Tag Archives: handspun

(almost) FO: ripe bananas lap blanket.

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I say almost because I haven’t blocked this or woven in any of the ends. But I bound off yesterday while taking a break from this paper, and I am in love. I decided to go with a slightly browner shade of grey for the border because the center color seemed a bit too bright next to the red, yellow and brown handspun.  Boh is shedding right now, and the kitchen table was covered with stuff yesterday, so I couldn’t find a good spot to photograph the blanket in full-on square form. I’ll do that soon, so you can see what it looks like unfolded. Thanks to Cosy for a great pattern (coming soon!) and for her knitting advice and support. This rooster can now read a chart written for a round project (yay!) and experienced the bliss of really getting into a lace pattern.

Oh, right. The details: Ripe bananas lap blanket, by Cosy, pattern forthcoming. (I used the pattern as written, save a few purl rows, which I omitted at a few of the yarn transitions.) I used US 7 needles, and a mixture of yarns,  including Brown Sheep Top of the Lamb worsted, handspun targhee (fiber from AVFKW), handspun CVM (fiber from Cosy), handspun shetland singles (fiber from AVFKW), Cascade 220 heathers in a rusty red, handspun corriedale (fiber from Spunky Eclectic), and Cascade Ecowool. The finished size, which I know you can’t see, is a substantial lap blanket — perfect for curling up under while reading for my comprehensive exams.

Happy weekend, folks. Back to writing!

plenty.

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(Nope, not talking about the applesauce! I’m only halfway through the bushel.)

I walked into the university bookstore on my way to lecture yesterday to grab a few more brightly colored pens, in anticipation of the scribbling I’ll be doing as I revise my own work this weekend and the pile of papers my students will be turning in on Monday. On my way in, Plenty, by Diana Henry, caught my eye. I picked it up, and after flipping through it, I walked all the way around the table it was on in order to find the other copies. When I wasn’t able to locate them, I decided that I just couldn’t bear to put this copy down, and so it came home with me.

I don’t think I’ve ever taken pictures of the inside of a cookbook before, but this book is gorgeous. Thick paper, saturated colors, beautifully-staged photography, mouth-watering recipes — all aimed at the “home cook.” (That’s me!) This cookbook contains a nice range of meat and veggie options, with lots of discussion about leftovers. This is a cookbook about eating and living well while being conscious of the politics of growing, preparing, and eating food. I’m a mostly-vegetarian cook because I can’t always source (or afford) the kind of meat I am comfortable eating — meat from animals raised kindly and locally, on farms that care about long term ecological health. Diana Henry provides advice for a cook with my politics, and offers an impressive number of recipes for “less popular” cuts of meat — the kind that maybe someone like me can afford from a local farmer. She thinks about refrigerator continuity — a weekend roast that serves as the base for several other possibilities later in the week.

Can you tell I’m excited about this book?

I am also incredibly excited about this blanket — so much so that I’d like to submit it instead of the paper I’m revising to my department for consideration. (Too bad that’s not really an option.) I’m working on the last section of the blanket before the border, and I cannot wait to curl up with this on the couch. Hopefully I’ll have some FOs around here soon, in both written and knitted form…

 

still ripening.

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As you can see, I’m making good progress on my ripe bananas lap blanket. (I’m aiming to finish it this weekend!) I wrapped up the lace section with the red and taupe shetland singles, and then switched to some Cascade 220 in a heathered, rusty red to keep the darkening gradient going. (In case anyone is wondering, 1.4 oz of Cascade 220 is pretty much exactly how much yarn you need to knit 1.5 inches of this blanket on 7s when the stitch count is in the 450 st range and increasing. Phew!)

Next up, more handspun. As soon as I get this Spunky Club corriedale in the New Day colorway wound into a ball, I’ll be on my way.

And here are the veggies I roasted for dinner last night: potatoes, fennel, and beets, all from the farm. Yum.

ripening bananas.

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Here you can see the darker orange handspun I transitioned to when I headed back to the beginning of the lace chart. (This is actually CVM farm wool, purchased from Cosy, so of course it had to go into my testknit of her fabulous ripe bananas lap blanket pattern.)

And here’s the blanket with about eight rows of lace and increases to go. I wasn’t sure how far I’d be able to knit with the orange CVM farm wool, and as you can see, I finished a row with about 5 yards left — perhaps not enough to get all the way around again. So I went back to the pile of handspun I set aside for this project, and wound a smallish skein of shetland singles in reds and taupes into a ball. I think this will be perfect for the rest of the lace section, and it will complete the lighter to darker gradient I’m going for.

I am planning to knit knit knit on this over the weekend!

FO: fireside chat.

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150 yards of soft, squishy 2-ply BFL from AVFKW. I am so happy with the way this poofed up with washing. Tough to photograph the subtle depth of this colorway — lots of different shades of pinks, some pale purple-y grays, even some taupe. (Not as orange as it looks above.) Even Boh approves.  This is destined to be birthday yarn for my friend H – she’ll get it soon. (I forgot to bring it with me to campus today.)

Gorgeous day today — clear sky, lots of sun. I owe Boh a long walk, so that’s where we’re headed.

yo.

