Crafts

The following items were actually from my wish list: a nostepinne (a swedish ball-winder that makes center-pull balls of yarn), a yarn swift (at a fantastic price!) and two (yes, two) drop spindles – a beginners’ spindle (with sheep faces drawn on it) and a lovely green swan spindle. (OK, I confess, I really only had one spindle on my wish list – the other one just had to come home with me too.)

I also bought some roving (well, I need something to use with my drop spindles!) The heathery-purple roving is the softest merino (which I will need to wait to spin until I get a little better at it), and the blue, blue/green and white balls of roving came with my beginners’ spindle.

I also bought a few orange things (well, what did you expect, with all the tempting fall colors scattered around the place?) The orange/yellow/red roving is blue faced leicester wool, which is most likely destined to become a felted hat or something; the variegated lace-weight yarn is project-less for the moment. Also, some other little goodies: a sheep mug and a beaded row counter.

All in all, I’m pretty happy with my new stash! I’d better start saving my pennies now for next year, especially since I now know what to expect.

Oh, and does anyone know exactly how Sleeping Beauty was supposed to have pricked her finger on a spinning wheel? I saw many, many spinning wheels, and none of them seemed to have any sharp things on them…

OK, I promise pictures of my goodies tomorrow – I was too tired (and lazy) to take pictures today. And too busy playing with my drop spindle. In the meantime, here are pictures from the festival. Enjoy!

So I’m sure you’re dying to hear about our weird coincidental encounter. We stopped at a rest stop near Utica for dinner. We were sitting down already with our food when a tour bus rolls up…consisting almost entirely of women in their 20’s – 50’s. (Hmmm…wonder where they’ve been?) I overheard one of them say to another, “well, we’ve been on the road a little over two hours, so we’ve probably got another two left.” (Hmmm…that sounds a lot like our trip!) Using the fact that I had forgotten napkins as an excuse, I got up to get some, and lo and behold, one of the ladies was wearing a souvenier sweatshirt from…the Dutchess County Sheep & Wool festival (aka Rhinebeck)!

Well, long story short (ok, not really), I asked if they had just been to the festival, and where they were from. Get this: it was a tour bus out of Rochester, organized by the Genesee Valley Handspinner’s Guild…which conveniently meets just down the hill from my house! Be still my beating heart! They said to absolutely come and bring my drop spindle and fiber, and they’d be more than willing to help me out.

I think I have another hobby to add to my ever-growing list of things I do in my spare time. Heh. Good thing I’m gainfully employed, or I wouldn’t be able to afford myself!

That’s the first word that came to mind when my mom and I got to the fiber festival. We saw wool in every form, every blend, every color, every weight I’d ever imagined, and several combinations I hadn’t!

Let’s see…other than fiber we saw: a lady spinning a bunny, several breeds of sheep, alpaca and llamas, and lots of cute sheep dog puppies. I got to meet Carolyn and Claudia, as well as several other knitting bloggers. That was pretty neat! Claudia was kind enough to show me how to use the beginners’ drop spindle I bought…check out my first yarn!

So, what other goodies did I get besides a drop spindle? You’ll have to wait and see! You’ll also have to wait for the weird coincidence story – I’m much too sleepy to write about it right now!

I think that the Rhinebeck festival is going to be an annual “take time to fondle the fibers” trip. Only, next time, I’m not staying at the Ramada Inn (the pillows were hard as rocks, and they could have substituted sandpaper for the towels – they would have been softer that way!), I’m not stopping at any rest stop that contains a Roy Rogers (ummm, I was able to wring the grease out of my sandwich), and I’m staying for two nights (if I have to get in the car anytime in the next three weeks, it will be too soon!). Oh, and I will, next road trip, remember to test the @!#$% audio book on my iPod before I leave, so at least I’ll be prepared when it won’t play.

• Maps…check.
• Full tank of gas…check.
• EZPass…check.
• Mile number (127) of Thruway rest-stop with Starbucks…check.
• Wishlist…check.
• Checkbook…check.

Looks like I’m ready for Rhinebeck!

(Oh, yeah, I suppose I’ll pack some clothes and a toothbrush. And maybe my camera. And it would be a good idea to have some knitting along with me, just in case. Oh, and since I’m the primary driver this trip, will someone please remind me to take my sunglasses?!?)

Just eight days after casting on the first one, the aran sandal socks are done! That’s my personal best for a pair of socks! Now I just need to find a nice pair of fall clogs to show them off with.

I’ve also finally put up the pictures of the finished kureyon tote, and the multi-directional diagonal scarf that I started a few weeks ago. I’m so far behind in posting updates to my craft pages! After all the major Christmas knitting is done, I think I’m going to go through my entire craft room and document everything. Then maybe I won’t be surprised when I find half-finished things in there that I’d even forgotten I’d started!

Some progress has been made on both mystery knitting projects, although I can’t really post pictures…and I’m soon going to be starting two more. Oh, well, I’ll just have to start a few more projects so I can post more pictures! (Pictures which would be easier to take with that new camera I want. You reading this, Santa?)

