Quick and Dirty Update

Hi! I still exist. In fact I'm working very hard at being Yummy Yarn, so hard I don't have time to blog. Or the impulse, usually. That's the thing, see, I'm not a blogger. I read and enjoy some blogs, don't get me wrong, and I have no bad opinion of the people who do blog, but I lack the impulse to narrate my life, myself. However, I do like to reach out to my fiber people from time to time, and let them know what I"m up to.

Mostly, I'm up to this:

Isn't she lovely? That's the new baby, playing with the fringe of my stashbuster scarf. I've been stashbusting like crazy. After 5 scarves, I got a bit bored and now I'm doing a stashbuster sweater. Here's that in progress:

I'm also back to teaching at Black Sheep Yarns and soon I'll be offering a couple classes at Vancouver's new yarn store, Baaad Anna's. So far, teaching with the baby in tow has been successful; fingers crossed that it continues to work out. I'm getting creative with it. I bring a babysitter to my Tuesday classes at BSY; Friday workshops are done without a babysitter to spell me off. My Baaad Anna's workshops may be done with or without the sitter, I haven't decided. Depends on how the bebe is that week, I suppose. She's getting a lot happier about hanging out in a wrap carrier on my back while I do stuff, so that's bodes well!

My big project this week is getting as much stock as I can, because in a few weeks I'm holding a trunk show! Baaad Anna's has agreed to host my trunk show of yarns, fiber, and knitted objects (those are for show not sale) on the weekend of October 17-18. It's a chance for locals to see all my yarn in the same place at the same time, something that hasn't happened since I stopped doing the Coquitlam Farmer's Market last September. I hope it's a good event for the store, since I always like to see a yarn store do well, and I won't lie, I hope the sales are good.

More Knitting than Usual

One of the effects of me making teaching a significant part of my business is that I'm spending a whole lot more time knitting than I had been, and I didn't realize how much I'd missed it.  I never stopped, but I was doing pretty minor things -- a pair of mittens here, socks there, now and then a hat.  Now, I'm spending a lot of time making up demo projects for classes and trying to come up with simple projects that showcase my yarn.  It's kind of nice, to have stuff on the go.

I've been knitting a sweater for my Sweaters Without a Pattern class out of the tweed yarn I handspun a while back.  I'm so in love with this yarn, i can't tell you.  It's springy and robust but still soft on the skin, and the way it's knitting up, showing off those little bits and pieces of

 leftover fiber bits from my previous spinning -- love, total love.  I didn't have quite enough for a sweater to fit me, though, and I agonized for a bit.  I could just make a sweater for my daughter, and it would be lovely, but I worked so hard on making this yarn that I couldn't quite bear the thought of it not being for me.  I could set the yarn aside for a vest, and make the sweater from different yarn, but I'm not exactly rolling in money, and if I could make the demo project without spending money, that would be better.

I decided to go to the yarn store and see if there was something interesting I could use for the cuffs and button bands, maybe a bit of detailing, and I struck gold.  I struck Noro.  Their new yarn, Yuzen, is an interesting crispy texture, and the silk content gives it a bit of a sheen.  And they had a colourway that could not have been a better match for my tweed.

Here is the project in progress, half the body and the sleeves done, ready to be joined up for the raglan shoulder.  If you want to lick the screen, then you're like me.

I can't knit anymore on the sweater until a week from now, when I demonstrate how to do an armscye and how to assemble the pieces to begin the raglan shaping, but I was enjoying the pretty mindless knitting on chunky yarn.  I decided to cast on for a felted bag.

I've said in the past that it makes me cry when I find out that someone wants to felt my yarn, but I can see the appeal -- the colours are lovely, and it does felt like a dream.  So I chose some colours:

Mindless knitting, pretty colours -- I can see the appeal.  Will keep you posted.

Class news:  By popular demand, I'm running a Beginner's Knitting class that begins this Thursday evening.  I hadn't anticipated that Beginner Knitting would be the one with the highest demand, but now I know -- next Winter, I'll run it twice.  There is going to be a 2-session Mittens class beginning on Saturday Nov 22 that I think will be fun.  I'm teaching a pattern that can be used with any yarn, for any size hands.  I like any pattern that starts "choose any yarn you like."

