The Virtual Knitter

One of the brands of yarn that I just love, mostly for the beauty of it’s colors, is Noro. Some people are not fond of it due to the the VM (vegitable matter) often found in some of the more rustic Noro yarns (Kureyon, for instance), but as a spinner, it really doesn’t faze me to find little sticks and twigs in my yarn – I somewhat appreciate this rustic trait.

At last year’s Madrona Fiber Arts retreat, I discovered a new (at least to me) variety of Noro yarn called Chirimen. In appearance, it’s very similar to Kureyon, but instead of being 100% wool, it’s a mix of cotton (60%), silk (24%) and wool (16%). In weight, it compares to Silk Garden Lite at 11 wpi (wraps per inch) instead of Kureyon’s 9 wpi, so just a little bit lighter weight. I picked up 3 balls in Color 2, a blend of mostly shades of blue with a little tiny bit of brown, and an even smaller bit of green, but at the time, really had no plans for this addition to my stash.

Fast forward a few months and I learned that a friend will have some unexpted and fairly substantial medical bills in the coming month. Sure, she’s got insurance, but a plan that carries pretty high deductables and co-pays, so she’s pretty worried about getting into debt. A bunch of us have decided to find various ways to raise some funds to help her out since added financial stress is the last thing she needs right now. Amoung other things, we’re going to be doing a raffle at a music show another friend’s band is doing next month (as well as donating the band’s take from the door). I have volunteered to contribute some knit scarves – perfect for January in Seattle! I’ve got some stashed away already that just need finishing and blocking, but decided right away to use the Chirimen to make a scarf following HeartString FiberArt’s  Morning Surf Scarf pattern published in the Summer 2008 issue of Spinoff Magazine. I even contacted the designer, Jackie Erickson-Schweitzer, for permission to produce the scarf for fund raising, which she quickly gave me permission to do.

The first scarf, using the Chirimen, is about half finished:

I’m also planning making another one (or a variation of it) with some Noro Silk Garden Lite, Color 2014 that I also have in my stash (and have had for who knows how long!)

And now for a little more Noro love  – a picture of some Kuryan Color 95 from my stash:

I only have 4 balls of this, and I’m seriously considering ordering 16 more so I’ll have enough to do a Lizard Ridge afghan from Knitty. I’ve seen one on Ravelry done in this color, and it’s quite delicious.   And if I order today from Webs, I’ll get gree shipping.  Decisions, decisions…

We’re in the process of a massive back yard renovation.  We have had it nearly completely stripped and are rebuilding from the ground up (well, from below ground in some cases!)  When the work is completed we’ll have an easy-care Pacific Northwest garden. 

There’s just one problem that the landscapers won’t be dealing with - Frankenshed.  That’s the name I’ve affectionately given our very unusual shed.  You see, the original owner of our house was a sort of “do-it-yourself” type with rather odd taste and methods.  As a result, our home has a few peculiar features, one of which is Frankenshed. 

Frank is not only an unusual shape, but also constructed of unique materials – a concrete block foundation with heavy gauge corrigated steel walls and roof.  The foundation is very perminent, attached to a concrete slab that’s part of our hardscaping, so to replace Frank would be a big job that we can’t afford right now.  Besides, despite Frank’s odd, some might even say ugly, appearance, there’s something appealing to me in his post modern industrial design.   Below is a picture of Frank:

Pretty scary, isn’t he?  Let me tell you – Frank’s not going anywhere, so I’ve decided that I’ll just have to give him a makeover.  I’ve already decided I’ll paint the foundation and door – most likely a nice green.  But what else can I do to help him out?  I have a few small ideas starting to germinate, but I’d like your help. 

So, I’m having a Frankenshed Makeover contest.  I’d like you to submit your ideas to me.  Go all out - since it’s just ideas, anything goes (aside from tearing Frank down, that is).  My goals are to come up with something that can be done relatively inexpensively (a few hundred dollars at most), and without spending the rest of my life working on it.  So have at it – grab the photo if you want to, or download a higher resolution one here.  Feel free to use your favorite photo editing tools to embellish to illustrate your vision for Frank.  Please submit your ideas as a comment to this post.  If you have pictures to submit, you’ll need to host them somewhere on a photo sharing site and send a link.  I can grab any I want to share and upload to a future post. 

