FO: Ripley Hat

I made this quite a while ago, while I was still in New York. I wanted to get rid of a few single skeins of yarn I had, as it seemed wasteful to pack them away in storage and bring them with me, as it wouldn't take very long to turn them into a real garment.

This was a skein of long-discontinued, super luxurious Gaia Worsted from the Sanguine Gryphon. The color was "Dew on the Dragonfly". It's 55% silk, 45% cashmere and it just melts in your hands, and it's a precious little 150 yards in a skein. I needed a special something I could whip up quick that would show off the lovely color, and take advantage of how soft and lovely the yarn was.

A quick search around and I remembered a pattern I had been wanting to do for a bit: the Ripley Hat by Ysolda. It had a couple variations you could do, and some optional folds to make the hat slouchier. A perfect way to use up limited yardage.

The pattern was straight forward and a quick knit- even with all the extra folds it took me just a couple days. I opted for the slouchy version with a lacy brim. I packed it in my suitcase and it really came in handy in Iceland. Maybe not the most rugged piece to wear there, but it actually wasn't too cold so it suit my purpose just fine.

Added bonus being that the silk is water replant enough to keep my ears dry in heavy mist/light drizzle.

Etsy Shop Update- Yarn and Roving and OMG CASHMERE!

I had a bit of time off around Xmas to putter around the house with a nasty cold keeping me in. While the soulmate decided that the time was for making beer, at one point I jostled him away from the stove to put my dyepots on. Finally, I've got everything photographed and labeled and listed and ready to go! Oh, except for some lovely merino lace yarn that I want to re-photograph. That will be listed very soon.

Here's a few things in the listing.

A few skeins of handspun Shetland:


A couple colors of hand dyed Polworth-Silk top that I'm wild about:




A few colors of Superfine Merino/Superfine Kid Mohair pencil roving:




Laceweight Merino:




A few colors of Superwash BFL roving:


The best is for last (drumroll please...) MONGOLIAN CASHMERE ROVING!



SQUEEEEE! I can't say enough good things about this stuff. It's the softest fiber I've ever touched, and it spins up into a drapey smooth yarn, and then blooms into the most perfect little delicate halo ever. I have a limited amount of this, and I am still having a sale- 30% off! A real bargain as far as cashmere is concerned.

Check it out at KnotMyDayJob.etsy.com. The coupon code for the 30% off is "trente". Happy shopping!

Making Time to Spin

That's really my biggest spinning challenge now. It takes me so long to set myself up and sit down in front of a wheel that I need to commit time to it. Also, it's bad to run back and forth from spinning to cooking dinner, as no one wants chunks of alpaca in their kale and bean soup.

So here we go.

I'm still trying to consciously control my spinning and not just zone out and make laceweight like I do when I'm on autopilot.



4 oz of Spunky Eclectic Corriedale/Alpaca blend in "Thunderstorm".

Singles:



Plied:



Fin:



At 62 yards, this is not my personal best yardage-wise, but it is a true bulky weight yarn, and I managed to keep the singles even enough so that I don't have to call this a thick-and-thin yarn. Whoo hoo! My first bulky yarn that I'm happy with. Sweet Victory.

Here's another one. This one started out as a Spontaneous Spinning Batt from Loop.



Holy Tinseltown. This was ridiculously fun to spin, but I have sparkles everywhere now. I mean- it worked its way into everything I own, to the point where complete strangers would stop me on the street to point out the big clumps of tinsel attached to my tail. I just cooly and calmly smiled and pretend that I wanted it there. I'm sure there's been a fair amount digested as well. Actually, I'm positive.



I also had an assortment of purple babycakes that I've been collecting. Ever since Loop opened up a studio close to NYC, there's been a pretty hefty trade in these going on. I felt like the don of purple babycakes.



I striped the babycakes (which are just 1oz mini-batts) into the big 4oz batt so I have a nice variegated skein of purple yarn. This was my try in spinning artsy imperfect singles.


The results:





Squeeee! It's so girly and pretty. I'm thrilled with it. It needs to be knitted up ASAP.

On the other end of the spectrum, here some of the fleece from Muriel the Moorit Merino.



Which was processed into this by the mill:



And which I spun into this:



330 yards, woolen, dk weight. It's so soft. I have oodles of this stuff left- I'll never be able to spin through the pounds of this that is in my spinning basket, so I'm selling off some of it on my Etsy Store. For the rest of the month, it is 30% off.

Also on the wheel is some Merino/Tencel blend from Silver Moon Farms. I got this at Rhinebeck ages ago...even though pastel rainbow isn't really my color scheme, I decided to give it a try.



