Knitting Across the Country

Goodness me, it's been a long few weeks. While I've certainly enjoyed traveling, it wasn't always conducive to getting lots of knitting done. So I'm very happy to be home and definitely looking forward to writing up a blog post about my knitting next week. But this week you get to hear about all of the knitters I met on my travels to Ohio and Seattle!


Most of the people I met up with are members of the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup on Ravelry, who suggested meeting up once they found out I would be in their area of the country. That's how I met akasha111182 in Ohio and pertela and rchrispy in Seattle. Even though I had never met any of them in person before, our common love of knitting and our shared experience of being the House Cup made for lots of fun.


The other knitter I got to see in Seattle is actually the fiance of one of my husband's college fraternity brothers. We see each other about once per year when another brother gets married, but in the meantime I keep up with her on her blog. That's the two of us above, having fun in the photobooth at the wedding we attended this past weekend (photo courtesy of 321foto.com). Hopefully, someone else will get married next summer so I can see her in person again!

Mostly, I just want to say thank you for all of my knitting friends for brightening up my travels. With the addition of my local House Cup ladies, doviejay and isisonearth, I truly appreciate being part of a community of knitters who are willing to act as my Seattle tour guide, inform me of the best Ohio yarn shops, or just gab about yarn. Thanks for your generosity, your warmth, and the fun times!

Spinning My Wheels

I just got back from spending the past week in Ohio with my folks and have enough time at home to catch my breath before I head out to a wedding in Seattle this weekend. Luckily, I didn't finish either of the two knitting projects I packed for the Ohio trip, so I will have something to work on during the plane rides.


I did, however, finish spinning and plying the fiber I packed. These two skeins are entirely spindle-spun and were even Navajo-plied on my spindle, the first time I've produced skeins using that plying technique. Navajo-plying is also called chain-plying as you basically make a crochet chain with long loops, resulting in a three-ply yarn. The outcome of this technique is short, solid-color sections in the skein, which is different than what you get with your usual two-ply yarn.


And even though I spun up all the fiber I took to Ohio, somehow I managed to come home with a whole trash bag full of roving! The photo above is really just the tip of the iceberg, as I have over 1.5 pounds of this Romney/Mohair blend--enough for an entire sweater. My mother split half of a fleece with a friend, and not being a big spinner, was generous enough to give me half of her lot. I really do have the best mother in the world.

So between all of this fiber and the stuff I got at the Alpaca Festival, I guess I need to get spinning!

Slightly Better Than A Staycation

I'm currently in Ohio this week, taking a pseudo-vacation while my laboratory is shut down for renovations. It's only a pseudo-vacation because, when I am not spending time with my parents, I'll be writing up a portion of my PhD thesis. Still, it's nice to have a change of pace and a change of scenery.


I also plan to get lots of knitting done when I am at home. Like most knitters, I always find the balance between packing enough and packing too much a difficult one. Though, considering my mother is an all-star weaver (see that best of show ribbon from the Ohio State Fair in the top right of the photo below? yep, all-star) maybe I should not worry about not packing enough yarn. I'm totally jealous of her stash.


My knitting projects that did make the cut include: a bunch of yarn for baby items (I have so many pregnant friends it's not even funny), some fiber for spinning, plus a spare skein for the mandatory Ysolda project. The portability of the spindle was a major reason it got packed, but after using it for a while I remembered how nice it is to spin this way. I expect it will travel with me more in the future.


In the meantime, between the writing and the knitting, I'm hoping to see some of the local sights. I've already been to a great yarn shop, hit up Jeni's Splendid Ice Cream, and explored the local bike paths. With plans to attend a minor league baseball game and the weaver's guild meeting this weekend with my mother, it promises to be a very nice visit indeed!

May Flowers

I'm an avid reader of the crafting (and little-bit-of-everything-else) blog Not Martha, and while it provides a steady stream of inspiring tutorials and links, I don't usually feel compelled to make the crafts the author talks about on her blog. That was, until she posted about her design tutorial for making a felt dahlia brooch. The project immediately shot to the top of my to-make list.


The flower itself is cut out of one sheet of felt with all of the little petals glued onto a felt-and-cardboard base. I decided to needlefelt everything together based upon the supplies I had on hand. The tutorial translated very well to needlefelting, but I do have some pointers:

* Cut the round base (to needlefelt your petals onto) to be 2.5 inches across. I skipped the cardboard altogether.
* Roll up the petals and felt them slightly before attaching them to the base. This helps preserve the integrity of the base by not overworking it.
* I still used glue to attach the center part of the flower to the front.
* A backing really helps hide the residual felting fuzz and make the flower look finished. You can either glue the backing on or hand stitch it.


