Stacie's Loopholes

It sure is hard to post when you're knitting all the time

2011-11-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

I have several updates in the works, mostly on stuff that happened quite a while ago. The main reason for that is simply that I've been doing a lot of gift-related knitting lately, and the people who are most likely to have items knit for them are also the most likely to visit my blog (I call this the Obligation Principle).

One thing I'm working on is my very first ever knitted item for my husband, Joe. This is weird because I've been knitting for about 5 years, and I've known him for about 7 years. I think I probably should have made something for him by now, but I have a crazy aversion to knitting things for people who do not want knitted stuff, which is the kind of person Joe used to be.

USED TO BE. Now, all of the sudden, he wants a knitted scarf and a sweater. Both the most boring patterns ever. But he wants them. It's hard to fathom, but there it is. If I don't die of boredom (and think YOU, dear reader(s), won't die of boredom by seeing them), I'll post them when they're finished.

This knitting graffiti makes me feel happy.

2011-11-01T06:44:00.000-07:00

Also, happy November!

The woolly-walk-along from Michael Cannon Miller on Vimeo.

It's the thought that counts (or: Unintentional Book Review)

2011-10-30T18:50:00.000-07:00

A couple days ago, I went to Seattle. On a spontaneous Yarn Excursion Extravaganza with my mom. It was just one day, and it was more excitement than this stay-at-home-to-knit-and-watch-Twilight-Zone person should have been able to handle, but I did.

We went to six different yarn shops (yes, I bought something at Every. Single. One. Did you really have to ask?).

We went to the Seattle Weavers' Guild's Annual Show and Sale.

We went to see The Yarn Harlot Herself.

I had intended on blogging about it pretty much immediately while it was still all in my head (I'm sure there's some sort of half-life theory about how much I remember things in relation to how long it's been since that thing). I had intended on telling you about the different personalities of the yarn shops, and about the local products I was able to find. I had intended on gushing about the Seattle Weavers' Guild and The Yarn Harlot's book reading/signing. I didn't.

Instead, I accidentally read Stephanie Pearl-McPhee's new book in two days.

It's called All Wound Up, and it's hilarious. If you like essays related to knitting humor, anyways, which I do.
I'm the kind of person who usually savors a book. I read pretty quickly, but I don't want to get to the end of a book too fast, so I generally take a week or two to finish a book.
Not this one.
There are 29 essays, which usually would be great, because it gives me lots and lots of natural stopping places. Instead, even the titles were intriguing enough for me to say, "Just one more chapter!" until Joe made me turn off the light. Both nights. Luckily, it's over, or we might have had some marital discord to resolve. I won't go too much into the actual content of the essays, since you should read them for yourself, but they range from washing machines to things non-knitters ask you about knitting, to single-skein impulse purchases. It's great, and you should probably read it.

Now that that's finished, maybe I can move on to the actual trip. Either that, or I'll start one of the fifty-six project ideas that came out of the trip.... You can probably guess which will happen first.

Cultural Fiber Arts

2011-10-06T06:45:00.000-07:00

Earlier this summer, I had the chance to visit the Yakama Nation's Cultural Center. As I was looking around, I had this niggling feeling that I was thinking about knitting projects more than usual (which is already probably more than I should). It took me a while, but I finally figured it out:

There was a ready-made never-ending supply of fiber arts patterns at the Center! Knitting, weaving, felting, and some sort of fiber basket weaving (I wasn't allowed to take pictures of those-- get yourself to the Cultural Center yourself to see what I'm talking about!) were all represented, with all kinds of colorwork and motifs.

Some were simple, some were incredibly intricate. Some were mass-produced, and some were handmade. It was like I had accidentally walked into a cultural fiber arts museum. I ended up with lots of surprising, un-Stacie-like ideas about color combinations, shapes, and textures. Although most of them I probably can't pull off.

For you, what unusual places or spaces cause inspiration to strike?

Not A Drop

2011-10-03T12:28:00.000-07:00

Okay, you've already seen my Not A Drop, but I decided the pattern deserves a more thorough review.

The pattern was from Arlene's World of Lace. That's important, because you'll probably want to go buy all her other patterns, too.

I used my own handspun yarn. As you can tell, my yarn wasn't exactly balanced. That's okay, though, because the pattern overshadows the deficits in my yarn.

This pattern is called Not A Drop because it has an interesting construction. It looks like it has a series of drop stitches, but it doesn't. Even though the rows of the pattern only took me a couple repeats to memorize, it's fascinating and held my interest the entire time. I still don't fully comprehend the mechanics of it, but the pattern is reversible. It looks the same front and back. That's accomplished through a series of knitting acrobatics I've never before come across. The pattern includes very clear tutorials with pictures and clear explanations of the trickiest steps. Once you've done each part a couple times, it's pretty easy, and you can spend the rest of your knitting time trying to figure out how on earth someone would understand knitting well enough to come up with such an ingenious pattern.

It kept me on my toes, and the end result is as surprising as it is fun. I had originally intended for this to be a table runner for my tea table (yes. I have a tea table.), but I'm thinking I might have to wear this one, to make sure the maximum number of people see it.

Berry Dyeing

2011-10-01T08:57:00.000-07:00

I have this terrible berry tree in my yard. It's horrible to prune, grows straight down, and stains everything the berries land on.

Stains everything the berries land on.

SCORE. I figured I should first figure out if the berries were going to kill me. I actually never achieved this figuring, but I think it might be an elderberry plant having gone crazy. If not, I'm glad I didn't die. I might owe that not-dying thing to Joe, as he made me spit out the berry I ate. I do not owe the dyeing to Joe, though, because he was against it from the start. But that's okay, because at least he kept me alive long enough to experiment with my yarn.

From what I read online (and you know how accurate everything is there), the purple ones are good, and the red ones are bad. Both in terms of dyeing AND dying.

But man, those red ones are pretty!

I picked a couple quarts of berries, and had about a weight ratio of 2:1, of berries to yarn.

I simmered (not boiled-- about 160F) the berries for several hours, in a sieve in a pot (so I could strain them out more easily). I added about 1 tsp cream of tartar and 1 tbsp alum as a mordant (dissolved in a cup of warm water, and added to the strained liquid). I probably could have leeched more color from the berries, but the color of the water was already a very deep purple.

I put in some 100% wool singles

And left it in the dyepot overnight.

The color was very purple, but as it dried, it turned a deep gray with purple afterthoughts.

It's hard to even see the purple in the gray from my pictures, but it's definitely there. From looking around online, it looks like elderberries (if that's even what these guys are) give anything from a light pink to a deep gray. These dyeing experiments always lead to new experiment ideas, like how it would change if I heated to a lower temperature or picked berries later in the season. But for now, I'm good with a gray with a hint of purple.

Although I DID end up with a far more purple dye elsewhere.

Fresh mint tea may be the choice beverage of royalty.

2011-09-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

Or maybe just aristocrats.
I never liked the movie (I'm not sure I've ever even seen it all the way through), but I never knew what "aristocrat" meant until after the movie "Aristocats" came out. So now, every time I see or hear or even think the work aristocrat, I have to remind myself about that second "r." It's a terrible affliction.

This year, in addition to a vegetable garden which has had some minor success, I've also tried out herb container gardening. One thing I'm very good at is putting off things that, if they fail, will make it difficult for me to feel awesome. So I've been cultivating a chocolate mint plant since the beginning of June, but I've been refusing to harvest any of it, in case it's terrible and I can no longer pat myself on the back for growing a totally sweet chocolate mint plant that, in addition to looking and smelling awesome, also tastes awesome. Because when I don't actually taste it, I can still imagine it tastes awesome.

Plus I'd have to admit that I don't know how to make tea with actual mint LEAVES. So there's that.

Well, I finally decided to try this thing out. I clipped about 15 leaves (apparently, those toward the base-- the larger leaves-- are more flavorful), and removed any little stems that remained.

Then I smushed them.

Smushing is a very technical word. It means doing something like this:

Which, in case you can't tell, involves kind of tearing and mushing and rolling around the leaves. Generally, you're bruising them and ripping them up to get the flavor out. Once you've done that, you just treat it like normal loose-leaf tea, and stick it in an infuser and let it sit there until it tastes about right.

And boy, does it taste right. I added a little sugar, because there's something about mint that just needs a little sugar. But it was this perfect mix of actual mint (not peppermint, not spearmint, just.... mint) with a little bonus chocolate along for the ride.

Good thing, because I have no idea what you do with a chocolate mint plant except turn it into tea. So I would have had to have the shame of growing a plant I'm not using for anything at all. People don't do that, right?

You gotta get 'em while they're young

2011-09-25T10:03:00.000-07:00

This summer has been pretty busy with fiber-related stuff. Now that things are starting to get cooler, I'm finally finding the time to wind down and actually think about it all, and to actually, you know, wear the stuff that I knit. Because it would be silly to knit summer things in the summer. Right?

One thing I did this year was to teach a bunch of kids to knit. It's my second year volunteering to show kids at a local YMCA summer camp how to knit, and I was a little uncertain. Last year, there were about 20 kids. And I had no idea how it should go. But I'll tell you how it should go: not with 20 kids! So this year, we split up the groups, and did it over two days instead of one. On the second day, several kids had gotten their parents to buy them their own yarn and needles, and had worked on their own projects.

This year, the YMCA got the groups each got different supplies for their kids. One group brought the pull-apart chopsticks you get with Chinese takeout. The other group brought smooth, round wooden skewers. The chopsticks were a definite fail; the roughness where they are separated was simply not up to the task of easy knitting! The skewers worked pretty well, but were super pointy.

Speaking of pointy, one thing I made sure to do beforehand was to come up with a knitting rhyme to help the kids figure out the motions of knitting. The one I ended up using was:
Under the fence,
Catch the sheep
Back we come,
Off we leap.

The rhyme seemed to work pretty well, but I was sad I couldn't use the one that I find much more clear. But I figured, without some sort of parental "ok," I'd need to steer clear of homicidal rhymes:
Stab it,
Choke it,
Drag it,
Throw it out.

Much more effective, don't you think?

Today I like

2011-09-22T08:43:00.000-07:00

Corn!

And don't tell me it builds character

2011-09-19T09:08:00.000-07:00

I hate blocking. I hate it passionately. For the first couple years of my knitting career, I wouldn't do it. As you can probably guess, that means that I also wouldn't do real lace projects, since they kind of require blocking.

When I finish a project, I'm generally pretty prompt about weaving in the ends and seaming. They're not my favorite, but they really make a thing look done, and the results are immediate. When I have to approach blocking, all I see in my future is a sore back and a lot of pins and wires and wet knees. Since I have to wait for a thing to dry before it's actually blocked, the end result doesn't register in my brain as part of what all the pins and wires and soreness are about.

I had to do some blocking last night, of my Not A Drop. Above is how it looked before I blocked it. I went through the same thought ritual stages I go through every time I know I need to block something:
1. Okay, it's time to block this.
2. Heck no! This is not worth the pain and suffering and boredom and irritation. Not worth it.
3. Wait a minute, you just spent how many hours, nay, how many DAYS, working on this, and now you want to give up at the most crucial point?! This will be a masterpiece! Consider the generations to come who will see your work and praise your excellence!
4. Hey, I've got it! It already IS a masterpiece! Look at how pretty it is. You can see each of the drops, and it's not that messy.... There aren't too many spots where the yarn's going the wrong way. The edges aren't that warbly. It lays pretty flat already. What's the point--
(4.5) Okay, okay, okay. If I have to rationalize this much, I guess I better just do it.

Apparently, my ambitious self has a much better vocabulary than my lazy self.

Here's the end result of my blocking last night. It's so much more amazing now-- defined, crisp edges, yarn going the way it's supposed to go. And this is the last stage of every blocking struggle I go through-- I wonder what all the fuss is about. I see the end result and wonder how I could ever have doubted its way of taking a lump of noodles and turning it into something glorious.

Grellow Gloves

2011-09-17T21:14:00.000-07:00

I got two braids of Falkland roving recently, hand-dyed gray and yellow by the folks at Pico Accuardi. It seemed pretty soft, so I thought I might make some fingerless gloves out of them. If you know anything about me, you probably know that I generally don't go into things like this with much of a plan, so I really set myself up for failure. Good thing the fiber was too forgiving.

The fiber, to the left, was spun into singles. I tried to keep the long colorways in the singles, and to make sure the colors stayed together, I Navajo plied the yarn.