I've never spun tencel before. It wants to be lace and it's a bit slippery, and I'm finding that it wants to be spun worsted rather than woolen. It drafts out like butter and I'm enjoying it immeasurably.



It's shiny! The tencel is almost luminous. I'm thinking of making a delicate lace scarf with it.

Enjoy your weekend, and get some spinning done!

Battier than a Belfry

Guess what?



I've updated my Etsy shop with MORE BATTS!





Scoop them up and spin yourself something awesome for fall! All of them are soft and well-blended. Most of the fiber I have hand dyed, and some of it is natural colored (Sheepy brown! Alpaca fawn!). A lot of work goes into each one, and they are completely unique. Some of these have merino, romney, bfl, alpaca, silk, bamboo, Leicester Longwool...really whatever I feel inspired by at the time.

This is the last of the batt updates for a while as I tucked the carder away, bundled up all my fiber and gave the house a good hoovering. I don't know how other batt-makers do it, but usually I end up with bits of fiber tracked all over the house. It seems like the alpaca is the most willing to travel and go places. It's hard to have a lot of company over with all this fluff flying around, and still appear somewhat normal to other people. I'm sure I'll be pulling the carder out again before the end of the year, if only for the selfish reason that I have a hankering to spin a rather gorgeous Rambouillet fleece.

http://www.etsy.com/shop/KnotMyDayJob

FO: Chutes and Ladders Hat

A couple weeks ago it was sofrigginhot out and it felt as though winter has never existed anywhere ever. How could these waves of oven-like heat come from the same planetary weather system that did this to my car just a few months ago?



I spent the heat-wave week working from home in my little office with no air conditioning. That's how dire my work life has gotten- I would rather spend 8 hours in an airless sauna then make my way into the city with a crush of humanity to sit in a chilly icebox for the day. It actually ended up bring quite entertaining- just when I couldn't bear the heat another second, I would run into the kitchen and cook a big dinner. Corn on the cob, wonton soup, stewed chicken thighs over fresh pasta. Basically, standing in front of the oven and cooking made it so much easier to bear the oppressive heat and humidity because as soon as I stepped away, it magically felt 10 degrees colder. Also, because I couldn't drink water fast enough to stay hydrated, when I drank something with alcohol in it, i was tipsy and having a riotous good time right away. The fact that I spent several occasions over the winter dishing out huge amounts of cash to sit in a sauna or steam room, I had to embrace the heatwave as a way to cleanse my pores. My skin...it's fabulous.

It got so hot in the kitchen, a bottle of homemade beer exploded and shattered into a million pieces. I was kind of proud of the fact that I was tougher than the beer, but cleaning up all those sticky shards was not how I wanted to spend my morning.

The other thing I thought would make me feel nice and cool was to whip up some handspun hats. Oodles of them. As many as I could find odd balls of handspun in my stash. I've been spinning for, oh, 6 or 7 years now, which equates to a whole lot of 2-4oz skeins of oddballs of yarn. I'm on a lot of conference calls and webexes all day, and I find if I don't knit to keep my hands busy, I'll just start click-clicking away on the internet or tap-tapping away on the keyboard, answering emails and stressing about all the tasks that I could be doing. So I knit, and try to pay attention to the call. It's nice.

Here's the first one I spun up:



It started as a 2oz bump of Merino/Silk fiber from Capistrano Fiber Arts in the "Etoille" colorway. It was as soft as anything and the 20% silk content made this just a little shiny. I had acquired this at the Yarn Tree in Brooklyn ages ago...I actually bought two bumps and made a scarf out of the first one I spun up. I love the color on this so much- the combination of the moody dark purples and blues with yellow really made my heart pitter-pat.

I spun this up on my Kromski Minstrel into a big, bulky thick-and thin single.





I tried to keep it as lofty as possible. I had some thin spots where a whole lot of twist accumulated, but for the most part, I was happy with my non-lace spinning. It was fun, and making a bulky yarn takes a fraction of the time than cobweb lace. I got about 70 yards.

I found a hat pattern that I wanted to try.



It's called the Chutes and Ladders hat from the "Handspun Handknit" book. It's a perfect fun little hat to eat up a skein of handspun. It's just a ribbed brim, cables with double yarn overs that you drop on the next row. Or, at least that's how I did mine. The pattern had some ambiguous instructions, so I chose to ignore them and just knit on. It was probably just the heat messing with my head. I don't see any scary killer clown faces in this, so I think I'm okay.