I’m looking forward to hearing about or seeing your creative ideas.  I’ll choose the best and give recognition (anonymously if you choose) in a future post.  I’ll even choose a first, second and third place winner for the most creative ideas.  Good luck and thank you!

Well, I finished one of my toe-up socks – still have to add the heel and finish off the second one.  However, I’m not at all happy, so I may just frog the whole project and chalk this one up to experience.  I learned several things – both what TO DO and what NOT TO DO when knitting a toe-up pair of socks, so I guess all is not lost, should I frog them.  I’m making a list of things learned so I’ll see this is a learning experience vs. a “socksaster”:

• Learned to knit two at a time
• Learned Judith’s Magic Cast On for toe up socks
• Learned to do an afterthought heel
• Learned the suspected bind off

But here are the problems and how I should fix them:

• Dropped a stitch so early on that I had to pick it up through several inches of the sock, which left a ridge where the guage is significantly tighter.  Note to self – count the stitches regularly to make sure none have been dropped.
• Got so excited about adding the waste yarn for the afterthought heel that I completely missed some ankle shaping in the pattern.  I don’t think this shaping was critical though, but it might have helped the fit.
• For a longer sock, it might be a good idea to do some increases in the leg to go over the wider part of my calf.  As it is, it’s too tight at the top!

Other observations

I didn’t like the afterthought heel decrease and finishing.  It was don with evenly divided decreases like a hat and finished off just like one too, so there’s a bump at the heel.  Doesn’t seem like it will wear well, and it looks sort of silly too.  I think for my next pair, I’ll learn a short row heel instead.  I think it will look much tidier.  I don’t want to be discouraged and stop trying to improve my socks skills, which I could easily have happen after this project.  Fortunately, I uesd really inexpensive yarn to make these, knowing that they were sort of experimental.  I’m going to rest from socks for a few days, and then forge ahead with another pair.

Image Test - my beautiful Kitty-boy, Rajah

Well, it appears that all that’s improved is that the uploader is different, and that you can resize the photo using the uploader.  I was able to choose from several sizes – the one above is “medium.”  I thought that it was going to allow me to show a small image linked to a larger one without having to manually link to it, but not so.  Oh well.  It’s still a little easier I guess.

Next thing I need to do is try to alter my stylesheets a bit.  I seem to have lost a small bit of my formatting, like my background color, during the upgrade.  I’m also working on a new header image, so that will come later.  I’m creating a cool new “Virtual Knitter” logo that I hope to use in the future.

I’m in the process of knitting a pair of socks, toe up, two at a time on circular needles.  This is the first time I’ve tried this technique – I like it very much as my socks will both be finished at the same time AND they’ll be the same size.  Since this is a “learning” project, I’m just using some inexpensive Red Heart “Heart & Sole” yarn, rather than digging into my stash.  Here’s a picture of the socks taken part way through the project:

Heart & Sole Socks in progress

As you can see, it’s a simple pattern – I’m just doing stockinette stitch for the whole thing until I get to the cuff, where I’ll switch to ribbing for about an inch and a half.  I’m also doing an ‘afterthought heel’ for the first time ever, to keep the striping consistent and create a bullseye effect at the heel.  That’s the last step after everything else is done.

Well, I’m nearing the start of my ribbing, so I decided to count stitches one final time to make sure everything was still on track.  YIKES!  One needle only had 33 stitches on it!  I had fiddled with the stitches at the point where the needles cross a few rows back, so I assumed I must have accidentally slid one stitch over to the other side.  Counted them, and nope, 34 on that needle.  Oh oh – had a dropped a stitch at some point?  I started closely inspecting the socks and found where I had dropped a stitch – way down about 3 or 4 inches up from the toe – yup – about 10 inches back!  Oh dear.  At this point, I had to put the socks away for a few hours and move on for a while:)

Well, came back to them last night and started picking up the dropped stitches with a crochet hook.  Things were going slow, and I was tired so I only did a few rows before retiring.  This morning, I picked up again, and struggled with it for a while, having difficulty due to the small guage.  After contemplating things for a while, I decided to try helping things along by using a #0 needle to lift the previous stitch up and out so I could more easily bring the new one I’d picked up with the crochet hook through without catching part of the new stitch.  WOW.  It worked like a charm and I managed to bring the dropped stitch back up to the top of the sock relatively smoothly and quickly.  The downside is that now I have a sort of ridge where the stitches are tighter in that line and puckering the fabric a bit. I assume (hope) this will all come out in the wash so to speak.  Regardless of whether or not it does though, at least I’ll have a wearable pair of socks that won’t run on me!  Up till now, I’ve only brought up dropped stithes two or three rows, so I’m pretty pleased with myself!

