Water, Water, Everywhere. . .

I finished a project the other night, the fourth iteration of the Spiral Staircase shawl. This one in Mad Color Fiber Arts sport weight, called Wicked. The colourway is Rock Lobster. I love the way it looks in real life, with bits and pieces of lighter and darker red. I want to knit with this yarn again. Luckily I bought several skeins of her stuff at the New Hampshire Sheep &Wool Festival!

After I finished that, I sat on my bed with the contents of two bins emptied over the comforter. I looked, I prodded, I felt and sniffed and held various colours up to the light. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I looked at the pile of yarn in front of me and cried, "Oh no! I. Have. Nothing. To. Knit!" No, seriously, I have nothing to knit! All that yarn and nothing to knit! Yarn, yarn everywhere, and not a string to knit!

OK, seriously, I have plenty of things I can knit. I just don't feel like knitting them right now. Sweaters? It's too hot. Another Spiral Stair? Um, can I do something different before I do the fifth iteration of that? The awesome hats for a couple I know whose marriage is now recognised in their home state? Yeah, but the pattern is a finicky Fair Isle, and I want to be wide awake when I attempt it. Besides, in order to do it I have to do some (cue scary music) math! Math is hard!

Later. . . .

OK, I've cast on the hats I'm making for my newly recognised married friends. Doing the math is a lot easier than I thought it would be. I mean, 96 stitches divided by 24 is. . . 4! Easier than I thought, especially when I used my trusty phone calculator. Phew. Besides, I can do the ribbing and the foundation before I start the persnickety Fair Isle stuff. Well, it's not really Fair Isle, and more like stranded knitting because it isn't a traditional Fair Isle pattern of circles and squares. It's bears! I'm making the Polar Bear Hat, by Susan J. Flanders, and which is distributed by Three Kittens Designs, which can be found on Ravelry. I'm making Grizzly Bears instead of Polar Bears, because I have brown yarn, rather than white. Besides, my friends are more like Grizzlies at this point than Polar Bears. I'm using MadTosh Vintage, in colours Celadon and Betty Draper's Blues for the hats, and Whiskey Barrel for the bears. I'll post some pictures when I have more than some ribbing (because, you know, 2x2 ribbing is SOOOO interesting to look at!).

Much later. . . .

These are the colours I'm using for the hats.

Betty Draper's Blues, Whiskey Barrel, and Celadon.

These are the hats so far. I'm making the ribbing with US 6 needles, the stockinette part on US 7 needles, and the stranded knitting part with US 8 needles. Which is why I can have both hats going at the same time (never mind that I have multiple sets of all three sizes).

At the top of the celadon hat, you can see the beginnings of the bears' feet. There will be four bears walking around this hat. As with all stranded knitting, it's always a question if the finished product will fit an adult head. You see, these two guys who are getting these hats are on-line friends, whom I've never met in meat-space. But I love an adventure, and adventures in knitting are the best kind!

Because Knitting Isn't Weird Enough

Because knitting isn't weird enough.

Recently I've become interested in making soap. A few years ago I found a book in a used book store and idly picked it up. I read through it, but most of the soaps were made with tallow, and I'm a vegetarian so I wasn't quite interested in making them. I certainly would want to put the little bunny logo on my soaps that indicate that no animals were harmed in the manufacturing of my product.

And then I discovered one of the recipes was for a pure olive oil Castilian soap. And I decided that I had to make my own soap. Because I love olive oil soap. Years ago, I used to buy a large square bar of olive oil soap from France. It was huge, and I could barely hold it in my hand. A single bar lasted several months, and I used it for everything: washing my self, my hair, as shaving cream. Sure, it makes you smell like a salad, but it's so good for your skin.

There are several items I need to buy: an accurate scale that can be reset to zero; dishwasher-safe buckets and pitchers; spoons that won't dissolve when stirring lye mixtures; safety goggles and rubber gloves; a large plastic mold for the initial pouring; a kitchen where I can do all this, because with the piles of mail my roommate keeps on our kitchen table, I'll never be able to do this work at home. And I want to try my hand at milling the soap, grating it down after it's been made, to create a hand-milled soap, where I can add things like ground up lilacs, or a bit of vanilla fragrance. At this rate, I'll be wanting to make my own bread (in the oven, not in a bread maker), and keeping chickens out back for the fresh eggs.

What has any of this to do with knitting? Well, absolutely nothing. It's just a bee I've got in my bonnet. But if I made my own soaps, I'd have the perfect excuse to knit up a bunch of wash cloths to give to friends along with a bar of home-made soap, with various logos like Daleks, or bears, or fleurs-de-lys knit into them to delight the recipients. I've got a lot of cotton yarn in my stash! I've seen the patterns on Ravelry! I could wrap the soap in the wash cloth that I'd knit!

Yarns to Dye For!

