Category Archives: Knitting, Spinning, & Weaving

Recent Knitting & Spinning

Not only did I cable while knitting for the first time this past week, I finished an entire 8×8″ test square. Go me! I am so proud of myself. I’ve only owned the cable needles for three years now. The square isn’t blocked yet, so it’s a bit scrunched, but you can see the owl!

I am thinking that this yarn I swatched with isn’t going to work for the blanket squares I’m knitting for my online mums group swap, though. It’s a thick and thin woollen single, which is charming, but it’s a bit wonky on gauge, and the thick and thin is making the cabled pattern look like Jack Sparrow knit it, all weavy and staggery. I finished it anyway, and I will make it into a lovely throw pillow cover I can use on the new chaise, but that’s because it will have personal meaning, being my first longdraw handspun then knit with my first attempt at cables. The colour is even complementary to the linen pillows HRH got for the chaise. I foresaw this eventuality, however, and added a couple of balls of yarn from KnitPicks to Ceri’s order this week. Although I do have some other browny-plum handspun woollen singles on the go on my secondary wheel, vaguely intended for blanket squares. I should finish a bobbin and full that yarn, then swatch it to see if it’s a bit more even. The one I’m testing now was my very first attempt at longdraw, and I know my newer woollen-spun yarn is much more uniform.

In other knitting news, I knit five washcloths in December (eep), two each for our mothers as Christmas gifts, one to include in a swap package. I got very good at them. I forgot to take pictures, though. And I feel so smug about slipping the first stitch in a row, a trick I picked up from knitting blanket squares for new babies being born in my online mums group. It makes edges so neat! I’ve started applying it to pretty much everything knitted with an edge.

It’s kind of been a big knitting year for me, actually. I became comfortable with alternating knitting and purling, and no longer have to look up how to correctly do a purl stitch every time I want to do one. I became comfortable with using DPNs, and am on the last couple of rows of ribbing on Owlet’s legwarmers that I’m using as a dry run for socks. I cabled, of course, and am becoming more proficient in following patterns. And I couldn’t have done any of it without the support of Ceri and my mums group.

I think perhaps I have not mentioned here that my mother has asked me to spin the yarn for a lovely big shawl/stole she wants to knit. The pattern calls for qiviut yarn, and the cost of the yarn required would be something astronomical like eight hundred dollars, so even buying luxury fibres like cashmere and silk and the dye to colour it is cheaper. Plus we get the fun of designing the yarn. We took ages going through all the different permutations of various luxury fibres, talking about the pros and cons and how the hypothetical yarns would behave, before she decided on two different plies of Merino/silk and cashmere/silk in very specific ratios. I ordered the fibres in the fall, and started sampling them last month.

How determined am I to make this yarn perfect? I separated out a half-ounce of each fibre to test. I split that half-ounce into quarters, two quarters of each to be dyed then test spun, and the other two quarters to be spun as-is and then dyed, to see what works best. For each fibre, I planned to try:

1. Spinning worsted from the end, without predrafting
2. Spinning worsted from the end, with predrafting
3. Spinning semi-woollen, long draw (possibly by prepping into mock rolags)
4. Spinning semi-woollen, from fold

So by this plan, I’d have to do that four times, once with each fibre undyed, then once with each fibre after dyeing. And then I’d get to ply all my samples, matching the Merino/silk with the cashmere/silk. (It is possible that I was overthinking things. I just want to make sure we do this the best possible way, because it’s such a huge project with such expensive, luxurious fibres.)

In the end, what happened was I spun the worsted without drafting it (#1) and immediately realized that predrafting it would be pointless, since it was all so smooth that it glided without needing any fluffing or prep whatsoever. And spinning woollen from mock rolags rolled from bits of the top (#3) was pretty much like spinning from the fold, as I could see the folds being pulled as I drew the fibre back, so there was no point to repeating the process. So I never even tried #2 or #4. (Why would #3 and #4 be semi-woollen? Because the fibre preparation is combed top, not jumbly roving. Even putting it up into mock rolags, it can never be classified as fully woollen. Utterly fascinating fact to perhaps 2% of you, I am sure, gentle readers.) And I’m leaning toward dyeing the fibre first, because I preferred spinning it that way (the crimp reasserts itself a bit in the dyeing process and the fibre catches better in the mock rolags), but dyeing the finished yarn may be easier. I’ll test that next.