I opted to affix my dahlia to a headband instead of a brooch so that I could wear it in my hair. Since my headband had small teeth along the inside, I simply sewed on the flower using a little embroidery floss and completely skipped the glue.


I'm very glad that I invested the few hours it took to put everything together because I really love the finished object. It will be the perfect thing to wear to a wedding I am attending later this month!

Sadness and Alpacas

It has been a long, tiring weekend here in Wisconsin. The roommate of a good friend of me and my husband passed away very suddenly this past week at the age of 25. Husband and I have spent a lot of time at the hospital and with our friend this weekend, culminating in a memorial service for Mike on Sunday at the Chemistry Department where we all work. The whole thing has been a shock, and I'm sure that any thoughts and prayers directed at Mike's family, friends and coworkers would be greatly appreciated.

I was lucky to get out away from everything for a little while and meet up with some Ravelry friends at the Midwest Alpaca Festival. I mean, how can such cute animals not induce a smile?


I think these alpaca thought that I was weird for taking a photo of them, those silly alpacas.


The friends who went to the festival with me are all from the Harry Potter Knit/Crochet House Cup group on Ravelry. I'm still amazed at how my internet friends are slowly transitioning to be real life friends. One of our group was actually demoing that day and gave lessons to my two friends who have never used a spinning wheel before. We all went home with a piece of handspun to show off--mine coming from a few minutes test driving a very nice Lendrum wheel.


While it was great to see the alpacas and learn to spin, the group really went to see the vendors! Since it was an alpaca festival, I scored some beautiful chocolate brown roving from an alpaca named Mojo. I also bought 2 ounces of camel fiber at a great price to see how it spins up, as well as 8 ounces of this wonderfully tweedy red roving. And since I picked up a new drive band (and a spare) at the festival, I am all set to get spinning!

Bulky Context

I mentioned previously that there might be a heavy-weight version of my pattern Context in the near future, and here it is! I swear that this is the last time you will see this pattern on my blog because, frankly, I'm a little tired of knitting it. But it was totally worth knitting the pattern one more time to get this squish-able, love-able, cuddle-able version. Is it bad to say that I prefer Context in bulky yarn instead of the fingering weight yarn that I called for in my own pattern?


This particular bulky yarn is a thick-and-thin handspun made from kettled-dyed roving. I only worked rows 1-60, or one repeat of charts A-C, but the finally scarf is still large enough to wrap around my neck twice and knot in front (I hid the knot underneath the front section in the photo above). If it wasn't apparent from my description above, I just love this version of my scarf!

So I'm definitely encouraging people to play around with my pattern. Just be sure to send me a photo of the results (brineydeepdesigns_at_gmail_dot_com)!


In completely unrelated news, I am so proud to say that my fellow Ravenclaws in the Harry Potter Knit Crochet House Cup named me a Mad Scientist! (The periodic table of cupcakes might have had something to do with it.) Considering the 100+ Ravenclaws this term and the fact that the other winner built her own spinning wheel out of PVC pipe(!), I'm just pleased as punch. Sign-ups are going on now for the next term and I'm looking forward to all of the crazy 'experiments' that are sure to come!

Fractal Spinning

Ever since January when I dusted off my spinning wheel, I've been producing 1 or 2 skeins of yarn per month. As a relatively new spinner, I focused a lot on technique--mainly spinning thin, non-lumpy singles. Spinning almost 800 yards of lace weight alpaca for the Ravelympics really helped me improve in this area.


With my general technique under control, I've been focusing on a new area--color. One way I've challenged myself in this area is to buy rovings with a range or combination of colors aren't in my typical color palette. In addition to all of the beauty inherent in these handdyed rovings, the fiber preparation and the method of plying can have a huge effect on color variations in the final product. For the two skeins shown here, I prepped and spun using a technique called fractal spinning.


Generally, fractal spinning refers to a 2-ply yarn where one of the plies has one long repeat of the color sequence while the other ply has several shorter color repeats. This is achieved by splitting the roving in half along its length and spinning the first ply from one portion. The second half of the roving is then split along its length 4 to 8 more times; these small portions are then spun one after another while maintaining the same color ordering. The two singles are then plied together, giving a balance of slow and fast color variation in the final skein.


It is hard to gauge exactly how my fractal spun yarn will look in the final knitted object by just looking at photos of the skeins. But the long color sections in the first roving will certainly produce more distinct stripes than from the short color sections in the second roving. I'm actually quite curious to see if the fractal spinning with be apparent in the skein below or if the color will just look well varied. Only one way to find out!


And if you are curious to know, the first roving/skein is superwash BFL in the 'Ooh-La-La-Tropi-Cal' colorway (February club fiber) from Spunky Eclectic. The second roving/skein is BFL swirl in the 'Athena' colorway from Sheepish Creations. I can't wait to see how they both look knit up!