*knitknit*
rant
Hello September!
Sep 6th
I’m really excited about September this year. I don’t know why really but there’s a few things that might have something to do with it.
This summer was hot.. warm as in nasty sticky fingers warm.. couldn’t touch knitting or spinning at all and as a result I wasn’t really as productive.. On the other hand it was a very good time for my studies. I managed to get a whole lot of street research done and I’m back on track with the whole graduation thing. I did some redecorating and threw a whole lot of stuff out. Is it just me or is there a connection between the mess in your kitchen and the stress in your head?
While getting more organized with my knitting I realized something about myself and about older projects that don’t get finished. When projects like my camden are dumped somewhere and don’t get finished it’s not because of the pattern or the yarn, or even the combination for that matter. It’s because I did something stupid and I was too lazy to either listen to the voice in the back of my head telling me to rip back, or because I had much lower standards back then. Either way, after a while it gets tossed in the ‘not going to be finished for a while’ bin and starts to collect dust.
Here’s the thing. I’m starting to see differences in how I approach projects now and what I used to do when I just started. When looking at my projects page I see there’s a lot of projects done with the wrong yarn 
Or done without enough attention. I was a die hard project knitter and I just wanted the damn thing done. Now I’m starting to see more and more process knitter attitudes in myself and I must admit I really like it. I’m starting to enjoy the process a lot more and I don’t mind ripping back if it means I’ll be happier with the final result. Let me tell you this is a BIG change
Anyways, so here’s what I’ve (still) been working on:
not quite finished yet but I’m allmost done 
The pattern is actually a scarf but I’m making a neckwarmer so I’ll add three buttons and buttonholes I’m not sure how big it’ll get but I do know that it’s going to stretch a lot I like how the pattern looks and like how it knits up but I really hate knitting it I don’t know why, I guess it’s because of all the markers
started Skew a few days ago with my handspun Dandelion. I tried knitting some other stuff with the dandelion but like I said about having lower standards… I’m starting to hate the colors the yellow is nice but the green is horrible… it would’ve been much better if I had combined the greens and yellows, it would’ve produced a much more even colored yarn, but hey, got to learn it somehow right Even tho the color bugged me I’m really loving how the yarn itself turned out. I was going for malabrigo sock and I think I really managed to pull it off somehow Sure it’s not as soft (it’s a bit overspun) and it spent waay too much time on the bobbin so it was all stiff, but it turned out to be quite even in spite of me and my lack of experience
When I just started out spinning I read about people who spun yarns to knit socks with and I thought it was a total waste of time. I didn’t understand the first thing about why somebody would want to handknit socks in the first place but trying to understand why they were actually spinning yarn to handknit socks was really beyond me… was.
I get it now it’s awesome It’s really one of the coolsest things ever to see how your own handspun becomes your own (quickly finished) handknit sock I’ll be making many more projects like this, I know I will (I still have 120 grams of BFL fleece left in this color hehe)
I started to knit these (fabulous may I say) sock pattern because of the colors. I didn’t like the colors anymore and remembered something I read on rav about dying yarn and getting bad results.. they can always be knit in socks 
o noes!
Aug 11th
This was going to be a bad day… what to do when you wake up thinking it’s going to be a lovely morning, come down and realize there’s only decaff left…. oh noes!
It didn’t turn out to be a bad day but it could have. Instead I just felt a bit weird and the caffein deprivation kept me sleepy all day. I don’t drink coffee just for the caffein, but I really enjoy my coffee because of the flavor. I’m in love with the capricio and the cosi (nespress) because of the way they taste. The decaff stuff isn’t too bad but it’s not that functional for in the morning… so meh.
