Volume reduction

I've been doing some plying.


The gray skein is Corriedale and the multi-colour is Blue-Face Leicester. I bought both last fall and spun the singles on a drop spindle and on my mother-in-law's Lendrum. I did all of the plying on the Lendrum.

The Corriedale is 2-ply, but the BFL is a mixed bag. I had 3 bobbins plus a single from the drop spindle, so I started by plying the 3 bobbins together, but I had trouble keeping the 3 plies from tangling, so I went down to 2-ply. I ended up with a lot of leftovers from the drop spindle, so I tried Navajo plying the rest, but I may have done something wrong because the end keeps unravelling.

It's just a long way of saying there's a lot of practice going on and the cats will probably be getting large rustic-looking pillows or something for Christmas, because this isn't really sweater quality yarn. I think I am getting better at this though.

There is still the alpaca. I must plan more carefully this time.

The temperature is much more comfortable today, so I may resume packing tonight.

Knitbloggerstock

As you may have seen in various places, we had a second gathering last Saturday of knitbloggers from around Southeast New England. Kristen, Debby, Sarah, Carol, Cindy, Kimberly, Greeley, Heather and I descended upon Sakonnet Purls to ogle (and buy!) yarn and knit for a couple of hours. I picked up some Plymouth Encore, 3 balls of Regia sock yarn (hopefully this will be enough for Cookie A’s German Stocking pattern!), and some cotton yarn for a hat. I also acquired a second set of Addi Lace circulars and promptly transferred a shawl over. I miss the extra grab the Addi Naturas had on the lace weight alpaca yarn, but I definitely prefer the joins and pointiness of the Addi Lace needles.


Kimberly gave me a very nice going-away present--two skeins of sock yarn from Farmhouse Yarns and a bottle of coffee syrup. Thanks, Kimberly!

Felix overdomesticus

Tonight my cat had his best evening in weeks.

About half an hour ago I noticed something fluttering around the room. My first thought was, "Save the yarn!!" but then I remembered the yarn was in plastic containers on the other end of the apartment. Meanwhile, my cat noticed the fluttering creature and tried to go into Bugkiller mode, but due to the dearth of prey around here his instincts were a bit rusty, so he spent the entire time alternating between lounging on the floor, squeaking excitedly when he saw the bug, and attacking random buglike objects. It was a little embarrassing. I expect that once the bug realizes my cat has forgotten how to hunt it will invite its friends over to mock us.


Himself doing his thing.

I finished the surprise object today. Once I tuck in the last two ends of yarn I'll post a photo in Ravelry. I'll post another one here when the object reaches its recipient.

Back to knitting

Despite appearances to the contrary, I have been knitting in the last few weeks, even during the packing frenzy. I finished the first Pomatomus sock and thought, "HAH! In your face, Pomatomus!" I then cast on for the second sock, knit a few rows, put the knitting down, picked it up, untangled the needles and yarn, knit a few more rows...and started wondering why one of the stitches looked so indescribably odd. I glared at it and tried to frog down the column, but with no success. After picking at it some more I finally realized that, when I had put the knitting down and picked it back up, I managed to flip the freaking sock inside-out and start knitting BACKWARDS along the row.

I decided to re-start the sock. Things are fine now. Pomatomus and I are still at a draw in this battle of wills.


Left to right: Pomatomus #1, Pomatomus #2, and an Addi Lace needle that I'm carrying around just because I like to look at it.

I also finished knitting the surprise object. The Manos Cotton Stria I used (single ply with a thread) can be broken just by tugging really hard on it, and it's kind of bumpy, which may be a problem for seaming. I'm thinking of seaming using a matching plied yarn instead. Should I look specifically for cotton yarn to go with the cotton knit, or can I just buy whatever as long as it is also machine-washable?

Here's a close-up of the object. I did say it's a surprise.


KAL
Debby and Meg are co-hosting a Tour de France KAL. I haven't been on a bike in years but would like to sign up anyway--it just feels appropriate, with the cross-country drive and all.

Other things
The rest of my non-work hours have been devoted to packing and apparently attempting to corner the market on boxes.


Before anyone asks about the spinning wheel, yes, spinning counts as part of packing. After all, I won't have access to the wheel for a while (this one is on loan from my mother-in-law), and the drop spindle is kind of slow, and I have fleece, and this way I can reduce the volume it takes up...in...the...moving...truck. Yeah. You know, volume = money and all that.

In fact, if I extend that argument then knitting also counts as packing since many of the finished objects will take up less space than the yarn.

I'd better go pack some more.

Packing

At some point I'll resume posting photos of actual knitting.

We've started packing for the move. On one hand it may be a bit early for this, but on the other hand...well...I'm not the most focused packer. My typical evening seems to run like this:

1) Gotta pack gotta pack gotta PACK!
2) ...after the news. And some supper.
3) And maybe some vapid TV shows.
4) Okay, now I'm really going to pack.
5) Ooh, what's this? I haven't seen this in years! (nostalgic interlude follows)
6) Aw now it's all dusty. (frenzy follows involving duster, cloths, air filter and/or vacuum)
7) Hooray, I've finished a box! Oh...it's midnight...I'd better go to bed.

(Repeat until moving day)