(mis)adventures of spindlerose

Ten on Tuesday: Things I Want to Do in 2012

1. Knit with cashmere. I have cashmere blend yarn for several sweater-sized projects in the studio. This is my year to use it. I will earn a bit of luxury knitting every time I complete a fitness goal. First up is Sabine in Superior.
2. Run a 5K race in March or April. D and I have started running again. If we survive our cold winter morning runs, stay healthy, and stick to the plan, we will be ready for a 5K by St. Patrick's Day.
3. Run a 10K race in September. If we keep training through the spring and summer, we will be ready to tackle a longer distance by the end of summer.
4. Finish 12 sweaters. This is much less of a stretch than you might think. There are at least 10 nearly finished sweaters hiding on my shelves that stalled for some reason. It is time stop procrastinating, solve the problems, and finish them.
5. Finish 12 pairs of hand knit socks and give most of them away. My sock shelf is overflowing, but socks are still my go to project for travel knitting. Since there is a lot of business travel in my future, there will be a lot of socks.
6. Spin every day. Even 10 minutes a day with a spindle adds up to quite a bit of yarn after a few weeks. Daily efforts at the wheel lead to more consistent finished yarn. My spinning focus this year is spinning for a purpose rather than just spinning. I have made myself a personal fiber club of 6 bumps of fiber that I will spin for a specific project.
7. Knit with handspun. If I am spinning with the end project in mind, I need to knit the project when the yarn is finished so I can evaluate my progress and figure out what to do better next time. I also need to make some space in my handspun bin for the other yarns I plan to spin this year.
8. Learn how to weave. The more I talk to weavers and handle hand woven cloth, the more I want to weave. I am going to start looking for a used loom in May and take a weaving class or two later in the year.
9. Go back to Hawaii with D. We have not been there since 2009. It is time for a visit.
10. Post to this here blog at least once a week. I will start with Carole's Ten on Tuesday this month, and see where that leads me.

Squeezing in a bit of fun

Hill Country Weavers

Today, I found a tiny bit of time to find yarn while traveling for work. I spent a lovely half hour or so poking around in Hill Country Weavers in Austin. I bought one tiny ball of lace weight yarn to knit a Christmas gift for someone, a shop pattern, and a magazine. I hope to go back next time I'm in Austin to poke around a bit more, find more tasty food in the neighborhood, and find the spinning and weaving parts of the shop.

Some socks

Chevrons!

In June, I prevailed over a skein of Trekking XXL that had thwarted all my attempts to turn it into a pair of socks. Many years ago, I bought a skein of yarn. I planned to knit chevroned socks from it. That early in my sock knitting career, I had not figured out exactly how to fit socks to my feet. I did not know that chevrons take away the elasticity of knitting or that my instep requires a lot of extra stretch. I started 3 or 4 different socks from this yarn, and none of them streched over my heel. But I stubbornly insisted that this yarn would be chevrons. This spring, I found a chevron pattern with some stretch, and knit it up in about 2 weeks. I finally have the pair of green and blue chevron socks I dreamed about for years.

Pattern: Stripes Alive
Yarn: Trekking XXL
Notions: 2.5 mm Darn Pretty DPNs
Time: June 3 to 19, 2011

Ten things I did last weekend

 

1. Made coils with Jacey Boggs.
2. Learned how to handcard fluffy rolags with Andrea Mielke-Schroer.
3. Turned those yummy rolags into sproingy woolen spun yarns.
4. Spun cotton on a takhli with Stephanie Gaustad.
5. Sampled seven rare breed wools with Deb Robson and put my new hand carding skill to good use with some of them.
6. Spent the last hours of SOAR spinning with many friends in my hotel room. I took pictures ofbthis, but they are all unflattering, so I'm not going to share any publicly.
7. Introduced friends to D, the little red airplane, and the wonders of aerobatic flight.
8. Watched the first half of the Patriots and Packers games.
9. Picked up big sticks so D could use our brand new lawnmower.
10. Lots and lots of laundry.

No wonder I was so tired all day Monday.

Nine interesting socks

Wednesday's interesting socks

I'm still recovering from SOAR. One of the amazing things about SOAR and all other knitting or spinning events is seeing hand knits and hand woven pieces everywhere. These nine socks were all knit by participants in my three day color workshop. On any given day more than half of us wore interesting socks, shawls, or sweaters. The creativity and talent of everyone at SOAR—the mentors and the attendees—is stunning. As much as I learned last week, I think the real reason that I (and so many others) go to SOAR every year is to spend a week with over 200 like-minded creators. Experiencing that energy is the true power of the event. So many of us craft alone or in small groups all year and never really grasp the wonder of our community. Ravelry, blogs, and other on line communities help, but do not replace the tremendous power of gathering and sharing.

Is this something you have experienced? Are there ways we, as creators, can create more times and places to share, gather, and create together?

I have a lot more I want to say about this, but it's late, and I have to leave early tomorrow morning. More soon, I promise.

Between adventures

Blanket squares for Miss Z

Now that SOAR is over, I am shifting my brain away from fun with fiber and back to every day life. The pile I left on my desk 7 days ago is scary, but I am not going to deal with it until tomorrow. Even though I want to spend the next month spinning the rest of my SOAR samples and practicing all the new techniques I learned (coils! And cotton on a tahkli and handcarding), I need to repack my suitcase for an adventure in Texas that starts Tuesday.