Lucky for me it wasn’t all that bad. I’m planning to start two projects (I cast on for the first one yesterday) but they’re a bit of a secret. I don’t know if the recipients read my blog or not, but just to be safe I won’t say who they’re for 
Yesterday my yarn arrived! There’s something I really need to say about this company because these people are awesome! The yarn comes from Finlandia Import, and tho I’m not the proud owner of an actual stash and am still quite new to the knitting world, most of my yarn comes from them. I’m not the type of person to go look for yarn shops and then find out they don’t have what I want and then I’ll get suckered in to buying some other delicious yarn I have no money to buy. This is my way of keeping my stash small because I simply can’t afford it (yet). Let me tell you this.. the moment I stop being a student and land me an actual job I’m going to buy a ton of yarn… I mean it…
So anyway, back to Finlandia Import. I ordered via their website on sunday and guess what… I actually received a personal (they always do isn’t that nice?) confirmation the same day. What company works on sundays?! I love them
Anyways, the three purple ones are going to become Scherherazades slippers and the four navy ones will become a Henry scarf. I’ve already got some progress on the socks as I’ve gotten familiar with the pattern
Yes the picture is a bit weird but it’s really the same yarn I took this picture on a sunlit table to see what it would look like in some harsh light The yarn is very soft and knits up to be a very stretchy fabric for the sock, but I’m really freaking out about the amount of wear this baby can withstand… It’s so soft it might actually fall apart before this winter is over, but I really don’t care. They’re little princess socks imo and I don’t mind if the wearer wears them out (socks are meant to be worn right? )
Remember this? Lelah has never seen sunlight since our last encounter… It makes me cringe a little when I see those old pictures… gahh.. I actually even forgot I had it lying around until I was cleaning out my closet this morning.. I wanted to throw it away but then I found the other half of the sweater it used to be and decided to just reclaim the yarn untill I had something better to do with it.
So this is what it looks like now…
little updates..
Aug 9th
Spinning is taking over my life.. I’m not by any means a monogamous when it comes to knitting projects but I once decided I didn’t want to spend whole years on projects.. Right know I’m trying to prepare for winter knitting/ sewing because I might not be able to keep up when I’m busy doing my graduation year stuffs.. so I’ll need to be prepared (and warm).
The last few weeks I’ve been doing some rearranging in the house and we threw a lot of stuff out to make some space. After more than 3 years we’re starting to get used to the house and using it in a more efficient manner. It’s a difficult house people.. we have no storage room…..
Anyway, while doing some cleanup rounds I encountered some interesting things:
Remember this one? This is Balsam II, an FO from 2009. I loved the first Balsam but there were some serious mistakes in that one and I couldn’t see it anymore without wanting to burn it..
When I started out knitting I was very uncaring about what I knit. Everything was practice and none of the projects were made with seriousness… I have changed.. At some points I’m a little embarrassed at myself because all my experimenting and my practice knits are on the webs for all to see, but on the other hand it’s also very nice to see how I’ve changed and how this ‘hobby’ has completely taken over I have a perfectionist in me but I’ve tried to lock her up because she’s a foul and judgemental little monster, but the more I knit, and the more I see my own handknits, the more tears I see in the iron cage locking my little monster inside.
