Some purple in my life

Wow, I can't believe it has already been 12 days since I last posted. I just get so frustrated doing this with dial-up at 26.4. It takes forever to get pictures uploaded and it has happened several times that once I click on "done" the pictures disappear into never-never land, or somewhere.

But, here I am anyway. I have a couple of purple things for Project Spectrum July (link in side bar).

My first purple item is an FO - I finished my purple malabrigo hat.

I don't have anyone to take a picture of me modeling it, and I can't seem to manage to get a self-portrait, so for now, here is a boring picture of it. I should have had someone in my knitting group take a picture of me in it, they all said it "looked like me." hmmm, I wonder what that means...After all the trouble I had getting the hang of the bobbles, you can't even see them running up alongside of the cables.

Then I realized I have a couple of purple/violet items I look at several times a day in my bedroom. I guess that's the whole point of this project, to make us notice the beauty around us. I KNEW these things were there of course, but never really thought about their colors. I have this quilted appliqued wall hanging on the wall next to my dresser in my bedroom.

This is my purple hat box (yes I have hats in it!!)

As all around the rest of Minnesota, up here on the range it has been very hot. Sunday it was just so miserable I decided to stay in the house with my air conditioner on, and watch movies and spin all afternoon. I got quite a bit of spinning done. Using my little wheel that goes roving with me, I filled a second bobbin of this gray jacob and plyed it into two skeins. Wow, I just realized how sloppily these skeins are wound!!! ooops...I was impatient to get the picture. (what, me impatient?) I've been working on spining this gray roving while at Ironworld, so I've been getting quite a bit of it spun up. Maybe by the end of summer I'll have enough for a sweater. So far I have about 700 yards spun up. Then I switched to my Lendrum, and decided to ply two bobbins of spun singles I have had sitting on the bobbins literally for months. I know it is not a good idea to leave the singles sit on the bobbins. A lot of it seems to have lost some of its twist and is now somewhat under-spun. Teal is my favorite color and this teal roving is very soft. I received it as a gift so I'm not sure what kind of wool it is, I would guess it might be cormo. This skein is 340 yards, and I already have another one of 370 yards (that didn't sit around on the bobbins for months and looks better.) I'll have to knit it up tightly I guess. or I probably could felt it.

My next knitting project will be to finally start a pair of Fiber Trends clogs for myself. I seem to be the only person who doesn't have a pair. I thought they would be kind of a pain to knit, but everyone assures me they aren't. For the soles I am using a solid-color Lamb's Pride, haven't decided yet which color but I have a couple of colors to chose from in my stash. For the tops I got this great yarn at Knitting Knight. I've seen it felted and it felts beautifully. Can't wait to get these done, but that won't happen if I don't get them started!!! I was going to start them tonight but instead sat and read a book. I was in the mood for an English cozy mystery but didn't have one around, instead I read Up Island by Anne Rivers Siddons. I need to learn to read and knit at the same time.

Pixie of Pixie Purls is a new spinner and wanted somewhere to talk about spinning, so she started a new forum for spinning at http://talk.pixiepurls.com/index.php. Let's go talk about spinning. I guess I should see if I can get any advice for plying yarn that has been left on the bobbins for months and lost its twist. Pixie's podcast is a lot of fun to listen to, she's very natural while recording, and very enthusiastic.

Well, that's about it for this time. Just wanted to get these finished things up here and show you what I've been working on. Keep spinning!!!

Malabrigo love

I couldn't wait. I wanted to show you the Malabrigo yarn I bought. It is wonderfully soft yarn. The tag says "kettle dyed pure merino wool" and it has 216 yards per 3.5 ounce skein. It comes in the most gorgeous colors. My pictures don't accurately show how beautiful the colors are, so check this out. http://www.malabrigoyarn.com/catalogo.htm

I bought mine from my LYS, Knitting Knight. (link on side bar)

I bought two skeins of purple (only one is in the picture because I am knitting with the other one) to knit a hat and a pair of mittens, and two skeins of what they call "saphire magenta" (their spelling, not mine) to knit another hat and pair of mittens. Amber knit a hat out of that and the yarn is gorgeous knit up. The colors look wonderful together.