I broke down and ordered a Schacht Matchless Anniversary Edition spinning wheel.  The Schacht Spindle Company is making around 100 (possibly up to 150) of a special cherry wood version of their popular Matchless spinning wheel.  “Matchless” is a good name for this wheel, because in it’s class, it really is unmatched – I can’t think of a castle wheel that gets better reviews.  The wheels are set to start shipping in June (rumor has it that they may not ship until July), but they’ll be sold out long before that date, I’m certain.  I ordered mine from Woodland Woolworks in Oregon – one of my favorite spinning equipment suppliers. 

I’ll have up for sale both my existing Schacht Matchless and a HitchHiker wheel (that I bought on a whim).  My Matchless has some minor cat “dings” since Lily left a few tootmarks in the spokes before I realized she liked to chew on wood.  Also, it’s got a very faint green spot on on treadle, where I dropped some green Koolaid when I was dyeing some wool.  Both very minor things though, and otherwise it’s in perfect working order.  A new Double Treadle Matchless now costs over $900 (a little less from the right dealer) and ships for free.  I’ll be trying to sell mine in the greater Seattle area to avoid shipping, although I do still have the original shipping box.  Shipping will still be a hassle and expensive so I’d rather deliver it in pereson.  I expect I’ll ask about $750 for it.  I’ll be asking about $225 for the HitchHiker.  It’s much easier to ship, but I’d still like to sell it locally.  And finally, I’ll have about 8 matching bobbins for the Matchless that I’ll want to sell for about $30 each.  All these things combined, will still not quite pay for the new wheel, with it’s premium price of over $1100, especially once I buy matching accessories for it, but they will come close.

Please leave a comment if you’re interested in buying any of these items.  I won’t want to let the Matchless go until closer to the time I will receive the new one, but the HitchHiker can go any time.

Wow – I found my old theme immediately. I’m still going to think about some updating, like possibly a new header image, but at least now I’m not in generic land until I do it!

I just did a long overdue upgrad WordPress upgrade for my blog.  Lo and behold, my theme is gone, along with my header!  Ack!  Well, maybe it’s time to refresh my theme and header.  I may remain generic for a few days while I figure this out.  I’m not sure what I did wrong because I thought I’d followed the directions and did what I was supposed to do to preserve the look of my blog, but apparently not! 

I did have a scare in the process.  I failed to upload the files in the root directory of the new version, uploading only the folders.  For a few moments there, I was sure I’d completely broken the Virtual Knitter and that I was going to have to start over completely from scratch.  Thank goodness after sitting back and re-reading the directions, I realized what had happened and got things put back together again.  Now to start playing with themes!  Maybe there are some new ones that I’ll like better than my old one ayway!

I’m so happy – just yesterday we ditched the DSL and switched to cable modem, and our internet speed has vastly improved!  I recently learned that Qwest would not be installing their new fiber optic network on our street anytime soon, so we broke down and switched to Comcast.  Turns out it’s really not any more exensive, and the speed is, get this, 10-20 times as fast as what we were getting via DSL.  Unfortunately, I don’t think this is going to do anything to help my blogging frequency, but maybe I’ll just enjoy being online so much that it will just a little bit.

My last post was about New Year’s Goals and making this the best year ever.  I never did come back to explain more, but what I was really getting at is that barring any really aweful events, we really do have a lot of control over having that “best” year that I was referring to.  It’s all in how you look at things, what you do with the things that get thrown at you, etc.  So far, there have been a couple of pretty bad things tossed my way this year, but I’m making the best of them.  I’m also continuing to work on other improvements to my life and well-being that hopefully will result in the outcome I’m looking for.  I’ll try to post about this throughout the year in more detail as appropriate.