It’s time to let her out I guess… Balsam I has been thrown out.. I seriously can’t look at it, and the yarn… omg.. I seriously can’t believe I BOUGHT this yarn… what was I thinking?? Ignorance is bliss people…
So back to our subject: patient x (Balsam II) is not feeling well.. See the whole point of a cowl is to keep your neck/ face (and in this case shoulder) warm. I knit this project (mainly the first one) because I spend a lot of my time behind a computer (or a laptop) and I tend to get cramps in my neck. So the best thing was a long cowl that went from my chin to halfway my upper arm (to keep my back warm as well). The most important thing about this cowl is that it does NOT curl at any point…
The problems with Balsam II are the following:
- the top part curls outward;
- the top part is 2 repeats too wide;
- the top part is way too long, causing it to sag;
- the shoulder part is not wide enough;
- the shoulder part curls upward
The reason is that I actually knit this project with my mom in mind, but I gave her something else instead (I can’t remember why) and decided to finish it for myself, but I guess I forgot to change the measurements…
The other problem is that there’s at least 3 balls left I don’t know what to do with…
I still like the project enough so I think I might just reknit this one and this time make a (much) longer version but I can’t be sure yet I’ll keep you posted on this one
Remember this one? Here be the Hemlock Ring blanket by Jared Flood. I started this project with a lot of happiness and joy but made so many mistakes in this little blanket I just want this thing to be done and over with… Unlike the original this pattern is variegated and might take the attention away from the little mistakes left, but I can only be sure once it’s been blocked. It’s not the project or the pattern, this is definately me. The pattern was great and simple but for some reason I just can’t get the counting right. Obviously if I started over there would be no problem but this thing is HUGE.. and I mean really really really big I tried stretching it a bit (as it would be once blocked) and it had a diameter of 2 meters…
This crumpled little heap looks so innocent… so cute… I went over the ending row of the pattern (I believe with 18 or 20 yo’s in one pattern repeat.. I’m on 24 now) and I still have yarn left… enough for another 4-5 rounds… *le sigh*
I’m just so scared it will look horrendous once it’s been blocked so I’m not even sure if I want to continue and finish or just frog the whole thing and be done with this masochism…
see what I mean… that’s a whole lot of yarn left and nothing I can knit with it once the blanket is done.. argh…
On a much happier note I have a very pretty sock to show you I cast on 32 instead of 28 but I’m not sure, if this one works out I’ll write up (go back and count) my modifications But so far it works like it’s working out
see? no ugly stretchy stockinette
Handspun #4 Creamy alpaca
Aug 2nd
I suck at creating names, so for now this one is called handspun #4 Creamy Alpaca. Oh dear it looks messy but I’m so happy with it I don’t care
stats:
total weight: 200 grams
meterage : 340 meters
yarn weight: 20 WPI, n-ply
So as you might already know this is the first yarn I spun starting out with raw dirty fleece and I was very much overwhelmed. I couldn’t get it clean, then I couldn’t get all the VM off and then I couldn’t get it carded nicely. As a result every time I spent some time behind the spinning wheel I left a huge pile of debris around which was not all that great.
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What I learned about the whole process was very valuable tho and I’ve started to show more respect for the raw material. This simpel act has brought up some questions about how we live and how we see our surroundings as people. It also made me wonder about how underappreciated a lot of processes are. I know for an urban kid I’ve always been a bit weird but this was suprising for myself as well. Thinking of the difference between raw fleece and clean cut rovings it made me wonder what other things are processed like this, and how I felt about it. I started thinking more about the animals that these things come from and decided that I want to buy more ‘biologisch’ from now on and less of the processed foods. I’m not going veggie because I love all foods and I think we humans are supposed to eat meat as well but not as much as we are eating right now….
This little ‘rustic’ yarn has given me the feeling of going back to our roots as human beings and trying to be more in sync with nature and everything around us. It’s amazing how we can step into a store and buy (sometimes heavily overpriced..) products and produce and think nothing of it. It amazes me that there’s children out there that don’t know where eggs come from, or don’t know that meat actually comes from an animal. Anyway, this concludes my rant for more blogrelated info schroll down, thank you
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I spun this for Tour de Fleece but was unfortunately not able to finish it in time due to a wrist injury.. I’m a new spinner and because my work at uni also requires a lot of hand and wrist movement I’m quite scared to injure my moneymakers. So the moment it started hurting I stopped and dropped everything for at least a week. Thankfully everything was ok and there’s no more pain
I’m really pleased with the way it turned out because, tho it’s much less regular than the other two yarns I made, it’s the one I’m proud of the most. I like how it feels unpolished like some oil painting and I can’t wait to see how it knits up.
Alpaca yarn is totally yummie and I love the soft halo. I also can’t believe how much dirt came off after the plying so I have to pay more attention to washing fleeces before spinning.
While experimenting with new bobbins I tried out some of the dark brown wensleydale my boyfriend gave me last month and this is how it turned out.