And look, I even ended up with what I intended! They still feel super soft, and the colors somehow matched up almost identically. I still don't know how that happened. For more information about the pattern and the process, check out my pattern page on Ravelry.

Today I like

2011-08-20T17:43:00.000-07:00

Grellow!

Some stuff I finished

2011-08-02T09:54:00.000-07:00

I've been doing quite a bit of fiber-related stuff lately. As you may have seen in my last post, I recently "released" my first pattern. I've finished a couple other things lately, and have lots more in the works. I'm also working on doing some dyeing with berries from a mysterious (and somewhat evil) tree in my front yarn, and my Japanese Indigo are getting huge, although I'm still in a Battle To The Bitter End with a huge number of slugs.

One of the things I've finished recently is my Rock Island shawl. You might recall that I had some trouble getting started with this one, but once I finished the edging, the rest flew by. Although the edging pattern caused me some problems, the Rock Island chart was easy enough to not have to restart, but difficult enough to keep my attention. Having used some 100% cashmere I frogged recently, I was somewhat at the mercy of the yarn. I've had good and bad experiences with reused yarn, but this was definitely on the "good" side of the continuum.

I also finished the cowl whose yarn I recently impulse-bought. It turned out as amazingly as I'd hoped, and is so soft and warm that I (almost) can't wait for winter to wear it! Plus I love red, so there's that. The pattern was really easy to follow once I was out of my drug-induced stupor, and it took a weekend to complete.

I'm kind of out of projects right now, though. I only have about three things cast on right now, and that's probably an all-time low since I hit my first JoAnn yarn sale. Any brilliant new patterns out there? Let me know, because it probably isn't safe for me to be so free...

Obtuse

2011-07-31T21:19:00.000-07:00

Whenever I'm doing anything fiber-related, I tend to not entirely think things through. From buying yarn whose fiber does not match the needs of the end product, to choosing a "destashing" pattern that doesn't match any of my yarn, I tend to just go with whatever strikes my fancy. One consequence of this lack of foresight is a huge stack of variegated yarn. It always looks so pretty in a skein, but once I try to do anything with it, it pools and looks generally terrible.

Enter my brand-new, never-before-seen pattern! I call it Obtuse. It's a shawl done in linen stitch, to reduce pooling and to create a smooth fabric. It's really simple, and is very easy to modify. In fact, you'll have to use some of your judgment no matter what, as it's more of a recipe than a strict pattern. You'll want to knit it with larger needles than you normally would for whatever yarn you choose, unless you want a very stiff fabric. The bind-off row is not normal, because I fiddled with it to make it mimic the other two sides of the triangle you're creating.

CO 3

Row 1: sl1, yo, k1, yo, k1

Row 2: sl1, yo, p1, sl 1 st yib, p1, yo, p1

Row 3: sl1, yo, *k1, sl 1 st yif, repeat from *. End k1, yo, k1

Row 4: sl1, yo, *p1, sl 1 st yib, repeat from *. End p1, yo, p1

Repeat rows 3 and 4 until you've reached your desired width. End with Row 4.

Bind off row: k2tog wrapping yarn twice around the needle; once you've dropped the k2tog from your LH needle, remove one of the two new loops, creating a double-sized loop, making sure to keep the yarn slack; *k2tog wrapping yarn twice around the needle, pass the first loop on the RH needle over the two loops you just created to bind off 1 st; remove one of the two existing loops on your RH needle, creating one double-sized loop, keeping the yarn slack. Repeat from *. End k2tog, bind off one st, k1, bind off last st.

Sometimes it's just meant to be

2011-07-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

So I had surgery about a week and a half ago. The day after, while still on a reasonably hefty dose of pain pills, I impulse-bought some yarn that I decided was my reward for surviving said surgery. About two days later, when I was no longer on the pain pills, I was afraid that the yarn I had gotten was not going to be as awesome as I had decided. Well, I was not disappointed. It's brilliant. It feels like a cloud. It's Decadence in the Shark Week colorway from Little Red Bicycle. Also while under the pain pills' devious influence, I had decided on the pattern I would use for this yarn. The Good Luck Cowl. Somehow, in my addled state, I picked a great pattern-- since I only have one skein of the yarn, I need something small. I need something that will work with a yarn that's drapey, lustrous, and that has a bit of a halo. It's perfect.

I also have the exactly right needles for this project. They're circular, and they're just the right length to not have to scrunch or pull. The needles have an unnoticeable join, so between the yarn, the pattern, and the needles, I feel like I'm knitting a cloud with cotton candy needles. It's amazing.

Just to showcase the incredibility of all of this coming together, I have had one messup-- I wrote out the pattern by hand while still "under the influence." I managed to mess up the pattern on two of the rows, and in such a way that I had to be literally making stuff up. So the fact that everything else came together so beautifully is a testament to how kind Fate occasionally can be.

If you're not a knitter, this probably won't interest you

2011-07-08T21:12:00.000-07:00

A while back, I somehow ran across a blog of a fellow knitter. This happens quite a bit-- there are lots of us out there, a good portion of us are internet-savvy, and we're by and large all linked to the wonderful world of Ravelry.

But, with this particular blog, something was different.

Most of the recent posts are stories about Agent K, a top-secret agent thwarting an alien plot to steal sheep, among other things. The stories are full of knitting silliness, and they're great fun. You can read the stories in pretty much any order, but here's the first one, in case you'd like to start there.

If you don't knit and you're following me for some other reason (like you're my mom), just carry on. Nothing of interest to see here.

Ingenuity

2011-07-07T07:05:00.000-07:00

Because sometimes you just want to watch some Netflix while you're making balls of yarn

PSA

2011-07-05T18:22:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I'm having surgery. On my face. It's nothing life-threatening, it just something I need to take care of to help some long-term issues. But that's not the important part. The important part is this: If I blog in the next 48 hours, you probably don't want to actually listen to me.

This PSA is sponsored by All Major Prescription Drug Companies.

Today I like

2011-07-05T10:26:00.000-07:00

Stubbornness. I had sown a bunch of these guys way back when it was still freezing out. The ground is full of roots from my maple tree, and rocks and moss make up more of the dirt than any other compound. I had come to terms with the fact that none of them would sprout, so I haven't even been watering them. And then I found this little guy today!

Then a speckled bird, humbly inspired, ran across the road when it could have flown, and it made me smile

It's not really lost if I forgot about it

2011-07-04T08:52:00.000-07:00

Whenever I bring my dogs over to my parents' house, Charlie has to be grounded from my parents' bedroom. It's not because he does anything terrible, gross, or destructive; it's actually because he leaves them "presents."

Somehow, even though he's a bumbling bear of a dog, he always manages to sneak something in there-- a slimy rawhide, a giant stick, or even one of my niece's toys--and he always puts it in, around, or under their bed. Often, they won't even find the item again until several times later, when we're over again, and Charlie rediscovers the long lost item. He'll bring it out, prancing and showing you the bone he had forgotten, that he now remembers is exactly what he wants. It's amazing what he has stashed in there.

I feel kind of the same way about my yarn. I buy yarn, put it somewhere, and promptly forget about it. Even the stuff that is for a specific project. Even the yarn I spin myself can end up getting forgotten, and I can go months (okay, whatever, years) not remembering that I spun up some fancy oatmeal Finnish wool. Eventually, I run into it again, whether it's in my "chest of doom" in the living room, the "bins of futility" in my craft room, or some random other spot I've stashed it. When I run across it, I feel just like Charlie looks when he discovers his hidden prize-- proud, and as if it's exactly what will fill the hole in my knitting.

Do you do this? Or are you one of those folks that only keeps yarn on-hand for the next project? If you're that kind, maybe you should give my method a try once in a while. The worst that can happen is that you'll be presently surprised when you run into your long-lost skein!

I want to be a farmer

2011-07-01T17:35:00.000-07:00

I do a lot of reading, dreaming, and cajoling (of my husband) about being an "urban homesteader." I don't necessarily want to move right now, but I'd really love to have some (FIBER) animals, in addition to our three pets. One person that I've greatly admired in this process is Jenna Woginrich. She's the one who wrote the book I reviewed here, and I follow her blog, and you probably should, too. I read a blog post from a couple weeks ago, and even if you're not into the idea of owning your own flock of chickens or fixing up a barn, it's pretty fantastic.

Check it out, and let me know what you think!

Try, try, again

2011-06-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

I tend to be that kind of person who is either reasonably good at something very quickly after trying it, or will never ever get whatever it is I'm trying to understand. I'm good at reading books, but terrible at riding a bike. I'm good at ping pong, but I can't for the life of me manage a first-person video game.

This means that, occasionally, I give up on things prematurely, assuming that it'll just fall into the "Stacie's Incapable" junk pile (which is a little more of a mountain than I care to admit), when it's really just something that'll take a bit of practice or a little stubbornness (which is a trait that is definitely not in the "Stacie's Incapable" pile).

Enter Rock Island.

(Ravelry link) This is a beautiful shawl. It's amazing. It will be fantastic when I finish it. Er, IF I finish it. I don't know what the deal is with this thing, but it's been plagued since the beginning, and I'm still AT the beginning! Needles, yarn, and printer have all failed at some point. I've had to undo 20 rows for one error, even though I'd painstakingly been ensuring that the pattern was going correctly. Just about everything that could go wrong IS going wrong. Even down to the actual pattern of the edging (which is the beginning): it is SO BORING. It's been such an annoying process that I've definitely thought about quitting. So far, though, I haven't, and I keep re-committing to finishing "just one more row." And it's working. I'm actually making progress. I'm on my 43rd repeat of 71, and then I can begin the actual shawl.

But I know it's worth it, because of those things that probably should have gone in the junk pile that I cared enough to keep up on (relationship-building, gardening, and a million other things), the rewards have always been worth the angst, effort, and tears. It's always a rough journey, but I won't get there until I start moving forward.

It's Finally.... Spring?.....

2011-06-28T08:04:00.000-07:00

I love it when I go to blog and I realize my hands (and probably the rest of me) smells like dirt and grass and outside. My garden has been growing, and my plants have been blooming, after a very long, wintery "spring." Now that it's officially summer, it's finally acting like spring; something about waiting so long makes everything seem more magical, I think.

At the same time, my vegetable garden is starting to grow, and I'm already getting impatient for all the fruits of my labor (haha, fruits).

Radishes, corn, potatoes, oh my! I might even end up with some broccoli, carrots, and some late lettuce, if I'm lucky. Ahh the hope of spring. Er, summer.

Produce Bag

2011-06-26T17:03:00.000-07:00

Remember the flax I spun a month or so ago? I've turned it into something both useful and appropriate for such fantastic wetspun flax. I have 4 large potatoes and 4 smallish onions in the bag, and it's probably at about half capacity. Which is great, since laying flat, it's only about 10"x6" or so. I'll leave you fine folks with the evidence.

Uniqueness

2011-06-22T20:07:00.000-07:00

I think one of the main reasons I started knitting was to show that I am unique. Not in the "everyone's their own person" sort of unique, but in the hipster "I will do things you haven't even thought of" sort of unique. I didn't really know many people who knit, and then I could make all sorts of things that no one else has made before.

Photo of my sister, by my sister-in-law, knitting by me. Look at us all being useful!

Once I realized that most of the items I knit were not, in fact, unique (even if I had come up with the idea on my own), I started making my own yarn. Once THAT did not seem unique enough, everything else started to spin (pun intended) out of control. I started using things like plastic bags, fishing line, and t-shirts for yarn. I started unraveling sweaters from the thrift store for yarn.

Now, I wish I had a brilliant moral to this story. Something about how everyone is a special snowflake and that is unique enough just as they are. Unfortunately, all I can say is: I'm running out of ideas to be as Different as possible, and I don't anticipate my ego wanting to let go of that goal for a while. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Today I like

2011-06-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

Ladybugs. There are huge amounts of them in our yard, and little yellow ladybug eggs EVERYWHERE. I've never even noticed ladybug eggs ever. In my entire life. There are millions.

Unraveling

2011-06-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

I've been doing quite a bit of unraveling lately. And by unraveling, I mean taking apart previously knitted items. It's fun when it's not my own knitting. I end up frequenting (more than I care to admit at this point) the thrift store fairly often, and one of my new Things To Look For when I go is ugly sweaters in pretty yarn. Sometimes the drape is just off, or the pattern doesn't suit the yarn, or maybe it's just an outdated look. Whatever it is, if it's made of nice yarn and it's cheap (all the ugly sweaters are cheap, you know), I have to take a look at it.

