FO- Knetted Socks

I finished a pair of socks recently. They are from the Socks that Rock club from last fall. Begone, sock yarn! You will languish no further in my stash.



The yarn is BMFA medium weight in "River Rocked". The skein is absolutely gorgeous- so many great fall colors in there.



Predictable, it knitted up kind of muddy, but I did love this pattern. The linen stitch diamonds helped show off the colors.







The pattern is "Knetted", by Cat Bordhi. She does such unusual, creative patterns. This one had a heel that I can only describe as a "happy face". It's "U" shaped, and it fits really well, and it eliminates the need for gusset shaping. And the toe- there was no Kitchener stitch involved. There was a series of decreases the spiraled down to nothing. Really ingenious. They look kind of funky without a foot in them, but they are actually really nice on.

Oh, and I started this for Socktoberfest. I forgot to take pictures of that event. It's our annual sock-knitting and beer-swilling evening at the local Teutonic establishment. We do it on a Monday night, and everyone backs away from us and leaves us alone.

This is yet another skein gone for my A-Z stashdown challenge. I actually noticed a dent in my sock yarn bin the other day. Oh, that's only because I've used 12 skeins of sock yarn up since this challenge began last spring.

These are going to be gifted, as my sock draw is full. The medium weight yarn is a bit too thick to shove into a pair of shoes, so these would be great house slippers or an outer layer boot sock. I grew up in Maine, and buying your winter boots a size too big so you can fit another thick wooly layer of sock is the norm.

Loop Spin-In

I've been slacking lately on getting up to Loop's monthly spin-in. Last Saturday was a brilliant and sunny autumn day that was perfect for getting out of the city.





I love the little riverwalk the Gaga complex has.





The trees back there were at peak color and just fabulously brilliant.



Naturally, there was spinning going on as well.



B is for Bison (or Buffalo, if you must). I'm spinning some.



It's a great challenge. I have 5oz of the stuff. It's dehaired, but not carded, so I'm just fluffing up handfulls of the fiber and spinning it like that. It's got .5 of an inch staple length and it's super slippery, but it's warm and soft- almost like cashmere. I'm spinning it as finely as I can and I will be 2-plying it eventually. Too much twist and it snaps like a dry twig, not enough and it falls apart. There's no in-between with this fiber, but it lets you know exactly when you've got it right by behaving.



See all the scraps on my skirt? That's what it does. I end up covered with a million pieces of half-twisted bison fiber every time I sit down to spin.

It was a relaxing day with good friends.

Sweetgrass

I missed this gem of a film at the New York Film Festival last year and finally watched it last night. Sweetgrass is a documentary about a Montana sheep farm. It's an unflinching, unsentimental look at a lost way of life. They filmed an annual event of driving sheep to high summer pastures with no narration or dialog at all. It's really quite something. The film moves very slowly, with lots of wide, sweeping shots, and the effect is hypnotic.



The sheep appear to be Rambouillets. The sheep bleating is the only soundtrack of the entire film.



There's a rather amusing foul-mouthed oration from a fed-up whiny-ass cowboy that was the only real gauge of mood in the film. It sounded like it should be coming from someone stuck in midtown-Manhattan traffic rather than out in the high open range. Range Rage, perhaps?

I would highly recommend checking this film out.

New York

I feel that Autumn is a good time to get re-acquainted with the city. After enduring sweltering months of trying your best to avoid heatstroke and melting into the pavement, the cooler weather really makes you want to get out and see what you've been missing. I tend to go for epic walks this time of year- hours of meandering with no particular direction, and usually places that I would normally take the subway to.

Recently I was in Greenwood Cemetery. It's a vast, open space with lots of old-growth trees and not so many people- a perfect spot for birdwatchers. I saw several red-tailed hawks at very close range.





He landed on a branch a few feet from us and didn't move for several minutes. How cool is that?

Also, the NYC Marathon was this past weekend. It's always inspiring to see that many people out running (well, it inspired me to carb-load for the rest of the day anyway).


Hard to see, but this guy was juggling WHILE RUNNING. And not screwing up. Here's a video, but I can't figure out how to rotate it, so you're going to have to get a neck cramp for a couple seconds.






It takes about an hour and a half for everyone to run by. We're not that far along the course, so people look fresh and excited.

Fiber Swap

Every once in a while, the Spin City group organizes a fiber swap to get rid of less-than-awesome stash that is taking up too much space. It might be something you bought impulsively, or something that isn't spinning up the way you wanted, or something you never got around to spinning. It's pretty much guaranteed to find a home if you bring it to a swap.