I think I need to wash it some more because the yarn still feels greasy and a bit rough to the touch. Also when handcarding it looked like there was some coagulated fat on the fleece (YUCK). I spun some and n-plied it and then (before washing) knit up a bit of a sample. I was too curious sorry.
I started out in stockinette stitch with a 3.0mm needle, then moved up to garter rib and then 2×2 rib. It looked very dense at this point and tho I like the texture I didn’t like the feel.
then I moved to a row of yo and k2togs, but it doesn’t really show on this pic, and continued with a 1×1 rib. The thing is that the whole texture is missing because of the fuzziness of the yarn. Besides that the 3.0mm seemed to small for this yarn.
Moving on to a bigger (6.0mm) size I realized this was exactly what it needed. I think this yarn wants space to move around and I really like how it turned out. The whole thing seems to be slanting to the left and I think that’s because of the yarn not being washed yet and the twist not set.
Before spinning this up I think I want to finish the brown alpaca first so I can combine those two into a project (tho I’m not sure yet). 340 meters is nice but it won’t make me a sweater
some time off..
Jul 31st
I’m finding it difficult to keep blogging in the summer.. the heat.. the stickiness and the stress for my (hopefully) last semester as a student are interfering with my knitting/ spinning time. I do realize that that’s just the way it is and uni goes first and I just have to suck it up, but it doesn’t mean I like it :p.
It’s a bit frustrating but I’ve noticed that I’m completely useless when it gets hot out and I seriously can’t seem to get any work done, whether it’s homework or housework I’m not able to get any of it done when its hotter than 25 C outside.. So today, on a cloudy, rainy saturday my head got clear enough for me to start doing some serious blogging.
You might remember this little post where I show off my birthday present (a whole lot of fleece). Well I finished the first bag of 200 grams of creamy alpaca and I’m so thrilled!
Here’s some spinning in progress pictures. I’m still not that great in spinning but I noticed there’s a huge difference between spinning raw fleece and spinning roving… I like spinning with the long-draw method as I just love how the fibre just does the work and I only need to stretch it out at times or not do anything, and this is much easier with raw fleece than with roving.
This little project was my tour de fleece project and tho unfortunately I was unable to finish it before the 25th I’m very excited about the amount of time I spent on this little project.
This is only my 4th spinning ever so I’m not too worried about the whole thing being very even, I started out with carding and started spinning with my handcarded batts, but after a while I just started spinning the locks. I noticed something weird during this process, the carded alpaca was much dirtier than the locks. This was so weird it was almost as if the carded ones were much dirtier.
I truely enjoyed the whole process and I can’t even begin to explain how proud I am of this little yarn I humbly produced, even tho it’s really not that great compared to so many other spinners (who really blow me away).
The 200 grams of alpaca has become 340 meters of fingering weight navajo plied yarn. I washed it but its still a bit dirty.. I’m not sure how to get it superclean yet but when I do I’ll get on it. I’m also not sure if its actually white or creamy, so I’ll have to find out tomorrow morning
It looks a bit weird right now, but that’s also because of the lighting
Besides a lot of spinning there’s been a lot of washing fleece.. Most of the fleeces have been washed by now but the huge sack of cross wensleydale and gotland was still lying around.. so it was about time for a good washing.
I thought my cats liked alpaca but now I know for sure they LOVE sheep. This is me removing vegetable matter from the fleece while my kitties were rolling around in the fleece…
And I mean really rolling around… this fleece was seriously dir-ty. I actually already washed it 3 times but it’s not getting much cleaner.. it’s been lying around in water for a while to allow it to soak.. Tomorrow I’m washing the hell out of it but today I’ll show you the pictures of the unwashed fleece
the ‘backside’ looks nice no?