I showed Mum my sample spools of worsted and semi-woollen singles while she was here for Christmas. She liked the sheen of the worsted singles, but she preferred the lightness of the semi-woollen singles, and correctly intuited that the worsted ones would make a heavier yarn. And since the piece is so big, she wants it to be as light as it can be so that it’s more pleasant to wear. I’m very happy with her choice, because woollen is so much quicker to spin, and I have eight ounces of stuff to spin up. I’ve plied the undyed and dyed worsted singles anyway, to see what happens, and they are super, super fine yarn, like two strands of embroidery floss twisted together. It’s impressive, but not what she needs. She gave me a sample of yarn she used for a scarf to use as a reference for the grist, and yeah, my plied worsted stuff is about half that weight. I anticipate the plied semi-woollen yarns to be much closer to what she wants.

My first dye test of the Jacquard dye in Russet as-is in a standard 1% solution was, as I suspected, too pink, despite how perfect the colour chip looks. I sat down with Mum at the computer and we adjusted the colour on a photo until it matched exactly what she wanted, so now I have a proper reference for dye tests. We’d been using the same photo from a website as reference, but my monitor displayed the colour very differently from hers, so now we’re on the same page. I’m going to start experimenting with adding touches of orange and brown to get closer to the saturated terra cotta colour she wants.

And finally, here’s a photo of the Polwarth I worked on off and on between May and August. I finally finished spinning four ounces of single. It’s resting on the bobbin now, destined to be chain-plied into fingering weight yarn.

Trudge Trudge

I am struggling with a bout of being non-social. I’ve drastically reduced my use of social media, and as you can see I haven’t been blogging much. Part of that comes from not having the time–I’m doing the mum thing all day, and when the kids have been put to bed I sit down at my computer to work–but part of it also comes from fatigue. I don’t have the brainpower to write anything. And if I did, a lot of it would sound the same: Owlet is bouncing off walls and chattering and being cute. Sparky’s current obsession is Angry Birds. HRH and I are tired. I’m the one who’s losing out, of course, since I journal for my own reference. So here’s a scattershot of what’s been going on.

Work-wise, it was independently confirmed by my copy chief that editors are so happy with the work I’m doing on the novels that they’re starting to ask for me by name, which thrills me. I’m pretty much doing a two-week assignment, then I get a week off, and then I do another two weeks of work. So it’s steady.

We had lunch over at the Preston-LeBlanc household on Sunday, and it was so nice. Owlet wandered around completely overcome by all the things to look at and touch, and enjoyed Pasley’s potato-apple-carrot soup immensely, as well as an apple she plucked from a fruit bowl, the first she managed to bite into with the peel still on. Tamu and Pat and Flora stopped by the previous weekend and we delighted in watching BebeFlo and Owlet play together (especially the peekaboo game with a blanket at the end, where they both ducked under it and stood there giggling at one another). We got out to MLG’s fortieth birthday evening at Hurley’s before that, which was also fun, because I hadn’t seen everyone in ages.

HRH installed the new range hood this past weekend, and it’s a definite improvement over the last one. It no longer sounds like an aircraft taking off, as my father-in-law put it when he gave it to us. The only thing left to do is cut a hole in the kitchen wall for the new exhaust pipe. We’ve been without a fan since the attic was converted into the office, as the old exhaust pipe went up there and lay along the ceiling crossbeams on its way to the exterior exhaust vent. Once a floor was laid, there was nowhere for the duct to go (cutting holes through the ceiling crossbeams isn’t such a good idea, you know?), so a new vent needs to be made. That will happen this weekend.

