Nothing fancy.

It's interesting that Franklin's latest comic offering is about a woman who refuses to knit for her children, grand children, etc.

My son and husband are knit-worthy but I rarely knit for them. They find it too warm to wear wool anything. But Saturday night my husband said that if I wanted to knit him a sweater, he would probably wear it. I was so excited! In our nearly twenty years together, I've knitted him two sweaters (both cardigans), 2 pairs of socks, and a pair of ugly ugly UGLY slippers! He's worn everything once each, with the exception of the very ugly slippers. They fell apart from wear and tear...and chewing from the dog.

He wanted something plain and simple. No fancy patterns or colours. Grey. Or brown. Something I would call mind-numbingly boring to knit. Ack!

My stipulation is that it will have to be something I like as well. In case he wears it only once, I can "borrow" it back for myself.

Purple Daze

I can't walk out of a yarn store without buying anything. It would kill me to do so. I went to the LYS to buy another set of needles. For some reason, I can't find my Addis 2mm circular. They might be in a project somewhere. She didn't have any in stock and will order them for me.

Then I started browsing and fondling the yarn. And then I came across this...Garnstudio's Silke-Tweed in a brilliant purple! Silk and lambswool. Just perfect for a light summer cardigan or tank top. But the downside is that she only had 6 balls of the purple. Lots of off-white and cream but only 6 purple!! I tried looking at other stuff like the Elizabeth Lavold's Hempathy. They only have 3 balls in the colour I liked.

It took about an hour for me to decide to just buy both. There's enough of the Silke-Tweed to make a light top. Not sure what I will do with the Hempathy. It will just go in the stash for now. I'm a sucker for anything purple. :D

Cookies and Knitting

I often think of myself as baking-challenged but once in a while I surprise myself (and my family) with a batch of decent cookies. There were three dozen cookies in there this morning. I got tired of forming perfectly round cookie balls (and they just melt into one big cookie anyway) that I mashed the remaining cookie dough into the bottom of the pan and made a cookie sheet. Rectanglar cookies tastes just the same as round cookies.

How you spin does matter...

I gave myself a small project to do this past weekend. I wanted to see how the twist holds up when knitted. Two batts of Romney were spun long draw. The sample on the left is spun S singles and plyed Z. The sample on the right is spun Z and plyed S. Both samples were knitted with 4mm needles over 16 stitches. The S/Z sample yarn did untwist and split during knitting. The Z/S sample's twist held up nicely.

There were a few other things I noticed...The Z/S sample is softer. I'm not sure if you can tell in the picture but the S/Z is slightly darker in appearance. It was just the way it caught the light. The S/Z sample was much stiffer feeling and the stitches are not as clean and even looking. I guess it does make a difference how you spin the yarn.

Worldwide KIP

June 10th, everyone.

Paper Bag

Paper Bag

I never did find that bolt of silk. I think I'll just have to buy something different for the lining.



I just finished cutting another sheet for more paper spinning. No project in mind yet but I'm sure something will come to mind.

*SIGH*

I think I'm in some kind of fibre slump. I'm surrounded by fibre and yarn and I have nothing to knit. I have 2 pairs of socks partially done and may be destined to be lonely single socks...if I ever get around to finishing the first sock! And to make matters worse, someone (you know who you are) at the Guild meeting was waving her knitted cotton/wool ankle socks around. And in my usual manner, I've been distracted and now thinking how nice it would be to knit ankle socks for the summer.

The Madli shawl is coming along ever so slowly. I would knit a few rows here and there. By my estimate, I have about 3/4 more to knit. I love the pattern. The wool is so nice and light and soft. The problem is that it catches on my hands - a lot. I've tried lemon juice, sugar/oil scrub, slathering buckets of hand lotions - nothing works for very long. My goal is to finish knitting it by this weekend so I can block it. Hahahah!

Happy Mother's Day!

This little azealea bush is from a cutting from the first Mother's Day present my son ever bought me when he was 4 years old. The original is probably either long gone or growing strong at our old house.

We don't usually go for the Hallmark-sappy-must-do occasions like Mother's Day and Father's Day but it was nice to have nothing to do today but whatever I wanted.

Happy Mother's Day to all the Mothers out there.

Weekends are for fibre fun!

Despite having guests and the rain, I did manage to get a lot done this weekend. The guys had a golf game planned for Saturday (in the rain) so I headed out to Granville Island. I guess the rain kept a lot of people at home because the Island was not that crowded. It's nice to go over there by myself. I wandered through all my favourite stores and not have anyone nagging at me to hurry up.

I picked up some more dyes at Maiwa but forgot the sodium alginate. Oh well...there's always next weekend. Opus Framing is another store I could spend hours wandering through. It's not just a picture framing store anymore. It's filled with all sorts of wonderful art supplies! I picked up another bottle of acrylic matte medium and another roll of linen tape. And some stuff called Molding Gel. You can mix in some paints and sculpt textures to your surface! Fun stuff! I tried on one of the boxes and I really like the effect.

Sunday was for dyeing. I now have a whole rainbow of dyed silk, ready for spinning.

And I finished plying the green silk. 165yds, navajo plyed, 24 wip. An ounce of silk really goes a long way. Is there a trick to photographing silk? Even in natural light, it's difficult to capture the colours of the silk.

GUEST!!

We have a GUEST coming over this weekend! I forgot all about him! I had to clean and tidied my stuff room so there would be room for him to sleep. I've been running around, trying to decide what fibre stuff I'll need to last the weekend. It's really hard to know what I will want from that room for 3 whole days!!

I wanted to spin the blue silk this weekend. I have 24 bobbins and not one of them are empty! I think I should do some plying and free up a couple of bobbins.

Knitting Rules!

The Yarn Harlot's new book arrived today and I've read it straight through. It is just as hilarious and insightful as her other books. She has a no-nonsense way of putting knitting in perspective. - Psst! Amber, it's all knit and purl! :)

Green Silk Noil

This is the happy mistake silk oblong I got last summer. I think I finally found a good way to spin it. The yarn is spun with all the tuffs of silk noil for lots of texture. It was hard trying to take a decent picture because of the way the silk was reflecting the light. I really like the pink and mauve noils in it. The silk dyed really nicely.

Just under an ounce (24.7gm) at 93m, 2-plyed. Not enough for a whole scarf on its own, though. Combined with another yarn, this would make a nice accent for a scarf.

Or, there should be more than enough to knit a little silk bag. Add some beads and shells to embellish and it would be perfect! It would have to be something loosely knitted...something with 3.5mm or 4mm needles, in the round.