Philosophe

Another WIP defeated. Still three left to finish and then it's onward to other things. Here's Voltaire in all his green glory. I found out, much to my chagrin, that 220 yards of Cascade is only half a scarf; the rest is Handpaintedyarn.com Colonia. Yum.

Candide, ou L'Optimiste

I got the autumn issue of Interweave Knits yesterday and can't decide whether I'm thrilled or disappointed. The majority of the patterns in it are sweaters, with the odd sprinkling of hats and one or two pairs of socks. Most of the sweaters don't really do anything for me, but there are a couple I might someday decide to try, like the pullover with the leafy lace insets in the sleeves and neckline. The downside is that I'll probably have to modify it somehow to make it a v-neck, or in the very least make some minor changes so that it's not the rolled, semi-turtleneck that the pattern is originally for.
I've been fairly productive recently. My list of WIPs has shrunk by three projects, so that now I've got a scarf, two shawls, and two pairs of socks to finish before the board is completely cleared. The scarf is making me want to go upstairs and see what books by Voltaire we have hiding in the study/studio/library. I seem to have miscalculated somewhere, because I'm halfway through the scarf and have run out of yarn. Zounds.. Looks like I get to start perusing KnitPicks.. again.

September Song

Wow. It's been entirely too long since my last post. There's been quite a bit going on: knitting, cheesemaking, more knitting, work... flimsy excuses all, I know, but that's the way it goes.

It's cooler today, which is a welcome change after a summer of high temperatures and humidity, and very little rain. The wind, however, is less welcome since it's making the hackberry trees throw branches and bits of branches all over the house--one surprised me last night when I came home from grocery shopping by whacking me on the head. I have a nice bruise on the bridge of my nose where it hit my spectacles.. ow. Could have been worse, though, if the chunk of wood had been any bigger. As I'm writing this, I hear sirens, which makes me wonder if something serious has been blown over or there are power lines down on the other side of town.
Last night was also cheese night. The cheese is under 15 pounds of flour so that some of the remaining whey gets squeezed out. Should be a nice batch of cheese with a gallon of goat's milk and a pint of heavy cream. The cream gives it a silkier texture almost like really firm cream cheese, and the flavor of the goat's milk makes it.. well.. it's got that sort of chevre tang. Yum. I might make bagels this evening just to have a good vehicle for the cheese.
The gray scarf is done. It doesn't really need blocking, but I'm still going to throw it in the wash after I weave in the loose ends. The cat--surprise!--insisted on lying on my lap or on the yarn, or biting the yarn and slobbering on it, and I'm guessing the person who commissioned it probably doesn't want kitty drool on it. Ick.
Spinning has been going a bit slower recently, mostly because my time has been taken up elsewhere. The tension peg for my spinning wheel is still MIA, probably because it got sucked up into the vacuum.. which distresses me greatly. It's getting to the time of year when it's cool enough to sit outside and spin, though I can do that with a spindle until our little gray cat interferes.. she loves to come and give the dangling spindle a good smack, then run away and glare at it, which she repeats a few more times before I'm forced to shoo her away. I've got several nekkid spindles, which is unusual.. especially since I've got all this lovely wool to work with. At the moment, I'm working my way through the EKF Sock Batts, the merino/tencel roving, and Sally's gorgeous BFL. I really should finish the Artisan Acre BFL, too, it's so gorgeous.. sigh. Too many choices...

Down the Rabbit Hole

Yarn. With something to show the scale. I finally wound up my TdF project today--what there is of it. I think if I'd been cycling in the race, I would probably be the cyclist whose support team lost the map, fell down a manhole, and wound up wandering around the Court of Miracles at midnight.
I still have about half the wool left to spin, but that shouldn't take too long if I'm attentive and make a feeble attempt at project monogamy. I'm very pleased with the way this came out. The yarn is remarkably consistent, so it's destined to be plied and knit into a pair of striped mitts if there ends up being enough of it by the time I finish the rest of the wool.
Another package of wool arrived today, so I'm officially going on a fiber-free diet until October. Corgi Hill Farm. Again. =^.^= Merino and cashmere blend in the Red Queen colorway. I seem to be shifting away from my usual blues and greens and gravitating to stronger reds, for some reason. This is definitely worth it, though.

Note to self:  Stop dawdling and get a niddy-noddy! Your projects will thank you for it.

Spider Silk

The other part of my TDF project isn't going quite as well as I'd hoped. Of the two ounces I've got, I've spun less than a quarter... but Florenz was very cooperative and gave it his best effort. The brown yarn is KnitPicks Palette, so you can sort of get an idea of scale if you look at the embiggened version of the picture.