I dyed fibre and spun it for a fellow Raveller, who won it in a draw for prizes in our Ravellenic Games team that she captained, and I’m quite pleased with it. I hope she is, too. It was my first time dyeing more than a bit of fibre to mess about with. I used Ziplock microwave steaming bags (which was an interesting experience in itself), and did the four ounces of fibre in four one-ounce batches. She requested raspberry and tangerine, and I blended a very nice colour for both from my Jacquard acid dyes, which of course blended and subtly altered when I spun it up. I did a DK/light worsted two-ply yarn, and I gt at least 300 yards out of it. It plumped up beautifully after a wash. Canada Post tells me that it’s out for delivery in her area right now, so she may have it today!

I am currently sewing the Halloween costumes for both kids, and mostly enjoying myself, although doing it in fifteen minutes here and fifteen minutes there is a bit frazzling. I lose my train of thought and a sense of what I’d planned to do next, or how to do it. (I am working without patterns for both of them, because I don’t have enough stress in my life.) I made a lovely pair of polar fleece pantaloons for Owlet, complete with two deep lace ruffles on the legs, and they’re possibly the most adorable things ever. I used polar fleece for warmth, because nights at the end of October around here are usually quite chilly. I made her a mob cap as well with polar fleece on the inside, but it’s smaller than I thought, so I need more deep lace to sew around the edge so it looks less ridiculous.

The last bit of current news is the worst. Today Nixie goes to the vet, and I suspect that she is not coming home. I am spending as much time as possible with her today. At the very least, the large, weeping, overgroomed area on her chest has become infected; at the worst, the overgrooming is directly related to a possible recurrence of the mass that was removed as part of her surgery this past spring, which makes the third appearance of it, and as something like 80% of feline tumours are malignant, even if we get it removed it will just happen again. We don’t have the money for tests and biopsies in the first place, nor treatment if the worst is confirmed. Sparky and I had a hard cry this morning when I reminded him that she was going to the vet today and she might not come home, and he railed against the injustice of it all: “I don’t want Nixie to die! I want her to come home! She is the best cat!” Of course you do, sweetheart; we all do. No one wants her to die. But things die, and we can’t stop it. It doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, and our hearts hurt so much, but it is a truth, and something we have to face, either now or in a few months, or a few years. When I dropped him off at school he met his friends at the schoolyard gate and stopped there, and I wondered why he didn’t go all the way in. And then I saw one of the girls put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and I understood what was happening: as soon as he’d arrived told them that Nix was sick, possibly too sick to come home, sharing his grief and his hurt, and they were sympathizing with him.

At best, I am hoping that they will be able to prescribe antibiotics and come up with a solution to cover the wound so it can heal properly, because everything I’ve tried has failed. At worst, I have to make the decision that every pet owner hates to make. Somewhere in the middle lies the “we can’t do anything but make her comfortable” diagnosis, and if that is what happens I will probably bring her home again until her quality of life deteriorates to unacceptable levels. Because right now her quality of life seems good: she is still eating well, moving in her usual fashion, using the litter box, purring and enjoying the occasional cuddle, and I am weak, and it feels wrong to say goodbye when she seems so normal other than the infected wound. Her energy hasn’t changed at all, and with every other cat we have known when they were tired, ill, and suffering, even though all of them were stoic they way cats are, because we are attentive and sensitive to that sort of thing. Nix doesn’t project any of that. Knowing when to make that decision is the hardest part of this whole process.

I’m so tired. I think the fibro is starting to creep back, as I’m having trouble focusing on things, lacking the energy to be happy and enjoy my hobbies, the body aches and weak hands are here again, sleep is not restful, and my appetite has vanished. Part of this could be attributable to the time of year, but I suspect that the fibro-quashing pregnancy and year of postnatal adrenaline and hormones are finally done with, and my body is slowly creeping back to normal operative levels. It is not fun. I am trying to find joy in small things, and it is very difficult. I don’t have much time to read, or spin. I can sometimes knit for a row or two. But most of my baby-nap time is taken up by cooking or baking or tidying or work or errands. And it’s all very well to think that this time next year she’ll be in daycare, which is exciting because we know she will love it, but that does not help me now.

