May Knitting but No Weaving

So...what have I been doing? I have been knitting a good amount!

I actually did finish the drape-neck sweater. Where are the finished photos, you wonder? Well, while I finished KNITTING it, that doesn't mean it's put together. I still can't find my blankety-blank blocking squares. I am thinking the only way to find them is to buy some more. Then they will turn up and I can knit an immense item and block it. I am going to look in ONE more place, then order more. I have two shawls to block still and one was for a gift for someone else. Ugh.

In a happier vein, I did indeed start a second Hitchhiker shawl, this one with beads, which I keep trying to spell "beeds."

Extreme close-up of Hitchhiker #2 on a good book.

I got the beads at local bead shop Nomadic Notions, if you want to get some for yourself. I am alternating an orange-ish bead with a green-ish bead on every other point. This picture has more accurate colors:

Little shawl in progress. Book is called Healing Spices, and it's wonderful!

The yarn is the Araucania Huasco, fingering weight that I got two skeins of when I went to Old Oaks Ranch. I feel proud for using yarn soon after I bought it. I figure with two skeins, I can make the shawlette a little bigger, and still have enough to also make hand warmers or a hat.

I do have another project (in addition to that fall shawl that gets a few rows a month knitted on it). You see, my lovely summer house guest, Eli, and I took a road trip last Saturday.

The Graduate

She's the older boy's college friend, and she graduated a year early. She's doing a couple of summer classes and an internship, so we offered her the guest room, like we did last year.

Anyway, she agreed to drive all the way to Paige to check out Yarnorama, since my other knitting shop checker-outer friend keeps having to do things with her KIDS, sheesh. She had never been to a yarn shop. Shocking, and she made it to age 21!

I'd gone out there because I had a sudden urge to buy a Cricket loom. I want to weave placemats and napkins and such, and I want to use up some of my incredibly large stash of sock yarn. I have seen some really nice scarves (Yarnorama has some nice samples Susan the owner made) from sock yarn.

Of course, while I was there, I looked at yarn. They'd recently had a Shibui yarn trunk show, so had some really  nice patterns and yarns. I got yarn to make two items. One is a really interesting vest from their Heichi booklet, called Shadow. It's made in Heichi, which is a raw silk tweedy kind of yarn. I got rust colored yarn for that one.

I also got more Heichi and also some Silk Cloud to make a very light-weight cardigan from one of their booklets, No. 5, from the Spring Summer 2012 leaflet collection from Shibui. Here's what it looks like so far:

Good Ole #5

Up close you can see the halo from the mohair in the Silk Cloud. It is a very loose knit. The pattern says use a size 11 needle, but I am using a 10.5 needle and getting gauge. It's knit in one piece bottom up, then you sew the shoulders and knit the arms down from the armholes. What gives it some definition is a simple crocheted edge. I get chilly a lot at work, and my Wrap Me Up shawl helps, but is bulky. I hope this will be a perfect work cover-up. Note that the sweater has fake side seams. They sure would be easier if the slipped stitches were done from the front, but NOOOO, they are done from the back, which means it's harder to see when to do it. That's why I put markers in.

Yarn to teach Eli to knit was also purchased. She volunteered, honest. I think her favorite part of the store was the angora bunnies, however. Still, Yarnorama was looking great, considering they'd been hit by lightning not too long ago, and all their electrical components went wonky. I heard today they have air conditioning again! Yay! But it wasn't too hot--those old Texas buildings had good circulation.

And yes, I got a loom, one of the new 15" Cricket looms. It will be easier to make place mats and even garments with that size loom. Unfortunately, even with helpful lessons from Deana from the Olden Days (it was so good to spend time with her again), and Susan, I had trouble getting started at home. Either I am messed up, or the loom was put together funny. I'm hoping to take it in tomorrow, since I am no longer going to our ranch this evening.

Ranch??

Ranch. Yes, we now own Hermit's Retreat Ranch, which is adjacent to Wild Type Ranch in scenic Milam County, Texas. We bought a chunk of our friends' property, with a pasture, a woods, a pond, and meadows. We will eventually build a place to retire there...with an entire fiber room, I promise! First we need water, electricity, and septic. One thing at a time! If you are interested in following along with our adventures, visit the blog where we've been chronicling our RV adventures. It will now have ranch adventures, too!

A Shawlette to Hitchhike In

I really have had a hard time knitting lately, since we have remodeling going on in my bedroom and bath. It will be nice, though, and my hand knits will have storage space! We got two under-the-bed storage boxes, plus there is a lot more space I can USE in the closet, or will be when they are done. I got rid of about a third of my clothing, and packed things I won't be wearing anymore into neat boxes labeled "long-term storage." So, some of my ancient knitted items are now there, stored for posterity.

This, however, is a finished shawlette!