Tonight is Friday and it was the first night of the new season of Monk. True confession: I love that show. I don't have television and that is the only show I miss. Here's another true confession: last season I downloaded each episode from itunes. Thanks to David, (suzanneatparadise44.blogspot.com) who sent it, and my son Ben, who put it in, my computer has a new DVD player, and I can put the episodes right onto a DVD. It was great fun but I can't download it anymore because now I only have dial-up. Deb was going to record it for me, I hope she didn't forget. (Deb?)

OK, that's it for the second time today.

It's a bag

Here it is, finally finished, my Euroflax linen "Carry-It-Home bag." The pattern says to knit the mesh until you have 4 yards left and then do a three-needle bindoff. I did that, but I think it's too big. It's a market bag but if you put anything in it, it stretches and gets even bigger. Maybe once I use it I'll feel differently.

Once I finished the bag, I started my purple July Project Spectrum project, an Aran hat using the purple Malabrigo I got at the Knitting Knight sale. (will post a picture next time) As you would imagine, as an Aran pattern it has bobbles and cables. WELL, guess what I did? I was on the row with the fifth set of bobbles and second twist of the cable, and I realized that two of the bobbles were on the INSIDE of the hat. Yeah, THAT would be real real comfortable, bobbles inside the hat. I can't believe I did that. Instead of a knitting blog I should call this a knitting mistake blog. I seem to be so dense with my knitting lately. I was keeping track of each row with a pen and paper and obviously forgot to write down a row. And why is it I didn't notice they were on the wrong side? And what else could I do but rip-it rip-it, so I did. Started it over during my lunch hour today.

My little wheel and I have been out roving the range. I have been spinning at Ironworld, which is a museum "dedicated to collecting, preserving and interpreting the history of Minnesota's Iron Ranges." Here is one of my displays that I set up when I'm there. Ironworld has several wonderfully preserved historic buildings which all have interpreters working in them. I am doing my spinning in the (modern, new) museum building, but we all wear historic costumes. There is also a weaver there using one of the two beautiful looms in the room. One is a 100-year-old Finnish loom, and the other a 100-year-old Norwegian loom. Can you guess which is which?

(The Norwegian one is the one with the straight lines.) It's different spinning in a museum because I am part of the exhibits. And people take my picture as part of the exhibits and that takes a little getting used to. There were some visitors from Korea and the wife stood with me while I was spinning and her husband took our picture. Ok, I wonder what they are going to be saying in Korea when they see pictures of me spinning? (probably, OMG, she's tall....)

One of the historic sections is called the "Glen Location." It is a section where miners and their families lived from 1903 into the 1930's. They still have one original house left, and a boarding house where miners stayed. This stove is in the little house, isn't it gorgeous? I want it. When they would quit mining a certain mine and move on to another location they would offer the houses for sale to the miners for $1, but the catch was they had to move them, which cost $100. They would move their houses from location to location. Can you imagine? Hitting the road and taking your house with you. That amazes me. They actually moved the entire city of Hibbing to make a mine bigger. The whole city, 200 buildings. Can you imagine? I wish they had pictures of it. I keep finding different dates as to when this took place, but it seems to be around 1917. (http://www.hibbing.org/historical_info.html) (Hey, while reading this I discovered that Gary Puckett is from Hibbing.)(You know, Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.) (Wow, Bob Dylan AND Gary Puckett) (Ok, I admit it, I used to love Gary Puckett and the Union Gap)(there you have it, you got the truth out of me now)

I've been to the area of what's left of the old town before they moved it, and it's kind of eerie. There are cement sidewalks with walkways up to steps, and then no house there. There is a big set of steps up a hill that went up to the library, and then no building there. The gas lights and sidewalks are still standing after all this time, and lots of steps and some cement blocks that had served as foundations. It's freaky. Like an empty Hollywood set or a ghost town or something. Every year Hibbing has an art festival called "Mines and Pines" and they have it in that part of town that used to be the old town because of course it's a big empty area. (it's next weekend, I'll be there spinning...)

This is a picture of the old mine and the lake made when they mined out the ground (I think that's how it goes, I am not "from the range" and this is all new to me). This is on the Ironworld grounds and I took the picture from the trolley. Anyway, if you happen to be a mother, I want to ask you, can you imagine letting your kids just run around and play in these woods all day and swim in this lake? I can't imagine doing that, but they did. Now that I think about it, I suppose it was probably safer than letting them ride their bikes three blocks to the store.

In closing, here is my sweet girl, Narda. She used to be the head mouser on a New Jersey farm, and now she is the quintessential contented house cat in Minnesota. She is slowly losing her Jersey accent. Just this morning I swear I heard "you betcha" once or twice.

