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’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.

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.

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!

I bought this as a kit from Adirondack Yarns in Lake Placid, NY.  I want to be very clear about this: I think the world of the people at Adirondack Yarns. They are always nice to me whether I see them in their store or at a show. They have great kits, projects that can be knitted by and worn by real people, and they have yarn I adore.  Like Fleece Artist BFL, which I’ve bought from AY and used twice before.

This is the first time I’ve used the BFL in brown and was in love with the color until…

Abbey doesn’t mind the odd color changes because the yarn is so soft.

After I took the photos outside, I realized that the third skein of yarn was a very different color than the other two. This can happen when you use hand-dyed yarn but still, it makes me very sad.

I had been hoping to enter this in the Bridgewater Fair because, why not? Now, I’ll only be thinking about that if I bother to over-dye the shawl.  Ah well.

The pattern, by Bergere de France, and the yarn are lovely all the same and as soon as it starts getting chilly again, I have plans to snuggle up by the fire with my shawl and a good book.

I love Knit Picks and have contemplated buying blocking wires there a few times, but as I watch all the other stuff add up in my shopping cart, I usually realize something has to go. That’s how they keep from finding their way into my house.

Savannah, Ravelry member Salt, shows how she made a set of lace blocking wires by making a trip to the local welding supply store.  According to Google (so it must be true) the closest welding supply store for me is Air Gas. While I have no problem heading over there to pick up some welding rods, I am a little concerned that one thing will lead to another and I’ll end up having to explain to M the wisdom of having my next new hobby involve a torch and a mask.

Scotland, the sweater

I put it aside in the beginning of December in order to make the most out of the holidays. When I picked it back up in April, I was happily knitting along until…

I noticed that I only had 4 balls of yarn left.  When it comes to knitting 400 odd stitches on 4mm needles, I generally get motivated to knit a gauge swatch. This time was no different.  So what went wrong?  My guess is that somewhere between the beginning of the sweater and later on, my gauge changed.

I purchased the yarn for this sweater as part of a kit at Rhinebeck 2009.  I could contact yarns international and see if there is any way to procure more yarn.  That still wouldn’t address the fact that I have knit a monster of a sweater, one that is much too large to fit any human being I care to outfit.

Sometime late Thursday evening, I knew what had to be done. I did the only sane thing at that moment: I went to bed.

On Friday, my day off, I didn’t vacuum, wash the kitchen floor, or go on a dusting spree. I put Season I of Bones on Netflix streaming and began to unravel.  I stayed pretty calm for the unknitting of it all. The yarn didn’t stick to itself as badly as I anticipated. What I hadn’t thought through was the rewinding of the yarn.  The dark and light strands were used in different proportions in each row so winding them together with the ball winder could only work for a while before I ended up with big lumps of the excess color.

Yarn that used to be part of Scotland the sweater

After the sweater was unraveled, I was left with cakes of mixed yarn that needed to be separated. This is an unbelievably horrible job and if the sweater kit weren’t so crazy expensive, I would have just put it all in a bag and hidden it in the recesses of a Rubbermaid container somewhere.

Scotland the Second

I did manage to knit another swatch and cast the sweater back on the needles. This time I am going down a needle size and I’m making a smaller size.  If this doesn’t work out, I have a plan. If I run out of yarn, I will make a vest. If the finished sweater is too big for anyone to wear, I will felt it. And if I ever finish the entire thing (and yes, that does include weaving in a few of the ends. I’m trying to *mend* my evil unfinishing ways), I’m treating myself to a Virtual Yarns kit.

Here is what happened in February, March, and April,  just to bring things up-to-date:

October Frost from A Fine Fleece by Lisa Lloyd. All the knitting is done, none of the finishing.

A bear for baby Sophie, all the knitting done, all of the finishing done, brought to the post office and mailed!

February Lady designed by Pamela Wynne, knitted and finished using Cascade 220.

Staccato by Kristen Karpur (referred to as ‘A Very Brady Sweater’ in my house, knitted and many of the ends sewn in…more Cascade 220

Unfortunately, I didn’t take many pictures of the sweater (which he does still have and wears often). Here is one:

Since this picture was taken, afterthought pockets were put in and the buttons were changed to Indian Head Nickles turned into buttons (we bought them at the flea market).

Watching the Olympics, I was struck by the outfits the American athletes wore.  Did you see this? There’s no big polo pony on mine, but I ripped off paid homage to the BHOF first.

In some crazy pay back scheme, I knit a copy of RL’s Opening Ceremony Knit Hat.  Helena Bristow, owner of Clever Knits, has the pattern up on Ravelry for free already.  I knew from looking at the pattern that it was going to run big so I didn’t use Cascade 220 as suggested. I used St. Denis Nordique (isn’t that appropriate?), and smaller needles, then cast on last night.

I made some other changes to the pattern. I knit the lining in cotton so it isn’t scratchy. I made a purled hem for a neat fold line.

Detail of lining and hem

I deleted a couple of rows of white so it wasn’t so long (it still is). I knit the white on blue pattern all the way around in case I can’t find a flag patch. And I changed the decreases at the top so they frame the pattern with double decreases and are neat and tidy.  The Nordique is lovely yarn and even though I knit the hat with 4s and 6s, I you can still see the blue stranded behind the white in some lighting. Ah well.

I once knit M a Dale of Norway ski hat and when I saw the Olympic hat online, it looked similar in size. I’m considering making the hat again using 2.5mm and 3.5mm as I did with that hat. I also used Heilo and was all excited to knit the hat again in that yarn. When I hauled it out of my stash (of course I had the right colors and amounts?!) I realized the yarn is almost indistinguishable from Noridque.

I have been busy making other hats for no apparent reason. Here are a couple:

Also a wimple

and some socks

Needless to say, the coffee table is taking a hit