It's not the most tidy hat, but I had a lot of fun making this. Also- it took maybe an hour and a half, and that was even with a good chunk of multi-tasking thrown in. I keep meaning to pick up some round balloons at the dollar store. I've been blocking hats over a mixing bowl for years and they all kind of have a flatter top that what I'd like.

Size 11 needles.

FO- Anastasia Socks

All this handpainted yarn is getting to me! I love the way it looks on the skein (oooh, colors!) but a lot of times you have to do the most simple of sock patterns in order for the whole thing to not give you a headache. I'm starting to like plain, solid colored sock yarn.

Yet, here I am, with a whole bin full of multi-colored sock yarn. What is a girl to do?


This was a skein from last years BMFA Rockin' Sock Club. I liked the pattern by itself, and I was okay with the purpley yarn, but when I started knitting, I was quickly overcome with doubt. The lace pattern got lost in the dark stripes. I frogged those socks and found a new pattern for the yarn.

I found the Anastasia pattern by Minty Fresh. The simple spirals worked well with variegated yarn while not putting me to sleep.


I cast them on during a weekend trip to Sag Harbor while waiting forever for a table at brunch.

By the next weekend, they were done.



I did these toe-up, two at a time on 2 circs. I was really happy with the pattern/yarn combination.



There is something oddly compelling about spiral patterns. Once I start them, I feel as though putting them down for a break would somehow interrupt the spiraling process...so I just keep going.



These are destined for giftdom. I won't say to whom.



The specs:
I used 1 skein (360 yards) of Blue Moon Fiber Arts Socks that Rock Lightweight in the Pepe Le Plume colorway.

Needles were 2.25mm (US 1) circulars- the Addi Lace variety. I am going to need to rave about these in a future post as they are my new favorite sock needles.

These are part of my A-Z stashdown. I have two more skeins of BMFA lightweight to knit up- I saved my favorite colorways for last.

Etsy Shop Update!

I took advantage of a nice cool day last week and put the sad-looking neglected dye pot to good use. I'm quite pleased with the results:



"Flare": These are skeins of 75% Superwash Merino/25% nylon sock yarn. They come in 460 yard skeins, and I have 4 of them listed in the same dye lot (or at least similar enough to be considered a dye lot). I kettle dyed them and then handpainted another layer over the kettle dye, and I'm quite pleased with the results.



"Rouge": This is some of the softest commercially-prepared Corriedale top I've ever touched. It has a nice, long staple length and should spin up nice and heathery.



"Arancia": Blue Face Leicester roving. It's silky and soft and I'm envious of whoever might get to spin this up.

Everything is available at my Etsy shop.

FO- Travelling Woman Shawl

I cast on for this shawl because it was another easy, fairly mindless knit. It goes on for a bit and then a simple lace pattern starts and then it's done. Messing with charts and complicated lace while on the road is not something I'm good at, since usually a wee bit of alcohol is consumed with lunch.



I continued my A-Z stashdown challenge with yet another skein of BMFA Socks that Rock lightweight. This time the color is "Footzy Foo". It a very spingtime colorway- lots of fresh pale greens. I usually don't like to pair lace patterns with complicated hand painted yarn, but these were all similar enough greens to not be too busy (the dreaded "clown barf" effect). These small shawls are a perfect way to quickly use up a skein of sock yarn. Socks usually take me a couple weeks to make, but shawls like this will take me a week or less.

I cast on somewhere over the Atlantic while fending off a chatty Canadian gentleman, who right away took out his Iphone to show me pictures of his girlfriend who worked at Hooters. I figured pretending to sleep for the next few hours was probably my best move in this situation, so the shawl got put down for a bit.


The shawl went to Locarno and took in the amazing Alpine air with me, and then it got a few hits of rather stale smoke-filled air.


It always makes my mother so proud to have raised such a classy daughter.


It went for a hike with me up Üetliberg.

By the time I got home, all that was left to do was block.







The bind-off row is a bit curled up in the pictures, but another blocking should take care of it.

This is a gift for a friend Dagmar, who lives in Germany.



She has the most amazing curly red hair and super fair skin. I think the green will look amazing on her.

The specs: The Travelling Woman shawl by Liz Abinante. I made the pattern exactly as written. I used a size 7 needles and ran out of yarn at the bind-off, so I found another skein of STR that had the same colors, snipped out anything I didn't need, and bound-off in 1 foot increments. Total pain in my ass, but it worked. Should have used size 6 needles and ended up with a slightly smaller shawl, but ah well. I used one entire skein of the STR lightweight yarn, which is 360 yards.