In Which She Is Thankful For Friends And Opportunities

We spent a day and a half with t! and Jan this weekend. We did a six-hour visit with them at Upper Canada Village and then stayed overnight with them at their homestead, and we had a wonderful time. Owlet didn’t have a morning nap in the car on the way down, despite scheduling things so she would, but I nursed her to sleep mid-afternoon after a picnic, and she slept for forty-five minutes while everyone else went off and did different things. I just zoned out next to her in the shade of some trees and enjoyed the sounds of the wind, water, and horses (partly because it was nice to do, especially because I was fried and crashing, and partly because I’d forgotten both my spindle and my knitting at home). Sparky learned how to milk a cow there (and did well enough that he was using both hands, not just one like the farmer started him off with), how to pump water and slop pigs, and he helped feed the chickens and gather the eggs before supper back at Rowan Tree Farm. He has decided that he is going to be a farmer when he grows up, which I think is a very noble calling in this day and age, considering all the other cool stuff a seven-year-old thinks is awesome and shiny.

Owlet was entranced by all the horses (it was a horse weekend, with various exhibitions and competitions and so forth), and she got to see her first real live baas. I don’t think it really sank in until one came right up to the fence that Sparky was standing on and gave one of those loud, directed BAAAAAAs that sheep can give. She said “Baaaaa! Baaaaaa!” all the way back along the road. She climbed all over Carter, t! and Jan’s husky-collie mix dog, too, who was beautifully patient with her, and kept trying to give him her open-mouthed kisses on his very wet nose. And as a delightful bonus, she slept the whole night through there (yippee! she was certainly tired enough after a long day outside with so many things to see).

I am so thankful that my children have these opportunities, and that we have friends who enable them to experience things like this.

Also, they were selling dyed roving at $10 a pound in the store, wool from the Village sheep carded on site in the woollen mill (the first place we visited, much to Sparky’s excitement — I love this child — and wow, the size of the water-powered carding machines!). So I got to buy myself a treat at a crazy low price! I got some navy and some deep chocolate brown. They were also selling yarn they’d dyed with natural dyes, and I wish they’d been selling some of the lovely soft olivey green or pale purple as roving. Or even some undyed roving, so I could experiment with some food-based dyeing myself.

It was a wonderful way to spend the last weekend of summer. School starts tomorrow for Sparky, his first day of grade two in an 80% French classroom at a brand new school. I’ve been trying for a week to make a ten-minute appointment with his new teacher so he can see that s/he is nice, not intent on making him miserable, and seeing a bit of the school to give him a bit of familiarity, but every time I call the receptionist tells me to call back a day later and they may have the class lists by then. As of today, it turns out that the school board isn’t releasing them until tomorrow, which means I’ve been made a liar to my son for promising him that meeting. Well, we’ll go over after lunch and walk around the outside, anyway, so he has at least that. I’ve left a voicemail with the school principal, whom we know, as she was the principal at Sparky’s school when he was in kindergarten, and if she has a moment maybe we can meet with her, but I know she must be insanely busy today so I’m not holding my breath.

In work news, I am partway through a copy edit for my publisher (an adult novel, very fun, and it’s about an ornithologist so my knowledge of birds is coming in quite useful!), and was asked yesterday to take on another book to edit concurrently because they’re in a bind, on a shorter deadline than usual for the second project, with a higher fee for both projects as a thank you. With Labour Day weekend coming up, plus both Sparky’s and HRH’s schools closed on the 4th for the provincial election, I have more time to work, and so work I will. It’s either feast or famine for a freelancer, and after such a long famine I need all the work I can get. My mother-in-law has also been booked for a Grandma Day here with Owlet that week, too, so I have another day there to finish up the second project. I’ve already been working for two to three hours a night after the kids are in bed, but now I shall edit like a mad editing thing.