WWKIP

This Saturday, June 14th, is World Wide Knit In Public Day. I did not make that up. I have no particular feelings on the subject of this day, but I like any excuse for knitters to get out and publicly fondle each others projects, so I'll be going to at least one of the six events happening in the Lower Mainland.

Specifically, I will be attending the Port Moody get together, which will be held from 11am to 1pm in front of the Social Rec. Centre here in PoMo (that's the building that has been under construction for the past 3 years, to the right of the library). Fingers crossed for sun, because if there is rain, there is no backup plan.

If you're on Ravelry, there is a thread devoted to the PoMo KIP day here.)

I will be raffling off a skein of my handspun at the KIP, and the price of entry is to knit a bit on the baby blanket I'm working on. I hand dyed 20 skeins of gorgeous superwash merino in different shades of blue, and I'm making a lovely log cabin blanket, but I want as many hands as possible to work on the gift; just as many hands help a mother to care for her baby.

Hope to see some of you tomorrow!

Preschooler Surprise

I finished the Baby Surprise Jacket, and I'm thrilled with it. I just followed the standard EZ pattern, but with a much larger-gauge yarn than she suggests. If you do this yarn in the suggested worsted weight yarn (I think worsted...maybe smaller), you get a jacket for a baby. If you do it in my yarn, which is an Aran weight, you get this:


That's my sizeable 3 year old, who usually wears a 4T.

The jacket is proportioned for a baby, hence the short arms. I could pick up stitches along the sleeves and lengthen them, but I rather like the short sleeve. The number of handknit sweaters I end up washing because they got a little food or paint just on the edge of the sleeves is large. Maybe this will cut down a bit on the washing -- dare to dream.

Specifics: I knit this particular jacket from 5 skeins of my own soft-spun yarn. I used a 5mm needle, but I'm a really loose knitter, so a more typical knitter may wish to use a 6 or 6.5mm needle. I had very little of those skeins left over when the project was done. If you wanted to lengthen the sleeves, you'd want 6 skeins. Garter stitch is lovely, but it does tend to eat yarn. Still, the resulting fabric is so squooshy and yum, I think the yarn-consumption is worth it.

The photo shoot was a bit of a challenge. You know how it is. The second your small child senses that you *really* want her to try something on, that is the one time she absolutely will not do it. And if they do it, they will run away from the camera when you pull that out and ask for just one picture.

Here is my daughter 'hiding' from the camera.


Tomorrow is Got Craft, and I have the usual pre-show jitters. I'm afraid I won't have enough stuff, I'm afraid no one will buy anything, I'm afraid I'll have not enough breakfast and too much coffee and be a manic mess whenever I try to talk to anyone, prompting the public at large to start referring to me as "that insane yarn lady." (I'm pretending that they don't already.)

At least I have a ride. My car broke down on Wednesday, and the garage I like can't look at it until Monday...and how will I get downtown with all my stuff you ask? Fortunately, the Skytrain is not involved, as amusing as it would be to carry 8 garbage bags full of wool on public transit. No, instead, the lovely and generous Amanda of Ebbandflo Designs, a vendor at Got Craft who just happens to live near me, will be giving me a lift. Me and my giant bags of wool. Fortunately, she sells jewellery which is small.

I am so buying her lunch.

Moving too fast to blog...

I just looked in my little dyeing notebook -- I keep something resembling actual records now, which is a big shift for me -- and it tells me that I have dyed 19 3/4 lbs of wool this week. That's probably a record, although of course I can't be sure since I just started keeping this notebook. It's a lot of wool, in any case. More than 50% of that will be sold as fiber, but I aim to have a good 30% of it spun up by Thursday of next week (the last day I can have skeins in the water for finishing, and still have them dry by Sunday). My to do list -- it's colourful, but it's long.