The problem with this fleece is I can’t seem to get the tips as clean as the butt end.. this lock has spent a good while in hot soapy waters and has been ‘massaged’ very carefully, but it just won’t budge.. I totally suck at washing fleece… I hope it comes with experience
I really love this fleece I’m so happy there’s a lot of it
Tho it was a bit dirty, the fleece was easy to comb through and looks nice
This is the progress on the creature comforts cardi I really like the cable pattern on the backside, especially with the wibra yarn
last but not least the socks I’ve been working on
I’ve been working on the Sheherezade slippers with malabrigo sockyarn but the gauge didn’t match at all so the sock ended up being much too small, so in order to understand the pattern and hopefully to be able to tweak it so that I can knit it with malabrigo sockyarn anyway I started a testsock knit in a heavier acrylics yarn.
There’s a huge difference between the malabrigo one and the acrylics one but at least I won’t mind a f*ck up with acrylics yarn
Last but not least, tho it’s a few days old already, my stash of kitty hair
TdF: day.. everything between day 2 and the present….
Jul 22nd
This is horrible.. I have been spinning mind you, but I’m so behind I don’t think I’ll ever be able to make it… :’( I’m actually pretty sad about it, but on the other hand, the weathers been so great the past few weeks I’m not ashamed to say I spent a lot of my time outside the house (away from my fleece and yarn). Tho it may not be a lot I have actually spent some time spinning and especially thinking about ways to improve my spinning. The last few posts about spinning I’ve mentioned things about my ratio and wanting to speed things up as it was getting rather frustrating. So first I maimed one of the three bobbins I have to see what it would do. The result was fine but rather irregular so I started thinking some more and found a nice little solution:
You’ll need a few of these first…
and these…
and then you’ll get something that might resemble this:
so what do you think? Isn’t it pretty? so the holes in the wood part are a little bit bigger than the thingy that goes in it so there’s room for rotation but it can’t move the way it shouldn’t move. Anyways, this little baby has a ratio of 1:10 so I can say I’m pretty darn pleased The little bit of spun stuff is a bit of the wensleydale I have from my birthdaypresent. I wasn’t planning to spin it all, just to try and see how it would go. It works like a charm (tho it does look kinda cheap).
Besides thinking I’ve also been spinning some alpaca and tho I’m not as far as I’d hoped I’d be but its progress none the less
There’s another reason for why the spinning was so slow, at first I was carding the alpaca to create neat little rolags for spinning, but after a while I stopped. I spin with the longdraw method and the rolags weren’t very helpfull because they got all clumpy.. :S The uncarded fleece however spins up niceley so I might actually make some progress here
So here’s some shamless advertising.. (above is a picture of my kitty Noodles in her favorite box) I’m not connected with these people in ANY way nor am I making money off of this but I just HAVE to tell you this: this is the best invention ev-ahhh! It’s for all of you who have kitties, bunnies or doggies and it’s called: the FURminator.. yea lols
So you might now that I’ve been saving up kittyfur to spin me a nice pair of mittens for some winter, but that winter might actually be this winter instead of in a distant future… my kitties are shedding like you wouldn’t believe and there’s kittyfur everywhere in this house.. but then today I discovered the furminator and in one day I doubled my stash of kittyfur…..
there’s a bigger one for doggies I believe but this one caught a lot of kittyfur for me in a few strokes… so here’s the stash upgrade:
this is what I harvested today…. and I just got it 3 hours ago…. all of this fur could’ve landed on my carpet….. 
this stuff is everywhere man….
this is my total stash of kittyfur… I have short haired cats (as you can see above) and it takes a while to harvest a nice load of mitten worty fur.. I’m just so scared it’ll felt before I’m ready to spin this stuff… :’(
Anyways, you might’ve noticed but the artblog is back in business and there’s a link to it at the top of the page called ‘sketches’. On this blog you’ll find my drawings and sketches and maybe later some more artstuff If you’re too lazy to move your cursor to the link above you can click HERE to get there.
So last but not least: I’ve also been knitting because it was too hot to spin but not too hot to knit.. am I making sense?
