This Lady Knits

Yes the title is correct, it is definitely April, all my calendars agree, it’s 4/18/08 and it’s snowing outside.  Not just coming down, but it’s actually on the ground too, and sticking.  Unheard of in Seattle this time of year.

And yet the evidence

See the white streaks, that’s snow, and it’s showing harder now then when I took those pics mere minutes ago!

Snow in April in Seattle and just last Saturday we had a 70+ degree day.  What’s next.

Please forgive the picture quality, it was taken from my phone because I managed to forget to bring a real camera with me, yet again.

Apparently, my new Rose has been off having some fun when I wasn’t looking, she had a baby!!!  now if only I could figure out who the father is?

Let me introduce Pocket, he’s a Pocket Wheel, and since i’m not very creative and the name fit him, he is hence forth dubbed Pocket.  Yes technically he would be my 6th wheel, but I sold my first wheel, that’s the Louet I sold before we moved back to Washington.  So that would make him my 5th wheel, except….I sold the Lendrum.  Let me say that one again, just a bit more slowly…

I  S O L D  T H E  L E N D R U M!

Sachi, is in the process of buying my Lendrum, well i guess it will be hers soon,  We’re doing a lay-a-way, which will give me a chance to find all those bobbins and drive bands and other pieces. Since I got the Rose, my poor Lendrum, or is that now Sachi’s Lendrum, in any case has been sitting in a corner sulking, he hasn’t had any fiber on him since well since I got the Rose, and Sachi’s been looking for a good 2nd wheel so her Kromski could get a break and not break on her, so the Lendrum is off to a good home.

I’m off to spin, more later when I get back from the Whidbey island spin in.

Every car I’ve ever owned I’ve backed up into something within the first year of owning it.  This time I figured I’m covered, I won’t back into anything, I’ve got a back up camera in addition to my normal checks when I’m backing up.  But no, my car curse struck again. 

 So I’m in the garage this morning, the garage door stopped, so it’s open right, ok, back up camera says there’s no one behind me.  Mind you my SUV is quite large, and there is a support beam in the middle of my garage, so it’s a tight fit, so I mostly use my side view mirrors to get out of the garage without hitting the garage or the support beam.  Wel ok, so the garage door opener stopped, so the doors open right?  Of course it must be open, it’s always opened all the way up before, why should I think anything different now.  So I start to back out of the garage, and guess what, the door was open, just not quite all the way.  This SUV being quite a bit taller than my last car, I hear a thunk, fully thinking i’ve hit somethe side of the vehicle, I get out to see what I’ve hit.  Silly me, i look up and there the garage door and my rear window have now met each other. 

In my last car it wouldn’t have mattered if it was fully opened or not, so I have no idea if it’s been not opening all the way or not up until now.  Guess who’s going to be checking the garage door from now on. 

 No damage to either car or garage, not a scratch or dent anywhere, it was just the window that met the garage door, and it’s fine.  So I get to work and tell DH what happened….his response… “Again?” Now I know we’ve been together now for just over 9 years, but apparently he’s picked up on this car curse thing.  The thing is once I’ve backed into something it never happens again, so maybe I’m covered this time….knock on wood.

 Just so you know, I’ve only done any major damage once, the first time I backed up into a garage door and I’ve only hurt property, never any living beings.

I spun this

Here’s a close up

and another

The fiber is from a Totally Tubular Kit that I bought from The Bellwether, the color: well The Colors Purple of course.  This was a totally fun spin and I whipped through 4 oz in just a few days, in between work, knitting and playing with the new car.  I’m spinning up some merino 64′s and I think I’ll do some 2 color knitting with this, the merino is Pewter.

Last weekend my spinning group had it’s 2nd dying session, I didn’t go to the first because the response was overwhelming so a 2nd dye in was created, then it got delayed due to snow, then Madrona, but finally we met to do some dying.

I dyed a Superwash BFL and here are the results.  Unfortunately the weather and day light hours just haven’t been playing well with me, so the colors are fairly close, but not quite true.

Strangely enough I’m been stepping outsize my normal color pallet lately, this one is a bit on the yellow side for what I’d normally go for.

This one, affectionately named Clown Barf by a fellow spinner, is my favorite.  Towards the end of the day, I had one more hang of roving left to dye, and there were lots of left over dyes on the table that were already mixed by everyone.  So I grabbed a cup and a ginormous syringe and started squirting dye zig zag across my roving.  repeated this process through a total of 6 cups of dye.  the first few layers looked a lot like a clown’s wig, hence the name clown barf.  I really love the way it turned out.

Purple Madness, I know the colors don’t quite look purple here but it’s definitely purple.  this one is my 2nd favorite, and like the Clown Barf I can hardly wait to spin it up.

and some purple greens and blues

Sorry for not braiding this one up nice a neatly, but it wasn’t quite dry yet when I took this picture, it’s blacks and magenta and it’s beautiful, but it’s probally less than an ounce of roving, I haven’t weight any of this yet.  It was just a bit of roving that was free floating in my bag of roving.

I started out with 1 lb (16 oz) and just guessed at lengths, I think the first 4 are about 3 – 3.5 oz, again i haven’t weight any of it.

All in all it was a great day and definitely worth the trip out there (100 miles round trip).  Will I do some more dying?  Damn straight, I even have dye powders to dye with.  This is a far cry from dying with Koolaid, i love the depth of the colors so much, I had the whole lot spread across my desk at work for a day. I can’t wait to start spinning some of these, but they’ve got to wait their turn in line, yes, even with 4 wheels, I can’t seem to find a free wheel.  Of course I’ve got a few drop spindles that are bare, but for the larger hanks, that’s a lot of drop spindling, I think i’ll wait for a free wheel.  No I’m not going to buy another one….I think, for a while.

Yesterday DH and I decided to go test drive the Lexus RX hybrid, it was a beautiful brady wine color, and oh did it handle well.  I even went so far as to talk lease with the sales lady, but then DH reminded me we were going to  test drive the Toyota Highlander Hybrid as well.  So we put the sales lady at lexus on hold and went down the street to test drive the Highlander.  Very very nice ride, not quite as nice as the Lexus, but the cost of maintenance, the prepaid maintenance plan and the ride itself, well pretty much sold me on the Highlander.

I swear I was just going to talk price with them, had no plans on driving it off the lot.  Well…. I took this home last night

Toyota Highlander Hybrid, it has 3rd row seating in it!  and the 3rd row is big enough that it will sit 2 adults way more comfortably than the Civic did in the back seat.  3 zone climate control, that’s right the passenger and driver zones and a separate control for everthing behind the the front seats.  Built in back up camera and a few other bells and whistles, leather seats yada yada yada.  the only thing it doesn’t have in it is NAV, a rear audio system and a kitchen sink, oh yeah no table like the CR-V’s had.

Well DH and I took it for a little spin up to Bellingham today, and I am more in love with it than I was yesterday when I drove it off the lot.

This is a Superwash Corridale, I started out with about 8 oz, what you are seeing is 6.8 oz, approximately 396 yards, and it’s 3 ply.  Colors are not very true, but it’s late and it’s dark out, to lazy to clear a space near the natural light lamp, it’s pretty much buried deep.  This is about 16 or 17 wpi, so about a sports weight.  The fiber is from the Hello Yarn Fiber Club, about 3 or 4 months ago, and the color way is “Toxic”, purples, whites, oranges, reds and some browns even.  This is destined to be at least 1 pair of socks for yours truly.  Oh this was spun on my Lendrum, and now I have 3 wheels free, so I’m off to throw one of my Sheep 2 Shoe kits on the Rose.

A little over 11 months ago, I took a 1 year contract position, which is due to end at the end of March.  Well that contract will be ending just a tad sooner than originally anticipated as I was offered the same position, but as a full time employee, and I’ve accepted, so I’ll be starting my “new” job on 3/10.

Silly me, went and bought yet another wheel this weekend, the Majacraft Rose.  No worries, I didn’t go for any long drives, I bought the wheel from a friend, who isn’t quite as happy with it as she though she would be.  It’s a wheel I’ve been looking at for a while now and was planning on buying in a few months anyway, so now I don’t have to.

Pictures?  What are those?  there are some of the new wheel around here somewhere, I know DH took some, but  if you want to see the new wheel in the mean time, you can see some here, it’s the one with the rose engraved on it.

Sorry all, I totally spaced the camera again, so no pics from Madrona.  I did come out alive but I’m not sure my wallet survived day 3.  I swear I’m going to get around to taking pics, hopefully some time this week.

 So Day 1 I took a Make it Fit class, who knew so much work went into making something fit you.  We took measurements, don’t ask what mine are I’m not telling *wink*.  Learned about body types, I’m mostly an X shape.  Learned about darts and short rows and where to put them and a whole host of other things that are still settling into my brain.  The class was informative, fun and exhausting at the same time.  By the end of the day, it was all I could do to get some grub and back to my room. By necessity the Make it Fit class was here’s a bunch of information, absorb it and take notes.

Day 2 was a class in Spinning Worsted and Woolen.  A very good counterbalance to my prior day’s class.  This was a more relaxed class, not in information but in teaching style.  The class format was more here’s a handout with the basic differences, now here’s how you do it.  The morning was spent learning Woolen preperation and spinning, she showed us how to do it then gave us fiber and set us free, while she wandered around the room critiquing and answering questions.  We did the same thing in the afternoon for Worsed prep and spinning.  Lots of fun and there were at least 5 of us from my spinning group in that class.

 Day 3, no classes, but I went down to spin with my spinning group, as always a good time was had by all, with periodic excursions back into the market. Sachi came over for the day too, we had a great time catching up as always.  She’s looking for a 2nd wheel, so there may be a trip in our nearish future to Woodland Woolworks to “visit” the wheels they have there.

Oh and I’ve been meaning to mention this for a few weeks now and just clean forgot.  I’ve been beta testing Knit Visualizer 2.0 for a few months now, and all I really have to say about the software is…..WOW.  Version 2.0 now can handle color, has apsect ratio setting so you can actually chart fair isle in color on a knitters graph.  The biggest feature in this release, IMHO, and the greatest, again IMHO, is that you can now create your own stitches.  Not only using KV font, but JKnits font is built in as well.  You can also use any font that is on your computer.  You can create any stitch you’d like and even change the foreground and background color of the stitch.  Go check it out, this is an amazing piece of charting design software.

Oh I do have a pic to share:

This is what I saw on my way into work this morning, through the fog, I was actually able to capture his pic with my camera phone.  I see it quite often, but it rarely translates into something I can capture with my camera phone.

Can I just say wow.  My brain is fried from yesterday’s Make it Fit class, I’m still absorbing what I learned but I swear my brains are still leaking out my ears.  Today’s Worsed and Woolen Class, great counterpoint to yesterday’s class.  The Make it Fit was more of a structured class, where information was given, and given and given….it’s a lot of info.  I can already see where it’s going to complement the 3 month every other Monday, Design Your Own Sweater class I’m taking at an LYS and enhance it.  I just started that class and already I know 2 different ways to take measurements that complement each other.  In the spinning class, it was much less structured, sort of here’s the information, some examples on how to spin woolen and prepare the fiber, lots of sample fibers, then after lunch more examples, this time on how to spin worsted and fiber prep and more fiber samples.  I was in this class with 5 other ladies that I spin with regularly, and it was a lot of fun.   Tomorrow I’m heading back down, to spin with my spinning group, but most of all to spend some time with Sachi.

I forgot to bring a camera, and even if I had brought one, I probably would have completely forgotten I had it.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll remember one.

Oh the Market, I though I was good until I emptied out my trunk, more on that later, once I’m sure the shopping has stopped.

Pattern: Calorimetry by Kathryn Schoendorf

Needles: Options #8

Yarn:  Handspun by Moi on the Victoria and Plied on the Lendrum. Cashmere & Wool blend, dyed by Chasing Rainbows, I don’t remember the colorway, silly braid bands disappear as quickly as the ball bands.  Navajo Plied to retain the color progression without minimal muddying.

I needed a “bar” knit for a b-day party I went to last night.  This really is a quick knit, I cast it on and did the first row before leaving for the bar, came home, sewed on a button and wove in the ends.  Done did deal.