti-Dip, which I got on Amazon. My mother wisely suggested that I try it on a piece of test knitting before committing to doing it on the final product. I thought this was a brilliant idea but I ran out of time - it took me all ten days (from last week when I thought of the idea to last night before going to bed) to knit them, finish, and work in the ends, so doing a test first was something I didn't have time for. Fortunately it worked out very well.

Something you may have spotted, you eagle eye, is the different color wrist band on the right glove. Yes. I ran out of yarn about two inches from the bottom. Bummer - but as they are work gloves, they don't really have to match perfectly, do they? I just picked up at that point with some hand spun left over from the fingerless pair.



I tried to follow the pattern I've seen with rubberized work gloves where the rubber appears to wrap around the finger tips and sides. To do this, I used painter's tape to cover the backs and the wrist bands. (Below, you can see as the tape is getting peeled off.) I stood the gloves up on a couple of beer bottles and sprayed them with the plasti-dip.

I put on three coats. I'm not sure why I got the pebbly textured surface, but I think it may add to their utility when Adam puts them to use.




 

This Weekend: The New York Maker Faire / BUST Magazine Craftacular

If you are looking for something cool to do this weekend, the New York Maker Faire ( http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2010/) is happening both Saturday and Sunday. Maker Faire is an event created by Make Magazine to "celebrate arts, crafts, engineering, science projects and the Do-It-Yourself (DIY) mindset."



There will be speakers, demos, and workshops on all aspects of DIY techniques, ethos and mindset: blending craft and technology, painting with light, cigar box guitars, even hacking your Playstation 3. Here’s the extensive schedule: http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2010/schedule/

Now for the self-promotion: One big component of the fair will be the BUST Magazine Craftacular (http://bust.com/craftacular/craftacular-home.html), a curated craft fair featuring 100 New York area DIY artisans, indie crafters and designers. I will have a booth there with my hand-dyed fiber (for spinning) and my handspun yarn, Saturday only.



The fair will be open Saturday, September 25th - 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Sunday, September 26th - 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

The Maker Faire will be held out in the New York Hall of Science, 47-01 111th Street, Queens, NY 11368-2950. The easiest way to get there is to take the 7 train to 111th Street Station. There will also be public parking for $10 at Citi Field nearby.

If you decide to come to the Maker Faire, I hope you will stop by my booth (#96 in the BUST Craftacular) and say hi!
 

Finished, blocked Pine and Ivy

Here is the completed, blocked shawl. It's quite large, and lovely, and I really hope Jennifer (of Spirit Trail Fiberworks) likes it.

Some notes about this project (Ravelry link):

The yarn was very nice to work with. At the beginning, I split the strands on the needle a few times, but this was (once I got used to working with laceweight yarn again) something I quickly learned how to stop doing. I worked the first section, the 3" or so edge along the bottom, twice because I dropped a stitch down a few rows and couldn't recover. But the yarn tolerated being manhandled, as it were, quite well. There was no perceptible wear, fraying or blooming after I ripped back those 30 rows.

I blocked it using wires, threaded through the edge stitches and through the points on the top edge; by pinning it out and then spritzing with water. I know I have a spray bottle for this purpose but for the life of me I can't find it. I made do with a water gun that we have around for discouraging cats from clawing furniture, and it worked perfectly well.

I used less than 1.5 skeins of Spirit Trail Fiberworks' Lachesis (colorway Moon Shadows). I have 29 g left of the second skein (initially 50g) so I used about 781 yards on this.

The pattern is Pine and Ivy by Anne Hanson of Knitspot. I worked the "Tall" size. It took me two months and ten days. It seemed like longer - I just don't like knitting lace with laceweight yarn. I guess I have to accept it.