The pattern is creature comforts cardi and it’s knit in the handspun Dandelion I had finished a few posts back. This version was knit in a bigger size so I frogged it and reknit it. When I was plying this yarn I had underspun the whole thing, causing it to untwist and to break at some points, I was a bit traumatized by this and so I rather overspun the n-ply on the BFL.. I think this is the reason that the yarn is a little bit scratchy. I’ve heard BFL is supposed to be very soft but it’s actually not that soft.. I’m still hoping it’ll get a bit softer after it’s been washed but I’m not keeping my breath. I don’t mind that much anyway because it’ll be my first BIG project using my handspun and I’m proud no matter what
Day two
Jul 4th
I find it very difficult to sit at home and work with fleece and yarn on beautifull days like these. I also noticed I really missed drawing.. I don’t know why but somewhere at some point I decided to split the knitting blog from the artstuff blog and then it all went down the drain. Since then I have not drawn a thing… which is a bad thing since I’m still not done with my brothers airbrush thingy… So now I’m having second thoughts about the second blog but I still don’t think the two subjects should be mixed… The blog started out as a place to organize all of my hobbies, but somewhere along the line my drawing got shoved out of the way by the knitting/ sewing and now I feel like I’ve lost an old friend…
I’m not sure what I’ll do yet but I’m thinking of returning the drawing stuff to the main blog because it’s not working out right now…
Talking about things creative – I’ve been nagging about how slow my bobbins are and that I’m annoying the living daylight out of myself treadling so fast I can’t even hear the tv anymore, but now I’ve come up with a solution. It’s still an experimental sollution but if this works out I’ll take the whole thing to the next level.
I spent a whole day searching the internet for a bobbin that will work out for me, and then came to the conclusion that I’m not willing to spend so much money on something I can make myself (funny, that’s what I said when I started knitting/ sewing/ spinning), so I grabbed my jig saw and the sander, and then the gluegun and I was a happy little girl Obviously this is an experiment, but it’s already a huge success, so the next step is to get me some plywood and making some good calculations to get me a 1:10 ratio
This end was twice as big and completely useless, the bigger side (now) gave me a 1:5,5 ratio, the new part gives a 1:7 ratio. Not a huge improvement but I can definately feel (and hear) the difference!
I know how it really looks very crappy but it’s totally worth it! This little experiment will allow me to actually do something else while spinning, like watching tv or a movie without the need for heavy headphones A total success if you ask me. So for the next step I think I’ll create some custom bobbins with different sets of plywood (recreating the original side). I’ll keep you guys updated
I had mentioned spinning a little today, but I paused because of the greyish color. It’s the first time I ever washed and carded fleece so obviously there’s a million things I could’ve done wrong with this, but the most obvious thing is that it isn’t clean. The fleece is a white alpaca, and not grey… but the singles are very very grey… It feels rather dry and gross on my fingers after a while but that’s not the biggest of my problems, right now I’m wondering if the color will ever go back to ‘white’ after spinning and plying…..
Besides the new singles on the mutilated bobbin I spent some time trying to get the overtwisted Dandelion straight again… I was so afraid of undertwist I really really overtwisted the whole thing in the end. The beginning isn’t even that bad, but the last 50 meters are horrible… It’s 178 grams of a total of 300 grams and I’m really sure I can make something quite large with this…
I was going for malabrigo sock and tho it’s not 400 meters per 100g it’s close enough for a first attempt Here, have some pix
summer activities
Jun 27th
This is my third post this month.. what happened? I’m usually such an active blogger but I must say I’ve had to wait for this summer for a long time and I’m enjoying every bit of sun I can get. Thankfully someone sent a major heat-wave our way and our cold and windy little country has become a tropical paradise
But there’s more to tell than just how great the weather has been. There’s some major stuff going on First of all I’ve washed all my fleece and it’s dried and ready for some heavy carding action. Unfortunately as it’s still very hot I’m in no mood to start working on warm alpaca fleece right now, so the pretty clean fleeces are just going to have to wait.