It's a fiber free-for-all. I really feel sorry for the book club that had decided to have their book discussion nearby. They were all pretty much writhing in horror at our antics.

I brought in a huge bag of things to swap (I could care less what I get for it, just as long as someone else takes it home) and everything was gone at the end. Success! An entire fleece disappeared, along with some braids of superwash merino roving that I didn't like the feel of, and some of my handcarded batts that didn't sell in the shop. I did go home with a few quality things as well, but considerably less then what I walked in with.


This is a 4oz braid of Falkland, which is very much like merino. It's very soft.


I also got about 5oz of Leicester Longwool. I fell in love with the spicy autumnal colors. Alas, it's a bit felted and will take some combing before I spin it. Whoever dyed this is quite the wonder of nature- it takes a lot of work to accidentally felt this kind of wool.


A tiny 1oz babycake from Loop. I've been collecting purple ones for a project, and this one is perfect. I have no ideal what blend of fibers this might be. I see silk noil, but I usually can't tell what else is blended in until I spin it.

Everyone has a great time and went home happy. I don't get out to this meetup nearly enough.

Rhinebeck Aftermath: The Washing of the Fleeces

The bobbins on the spinning wheel have been bare lately as I've been busily washing fleeces after my annual Rhinebeck binge. Dirty fleeces tend to attract moths and moths are my mortal enemy. Even though I store my fleeces sealed up in spacebags, these can spring leaks and I'm super-paranoid about anything that might lure moths in the general direction of my stash.



My compadre over at A Dropped Stitch took this picture moments after we got out of the fleece sale. Fleece sales always reminds me of those bargain wedding-dress sales they have in the city where brides-to-be line up for hours, dash in, grab what they can and then spend the rest of the day bargaining and exchanging with other crazed shoppers to get what they want. Um, except we are fighting over dirty greasy sheep clippings. Anyway...I've seen these things get nasty with people fighting over who got there hands on one first. Getting there early, grabbing what you can and then making sure it's exactly what you want is an intense way to start your day. I found a clear table in the back of the room in good light where I could take the fleeces completely out of the bag for a better look.


Here's what I ended up going home with:

This is Fred, a 4lb dark brown Rambouillet fleece.





His fleece has very tight crimp. The staple length looks short, but if you pull on the ends of a lock, it stretches out to 3 inches. It's very soft. Rambouillets are French Merinos, but the American version has been outcrossed quite a bit to make a hardier sheep.

Here is Mable, a dark brown (almost black) Corriedale:



It's a 5lb fleece, but I split it with someone else, so I have 2.5 lbs of it. Corriedales are a cross between Lincoln, English Leicester and Merino sheep. It's got the crimp and density from merino, but the long staple and luster from the longwool.

I know I have sworn up and down that I would never buy a merino fleece to process myself. There's so much commercial merino available that's perfectly wonderful to spin. Well, seeing a moorit colored fleece on the table changed my tune really quickly.



This is Muriel. She wore a blanket and despite being a super-greasy lanolin-laden merino, she washed up nicely with barely any dirt to worry about. She has a really long 4" staple length. Washing was very tricky as merino wants to felt up when you look at it sideways, but I'm so happy with the results. I can't wait to spin this.



It is also a rather enormous fleece. Merinos are no slouches when it comes to production, and her fleece was well over 8 pounds. This took several batches of washes, and it was so dense it took almost a week to dry completely. The fleece is so crimpy and soft, I forgive her.



It's the most work I've ever had to put into a fleece.

I think I'll be kept busy for a while.

Notes on a Scandal knits

Has anyone seen "Notes on a Scandal"? Yes, I know it's more than five years since it's been out, but I'm a bit behind the times. It's a deliciously wicked psychological thriller with Judi Dench and Cate Blanchett. It's about emotional blackmail with two equally despicable women and their conniving co-dependent friendship. A bundle of sunshine and flowers, really.

Anyway, I was in awe of some of the great handknits that Cate Blanchett wears throughout the film. She is seen in a delicate pink lace scarf:


(all images are from fox searchlight films)

She also wore several fab cardigans that I couldn't get good screenshots of, but one of them was a seafoam colored one with big cables running up the front in a fuzzy mohair blend.



Best of all were her fingerless gloves:



They appear to be either cabled or linen stitch on the palms, with large slinky-like welts at the start and end. Maybe not entirely practical, but I must have a pair of these. I have made it my life's mission to dissect these like a frog in middle school science class (everyone now: "Ewwwww!"). Eventually, I plan on having a similar pair. Wish me luck.