More of the same... but a change in the air

So I have no WIP pictures to show because I am terrible and don't get any pictures in the day time so they all look like crud.

Besides, it's just more Nennir and very thin green spinning for right now. Not very exciting.

What is exciting is February, which starts on Friday.

There are two 'alongs' that are starting up next month that I am very much looking forward to.

My LYS: Galt House of Yarn is hosting a Fair Isle February knitalong which I will be casting Afmaeli on for. A sweater in a month? Not sure, but I'm gonna try! Plus it will get something off of my #makenine2019 list.

Rahenna is also starting a mini cross stitchalong. (Have I not mentioned I cross stitch? I cross stitch...) I haven't decided what I'm going to do yet, but it's probably going to be one or two colours from my stash and just something big enough to give me mojo to get working on a project I need to finish up for a friend.

Also February is awesome for the first sign of spring.... no not the groundhog... in Canada it's Roll up the Rim at Tim Hortons!! Yay!!

Anyway, those two icons will be chilling in the side bar for the next month, and I will hopefully have a finished Nennir to show you next week.

I'm not late!

Not at all! It's still within the week! You'll just get another blog sooner!

At least that's what I'm telling myself.

The biggest thing that happened this week is a messed up my knee somehow. I was diagnosed with PFPS (Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome) in my teens and it crops up every once in a while. Usually when I start exercising after not doing anything for a while. It means that my knee cap tracks diagonally across the joint rather than straight like it's supposed to, and it causes pain when I'm walking, going up and down stairs, and spinning.

So I don't have a lot to show for spinning, in fact, I don't even have a picture of spinning this week. I did start with the longer sections of each colour, and I have the first light green spun. I'm trying to spin very thin this time, using my smallest whorl for the highest ratio.

I've had a spindle accident in that my 3D printed Turkish spindle's shaft broke AND the piece that's left between the whorl legs is stuck! So I'm going to have to unwind everything I've spun on that, and I'm trying to see if I can get my sidekick to spin close to as thin so I don't have two different weights of yarn out of this fibre. If I do then I do, but at least I'll know how thin I can get on my sidekick.

In knitting news I do have some pictures.

One day I will remember to get a picture of this in daylight and hopefully the cables will show up better on camera. For now, imagine the beauty of Nennir cables in my handspun. I know the cables won't show up as nicely on the variegated, but it's my handspun and I wanted to make something special with it.

I also wanted something that was fairly mindless to knit and didn't require charts. Everyone needs a little mindless knitting now and then. So I cast on some fingerless mitts that have an eyelet pattern at the wrist just so that it wasn't too boring.

I don't have the pattern or yarn name with me, it's a kit I won from the volunteer draw for my local yarn fair. There are perks to being in a guild. Not much to say about the mitts, they'll be quick, and something nice to have at my desk for when it's cold at work. I decided not to match the colours on these and let them be their own little sunset. I just realized that the picture has muted the colours a bit. They're much brighter in person.

That's it for now, hoping to get my knee looked at and make sure it's nothing bigger than what I normally get. Then back to spinning for me!

Pride Cometh Before a Fall?

So I have a bunch to be happy about this week, and some not so good.

So I'm starting with the good.

Firstly, I thought I might introduce you all to my cats. I have three, though I have owned 5 in total (two have crossed the rainbow bridge, one just this past July).

At the moment we have:


Zaboo - 6 year old male, Zena - 5 year old female, Ziclan (pronounced Zeke-lan) who is an 8 month old male.

All three have been adopted from our vet, Zena and Ziclan both as kittens, and Zaboo as an adult in July with Ziclan. Zaboo has a storied past which I'm not going to get into on here, we had a bit o a rocky start integrating him into our home, but now he is our handsome gentleman and one of the family.

They will likely feature at times, especially Ziclan who greatly enjoys being right in the middle of things.

I didn't finish anything this week in regards to knitting, but I started something and continued something.

In an effort to clear off my WIPs that got set aside in August for Christmas knitting I grabbed my Crucero Shawl. This is a kit bought from the designer in a lovely purple linen/silk blend.

As with all lace, this looks like a bunch of spaghetti right now, but I'm looking forward to getting it blocked. This shawl starts off with a square and then you work off two of the sides to end up with a V shape. I'm hoping it helps to keep the shawl on my shoulders, because my triangle and semi circle ones never want to stay put.