The other thing on my mind right now, like most other people in the world, is the World Cup. I love soccer I was raised with a soccer fanatic father who used to play himself, so soccer was a big thing when I grew up. It still makes me happy to think that every four years the whole world is united for a few weeks because of their love for soccer (well… winning the world cup hehe).
Anyway, there’s not much time knitting while watching soccer, and no knitting means no blogging I’ve also already talked about my spinning wheel and my 5,5:1 ratio… this, unfortunately for me, means that I can’t spin while watching the game either.. so I just sit there and watch the game as my hands do nothing but relax (I do get the feeling my hands are enjoying the well-deserved rest too!).
Obviously it doesn’t mean I don’t knit anmymore at all! I’ve been working on some things, but the progress is very slow. Beside all of the above reasons for me not to knit there’s one other… I’ve already mentioned it here, but I guess I can say something more about it I just handled my first workshop and I’m really excited to do some more This blog is all about me stepping out of my comfort zone and trying to organize my life, and right now I’m doing exacty that.
On my internships I found out I value my personal time much more than I used to think I did. I thought I wouldn’t mind working full days, and I still don’t think I’d mind, but I will have to enjoy every moment of it. I don’t want to end up waking up feeling like working is a waste of my day, and starting to wish my days away so it can be weekend. I don’t want to waste my time and I don’t want to wish my life away like that. So now that I’m still a student and don’t have anything to lose this will be my first priority. I need to think about these things now before I end up being stuck in routine….
Sorry people the rant ends here…. From this point on it’s about showing you the progress of the past few weeks
Guess what.. I got a birthday present from my parents I noticed I tend not to knit in the summer (because it’s hot) and sewing skirts and dresses seems like the way to go. But tho I tried my best, the edgings never came out really professional.. and now I know why Lockmachines are the shit!
So obviously I bought the latest burda style and tried to make this pretty dress… So far it turned out to be a little more tricky than I anticipated, but I think I can handle it
Since I just got the machine and don’t fully understand it yet I tried it on some fabric I had lying around. My grandmother gave me this blue fabric with the large pink flowers on it. I really like it tho it’s a bit much
Before this ridiculous heat-wave it was rather rainy and cold, so I felt like knitting again.. unfortunately for me I did the cast-on a bit too tight so I need to restart this one, but I really like the pattern. It’s the lace capelet in malarbigo lace oceanos.
When I reached half of the 300 grams I got really bored and decided to n-ply the spun singles on the bobbin. So far I’m not even halfway I think but I’m happy with the way the colors are blending. I’m still not sure what it’ll become but I’m sure it’ll be fine
The singles weren’t all that even at some points but the plying evened it out so I’m pretty happy with the way this is working out. I must say that my ratio is really really annoying when it comes to plying. Spinning the singles is becoming a pain but the plying just downright sucks…. The end of the singles on the bobbin (where I started out plying) didn’t have enough twist at certain points because my hands would start to work faster than my feet.. even tho my feet were treadling pretty darn fast they still couldn’t keep it up. So I ended with a nice cramp in my foot and undertwisted singles……..
Tomorrow I’ll see if I can do something about it
Birthdays are getting cooler :)
Jun 4th
Today I’m celebrating my 26th birthday (w00h00!) and there’s a few goals I’m hoping to reach. I hope, if everything works out, to finish my masters this year (not calender year), and I hope to learn to spin a lot of yarn really well (and fast hihi).
I hope to have a lot of fun with my new job on the side (I give workshops to groups of (2-8) women (men are allowed too ) on skincare and wellness. I’m trying to update the page so I’m hoping to be able to link to that page for more information. But if you’re living in the Netherlands (uhm… radius of 30km to Rotterdam ) and you’d like to hear more you can always leave a comment and I’ll contact you
(sorry for the sameless advertising on my own blog…. hehehe)
ahem… but back to the story about spinning… so today it’s my birthday and I’d like to say some appreciative things about The Man.
Later this month we’ll be celebrating our 7th anniversary and I’d like to tell you about why The Man’s so awesome.
