I got a package! (not that one Emily, Shannon, and Gail)

I got a package from Edinburgh today! I sent my friend Fee money to buy me roving with and this is what came today.

Counter clockwise from the top: Undyed merino (brown) 600g, Milk protein (casein) 100g, Mixed merino pack in ocean colors 200g, Undyed gotland 200g

This is maybe the best package, I've ever gotten (now how many times have I said that....). I think I'm going to use the gotland for the Kool-haas hat. I was also amused today because I get all of my mail sent to my school so I picked up the package in the reception. Because I was really excited I opened it and showed James, one of the people who works in the reception, the contents. He picked up one of the things of gotland and stroking it said "aw man, can I just sit here and stroke this all day?" It was amazing!

Oh, the other package still hasn't come yet....

A new year and new goodies

So some of you know that my wheel has been having some issues as of late - the wheel itself (as in, the large wheel that turns :) ) would move about .75 cm forward when I would treadle and rub up against the rocker bar that connects the two treadles. After emailing Gord Lendrum and the people I bought it from it had been determined that I need to tighten the bolt on the frame that connects the wheel to the frame. Of course this involves a wrench which is not something one brings when studying abroad. I finally went out to find one today and came back with this.

Gusto (an Austrian cooking magazine), Zotter chocolate, and the ever important wrench (and bits)

Well, low and behold, after a bit of screwing it works! Of course one of the little plastic feet things came off at some point last month and I think it got vacuumed up at some point - not a super big deal but now it walks ever so slightly when I spin but its not too noticeable (probably because its on carpet) and I can find another foot thing somewhere (if not in Vienna I'll get one in Portland this summer). But yes - now my wheel is back to normal and I can spin again! Now...about ordering more roving....

and i'm back - the lost post

So currently I don't have internet - the people at my dorm are changing over services or something like that and I've been without it for 3 or 4 days now. That being said, I got new goodies from Loop on etsy this week!



I was trying to hold out because I don't have very much roving at the moment and, clearly, I love spinning but I ended up spinning up some of it.

100% bamboo

i LOVE navajo plying

The semester is coming to a close which means - more spinning time for me! Well except first I have to write a paper and study for three finals. That being said I did some preemptive spinning last night.

I turned this

Into this

A closer look

Its corriedale in about a sport weight. If I had a ruler I would tell you how many wraps per inch but sadly I only have a tape measure. Its the most even I've ever spun anything to this point which makes me pretty happy (though that picture doesn't really give it justice as far as the evenness goes. I really love the color though and am probably going to buy some of it in merino after new years. I also should be getting the bats I bought from loop on etsy this week! Also I think I'll finally be able to make it to the Wednesday knitting group this week, I could come for the past two weeks because I was either sick or writing papers.

learning

This week I decided that I would teach myself how to Navajo ply mainly because I want to be able to spin self striping yarn that is plied. I also haven't made any three ply yarn yet soo, I figured this was a good chance. I spun up 70 or so grams of this neon orange corriedale that I got in a sample pack when I bought my spindle in October and went about learning how to Navajo ply - this is what I got.

Its much, much brighter in person

up close

Turns out, I LOVE Navajo plying, love it.I like the motions and I like what comes out and I like that I don't have to worry about the yardage of bobbins being more or less the same. Oh, and for whatever reason, its really easy for me.

Ideas

Last night I finally decided that it was time to actually knit with my merino/silk blend that I spun.

Its like a yarn apple

Wound on my faux nostepinne - aka an empty vitamin tablet bottle

I also am cursing myself for only having one stitch dictionary that just happens to be on cables (its how I learned how to cable - I asked one of the owners of an LYS in NYC last year if she could recommend a book and she replied that it would serve me better to just by a book of cable patterns - she was right). I wanted to make a scarf with a fun stitch design but didn't want to come up with this myself as I just don't have the time (or at the moment, creativity) so I settled for knitting the Multi-directional Diagonal Scarf. Its a surprisingly relaxing pattern, maybe because for most of it I don't have to pay attention, to anything - I also think it would show of yarns with color changes well.

I also have a new idea. I want roving, but its fairly difficult to get roving here (compared to in the US, I really just want more options than corriedale and merino) and there is one shop in Vienna where I can buy it from and, to my knowledge, they only sell roving by the kilo (minus the merino which they sell by the half kilo which equals 500g). Now my idea is, since I can get 1 kilo of corriedale for 29 euros, why don't I just buy a kilo and spin enough to make a sweater. I realize this is in no way a new idea - but it is for me, seeing as me and sweaters don't happen very often as far as knitting is concerned. This isn't so much of a "oh how nice it would be to spin and knit my own sweater" thing for me, its more of a "how can I increase my skills" exercise. I figure, I have four regular sized bobbins, I can devote two of them to the sweater yarn and have the other two open for anything else I want (and I very well may end up buying more because Ledrum bobbins aren't that expensive).
Thoughts?

What I've Been Up To

I inadvertently decided that I was going to take a on week break from blogging - or something to that effect, but I'm back!

I've been doing a ton of spinning lately (no surprise there) and this is what I have to show of it.

The last of the nice roving

Got spun and plied to make this

I also finally got a hang of using the fast flier and I'm having a lot of fun with it. It seems like its a lot easier for me to spin even singles on the fast flier than on the regular one - which is weird.
I also really need a spinning book. For whatever reason I neglected to buy one when I bought my wheel. My mom is sending me my winter jacket soon (because its colder in Krakow than it is here) so maybe I'll ask her to pick one up for me and send it, along with some red vines (red licorice that I've only been able to find in the western part of the US) as they are my favorite candy of all time.

