Post-Easter Post

The sun was warm but the wind was chill.
You know how it is with an April day.

--Robert Frost

Welcome Spring! So good to see you, and so nice of you to finally settle in and stay for a while. I know you have been a little shy, what with Winter's rather agressive behavior this year, but I do appreciate seeing all the buds and blossoms you have been working so hard to make!

Here are some pics of my yard last week:

The Muscari, pushing their way through the cold soil



A Magnolia bud, trying so hard to be gorgeous



And this lovely blossom (from a Japanese Maple) is from my parents' yard, a few days later. Yes, it is a bit warmer there. The daffs, tulips, and hyacinths are in full bloom!



Enough of nature, lets talk yarn:

In Knitting News

My big plans for Easter knitting included an adorable bolero to go over The Girl's adorable purple Easter dress, which--like all little girls' Easter dresses--is oddly sleeveless. This is a fact that has always really bugged me--I don't live in California for crying out loud, and even if I did I would still probably want sleeves for church. But I digress...

Having a handknit sweater for Easter was my Mom's idea, who actually bought The Girl's dress. I thought it was so nice of her to buy the dress that the least I could do was try to crank out a kid's sized sweater in just over a week. So I immediately ran off to the yarn store for suggestions. I found a very cute little bolero pattern by Sirdar, which required 3 balls of yarn for her size.

Now, I happened to notice that the three balls of yarn was for a solid colored bolero, the short sleeved version. There wasn't a suggestion for yarn amounts for a solid colored long-sleeved version. I pointed this out to the sales lady, who was very sure that 3 balls would definitely do it. I asked her if I should maybe buy 4 balls just for yarn insurance and she said I would never need it, that 3 would definitely be enough. I think you probably know where this is going.

So off I go, yarn in hand. I get the back and the front side done, then had to stop to pack up for our trip to my parents' house, about 7 hours away. Once we get there I furiously knit the rest of the sweater and on Saturday realized I didn't have enough yarn. I had just enough to finish the right ruffle and thats it. There is no way that 3 balls ever would have been enough for the size I was knitting. Now normally I would chalk this type of thing up to poor knitting, but for once I actually got gauge right on the dot, and the pieces measured exactly what they should have measured, down to the millimeter.

Needless to say, I'm pretty bitter about the whole thing. My daughter didn't have a sweater for Sunday's service. Luckily it was unusually warm in the church, and she could wear her jacket while outside, but I'm so irritated that it wasn't finished and could have been. Why didn't I listen to my instincts?

I will be going this week to the yarn store for that last ball, and hope that they have it in the same dyelot. I will learn from this mistake and from now on learn a)to trust my instincts and b) to always take out yarn insurance!

So what else is going on in Knitting News? Well, I'm still on the yoke of the february lady sweater. I'm know I'm taking my time with it, but I won't have much of a chance to wear it until fall anyway. I consider it my mindless tv knitting. I'm gearing up to knit another shawl, but I'm still trying to decide which one. I certainly have the yarn for it, I just have to do some narrowing down. The forerunners: Honeybee stole, Lacewing, and South Sea Stole. I lean towards doing a stole this time around, and one that changes frequently. I am so over repetative patterns!

I wanted to talk a little bit about the DIY club-of-the-month project, but I'll save that for another day when i don't have knitting disasters to vent about.


In Spinning News

I will soon be getting a Butterfly Girl Designs spindle! I hate it when I travel and can't spin, and the spindle that I bought ages ago to replace my broken beginner's spindle pretty much just sucks. It is very pretty, but it spins for a whopping 5 seconds before stopping. And its not my crappy spindle skills, either. At one point I was a pretty darn good spindle spinner. I just couldn't really get it to work, despite fiddling with the whorls and adjusting the hook.

I do want to be able to spin when I travel. Unfortunately, as much as I adore my Schacht, it is not a small, light wheel. I do miss my Lendrum for travelling, but of course wouldn't swap it back for the world. A spindle is a great, affordable solution to portable spinning. Sure, I'd love a travel wheel but until I win the lottery, its just not going to happen.

I also took a spinning class! It was a very free-form class, and very interesting. I took it at Mad About Ewes in Lewisburg PA. My instructor (and shop owner) was so sweet and interesting! I learned tons for the couple hours that I was there. I learned how to thread my flyer so that it will be easier to spin cobweb weight yarn. I know you are curious, so here is a pic of her wheel threaded that way:



You go over the right side of the flyer witout using the hook. Bring it under the bobbin to the left site of the flyer and hook it, then thread it through the orifice. If you have a flyer with the hooks on one side (like my Schact) you bring it to the right like in the above photo, loop it around a hook, the bring it around and loop it across the bobbin on the same side and use the left hook. I will do this with my wheel at some point and edit in the pic. It is so amazing how well it works! If you are interesting in spinning very thin singles, go try this out.

Libby also helped me better use my combs, improve my plying techniques, and so much more. She even gave me advice on washing fleece. Yeah, I want one now. At least a half fleece to start. In particular fleece from this sheep, named Karma. Lovely! The method she described was so simple even I could do it: you wash it in your washing machine! You pick it basically clean, put it in batches in a mesh laundry bag, add some Dawn, and wash it without putting the lid down (so it doesn't agitate the fleece and felt it). You do this 2 or 3 times. Each time you spin out the excess water before beginning again.

Easy right? And I could potentially process it on my combs, tho it would take a very long time. I'd have to track down someone with a drum carder to really make it worth it. Libby did tell me she knows a place semi-nearby that has a wool mill, so that could be an option if I get in over my head. The combs are awesome, but I'm not sure I'm prepared to process a whole (or even half) fleece on them!


In Other News

Of course the kids are loving it now that they can go outside and not worry about the arctic temperatures. They spend a lot of time trying to hunt down flowers. Since it is still pretty cold here, the most they are finding are itty bitty, somewhat pathetic-looking dandelions. Of course they pluck em all and I feel obligated to put them in a shot-glass "vase".

It was warm enough a week ago to go out and splash around in the puddles. Here are some shots for ya:





And of course Obligatory Egg Hunt Pics:




(yes my son dressed himself in the above pic!)

The kids were running around so much that I could barely get a decent pic of them egg hunting. Honestly, those were the best 2!

Unrelated, but I do love the colors in this rustbucket. I'm hoping to develop a colorway around it:



Personally I am not at all looking forward to the move, which will be at the end of May. I haven't yet begun to freak out, but its getting close. I only have one box packed, and even doing that felt tantamount to parting the sea. Its a little tougher getting myself motivated to do it this time around, since we will likely end up in a smaller space and many things will not make the cut. The only good thing about packing this time around is that we now have plenty of space to put the boxes that are finished: the screened in porch. It will be perfect for the job. Oh, and this time around we should have 90% of the boxes already on hand, most of which are from U-Haul and very durable.

Well thats about me in a nutshell. There is always so much to tell, I know I should blog more often. I try, I try.

With that, I leave you the....

Video of the Week!

This on is a link because its not on youtube. Its from the wonderful spinning store that I took lessons at. Their commercial was locally produced and is just hilarious. According to the shop owner, their son did the sound, the daughter wrote the song, and they all sang it. The sheep are from their own farm. When you click the link you'll hear it almost immediately, but to see it you have to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page:

Happy Sheep! You'll love it, I promise!

Happy Knitting, Happy Spinning! See ya next time!