You can see a bigger view of any pictures by clicking on them. Please leave a comment!!! Keep on spinning!!!

By jove, I think she's got it!!!

I didn't give up, and I just sat down and kept knitting. Once I got a couple of rows out from those size 4 needles it was easier. That was awfully tight knitting from size 4 needles onto size 13 needles. Now I am flying along with the mesh. Of course I have to be really careful not to drop a stitch.

Ok, just wanted to post a little update. I am starting to love my little linen bag again. Here is a picture taken at Ironworld from the trolley. More on that later.

The one where the linen bag and I butt heads

Hello hello. The week has gone by fast for the slug who is your blogger. My hours at work were all messed up this week because one of my co-workers is on vacation, so I worked two 10-hour days Thursday and Friday. I did finish my socks on Monday. TA-DA.... I present to you my new crazy mixed-up socks. Everyone says they are autumn colors. The yarn is 100% merino and very soft.
At knitting group on Tuesday I started my new project, which is a mesh market bag. I belong to the Range Fiberart Guild ( http://www.cpinternet.com/~lynx/ ) and in October we are hosting the Minnesota Weaver's Guild annual Federation meeting. The theme is "Ode to Linen." Several guild members decided to band together and everyone knit a linen bag and they would display them at the Federation meeting. They chose this particular pattern, the Carry-It-Home Bag, which is available from Patternworks.I never could make the get-togethers for that because they met when I was working, so at first I didn't participate. But after getting together with everyone at Land of the Loon I decided to jump on the bandwagon and knit one too. Since then, I have developed a sense that I am just not a linen-bag-knitter. I have had so much trouble with this bag. Started out great. I cast on the right number of stitches, knit the requisite number of rows to get to the point where you fold over and bind off 25 stitches to the cast-on stitches to make a handle on each side. I did that, but not very successfully. When I was knitting the next row I realized that I had gotten off-kilter on one handle and it was all crooked, AND of course I no longer had the right number of stitches since I used more than necessary for the bind-off dealie thingie. SO, I ripped it all out and started over. This time I got the handles bound off correctly, still had the right number of stitches. Knit down to the point where you fold the knitting over and knit the bind-off stitch in with the live stitch to make a folded over double top with the two handles before you start the mesh. Now in theory, this is not difficult. But leave it to me to MAKE it difficult. Instead of knitting the stitches together, I did the same thing I did for the handles. Knit the live stitch together with the cast-on stitch and then bound them off. I can't believe I am admitting this for all the world to see, but I did it ALL THE WAY AROUND the 151 stitches. Got done, had one stitch. I totally couldn't believe I had been so stupid. SO, I un-bound all the stitches one at a time, didn't rip it out again because at that point, I was determined this bag is NOT getting the best of ME. I unbound all the stitches. Since linen doesn't have much of a memory (kind of like me) the stitches were a bit stretched out, but since I was going to be folding it over and knitting them together with the cast-on stitches I figured it would be okay. So I continued on, folded it over and knit the live stitch together with the cast-on-stitch and still had 151 stitches...woo hoo, she did it!!!! At that point I was really happy and loved my little linen bag despite the fact that all the stitches weren't perfect.

Then I started the mesh. You do that top part on size 4 needles and the mesh in size 13. The pattern tells you to do the first row of mesh LOOSELY with the size 4 needles and then switch to size 13 needles. I did that. But this mesh thing is just not fun. It seems like it should go really quickly but it is slow and I am not enjoying doing it. I must be going something wrong, but it looks correct. It took me forever to do 2 rows. Maybe I'll dash over to Knitting Knight today and see what Amber thinks and see if I AM doing something wrong. It wouldn't surprise me in the least. Nevertheless, here is the bag so far. I quite like the color of the linen yarn and was formerly enthralled with the idea of knitting my own linen bag. Now I'm not so sure....



Oh, and by the way, Amber started her bag at knitting group on Tuesday and she finished hers on Wednesday. So obviously one CAN successfully knit this bag. Just not ME.