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Yep. That was the problem. I accidentally yarn-overed at the start of a lace row, when I wasn’t supposed to. And then, in my uncaffeinated stupor, I proceeded to attempt to account for the fact that my stitch count was off, all the way through each section. I know better than to do that, at least when I’ve had my coffee.

I realize that to the untrained eye, these pictures look pretty much like what I posted yesterday. The knitter, however, will notice a key difference: yesterday’s photo has lots of extra yarn in it, suggesting the un-knitting that has just occurred; today’s photos have no such excess yardage, suggesting that things are moving along as intended. And they are. I re-knit the offending row — AFTER a full cup of coffee.

And now I’m off to campus. But since it’s Friday, I’ll leave you with a dose of sweetness:

I thought Friday would never get here. Happy weekend!

happy lace.

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Isn’t it, though? Last night I proctored a prelim. I brought reading to do, but I was up and down to answer questions every ten minutes or so, and just couldn’t focus on my work. Luckily, I had tucked the lap blanket I’m test-knitting for Cosy into my bag, and as the students worked, I got through another repeat or two. I love the slight variegation in this orangey handspun.

Also, I wore my garter yoke cardigan on Wednesday, and snapped a photo before dashing off to lecture. There’s something not-quite-right with the fit/style of this for me. I think the sleeves are a bit too wide to be 3/4 length, and buttoned up, I feel sort of matronly. (This might just have to do with the fact that I spend most of my time on a college campus.) Anyway, I decided to wear it over a super bright mustard-yellow shirt, and I think that worked. Thus concludes this edition of “knits-in-action.”

I’m off to the land of my bright college years for the weekend. Not looking forward to the drive, but so happy that it is finally Friday.

FO: the second half.

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Here’s the rest of the grey alpaca. The top skein (you know, the one closer to the book I should be reading right now), was the softest, highest quality fiber in the bag, and I think you can see the difference when looking at these skeins side-by-side. There’s 70 yards of the softer alpaca, and then another 116 yards of the coarser stuff, bringing the whole lot to 339 yards of light-worsted singles. Can’t wait to see what N. decides to knit out of this stuff!

Last night, after a long day and a dinner of leftovers, we took a break from the kind of work that requires full mental concentration and picked up projects that would allow us to listen to an episode of This American Life. I worked on B’s windschief hat, and I am now ready to start the decreases. He should have a hat to keep him warm by the end of the week. In fact, maybe I’ll knit a few rounds before I tackle the writing I need to do today…

FO: half the grey alpaca.

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So this is the first half of the grey alpaca I’m spinning for my friend N., after setting the twist and hanging it to dry. While neither of these mini-skeins is next-to-skin soft, I’m really happy with the halo and the sheen of this yarn. What you’re looking at is about 160 yards. I delivered the first half of the alpaca to N. yesterday afternoon, and decided to work on the second half after dinner last night. One of the remaining bumps of fiber felt softer, so I spun that first. Here’s the bobbin:

I think you can see the difference in the quality. N. told me that she paid five bucks for almost eight ounces of this stuff, which makes sense to me. I think some of this fiber is the “good stuff” from the animal, but I think a lot of it might be the hair from the less prize parts of an alpaca’s coat — like the underbelly, maybe? That would explain the amount of veggie matter in the first two bumps. Here’s the final (larger) bump after separating the fibers a bit with my hands:

I love the depth of color in this picture — such a complex grey. This was coarser, more like the first two skeins. I think singles were the right choice for this yarn — and hey, I’m no longer afraid of alpaca! Maybe I’ll dig out what I’ve got from my very first fiber purchase and try again.

I’m pretty sure that this expression has something to do with the fact that Boh finally understands that there is not an alpaca in the kitchen. Just some yarn hanging to dry.

A few glimpses of the weekend:

Deb’s scalloped tomatoes, made with the last of the season’s farm tomatoes.

After dinner hot chocolate made with dutch cocoa, organic sugar, and milk.

And this morning, I pulled on my down booties when I climbed out of bed in the darkness to make my coffee. I’m ready for daylight savings — I’d rather get up with the sun than rise before her.

 

three.

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Hard to believe it has been three years since I jumped (fell?) into blogland, and without getting too mushy on y’all, allow me to just say that doing this, here, with you, has been more rewarding than I was even capable of imagining three Octobers ago.

One of the things I talked about in that very first post was how much I had learned from the online knitting community, and so it seems only fitting that as I celebrate my blogiversary, I am working on a testknit for someone whose blog was part of inspiring me to start blogging. (And she’s still teaching me new things!)

Here’s what I’ve got so far on my ripe bananas lap blanket testknit for Cosy. I was struggling with getting the lace to line up, and she helped me to see that I was knitting right, but reading wrong. (I was reading the chart as if it covered all the stitches, rather than exactly the number of stitches in each quadrant, despite all sorts of evidence on said chart suggesting how to understand it properly.)

Anyway, this morning I put the reading aside, and powered through a full lace repeat, happy to be “getting it” after lots of puzzling, unknitting, and re-knitting.

Thank you all for reading the blog, sharing your thoughts, and teaching me in so many ways. Here’s to another year!