I will be making more time for fiber on this trip (and in the rest of life). I'm going to toss something lovely into my travel spindle case and yarn for more blanket squares into my bag. Miss Z is nearly three, and I would like to deliver her blanket in time for Christmas. I would rather finish this one project than meet my 12 finished pairs goal this year.

End of SOAR

Ingrind and Octavian

I watched Ingrid create this octopus all week fornher entry in Spinnerr's Poker. She won both the Excellence and People's Choice awards.

Building the blogging habit

I vanished again. Sorry about that. Unpacking, working, and enjoying the end of summer with good friends became more important than spending any extra minutes at the computer. And then, once I lose the blogging habit, reclaiming it is incredibly difficult for me. Generally, I do not have much luck establishing good habits, and can only manage one new one every few months. Now that we have truly settled into the house, I have some cycles to dedicate to reclaiming my blogging habit.

I spent most of September rebuilding my wool habit. All fibery mojo left during the move. Spinning came back during Tour de Fleece, but the knitting stayed away all summer despite a trip to Sock Summit. I did finish spinning the bright pink BFL during July. I finally plied it sometime in August. The finished yarn sat on a bobbin for a few weeks. Less than a week after I wound it off and skeined it, I had finished knitting it into a small shawl.

Unfortunately, losing the blogging habit means I have also lost then photography habit. I took no photos of the pink yarn as a pile of singles on storage bobbins or as 2-ply yarn at any stage of finishing. I haven't even photographed the shawl yet. I'm planning to put it in the SOAR Gallery, though. I'll take some pictures then.

Some socks

Despite a recent lack of evidence, I do still knit. Until we moved two weeks ago, I knit quite a lot this year, and have a big pile of finished projects to prove it. Since we moved, I have picked up my needles a few times, but I'm not really motivated by any of my current projects. Here is a quick run-down of the odd socks I have turned into pairs so far this year. I'll post the new pairs later this month.

Mini-Slip Jigs for Miss M

Pattern: Slip Jig by IrishGirlieKnits, March 2010 Rockin Sock Club
Yarn: Socks that Rock Mediumweight in Wild Irish Girlie
Needles: US 2 / 2.75 mm DPNs
Time: December 13, 2010 to January 13, 2011 (biggish yarn, small socks)
Comments: I sent the first sock as part of her Christmas gift, and learned that it was too small. I quickly knit up a bigger pair that fit her perfectly.

Pink Posy Socks for me

Pattern: Sheri's Posies from Socks from the Toe Up
Yarn: STR Lightweight mill end in an impossible to photograph bright pink.
Notions: 2.5 mm DPNs
Time: I started these at Wendy's book signing party in April 2009. I finished them in March 24, 2011.
Comments: I used my standard toe-up gusset modification (two additional pairs of increases for a longer heel flap) to get a pair of bright.pink.socks that I love.

Knetted for me

Pattern: Knetted by Cat Bordhi. This was the September 2009 Rockin Sock Club kit.
Yarn: STR mediumweight
Notions: US 2 / 2.75 mm DPNs
Time: December 16, 2009 to April 16, 2011
Comments: I knit the first sock and was unhappy with the fit so the pair stayed unfinished for a long time. The short cuff and funky architecture did not work for my feet. I borrowed a copy of Cat's book from a friend, since mine went on walkabout, to figure out some modifications. The second sock has a longer cuff and more increases so it fits in the gusset. I ripped back the first sock to the start of the increases and re-knit a longer leg and the modified gusset and heel. I'm not sure if I'll knit another pair of socks with this method, but I'm happy with this pair.

I just realized that all three of these pairs were knit from Socks That Rock. It is a favorite yarn, I should knit more socks from my extensive stash. I absolutely should not buy any more while I'm at Sock Summit in a couple of weeks.

Diving in

Today's NaBloPoMo question is "Do you like to dive into things or take your time getting acclimated?" For me, it depends on the context in which I'm answering the question. When swimming, I usually ease into the water slowly even though I am ultimately happier if I dive in. I remember fearlessly diving off of the high dive at the city pools when I was young. At some point around middle school, I lost that fearlessness.

When crafting and cooking, I dive in. When I get a new spindle, new fiber, or a new wheel, I start playing. Eventually, I settle in to sample and plan for a project, but I love those first moments of spinning for the joy of it. Unfortunately, the bins of fiber in the new wool room that I've spun a few grams of are evidence of this tendency. With knitting, I'm even worse. I quickly succumb to the shiny new projects and abandon them as soon as I hit a small roadblock, things get boring, or I've learned what that project had to teach. The huge collection of odd socks and nearly finished sweaters provides that evidence. For example, I started the Ruched Yoke Tee from the Spring 2011 Interweave Knits in late February. I knit furiously for just about a week; I was traveling and in love with the yarn and the pattern. I finished the yoke, reached the point that I needed to do a bit of math for bust darts, and have not picked it up since (unless you count putting all the yarn, magazine issue, my recent measurements, and the sweater in progress into one place as I packed to move).

Professionally, I am more inclined to take my time getting acclimated. When working with colleagues, partners, and customers, taking that time is important to building long term relationships. When I first started in my field, I frequently dove in and ended up with bad client relationships because I did not fully understand the problem I had been hired to solve, or—more importantly—the people for whom I was solving a problem. I also coded myself into corners because I did not properly plan large projects. When I am working on projects, this becomes procrastination more often than not. Today it took me most of the morning to get started on a project; once I started, I made good progress. Someday, I'll learn that just starting the work on big projects gets them done much more quickly than waiting until I have a large block of time to start and finish in one setting. Then again, if I have not learned that less by 41, I wonder if I ever will.