Tag Archives: handspun

delphiniums.

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So pretty. Also, a crucially important step towards completing a big pile o’ grading. (I’m making progress.)

Boh is not helping.

An idea — too orange, right? I had to check the handspun pile. Thank you for all of your shawl and shrug ideas. Right now, I’m leaning towards making a deep pinky-coral colored Citron. And then after that, I’ll make one in handspun. Got any leads on a really good deep pink/coral color in lace or fingering weight yarn? You guys always have the answers.

Also, I found some time to spin up a second bobbin of this Hello Yarn targhee in Parritch. I really have missed my wheel. Alright, back to grading!

rain encourages worms (wurm?)

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Apologies for my lame attempt at connecting this evening’s steady rainfall with my current handspun hat-in-progress, the oh-so-lovely wurm. This is the knitting that lives in my bag, which means I mostly pull it out before yoga, or when I have less than 15 minutes between obligations. (More than 15 minutes, and I’m probably reading.)

It was a long Monday, so I came home and put on my cozy green sweater and my super-ripped up jeans. I actually did the same thing when I got home today. Sigh.

Boh curled up on my toes while I finished a book for a discussion tomorrow, and then he settled into a deep snore-laden sleep. Sweet, sweet pooch.

a mild case of startitis.

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(Sudden Saturday onset, as a result of sunshine and a 100 degree reading on the sick-and-tired-of-all-this-work temperature scale. I’m hoping it was only a 24-hour bug…)

Here’s the first bit of my wurm hat. I decided to cast on the medium (100 st), and I’m using a size 5 circular, instead of 4s for the hem and 6s for the rest of the hat — not for any good reason, but because I was able to locate a size 5 circ. I love the color transitions, and I think this is going to be a fantastic yarn match for this pattern. I’m a little concerned about my turned hem — about a third of it is really smooth and well-lined up, but there are places where it feels a little wonky. I wasn’t super meticulous about this, but I did rip back a little bit to try to improve part of the hem row. I think one of the issues is just that the variation of my handspun makes it hard to have even a perfect 1 to 1 match up result in a folded fabric that lays perfectly flat. I can’t exactly see how it will look on my head without taking it off the needles, so I’m just going to go with it for now and trust that it will look fine — or that I can block it into looking fine.

I also cast on simple things, by Mary-Heather Cogar of ravelry fame, whose gorgeous sunset photos help me deal with my southwestern withdrawal. I’m using Blue Moon Socks that Rock mediumweight in the Gypsum colorway, and I love how this feels in my hands. This yarn was a gift from Laura, and I am excited to be able to wrap these colors around my neck. This is going to become my in-the-bag knitting…if I put it down long enough to place it in my bag.

Yesterday Boh and I took a nice long walk along the creek and reservoir near my house. I think he is still sleepy from all the sunshine and playtime — he didn’t move when I pulled up the covers.

And here’s where he was about fifteen minutes later. I ground the coffee and got my french press ready, snapped a few photos of yesterday’s knitting, and then went back into the bedroom and found this. Sweet, sweet dog.

Alright. Time to get to work!

FO: lucy seaman’s cap.

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Special thanks to Boh for his assistance.

I LOVE this. I was initially a bit anxious about how bright and crazy this might look all knitted up, but there was no need to worry. I can’t wait to get this in the mail. Officially, we’ve got a few more weeks of winter (and probably at least a few more unofficial weeks where this is going), and I’m hoping this hat will provide a dear friend of mine with some warmth and happiness during the slow transition to spring!

Details:

Seaman’s Cap, by Brenda Zuk, size M, knit out of Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino handspun in the Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds colorway. I think I used about 140 yards of squishy heavy worsted to knit this hat. I used size 7 needles for the whole thing, mostly because I was too lazy to find 6s for the ribbing.

And now I can cast on something else in handspun! (This is yesterday’s skein of sour fig, already caked and ready to go.)

FO: lacy baktus.

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Here’s my lacy baktus, relaxing atop one of my sources. (I finished the paper, for now, and submitted it this morning!)

And here it is blocked and wrapped around my neck. At first, I thought it wasn’t long enough because the skinny tails didn’t quite wrap twice around my neck, and I didn’t like the way they were hanging. And then I realized that I could just tie a bow instead of a single knot, and those ends wouldn’t droop down.

Details:

I used size 7 needles, in order to get more drape and length out of my rather small skein of handspun merino/silk in the A King’s Ransom colorway from AVFKW. I think I used about 160 of 188 yards. (I began decreasing a tad early to allow for the variability in the yarn.)