Playing Catch-Up, Part Three: The Fibrey Update

I ended up knitting two of those lovely squishy washcloths during the Olympics. They’re seriously awesome to use, so I will knit more. Both my mother and my mother-in-law hinted pretty plainly that they’d like some for Christmas, too, so it’s a good thing I memorized the pattern.

Everyone in my online mum’s group did great stuff during the Olympics, and someone knit their first socks on a whim, which inspired me to consider it as well. I was rummaging through my stash of handspun to find sock yarn, and came to a screeching halt when I realised that I drop double-pointed needles left right and centre, I don’t know how to graft toes, I can’t read a pattern with any kind of reliability, and the phrase “turning a heel” makes me stick my fingers in my ears and go “la la la I can’t hear you.” So in the interests of keeping me excited about knitting instead of running screaming for the hills the way I did when I tried to knit a set of fingerless gloves four years ago, I decided to knit a second washcloth instead. Group enthusiasm is catching. Hanging out with a group of enabling knitters is dangerous in that kind of situation.

I am moving ever closer to socks, though, in baby steps. It’s like gradual exposure this way! First, I am trying Owlet-size legwarmers on double-pointed needles (hereafter referred to as DPNs), because I do not get along with DPNs. So far, I have discovered that I can do 2×2 rib with mostly no mistakes now, and KnitPicks Harmony DPNs make everything easier. But DPNs are still deadly slow as compared to how I knit in the round with circular needles, because I have to fuss with them in the pause between the stitches on each needle. Ceri lent me her full set of Knitpicks DPNs, and I’m going to have to buy my own. I have a single set of bamboo needles dating back from my failed wristwarmers, but they’re so dull that they’re driving me mad. I think I will get the 5″ set, as 6″ is just a wee bit too long for my hands. Practising with the DPNs is required, too, because I won a skein of pretty hand-dyed sock yarn in our Olympic knitting draw, and now everyone wants to see me actually knit socks with it.

I found a box of handspun and fibre at the back of Bria’s closet a few days ago. (It used to be my closet, remember, so that’s not as odd as it sounds. I do not have a secret, magical yarn store the opens out of the back of my daughter’s closet. But if I did, it would be called Yarnia.) In it I found 12 ounces of the wool/bamboo blend I’d ordered when I fell in love after spinning 56 grams that I got from Ariadne Knits a couple of years ago. I also found 4 oz of black Shetland that I ordered after spinning some that Bonnie gave me when she lent me her Schacht-Reeves for a month while she recovered from eye surgery. Two bags of fibre that I adore spinning! Twelve ounces of the wool/bamboo!

I also found two of the ginormous Bernat Handicrafter cotton skeins in a box back there, too, which is fabulous because it’s what I used for both my washcloths, and I was considering buying some and weaving dish towels with it. Now I’ve already got the yarn. (Next, I would like to find a box of misplaced time, in which I could actually spin, weave, knit, read, and nap, please. Writing would be nice, too.)

Finding it was like Christmas! I’m a little upset that I forgot I had it all, though. That does not fill me with confidence. Sure, my stash has split into in two or three different storage places for over a year, and it’s not like I’ve been checking it regularly because I haven’t had time to knit or spin, but still, I’d like to think that my memory is better than that, especially about fibre I was so excited about when I ordered it, because I loved it so much. I also found a couple of braids of indie-dyed spinning fibre, one of which I did miss; I was beginning to doubt the memory I had of buying it. This should be a lesson to me to photograph everything I buy and enter it into my Ravelry stash ASAP. That all came to a grinding halt about eighteen months ago ago (gee, I wonder why), although I can’t use that as an excuse, really, because some of this stuff predates that. More catching up to do, I guess…

Good Things So Far Today

It’s only halfway through the day and already good things have happened that are worthy of recording.