Now for some fibery goodness.  I went to my third Madrona Fiber Arts Winter Retreat last weekend (it was the event’s 10th anniversary, but only my third).   It was great, as usual.  I took 4 classes this year, and made several passes through the marketplace.  I bought a few skeins of yarn (like I need more yarn!) and bought some wheel accessories and books, but resisted buying much spinning fiber.  I still have fiber I bought last year that’s not been spun yet!  Here’s one example of yummy yarn I purchased though – a ball of yarn that I’m not even sure I can use, it’s so pretty this way:

It’s a ball of Schoppel Wolle Zauberball Sock in the Fuchsienbeet colorway.  According to the image shown on the tag, the socks knit from this will go transition from purple at the top to a firey orange, back to purple toes – one color change per sock.  They look like flames!

Now for the highlights of my classes.  As I have the time over the next few months to explore what I learned, I may write more about some of the techniques:

On Thursday, I took Fat, Fun and Fulled: The Art of Big Yarns from Judith McKenzie McCuin.  I’ve heard more than one person say that they would take a class on how to boil water from Judith – she’s that good of a teacher.  This was a truely enjoyable all-day class.  We learned tips on setting your spinning wheel up for spinning bulkier weight yarn,  what fibers respond best to fulling, the best way to card for fat spinning (for more on this, and Judith’s apparently earth shattering instruction to put the fiber in SIDEWAYS, see the Yarn Harlot’s blog post about it), and how to properly full the yarn so that you can make useable singles.  Here’s sample of some merino/silk that I spun and fulled in the class

On Friday, I had another class with Judith – Just Dying for Socks.  In this class, we got to hand paint some different types of yarn using Judith’s own acid dyes.  I’m actually not real happy with my results so plan on overdying in a week or two to subdue the colors a bit.  I’ll post pictures AFTER the fix!

On Saturday, I had two classes.  In the morning, I got an Initiation to Entrelac Knitting with Joan Schrouder in the morning and Double Up and Around, an introduction to double knitting with Lucy Neatby in the afternoon.  I didn’t have any familiarity with Joan in advance, so didn’t have much in the way of preconceived expectations.  I found the class to be exactly what it was – a good initiation that will get me started on Entrelac knitting on my own.  I think I would have rather had a full day class in this technique though as it’s a bit complicated and fussy to learn.  I was somwhat familiar with Lucy  in all of her technicolor brightness!  However, I had no experience with her as a teacher.  I thought the class was very well done – I must say that Lucy is a really good teacher.  I’m looking forward to experiementing with the double knitting techniques I learned in the class.  I’ll also consider taking more classes from Lucy in the future, or at least investing in some of her instructional DVDs (she has a ton!)  She mentioned that she’s trying to cut back her teaching schedule in order to concentrate more on designing, so we might not see her so often at Madrona in the future. 

Well, it’s been a week, and believe it or not, I haven’t finished unpacking from my Madrona adventures yet, so I best get to work!

Happy New Year!  Now that we’re a few days into 2009, the activity of the holiday season has settled down and it’s time for life to get back to normal  (whatever that is LOL).  This gives me the opportunity to take some time to reflect on the past and make plans for the future, as is common practice with many folks.

Often times, we make RESOLUTIONS for the upcoming year.  Things like ”I will lose weight” or “I will not eat chocolate” or ”I will not spend more than $xxx on BLANK each month,” etc. are spewed forth by optimistic folks who set high hopes for self improvement.  That’s right – self improvement.  What is a resolution other than a statement dedciated to self improvement?  Well, if you look it up in the dictionery, you’ll find that a resolution is the result of the verb “resolve.”  So you loom up the meaning of ”resolve” and find the following listed as the word’s fifth meaning (from www.m-w.com): 

5: to reach a firm decision about <resolve to get more sleep> <resolve disputed points in a text>  

Hmm.  That’s pretty weak if you ask me – not to mention the fact that it’s so far down on the list of definitions for that particular word.  So maybe I shouldn’t make resolutions.  Maybe “GOALS” would be better.  Let’s look that one up:

2: the end toward which effort is directed  

Now that’s more like it.  It seems a lot more concrete to me than the wishy washy “resolution.”  So I’m making goals from now on, instead of resolutions.  As part of our annual evaluations at work, we set goals, and we’re directed to make them results oriented, realistic, and if possible, measurable. 

Upon reflection, and some discussion with others, I’ve decided on one main goal which ultimately can house many mini goals.  It’s a goal that may sound nearly impossible at first, but by breaking it down a bit and defining it, it’s not unsurmountable.  And it’s one I can actually use over and over each year if I want.  So here it is:

My goal for 2009 is to have the best year I’ve ever had.

More on how I’m going to achieve this in my next post!