{"id":18,"date":"2012-03-12T13:44:49","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T13:44:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/?p=18"},"modified":"2012-10-29T15:23:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-29T15:23:58","slug":"how-to-do-cat-bordhis-sweet-tomato-heel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"How To Do Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel"},"content":{"rendered":"

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This month’s but Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. I spun some last year that was 100% Shetland, and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This month’s but Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. I spun some last year that was 100% Shetland, and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This month’s but Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. I spun some last year that was 100% Shetland, and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This month’s but Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. I spun some last year that was 100% Shetland, and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This month’s but Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. I spun some last year that was 100% Shetland, and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nIn hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place.<\/em>
\nGary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058<\/a>
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now…or, perhaps not.<\/p>\n

I also designed a small cowl for the Juniper Moon Farm<\/A> contest – basically, come up with an original design using 1 or 2 skeins of Chadwick<\/A> or Willa<\/A>. My design, called the Loopy Wicker Cowl, is shown below, in both a one-color\/one-skein and two-color\/two-skein version:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

If the design does not get selected for the contest, I will share it with you here.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

On my wheel right now – I am working on finishing up a bunch of Louet Black Diamond Top<\/A>, which is carbonized bamboo. There is absolutely no memory in this, and spinning it is not a whole lot of fun, but I spun a bunch of it and plied it with a merino wool for a scarf, so I kinda want to spin the rest of it just to have it done, and ready to be plied with something else at some point.<\/p>\n

I also have plenty of fiber waiting to be spun, I have to get to January’s Spunky Eclectic club, which is Targhee in blues, reds and white. The February club will come soon! I also have the February batt from Enchanted Knoll Farm waiting for me, it’s in the colorway of valentine conversation hearts, but I have not even opened up the package yet!
\nWelcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!
\nAs a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

I will start with completed projects, since that’s always the most satisfying, right?<\/p>\n

I finished spinning Spunky Eclectic’s<\/a> “Peace On Earth” – the Dec 2011 fiber club offering – a South African Fine yarn in blue, greenish and white. The singles were done last week, and I n-plied it yesterday and washed it. Normally I thwack, but since this yarn was described as “felts well” I just soaked it in hot water twice and followed up with a cold water soak. I am pretty pleased with the results, and I have to say this yarn bloomed very wonderfully – it was about 16 wpi before washing, 9 wpi afterwards:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was going to make a Citron<\/a> shawl from this, but it’s much too large for that, now.<\/p>\n

On my needles, I am almost done with my Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I like the pattern, it’s one of those where you have one thing to remember and the pattern just works out magically, so it’s great that I don’t have to lug around a pattern with me. However, each hexagon takes me about 2 hours, so it takes a long time to complete!<\/p>\n

I have also been working on Monkey Socks<\/a> – special thanks to my knitsky friend Amanda<\/a> who pointed out that this wasn’t a crazy Cookie A. pattern, but something that’s memorizable (and she’s right!). Right now I am working on the heel but I will rip it out and work it as a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a> from the ingenious Cat Bordhi<\/a>. I may also go up a needle size because the sock is a tight fit right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The yarn is handspun superwash corriedale, the Tartan colorway from the September 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club offering. I spindle-spun this, and made 1,000 yards of 3-ply yarn (yes, that means I made 3,000 yards of this. I am extremely proud of this accomplishment). So there is plenty for socks!<\/p>\n

I have also started on a kid-sized hat in double-knitting from Alasdair Post-Quinn<\/a>. The hat is Bratach<\/a> from his excellent book Extreme Double Knitting: New Adventures in Reversible Colorwork.<\/a> Alas, I can only take one of either the extreme double knitting or the adventures in reversible colorwork, and I chose the double knitting – the hat started out with the crazy pattern that Alasdair wrote, but I have changed it to be stripes and checkerboards and stuff. I messed up the first few rows due to it all being new to me, but I’ve got the hang of it now. I probably *should* rip out the hat and start over, but I am not sure if I will. Here is what my Not a Bratach<\/a> looks like right now:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

From the files of “not really actively knitting this one” but still a WIP, I am knitting Channel<\/a> out of 2 different handspun yarns (handspun by me). One is the Oct 2011 Spunky Eclectic<\/a> fiber club, Romney in the colorway “Beans”, which was spun as a single. The other yarn is a 2-ply yarn, consisting of Juniper Moon Farm Cormo<\/A> and the Enchanted Knoll Farm’s<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt Club\u2019s Dec 2011 offering, \u201cWinter\u2019s Night Sky\u201d in 65% superwash merino and 35% tussah silk. I have not worked on it in a while, but I do want to finish it eventually:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nSo, . It looks great, and feels even better. It’s the perfect heel shape, and for once a knitted sock I made actually looks like it goes on a foot, even when laid flat:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I am excited to teach this method (and show off the sock) at FiberCamp<\/a> in less than 2 weeks!<\/a>
\nThis month’s and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