So I'm moving a little too fast to blog at the moment. I would love to show you what 19.75 lbs looks like, but honestly, some of it is in my spinning basket, some of it is already braided up, some is piled up waiting to be braided, some is still wet outside and one pound is still in my oven. I can show you what Day 1 of dyeing looked like:





My big success this week is finally creating a "Ianto" roving that is exactly what I pictured in my head. This colourway involves two shades of purple, and my violet dye is one of those that intensifies 10x in the dyepot -- purple has often defeated me. My solution was to stop using that dye to try to create purple. Instead, I use red, magenta, turquoise, and cobalt in various combinations to get the shades I want. So I'm very pleased. Not only did I get the roving to turn out just like I wanted it, but I know what I did, so I can reliably duplicate my results. Probably. Won't know until I try again! I also (to continue the Whoverse theme) redid my Tardis colourway and got results I'm pleased with -- but I'm still going to refine that one. I'll post my Tardis roving tomorrow on Etsy.

Lastly, my BSJ is finished except for blocking and buttons. It should fit a largish 2 year old, and it took 5 skeins of Yummy Yarn. It's sooo cushy and pretty.

BSJ progress

Just a couple pictures. Here is the project as it appeared on Monday -- yarn chosen, pattern available, cast on done:


The yarn is my own, in colours Grape Jelly, Rose-A-Lee, and Mocha-Chocolata.

Here it is today:


Another day or two, and the knitting will be done. The Baby Surprise Jacket done with thick yarn -- delightful. The thing I love about instant gratification knitting is that the gratification is so, well, instant.

It's coming out about the right size for a two year old, which is what I expected. I may lengthen the sleeves a bit with a perpendicular garter stitch border; I may not. I don't know who will eventually wear the jacket, but it's a lovely demo piece for my yarn.

Studio Tour, and a Sunny Day

I had an excellent day today. It was one of those sun-is-shining spring days where all the neurons are popping, and I feel electric with ideas and possibilities and optimism. The sun is just part of it. Today, I had my third spinning class, and I think I finally have sorted the difference between woolen and worsted, both as fiber preparations and drafting techniques. It remains to do some scientific experimenting -- use the same fiber to spin roughly the same weight of yarn in four different ways (woolen prep/woolen draft, worsted/worsted, and both semi-worsted yarns), then knit them, then examine them in lots of light and possibly given all 4 swatches a serious wash and rub to see how they wear.

Usually I'm not very scientific -- my dye mixing technique is solidly in the "a little of this and a little of that" camp, and note taking is an occasional afterthought. But I can't yet see some of the differences I'm looking for, but I want to be in control of the yarn that I spin so that I can make decisions about technique to produce a desired effect. I need to do what it takes for me to be able to see the differences.

I'll keep you posted on this project.

After my spinning class, I visited Three Bags Full to deliver some promised rovings, and I found all four of the Elizabeth Zimmerman books that I had wanted to see in person. I settled on The Opinionated Knitter and Knitting Around. The Knitters Almanac frankly doesn't contain projects that interest me, although I'm intrigued by the concept of knitted tights, and the book based on her TV series is a bit redundant, since I have the DVDs.

EZ always gets me inspired. The new books, along with my teacher's exhortations to be seen knitting my own yarn more often, are combining to inspire me to make my first Baby Surprise Jacket with my own soft-spun yarn. As soon as my husband comes home, I'll head out to the car (I ought not to leave the three year old alone in the house) to bring in the rest of the yarn that's still in the trunk from the weekend show, and choose my colours. I'm thinking two or three purples, and a lovely brown.

The Studio Tour was cool -- i met some neat fellow artists and artisans, I explained how to make yarn to a lot of kids, and I explained the mechanics of the spinning wheel to lots of all kinds of people. I really enjoyed myself, but I'm wiped, as usual.

No rest for the self-employed though. Today's full schedule of class and a sales call was technically my "day off," and tomorrow I have to hit the dyepots -- I'm completely out of fiber. If you want my fiber, head down to Three Bags Full, they have everything.