This is such a great pattern for handspun or for variegated yarns — I will definitely be making more of these!

baktusing.

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Ta-da! It turns out that all I needed to do to finish my languishing lacy baktus was to take it out of my bag and put it in the knitting pile near the couch. (Well, and knit on it for two more hours.)

In addition to my knitterly productivity, I spent some quality time with the paper I’m revising this weekend, and while it isn’t done yet, it will be ready on time. (Tomorrow.) I turned around in my chair sometime yesterday morning, and this is what I saw:

My sweet dog, waiting patiently for playtime.

I made the Pioneer Woman’s fancy macaroni on Saturday night as a gooey, hearty reward for my steady progress on this paper, and it was divine. (A bit too decadent for the regular rotation, but the perfect treat!)

Happy March!

in-my-bag knitting.

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I’ve been carrying my handspun lacy baktus around with me, and even though I love how this looks, I find that I’m not taking it out of my bag to work on in those in between moments: after class, between appointments, before yoga. Even though the pattern is super easy to memorize and to read in my work, I don’t always remember where I am, and I think the knowledge that I’ll have to do a little bit of thinking to figure out how to pick up where I left off has been stopping me from pulling this out when I have a few minutes.

So yesterday, I decided to move my baktus to the pile near the couch, and cast on something new to carry around with me.

Yep, this is another seaman’s cap. I’m making this one medium-sized, with a particular friend in mind, though if the colors end up feeling a little too crazy, I’ll keep it and make her something slightly more subdued. I think I do best with in-my-bag knitting that is in the round and very simple: rib or stockinette. This is the worsted-ish Crown Mountain Farms superwash merino I spun up a few months ago in the rest of the Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds colorway. I thought I would knit this into mittens, but I think it is a bit late in the season to gift mittens. (Let’s face it, it will be March before this is done, and probably even closer to spring before I get this in the mail.)

Yesterday, for both lunch and dinner, I made Deb’s vegetable dumplings. Last year, as you may recall, my kitchen was the site for many a dumpling recipe test. These emerged victorious. Make them. You will not be sorry.

I’ll leave you with Boh. I eventually made him move so that I could make the bed, but I think he has the right idea. It is snowing here, and I’d like nothing more than to spend the day hunkering. Alas…off to campus.

academic blocking.

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Today is the day: I’m wearing my GYC out the door, and I’m thrilled about it. Which got me to thinking: wouldn’t it be great if blocking worked for papers, and not just for sweaters? I’m giving a paper in a few weeks that just isn’t quite ready. In a lot of ways, I’m happy with it, but it still needs to be tugged and stretched. The stitch definition could be more even, the hem straighter, the lines cleaner. I’d really like to be able to dunk this particular project into a warm bath with some soak, and then reshape it on my kitchen table in order to get the results I want.

Alas, I’m stuck with revisions, more reading, talking to myself in the shower, and occasional full-on questioning of what it is that I am arguing. This is yet another area where I think knitting has the right idea: a lot can be solved with a warm bath.

hammie in handspun.

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Saw these pictures of Hammie in the handspun baby belle I knit for her, and had to grab them to re-post over here. (Photo credits to W+L.) Baby Hammie and her awesome family are climbing and camping out West right now, and it makes me so happy that this sweater came with them on their trip to the States. All we ever hope for when we gift a handknit is that it will be used, worn, lived-in, loved.

FO: handspun seaman’s cap (the fourth).

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This is my fourth handspun seaman’s cap. Clearly, I love this pattern. (Also, I love this hat, but this one is most definitely hopping into the mail this week so that my brother gets his Christmas present before it is too warm for super squishy handspun hats.) I knit the large size, and used 150 yards of handspun superwash merino from Crown Mountain Farms in the albatross colorway — which is almost exactly what I spun from the 3.5 ounces I estimated I’d need. Yay! I hope he likes it.

I asked Boh to do an interpretive dance to demonstrate how I (we) feel about going back to school in a few hours. This was his response. He captured my feelings exactly — as did the weather — heavy rains and high winds today — which, unfortunately, does not seem super conducive to helping me to fully kick this cold. (More Theraflu for this rooster — I’m definitely feeling better, but, as it often goes near the end of a rapidly morphing sore throat to drippy nose to head cold to cough, despite feeling much improved, I sound worse! Or incredibly sexy, depending on how you look at it…)

Happy Monday, folks. Despite my whining, there is a lot to look forward to this semester.