Here’s the rest of the batt – I get it with super duper extra sparkles:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here’s what I’ve spun up so far:
\n\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This month’s but Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. I spun some last year that was 100% Shetland, and the sparkly batt using a base of Shetland and silk is just as dreamy as I’d thought it would be.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I’ve spun up about half of it. The colors are very bold, and I think this is destined to become a Citron<\/a>…what do you think?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make
\nI am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I am on a work trip to California this week, so yesterday I had some nice long stretches of time in which to knit.<\/p>\n

I FINALLY finished the Sagrantino Shawl<\/a>, I finished it before I went on any flights and weaved in all the ends from my Boston->New York City flight (45 minutes). It is currently being blocked in my hotel room – I had to jury rig a setup, because at home I just use regular straight pins on a foam blocking board. The setup is blocking the top half now, I’ll have to block the bottom half separately after this is dry:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

I also finished the Monkey sock<\/a>, with a Sweet Tomato Heel<\/a>. This was also finished before my flights.<\/p>\n

I managed to write and print up my instructions for the Sweet Tomato Heel sock that I’m going to teach at FiberCamp<\/A> this weekend, so I am all ready, and I’ll post those instructions here later in the week, as a blog post and an accompanying PDF.<\/p>\n

In my first checkin<\/A> post I neglected to mention a scarf I’m making for my husband, Tony. It is being made from a handspun I made, a 2-ply of Louet Black Diamond<\/A> (carbonized bamboo) and what was labeled 100% wool (seems like merino) from the Lancaster Yarn Shop<\/A>. Tony went on a trip and brought me back 3 bumps of 1.2 oz each – 2 bumps were blue and one was purple, and it combined really well with the Black Diamond:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Tony asked me to make him a scarf, and I thought the black\/purple combination would work well, so given the yarn stats I looked for a pattern on Ravelry<\/A>, and told Tony to choose a pattern. Well, he chose Crooked Little Scarf<\/A>, and lately he’s been asking me when it’s going to be finished. Before yesterday’s flight it had only a few inches. I am happy to say it is over 12 inches long now, after a good 6-hour flight yesterday:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Last week I did do some spinning, because I knew I wasn’t going to be doing much spinning this week while I’m away – I have brought my spindles and my wheel in the past, but there are evening fun activities for the team so I decided I wasn’t going to bring all that stuff, I could just bring my knitting so I’d always have something to do. That being said, I put up 2 new skeins.<\/p>\n

The first skein is the Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt for February 2012, the colorway is called “Conversation Hearts”. It’s a Shetland\/silk blend, and Shetland is one of my favorite fibers to spin. This spin did not disappoint me:<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

The second skein is also an Enchanted Knoll Farm<\/A> Happy Hooves Batt, from November 2011, called “Crunchy Leaves”. It was sent as a boucle kit, and I put it aside for when I was ready to actually spin a boucle yarn. Well, a different rav group put out a boucle challenge, so I decided to give it a go. I’m not a fan of boucle yarns, and I also am very methodical and don’t generally like chaotic yarns, so I made a somewhat tame boucle – I think I did a good job for my first time out, but I know how I would spin things differently now to make it more boucle-y.<\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

<\/A><\/p>\n

Edited October 29, 2012 – Unfortunately, Cat Bordhi has asked me to take the PDF instructions down. However, the same exact information is at the video I link to below, so you can still find the information you need.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I taught this at FiberCamp<\/A> this past weekend, and since I made a handout I figured why not share it with you?<\/p>\n

I made the handout based on what I learned from Cat Bordhi’s own video at http:\/\/bit.ly\/sweettomheel<\/A>. I bought Cat Bordhi’s Sweet Tomato Heel Socks: an ebook<\/A> after making the instructions – I bought the book because I love the Sweet Tomato Heel and even though I already know how to do it, the book currently has 63 pages (62 plus a title page) and right now has 9 patterns – there will be 11 total, and folks who purchase the book get the updates, so whenever those last 2 patterns come out you will get them. The book also has great troubleshooting information and a few versions of the Sweet Tomato Heel, like the padded sweet tomato heel.<\/p>\n

Buying the book was my way of saying “Thanks, Cat!” I understand that not everyone can do this, and that’s OK. I feel it’s OK to share this information because Cat herself shares it in a free YouTube video<\/a>. I waited until after I wrote up the instructions so I wasn’t tempted to use the same language Cat did in the book, and thus plagiarize. If there is a problem, please definitely contact me, and I will change or take down whatever material is objectionable. [Sadly, I have now had to take this information down]<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In hindsight, and the world is a very big place. Gary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058 In hindsight, and the world is a very big place. Gary Whizin, as interviewed by Matt Asay, http:\/\/planetmysql.org\/entry.php?id=8058 As a first post, if you’d like to see things on a larger scale. I will start with completed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-how-to","category-knit"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":100,"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions\/100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sheeri.com\/crafty\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}