Hitchhiker!

I got 40 little points on the end of my Hitchhiker shawlette, using the Zauberball Crazy sock yarn. I love the stripes. All lovely shades of blue that will go with denim nicely. I used size 3 needles, so it's loosely knit (remember, I use 0s for socks). I truly enjoyed the pattern (it's on Ravelry so you can buy the pattern and make one, too). And it is quite easy. The only trick I had to do was learn to count four garter stitch ridges so I'd know when to bind off to make the points. I can count to 4!

And here's what it will look like when I wear it:

Me ready to Hitchhike

There are so many options--but it looks fine with a white t-shirt! Wow, my hair has gotten long.

I wanted to start another one and put beads in it, but now I think I'll just make another plain one. I have two balls of the yarn I am thinking of using, so I will make a bigger version to throw dramatically across my shoulders, and perhaps end up with yarn left over for mitts or something.

What? Did you ask why there are no finished gray alpaca wrap sweater photos? I am still almost done with it. I have knitted some more, I think up to 34 inches of the endless 38 inches of stockinette for the front. I do hope this weekend will be the weekend of finishing.

Blocking is another issue. I can't find my blocking mats. Nor is there any flat space in the house right now, because we are sleeping on the guest bed, and the college kid's bed has all my clothing on it. I have two shawls to block for my friend Diane. I even have some new pins. But nowhere to block. I really hate it when I let people down (and wow, do I do it sometimes!). She really needed a shawl blocked last weekend, and I couldn't do it. Sigh. It will look good eventually, and so will my alpaca sweater. No need to be hard on myself.

I've been telling a bunch of people to not blame themselves for other people's issues. Well, I need to admit my shortcomings and just do my best, anyway. We are all fine folks who slip up occasionally, right?

Enthralled with Hitchhiker

I am supposed to be finishing the lovely gray alpaca sweater with the big twist in the front. May I just say, in way of excuses, that 38" of plain stockinette can get tedious? There I did say it. I have over 30" of it, though. I was hoping to buckle down and finish it while traveling this weekend, but we may not get to do that. It's hard, though...

...And the reason it's so hard is I am enjoying knitting the Hitchhiker shawlette or scarf I could not resist casting on for. WAY too much. Once I started it, I could not stop. Here it is started.

 It is amazing how many different shades of blue are in this one ball of Zauberball Crazy sock yarn. I have done 30 points on the Hitchhiker, and nothing's repeated yet. Such fun yarn. I don't have a great photo of it, but here is is, posing next to Scrunchy, making it clear that he has exactly one eye now, thank you very much.

Scrunchy complements the white stripe in the Hitchhiker very well.

It's getting pretty long--and it looks to me like there's enough of the yarn left to get twelve more points out of it. In any case, I think it will end up plenty long enough to drape jauntily around my neck.

I want to make about five of these. Beginning knitter? Don't let that stop you--it's pretty darned easy! And everyone who looks at it get a glazed and jealous expression on their faces. Men and women. What a great gift this would be!

However, I'm keeping this. Since I have LOST a bunch of my shawls in the Great Wildfire Scare of 2011, I need some warmth. (I know my shawls are in this house somewhere--just can't find where I put the shopping back full of hand knit and hand spun goodness.)

I must get back to the knitting. I would vow to not work on this blue beauty until the Drape Front sweater is done, but I can't. I do vow to try my best to finish it this weekend.

Instruction Reading & Checking Out the Alpacas

I learned a lesson, or was reminded of a lesson, yesterday. I was all happy to be finished knitting the drape front sweater, and thinking about blocking it. But I laid it out, and twisted the front, and thought to myself, my, how awkward this is. Then I looked at the pattern again. Well, would you look at that? The body width of the back is 19", while the body width of the FRONT is 28". No wonder I'd ended up with almost two full skeins of the yarn left over! What a doofus I am! The pattern is so simple; I just knit the front to match the back and didn't actually read the instructions. Yes, those very instructions would have made it clear that I needed to keep a-going on that endless stockinette section until it was much longer!

I have undone the second sleeve and am back to knitting plain ole stockinette for another long bit.

Lesson learned: READ THE INSTRUCTIONS.

And Now for Fun

I enjoyed some of that stockinette knitting in the car today, as my knitting friend and I, along with her two young daughters, made the trek out to Old Oaks Ranch to see how the alpacas are doing, and what kind of stuff they have in stock. If you've been reading this blog a really long time, you might recall that I went there with Lee in 2009. Three years later they still have most of the same alpacas. There have been changes there, but everyone is still very friendly, and we had some good conversations.  We took the paid tour, just the four of us. We got to watch two of the boys get shorn. Here is one in progress.

Sorry about the fence, but you can see all the people holding down an alpaca while a very strong woman shears him.

