replacement parts

Posted on Posted in projects, Uncategorized

first of all, EJ kindly emailed me to point out a tiny typo in the cloverleaf mitts pattern. in the gray box, one of the pattern rows is misnumbered. currently there are two row 3s. the one with the yarnovers should say row 4; the CORRECT row 3 is the same as rows 1, 5, and 6. sorry about that!

oh man, what about all this rain, eh? it has rained here for many, MANY days now. it’s a real downer. if it was colder, we’d be buried in snow, i’m not kidding. in fact, we are supposed to get a bunch of snow later today and tomorrow.

poor bike. my italian is missing me, and getting plenty jealous of my road bike, which i use on the trainer, and which has been getting lots more saddle time lately. i miss riding outdoors. a LOT.

and a happy martin luther king day to all! i am pleased to say that my office is closed today so that workers might celebrate—this has not been the case in every company i’ve worked for, but it should be. i did have to teach classes today, as the yarn store WAS open, but those are always fun. and, lots of people seem to be celebrating the holiday by purchasing yarn.
personally, i am celebrating by cooking indian food for dinner.

i’m glad everyone enjoyed those funky mitts. i couldn’t help but take notice that many of you are truly desperate to win something. yeah—it’s a little scary . . .
on the other hand (no pun intended), i love how willing we are to embrace oddity diversity in all its forms. go knitters.

and truly, the difference in patterning is much less noticeable when they are on (they are, after all, the same size, just different-looking). do i have a picture? NO!—and david just left the house, too. why do i always find good uses for him when he is somewhere else??

so, anyway, i worked a bit on some replacements for the funky, mismatched mitts, since i do not have any extra yarn to make even one correct mate. i do, however, have some of this equally nice handspun alpaca in a beautiful gray

i’m making the “good” pair in a variation on the fine cabled mitts pattern, where i started the cables at the hem. i like them, and i may use this variation on one of the pairs i am knitting or myself.

i’m also re-knitting the cloverleaf mitts in another yarn. i bought this merino yarn in france a few years ago and made myself a sweater. the leftovers should work perfectly for this pair.

who can resist this camel color? see my little cable needle just for sox? heh. quite a few years ago, my size 3 ebony straights got broken when someone flopped down on my sofa without looking. i couldn’t bear to throw them out, so i shortened them a lot, and with the leftover snapped tip, i made this lil’ cable needle. it comes in super-handy for sox and mitts.

there has been more spinning too, and not just the bike kind. i spun an plied more spunky eclectic (in the winnipeg colorway) into another sock yarn, this time a tad heavier, i’d hoped—i suspected the navajo was a little thinner than i wanted.

today i skeined them up for washing and discovered that the navajo had 700 yards and the winnipeg 560 yards, so winnipeg must be a bit thicker, which is good. i think i also spun it a bit tighter, so the ply is closer and more firm—good for sock wear. hopefully, i did not go too tight with it . . . i’ve noticed when the yarn is thin, little changes make a big difference, and can translate into a completely different sock yarn.

then i spun up a little bit of this caramel swirl alpaca i bought from a friend at a guild meeting over the summer. i felt like spinning something naturally-colored after working with the dyed fiber, and this looked really good on the bump.

however, once i got into spinning it, it didn’t feel quite right. the alpaca was lusterless (and that could be due to dirt), and the lighter one had a lot of neps and/or second cuts in it. then the wool streak was wiry, though shiny. so i decided to ply up the partial bobbin i had spun, wash it, and see if i really wanted to continue making sock yarn with it.

this is a sort of big deal or me—to reassess what i’m doing, and stop if i feel my time isn’t worth it, or that i might want to go in a different direction. i can do that with knitting no problem, but with spinning, i usually feel i should just spin up what i have while i’m at it, even when it’s not what i’d hoped for.
it’s not that this fiber is bad at all—it’s just that i don’t see myself knitting something fine with it. maybe once it’s washed, i’ll decide to just spin it up fast and chunky for clogs.

instead, what i’m going to tackle next is this vibrant crimsom fiber

if i don’t dawdle, i can have a yarn that will be perfect for knitting up at valentine’s day (and maybe enough to give some away on the Red Sweater KAL).

and i am moving along on the smoke sox, too; they have not been neglected. they just go slowly (kinda like a good cigarette . . .). i knit and knit, and they don’t grow very fast. i’m having a little trouble seeing my stitches on the size 0 needles. and then the other morning, i did the pattern wrong and had to rip back just a bit (i had a bad 24 hours for pattern knitting between saturday night and sunday . . . ). but, progress i still visible

17 thoughts on “replacement parts

  1. I’ve been lurking here for awhile (like 8 months or so), and just wanted to delurk to let you know how incredibly inspiring I find your work to be. Thanks for sharing with us!

  2. You crack me up Anne! You are soooo amazing, I say it almost every time I comment on your blog because you make me want to knit(not that I ever haven’t for about the last 9 yrs or so). I love that colorful sock yarn you’re spinning! I just want to eat it up! You are a lickity-split knitter, I swear you make mitt’s faster than a snowcone melts in Phoenix!

  3. Oh, I love the gray cabled mitts! I prefer the look of it with the cables starting at the hem.
    Your thoughts about how you’ve been brought to do something that is unusual in your spinning process were very interesting to me. As I’ve just taken up spindle spinning, I’m still experimenting and haven’t yet identified what is usual or not for me, but I’ll remember what you just did with this alpaca whenever something doesn’t feel quite right and requires that I go out of my comfort zone to get more satisfying results.
    Did that quick try with the alpaca fulfilled your desire for something naturally-colored, or is there a naturally crimson-colored breed of sheep I had yet to hear of? 😉

  4. You know looking at that luscious fiber, maybe I could have a go at spinning this year. I love the spunky eclectic, and hey what a great name.

  5. I’m so jealous of all your spinning! I only have a drop spindle right now so all my spinning goes very slowly. One of my goals for 2007 is to purchase my first spinning wheel in an effort to speed things up a bit…I hope. 🙂

  6. I think if I made as much progress on my knitting in one week as you make in one day I would feel quite prolific and proud of myself 🙂 You continue to amaze me!

  7. I’m surprised to hear that you don’t cable without a cable needle. I’m sure you could figure it out in no time. I tried it on my own after I read about the Harlot learning to do so when she dropped her cable needle on the bus.

    I love the red roving the best. The color is just beautiful and the fiber looks divine. I wish monitors had touch sensors. 🙂

  8. That multi-colored yarn is lovely. What kind of wheel do you have? I am looking into buying one, very much as a beginner, and am interested in everyone’s opinions. I think I would like an Ashford Joy, but I am not willing to go quite that high on the expense just yet – keeping an eye out for a used one in the mean time…

  9. I really like that spunky eclectic…I am working on pink (which looks good on me, though for years I have denied this) and my girly side. I like the idea of mismatched-matched mitts…that way you can easily see which goes on which hand, well, as long as you can remember.

  10. Hmm, I think I have that same alpaca. Got it at Lambtown and haven’t worked my way “up” to alpaca yet. I only use the spindle and progress has been slow this winter. Lusterless is not good.

  11. Hi to Anne from her friendly neighborhood librarian! How do you like the frozen tundra we have now? At least the rain has stopped. I’m glad the snow held off — we moved this weekend.

    I would love to learn how to spin– I’m such a yarn junkie as it is. All of your work is so lovely and complex. I’m glad to have run into you! See you at the shop.

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