My current yarn obsession is anything orange. Specifically, pumpkin orange. For example, this sock:

(You’ll have to take my word on the color. The pictures came out a bit too red.) This is the aran sandal sock pattern in Socks, Socks, Socks. I only started it Wednesday night! Now I just have to start (and finish) it’s mate. I’m not looking forward to doing the second heel flap, which involved doing cables from the back of the work. That was…weird. I wonder if there’s an easier way than the one I figured out – which was to turn the work around, re-arrange the cable stitches on the needle, then turn it back around and purl them. Very time-consuming. But worth it!

Besides that, though, I’ve swatched for the fair isle vest, and done a bit of secret knitting. Only 80 more knitting days until Christmas!

A few knitting bloggers have put out their “top ten things I wish I’d known before I started knitting” lists…so, here’s mine:

1. Swatch early, swatch often. Make a big swatch. Wash your swatch just like you’d wash the finished item. And trust your swatch…don’t panic if the first couple of rows of k2/p2 rib seem huge – if your swatch says they’ll pull in, they will.
2. Blocking is good. Edges are so much nicer to sew together when things are blocked. And with some yarns, blocking can correct small gauge issues.
3. Let go of the pattern. If a sweater is perfect minus one detail or another, change it. Don’t be afraid to make a different size, or re-do the math entirely, to make the sweater you love in the yarn you love. And take measurements…a perfectly finished sweater won’t be worn if it doesn’t fit well.
4. Plan on spending a lot of time and attention on finishing. It may not seem like “knitting”, but it’s the most noticable part of your knitting and can make the difference between something looking “handmade” – “wow, you made that?!?” and “homemade”…”oh, you made that.” Keep in mind that decisions about how to finish something sometimes need to be made even before casting on.
5. You can never have enough needles, stitch holders, stitch markers, or other exciting little gadgets…because generally when you need one item or another, it’s stuck in another project. It’s also important to have several tote bags on hand!
6. It’s really ok to have more than one project going at a time. This way, if you get bored with one project, you have something else to work on while you rediscover your love for the first project. It’s also a good idea to have some mindless knitting on hand for long car rides or tv watching.
7. Keep a knitting journal. Write down all of the particulars for a project – yarn type and color, needle size, pattern, etc. – so if you do put it down for a while, you can remember where you left off and track down the needles you “borrowed” for another project.
8. Invest. If you’re going to spend the time making something by hand, do it right. Buy the best yarn you can afford – keeping in mind that 100% acrylic is a much better choice for a baby sweater than 100% silk. You’ll enjoy the process and the finished product that much more if you start with the right materials.
9. Share the love. Knitting is much more fun when you’re with a group of knitting friends in a coffee shop! Get as many people addicted to knitting as you can!
10. There is absolutely nothing in knitting that cannot be undone. Holes can be repaired. Dropped stitches can be picked up. Mistakes made several rows back can be fixed without ripping out all those rows. Pulling out the needles isn’t that scary – contrary to popular belief, unless you’re using a really slippery yarn, the loose stitches are not going to run all the way down to the bottom. And when all else fails, pull out the needles and rip…it’s very therapeutic!

A have a question for all you knitters out there. Is it better/easier to do intarsia or duplicate stitch?

Here’s the hypothetical situation: I have a pattern – let’s call the pattern “Pat”¹ – that is for an article of clothing. This article of clothing has some motifs on it. The pattern, Pat, wants the knitter to knit the article of clothing and then stitch the motifs on afterwards using duplicate stitch. Now Pat isn’t perfect. In fact, Pat is going to have to be completely re-calculated to my gauge and the size I’m going to make, since Pat really doesn’t come in the range of sizes I need. You could really call Pat more of a guideline than an actual pattern. So, would it make more sense, since I have to essentially re-write Pat anyway, to knit the motifs right in?

I’ve never done intarsia, per se, although I imagine it can’t be much harder than the color changes that happen in the middle of the rows for the patchwork sweaters. I’ve also never done duplicate stitching, although it seems like that’s awfully close to cross-stitching.

What are the advantages or disadvantages of these? Oh, and one other little thing is that Pat is going to be a gift for someone small, so should that be taken into account?

¹The names have been changed to preserve the surprise.

I’m starting to feel adrift in an ever-growing pile of started projects and stash. This is not necessarily a bad thing! It just means I’ll have to keep track of things so I don’t forget which projects have deadlines.

Deb is the greatest knitting buddy ever – she stopped by Sit & Knit last night just to drop off her swift and ball-winder for me to borrow so I can wind this pile (which is only half of it) of yarn! I really need to get my own set of these lovely tools…but both my birthday and Christmas are approaching, so hopefully someone will take pity on me and I’ll find them wrapped up in pretty paper!

So, what’s this going to be? This is actually a project I can share! Too bad the picture I took of the pattern didn’t come out. Here’s a link to the pattern on KnitPicks, where I ordered it. I imagine a good chunk of this weekend will be spent winding the yarn and swatching for this project. There are at least, what, 90 knitting days left until Christmas? Those projects can all wait a few days, right?