When I'm deciding on whether or not to get a sweater, there are several things I keep in mind. First, fiber content. If it's angora and in brilliant condition, it's probably a little closer to being worth the money and time compared to a sweater made up of strands of threadbare acrylic. I tend to give weight to natural fibers, and those that are more bulky, but you may decide that you can make your millions unraveling laceweight acrylic. Who knows.

Next, and probably most importantly, I look at the construction. The main issue here is how the pieces were put together. Were the pieces cut out of a big swatch of knitting, or were they knit to shape? The easiest way to tell is by the seams.

This is an example of a bad seam! If you see this, go away! This means major danger. Chances are very good that this means every row has been cut, so each yarn strand is only one length of the item. Here's another version of this same bad idea:

You can see that, in both of these, the distinguishing factor is that there are threads going very much vertically, with horizontal lines of thread at the top and bottom. Also, if you look very closely, you'll see little threads sticking out.

The good kind of seam looks more like this:

So it's a little hard to see, but there are two lines of Vs going up either side of the middle line. This is actually where a decrease is happening, so you can see the Vs merging into each other in several spots. If you see this, you'll probably also see a smaller row of Vs going up one of the sides, and that's the actual seam. If you see this, you can be reasonably certain that you will, in fact, be getting a usable chunk of yarn with not too much exertion, which is generally the idea.

Once you've purchased your potential yarn, you just have to do some detective work. You'll have to find the ends of the seams, and figure out what direction everything's going. You'll eventually get the hang of it. Don't worry-- the first two or three will be extremely slow compared to numbers twenty-four or sixty-seven. One clue that took me embarrassingly long to figure out is that, on the side seams, if you can see which way the V is going, and you start at the top of the V, the seams will magically fall apart in your hands, like Sam's elven rope in Lord of the Rings. Once you get the seams apart, it's just a matter of pulling. And pulling. And pulling.

As you go about ruining other people's hard work, you'll become more discriminating. I once got a sweater that was 100% shetland wool from Scotland, but in my joy of the yarn and the deal, I neglected to notice that it was ever-so-slightly felted, which often happens with that kind of wool, just by virtue of wearing it. After my 82nd break of the yarn, I realized that it probably wasn't worth the couple bucks and all the anguish to get a mangled ball of yarn. Other times, though, you'll end up with a real gem, like my 1500 yards of pure laceweight cashmere, in a fantastic green, for $3.50 and about 3 hours' work.

Too many plants

2011-06-16T21:44:00.000-07:00

In the last couple weeks, I've been busy. Very busy. This is partially due to procrastination, but is also largely because we here in Spokane have had about two cubic feet of sunshine so far this "summer." People have been planting stuff in their gardens and having it rot instead of grow because of the massive amounts of water and massive lack of sun. So I created my vegetable garden very late.

But after much work, much hoarding of travel reimbursement cash, and much [insert random stuff here--sweating, dog-shooing, injury, whatever], I have a little vegetable garden. It's been a week or two, but I actually have lots of little sprouts-- potatoes, corn, radishes, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, celery. I am going to eat better than I have in my entire life if it actually continues, but just the fact that it happened and things grew means one thing to me: SUCCESS.

Also, my Japanese indigo is putting up a real fight against the resident slugs. I did not know how many slugs we have around here; if I had, I may not have walked barefoot in the evening/morning as often as I have. None have died, and several are getting fairly bushy, and once we get some sunshine, I project that I will have enough to actually try some dyeing!

I have some new content coming soon. In fact, I'm working on my first pattern (more of a recipe), and hopefully I'll have it up and ready for your yarn stash in the very near future!

Washboard Epiphany

2011-06-01T08:41:00.000-07:00

I recently got an old washboard, with grand visions of using it to felt, wash those handknits that don't felt but I don't want to throw in the washer, and maybe even transitioning to using it to wash some of my "normal" clothes.

Having used it by now, it really does wonders cleaning-- it's far more effective than my washing machine. For starters, I actually ran something (a purse my mom made--I am terribly hard on purses) through the washer, and it still was pretty gross. I was hoping I hadn't stained it, since so much filth was staying put. I used the washboard, and brown soap bubbles floated away in my way-too-small-for-washboards bucket. Brilliant.

As I was using it something profound hit me: I always thought the phrase "washboard abs" was referring to the fact that the person in question had abs hard and rippled enough to use as a washboard. Now that I've actually used one, I'm thinking I've been wrong all these years, and it's actually referring to the fact that you need to have abs like that to use a washboard-- if you don't, and you persist in using the tool, you will definitely develop yourself a set of washboard abs before long.

Flax

2011-05-26T10:48:00.000-07:00

Flax is a neat fiber. It spins into linen, which gets softer as it wears. I've used linen for things like dishrags, since I like them to be somewhat rough and age nicely. When I decided I wanted to try to spin flax (read: when I impulse-bought some flax from my local yarn store), I knew I was in way over my head, and began searching for videos, tutorials, and general pointers on how on earth to spin the stuff. I don't have a fancy flax wheel, and I don't even have a distaff or something I can use for a makeshift distaff (a pole that holds the flax in a bunch, so it doesn't go crazy on you).
When I searched for instructions, I came up pretty empty. It appears lots of people have spun the stuff, but they've all magically gotten their knowledge from some unnamed source I was unable to find. Or they were doing historical demonstrations that really didn't work for my situation. I can't believe how many people have videos up of other people in "historical outfits" spinning flax into linen. Anyways. Maybe I just did a poor job searching. Whatever the reason, I figured I'd put my experience out in the interwebs, in case it comes in handy for anyone else.

The first thing I discovered was that I needed to know if I had "tow" flax or "line" flax. Tow is made of shorter fibers-- inches versus line flax's feet-- and can be coarser than line. The longer the fiber, the more difficult it seems to be to deviate from the notion of a distaff. I happen to have Louet water retted flax top, which had a fiber length of about 8". Because the fibers were fairly short, and because I could not for the life of me figure out a way to comfortably pull from any sort of a distaff-like setup (even laying the fibers out flat, wrapped with a towel), I decided I would try drafting very similarly to how I spin wool.
But this brings me to the idea of "wet spinning," which I definitely do not do with spinning wool. Essentially, there are varying ideas about how to actually get flax onto the spinning wheel, transformed into linen. Some people prefer dry (normal) spinning, some prefer wet. Those that prefer wet seem to also have varying opinions-- some suggest wetting your fingertips with your saliva, and some say having a bowl of water handy is the way to go. Well, I'm here to say that I'm going to have to throw my vote toward the bowl of water idea.
When dry spinning, the flax was very unforgiving if I underspun at all. It just whipped out wherever it felt like it. But if you overspin flax, it's very hard and fairly not awesome. Also, it's crazy hairy, which would go away somewhat once you wash it, but it's kind of annoying. When I tried wet spinning with saliva, I found I was able to get into more of a rhythm than with a bowl of water, but there were two downsides: the yarn still ended up pretty hairy-looking, and you end up with a bunch of wisps of flax in your mouth. The latter was pretty much enough to make me switch to the bowl of water method-- nothing messes up your groove like having to stop spinning to pull eight-inch-long pieces of flax out of your mouth. (Can you see how the middle lump is about 4 shades lighter and about 57 times more hairy than the stuff around it? That's the saliva-spun stuff. It's all I could take. The rest is bowl-of-water wet spun.)

So a little more on the actual mechanics of the spinning. Since I was trying to spin it not unlike I spin wool, I just arranged the big pile of blonde-hair-like stuff in a well-organized pile to my left. I kept a bowl of water to my right, and pre-drafted sections of flax to spin. Then I just, well, spun it.

Once I got going, I was able to pre-draft fairly long sections by snaking it around my couch-- if the pre-drafted sections overlapped too often, it would get tangled. Also, if I spun without pre-drafting, it was really difficult to avoid snarling right around the drafting area, so pre-drafting was a necessity for me. Since this was my first attempt at linen, it's not terribly pretty, but I was going for something a little more rugged than what I'd use for a nice linen t-shirt or what I'd buy at the store. Or maybe that's what I'm telling myself to make myself feel more accomplished. Either way, the end result works, and I didn't have to modify my spinning techniques too much to arrive at a workable solution:

LINEN.

Too Bad It's The Only Thing My Husband's Allergic To

2011-05-25T21:17:00.000-07:00

There's nothing that smells quite so sweet as handspun flax, wrapped into a center-pull ball by hand.

My Personal Everest (apparently I'm a weenie when it comes to Everests)

2011-05-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

Note: I had this post completed and all ready to go, until the Great Blogger Outage of 2011. I didn't have the heart to redo it until now, but I completed them about a week ago. Darn free services occasionally interrupting my groove!

I've been knitting for several years. My first project was in chenille. Check: Weird yarn. My second project was a knit/purl pattern. Check: making a legible pattern. I've continued to do new things with most of my projects, whether it's a new lace pattern, a knit pattern that is reminiscent of crochet, or in-the-round stuff. Shaped things, knit amigurumi, and colorwork have all been conquered. I've dropped stitches on purpose, and even cut my knits once or twice. I've even spun and dyed my own yarn.

The one thing I had never done and never wanted to do was knit a pair of socks. It just seemed so--tedious-- for so many chances to go wrong and for so little payback. So many things would run through my head when I saw knitters gushing over socks, or the plethora of sock books at the bookstore or library. "You want to put your pretty knits on your feet?" "Why would you knit something no one would ever see?" "I'm not sure I could make something, feel proud of my accomplishment, and then turn around and do the exact same thing all over again."

Well, all that changed one fateful day. I posted on a board on Ravelry (check it out if you're into fiber arts!) that I wanted to know if knit socks were warmer, since it was the only thing I could think of to draw so many throngs to doing something so terrible and huge. Plus, my feet had been freezing off all winter long, and it was almost enough to make me be willing to knit myself a pair of Teflon-coated extra-thick wool socks. The responses were strong enough (and not just about warmth) that I became intrigued.

One of my biggest barriers to knitting socks is what I like to call The Unknown Factor. I want to be able to try something on throughout. I want to generally know (even if I'm going to wash it and entirely change the shape, drape, and size in the process) that it's doing what it's supposed to be doing. And knitting cuff-down on a sock just wasn't cutting it.

Cue my library plug: I actually went to the library, researched the potential sock books, and found this one by Wendy Johnson (also known as Wendy Knits). It goes through the basic steps of knitting socks from the toe up, which would allow me to try them on as I go. She goes through several basic cast-on/heel methods (the two main structural parts of the sock), and I chose the Short-Row Toe and Heel variant. I'm good with short rows, and can conceptualize them easily, so it seemed like a good starting point.

To cast on, I used Judy Becker's magic cast-on, which left a line of slightly-different-looking stitches on the bottom of my foot, but that's no big deal. If I were concerned about what the bottoms of my feet looked like, I probably would have changed my sock knitting ideas (and my sock-wearing habits) a long time ago. I used Patons Stretch Socks yarn, which maybe wasn't the best idea for my first socks ever with its elastic content, but it went well. The yarn is strong but soft, and as someone who doesn't usually love the look of variegation, I was very pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy the way the colors mixed.

These socks were really very easy. Other than the two sections of short-rows, it was all plain, boring stockinette. But I did most of them in a hospital waiting room, that was actually really nice. I added a couple of stitches where the short rows end (and, well, begin, I suppose) and decreased them a row or two later, but still ended up with some gaping stitches that I'd want to correct in the future. These were definitely not as horrible to make as I'd suspected, and they've even gotten me thinking about new sock ideas! But we'll tackle that for another day; one pair of socks is good enough for now.

Managing Pests

2011-05-14T17:50:00.000-07:00

I started composting this year, using a free plastic "bin" my city gives out if you listen to some people talk about composting. It's great. And so far, it doesn't smell and seems to be warmish, which are my main (untrained) indicators for whether or not it's working.

On lots of the websites I've been looking at, as well as in a lot of the books I've gotten from the library, composters everywhere warn of pests. "Don't load the top of your compost with fresh veggies! You will get unwanted critters!" Variations abound, but the message is still the same. What I wasn't prepared for was the specific style of critter that would begin destroying all my compost attempts:

THE KIND WITH WHICH YOU CANNOT DISPENSE.

Research

2011-05-11T18:12:00.000-07:00

I love the library. I'm currently 3 books shy of their borrowing limit.