And here is one fellow just after being shorn and spitting in a guy's face. He seems quite pleased with himself.

Look at me! I spit in the face of the guy on the far right!

The girls had a complete blast. They got to pet and feed the females, who had all been shorn earlier in the morning. The alpacas were nervous, but settled down pretty well. So nice to see some of the same ladies as last time!

Getting ready to feed the Big Mama, Mariposa. The little boy is the grandson of the owners, and he was really "helpful" in the tour. The lady is the daughter-in-law of the owners. The is demonstrating proper alpaca handling technique.

I do love looking at and petting alpacas. However, the folks at Old Oaks did remind me that they would prefer to be by themselves, and are only happy in groups of three or more. That can run one up into big bucks!

Luckily, llamas are a different story. Their llama had also just been shorn, and I found him especially fetching, since he was spotted in the same way as my donkey, Oscar, America's Cutest Donkey. They also had a fine donkey, and the girls got to feed her carrots, vaguely successfully.

I admit these are also cute animals.

The donkey and llama serve as guard animals and keep coyotes away from the alpacas and chickens. They also have a big guard dog, who was very friendly (unlike the previous guard dog they had). He is also a Great Pyrenees, so huge and fluffy! The girls want a pet dog, so they began to lobby for one of those, but it will not be happening.

The last stop was at the hen house. I wish I had taken photos of it. They really did a cute job on it, and it was quite the palace, for a chicken abode. Each child got one egg, so that is good (the little boy family member broke his--he was quite enthusiastic).

After the tour, the folks in the family patiently went through a fiber demo with the girls, who really seemed to enjoy it. That gave me time to look at the yarn and other merchandise. I ended up getting this Auracania Huasco yarn, a fingering weight merino. I hope I can make a second Hitchhiker shawl from this. Of course, that would also require me making the first one.  I hope to start one today. And if the shawl only takes one skein, I will make socks.

Araucania Huasco

The lady at Old Oaks send us off to the Leaning Pear restaurant in Wimberley, which was a great place to eat, featuring locally sourced ingredients and interesting flavors. We even managed to have adult conversation during the meal. All in all, it was a fun day, and now I can do more stockinette knitting.

Hope your Easter, Passover or other significant holiday went or goes well! Happiest of greetings from this UU, who will attend the flower communion tomorrow.

Yarning Around

Oh hello, it's me, your sometime blogger, back again after just a little break this time. I have been thinking about knitting a lot, and even doing some!

I was hoping to totally finish that twist front alpaca sweater this weekend, and was knitting along in the RV when I looked into the knitting bag.  Guess what I didn't see? Another ball of yarn, that's what. Yep, I had brought most of my life essentials other than that final skein of yarn I'll need to finish (actually, I may well go into the fourth skein...who knows. So, I had to stop when I was at this attractive stage of the front of the sweater:

A partial front of a sweater.

I think this is one of those project that will be very pretty once blocked and sewed together, and not a moment sooner.So, I will continue to enjoy how lovely the alpaca fiber feels and not worry about it. I have fetched the next skein of yarn and will get moving after I blog! Ooh, note that I switched to some Lantern Moon wood needles. They are very pleasant to work with, as they should be at $30 (yow).

So, since I ran out of alpaca, I picked up my poor neglected fall colors shawl and got quite a bit of it done. This is one of those projects that it's hard to gauge progress on. I know I put at least 3 or 4 inches on it, but it still looks small. Of course, the fact that the stitch pattern is that interesting double garter stitch that sort of bunches up doesn't help much. That will make it a warm one, though. So, here's how it looks now:

Two-ball fall shawl progress.

It's blending very nicely. No one who looks at it believes I am knitting with two colorways, thanks to how each has the same brown in it. I am thinking of making a brown border on the bottom, since I have a skein of brown from the same dyer.

Now that I look at it harder, yeah, I can see I made some progress. I will quit whining.

I Went to a Store or Two or Three

I alluded last time to some fun knitting thing I was going to do soon. Well, that fun thing was that a friend and I took a day off work last week and indulgently went to visit every yarn store in Austin (other than Yarnbow, since I am not sure it's still there). We were comparing and contrasting.

I think it surprised my friend (a new friend, not one of my usual knitting friends or my old knitting friends who would know better) that everywhere I went someone knew me. I really enjoyed getting to talk to Stacy at the Knitting Nest, whom I hadn't seen in quite some time (since I quit going to yarn shops to browse!). We enjoyed the way the decor is all thematic, and were impressed by the larger space they have now. It must be very pleasant to take a class there. And it's always fun to trek down to way south Austin for something other than Volvo repair (son bought a Volvo way down south, which he has already blown the engine on, but it's OK because I made friends that way). I  bought a tape measure and a book there. Turns out I already have the book, too, so it may go to the shopping friend.

