Tuesday, March 17, 2015

And then, fiber!

Yay, I'm back to my 'normal' behavior of hunkering down over yarn and spinning wheels and similar things when I'm running low. It's maybe kinda slightly possible that my brain is kicking back into gear. This is the best winter I've had for pain control since we moved north.

A couple days ago I pulled out some "Into the Whirled" 80/10/10 wool/cashmere/nylon fiber and started spinning. The colors hooked me, and I'm making good progress.


I loooove it and want to hug it and keep it and love it. I'm settling for making it into a scarf. 

I finished the grey-blue-lavender-periwinkle lace shawl (except for blocking) and am casting around for another lace knit, since my brain seems to be going for it. 

I think I'm going with this. It's "Herbst", one of the insane German lace patterns. Not sure if it's a Niebling, don't think so. Just kinda crazy. I'm dividing it in half and knitting it flat for extra challenge, because I'm crazy. 
This ought to be interesting. (No, that's not the right chart, but it gives you an idea what these charts look like, if you've never seen one.) 

I finished the pink and orange. 
275 stinking yards. What in hell am I supposed to do with 275 yards?? I think I'm going to re-dye on eight ounces of fiber this time (that was five ounces), get more serious about producing frog hair, and TRY AGAIN. 

There's a Fiber Optic gradient here, "Blackbird" waiting for me to get my shit together. Hmm. 

Oh, and this was a class project, I was teaching how to ply from both ends of a center ply ball. 

Oh, and this, just for the hell of it. 


I know it looks like I was super productive and stuff, but imagine me in a corner (literally, my wheel and knitting nest are in the corner of the living room) communicating in grunts and fighting with the cat. 

And, in the middle of all that, while bitching about my hair, I managed to get a picture of myself that I kind of actually like. 
We had this discussion: 

ME: I'm changing my name to Ursula and getting some pet eels. 
HUSBEAST, without missing a beat, knows I'm talking about Little Mermaid: Hey, I'm not the one who did my hair that way. 

I'm thinking that silver needs some color. Like purple. 

I've been thinking of doing more history. There's a show on TV here called Drunk History, where they get people drunk and have them tell the story of their favorite episode in American history. There is lots of bleeping. And famous people stop in to help act out the stories. I was thinking hey, I could do that on my blog, but then I realized, I kind of already do. I mean, my history posts aren't composed while LITERALLY drunk, but they're definitely bleep-able and not exactly ivory tower material. Maybe I just need to do more history posts. I'm thinking Africa. People need more African history. 

In the mean time, I'm gonna go cast on this shawl like a lunatic, and yell at the cat when she smacks the ruler off it and I get lost. Must be Tuesday. 

3 comments:

Donna Lee said...


You have some pretty colors there. I have some skeins of colorful stuff that I love. I'm going to pair it with some grey Icelandic yarn that i finally finished and make a scarf or maybe some colorwork mittens or maybe a hat.....

Emily said...

The University of Julie! Is that coming back? I have saved so many of your posts on things. Yay!

ali said...

i always love your history posts! whether or not you get drunk to compose them, bring it on. :)

also, i think your hair would look awesome with some purple! my hair is too dark to be colored without significant effort, let me live vicariously through you.