~115 yards of two ply lace weight

I finished sock one of Bartholomew's Tantalizing Socks this morning. It still has a life line in the toe because I'm not positive that I'll have enough for the other sock and I want the toes to match. I'm knitting it in the Tausendschön that I bought a while ago. At first I didn't think the darker colors were saturated enough for me (you can see bits of white in the dark blues and greens) but I actually really like it. Its a really nice yarn to knit with and its not very expensive for hand dyed.

The color reminds me of Neuroknitter's holiday socks :)

Oh and Avast is sitting near my stash as I avoid seaming it because I really hate seaming. It actually got blocked on Wednesday/Thursday. I think I'm going to try to finish seaming most of it today though. Still no pictures.

Obsession

I plied around 100g of the silk/merino blend tonight. I'm pretty happy with it. Its amazingly soft and its a mix between worsted and sport weight. Oh and none of it is over spun! (and none of it is under spun to the point of falling apart/weakness) I think my goal right now is to spin something of any weight (except for bulky because I don't actually like bulky yarns for the most part) that is really even. Thats the goal. Oh and I also want a book or two about spinning because I still haven't actually read anything out of a book (hell I haven't read a whole lot online either, I'm apparently big on the trial and error method - it seems to be working well). My Christmas list this year is comprised of two things: roving and a book on spinning. I probably won't get them though, not for Christmas.

I also finished the main knitting portion of Avast today! It needs to be blocked, seamed, and the zipper sewn in and then it'll be done. No new pictures yet, but after its blocked and seamed I'll attempt to take a picture it'll be interesting because I've never taken a picture of any knitted item that large.

done!

Done with National Blog Posting Month that is. As I said last night, I think it went rather well and I'm glad I did it. I've enjoyed keeping my friends abreast of what's going on in my (mainly knitting) live and like that new people have found the blog.

This morning/afternoon I plied around 100g today. It's was a bit over plied (is that even the right term) so I soaked it in some wool wash and its currently hanging in my bathroom to dry (and isn't curling up on itself)

In real life the cream is a bit darker - I like it.

I also started spinning more of the silk/merino roving that I bought when I bought my wheel. I'm in love with it, its so soft and amazingly easy for me to work with. Its also just really pretty.

So for whatever reason my sleep schedule is really really off. It started when I came back home from England - I stayed up till 4:30am spinning (I was wired from traveling or something like that) and then fell asleep and woke up at 8:30am (because my body likes to get up that early on weekends). As a result (I guess), I've been sleepy at around 7pm every night this week, fell asleep curled up on the bed at around 9, then wake up at around 12am, and fall asleep and wake up about 3 more times through out the early morning until 6:30am when I give up. Its not good.

On a better and unrelated note, my flute teacher complemented me on my German today :) (our lessons are in German because her English isn't very good)

Almost finished!

One more day of National Blog Posting Month! I've done really well (seeing as I've blogged every day and maybe three of those posts have been memes) but am excited to have a lack of an "obligation" to blog. No worries though - I will still blog on a regular basis!

I did, however, finish dashing! It was nice and quick and I am probably going to start a sock tomorrow (well I'll bring stuff to school with me to start it, we'll see if I do). Also, no more freezing cold hands! (I hope)

This is actually a picture of the first one - I don't have a tripod or other person to take a picture of both of them on me and I'm too lazy right now to take a picture of an almost identical wrist warmer

I also decided to bite the bullet and spin 20g of the silk/merino blend that I bought in England. Low and behold its much, much easier for me to spin than the corriedale that I've been spinning for yarn that will probably be used to knit a hat.

Second skein I've spun on a wheel - so soft

The yarn is actually a bit brighter than it looks in the picture and looks totally different in sunlight (the blues become much brighter, in a good way). Its also amazingly soft, so amazingly soft. I'm not all quite sure what I'm going to do with this yarn, or the yarn that becomes of the rest of the roving I have - the idea now is that it'll become a scarf because a. I can show it off b. as much as I love hats, I want to be able to feel the softness of the yarn c. wrist warmers are great and all but you can't see them super well in full. We'll see, we'll see.

Making up titles names is difficult

So among other things I did this weekend was work on Avast and this is where its at right now.


The yoke got finished on the bus ride from P&M Woolcraft (where I bought my wheel) and now I'm working on the hem of the collar. Then I have to do the bottom 2.5 inches or so and the hem of that, and then I'm done! Well not totally, it needs to be blocked and seamed (ew), and lastly the zipper needs to be sewed in.

Yesterday after meeting Milinda and Ben at Mocha Club I played video games (My Sims for Nintendo DS - the first time I had played on my DS since early Sept maybe) and spun some of the corriedale that I have.

Apparently I forgot about the front of the bobbin...

So I don't really run with the whole "beginners can only do this or that" philosophy. The skein that I took a picture thats on yesterday's post was spun at a 8:1 ratio and the stuff above is being spun 10:1. I'm going to end up plying it with a cream colored corriedale. Then I'm going to work on getting the hang of spinning on the fast flyer :) I made a little to-do list of knitting and spinning things during theory today. I also wrote five pages in my journal - this is what I do when people are giving presentations on info that I'm a. not interested in and b. don't have to be responsible for knowing. Oh and today less than half of the class was here.

You asked for it

My first skein of hand spun on the wheel (I have a few tiny skeins of stuff that I've spun on my drop spindle). The roving I used is called "Pick and Super" which was described to me by the very cute and sweet couple at the place I bought my wheel as "a mix of different [wool] fibers". So I bought 200g of that and then 200g of this really gorgeous merino/silk roving that I might post pictures of tomorrow (I still haven't actually taken a picture of it).

Avast is also almost done. I finished the yoke yesterday and I need to start the collar today which should go very quickly, and then knit some odd inches at the bottom and then it can get blocked!

YAY

Look!

New

Wheel!!!!!