the Akamai Knitter

You all know that since I finished a pair of socks I’d have to start another.  So just because there has been spinning does not mean there has not been knitting. It just hasn’t been around in abundance.

The new sock is being knit with some Trekking XXL I bought from The Knitter’s Underground while I was on vacation. The pattern is the ingenious Twisted Tweed and I loves it.

I took the sock with me to the graduation party I sweated at. I should have gotten a picture of the sock with the graduate, but to tell you the truth I didn’t know the graduate all that well. I’m friends with his mother and she was sweatier then I was, so I didn’t want to bother her.

Still. The sock received much admiration from the other folks at my table. Despite the wonderful hula show and the eating and the chattering and the eating and the endless raffle prizes and the eating and the wonderful music and the eating, I was able to get some knitting done.

The colors in this sock cheer me to no end. A good thing too since my current spinning project is rather monochromatic. But I’m on the second bobbin of two which means I’ll soon be done with it.

I really hope my swap partner likes it. It’s not very exciting. I’m painfully nervous about the whole thing. This is my first swap in years and I really want it to go well. I’ve been gathering various Hawaiian good in addition to the fiber I’m sending. Gosh, I hope she doesn’t hate Hawaii. :-o

Here’s a few non-sequitors. Did anyone see the Home Run Derby? Josh Hamilton kicked ass! Twenty-eight home runs in the first round! I was really sad that he didn’t take home the trophy, but he still went down in history.

Also, it’s really humid here. I washed five skeins of yarn yesterday and they’re still not dry.  This makes me growl in a sad, pathetic way. I know that’s rather self-contradictory, but there you have it.

Finally, it’s a rare shot of the three amigos. So rare that I had to take it at night and adjust the exposure to accommodate the super crappy lighting. You may all laugh at my horrid 70′s orange carpeting.

Happy Tuesday everyone!  Thanks for reading. :)

I’m all about the pictures today. It’s Monday and I have no words.

Remember these?

I finally got around to plying them together. I’m extremely pleased with the results.

Gratuitous close up shot.

I also finished the first bobbin of the Berry Pie Filling from Moonlight Baker. It’s like spinning buttah.

I would have continued on with the Berry Pie Filling, but I need to spin up some yarn for my swap partner first. I got some Superwash Merino/Alpaca from All Spun Up for her.

More buttah. My arteries are hardening with all the buttah going on around here. Heart attack city, people.

And for your viewing pleasure, the resident Buttah Ball.

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope you have more words then I do.  O.o

Last night there was a  meeting of the Aloha Knitters so I finally got some knitting time. I was shocked to realize that the last time I had picked up the needles prior to that was on Saturday! :-o

Despite the chaos of the chatter of twelve different women and meeting Naomi, which was really exciting, I was actually able to finish the knitting of the Nanner Socks.

Pattern: Nanner Socks by Wendy Johnson

Yarn: Shibui Sock in Jonquil

Needles: Size 2.25mm/1US

Started: June 28, 2008

Finished: July 10, 2008

No modifications.

I had so much fun knitting this pattern. It was super easy to memorize making it the perfect project to tote along with me whenever I had errands to do. It was also an adventure as I got to try a couple of new techniques. The first was the Turkish Cast On.  The second was the heel construction.

Usually when I do toe-up socks, I do a plain short-row heel but with this pattern Wendy has you do an actual heel flap. I’m a huge heel flap fan so I was eager to try it, but  I was a little mystified by the heel turn. In fact, I really couldn’t see how it would work out. But I kept plodding on and lo..

… a perfect heel. Wendy is genius.

I think I’m going to try to do this type of heel for all my toe-up socks. Unfortunately I still don’t get how she does it so the math mystifies me. But then math usually mystifies me.

As for the spinning? The spinning continues to consume me.

On Tuesday I started spinning the Superwash Alpaca/Merino fiber Lori sent me. By the end of the day I had finished this much of the bobbin.

I just love the stuff. It’s so soft and buttery. It was like drafting a cloud. I was able to finish it all on Wednesday. I plan on Navajo Plying it sometime today.  Thanks again, Lori.

