Watchcap in Progress

This is Mr. SABLE's handspun wool/alpaca watchcap, about 6" along. I'm using #3 needles, 108 sts, just k1, p1 ribbing. He likes a nice generous fold-up brim.

This is probably a first for me in my spinning: spinning a specific yarn for a specific immediate goal, then actually starting the knitting right away. It's a very cushy yarn, mostly. If he doesn't like it, I know I will.

I also recently finished a sweater for him, but I have to keep that one under wraps for a while. But I'm really pleased with the fit and final result.

Happy Thursday

Yesterday I decided to make some inroads on the spinning fiber backlog. In the spring I bought a Louet Julia spinning wheel (second wheel for me) and I was never as happy with it as I hoped I would be. Finally, I sent it in to Louet America and they did find a few things to fix. It does run more smoothly than it did, but honestly, I'm not sure I'm ever going to love this wheel. The bobbin vibrates a lot while I spin. The shaft is only supported at one end and there's a lot of play in the bearing that mounts it to the upright. I told this to the Louet people, but I don't think any of the stuff they fixed had to do with this area. Anyway, the technician there proclaimed it "spinning fine now" and sent it back. So, it came back earlier this week and I decided to give it a trial run.


I had some alpaca roving that was frustrating me and decided to give myself permission to not carry on with it as it was. It was kind of sticky, and clumpy, and there were sections of short cuts. I just couldn't get in a rhythm with that fiber. I decided to blend it with some wool from Brown Sheep mill ends I bought a few years ago. My mill ends are a thick rope of natural white roving with a thinner rope of black running along with it. I stripped off some of the white, to balance the ratios more toward The Dark Side and blended it with the charcoal grey alpaca. The resulting batts were a joy to spin.


This is a 50 gram-ish sample skein of my yarn. I'm guessing sport weight. I still need to wash it and let it hang. And do all the quantifying. But I like it. I think it'll be a nice soft watch cap for Mr. SABLE.

Field Trip!

Today was a glorious fall day and Jaala and I took a little field trip. I'm doing an article for the next Knitcircus about Rainbow Fleece Farm, outside of New Glarus WI, for our series on small scale yarn and fiber sources.

We then went up to Mt. Horeb where we ate a delicious lunch at The Sommer House Cafe, after which we mosied down the street to Dane County's newest yarn and fiber shop, The Cat and Crow (no website).




Co-owner Mo Brown



The Cat and Crow specializes in locally grown and/or fair trade products. Right now, most of the yarn comes from co-owner Mo Brown's own sheep. Mo dyes yarn and roving, and will be getting a nice dye studio space in the back room of the shop soon. The Cat and Crow also carries some yarn and supplies that are neither locally produced nor fair trade. When they sell these items, they give a percentage of each sale to a local cause. If you are looking for a special yarn that you might only find in Wisconsin, check it out!

Miscellaneous

I finally took a few pics of the yarn I bought at YarnCon. Better late than never, eh?

This is the Turtle Cove Farm sock yarn, colorway: Standing on the Shore. It makes my feet serene just looking at it!


This is Sophie's Toes worsted weight; colorway: He Saw Her Across a Smoky Bar. I bought three generous skeins of this, so can make something bigger than a hat and smaller than a sweater... Hmm.

Here are some Halloween pics:

Owen had a very ambitious project in mind. This is as far as we got by the Halloween deadline. He's a character from a video game, Assassin's Creed 1, named Altair. Altair normally carries a lot of weapons and such, wandering around 12th century Jerusalem. I figure a 6', deep-voiced kid showing up at houses asking for treats shouldn't look too threatening. The younger brother wore the same bat suit as last year. I didn't get a picture of him because he was already out the door when I got back from taking Owen to his friend's house.

On the whole, I think trick or treating is dying out.


This is the little guy's Jack O Lantern kitty face. He grew the pumpkin in the back yard. It turned out to be a little ooky inside, but that's ok. The inside doesn't show.


These two pumpkins were Owen's. He had planned to make what he called a Steam Punk-in, but the steam engine didn't make enough power to keep the LED lit. Alas. Scott bought the skull at Walgreens and put an LED hooked to a battery in one eye socket. The little guy put a rubber eye in the other socket. I decided to photoshop it all up a bit.

Happy November 1. Don't forget to reset your clocks!

Some Autumn Entrelac?

This is the beginning of a scarf from some yarn I spun maybe a year and a half ago. It's softer to the touch than it looks. Blue-faced Leicester. I can't decide if I like this enough to go forward with it. But I don't dislike enough to stop and frog. Oh me, oh my.


This is an experiment: making one oversized entrelac motif down a scarf. It's Rowan Tapestry, which I recycled from a sideways-knit scarf that really never made me happy. I'm not sure this is working for me, either.

I've got to get out of my cave more. Look what's right out my back door:


And this is out front:

Making Waves Socks

These socks will be in the next Knitcircus, Issue #8, which should be arriving in Madison for mailing to all of you around the first of November.

Size: Men's L. Fits approx size 10 shoe.
Needles: US #1. Use 0's for a snugger fit through ankle.
Yarn: shown in a vintage sock yarn from my stash. Cascade Heritage Solids would be a good moderately-priced substitution.

A fun pattern with a simple twist pattern. Suitable for someone moving up from the most basic socks to a bit more of a challenge.

YarnCon, Chicago

In spite of my ongoing good intentions, I have to say, I'm not winning any Consistent Blogger Awards these days.

Knitcircus went to YarnCon 2009 and had a great time!


This is our cute little booth, or should I say, table. We were well-positioned in the line of sight from the entrance to the first room.
YarnCon is a small-ish fiber/yarn festival that meets annually in Chicago at the Pulaski Field House, just northwest of downtown. It's a cool old late 19th century (I'm guessing) building in the Bucktown neighborhood. The room we were in had this interesting mural surrounding the stage:

It should get bigger if you click the picture.

There were 35 vendors, most of them small or micro-businesses. There was a lot of hand-painted yarn and spinning fiber, a lot of knitting accessories, some folks who ran actual yarn shops, a surprisingly good food vendor, and a good time over all.

Click here to see a craptacular panorama I stuck together from three iPhone pictures.


Here are three of my fellow Rubberneckers on Ravelry. From left to right, CyberFiber, eryn, Ogirl.

This was an interesting community art project:

Yarnies were invited to sit a spell and knit or crochet on to the skirt, as they wished.
Another view of the same:


For Knitcircus, it was a good show. We connected with a lot of folks who knew of us a little and were curious. And a lot more who had never heard of us and seemed favorably impressed.

After the show, we had a little comedy of errors with our dinner rendez-vous plans. It all worked out in the end, but the take-home lessons were a. get cell phone numbers before you split up and b. do your restaurant research before you leave home.