knitting kitchen

This year I submitted four items, a sweater, a holiday stocking, a lace shawl, and a hat. The sweater and the hat won second place ribbons. The shawl and the stocking won first place ribbons.

As ever, my aversion to crowds dissuaded me from checking out my competition. Although while I was waiting in line to submit my entries, I ran into Amy, formerly of Selma’s yarn shop which used to be in Southbury. She had two pairs of ‘Magnificent Mittens’ from the Anna Zilboorg book. It was nice to see her again and I asked for her email address. I’m just glad I didn’t submit anything in the mitten/glove category.

Daughter #2 went to the fair on Friday night and said she has never looked in the needlework tent - this was her first time. She said she expected there to be many more knitted objects than there were. I’m thinking that I may have to start a knit along group to incite competition. All knitted objects have to be created in the 12 months preceding that year’s fair which makes today ‘Preparing for the Bridgewater Fair’ day #1!

I told M I wanted a couple different spindles. He’s made me several drop spindles, all with slight variations, to see which ones I liked for different reasons. He kept making them lighter and lighter because I’ve been on a lace knitting jag and I thought it would be nice to have a really light spindle to spin lace weight yarn.

I’m still new to spinning on a spindle, but I quickly figured out that using a supported spindle would increase my chances of spinning lace weight yarn as I wouldn’t be fighting the weight of the spindle.  I spent some time reading about Russian support spindles and found some made by gripping yarns that I’m simply mad for.  Lisa, the owner of gripping yarns, has also made several wonderful videos about supported spinning.  It’s from these videos that I learn to spin this way.

Armed with a photo of the spindle I’m pining for, M made me the one in the center.  The other support spindle in the picture is the result of M trying to teach me what you can and can’t do on his lathe. Not quite as pretty as some, but it spins beautifully.

Here is one of the drop spindles M made me full of yarn spun and plied on drop spindles.

Here is the skein, 103 yards, 16 wpi, 26 grams.

Then, just to break things up, Olivia and I spent some time making speakers for our ipods.  We used the speakers from those annoying greeting cards that play music when you open them. They work great with the ipod, but without an amplifier, they aren’t loud enough to use with a laptop.

After all the spindle spinning, I was ready to break out my spinning wheel. My hope was that all of the close up attention I’d given to drafting would pay off.  In my opinion, it has. Here is my skein of Blue Face Leicester, 104 grams, 366 yards, 14 wraps per inch. I spun this worsted, which I’d always had trouble with doing successfully. The secret for me was to divide the top in to strips and then predraft.

I can’t really explain why the experience of spinning is so satisfying. I simply love having my hands in the fiber. While I’m busy contemplating this, I’ll just keep spinning while listening to books on my iphone as played through my bran flakes box.

Haruni, pattern by Emily Ross, is finished. I knitted it using Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool (3.625 skeins) and size US 4 needles.

I had purchased 4 skeins of the Silky Wool when we went to Newport, RI a couple weeks ago. I thought that I would make a summer tank top or something. I knew at the time it was a bad idea to buy yarn without a specific project in mind, but when has that stopped me? The yarn worked up beautifully in this pattern, which I loved knitting. It is very easy and intuitive.  M asked, “Who wears shawls?” I haven’t the faintest idea. I find that knitting a logical pattern from a graph relaxes my mind after a hectic day at work. If that ends up producing a shawl, so be it. Whenever I see this one, I’ll think of the Tennis Hall of Fame and The Irregulars by Jennet Conant (as story about Roald Dahl as a spy in the US)

1920's Keds

I dyed this corriedale in April, 2008.

Then, Mark made me several spindles.

A little bit of time, The Girl Who Played With Fire on audiobook, and I turned the corriedale into yarn I knit into this:

Pattern: Road Not Taken by Lisa Lloyd

Needles: US 6

I’m not sure why this project gave me so much more satisfaction than many of the other things I’ve knitted.

I’ve also decided to break out the dye pot and over-dye the reader’s shawl I knitted in June, the one with the unfortunate color changes between skeins.

It’s drying now…

Then I redyed the clown-colored shawl. Alle and I took samples of the leftover zauberball tropical fish yarn and over-dyed it turquoise, red, and yellow. Here are the samples:

We settled on over-dyeing it turquoise.

It still looks scary when it’s photographed, but it’s a big improvement in person. We soaked up the excess dye with knit picks merino lace weight yarn.

the leftover turquoise

The leftover red

I haven’t dyed anything in a while and the thought of breaking out the enameled pot made me want to take a nap. After a few hours of playing with colors, I wonder why I ever stopped.  Added bonus? In my storage box of dying stuff, I found a binder of sweater patterns I have been looking for since 2008.

Yes, there has been knitting, but not things that I necessarily want to talk about.

I knit this lovely shawl with crazy-colored yarn because? I have no idea why. Nothing a bit of dyeing won’t fix.  You can’t see my incredible, show-stopping lace knitting. You’ll have to trust me that it’s there. I swear. The pattern called for a skein of zauberball sock. Most sane people did it in tonal stripes, not Tropical Fish (the color name). I knew it wasn’t a great idea when I started it, but I will say that having all those lovely colors fly through my fingers was a lot of fun and it is all about process for me anyway.

Then I started doing this:

so I could do this:

and this:

Once my hyper-ventilation stopped, I was able to do this:

While this is my first project on a 4-harness floor loom, I did have help. As a birthday present to myself, I hired my friend Kari to give me weaving lessons. I’d bought the loom 4 years ago and it’s been collecting dust ever since. I’ve threatened to sell it a number of times and M always talks me out of it. Now I’m really glad. I had no idea what I was doing when I bought this Nilus LeClerc 4-harness loom. I stumbled across it by accident and only started the conversation with the seller because I had the sneaking suspicion she was the mother of a friend’s wife (she was!).

On a recent cleaning spree (yes, they do happen from time to time), I hauled the thing out of the corner and began to clean it up. At the time, I couldn’t imagine what all these moving parts are for, and after all the warping and weaving that’s gone on, Nilus and I are much better acquainted.

The pattern that I’m weaving is Jonathan’s Blanket, a baby blanket I saw when I went to Webs in search of cotton for my warp. Kari is an amazing teacher, never discouraging me from having my first project be an overshot weave.

This has been so much fun, I’m ready to break out the Kromski rigid heddle loom!