I used seven lifelines over the course of the work. I strongly advise using them. I read a post in some knitting blog recently where the writer seemed to think of them as an amateur tool - well, I've been knitting for over 35 years, and I'm pretty much the best knitter I know. No, I take that back - Sunday Holm is the best knitter I know. But aside from Sunday. And I don't consider lifelines a rookie move, they are simply a smart move. If you are afraid you won't seem cool if you put in a lifeline, don't worry. It's much cooler to have the lifeline than to have to rip all the way back because you messed up and didn't have one. Everybody messes up; it's how you prepare for it, and how you handle it when you do that makes the difference.
 

A whole lotta shaking goin' on

First of all, we got a new cat, Errol:

Errol Goodboy Bindle Featherstone from Quirm* (who was "Simba" at the Clifton Animal Rescue, but we felt that name didn't seem to match his personality) is about a year old, and has a sweet, if slightly needy, disposition. We put him in Adam's study for the first two days, to keep him separate from Lilly, but moved her food up to outside the study door so they could smell each other (and talk to/hiss at each other, as well). After two days the door was left open and they have gradually been getting to know each other. Lilly was very annoyed at first.

I actually took that picture today, when she had calmed down a lot, but she always looks crabby like that.

This has totally upset our household. Adam and I each had to sleep with him one night in the office on a blow-up bed, because he whined continually if left in there by himself. He seemed tremendously lonely. With company he was pretty quiet, but sought much petting, which is not conducive to good sleep. He likes to push his head into one's armpit or under the arm, into any cozy spot. He also did a funny thing where he pushed his head into my hair and kneaded the back of my neck. He was very good at keeping his claws sheathed while he did this, which is why it was a cute thing and not a painful one. But I only let him do it a little bit, as I was not super crazy about the wet bits of my hair that resulted. I think he might have been trying to nurse on the back of my head.

They're starting to get along now - in fact, I think they are obsessed with each other. Errol certainly is obsessed with Lilly, and she is starting to tolerate him (mostly not growling) and also to watch him doing his goofy stuff. He's only a year old, so he still has a lot of kitten energy, but is big enough to give her what-for when she bullies. I think they are a good match.

Secondly, I finished the gray Pine and Ivy shawl about a week ago and it took me until last night to get it together to block it. I was slightly daunted by the fact that it has shaping at the shoulders, which, when you lay the thing flat, look like a couple of flattish boobies. If I were not to do something with those, the stitches in those sections would not be as opened up as the rest of the shawl.

So I put a couple of saucers under those sections to give them a little bit of opening up as well. It looks pretty funny. The thing is huge - 72" across and 28" from tip to top - and I had to add books on the end to take up the extra space, and I couldn't get a picture of the entire thing, even standing on a chair and raising the camera almost to the ceiling.

* Fans of Terry Pratchett may recognize this as also the name of a pet "swamp draggon" from Guards! Guards!

A weekend full of activity

Etsy shop: I made new ads (which run on Ravelry). A new design uses a pretty good photo of a pink/peach skein of my handspun yarn. I added "handspun yarns & hand-dyed fiber" on the two existing ads with the blue sky and sheep. I'm wondering if this change will help people know what the ads are FOR and encourage them to click on them. As it is there has been VERY LOW SUCCESS with these ads so far.

I also listed the four 4-oz bumps of roving I already dyed last week, and the pink/blue/brown silk+mohair I recently spun from the Hello Yarn spinning club.

Dyeing: Last night I dyed some more roving. This time I used the Cormo I got from Juniper Fiber Farms; they had a fund raiser so I bought 8 oz to help out. It's lovely stuff, very very soft. This time I made fewer mistakes.

1. I wore gloves. This meant I didn't have to be so cautious about where I touched stuff, because I wasn't worried about getting my hands stained. (AND I didn't get my hands stained.)

2. I used a half a teaspoon of citric acid along with some synthex in the soak before applying the dye. This meant the dye took better.

3. I put the pot on the stove in our kitchen. This, admittedly, was forced upon me because the shite hot plate I bought at Target (on which the larger burner broke a year ago) completely stopped working, but it also meant that the heat was more dependable. Instead of using the microwave, which is a method I don't like so much, I put some water in the bottom of my large pot and a steamer tray, and put the two plastic-wrapped dye+wool packages in there to steam for 30 mins. At the end of this, it was late and I was tired, so I put the pot in the basement stone sink to cool overnight.