Dandelions

2011-05-11T09:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, I was so certain that there really are different varieties of dandelion in my yard that I googled it. And there are lots. Way more than the 5 or so I'm pretty sure I can identify in my yard. You should probably google it, too.

This is one of two varieties I think of as "standard." The other ones didn't want to be captured the last day or two. It's full and bushy and has little tiny brownish-looking specks in the middle.

I call this one the "spindly." They have really long outer leaves and just a hint of an inner tuft.

I think of these guys as the "concaves." They're all concave and weird. I think these are the ugliest of them all!

This kind may just be a habitat selection at work. They grow really tall and never open completely, and are in the rocky dirt in the alley behind our house.

This picture is not from my house, but it is the readily identifiable "orb" or "sphere" variety, depending on whether I'm feeling more sci-fi or more fantasy (respectively). I actually found this one on my way to my (way too) local yarn store, Paradise Fibers!

I have gathered about a pound of dandelion blossoms in less than a week from my yard. And my yard is significantly more dandelion-less than most of my neighbors. I'm pretty sure I'd have a dandelion yard if people wouldn't look down on me, along with those little purple flowers and white flowers that like to pop up in yards around here. It would be so much more pretty, especially with so many dandelion varieties hopping around.

Happiness Is

2011-05-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

The beauty of something or someone clearly living. Or at least sometimes it is. At least, today it is. In honor of my mom-in-law not only living after her ordeal but clearly living-- thriving and no longer at the hospital--here are several other things that are clearly living around me that make me happy. There's something about life that is still coming up to its peak that is beautiful and refreshing and invigorating.

Almost 3 months of no death!

My boys.

The bane of my allergies' existence.

Hostas, I think. Pretty, I know.

My indigo's first try outdoors.

I love these guys in my yard.

It seems to me

2011-05-03T21:44:00.000-07:00

that the more you're interested in something, the more you see the diversity within that thing. I've been picking dandelions for a couple days, to try to dye some yarn later. I'm reasonably certain I have about 5 different varieties of dandelion in my yard.

Feel free to apply this idea elsewhere, or to tell me what great mind has already thought this up. Perhaps, if tomorrow is less rainy/cloudy than today, I'll try to supply photo evidence, although I doubt you're as interested in dandelions as I am at the moment.

In a holding pattern

2011-04-27T21:44:00.000-07:00

Well, we had a family emergency of the life-and-death variety on Easter. I was fully intending to do a new life- or creation-themed post, and now it seems more relevant than ever. But with the situation that has arisen, I haven't gotten around to it. I will soon, and it will be awesome!

Milestone

2011-04-21T17:13:00.000-07:00

I'm getting to an age where there aren't many more generally recognized milestones. I've flown past 16, 18, 21, so I don't really have any age "milestones" until I hit 30. I've also accomplished other potentially recognized milestones, depending on the crowd-- First car, first alcoholic beverage, first words... I've learned how to walk and talk, and I'be gotten my first credit card and drank my first cup of coffee. It's not terribly often that I do something "new."

Well, I did something new. Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I only ingested (whether food or drink) organic matter. Let me say that again: everything I ate or drank yesterday was organic, from the granola I ate for breakfast to the honey I put into my tea. This is a huge distance from my admittedly recent days of ramen noodles and root beer, and I'm kind of surprised how easy it was to get here. This is not to say all the food and drink in my house is organic-- I still do have my ramen noodles, although my root beer consumption has been way down for the last several months--but getting to a place where I am capable of going an entire day on organic stuff is a pretty big shift for me.

To explain how I've gotten here, I should probably start with my conscious decision to switch as much as possible to local, organic, natural, unprocessed food. A lot of this started when I learned that I have several food allergies, which encouraged me to pay more attention to what I'm eating (hey, yesterday was totally free of foods that I'm allergic to, as well! But that's a different post.). When you start paying attention to what you eat, you learn all sorts of things that you probably don't want to know.

There are so many resources online, at your library, or in the people you know that make it way too easy to switch to organic. Once I was on the cusp of actually making a concerted effort to be more intentional about what I'm putting into my body, it seemed that it would be silly not to, with so many readily available resources! I've had to change, somewhat, the stores I go to or the aisles I go down at the stores. I've also had to pay a little more for some things, or stopped eating some things altogether. The benefits, though, are that I can feel good about the food I'm eating in lots of ways-- I'm not hurting the environment; I'm not hurting ME!

One of the hardest things about this is that it's all led to eating far less processed food, which means I can't just throw a frozen dinner in the microwave-- I have to think about what I'm making and actually plan ahead. For those of you that know, I probably don't have to say that I am no Cooking Maven, but I've gotten far more adept at understanding the basic mechanics of cooking and baking, and have discovered that my crock pot is my new best buddy. I'm fairly certain that if I can do it, anybody can.

I'm nowhere near my final goal of transitioning to organic, local, natural, whole foods, but this milestone helped me realize that I'm making progress. Some things are still tricky, like snacks, eating out, or my intense sweet tooth. But I'm doing what I can with what I have. What about you? Do you have giant lifestyle goals you're working on? Suggestions about eating more ethically? Let me know!

Plants are silly

2011-04-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

I have all these little sprouts that are trying to act like they're big plants, but they won't let go of the seeds that birthed them!

Aww, they're so cute when they try to be grown up.

(Also, look! Several Japanese indigo plants! And they're not dead!)

Here's my newest fashion statement

2011-04-20T07:18:00.000-07:00

It's always a bad sign if you don't know what to call what you've made. Is it a neckerchief? A shawlette? Some other vaguely unreal word? Who knows!

This is what I made out of my recently spun yarn. Actually, only 4 days ago, this was a big braid of splotchy wool. Now it's this little guy that doesn't really have a name.

At least I know what the story would be if this little dealie had a story. It'd be a story about raspberries and strawberries and little brand-new sprouts, and about those afternoons that only happen in the spring. You know, those afternoons where the sun is shining in the west, and the clouds are dark in the east, throwing everything in the middle into color and light and shadow.

Am I the only one that

2011-04-19T14:46:00.000-07:00

--decides whether or not to get a food by whether you could eat it while knitting/spinning/crafting? Jelly beans- yes. Doritos- no. Popcorn should be a no, but it always slips past my defenses.

Stripes

2011-04-17T16:29:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it's hard to do something small. Even if you're reasonably certain everything will be better for it. Even if you've invested time or money (or both) into it. Even if you just want to get some roving out of your flippin stash.

I got beautiful handpainted roving from Blarney Yarn before I actually ever started spinning--probably about three or so years ago. I was scared to spin it because it was really beautiful as braided roving, but I had no idea how it would spin up (I forgot to take a picture of the roving, but it looks very close to this, except it's Bluefaced Leicester and it's pinkish-purple/blue/green instead of pinkish-purple/brown/orange).

I finally got up the courage to spin it up this weekend, and I'm glad I did. I first spun it into a single, which turned out really stripey. I wasn't sure that it would, since I'm kind of a haphazard spinner. And I wasn't sure I'd love the stripes, but I did, and I wanted to retain them as much as possible.

So I decided to Navajo 3-ply. It's a really easy technique-- you essentially are doing a giant chain stitch all the way through the yarn, one loop at a time. I used The Yarn Wench's tutorial, and got going. The resulting yarn turned out having somewhat softer stripes, but it still has the striped effect.

Once wrapped it into a hank, you can see how the colors go together (and maybe get a better idea of how they'll blend once knitted up). And how yummy the colors are together!

The thing about Navajo 3-plying is that, every time you start a new "chain stitch," you're creating a loop and these loops interlock, so if you look closely (or feel closely), you can find the joins. This can be annoying, or it can be fine. Here's an example of a particularly obvious join:

You can see the two loops that are perpendicular to each other. Most of the time, it's not that obvious, though, and look more like this:

And really, from a distance, would you have noticed this join if I hadn't told you it was there?

There isn't a better way that I've found to keep the striping that can occur when spinning. If you know of another method, let me know! In the end, I got the stripes I wanted, and that's good enough for me.

It reminds me of spring-- the greens of new plants, the pinky purple of raspberries, and the deep blue of an impending storm. I haven't decided what to do with this yet, since there isn't too much of it, but I'm feeling like it might want to be a shawlette.

Not another book review

2011-04-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

Okay, last week, I said I don't usually review books. That's generally true, except I want to review another one. Maybe this is becoming a trend.

This book was awesome. It was not only awesome but also useful. It's a brilliant look into going from rental-with-takeout-and-electric-everything to something a little more self-reliant. Essentially, Jenna goes chapter by chapter (really, more like section by section), listing different ways she's learned to be more involved in her own consumption. Whether it's gardening or chicken- and angora-raising, sewing and knitting or antique-ing, she covers it all with humor and creativity.
Each section involves a little story, quip, anecdote, vignette, or other word for smallish section of clever words, in which she highlights her experience with whatever the topic happens to be--learning to play "mountain music," for instance. She then goes into suggestions about how to implement this or how to figure it out on your own. Like, if you're wanting to get into beekeeping, there's all sorts of stuff to figure out with the queen bee. Who knew?! At the end of the book, she lists patterns, recipes, and tons of good research for furthering your interest in any of the topics she covers.
This book really whetted my appetite and made me appreciate the different things I could do right now to take little steps toward more self-reliance. I don't need to quit my job, buy a farm, and start peeing into my compost bin to be more involved in my own life, and neither do you. First step: convincing my husband to let me get a herd of angora bunnies.....

You can also follow Jenna at www.coldantlerfarm.blogspot.com, where she's expanded her urban homesteading to all-out farming!

Sarah Swett

2011-04-14T19:48:00.000-07:00

Tuesday night I got to go to a talk/show by Sarah Swett. I had been fairly undecided about going, but at the last minute I decided to go. If you don't know who she is, don't feel bad-- I didn't either. But you are probably missing out and should see what she's all about (http://www.sarah-swett.com). She's an amazing fiber artist (well, an amazing artist in general), and she spins all her yarn and dyes it with natural dyes.

Yes, this is woven.

She talked about the process she's gone through in her self-expression, moving between tapestry, painting, needlepoint, writing, and knitting, and throughout she was refreshingly honest. When talking about a particularly annoying tapestry (of a cooking scene) in a particularly angsty (her word!) part of her life, she said something that I will hopefully remember for a while-- "I may not be able to weave an egg, or weave anything of worth, but I can weave a damn good stick of butter!" I, personally, cannot weave a stick of butter, but it's a good reminder to be willing to accept what you're good at and what you enjoy and leave the rest to somebody else.

Sarah with her woven self-portrait

One of my favorite things about this was that I generally have to gauge an audience's receptiveness for my knitting while an Event Is Happening, but going to a talk by a fiber artist, I felt pretty secure that no one would be judging me!

A needlepoint, about growing up knitting

My camera works?!

2011-04-12T18:26:00.000-07:00

I don't know what happened! But here are some of the things I've made lately that you couldn't see!

Japanese Indigo or: Can you torture plants?....

2011-04-11T18:59:00.000-07:00

So a couple weeks ago (okay, March 27th, at about 4pm. I'm not going to pretend like this wasn't a Momentous Event), I did something I've never done before. I bought stuff to plant seeds indoors, and then I planted them.

Now, this may not seem like a big deal to you, but if you look at my history (Mother's Day Disaster of 1998, The Great Indoor Tree Destruction of 2009, The How Do You Kill A Cactus?!?! Extravaganza of 2002...) you'll see a pattern. A black pattern, you might say. At least you wouldn't say it was a green pattern.

So why was I attempting to murder more innocent plants? Well, I got this book called A Dyer's Garden, by Rita Buchanan. I thought it might be neat to grow a dye plant or two. I went through all the plants, but not many grow in my USDA Zone (yeah, so I had to look up what zone I'm in. So what?). One that did was indigo. I figured that'd be a cool one to try, and then I hopped over to my handy dandy fiber arts social networking website, and lo and behold, that day someone had offered up free Japanese Indigo seeds. Bingo.

Now you see why I did what I did. Well, I did quite a bit of reading-- books, tutorials, blogs, and magazines-- and decided on the best way to plant my little guys.

I read that it's a good idea to put one of those greenhouse covers over the top of them-- you know, the ones that look like the salad containers you feel embarrassed about because everyone knows you bought a salad instead of making it yourself. Well, I didn't happen to have any of those laying around, so I did the next best thing.

