Shall We Knit is here!!

It's very very exciting! Shall We Knit?, a yarn store that lived in New Hamburg, has moved to Waterloo! Not only that, but they moved to a location that takes me all of five minutes to walk to. I am ridiculously excited....they have a whole ROOM just for sock yarn! If you are in Waterloo and spend any time knitting at all, I really really recommend you check them out, they have some marvelously delicious things. (Including a wonderful selection of Koigu.)

And because blog posts are no fun without pictures, here's what I got when I visited (adhering to my only-buy-one-thing decision):

It's Koigu (of course), my plan is to make fingerless gloves that I'll actually wear.

In other news, I spun this yarn:

It is very lumpy and uneven, but that is was I was going for (I didn't prep the fibre at all). I am calling it "acidity" for no particular reason. There's only about 94m here, but I have a bunch of this fibre, so I'll probably spin most of it up like this, and make another hood:

In exciting news, I may be doing a yarn bombing workshop at love.MADE, pending figuring some stuff out. More details will follow as they become available! If it works out I may try to get more involved with them, because they are literally just down the street from my house.

Finally, I've started to give knitting and crochet lessons! $15/hr for individual lessons or $8/hr/person for group lessons. Materials available for a fee or you can bring them yourself. Flexible times and locations. Comment if you're interested, but I don't have a car, so Waterloo-Kitchener area is really the only area I can work with.

Handspun and FOs

Some new handspun:

Purple dragon. I spun this a while ago, but never took a picture of the finished skein. This was my first time spinning from a batt, I really enjoyed it!


Foreign skies. This is the thinnest yarn I've ever spun! It's 2-ply and laceweight. This is the first time I've spun using long draw.



Mermaid's den. Respun from Lion Brand Homespun. Two skeins of singles and one 2-ply with occasional beads. There doesn't seem to be a good way to spin beads without putting them on a separate thread and plying that with a single - I tried threading the beads onto one of the singles, then pushing the beads along, which sort of worked, but the single kept breaking and it was very frustrating.

Some recent(ish) FOs:

Lace armwarmers. I made these quite a while ago, but never took pictures. This is another one I'm planning on writing out a pattern for, I really like how these turned out. If the pattern gets written out I'll probably add a thumb.


Silk and alpaca scarf. Worked sideways; the silk is sari ends I spun. I like this! I need to rinse it, but I'm worried about the dye on the silk running, it's happened before.


Child's hat. Cables!

Oh my GAWD

It's happened. I went to Herrschners to pick up some Mirasol Hacho to finish my scarf. I had PROMISED myself that I was ONLY going to buy that yarn, and NOTHING ELSE. I was quite determined, I swear.

But the bus only came every half hour, so I had to wander around the store for a little while...

It's not ...a LOT of yarn, right?

I swear I don't know what happened. I was just wandering around, and then when I went to the cash there was all this yarn in the basket! I blame the sale room in the back. And the sale on the yarn in the non-sale room. Oh dear...

This is neat though:

It's like a cheap acrylic version of Noro! The colour aren't as nice, and it is acrylic, but Kureyon is always rather rough feeling anyway? It's nice to have cheaper alternatives, this was only $5/skein.

Also, new glow-in-the-dark needles!

I think my stash has grown significantly in the last month. In addition to spending FAR too much money on yarn today and yesterday, this magical box arrived in the mail:

Wait till you see what's inside:

I swear I got tingles when I opened it. 2lbs of fibre I got from a lovely person who was destashing on ravelry. Gosh, there are soooo many wonderful inside it! Happyhappyhappyhappy.

Happy.

Happy!

:D

I am using things though! I made a hat with some of the yarn from Michaels last night, it knitted up super fast because it's sooo chunky. I like it! It's a cloche (and looks a little large here because Cassie has a tiny cute head!).