  • I made quiche (affectionately known as Kitchen Sink Quiche, because apart from the two eggs and the milk, I toss whatever is in the fridge into it; today it was grated zucchini from the school’s garden, aged cheddar, diced ham, red pepper, and broccoli, all in a homemade crust) It was absolutely delicious.
  • We brought the delicious quiche over to Kristie’s house and fed it to her.
  • We got to watch Owlet and Rowan play together, which was thoroughly enjoyable, partly because they played so very well with one another and partly because it was my daughter playing with Rob’s son. That’s special indeed.
  • Our garden has been producing lovely peas and cherry tomatoes, upon which we have all been snacking, and the Beefsteak and whatever the other kind of full-size tomatoes we planted is are nearly ripe. And my basil, chives, and parsley (which all got chopped and tossed into the quiche) are bushy and healthy.

And yesterday:

  • HRH installed the shelving we had stored away in the front hall closet and the attic office cupboard, and we sorted through and organized shoes (which all have their own shelves now instead of being in a pile on the floor, thank the gods) and all my yarn and fibre (ditto, hurrah!). I found the missing bag of organic Merino I got for dyeing, and a couple of other bags of fibre I’d forgotten I had, including a braid of lovely Ozark silk sliver in pale greens, pinks, and cream. It looks like watercolours.
  • I sorted through the other set of baby clothes for 2-4 year olds and found the missing denim ball cap Sparky wore when he was a baby, as well as more soft shoes and lots of socks.
  • We finished watching Sora no Woto with Marc M, and it may just be my favourite anime series we’ve watched together so far. It was beautifully told and illustrated, and had lovely music.

In Which She Celebrates The Good Stuff

There, all that’s out of the way, now. Good things have been happening, too! In my last really, really rough patch I would try to blog daily about the things I’d accomplished or the good things that had happened. I can’t blog anywhere near daily, but I can attempt to get back into the rhythm of writing down the good stuff when possible, to remind myself that even when things are horrendously bad there is still positive to be accentuated.

Sparky’s two-week session of day camp came to an end on Friday. We had a parents’ tour that afternoon, where we went from activity to activity and the kids showed off what they’d learned. He very obviously adored science, because he sat right next to the teacher and raised his hand to answer every question. His focus and control in his karate class blew us away, and when the bell rang to move us to the next activity we rushed up to the teacher and asked her if she taught. She no longer does, although she gave us the name of the school in Boucherville she learned at, so we’ll look into that. (Seriously; this kid not only learned all the moves she taught them, but the first kata, and did it all in two languages he doesn’t speak.)

Drums was next. Now, there was a problem with drums. The first Friday, the teacher met us when the kids came out and said that there seemed to be a disconnect, and that Sparky was doing a lot of trying to talk his way out of working on what he’s been given in class. “He’s a perfectionist,” I said, “and if he thinks he can’t do something well right off the bat he tries to talk his way out of doing it at all.” “Exactly,” the teacher said, giving me that complicit aha-so-you-know look. He suspected Sparky might be happier elsewhere. He advised thinking about it over the weekend and bringing an answer on Monday. It was done with a lot of respect and obvious care for Sparky’s enjoyment of the experience. Over the weekend we talked about how it was okay to not be great at everything as soon as you started, and how he could always ask the teacher for help, and if the teacher was willing to send home the notation we could help him with the first two basic rhythms that the teacher was asking for by the end of the two-week period, and he was okay with that. So he stayed in drums. Well, on parents’ day, the four other kids did their turns and were all amazingly good, and right away we knew what had happened: Sparky was comparing himself to kids who were almost twice his age and who very obviously had previous experience with drums. And when his turn to show us what he’d done came, he sat at the drum kit and kind of folded in on himself, and just couldn’t even play. So his teacher suggested that after the choral concert at the end of the afternoon, we’d meet back in the drum room and he could play for just us, with no other kids or families around. He agreed to this readily, and we moved across the hall to his art class, where of course he’d had lots of fun.

The choral concert was great — I love hearing a group of kids sing, they’re always so enthusiastic and all over the place — and then we went down to the drum room again, where Sparky picked up his sticks and played his rhythms for us without a problem, including fills that he’d only learned that day or the day before. All of us were very proud of him. The teacher said that he suspected that it had been the noise and intimidation factor of the other kids’ skills that worked against him, and the fact that it was the biggest class of kids and so Sparky just got buried in the noise, being the youngest and the least accustomed to the experience. We all told Sparky how happy we were that he’d stuck it out and achieved his basic goal. And to top it all off, he had the excitement of breaking one of his drumsticks, splitting the tip. We told him that Marc Le Guen and Daphne, our friends who drum, would be very, very proud of him.

All the teachers, monitors, and coordinators said how much they’d enjoyed having him, and asked if he was coming back for the last two-week session, but he wasn’t, because we’d only registered for one session since we didn’t know if it was going to be a good fit or not. We’re definitely going to send him back next year, though, hopefully for four weeks.

Owlet enjoyed the camp experience, too! She loved being social with everyone when we dropped Sparky off and picked him up every day. She especially loved the little girls, who would drift nearby and peek at her. She’d toddle up to them and reach over to touch their hair or their cheeks, or reach up for an adult’s hand. It was fun to sit on the grass with her and watch her interact with people, with delighted grins and the occasional hug. I think she’ll miss it.

Work has gone well, too. I finished the YA novel edit and sent it in (after working till midnight the morning before it was due, gah). The coordinator sent it to the author almost right away the next morning, and the author sent a note that very afternoon that was passed on to me, saying that she’d glanced at the edits and they were great, to thank me very much for my work, and that she was glad I’d enjoyed the book. That’s huge. It’s hard to receive edits as an author, so to get a thank you made my day. I try to deliver my edits in as supportive a way as possible, because as an author myself I know how crushing any edits of any kind can be. I also indicated that I was more than happy to do more YA fiction edits for the new imprint, which my coordinator was very glad to hear. So that’s two freelance cheques that should arrive in August. It feels so good to be working again.

I am participating in the Ravellenic Games this year (a mass knitting event that runs parallel to, and in celebration of, the Olympics), because my online July 2001 mamas knitting group is a fantastic bunch of people who wildly support my flailing attempts at knittery, and they were such good sports about me geeking out about spinning during the Tour de Fleece. I am knitting my very first cotton washcloth, and not only am I purling, I am now over halfway done, and I only cast on on Friday night!

I skeined up the Rambouillet I finished plying, too, and dear gods, it is possibly the most beautiful yarn I have ever spun,and I have spun some very nice stuff. The colours are a bit odd in photos, but in person they’re really lovely and subdued, and it’s just so soft and silky to touch.

I think I will cuddle and pat it for a while, and then I may earmark it for socks. Rambouillet is now currently tied with BFL/silk as my top wool to spin any time, anywhere. Oh, I am so very far behind on photographing and sharing shots of my handpsun over the last year. I know there are photos of the heathered red mystery wool I spun longdraw missing, and a bunch of the coloured fibre I did last spring and summer like the Louet Karaoke top in “Parrotfish,” some Projekt B batts and braids, and that sort of thing…

I think that’s about it for now. We’re currently in countdown mode for Owlet’s first birthday. She’s been walking for a while, but I keep calling her a baby. I’m giving myself the rest of the week to use that term, and then we really must officially switch to “toddler” or “little girl.”

More Brief Bits Of Daily Life

It is official: Owlet is walking. We have decided to formally confirm it as of Saturday. She’s been doing about three steps solo from here to there for a few weeks, of course, but Saturday she was following her brother around as he played with the cat and a remote-controlled R2D2, trying so hard to keep up with one hand along the wall or a table… until she finally got fed up, and just started walking determinedly after them. And now there’s no stopping her.