My friend and I knit at a cafe every Saturday, joined by a number of rotating friends who join us when they can. We decided that this month we wanted to do a knit along with our own handspun. Since I don't have a lot available to choose from yet, we decided on doing the Nennir Cowl, allowing each of us to stop when we run out of yarn. I'm hoping I have enough to do 3 repeats of the pattern.

This yarn is some Ashford Corriedale Sliver chain plied to about a sport/dk. The pattern calls for fingering but it's a rectangular cowl so I'm not worried about gauge too much. I'm doing this one on a 3.5mm needle and it's giving me a decent drape that should keep the wind out.

In spinning news, I did get something off my wheel, that lovely white/green alpaca/merino blend.

As I thought it ended up at about a sport weight, maybe as low as a heavy fingering. It's about 100 yds chain plied. I will be getting this washed tonight or tomorrow and hung to dry and ready for a future project. I'm thinking it'll end up being a hat, or at least part of one.

To continue with my goal of all the spinning, I grabbed a pack of fibre from my Stepmother. It is a lovely sample pack with 7 shades of green in it.

I've decided to try fractal spinning this batch, just to play with the colours a bit.

In the left side picture you can see that I have a long section of fleece in each of the 7 colours, and then two groups of smaller sections. I'm going to spin the longer ones into a single, then spin the smaller ones in the same colour order twice, so that when I ply them, the colours match up in some places and don't in others.

And now the bad.

First off, I got the flu, Wednesday I was feeling a bit off, and then Thursday I was knocked flat. I took Friday off, and thought I'd be good for knitting on Saturday but had to leave it early. I'm feeling better now but I've done basically nothing but bum around in my pjs all day and rest and recuperate. So here's hoping for a better week to come with much more done on my knitting and spinning.

Also, when I went WIP diving I first thought about working on my Poca sweater and trying to get it finished before the end of this winter. I had started it in late August/early September, and put it aside when I started going all in for Christmas. It sat beside my computer until December 23 when we cleaned up for company. At that time it went down into my stash room where it stayed for 2 weeks tops.

When I grabbed the sweater it looked like this.

That's right... I have moths in my stash room. Thank goodness it's winter and my whole world outside is a freezer. We're going to be packing all of the stash into mattress bags and other items and chucking it in the garage to freeze and hopefully kill off as many as we can. Then it's time to bleach the stash room!!!

What a fun season I have ahead of me with that.

First FO of 2019!

Yay!! As of January 6, 2019 I cast off the first project that was completely knit within 2019!

I cast on a pair of Rye socks by Tin Can Knits for my Dad on January 1, 2019. These are a somewhat belated Christmas gift, but I knew these wouldn't be started until after Christmas because Dad had to choose his yarn.

These are done in Patons Classic Wool Worsted in the colour Dark Grey Marl (because it looks like Wolf Fur according to my Dad). Sadly, I didn't finish these before we left Vancouver, so Dad will have to wait until he comes to visit in April to get them.

Additionally, for Christmas I got a potholder loom, so I was playing with that and had enough loops that came with the kit to make 4 potholders.

These are fun to do and really quick. I'm researching how to make loops for the loom out of old t-shirts and other clothes. Eventually I want to make a rug out of a bunch of these square sewn together.

In spinning news, I got about 2 ish out of 3.5 oz of an alpaca/merino mix spun up.

 

The white is the alpaca and the green is the merino. The single is coming up nicely striped, and when I let it ply on itself it's about a heavy fingering weight at a 2 ply so I figure I'll be getting a sport weight since I'm planning on chain plying this.

A little disclaimer about my spinning: I'm a newbie.

At this time I don't spin for a project, I spin the yarn, am pleased when it's all about the same thickness and is balanced, count my yardage, and then find a project I can use it for.

I'm hoping over this year I will get skilled enough at spinning to consider what I can make with certain fibre purchases.

My current spinning tools are a Schacht Sidekick which you can see in the pictures above, a CPW with an incorrect wheel (it was probably replaced at some point with a wheel that's smaller than an actual CPW wheel, and a plethora of drop spindles, all of which are in use.

I have been plotting and planning in addition to my Make Nine 2019, I have some Wall of Shame projects that got ignored once Christmas knitting kicked in. I will likely be making pages for each of my lists, but for now I am surviving with my planner and my whiteboard.

I've since found more fibre and added it to the list... I haven't even guessed at the amounts yet. This is just from memory.

Send help... and coffee!!