Purlewe Knits

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deep thoughts, telling signs, finished clapotis! and spinning cotton.
It’s been a while and I have basically a ton of thing to talk about …

I’ve decided that since Hubby has bowling on Wednesday nights and it is basically my only alone time at home (without interruption) I’m making Wednesday nights wheel nights. I’m going to spin until I can’t spin any more! Tonight I did just that. I started spinning some Crown Mountain Farms fiber I got to split with my good buddy Dyan and never posted pictures of (cause it was also an early birthday surprise for her). She got the package a while ago, she’s spun part of the fiber, and knitted a pair of socks – already. She’s amazing (and has free time). If I can find her picture of the socks I’ll post it.

Tonight I spun up part of my portion of “It takes two baby” which is just a totally awesome colorway. Typically I take a picture of my bobbin to show that I’ve actually made progress… but I’m trying to spin this into a tighter twister yarn – so it isn’t so pretty on the bobbin. I finished half of what I kept back for myself tonight (so I’m 2 oz into my 4). They might be plying activity this weekend – which would be a record for my spinning attempts!

Telling signs – tonight when I opened the fiber closet to pull out what I purchased this weekend at Roots cascading bags of fiber almost knocked me over. A sign that maybe there is to much fiber in the closet … maybe, possibly, there might be a slim chance … but NO! There can never be to much fiber in the closet! It is obvious to me that the closet is shrinking! When we bought this house I remember the closet being perfectly normal sized. I wonder what happened. Mystifying, it really is. I could probably sit with a beer or two and ponder the size of the closet and its apparent shrinkage for hours, but instead it is obvious to me that I need to do something about this crazy closet characteristic. Obviously I need to find some sort of device to reinforce the walls, stuffing the closet full of fiber is not holding the walls firmly enough in place. My answer is going to be big plastic tubs. The tubs should be firm enough, I think, to hold back the encroaching walls and they will serve as a decent place to store fiber. I’m some what concerned about wool eating insects too and I think that for this scenario, closet shrinkage and nightmares of winged insects the big plastic tubs will be the answer to my fiber woes. It is just a shame that I’ll have to spend fiber allowance on plastic tubs. I wonder if I can convince Hubby that the closet is shrinking and the best option is to reinforce it with plastic tubs???
Hubby is home, so wheel Wednesday is officially over. I’m going to save the other topics. I must go work on the closet negotiations, maybe if he’s had enough beer he’ll believe me, maybe he’ll give in get me the tubs AND give me another closet!

I’m out of town and forgot to post anything about it … oops. I really am a terrible blogger.

Back on the 23rd ….

I just say a license plate that said that. Cute.

Paula and I went to our first sheep and wool festival today! The Iowa Sheep and Wool Festival. It is a small one and I’m glad we started with a small one, cause it wore me out.

I always forget to take my camera to things like this … bad blogger, I know.

We say sheep dog trials, walked though the fiber education center a couple of times, went through the vendors, and the hall of breeds. After lunch we watch a shearing demonstration, walked through the hall of breeds again (trying to find Ewe Lead – which we never did), and we finish by going back through the vendors so I could spend my allowance.

I got two high speed bobbins (one with a fat core, one with a regular core) from Nancy at Huacaya Moon, at an awesome reduced price!

I got some cotton roving and a wool silk blend from Judy with A Twist in Time. Judy and her husband were from the same area of Missouri that I grew up in and it was awesome to meet people that actually knew where my hometown is.

cotton and woo/silk blend

And I got two blends from Carol and Paul with Hidden Valley Farm and Woolen Mill. I got Scottish Highlands and Rainforest, about 1/2 lb each, both are 80% Coopworth/20%
Silk.

We met Tracey Schuch from Wool’n Weave in the vendor area. She was very friendly and helpful when it came to our questions. She has some of the coolest watermelon sock yarn we’d ever seen. We missed out on her class yesterday, but she is the one that pointed us towards the Midwest Fiber and Folk Art Fair, and if we go, one of us will for sure be taking a class from Tracey. The Midwest Fest looks to have something for everyone; a lot of variety, just briefly I saw woodworking, candles, soap, fiber, and more on their website.

I’ve worked on my clapotis a little more and I took some pictures that are much better than what I posted earlier. I’ve decided I’d like to have it finished before I leave for my big professional conference of the year.