Saturday night was also the first time we left the kids alone with a non-family member babysitting them. Everything was peaceful and there were no hiccoughs. That’s a huge milestone for us, and opens up so many possibilities. Yay!

Among the wonderful things I received for my birthday, I got my very first pair of handknit socks from Ceri, about which I am positively giddy. It’s a lovely leaf pattern knit in a yellow and green Koigu yarn, the exact colours of willow leaves turning to yellow in fall. I adore them and I really ought to photograph them. I now need to start stalking the thrift shops for the perfect pair of shoes to wear with them.

Sparky is loving camp. There was an unfortunate beginning on the first day where the bell rang suddenly to signal the start of the day, and as he was already feeling trepidatious because he didn’t know what to expect and knew no one, he ended up in tears running after his first teacher and the rest of his little class as they all moved off casually, but the rest of his day was brilliant and he adores it. (I put a lucky penny loaded with love and kisses into his shoe to help him through the first couple of days, and I am told that it helped.) I wish we could afford to send him for all six weeks.

We’re working on slowing Owlet down when she eats. Most of the time she remembers to sign for more once she’s stuffed something in her mouth, so that’s an improvement. The other day we were in the car and I was passing bits of toasted bagel back to her. We had a run of green lights so there was a lull in the passing. She started making the “more” sign, but I didn’t see her, of course, because she faces backward and I was driving. She got very annoyed at me and started squawking to make me look up and see her making the exaggerated motion through the rear-view mirror. Hey, Mum, I’m doing everything right, and you’re not feeding me! What kind of reinforcement is this?

The Tour de Fleece spinning continues, and ends this coming Sunday. I plied and skeined my Teeswater samples, and I quite like them. In the top photo, the woollen-spun two-ply is on the left, and the semi-worsted two-ply on the right; in the lower photo, with the customary penny for comparison, the semi-worsted is on the top and the woollen on the bottom:

Stats for posterity:
Woollen: 16 wpi single, 10 wpi two-ply, 11g, about 28 yards
Semi-worsted: 36 wpi single, 20 wpi two-ply, 13g, about 75 yards

I don’t think I’m going to make it to the corespinning, because it would take a lot of time to find the right core yarn and decide on the fibre with which to wrap it, but today I started spinning my sample of the Cormo/silk blend Bonnie did that has been sitting in my stash for a couple of years now, and oh dear my. Zomg, people. Cormo. Cormo/silk. It’s like… like… spinning clouds. Or butter. Or buttery clouds. (But not cloudy butter.) It’s so soft. I was fully expecting to do just a couple of grams today, but it wanted to be spun really, really finely and really quickly, so I blazed through it at high speed and now I have just a couple of grams left to go. And then I think I’ll chain-ply it, because it doesn’t want to be a two-ply, and I’m not winding it off onto three separate bobbins for a three-ply.

And here is a spinning story for you.

I was setting up to spin the last of the drafted Teeswater. Owlet came up to me and gently touched the nests of fibre on my lap. “Baa,” she said. (She has previously made the connection that the fluffy white stuff I spin is sheep. Or maybe just that it’s white and fluffy like the baas in her books.) “Yes, baa,” I agreed. She watched me spin for a while, getting all over the wheel as she always does, yanking on the Scotch tension cord, getting her hands thwacked by the flyer and the hooks as they spun, grabbing the footmen, and trying to stick her finger into the metal orifice as the single disappeared into it. Finally, to distract her, I said, “Where’s Owlet’s Baa? Where’s your sheep?” (A friend’s daughter gave her a little stuffed lamb dressed up in an Easter bunny suit, which she calls Baa, like all other sheep.) Without hesitating, she turned around and looked at where it was in a small basket of toys, then trundled off to get it. I got to concentrate on the Teeswater for a minute before she was back. “Baa,” she said, and pushed the toy at the orifice.

She pushed the sheep at the orifice. Where I was feeding the wool. The white, fluffy baa is spun, and goes to be fed onto the bobbin.

True story. The level of comprehension and complexity of connection involved astound me.