Well, that is it for today. I am going to get ready and go to Ironworld (http://www.ironworld.com/ ) to check it out. Tomorrow I am going to be doing a spinning demonstration there, but I've never even been there and I don't know what to expect. So I thought I'd go today and see what it's like. I have done spinning demonstrations at Arts & Crafts shows, and sheep & wood festivals, and fairs, but never at a museum. I am a little nervous about the whole thing, but I am also excited about it. I love to spin and doing demonstrations is always so much fun. It's amazing the things people say and the questions they ask. Some people are utterly shocked that there is anyone who still spins - which is one reason I think it's important to do these spinning demonstrations. I feel it's vital that we preserve these traditional crafts and not let the skills die out. Spinning is such a relaxing and meditative activity. When I first learned to spin I thought it was magic. And I still feel that way.

So, keep spinning!!! Here are my "perfection marigolds" before the sun was up this morning.

Racing for the toes

I really want to get these socks done so I can start a new pair with my new yarn. Last night I did the heel flap and turned the heel and did the foot almost all the way to the toe on the second sock. The other sock is at the point where I need to do the toe decreases. Hopefully I will get them done tonight. (I have to go to work today.) This is some of the yarn from my first attempt at dyeing yarn, when I learned that 1) you don't need to leave the yarn as wet as you do the roving, and 2) more citric acid... I had the yarn too wet and not enough citric acid and the dye didn't stay where I put it, and the colors all kind of ran together. But I liked the results, they will be my crazy mixed-up socks.

Here is Narda reminding me that it is bad manners to read at the dinner table. I kind of thought that since I was eating alone I could get away with it, but apparently not.

Believe it or not, that's it for today. I just wanted to put a little knitting content in my knitting blog. Maybe later I can put an update with a picture of the finished socks...

Do you notice how "thick" the dew is on my herbs and flowers? It was down in the low 40's this morning, it is only 48 now. It is just absolutely lovely this morning. I think the plants are at their most beautiful in the early morning light when the dew is still present.

Curses, failed again!

Another fun day at the dye pot. I was not quite as successful as Deb, who, it turns out, is the dye queen, but I was happy with most of my results. One thing I learned is that I really don't like Jacquard's kelly green dye. I expect a color called kelly green to be kind of an emerald green. I wanted to dye some roving in rainbow colors with bright red, yellow, and green. I mixed up a bottle of kelly green, thinking it would be a nice deep green. WRONG. It is what I think is a hideous lime green color that definitely should never be mixed with red. I tried carding the roving to blend the colors, but to me, it is still hideous. I definitely need to find a different green. Turns out it wasn't warm enough for solar dyeing, so I didn't try to redeem myself on that front either. I am not having very good luck getting red/yellow/green roving, and I think I am going to give up on that particular idea!

Once we discovered it was lime green, Deb put it to good use and mixed it with purple and that blended together beautifully. She also dyed three skeins of turquoise, pink, and teal for a special project and they are gorgeous. (in the picture on the left, my dog looks kind of a little dead, but really he isn't. He was just rolling in the grass.)

Despite my failure at dyeing my roving, I did dye some yarn I am quite happy with. For the ball of yarn on the right I used some white merino sock yarn from Knit Picks and used three different dilutions of teal, and I am quite happy with how it turned out. I can't wait to knit it up. The turqoise yarn on the left is some of my handspun yarn. I have never dyed my handspun yarn before, I've usually dyed the roving or the locks first and then spun the yarn. It was fun dyeing the yarn. This yarn was one strand of mohair and one strand of Coopworth wool, and I used three different dilutions of the Jacquard turqoise, and I am quite happy with how it turned out. I didn't want it to be real dark and I wanted to have some white mixed in. So I was pleased with the yarn I dyed, despite my failure with the roving.

Today the Knitting Knight was having their Third Anniversary sale and Deb and I were there when the door opened at 10 o'clock. I didn't do too much damage though. I bought a couple of skeins of malabrigo and a few needles I needed for various projects.

As always, you can click on any of the pictures to get a larger view. I used the combined pictures to save downloading time. I have dial-up that usually is only at 26.4 and it takes a long time to upload pictures to the blog. It is faster to combine some of the pictures so I thought I'd give it a try.

That's it for today. Am going to sit and knit because I HAVE to finish the sock I'm working on so I can start a pair with one of my newly dyed yarns.

Keep on spinning!!!

Blue on my mind

Today is a gorgeous sunny day and I have the day off from work!!! Woo hoo!!! Of course, the reason I am off is because I have to work this weekend, but I don't mind. For some reason, having a day off during the week feels different than just a regular weekend day; a day off during the week feels like a free day or a bonus day, or something. I am much more likely just to do completely fun things on my days off during the week. AND today is no exception. Deb and Shelley are coming over and we are going to dye yarn. I have the yarn soaking in the citric acid mordant water right this very minute. I might also try to redeem myself with another solar dyeing experiment...we'll see.