The conference is in San Diego where the weather is perfect, except inside where they have the AC cranked up. I think this would be the perfect accessory to have on hand to put over my shoulders/lap as I freeze through the sessions. I leave for for San Diego the 17th and figure I need at least a day to block it and let it dry, so that puts me at June 15th for a deadline. I’m over half way through the repeats, but I have yet to finish my second ball of yarn (and I purchased four). I’ve calculated that I need about 18 hours to finish, if I knit what the pattern calls for. Since I don’t know what I would do with one ball of Lion and Lamb, I’m thinking about extending the pattern until I’m about 1/2 way into the fourth ball of yarn, but that would take longer and I’m not sure now when I’m going to find the 18 hours or so needed. Decisions, decisions … but at least they don’t have to be made now!
clapotis on the hammock

I’ve got a good start on my Tofutsie socks in the last couple of days; on about the third try. Notice that there aren’t any little cables? I spent about 2 hours doing about 2 rows of the cable pattern and called it quits. Knitting is supposed to be fun and relaxing, cabling socks (at least at this point in my knitting career was NOT fun or relaxing. Lack of sleep could have very well been part of the problem and I probably won’t be deterred for long, but for these socks, I’m using the standard Priscilla Gibson-Roberts, Dream Sock pattern.

Garden update:

Our first baby cherry tomatoes, cucumber, and peppers.

Everything is growing like crazy! Including the weeds. I did some weeding and thinning this morning and did a number on the radishes and black seeded simpson. I’m not sure why they all fell over like that. Hubby keeps accusing me of stepping on them, but I didn’t, really.

We also have our first hosta bloom! This is significant because last year we tore out a corner of our yard, a very shady corner where the grass wouldn’t grow and put in a hosta bed. I got all the hostas we put in from a great local plant sale and they all had 2 or more plants per pot, so I divided them up, vigorously. They did okay last year, but never really flourished. This year they were very slow to come up and Hubby accused me, almost daily, of killing all the hostas. I’m happy to report that almost all of them have come up and they are doing well!

In other knitting news I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts. A great new find has been the Knit Picks Podcast. Kelley, who does the podcast, is excellent! I recommend starting with the first episode and listening to them all (episode 6 was released on Friday – so it won’t take long to catch up). What Kelley has really prompted me to think about is my knitting style, as in how many projects I have going (or apparently permanently stalled) and how many do I have planned. I’ve decided that more than one project is okay and my current situation isn’t totally out of control. I’m actively working on the Tofutsie socks, the clapotis, and a green Cotton Fleece sweater that you haven’t seen since the end of March (and I haven’t done much more on). I like the variety that these projects offer and I’m thinking that I’m going to continue to keep similar projects on the needles. Socks. Some sort of shawl thing. A sweater.

I like having a simple, mindless pair of socks to work on as I wait for appointments and in restaurants. The clapotis/shawl is a new challenge that I’m really enjoying and I’m looking forward to branching out into lace shawls as soon as it is finished. This is my more complicated pattern that I need to pay some attention to project – the project I choose for calm early mornings when the only things awake and me and the neighborhood song birds. I really enjoy knitting sweaters when I have a good pattern and a purpose.

The green sweater has a purpose, but unfortunately not a good pattern. I’ve been super frustrated in my search to find a simple raglan crew neck sweater pattern (that is sized to fit me). I had given up on the search and decided on a basic crew neck out of the Brown Sheep book of patterns, Knit Great Basics, but after listening to the first Knit Picks podcast I got inspired to get one of the books Kelley reviewed. I’m going to design my own raglan! My copy of The Sweater Workshop is on its way and I’m going to knit the fish thing (listen to the podcast and read the reviews) and then I’m going to pick up the green sweater again. I haven’t decided it I’ll start another sweater (that’s in the stash) or wait until the book arrives and I start the fish thing to replace the ’sweater’ project.

I am thinking about adding another project to this mix, kind of a miscellaneous project category. Like lace socks, or a hat, or mittens, or slippers, just different random stuff that I may be obligated to get done. My mom gave me some sock yarn when I was home last weekend and asked for socks … obligatory socks might be a good place to try some lace.
Other wise I’m pretty excited about having a 3-4 project rotation that I work on. It will give me goals and limits, some structure, something I could really use in my knitting bag right now..