Yep, saran wrap. I figured it'd give the same effect of keeping the plants humidified, but I was a little concerned that there wouldn't be enough airflow. So I left the edges uppish. Yes, my gardening skills are so advanced that I use words like "uppish." A week later, the heavens opened and lavished upon me two little dudes that were growing little stem/root dealies. TWO. I was so excited.

Fast forward another week, and this is how they looked:

Having a hard time seeing the green stuff? That's because there is none. Nothing happened after that one day of little tiny beautiful growth. So I gave up on my 50 little original guys, and decided to start over.

I started this guy, the Cadillac of indoor seed growth, only 3 days ago. It's organic, compostable, and the packaging said something about coconut husks, so it's gotta be awesome. Also, it came with its very own salad lid. Literally 24 hours later, I had more growth from this guy than the previous two weeks of all my other seeds.

But suddenly, something happened! Like when a new person starts at work and suddenly you realize how frumpy you look, my old seeds got self-conscious. Overnight, they exploded. About a quarter of them suddenly raced to show movement, to catch up to the new guys. I changed, too: I was (am) suddenly finding myself way too often sitting in the room with the plants, reading books about nature, with a feeling of epic things happening. Life starting, photosynthesis going on, seeds coming out of stasis. And then TODAY:

LEAVES.

Kool Yarn

2011-04-10T18:58:00.000-07:00

My 10-year-old cousin's first foray into the fiber arts. Handpainted. Using, of course, the most serious, rigid dyeing techniques known to the modern world. Made with 100% wool singles from a recycled sweater from Uruguay. That is all!

Dyeing with tea

2011-04-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

Well, as I seem to do with most things, when I decided I wanted to dye yarn, I made it as simple as possible while unnecessarily complicating things. Tea has long been used as a dye, and as anyone who drinks tea knows, this makes perfect sense (I have more white-with-one-little-brown-spot shirts than I care to think about). From what I've gathered, part of this is due to tannin (or pseudo-tannin, according to Wikipedia), which is an acid that, in this case, helps the color bind to the fiber and stay put. Many other dyes require a separate mordant to make a dye colorfast.

So okay, dyeing with tea. Pretty simple, right? Well, yes. But I wanted to make this experience great. First, I took some punta roving

and spun it--

three bobbins' worth, in fact--

and made a three-ply with three little singles skeins and a small amount of roving left over.

I washed it with Eucalan (I love the smell of the grapefruit one)

while I drank lots of tea

(this much tea, in fact-- the two on the top left are for a quart of tea).

Then I put the three-ply, three singles, and the roving into a pot with about a teaspoon of alum for an hour (since I was using Ceylon AND black tea, I didn't know about the amount of tannin, so I did a minimordant)

and put in the tea bags. And waited. And waited and waited. I simmered for about 5 hours.

It smelled really good, but didn't come out terribly dark (a pretty even tan)

So I drank some more tea and put it in for another round, with four of the little tea bags (Ceylon) and one of the giant ones (black), and threw it all back into the pot, except for one of the singles. And here's the end result:

The colors look a hair darker in person, but I'm pleased. I took the double-used teabags and threw them into my compost bin. Tomorrow I'm hanging out with my cousin, who is a very artistic young lady, so we may experiment with Kool Aid dyeing.

Yarn Break: Book Review!

2011-04-07T08:10:00.000-07:00

I had a chance to get a pre-release copy of Meghan O'Rourke's The Long Goodbye. I don't usually do book reviews and memoirs are often my "beach reading," but this was a book that was at the same time easy to read and difficult. Her story is of the process of losing her mother too early to cancer, and her experience of grief.

She writes about death and grieving in a way that is both heart-wrenching and heartwarming-- often simultaneously. Allowing us a peek into her personal path of grieving, both before and after her mother's death, she shares her story that is relatable to anyone that has experienced similar deaths. Although my mother is alive and well (and hopefully will continue to be so for several more decades), her story is approachable, and peppered with her academic research into death, dying, and grieving, and with stories from her past. It is a beautiful story that will stay with you long after you finish its pages.

Let's just say it's not always homework

2011-04-06T17:25:00.000-07:00

My dogs have eaten a lot of things I wouldn't have thought to be edible. They've eaten innumerable tennis balls and stuffed animals, in addition to various garbage cans, clothes, cardboard, bowls, shoes, books, laptop cords, fences, earrings (okay-- I only THOUGHT Charlie ate an earring. But he did take it and hide it behind the couch, while I had visions of ruptured intestines and inspected his poop for about a week), wrappers, bugs, yarn, and fiber.

And it's that last part I'd like to go into a little more thoroughly.

There are rarely times I want to live an animal-free life, and it tends to be when my love of fiber and my dogs' love of fiber are in competition.

I'd like to note that two of these were done by each dog, and the first one was actually meant to be a dog blanket that was never finished because the recipient ate it first. None of these have been repaired yet. The wound in my heart is too fresh, but luckily, I've done what I've always heard to be true: Always keep a bit of the yarn you use to fix Tragedies Like This. Even if you don't have dogs, you probably have cats, birds, neighbors, children, nails, fingernails, tables, or doors that will make equally terrible sights.

And lest you think, in a homework-vein, that I'm lying, here's a shot of one of the culprits in action:

Yes, the picture is fuzzy and grainy. But how long are you going to take to get the Perfect Picture while he's eating something you spent far longer creating?!

I need a new camera (but here's some yarn)

2011-04-04T07:21:00.000-07:00

I recently took stock of the yarn I've been making recently. It feels like it takes me so long to make one little skein that I haven't realized how much I've actually made. You'll have to excuse the blurriness-- my camera is just about on its way to that junkyard in the heavens.

I just finished this yarn recently, and it was the first time I'd been able to create an even yarn. It's 100% wool, and it feels really silky. It's 2-ply, but there isn't much of it, so I have brilliant thoughts of open lace patterns dancing in my head for this little guy.

Speaking of small amounts of yarn, this is my little yellow navajo-ply guy. Navajo plying is like doing a giant chain stitch with your hand to make the yarn 3-ply. It's actually really fun to do, and I think I'll be trying it again with a yarn that slowly changes colors. He's tiny-- when I made the single strand, I gave up on it. It's super-wash wool, and it absolutely refused to stick to itself when I was spinning. At first I thought I wasn't twisting it enough for it to hold itself, but it was just really slippery. I gave up, but needed the bobbin for something else, and made the navajo-ply, which strengthened it exponentially and now I kind of love it.

Also, notice I used a dime, whereas my last picture used a penny. I am moving up in the world. If only the next one was a quarter...

Remember way back when I mentioned I was struggling to make anything that wasn't skinny and even? This was my foray back into the world of cushy, thick yarn. It's a little thick-and-thin, but it's pretty much what I intended. It had two strands of a mix of alpaca (40%), targhee (40%), and silk (10%), with a really thin strand of this burnt red/black/ iridescent purple, which is 50% alpaca and 50% silk. It's super soft, but in a woolly way, and the red strand (which you can only see the slightest hint of in the picture) gives it just a glint of interest.

My next spinning project is just some plain old white wool to try my hand at dyeing. In the meantime, I've learned how to coil-spin and spin boucle, but those did not turn out so photogenically so we'll have to wait on that.

Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's obsession or creativity

2011-04-02T09:46:00.000-07:00

So a weird thing happened last week. One morning, getting ready to go to work, I opened my garage door, and I found a bike. Sitting in the middle of my driveway, like a giant hunk of metal that-does-not-belong-to-me. I looked around to see if I could find the owner, who would of course be wandering the streets, unable to find his way back to his bike. No one was around, and I had to get to work, so I set it to the side of the driveway. In doing so, I realized the chain was off its track, which made me a little sad since that meant someone probably stole the bike, had the chain fall off, and didn't want to deal with it and dumped it in my driveway to get rid of the "evidence." It also meant that I probably had stolen property sitting out in plain sight in my driveway.

Anyways, that's not the weird part. The strange thing was later that day, when I got home from work, bike still laying there abandoned, and I decided to put the chain back on its track. I got it on fairly easily (why was it so hard when I was a kid?!), but stared at it, recognizing it from somewhere.

That's when it hit me-- it's exactly the same as my spinning wheel! You have a big wheel off to one side, and different diameters of wheels on the other, with a drive band going around the whole thing. I started thinking-- could I modify a bike to be a spinning wheel? At the core of it, the bike has everything a spinning wheel needs. I had thoughts of attaching spindles to the gears, and modifying the seat and removing the handlebars for easy changes from clockwise to counterclockwise spinning.

I took the bike for a spin (get it?), while I thought more about my plans. Later that night, though, the bike disappeared. I like to think the owner found it, but that might be a little naiive. Hopefully, it at least continues to inspire people. Now I just need to get my hands on another bike...

Homogeneity

2011-03-31T19:57:00.000-07:00

It seems that everyone goes through spinning expertise in phases-- you start out really lumpy (that texture that it seems all the seasoned spinners want to mimic), and you can't believe you'll ever spin a balanced, even yarn. The problem is this: when you finally get your fingers and feet and eyes all organized and synced up, you're able to produce thinner and thinner yarn; evener and evener yarn (I think I need to take some new English classes). Don't see the problem? Neither did I, at first! I felt so spectacular about my new ability to produce a nice, even laceweight, and it took me several spinning expeditions to realize the true terror-- now I can't figure out how to spin anything THICKER than laceweight! And I cannot remember how to spin with texture!

Okay, maybe it's only my problem. But I've heard other people talk about it so I can't be the only one, right?...

I think where I potentially diverge with other crafters is that I allow this homogeneity to creep into other areas of my art. For instance: when I first started buying yarn, I bought all sorts of weird stuff. Acrylic? Heck yeah. Fun Fur? Why not?! Then I discovered that a lot of yarn is itchy when it's on your face or arms or whatever, and I went crazy. I could not find soft enough yarn. Now all I buy is stuff that feels like baby bunnies wrapped up in a cloud surrounded by butterfly wing-flutters. Any softer, and it doesn't matter how fancy-looking you are-- you will not be coming home with me!

The problem with all this is that it really stifles me. It limits my options and my growth and my opportunity for creativity, which is why I first loved knitting and spinning. So what am I doing about all this? Buying some hemp and spinning with wool that has lots of vegetable matter and stickiness.

And taking a spinning class.

In Which Willy and Charlie are Discussed

2011-03-28T12:36:00.000-07:00

I have two dogs. One is a purebred German Shorthair Pointer named Willy, who we got at 8 weeks old. The other is a mutt (Foxhound? St. Bernard? German Shepherd? Beagle?) named Charlie, who was a rescue at 7 months old. They're both terribly spoiled dogs with terribly strong personalities. Willy's neurotic and stubborn, and thinks he's a human. Charlie is complacent and cannot. stop. sniffing. everything. I've been thinking lately about how silly these guys are, and how they love fiber as much as me, in many cases.

For instance, Willy LOVES wool. And the more raw it is, the more he loves it. It's like his catnip- even if I forget I have wool around, I immediately get warning bells because he'll start making little whine and grunt noises while writhing around on the ground, moving closer and closer to my wool until he's on top of it, enveloped in it, and eating it. It's like he wants to BE the wool. This is not a good thing when I'm spinning wool, and Willy is stubborn about things that AREN'T matters of life and death, so you can imagine the epic battles of wits, sneakiness, and stubbornness we get into. So far, it hasn't been to the death, but we've gotten dangerously close.

Charlie, on the other hand, loves balls of yarn and knitted items. He will pounce, just like a cat one fifth his size (and weight-- but don't tell Charlie that. He's working on it.), with his tail twitching while he bats it around the room. I've invested in a "yarn bowl," which keeps my yarn from shooting out in an irresistible ball of temptation, but he still occasionally finds an errant ball. He also loves the feel of knitted fabric. I recently made a cardigan out of very warm Malabrigo singles, and whenever I left it unattended (read: right next to me while in a knitting trance), he would find it and lay directly on top of it. Malabrigo singles are not doghair proof, so the first time I wore it, regardless of all attempts otherwise, it looked somewhat like a cardigan made of Charlie.

I'm not sure if it's a blessing or curse to have those you love and live with have the same love of fiber as you, but it definitely makes life interesting.

(photos by the fantastical Bethany Chamberlin Photography)

Craft Fair Debut?!