Also, some handspun:

I spun and dyed it yellow in the summer, but I was unsatisfied, so I resist dyed it the other night, with elastics. I like how it looks spotty, so I call it "Spotted Frog." I plied it with itself...plying from either ends of a centre-pull ball works, believe it or not. (I was sceptical, I thought it would turn into a tangled mess, but no!)

So yes, a good day. Despite my COMPLETE AND UTTER unfaithfulness to my purported yarn diet. Oh well, I sort of knew it was lies.

But now I'm on a yarn diet FOR REALS THIS TIME, I swear.

Unless, you know...

Something comes up...

Handspun and WIPs

Today I've got some pictures of handspun yarn! Always exciting.

First, a couple small skeins of handdyed laceweight. The colours you can get with food colouring are really fantastic, I'm so pleased with how these came out. This was the first time I've dyed the roving and then spun it.

There isn't enough yarn to do much with, so I'm going to try making knitted jewellery with these. I really love the lace necklaces people make, and I've been meaning to try it myself for a while now.

As you may or may not know, I'm fond of taking yarn apart and respinning it. I had a bit of bulky yarn that was blue, green and two shades of purple. I separated it into colours, and respun it into two singles, a blue-green one and a purple-purple one, then plied those.

I like the yarn I spun much better than the original.

I tried to make a tam, but I ran out of yarn too quickly.

I really don't want to go buy more yarn. I think my options are to finish it with a contrasting colour (something plain though, maybe black? It's already pretty colourful.) or take it apart and make a toque instead. I'm leaning towards the second option, but I really don't know. Maybe it'll go into the unfinished projects bin and I'll forget about it for a couple months.

I mentioned a couple posts ago that I was going to try making socks.

Well, I'm trying. There are several things that have come up, and there's no way my socks are going to match now. First problem:

Wtf. There is no way these are the same dyelot. I feel so betrayed! The dyelot on the label was the same!

Second problem:

How did this happen? Dramatic tension change? Was I just really nervous for the first one? I just don't know. Maybe I can block them to the same size? (This seems unlikely but I'll try anyway.)

Sigh. I guess it will be sort of ok. Listening to the Robot Pirates helps a bit.

Good news though! I finished embroidering needle sizes onto my circular needle case! It's on my wall above my bed now, terribly satisfying.

For someone who is obsessed with knitting and yarn as much as I am, I appear to have a severe lack of scarves. This is madness!

I started a lace scarf last night. I've had this yarn forever, it's really lovely, I am so excited to be using it at last.

ALL THE YARN

I am proud to announce I can now go into Len's Mill without attempting to buy ALL THE YARN. I think it's because I'm now a total yarn snob, and want to save my yarn money for buying gorgeous fancy yarn.

Anyway, I got some white 100% wool yarn because I want to practice dying yarn! I'm only using food colouring for now, since I can get it locally, it makes bright colours, and I can still use the dishes I dye in afterwards. I've only dyed yarn I've spun so far, but spinning takes quite a while, and I'd like to be able to practise on yarn I didn't put tons of effort into.

Here's the skein of yarn I spun + dyed most recently:



100% "organic fibre" from Louet (I'm not sure what "organic fibre" means). Hand spun with a drop spindle. Single ply. Hand dyed with food colouring. Approx 200m, 145g, DK weight. There's a bit of slub in this, but not as much as previous yarn I've spun!

Handspun!

I finally spun a semi-useful amount of yarn! Here it is:



Fibres from Yarn Indulgences, it's "Organic Fibre," whatever that means. Hand dyed with food colouring. Slightly varicoloured with different shades of green. (There are occasional white bits, but I didn't want to dye it a third time, and they're not that noticeable.) Approx 106m, DK weight (it's a bit slubby, and varies between fine and worsted). Single ply. I might ply it at some point if I make something that would ply well with it, but no definitely plans atm.

Fuck, I just love yarn!