I digressed again. Next we headed up to Hill Country Weavers, where I actually HAVE been lately or I would not be working on that gray sweater! Suzanne was helpful and chatty but not too chatty (so we could shop) and was glad I am enjoying that naturally dyed alpaca so much. I saw the other colors, too--dyed with beets, onion and cochineal, which made two different colors, I guess with different mordants.

I bought two books, one is the book about Judy's Magic Cast On, which has some fun projects in it. It has to be cool to know you invented a new knitting technique, so my circular hat is off to Judy Becker! The other book I got is Modular Knits, by Iris Schreier, which also has some good ideas, plus some complex stuff to really dig into at some point.

The only yarns I bought are these two:

Another ball of Alchemy Haiku, and a Zauberball

I really want to make another Paintbrush Lace cowl, this time in just the Alchemy Haiku yarn. The colorway I got will look great with black or blue, I think. My fingers are itching to start, just to touch that yarn some more. I also got a ball of, yes, sock yarn. But but...I want it to be a shawl. This Hitchhiker one, to be exact. There was a sample in a slightly different colorway at Hill Country Weavers, and it looked so perfect with jeans. Look at me, planning projects again. I am so proud.

After checking out with our groaning weight of purchases, then eating a fun lunch right across from Hill Country, we checked out a couple of fabric stores that are typically "Austin." Stitch Lab is the one I'd send you locals off to, if you aren't already cool enough to have been there. It is incredibly trendy, modern (or postmodern) and updated it almost hurts. But there is fun fabric and all the classes look very entertaining. The teacher leading a class of little girls was really charming and very much in control without dampening their enthusiasm. I got a catalog for Beccano and Leigh.

The other shop is also very, very trendy, but in a more elegant way. It is called Common Thread. It had the kind of good quality fabric for sewing clothing that you can't get in the usual places. Nice natural fiber knits, and some gorgeous cottons you could actually see yourself wearing. I came close to wanting to sew something...and we also visited an upholstery shop just for fun...

Then we finally hit Gauge, where I hadn't been in the longest time. I was very glad to see they had nice, new yarns in good quantities. The selection still isn't huge, but it is well edited, and I know I can go there if I suddenly need more Entrelac stitch markers. Whew. I did know someone there from the olden days, but I didn't know her well and she was grafting something--you can't disturb that. The owners had all left right as we walked in, so there was an interesting man holding down the fort and dealing with customers.

All in all it was fun to do a mini yarn crawl, though I'd still like to get back to Paige and Yarnorama sometime. I know my friend would love to see the spinning stuff that all my beloved old knitting friends are now so addicted to!

And speaking of new knitting friends, I am still enjoying the little yarn group at work. There are just a few of us, but we do keep showing up! It's a very relaxing atmosphere, and I do appreciate that now that my whole life has calmed down and I can relax a bit.

(Remember, if you want to know what I am DOING all the time, visit the Ursula Lumbers blog, starring our bulky old RV, Ursula! There you can see me interact with horses, donkeys and cattle, and see a lot of pictures of farm and ranch land...someday there may well be sheep or alpaca on the ranch!)

Scarf and Such

Mostly I have been knitting along on the drape front sweater, and I have actually finished the front of it. Lovely? Not really lovely at all before blocking!

Some stockinette knitting

People say that photo looks like a uterus, or a thong. Well, it's a sweater back. I am moving along on the front.

I just finished the simple 1x1 ribbed scarf I have been working on. I sure enjoyed watching the colors change on it. I ended up using almost all of the yarn, but thought it would be too long if I did the last two colors of the self striping yarn, so I stopped. Here is is sitting in my office next to my Wrap Me Up wrap, which lives there for any chills in the air (more likely during summer than winter in climate controlled offices).

Hanging around in my office

I think the colors came out really nice. It's just nice, simple fun to knit along with one semi-solid and one self-striping strand. For your records, this is Knitwhits/Freia Handpaints - Freia Semi Solid Sport in Red Oxide and Knitwhits/Freia Handpaints - Freia Ombré Worsted in Metal Earth and Purpleheart. The yarn is single ply and really soft wool. I am sure it would felt just great, so I will be careful with it.

I just got a new coat, and it won't go with the scarf at all (it is very red and would clash with the orange). But, I will wear this anyway--it will look great with my Levi's jacket.

Let's see...I think I will get back to working on the shawl I had been working on earlier, and finish that lovely alpaca sweater. I need to finish something. I am just glad I lost some weight so all my knitted stuff fits again.

I'm doing a fun fiber activity later in the week, so perhaps I will report on that. In the meantime, it's back to my lovely life, where my kids are both off for spring break, and my spouse and I are traveling around to agricultural sites in the newly repaired RV (ranch in Cameron last weekend, farm in Yorktown next weekend--how did I get so rural?).