2011-03-27T10:00:00.000-07:00

Okay, for the first time in my knitting career (okay, okay, for the first time in my LIFE) I am strongly considering buying a booth at a local craft fair. I'd have a 10x10 booth and I'd have to pay an entrance fee, and I'd have to get my butt in gear and, for instance, come up with an overarching "theme" so I don't look like that one booth that has gardening books, wallets from China, and boxes full of buttons. You know that booth?

So with my current predilections, I'm thinking I could pull of a repurposed/fiber-related theme pretty easily, and do some felting, knitting, and somewhat-related general crafting. And since the knitting would be somewhat limited, my time-per-dollar-made would be far less measly, I think.

For the booth, I think I could find at least a handful of interesting things that would make it not look sparse, and I have a 10x10 dog kennel that the dogs have to go into when they're bad that I could set everything up in. Good thing we have a tall wood fence so the neighbors don't think we're even crazier than they've already suspected....

She's Aliiiiive

2011-03-26T07:11:00.001-07:00

I'm back. Hopefully for good. We shall see. I've been spending the last year (holy cow) deciding how my internet presence shapes my life and vice versa, as well as figuring out where fiber arts fit into that real and internet life. I hate posts that go on and on about the blog itself, so that's the end of that. Party time!

Question:

2009-12-05T11:00:00.000-08:00

Is it weird to hand-make something for a gift exchange? You know, like at your work or church or chess club Christmas party. I can't decide. But I'm pretty sure it's weird.

Consuming!

2009-12-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

I'm back. I finally bought my house a week ago, 2.5 months after we first signed the closing papers. What a nightmare. But we have a beautiful house!

So it's The Holidays. We have already hit several in the last two months, and we have a few months left (my birthday is in February, so I don't get post-The Holidays-depression until March). While I love giving gifts, especially unexpected ones and expensive ones and homemade ones, I've been struggling with the massive consumption all around me the last couple months!

I was in the store buying Halloween candy (heck yeah-- first year in a house!) on something like Oct. 28, and there were Christmas trees displayed all along the windows of two separate stores. Nuts.

I've been realizing that there's almost a liturgical feel to some of this pressure to buy-- repeating the same phrase over and over to really cement the concept-- but today I got one that, I think, fulfills all definitions of liturgy! It was in an email from a magazine about spinning.

Now, as far as consumption goes, I think of spinning on the low end. You buy raw stuff (I even have uncleaned wool straight off of local sheep and a camel, at the moment), and you put your own love and skill into creating a yarn. Usually, you don't leave it as yarn-- you use that as a material to form the fabric of a Thing. You can even use the fabric to make something else! What a beautiful process and example of slowing down and creating your own stuff.

Anyways, in the email, it was an advertisement for the magazine. It gave a topic, a description of how the topic was a must-have, and then had the response, in the form of a hyperlink statement: "Request your free trial issue today." Over and over, this was repeated.

Great patterns in each issue.

Request your free trial issue today.

The latest information on spinning tools.

Request your free trial issue today.

Spinning techniques, tips, and tricks you'll love.

Request your free trial issue today.

It goes on and on, like a brainwashing. Let's not be so readily taken in by people who would have us worship their product and live our lives according to the tenets of consumption.

What? I'm moving.

2009-09-19T13:53:00.000-07:00

I finally have internet back, but I'm busy dealing with moving. Be back soon. While you're listless waiting for me to post, look here, it's very awesome.

Yessss

2009-09-08T19:35:00.001-07:00

I just made this. I'm pretty excited about it, since it was supposed to be imitating:
How do you think I did? I'm good with it, that's for sure.

KNOT funny (or: what happens when two pun feinds battle it out)

2009-09-05T18:07:00.000-07:00

So my dad and I have a fantastic relationship. One facet of this relationship is our desire to stomp the other person into the dirt playing word games. Today, he emailed me a link to a PSA about texting while driving and I responded by asking what he thought about knitting while driving. I should have known then that I had initiated an epic battle of wits.

Dad's response: Oh there don't seem to be any PSAs about knitting and driving so I'm sure that would be ok....NOT! (not, knot....get it?)

My response: Either that or I've found a LOOPHOLE..... Anyways, I was just NEEDLING you about the whole thing.

Dad: Any more of these bad puns and I'm going to get a little CROCHETy

Me: Okay. I'll stop STRINGing this along. Ahh I can't stop! I'm having a BALL!

Dad: I think you've struck on a PURL of wisdom, we should just CAST OFF all of this nonsense.

Me: Wait, is this still dad? I'm not KNIT-picky about my jokes, but I'm legitimately impressed by your supply of appropriate words!

Dad: I have to admit that your mom has been in STITCHES over our conversation, and as I was ROVING around for something else to say, I might have sent a CABLE out to her!

Me: Okay, okay, this is beginning to UNRAVEL. I've been SPINNING my WHEELS trying to come up with something better, but everything I've come up with has just FELT wrong.

Dad: I agree, we have probably come to the "End of Our Row". I am definitely beginning to BOBBLE.

It's getting hard to GAUGE what is funny now. Enough RIBBING, this YARN is OVER

I think my dad won. Only because he cheated and got my mom in on it, but also for transforming "crochet" into "crochety" and using roving successfully. At any rate, this was epic and a very good way to spend my day, I believe.

Evils of Knitting

2009-09-02T20:00:00.001-07:00

So. I back in like March, I bought this fantastically awesome handpainted green lace stuff with an awesome halo (it's a little fuzzy). It's like the color of wet grass, but soft like heaven.

Yummm. So after a few weeks of deliberation, I decided to make gauntlets. So I started, and I started on teensy weensy size 2 needles. Three months later, I have:
So in case you're wondering, I decided to do like a neckwarmer thing partways through. It seemed to be telling me that (that's how I decide what I'm knitting. I wait 'til the yarn starts talking. I also hear music when there's no sound. Tells you where my brain's at....). Also, if you've been doing the math along with me, I'm a couple months off. That's because I didn't ever have the heart to finish the last row.
The beginning was nice. Just nice. Nothing more than that. This is a very good picture of it--aside from the color, which is distinctly un-wet-grass-like--and the cables are all fuzzy. Also, the end ruffles look nothing like the first ones. One of the bummers of "winging it."

So here's my dilemma. It looks okay. I might wear it. But it's such pretty yarn and I hate to waste it on something I'm not in love with. But I hate to waste the three months I spent (practically exclusively, I might add, even though I'm not usually a monogamous knitter) when I may wear it... What do you guys think? I have a great idea for a very fantastic shawl. Frog it? or finish it?

I'm dealing with

2009-08-28T18:05:00.000-07:00

Crocheting. I'm coming to terms with the fact that sometimes it can do things that no knitter will ever be able to do using only their sticks. It's a very difficult transition for me, and I am trying to drop my stereotypes and discriminatory actions toward the act of crocheting.

I have one crochet hook I stole from my mother. It's in my knitting bag, and it feels like travesty. Sigh.

Crochet!

2009-08-19T09:48:00.000-07:00

I just successfully did my very first thing with a crochet hook. Seriously, for some reason, I just cannot be dexterous with one of those things, and everything ends up wrong. But not this time!

Okay, it was just a provisional cast-on, which still involves a knitting needle, but I did it. Plus I did it left-handed, which was much easier to translate into than I expected. Next step: single crochet around the edge of my new tunic. If I ever finish the rest of it.

A few of my favorite things

2009-08-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

All rolled into one! Check this out:

Giant Knitted Poem Takes Shape

Also, I'm buying a house. Bear with me. I am getting dangerously close to finishing my tunic! It's taken foreverrr.

It's amazing how...

2009-08-11T19:27:00.001-07:00

I can infer my overall emotional wellbeing with remarkable accuracy by cross-referencing the cleanliness of my house (how many items are "lost" at any given time) and how much I knit on a daily basis. The last week: bad. This moment: good.

Organization and Tunic

2009-08-03T22:15:00.000-07:00

In my wanderings around the interwebs, I came across a brilliant idea for organizing knitting needles. As background, here are the two ways I keep my needles now:
Now, as you can see, it's not terribly effective. Those tall ones are juuust tall enough that, if there are more than about three sets in the above book, it won't zip shut. And, for the record, circular needles are evil. Except when in use.

So I've seen lots of ideas for storage, but none of them take into account the fact that I have tall needles, short needles, dpns (double-pointed needles), circular needles, afghan needles.... Then I have a bunch of other stuff. So when I saw this idea, I jumped on it!

It's binder with giant zipping bags. And that's it. How simple and brilliant. My giant ones fit, and I can keep them with the same size circular needles, short needles, dpns... Sigh. It reminds me how beautiful knitting is. The only tricky part was punching holes in the bags. My three-hole punch kept getting stuck and couldn't get all the way through the bags, so I had to use a smaller scrapbooking handpunch, and punch three holes for each single hole. Good thing I'm a double nerd. I used a piece of cardstock punched with the three-hole punch as a guide, and it went swimmingly. As a bonus, I can now use my vase for, say, flowers, and I can use my case for travel. Perfect.

In other news:

Yay, finally! This is the up-close of the back of the tunic I'm in the midst of creating. It's from Vogue Knitting Spring/Summer 2009, and you'll have to wait and see how it turns out. I'm loving it so far, and I'm making it from the handspun yarn I showed earlier. Man, I love this stuff. I have lots more that I can spin still, and I'm thinking I'll run out before I'm finished, so I'll get to learn how to intentionally spin! I'm not sure how excited I am about that prospect.

Aw, darn

2009-07-30T07:45:00.000-07:00

I keep meaning to post, but I don't. What a terrible blogger I am. I am approximately halfway done with my tunic thing, and even have pictures. Update to follow. Also, I hate humidity. Do you have none in your area? Does your skin crackle and do liquids immediately evaporate in your area's vast lack of wetness? Let me know, I'm moving there.

Apologies to Utah

2009-07-14T21:05:00.001-07:00

Or.... more specifically, to Salt Lake City. I have believed for most of my life in the whiteness of your fair (haha) city. I have visited you on one occasion, and have flown in at least once, though I suspect a few more visits than that are eluding me at the moment. Even with these visits (the earliest being 11 years ago, the latest being perhaps 4), I have maintained this viewpoint.

This time around, you have changed me. You have forced me to see the light (color?).

I arrived at my hotel at 5:30pm. At 6, I decided that I had foregone eating long enough, and had been forced to sit far too long on a turbulent flight. I went for a walk. I encountered 6 people (or individuals, depending). The first pair were hispanic dudes, and we discovered we were staying in the same hotel for the same reason (work), and were walking around for the same reason as well (food). We were equally lost. Although they held out for better food-- they continued on their search, and I settled for McDonald's.

At McDonald's, I met a family from Taiwan who were taking a bazillion pictures of themselves. In McDonald's. But hey, whatever. The mom kept taking the pictures of everyone else, and since that's how it goes in my family (we have whole family vacations with maybe two pictures with my mom), I thought I'd offer to take a picture with all of them. They were nice.

After I was done at McDonald's, I knew I needed to work off some calories before I died. I ran into two ladies with mental challenges, one who just wanted money, and one who asked me why I (the Mafia) didn't have anything better to do today than throw posses at her.

It was hot. I had been walking for a long time. I decided I needed an Icee. And if I couldn't find one, I would settle for a Slurpee. I walked for about half an hour, and found a 7-Eleven. Yess. Slurpees. When the (Indian) cashier dude asked me if that's all I needed, I said, "You have no idea how much I love you right now just for having these." He told me I was very trusting.

As I was walking back to my hotel, I ran into a 60s-ish latino guy. Almost literally. I was crossing the street, and he almost ran into me. I sidestepped, and kept going. I heard him say something, and turned and said, "What?" He said, "Can I have your number?" I said, "No, but good try...."

None of the Euro-Americans talked to me. I guess I don't look like a Mormon or a businessperson. The end.

Housekeeping

2009-06-28T19:36:00.001-07:00

Okay, first off, here's a picture of the rain the other day. We had our fifteenth (ish, but this isn't as rough an estimate as you might think) thunderstorm/downpour in a row. It had been raining about 30 seconds when I took this. I liked the rain.

It was a little too consistent in the raining department, though, which was really annoying after about two weeks. In June. After two weeks of 70-80 degree weather in May. It just seemed all backwords and wrong, so I'm glad it's getting back to normal. Although I know I'll be eating my words here in a bit, once I get tired of the ridiculous heat that's coming.