I discovered Project Spectrum, which is a project created to challenge us to find the color in our lives. There is a new theme color each month and June's color is blue. I just happen to be working on a couple of blue projects so I decided to make them today's topic. Maybe I won't run on as long as usual? (nah, I doubt it)

First, I have been spinning some silk on my spindle, primarily to use as thread to fix weak spots in some of my hand-spun hand-knit (hshk) socks. I always wear clogs or birks so my socks wear out under the heel and sometimes I don't notice until it's a hole. So I've been trying to keep on top of it and when it starts looking like some spots are getting thin I try to darn them, although I am horrible at it. Amber makes it look so easy, but I must not be coordinated enough to darn, or something. Silk is very strong thread and since the weak spots are always underneath the sock and most of the time nobody sees that spot anyway, I decided to spin some silk thread to use for darning. Linda Diak of Grafton Fibers (www.graftonfibers.com) showed me how to spin silk from the fold and I've never had much success doing that at my wheel, but I discovered I can do it with the spindle, and it actually gives me more control.

The second blue project I'm working on is the stupid darning...I am trying to darn my blue hshk socks These socks won a ribbon in the skein and garment contest at Rhinebeck a couple of years ago... I used to always see the skein and garment contests at the county fair and the state fair, but I never in my life would have imagined that at almost-50 I would have started entering hand-made objects in contests. To that, I guess I'd say, never say never. It's fun to win, but mostly, it's just fun to get caught up in the spirit of the festival and enter your items. I had a pair of hand-knit socks that I knit from commercial yarn and at one show they got a blue ribbon, at another show they didn't even get a mention. So it depends a lot on the judge and what they are looking for in each particular show. It adds to the fun of the show just to enter something.

Ok, I said I'd try to keep it short, so I'm going to end for today. In closing, here is a picture of a little crop of flax from my friend Carol's garden. I am going to take periodic pictures of it to document its growth cycle for a special project the guild is doing. More on that later! Keep spinning....

My failed attempt at solar dyeing roving

On a recent beautiful and warm sunny day Piz and I were dyeing some sock yarn (using the oven), and I decided to make use of the bright sunshine and try my hand at solar dyeing some roving. Here it is soaking in the citric acid mordant water. (I guess I didn't take a picture of it with the dyes I put on it.) I poured out the water and added the dyes, then I covered the pan with foil and put it out in the sun for 2 hours. Well, 2 hours was nowhere near enough time. It probably needed at least twice that much time in the heat, or possibly all day. The roving looked like this hanging on the line, awash with sunshine so bright it probably isn't a true representation of the colors. The reason I call it a failed attempt is because I used bright red, bright yellow, bright green, and bright blue dyes; the majority of which ran down the drain. Even though it isn't any color I planned for, I love the way it turned out. It is primarily a peachy/coral color. I spun it and then navajo-plied it to keep the colors from mudding up too much. Since that is triple ply, I ended up with only about 225 yards. I don't know what the yarn is calling out to be. Do you have any ideas for me?

Yesterday, the second day of Land of the Loon, was a little better for vendors, but probably still not wonderful. It was really windy and the skies looked ominous all afternoon. We managed to get all the way through without rain however.

In closing, here is a bunny from the Shepherd's Harvest sheep and wool festival which was held Mother's Day weekend this year, in Lake Elmo, Minnesota.

It's late and I'm tired! I am trying out new contacts, they are extended wear so I don't have to take them out every night. And also, my doc has me trying what she calls "mono vision." I have one contact with my distance prescription, and one contact with my reading prescription. I've had them in since last Friday. They are wonderfully comfortable and are great in the morning when I wake up. Being as nearsighted as I am, it's a treat for me to wake up and be able to see right away. Otherwise I can't even read the alarm clock or see anything in the room. I am honestly so nearsighted I need glasses to find my glasses. Anyway, they are comfortable, but I am not sure the mono vision thing is working. My eyes get VERY tired and I kind of see double. I think they aren't working very well together at present. She said it could take a couple of weeks to get used to it, and if I don't like it we could try to reverse the lenses and if I still don't like the mono vision, I can then try the new bifocal lenses. The idea of going without reading glasses is tempting enough to keep me trying!!!

Keep spinning.