This morning when I took the wool out of the plastic wrap, I still had to rinse it a bunch of times, but not as many as last week, which I think was due to the fact that I used more citric acid and also a lot less dye, so more of it actually discharged fully into the wool. (I am still using up all this concentrated dye from last year. I can't stand to just put it down the sink; I'm pretty sure that's not safe anyway. Once it's used up, I will go back to the regular method I was using last year, and I'll be better able to estimate how much dye I actually need for each 4 oz of wool.)

Sewing: (I know! SEWING!) It's been forever since I did any sewing. However, I came across a tutorial for a "summer scarf" (which, counterintuitively, could really come in handy in the over air conditioned office yours truly works in) and then also, about the same time, saw that Purl Soho had some Liberty prints in. The confluence of events was too much for me to resist, so I got a half a yard (it was SUPER OVER PRICED but I only needed a half a yard) and it arrived Friday night. Today I went out to Michael's and got some elastic beading thread so I could make this.

Now, I've been sewing practically my entire life, so this was a pretty easy little pattern, not a huge challenge for me, except for sewing with a bobbin of elastic thread, which I've never tried before. It was NOT successful. Maybe the elastic thread I bought was too wimpy, I don't know, but it snapped several times while I was sewing the two lines, and finally I decided it was too unreliable. So I found some elastic cord, about two millimeters in diameter I'd guess, that was a lot more sturdy, and I sewed it on the back of the scarf using zigzag to create a kind of channel that the cord ran through. I tied a knot on each end and sewed the extra end into the channel as well on each end. I think it came out pretty well!

Spinning: I'm not doing the Tour de Fleece, but I have been doing a lot of spinning lately anyway. I have some lovely yellow-gold-red-brown silk+cashmere that I got from Spirit Trail Fiberworks last year when I was in her spinning club (it was a terrific bargain, in my opinion, but I couldn't keep up with the rate she sent stuff so I still have a couple installments left over). I spun that last week, and Navajo-plied it to preserve the color shifts. I also started spinning some great brown superwash merino/cashmere/silk roving from Pigeonroof Studios. The color shifts in it are much more random and varied, so I will double ply it, most likely.

And I sorted the locks of the fleece I washed by color lightest to darkest, only to decide that I want to spin it all mixed up instead. I started carding it, this afternoon; that is hard work, and slow going. I have about 20 rolags so far and MUCH more to go. I am going to spin some of it tonight if Adam ever finishes playing this game he's been trying to win this afternoon. It's an annoying game so I don't want to sit in there while he's playing it. I hope he finishes soon!

Gardening: We had about a 5' square part of our garden that I had intended to plant with, well, several things, but which never got planted with anything. Instead I just put newspaper and hay down on it and hoped that would keep the weeds at bay. It did probably do a little good, but they figured out where the edges were and came up along there with a vengeance. Finally this weekend I summoned the energy and the desire to remediate this scourge.

We went to Home Depot, which itself is an unusual event. Adam had to get a special tool to take apart the inside of the car dash to install the AUX input on the stereo (that was my birthday present, both the kit and the installation). I got a bunch of dirt (which always feels stupid to me to have to pay for) to move a very small root-bound dewberry tree into a larger pot, and some trellis things to stake up the cucumbers.

It was SO HOT in the sun that I put up the umbrella over the table and worked under the shady side of that while I was doing the repotting. Then I went to do the weeding. As this was in the direct sun, I rigged up a lean-to shade along the fence using some stakes and some mulch paper. It kept blowing down and I had to keep moving it as the weeding progressed, but it helped a lot. Even with my goofy sun-shelter I had to come inside twice to cool off because I felt like I was getting sick from the heat. But I got the weeds all pulled up. I put down more hay all over that area and it looks a lot better.