This next picture is of my root-beer float (minus the ice cream). Do you see

anything wrong with this picture? My favorite root beers are A&W, Barq's, and Dad's, depending very strongly on the circumstances, and sometimes they seem to overlap. Like that picture. I don't have a problem with that, though. It makes me feel like all's right with the world.....

The spinning wheel I got a few months ago was an Ashford that I bought from a lady who used it herself for a while, before running out of time and space. She'd started on a very pretty alpaca blend that's so soft and fantastic. They were on the giant bobbins that come with spinning wheels, and I had to wrap

them in such a way that I could wash it, and in such a way that I could figure out exactly how much there was without measuring it by hand. So I started with my chair that happens to be 36.5" around, which is close enough to 36" to figure out about how much I have. Which is about 475 yards, woohoo! The problem then was how cumbersome it was to get it around the chair. So I jerry-rigged this setup, with a broken dowel through a perfectly-sized box, with books weighting it down. Nothing like good old philosophy of consciousness to help you out with the nitty-gritty of daily life. For reals, man. So fanstastic.
And this is how it turned out! It's so pretty and I love it a lot. I think I'm going to do some sort of lace-pattern shawl that is okay with slight changes in the thickness and color. If such a pattern exists. We shall see.

Ohh so pretty.

2009-06-27T14:36:00.001-07:00

Oops I forgot the yellow!!, originally uploaded by woolly fabulous.

Serendipity

2009-06-26T18:51:00.000-07:00

So I haven't had much time to post lately. I just started a new job and it was kind of a whirlwind (and continues to be a whirlwind) getting everything ready and starting. I had kind of an interesting series of events leading to the new job, though, that I thought I might share.

So I was working at an agency in Coeur d'Alene doing something akin to life skills coaching (I was called a Psychosocial Rehabilitation Specialist; don't trouble yourself with incomprehensible details, though). I was only paid for things that I could figure out how to bill Medicaid for, though, so there were a lot of holes (paperwork, travel-time, emailing, talking with others at the agency....). I started looking for a job.

That was about 6 months ago. I had a few interviews, but basically, I kept being told that I was a "valuable asset" and that they "hoped to work with me in the future" and that I was "definitely among the top candidates," but that I "Just [Wasn't] Quite What [They] Were Looking For." Sometimes, this was more frustrating than other times. Like when it was very close to my dream job, mentoring kids in the juvenile justice system. Sometimes it made a bit more sense, like when I applied as a receptionist at a security company. (??) For the most part, though, I really wasn't even getting to the interview stage. Thanks, economy.

About a month ago, things started getting to a point that they weren't sustainable any more. Literally. I was working about 25 hours a week (at my "full-time" job), and I was losing my benefits because I could not increase my hours (because they were unable to supply me with more clients). I couldn't really work many more hours, anyways, because I was working 40-45 hours a week to stretch myself to 25 official hours! I was also having to swallow lots of incidental costs, like buying clients things on occasion (essentially a job requirement), and gas and whatnot. I did the math, and realized that, on a full week, I was making less than minimum wage. And on the weeks I made under 20 hours, I was approaching actually paying to work. Seriously. Which is absolutely ridiculous and definitely not cool.

I decided to get a little more intense in the whole job-finding process, and decided that I would start thinking about quitting even without another job. Then, one fateful Friday, I had the second worst day of my life. I will not bother you with details of the first worst, as they will also scar you (think: multi-foreign-bodily-fluid-badgerwoman... No, don't.). Anyways, that day involved a naked four-year-old in my car, screaming bloody murder, for two hours. I am missing chunks of hair, skin cells, and a piece of my soul. I could not get anyone to help me. My boss, her father... No help. I realized that I had been paid about $15 for that.

That's when I got Serious. I crunched numbers, talked with Joe, prayed, crunched numbers, talked with other people, crunched numbers. I decided to quit.

I put in my two weeks' notice that Monday. My last day was two Mondays later, at the beginning of this month. The next day, my former boss informed my former coworkers that due to budget cuts, the available hours for each client were cut by more than 50%. I would not have been able to work more than 20 hours a week, and would officially have begun paying to work. Also on that Tuesday, I had a job interview at a place that I had been watching for a while. I'd been really interested in the organization, and had applied for a job there a few weeks before. I was sure I wouldn't even get considered, since I was fairly under-qualified. They had called me the day before (my last day at Lame Job) for an interview, and the interview was at the time I would have been attending a required meeting at Lame Job. Good thing I quit, huh?

Well, long story short (or... long story not-so-long), I got the job. I quit my former job on faith that Joe and I can make it on his part-time work, and the next day, because I quit, I was able to interview for the best job I'd applied for, on the same day Lame Job announces that I wouldn't've been able to stay there anyways.

I'm really excited about my job (I am now a Community Work Incentive Coordinator-- again with the incomprehensible details!), and find going to work actually enjoyable. My salary alone (Yeah! Salary!) is higher than the combined income for Joe and me prior, which I think makes it officially sustainable. Amazing benefits, great coworkers, shorter commute. And it is an amazing organization to work for. I don't think I've ever really loved the actual place I work for; I've respected some of the jobs, and even enjoyed my work, but I've never really been excited about and proud of my place of business. Check them out!

So. Here's my thing. What was all that about?! Serendipity? Miracle? Random series of fortunate events? God's guidance? Karma? Answered prayer? Nothing? Crazy.

Words

2009-06-26T18:12:00.000-07:00

I rarely go on Michael Jackson rants, mostly because people seem to feel strongly about him (I do), and it doesn't come up in conversations frequently ("So, great weather we're having. What is your feeling on Michael Jackson? How was your weekend?"). However, due to obvious events, here I go.

I am sad that he died yesterday. Even more so, though, I am terribly upset that he died before we could help him regain some of the dignity that we forced him to lose. As a society, we put people into boxes, for better or for worse. MJ definitely got the "worse." He was ridiculed for his appearance, and later (well, he was still getting flak for his appearance, I guess, so not really "later"), for his intense interest in young children. What do we expect? We judge people based on appearances (don't deny it. Check out the science of attraction. Not even just sexual attraction.), especially those with public faces, and then decry their reactions to our scrutiny. We deny someone the right to have a real childhood, then we whisper controversies when he seems fascinated by children. It reminds me of my favorite part in the fantastic chick-flick, Ever After:

"If you suffer your people to be... corrupted from infancy, and then punish them for those crimes to which their first education disposed them, what else is to be concluded, sire, but that you first make theives and then punish them?"

When we realized he was a visionary and didn't fit into our pre-made molds, we didn't love the King of Pop enough to let him be or encourage him to true human excellence. Instead, we devoured him, and will have to deal with that if we want to keep it from happening again.

Fiiiinally!

2009-06-11T14:45:00.000-07:00

Okay. I'm finally going to try to upload some pictures. After an epic battle yesterday spanning 8am to 8pm, I have finally triumphed over my computer.

First off, I would like to say that I love my ball winder. I find excuses to wind stuff that definitely does not need to be wound.

But it just looks so pretty when it's all finished! I love it so much. I need to find a new spot for it, though, as I refuse to use my kitchen table, the pictured window sill has been hijacked by a window ac, and my only other location is standing next to a bookshelf, staring at a wall. Hmmm.

Anyways. This yarn is from a sweater I tore apart. It looks like some sort of fancy sorbet. Mmmm, I would definitely eat that. So I'm turning this into headscarves, among other things. They're turning out pretty, but I don't have pictures from that quite yet.

Here's one that I made that's very fuzzy. I really like it, though. I love the loopy dealies. They came to me in a dream. Or something like that. I plan on making more of a similar variety.

Joe is weird.

2009-06-10T08:57:00.000-07:00

Last night, I fell asleep with my "reading lamp" on. I woke up and realized the light was still on, but before I could move at all, my husband started laughing, somewhat hysterically. I wondered if he was awake, too, so I just kept quiet until he rolled over to face me. His eyes were open, so I thought maybe he HAD woken up and realized something very hilarious. I asked him what was so funny. He said, "Well, I don't know, but it sure is funny!" Then I rolled my eyes, laughed, and turned off the light. Right after I turned it off, Joe said, "Wait! That was the light? Why's it-- what time is it?!" He looked at the alarm clock, said, "1:13. Huh." And went back to sleep.

Today

2009-06-08T19:02:00.000-07:00

Today I went to lunch with some of my former coworkers. I planned on coming home and doing the necessary stuff to get my Etsy shop set up, AND I planned on knitting and uploading new pics. However, on the way home, I contracted a nasty case of headache, so here I am, not doing anything helpful. Hopefully my meds kick in quickly. If I'm lucky, I'll begin later this evening.

Update

2009-06-01T21:50:00.000-07:00

Since I put in my two weeks' notice, I have knitted two headscarves and frogged one whole sweater into kinky, thick and thin yarn. I'm not even sure where to go from here! I'd like to start washing/carding some wool to spin, maybe do some felting... Yess. I am so productive now.

It's been a GREAT week.

2009-05-30T20:48:00.001-07:00

No joke! I've done so much awesomeness. New pictures and explanations very soon. Sleep first!

In darkness a light shines on me, in darkness a light shines on you.

2009-05-23T18:53:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough month.

The job thing isn't working out so much. I do have a second interview on June 1st with TeamChild, as a program assistaint, but that's not in May, which supports my premise that May is lame. Also, I have been having some medical issues, not the least of which is that my last day of health insurance is May 31st, and I HAVE medical issues. So that's not been fun, as I like to have as-long-as-possible breaks between doctor visits.

So I haven't felt like blogging much. I have been knitting a lot, though, and did a photoshoot with my fantastically photogenic sister and my also photogenic (I think) knits! So one less thing to do for my etsy site to be up and running.

Here's one of my first pictures, with my sister and my blue arm warmers. I like this one. I also like that tree.

Things are progressing.

2009-05-03T13:51:00.001-07:00

I'm almost ready to reveal my etsy site to the world. I'm pretty excited. I want to make a few more things, and my sister-in-law is making me an awesome banner and whatnot, so I am no graphic designer and she is. I've been taking my knitting with me here and there, and I've already had some random people talk to me about what I'm making. Too bad I haven't made any business cards yet. Also, I've been scoping out different places (toy shops and whatnot) and I have a few awesome ideas that'll take a bit more time to work out, but may be The Awesomest Stuff Ever. So stay tuned.

Two years!

2009-04-29T16:38:00.001-07:00

I've been married two years and one day. That's nuts, as I still remember the wedding fairly vividly. Also, I still love him, and I think I love him more. And I keep discovering new things about him, like that he can eat an entire medium pizza in one go. He's a keeper.

Not much to say, but I'll say it anyways.

2009-04-27T19:32:00.000-07:00

I'm now tweeting. WooHoo! Yet one more way for me to be entrenched in online social networking because I'm terrible at it in real life. Plus it gives me one more way to procrastinate, which I'll welcome any day!

LoopholeStacie

Agenda

2009-04-25T10:25:00.000-07:00

I am going to the library. Then I am going to Sears to scope out the competition (mom told me about some wrap deals they're selling that are kind of like the ones I've designed). After that, I'm going to the Finch Arboretum to check out a compost dealy, and maybe get a compost bucket thingamajig to start composting! Which would be awesome. Maybe I'll take some pictures while I'm out there. Then I'm going to River Park Square to watch some Bonsai stuff and origami stuff. Yay, Japan Week! Then I'm coming home to spin/knit for a while, before I go to watch my nephew's soccer game. Then I'll come home and read.

Why am I telling you this? Because this day could possibly encompass everything that Stacies love: books, knitting, learning, environmentalism, nature (sunshine!), Japan, family, color, happy. I just need to find something terribly corny to engage in..... Perhaps I'll listen to my Journey CD.

Don't stop believing.....

I went to a good show, which means I have had Epiphanies about Life.

2009-04-22T23:33:00.001-07:00

I went to a show tonight with Listener headlining. I saw them once before, in a little place called Prago. I wasn't a huge fan of Prago, but I was of Listener. They are (he is, as far as tonight went) amazing.

So here are my epiphanies. Not necessarily directly related to the concert, but born out of the show, for sure. In bullets, because I'm feeling it.