Unrelated to Crafts, mostly:

So I have an essay due tomorrow, but couldn't focus on it AT ALL, so I took some ritalin because it seemed like it might help (I'd never tried it before). It hasn't helped me work on my essay, but I've got lots of other things done. I've killed over 30 flies, watched their bodies get taken away by ants, updated my website (which now links here ftw!), and haven't gotten any crafts done at all because of pretending to do my essay. Which has not progressed at all. And now I keep getting dizzy every time I stand up - possibly because of food but maybe not? Anyhow, it's an interesting experience but possibly not the best decision I could have made.

Back to Crafts

I've decided I need to label my yarn bombs. I was at the Knit in Public Day (attempted to set record for most people knitting in public - but failed) and someone behind me was talking about the yarn bombing in uptown. I was all excited (that's me!) but then they said the Stitch 'n' Bitch group was doing it. I told them it was me but they didn't seem terribly inclined to believe me, which ticked me off a little. It's one thing to be anonymous, and another thing entirely to have someone else assigned the credit. So BAH, I want to label my tags!

One of the groups in the yarn bombing book has woven labels like in clothes - this really seems like the most appealing option. Paper is too flimsy unless laminated, and laminated just seems like too much work, or annoying, or something. Plus, textile art really ought to have textile tags, it just seems right. Edit: I've found a local-ish site which will do 100 for $10! Success, plus cheap shipping! They're printed and not woven, but hey!

If I EVER get around to making clothes, I think I'd like to get labels for those as well, be all professional and whatnot. Having a logo (logogogogogo) seems like a good plan too, so I'll talk to my sister about that...she is a fancy artist type.

Time for me to go fuck around on the internet some more.

Neglect

Oh dear I have been neglecting this blog! And I have been making crafts quite obsessively. I'm working on my third knitted shirt in two weeks! (It's so exciting, I don't have pictures, but it's this pattern.) It's a little ridiculous, but crafts are AWESOME. Plus I have no money so I never go out and do things.

It's interesting how much the ATCs I make have changed in the last few months...getting new craft supplies has a lot to do with that though, especially a set of acrylics!


I've also gotten some more rubber stamps. I really like stamping on an ATC background then washing it out with water, it blends the shapes and colours really nicely. Here's a couple cards where I've combined that technique with wire:




I'm also getting fond of using hot glue as a material in its own right. I wish I could dye it though...




Texture just seems to get increasingly fascinating the more I play with it. I'd never really thought about texture all that much, but working with (and cuddling) a lot of yarn, plus some drug experiences (sometimes drugs AND yarn!), have really helped me focus on it a lot more. Plus flat ATCs are boring!




I also now have an account on ATCs for all. It's a rather badly designed site, but there's a lot of spectacular art on there. (And of course some not-so-great-art, but that's only to be expected.) The best part is that everyone is so enthusiastic about trading, and I really like being able to pick the cards I get (that's my main problem with ATCs on swap-bot).


I have also been learning to spin! It's great but I'm not very good at it; try as I might I can't get non-slub yarn. Luckily I LIKE slub, but still. The biggest problem is that right now I only really want to make big projects (mostly tops) and I don't have the skill or patience to handspin enough yarn for one. Sigh. So my handspun is sitting around for now. But I have learned to ply on a drop spindle, plus dying yarn is SO MUCH FUN. I just love bright colours, and since I'm just using food colouring (with vinegar as a mordant) it's super easy to get them! Here's one example:



The fiber is this super-soft wool I get from Yarn Indulgences. This yarn is unplied and terribly slubby, but I just love the colours in it!

I've also been experimenting with some weirder fibers. I picked some dried milkweed fluff from a field which I'm going to try blending with wool. It's too short and straight to use by itself (at least I don't think I could), but it's sooooo soft and silky. I just need to pick out all the seeds first, which is going to take forever.

I also tried making plarn! I spun it as well, which was super easy since I didn't have to tease the fiber at all. It was much less satisfying though....probably for the same reason. So, to make it more interesting, I plied it with some polyfil I dragged back from Toronto. I like how the polyfil goes sort of puffy!




And, of course, I've been yarn bombing things! Here's a couple, both crochet: