Saturday, July 30, 2011

Knits on a Train

Here's a brief recap of yesterday's Awesome Adventure of Awesomeness.

It started at the Albany train station



where I boarded the north bound train.



This was my first time traveling by train, and I rather enjoyed it. Instead of dealing with traffic and stress, I had a lovely and productive trip.





After about two hours I arrived at my destination: Sock Summit 2011! First thing I met up with Jocelyn.



The train was late, but I managed to catch the line and achieve one of my primary SS goals.



This was then succeeded by an ever bigger geek moment of win.



That's me with Lucy Neatby.



And that's me with THE Yarn Harlot.

After these two big events of Awesome, Jocelyn and I had a lovely lunch and catch up. I miss her since she moved to Portland.

After lunch I was on my own for shopping, and so I hit the market. I saw everything, but the long months of fiber diet practice and training, I wasn't tempted by the massive overload of pretties. I stayed within my planned budget (hurray for cash!) and got things that I really like.



Yarn for a sweater, the first JazzKnitting book, a cone of Habu linen steel, and my SS11 official button.

After I was done spending I hung around, ran into friends, knit, watched a rigid heddle loom demonstration, and waited. Why? Well for one thing my return train didn't depart until 6:15, but my collection of pictures was incomplete. So I waited for classes to end so that I could get one final picture.



That's me with Franklin Habit.

By this time I was very tired, so after one last hop through the sockgate



I got my dinner (Subway), and headed back to Union Station



where I boarded the train and came home.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

End of the tour, and a new member of the family

Here's the final roll call of the finished yarns of the tour: Baby Camel, Silk Mawata, and Crab.







I also have a new member of my electronic device family. And the very first thing I did was knit it a little cozy to keep it safe (out of Malabrigo, no less).





I'll be taking my newest cyber child to Sock Summit with me tomorrow. :-)

Sunday, July 24, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 23

This is actually a picture from yesterday. I helped a friend with yard work today and was too tired to spin.

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 20

I've started spinning the last of my exotic fibers: carbonized bamboo (2 ounces).



It's spinning up to be probably a light lace weight once it's been plied. As it is right now I could probably thread a sewing needle with it.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 19

I've finished spinning my one ounce of crab fiber that I bought at Black Sheep Gathering.



I haven't counted the yards, but I'm guessing it's around 100 yards of sport weight 2 ply.

On to the next challenge!!

Monday, July 18, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day of Rest

It's a rest day on the Tour de Fleece, so I caught up on a great many things today. I did laundry (sheets and towels), cleaned the kitchen (all those dishes!), cooked dinner, put clean sheets on the bed (with help from Wes), cuddled with Wes, and continued to lament over the amount of dye that has come out of the Hempathy I'm knitting my Strafford Tee out of (see how close it is to being finished!). And finally, I got to work on a project that is a secret. I made a collage of some of what I did today.

Sunday, July 17, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 17

I went to a lovely Tour de Fleece inspired spinning party this afternoon and had quite a bit of fun. Except for the spinning myself into a headache part, but that got better with Advil. I did some batt designing with a friend's drum carder, and this is what I came up with.



It's mostly a teal-ish blue (the kind that's impossible to accurately photograph) with bits of red wool and some orange firestar. I'm trying to come up with an appropriate Dr. Who name (probably 10th Doctor). Any suggestions will be taken into consideration.

Saturday, July 16, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 16

I've been spinning every day, but I've been failing on the pictures. I do have one picture of the cotton/lycra in spinning process. Great googly moogly, cotton is difficult to spin. I've made some progress since this picture, but not much.

Sunday, July 10, 2011

Tour de Fleece day 9: Silk

I finished my mawata (0.3 ounces) and ended up with 110 yards ove lace weight 2 ply. This yarn is very, very hot pink.

 

Now I'm working on the cotton/lycra blend fro BSG. It's much more difficult that anything else, since it's got an even shorter staple length than the baby camel. No pictures yet since it doesn't look like much.
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Saturday, July 9, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 8

Ow, drafting the mawata is hard on my right hand, especially my left thumb. But I'm moving along, today I spun 4 "sheets."



I'm loving how shiny it is.

Friday, July 8, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 7

I decided that my next Tour de Fleece spinning challenge would be some silk mawata (hankie). I picked the hot pink that I got at Black Sheep. There was a learning curve when it came to drafting, but I've managed to get that sorted out. However, if I spin too thin and the yarn breaks...well, the spun silk really doesn't like to stick to it's un-spun counter part. Luckily breaking is rare since the fiber is so strong. So far this is the thinnest spinning I've ever done.

The following pictures is the first three "sheets" of the hankie spun up. The whole hankie weighed about 0.3 ounces.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 6

I finally have a finished yarn to show. Well, I have two finished yarns because I finally got my act together with the camera and the sun.

1 ounce of baby camel, plyed back on itself. About 185 yards, light fingering/heavy lace weight. It turned out fairly nice.



Also, here's what I finished up at the start of the tour. 4.something ounces of BFL dyed by Dicentra, colorway Twig, Navajo plied. Each skein is about 180 yards. The first bobbin plyed up at about a DK weight, and the second one at a nice sport weight.



Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 4

Didn't post yesterday because there wouldn't have been much to show. But I'm nearly done with the baby camel. Another couple of days should have it sewn up.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Tour de Fleece, day 2

Got more done. Have 0.7oz roving left to spin of the original 1.1oz.

Westley still runs and hides whenever the wheel is in motion.

Saturday, July 2, 2011

Tour de Fleece

I'm participating in this year's Tour de Fleece on Ravelry, and today was the official start. I'm part of Team TARDIS and am spinning up all of my "exotic" fibers. That means all of what I got at Black Sheep 2011 plus my 1.1 oz baby camel that I've had since the Newport Spin-In 2010.

Here's the progress that I made today. It's not as much as I'd like, but I had some technical difficulties with my wheel. After lots of trouble shooting I figured out that the bobbin I was using is broken. Also, I need to do what feels like over spinning to account for the short staple fiber and slippery fiber.



I'll probably be doing more frequent updates here during the tour.