One of the things I've been interested in for a while is dying. Come July, I'm going to get my chance to try my hand at it. Huw's friend Mirabel is a dyer, and uses natural plant dyes rather than chemical dyes. I think we'll be using indigo and maybe woad. One of them, I've heard, needs what is known to dyers as a "piss-bath" and I'm sure if that's true, it will all be so very charming.

Not.

I've been scouring my stash for any undyed yarns I might have. I've found quite a few, but these nine are the ones I think I'll bring with me to dye.

A few years ago, I signed up for a yarn CSA out of Martha's Vineyard, which has since relocated to Virginia as Juniper Moon Farm. At the end of the season, I got two skeins of Romney and four skeins of Corriedale.

These are the Romney skeins. The yarn is beautiful, but not particularly soft. I need to do some research about Romney yarn, and what it might be best used for.

These are the four skeins of Corriedale. I don't think I've ever knit with Corriedale before, so I'm looking forward to making something interesting with these once they're dyed.

In 2007 I visited a friend in Bellingham, WA, and on a trip to Orcas Island, we passed a sheep farm and I bought these two skeins. I wish I'd also bought the natural brown yarn, but I was limited in funds. These are from Coffelt's Farm from the island, and I've carried them with me a long time, and a long way. While I know these are wool, I'm not sure from which breed, and the website doesn't mention which breed they use for the wool, though there are Romney, Dorset, Coopworth, and Texal on the farm.

At a recent craft fair, I got this sport weight skein of alpaca yarn. It's from Sunny Knoll Farm in New Hampshire. I don't know much about this yarn, only that I've been told that alpaca accepts dye beautifully, and that it will look good when done.

I will continue to look through my stash to see if I have other undyed skeins of yarn. I know that I have a few skeins of Cascade Epiphany, a discontinued line, in a mustard yellow. Mirabel tells me that this can be overdyed, and if I can find it, I'll bring it with me. I only bought it because the yarn had been discontinued and I knew that when my LYS was soldout, it would be out of reach forever.

Miscelaneous

This is my third attempt in a week to write a blog post. The computer ate my previous efforts (it crashed and refused to yield up my efforts when I got the damn thing running again). So much is going on that I'll just write a miscelany.

Item the First

I finished the third effort at the Spiral Stair Shawl. This one is in a blend of merino and mohair and was hand dyed by my friend Lucy. I think it came out well, and the other morning, I cast on the fourth effort at this shawl.

It's a crappy picture, but it's the only one I have of this iteration of the shawl.

Item the Second

I have been moving my bins of yarn to the basement of my friends Laura and Bill. I sublet from my roommate, and he is in danger of being evicted. If he goes, I go. So I'm getting the important stuff out of the house before the landlord gets the chance to leave it on the sidewalk. So far there are about 19 bins of yarn that have been moved. There are still 8 in my room, but a lot of the yarn in these particular bins needs to be put into ziploc baggies. I am currently out of baggies and don't plan a trip to La Boutique Target (that's French) until later this weekend. Then I'll finish bagging, and then I'll finish moving the bins. I'm keeping the yarn for the next 10 or so projects, but what'll I do when those are all knit up? Of course, their front door is a climb of about 30 steps up from the street, and then when in the house, one must navigate down a narrow set of steps to the basement. It's always an adventure!

Item the Third

One of the things I found whilst bagging my yarn is this sweater I began sometime between 2005 and 2007. The back panel is done, and about half of the front. It's in Berocco's Peruvia, and I think at some point I might even pick it up again and finish it. I kind of remembered it was floating around somewhere, but I wasn't quite sure where. I'm glad I found it.

It's a Gurnsey by Yankee Knits, the ribbed sections are actually in black alpaca.

Item the Fourth

I am a yarn whore. I know this. Gods below! I have 26 bins of yarn, and I need to buy yet another to fit all the yarn I got when I was at the NH Sheep and Wool Festival. My friend Huw sent me this picture, and I quite agree.

Item the Fifth

About ten days ago I hit a patch of not knowing what to knit. I had just finished a project, and while I have a long list of projects I want to get done, I couldn't decide which one. I cast on three different ones, and they are still sitting by my bed, the stitches cast on and nothing more accomplished. What I finally realised was that I really wanted to knit with the Mad Color yarn I'd gotten at NHS&W. Dyed a vibrant red, Rock Lobster, it's a Blue Face Leicester wool that is lovely to work with. I only wish it were a slightly heavier yarn, since I'm knitting on US size 3 needles, which is about as small as my paws can handle. But I'm loving the texture and colour variation, and the soft feel of it.

This is the fourth edition of this shawl that I am making for all the women on my holiday list this year. This is three-and-a-half repeats of the pattern.

Item the Sixth
I am looking for patterns for a cowl for my friend Dolci. I made a New Bittersweet Cowl for her sister, but I am reluctant to make the same pattern, since the second time usually looks better than the first attempt. I need to hit up Ravelry today. I think that will be very pleasant.