I also managed to finish the first bobbin of the Corriedale From Hell. Lemme tell ya, I feel quite virtuous about it too.

In celebration of the finished bobbin, I threw this on the wheel.

Berry Pie Filling Merino roving from Moonlight Baker. Good stuff.

Jen sent me this roving to “test spin”. For some reason she wasn’t sure if her roving was good enough for general consumption. I have to say it’s plenty good enough. It’s 80 count Merino and it’s another buttery soft roving that I wish to eat.

Gratuitous close-up shot.

I have a graduation party to go to tomorrow night. I hear the place doesn’t have adequate air-conditioning and I’m having second thoughts about going. Only the food will be really good. And of course the people. The people I will love.  I think. I tend to hate people when it’s humid and I’m sweaty. Is the food and people worth sweating for?

Have a good weekend everyone! Stay cool. ;-)

Day three of the Tour de Fleece saw many hours of spinning. While I watched the Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, I plied these singes

into this yarn.

I’m really pleased with the results and I’m eager to throw this on the needles and knit some socks. I’ll probably fall back on a simple 2×2 rib, but I might mix it up just a little by doing it toe up.

Once I finished plying, I had no choice but to turn to the Corriedale From Hell (CFH). Now I’m not sure if it was felted or if it’s just crappy fiber. There are a lot of neps in it which makes the yarn somewhat lumpy in areas. I try to pull them out as much as possible, but it’s a losing battle.

At the end of the night, this is how full the bobbin was.

I think I’ll spin on the CFH on alternate days. So I’d like to start on another fiber today and while I had all these plans to start the Queen Mermaid, look what came in the mail for me.

These were all gifts from Loribird of From The Wool Room! And she’s the one who had the birthday. Talk about guilt.

The yarn is her hand-dyed sock yarn in the color Wildflower Meadows, the fiber is Superwash Merino/Alpaca (I think she dyed it herself as well), and the magazine is the Spin Off Issue Summer 2007 that I’ve been coveting.  It’s a super special package that really warms my heart, so thank you Lori!!

Now I just need to figure out whether I want to neglect Queen Mermaid in favor of Lori’s lovely fiber for the fourth day. I’m the most indecisive person I know, so this will be interesting.

ETA: I’m a doofus. Today was the fourth day. So I edited this post to reflect the change in which day of the Tour de Fleece I’m on. :-P

Saturday was the start of the Tour de Fleece and I’ve been trying to document my progress of what I’ve spun each day. For the first day I Navajo plied some South African Fine in the colorway Maccaws from Spunky Eclectic that I had already gotten spun.

These aren’t really my colors, but I had a lot of fun spinning it up anyway. It’s always an adventure to reach beyond my normal color comfort zone when I’m spinning.

I wasn’t able to start a new project for the second day of the tour, but I did take a picture of how much I already had on the bobbin when I started spinning.

By the time I finished, I had completed spinning what I needed for the second bobbin for a 3-ply yarn and I completed the third bobbin. Here are the singles all ready for plying.

I also started spinning some Corriedale roving that I bought from MDSW. While in Pennsylvania, I dyed it with Shelly.

This is how much I managed to spin last night.

I’m a little disappointed as this is not the fun project I had hoped it would be. I think the fiber must have felted a bit when I dyed it because it’s hard to draft. I can feel the fibers tearing when I pull it through and it’s a little lumpy.

I have 8 ounces of the Corriedale to spin. Since this is being spun as a laceweight yarn, it’s going to take me awhile. My plan is to spin a little bit of this and break the monotony by doing other projects in between so that I don’t get completely fed up.

I’ve already planned my ‘in between’ project. It’s a Merino roving from Enchanted Knoll Farm in the colorway ‘Queen Mermaid’. It’s destined to be another 3-ply sock weight yarn.

Some knitting also took place over the weekend as I took my sock with me when I did my errands on Saturday. I’m on the leg of the second Nanner sock and I hope to have it finished sometime this week.

I’m not sure what my next portable sock project will be, but one of the things I enjoy doing while spinning is mulling over what to knit next. A stash dive might be in order though as the mulling has produced nothing of use.

A stash dive might induce an urge to destash. Hrm.

Happy Monday everyone! Thanks for reading!