Allez... SPIN!

Like Hannibal and the intrepid cyclists, I took on the Alps today for the Team Tale Spin challenge. The roving is superwash BFL in Liquid Amber from Artisan Acre; the spindle is my IST Wood Emporium baby in tulipwood and walnut.
The fairy tale I chose was Vasilisa the Beautiful. The story is that of Vasilissa's visit to Baba Yaga; the colors of the roving fit perfectly with the various fiery motifs sprinkled throughout the story... from the fire Vasilissa is sent to fetch, to the second horseman, to the glow of the skull Baba Yaga sends back home with Vasilissa... and the skull's reaction to the wicked stepmother.
As usual, I forgot to use something to show the scale, but you get the idea. ;)

Fleur de Fleece

Over the weekend, I finally got started on my TdF spinning. Which was awkward because I had to keep migrating from one room to another to avoid hordes of guests at the party I went to. It's so hard avoiding people at parties, especially when you're doing something peculiar like sitting on a barstool and using a drop spindle.. I was good, though, and didn't get too prickly when they asked questions.
This is my first attempt at spinning silk with any real consistency. Florenz has been performing well. He's a little heavier than most of my other spindles, but numerous people have said that it's possible to spin fine yarn on heavy spindles--Mrs. Dragonfly sure proved that with the sewing thread she spun as a test before she and Mr. Dragonfly sent Florenz on his way to my mailbox. I haven't done a WPI test yet, either, but un-fluffed, it looks like it should be fairly close between lace weight and fingering weights. Still not sure if I want to spin it in two parts, then ply it with itself, or wind it into a ball and then chain ply it to make something more substantial. Either way, knitting anything with yarn that fine would take ages, even on biggish needles. Unfortunately, I didn't think to include a penny for scale this time, but you get the idea.

Here's the silk in its unspun form. It's very soft and just a little bit fly-away, so whatever I'm wearing ends up with a slight dusting of silk fibers.
The colors are (as you can see from the above picture) blending to produce something closer to coral.. which isn't quite what I was aiming for. It would be tragic to over-dye it, I think, so I'll just leave it as it is and  entertain suggestions for projects when I figure out how many yards I've got when it's all spun up. Corgi Hill Farm is... I need to stop looking at her Etsy shop. Really, I do. 

Peppery Paprikash

Today was the first day of TdF. Fail. I went to work this morning and fumed, then came home and continued to fume. The net result of all the fuming was that I wound off the rest of the first Werefox batt and now have.. three spindles in a state of dishabille. Scandal.
A couple days ago, my IST Wood Emporium spindle arrived and was promptly draped in red Wensleydale. My first experience with a true long-wool is essentially this: because the staples are so long, you can draft until you're practically blue in the face and the single will refuse to drift apart. And you can spin really, really, really fine yarn consisting of almost minuscule amounts of fiber. It's insane. KnittySpin carried an article on this very subject a while back and I'm pleased to see that what I thought was hairiness is normal behavior for long-wools like Wensleydale. No pictures yet, unfortunately, because I wound off the small amount of yarn and am getting ready to actually start my TdF project tomorrow. 

One thing about Wensleydale, thought, is that it's not exactly soft. It's incredibly lustrous and has that.. sort of weird, fuzzy halo thing goin' on, but it's probably not going to be well suited to something you'd wear next to the skin. I've been thinking about a lace project.. I'm probably nuts to consider it, but Veil of Isis looks like it would be perfect for this. Assuming I get through TdF. 
Tomorrow, I'm off to go bumping along a mountain road.. and by the time I reach the end of said mountain road, I'll probably be so rattled at having nearly fallen into the numerous chuck holes that I won't be in any shape to do much spinning. I somehow doubt the fearless cyclists who compete in the non-woolly version of this event ever have to worry about being swallowed by chuck holes or chased by deer.. 

Who-who?

Guess who's come back to our woods? The little ones are starting to fledge, so if I listen carefully when I'm outside at night, I can hear the insistent query of "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee?" Warms the cockles of my heart, it does.

Victory Garden

One Wasabi Pea on a bed of lettuce. I'm extremely pleased with it, even if I'm winding up a little bit late. For the Snow White, Rose Red knit-along, here's the first of Urdda's socks. As Freyalyn suggests, maybe I'll just concentrate on finishing the second sock so I have one less project to worry about before TdF starts.