- Even tho he gets up early in the morning to go to work he always makes me a coffee ^.^ (yes even when he’s late.. I hope his boss doesn’t read my blog… lol)
- He gives me space to be creative and doesn’t complain when I’m knitting/ sewing/ spinning (even tho it makes a lot of noise (not the knitting) and is overall very messy (not the spinning part).
- He’s okay with me being a dork which sais a lot.
- He likes my equally dorky brother (sorry shiwi you know I love you )
- He’s really funny (most of the times)
- He’s great at surprises (srsly great…. )
- He bought me a huge pile of fleece for my birthday… :|:| I still can’t get over it *droooolll*
The list is actually a lot shorter here because I didn’t want to make you all jealous, bore you to death so here’s the interesting part for a blog: the epic pictures of a birthday present
So how did this happen? Well I was browsing a (Dutch) topic on Rav, looking for places to buy fleece. So far I’ve only spun commercial roving and I was (still am) very curious to raw fleece and the whole process of ‘from-sheep-to-sweater’. So the only thing I haven’t experienced now is the shearing part, which is ok by me
So while looking at this thread I notice a lot of farms obviously where they sell fleece so I ask him: where’s Schijndel. And tell him about it. This was over a month ago… and guess what, he remembered hihi The whole package is from De Weidonk. Let me show you what was in it
About 200 +/- grams of creamy alpaca
About 200 +/- grams of warm brown alpaca
About 400 grams of BFL
About 500 grams of brown Wensleydale
And a huge sack of (my scale only goes up to 500 grams LOL) there’s a note that sais cross between Wensleydale and Gotland, an this a whole sheep I think..
For the fast and experienced spinners this might not be that much (I don’t know?) but let me show you how far I am with the 300 grams of Dandelion:
I’m nearly done with half of it…. I did a little calculating and one turn of the wheel gives me 5,5 turns of the whorl (?), but as you can see I only have one size. The wheel resembles a Louet S10 and I’ve come to the understanding that a 5,5:1 ratio is rather slow, so I’m hoping to be able to buy some other bobbins with different sized whorls… at the moment I’m trying to spin singles for a light fingering wheight yarn so my leg is getting rather annoyed by the low ratio…
I came to this conclusion while working on this side quest: what is the difference between cottonwool and cotton? The cottonwool you buy in the stores I mean. It sais 100% cotton so it should be natural right? so the question is: can I spin it?
I know spinning cottong is very difficult and I know now that a ratio of 5,5:1 will not make it any easier, but I had to try, you understand right?
I tried some of the cheapest stuff I could find: this stuff costs about a euro per 100 grams so why not right? Unfortunately this version is completely made up in layers and it doesn’t really spin very nice, but it does actually work:
I suck.. I know… I’ll get better
why laryngitis sucks…
May 27th
sooo…. almost 2 months ago I felled by acute laryngitis after a week of stress and sleep deprivation… I spent a whole week crying lying on the couch trying not to breathe…
So then it went away and I thought it was over and went on with my life as usual.. unfortunately for me it wasn’t over yet and I’ve been feeling a little sick ever since. I went to the doctor and he told me that I could’ve gotten antibiotics for it and it would’ve been over completely, but that I didn’t have to worry or anything but it was going to take a while longer for me to be completely cured.
It turns out that this means that you’re actually sick all the time and don’t really get better untill it’s completely gone and with every little breeze or little rain the whole feeling sick thing comes back in full force…
This is how this morning, more than a month and a half later I woke up feeling like I was hit by a truck…
I spent this entire day lying on the couch (again..) playing Paper Mario on the wii and spent much of the day sleeping and stuff.. I dreamt of knitting but I didn’t manage to do much.. this is all that came out after a whole day of spending on the couch doing nothing..
How I love the yarn and the pattern…. it’s Anastasia socks by MintyFresh. I love how the pattern is simple but cute at the same time I hope to have more knits to show for the next post
