Fiber Musings

It’s a good thing that Grace has knitted content for you, because I’ve been experiencing ennui. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to knit. I have. It’s because I haven’t wanted to face reality.

Huh? You say.

The above sweater is the primary cause of my ennui. Why? Well, I have to say, I am pretty proud of what I had done. This was my first attempt at knitting a set-in sleeve sweater from the top (using Barbara Walker’s Knitting From the Top). I’m pretty tickled with how neatly all those short rows turned out at the shoulders and the sleeve cap. Technically, it’s a work of art. The yarn is beautiful (Dale Svale) and feels great. It splits a little too easily for my taste, but it drapes beautifully.

Problem? I’ve been working on it, on and off, for over 2 months now, and the above is all the progress I’ve made to date. In fact, I haven’t touched it since I took it to Knit Night at Uncommon Threads 2 months ago, when I finally made it to the point of knitting in the round. Something was niggling at the back of my brain then. I knew it wasn’t going to work. But I was stubborn. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I sat down and finished one of the sleeve caps, and tried it on.

Yup. It’s too big. That was what was bothering me. I had a feeling, but I didn’t want to admit it. Yes, the beauty of top down sweaters is that you can try it on as you go. But, with the curling seams, I was able to delude myself that IT WILL FIT. Once the sleeve was in, I could delude myself no longer. The shoulders are at least 3″ too wide.

How the heck did I mismeasure that badly? I checked my notes, and I am knitting to gauge, and calculated per my measurements. All I can say is that I measured incorrectly.

The next time you see this sweater, it will be a pile of yarn balls.

I will leave you with pretty eye candy. I am finally finished spinning the singles from some pretty roving from Willow Creek Farm using a Turkish spindle, made by Kurt Ocker. I think the cross arms are made of pink ivory. I have to admit, I can’t remember. I have so many of Kurt’s turkish spindles that I’ve lost track (last count is about 8 spindles by Kurt of assorted exotic woods). I bought the pink ivory for Martin, and something else for me, but I can’t remember. Does anyone know what other types of pink hardwood there is? This one is a bit brighter than pink ivory.

Here’s a pretty cool article about Kurt and Kat by Kurt’s son, Kenny. (Scroll 2/3 page down to “Kurt Ocker and Karen Dobroth: Wool and Spinning”.) Kurt, Kat (aka Karen), and Kenny are pretty great people. Kurt is a fabulous woodworker, and Kenny is learning fast. I found them at Shepherd’s Extravaganza years ago, and have been collecting their spindles ever since. I make a point of stopping by their booth whenever I’m at Black Sheep Gathering. The wood that Kurt chooses to work with are absolutely beautiful, and they spin forever.

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The sweater is finished, but we have a photo of only the back. Disneyland found DH’s backpack with the camera and shipped it to our house. So the picture of the completed sweater will be coming soon.

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My head is buzzing, and it’s not just the meds that’s causing the buzz. I just returned from my second Color Institute workshop at Earthues, in Seattle. The first session was at the end of January. There were 16 or 18 of us in the first session. The class size was too large, too hectic. This time, Michele divided us up into 2 smaller groups. My group consisted mostly of people in the SF Bay Area: 3 of us from the Black Sheep Handweavers Guild.

This time, we focused on independent study: working in areas that we needed to develop our color memory. My study area? Cool vs. Warm. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? Except that I confuse the two. I never really thought about what colors make up the cool vs. warm colors. In fact, I had it backwards in my head. So I threw away all preconceived notions and worked through the progression from cool to warm, and back again. I used Color-Aid chips and created my own series of cool to warm in primaries, secondaries, more secondaries, and then just plain played with color progressions.

Last day was spent on setting up our independent work project for the next session. I picked 3 photos (1 sunrise and 2 sunsets) and will designing a yarn and a fabric that will convey the colors and sense of light that are depicted in these photos.

I also retook the Farnsworth-Munsell 100 Hue Test. I did marginally better than I did in January. My area of weakness is where blue-green transitions into green-blue. I have to find some exercises to develop my color memory in this area.

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Last year, I completed two sweaters based on Colleen Davis’ Triangle Mambo sweater pattern. I worked on the first sweater while Iris was undergoing a tonsillectomy. In the confusion when she came out of the anesthesia and cried for mommy, I lost the pattern. So the sweater is loosely based on Colleen’s pattern. Fortunately, I read the pattern all the way through before commencing like a good girl.
I am wearing the jewel-toned version made from 5 balls of Kureyon and assorted solids and heathers. My SIL, Debbie, is wearing the one made from 9 balls of Kureyon (with only 2 m of yarn to spare!).
Here is the back.

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I have been making scarves by sandwiching yarns and fabric scraps between two sheets of Solvy and then quilting a grid with my sewing machine to hold it together. Since DH left his backpack with our digital camera behind at Disneyland, I had to scan this on our flatbed scanner. You can still see the Solvy on this piece. It is made of nylon ribbon, two colors of flax yarn, fun fur and beige thread. This one went to a coworker moving across the country next week.

Miss I was so thrilled to wake up one morning to find this drying on the banister, that she just had to model this one for you. It was drying because I gave it a good soaking in warm water to dissolve the Solvy, of course. She has bedhead. Miss I, not the scarf. This one is composed of nylon ribbon, recycled silk that Ann had unspun and washed for me, some leftover fancy black/multi/sparkly yarn and lots of colors of thread. This one went to Miss I’s teacher for her birthday.

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