I have an issue with always looking to The Next Thing. Graduating, getting a new/better job, moving from Spokane, getting a Masters degree, buying a house, et cetera. Why can't I be happy with what's going on now? Should I be happy with it? Not completely, I'm sure, but probably more than I currently am. I think it may be a Western Capitalist Culture thing-- we are taught from an early age that the idea to life is to get more. Replace the broken stuff with new stuff, replace the obsolete stuff with upgraded stuff, find the stuff you didn't know you needed and get it, because you need it! This is related to Listener's song, Five Year Plan. The chorus repeats: I want to live for a living. Could I be happy with that? Is it even in my blood?
I also have a pretty big issue being overly sensitive to others' moods/opinions/emotions. I think I'm fairly aware of how other people are reacting to whatever is in front of them, and I tend to follow the crowd, at least at face value. And I apologize for anything I say that is attached to something people around me may not agree with. I need to cut that out. It was fun tonight to smile or laugh or stand up or sit down or zone out or Anything, just because it was how I was reacting to the music and poetry, not because that's how everyone else was reacting to it.
There was one more, but I can't remember it, and I need to eat some Top Ramen.
I drank some pretty good pomegranate oolong tea tonight while at the show. And I finished my first pair of Arm Warmers, and got some pretty good reviews by strangers, friends, and family. Perhaps I will continue this.
Goodnight.

YARN

2009-04-19T20:08:00.000-07:00

Boy, do I love yarn. I spun my first bit on my new spinning wheel yesterday, and I'll definitely be getting pictures of that up soon! Also, I got a ball winder free when I bought the spinning wheel. At first I thought it was silly, but I realized today that it is officially my favorite thing to do. Perhaps I should start a business spinning people's yarn into center-pull balls; I'm pretty sure I could do it forever.

Snow.

2009-04-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

Last year, Spokane got snow into June. This year is shaping up to be a similar 6-month-long snowing season. We had snow on Thanksgiving, so really we only need a few more days to make it to the six-month mark! Last night, I couldn't sleep, and neither could my husband. He got up at about 4:30 to get a drink and whatnot, and said, "Oh no. Stacie, look outside." And I did, and it was a blizzard out there. Then, this morning, he got up and said, "Oh no. Stacie, look outside." And I said no, because I knew it was just bad news. It ended up being six inches worth of fluffy white bad news. Not cool, world. Not cool.

I own a SPINNING WHEEL.

2009-04-11T13:09:00.000-07:00

I now own an Ashford Traveller Spinning Wheel! Oh man, I can't even tell you how excited I am. The only downside is I must clean my house to find a spot for it, and clean up my finances so I can find where that money will be paid back to myself. But there was no way I could turn down such an amazing deal.

Spinning!

2009-04-09T19:09:00.001-07:00

So I went to a "Spin In" with my mom the last weekend in March. It was amazing. I bought some beautiful old hand carders, a bunch of sweet fiber to spin: hemp, organic cotton mixed with recycled pop cans (how'd they get it so fine?!), bamboo, and superwash wool.... I haven't gotten to spinning any of it yet, but I'm very excited to do so. There were a ton of fantastic people there, including a lady who I thought was going to steal my hand carders. She didn't, and I wouldn't've let her.

So I still haven't taken fancy pictures of my knit stuff yet, but here's me wearing my Mobius prototype. I've gotten good reviews, and I'm working on a new-and-improved green organic cotton version that is TOO SOFT. More to follow.

Edit: This picture is of the Stacie/Stacy team! We rock the world, so look out when you see this ultimately awesome duo coming your direction.

Dead Bird

2009-03-19T20:07:00.000-07:00

I love this painting. It is by A.P. Ryder, and he did it circa 1879. It is so tender. It reminds me of Matthew 10:29-- "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from the will of your Father." Man it's beautiful. If you ever wanted to splurge on me, you should buy me this.

Here and Now

2009-03-03T20:01:00.001-08:00

I don't know what my title has to do with anything, but I felt like it fits. So I've been knitting a bunch recently, and it's all turning out pretty fantastic so far. I'm thinking about opening up an Etsy shop (check out all the cool stuff there-- etsy.com ) to sell some of my knitting, as I really don't need fifty-seven scarves. Plus any extra money to buy new yarn is great!

I've been thinking a bit about my knitting, though, and I think I've come to some sort of conclusion. I am a bit of an obsessive person. I like to think of it as passionate, but I have been corrected a few times. And, for about the past five years, that has come out in full force in my knitting. There have been very few days that I haven't knitted in recent years. I feel like I'm Sam in Green Eggs in Ham-- I have knitted at the doctor's office, while driving, in bed, in stores, at work.... Yes, I would knit on a train, in a box, on a plane, with a fox.... But I've also noticed that I quite often don't let that same passion into other areas of my life. I'm not very good about maintaining relationships, cleaning my house, et cetera. I find it interesting that knitting gets so much of my attention, as I frequently find it challenging and infuriating and expensive and generally silly.

So I don't know what my problem is, but it's definitely something for me to think about. Does anyone else have this problem, or am I just nuts?

Lame.

2009-02-23T09:16:00.000-08:00

Sorry to anyone who's been checking up on this. I keep forgetting during daylight hours to take pictures of the stuff I've been making, and my house is dark at night, so I've been neglecting my blog. Not that I've gotten very far anyways. But I have successfully finished my poncho, and have also made a tote and a hat. I think that's it. I'm very proud of the hat; the other two are okay. I'll try to post them ASAP. I'm now working on a lacy shawl/scarf, and am imagining a mobius cowl. In chunky tweed. It should be pretty sweet.

In other news, my birthday is Wednesday. I'm going to be 24, which is almost 25, which is a quarter of a century. That seems like a lot, and I probably should have tried to accomplish something great by now, but I feel okay with where I'm at, aside from my job. Plus sometimes you get greater results when you do lots of little things instead of trying for that one big thing. Or at least that's what those of us who haven't done great things tell ourselves to make us feel better.

Open Cover Letter

2009-02-09T11:58:00.000-08:00

Dear Hiring Manager,

I am applying for any position in your organization/company. I believe my education and experience makes me a good fit.

I have had extensive experience in a variety of fields. I have been involved in direct services to diverse populations, from the general public to at-risk teens, from homeless mothers to corporation professionals. Through these experiences, I have learned to be flexible, and I thrive on challenging, dynamic environments.

In addition to practical experience, my education serves me well in my work. I have a B.A. in psychology, with minors in philosophy and sociology. Throughout my college career, I have had the opportunity to be involved in many volunteer positions, research projects, and an internship in Chicago. This education makes me an exemplary fit for any position involving interactions, human resources, nonprofits, community work, and administrative work, to name a few.

My career goals are to work for an organization in which I can help others, and I would also like to make enough money that I can pay off my student loans, while at the same time affording top ramen (I am married, but my husband does work 30 hours a week as well). I would like to work a normal schedule; in particular, I would like to have Christmas off without a big fuss, and I would like to be sure that I would be off before 1am, so that I can enjoy time with family or friends. Also, I would like to be able to afford any medical bills that might arise in my lifetime, so benefits are important to me. I know these are big demands, but I feel that such a(n) organization/company as yours has to have something that would fit this profile.

I would be available full-time two weeks from any date of hire. Thank you for your time, and I look forward to your phone call and the chance to work for your organization/company in a position where I can make a living wage.

Sincerely,

Stacie Collier

My New Plan

2009-02-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

Okay. Here's my new plan. I am going to sell stuff. If you want to know what stuff, I'll tell you: Stuff people throw away.
Here's my theory: If people are throwing it away, they'll give it to me for free, right? So I get free stuff, then I sell it, and afford life. Now the in-between part is the tricky one-- making people want to buy stuff that other people throw away. This COULD be easy, as people throw away silly things, like running cars or awesome shirts. But I am not a do-it-the-easy-way type of person. I was destined to take the hard road, as I was a first-born female born of a first-born female, and I have red hair and a stubborn streak like no one wants to encounter.
So my hard version is to get stuff people are throwing away, change it into pure awesomeness, and sell it.
Good points:
-Very little overhead. Only the "change it into pure awesomeness" may cost anything. That and time. The rest of everything is free!
-If I sell enough stuff, I can afford life.
-I will singlehandedly battle everyone who is trying to kill our planet.
-I will also singlehandedly battle capitalism, by not selling new stuff. This is definitely about selling old stuff.
-I will hire those ex-con teenagers that I was going to hire in my bookstore, but I'll hire them to change the throw-away stuff into pure awesomeness. I would love to teach ex-con teenagers how to knit.

So. Here's my plan. Give me anything that you might throw away, or at least anything that is sanitary and can be manipulated into strips, since Joe will not let me COMPLETELY fill the house with crap as it stands. And I'll sell you back awesomeness.
I actually do have some ideas in the works, so you can check my blog later and maybe you'll see what I'm talking about since I really haven't told you.

Hmmm

2009-01-25T17:05:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I'm currently knitting a poncho, which is going to be awesome, I know it. But it's taking a while, as I inc4 every other row, so it just gets bigger and bigger....
In the meantime, I have cut my hair, destroyed my purse, and accidentally run across an awesome tote for grocery shopping and whatnot. Plus I got a ton of awesome soy-based and other random-based yarns. So I kind of want to put the poncho on hold for: an awesome hat, a new purse, a tote, and other coolness. I haven't quit yet, so hopefully I can post my poncho here shortly.
If I ever finish it. But let me know if you see any awesome hat patterns, as that's what I'll probably end up doing next.

Uncomfortability

2009-01-20T16:26:00.000-08:00

Optimum stress level. Divine discontent. Cognitive dissonance. It comes in a plethora of forms, but basically, it is good for people to be uncomfortable.
I was thinking about this today, as I thought about my job situation (uncomfortable), my long-term plans (indistinct), and even how I feel about myself at the moment (oblique), among other things. I often notice that when I feel the least complacent, I'm the most capable of doing great things, whether that's changing things about myself or changing things in the world around me.
So maybe I'm up for doing amazing things these days.... It sure, at least, gives me hope when things aren't going so incredibly!

Sorry.

2009-01-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

Hi, guys, sorry about adding another blog to the immense number that we all feel somewhat obliged to follow. Mine will not be your favorite, as you more than likely either dislike knitting or reading about my random philosophical rantings.
But here's the plan: I will write about my knitting projects when they actually get somewhere, and I will write about other stuff as I feel like it. Thank my sister for the knitting part, as she filled my head with novel notions of my epic needleworking capabilities by commissioning a Stacie Scarf. Thank my parents for the other stuff, for making me feel like my ideas are worthwhile.
In closing, I am wondering if anyone else in Spokane is noticing how the snow is starting to resemble a popsicle that has been sucked of all its flavor and dropped in the dirt, refusing to melt. It's sad and fairly icky.

Stacie's Loopholes

It sure is hard to post when you're knitting all the time

This knitting graffiti makes me feel happy.

It's the thought that counts (or: Unintentional Book Review)

Cultural Fiber Arts

Not A Drop

Berry Dyeing

Fresh mint tea may be the choice beverage of royalty.

You gotta get 'em while they're young

Today I like

And don't tell me it builds character

Grellow Gloves

Today I like

Some stuff I finished

Obtuse

Sometimes it's just meant to be

If you're not a knitter, this probably won't interest you

Ingenuity

PSA

Today I like

It's not really lost if I forgot about it

I want to be a farmer

Try, try, again

It's Finally.... Spring?.....

Produce Bag

Uniqueness

Today I like

Unraveling

Too many plants

Washboard Epiphany

Flax

Too Bad It's The Only Thing My Husband's Allergic To

My Personal Everest (apparently I'm a weenie when it comes to Everests)

Managing Pests

Research

Dandelions

Happiness Is

It seems to me

In a holding pattern

Milestone

Plants are silly

Here's my newest fashion statement

Am I the only one that

Stripes

Not another book review

Sarah Swett

My camera works?!

Japanese Indigo or: Can you torture plants?....

*Kool* Yarn

Dyeing with tea

Yarn Break: Book Review!

Let's just say it's not always homework

I need a new camera (but here's some yarn)

Sometimes it's hard to tell if it's obsession or creativity

Homogeneity

In Which Willy and Charlie are Discussed

Craft Fair Debut?!

She's Aliiiiive

Question:

Consuming!

What? I'm moving.

Yessss

KNOT funny (or: what happens when two pun feinds battle it out)

Evils of Knitting

I'm dealing with

Crochet!

A few of my favorite things

It's amazing how...

Organization and Tunic

Aw, darn

Apologies to Utah

Housekeeping

Ohh so pretty.

Serendipity

Words

Fiiiinally!

Joe is weird.

Today

Update

It's been a GREAT week.

Kool Yarn