Boring!

I am actually getting a bit sick of this 6plied project. I don't want to spin Autumn colors any more. I'm craving a bit of blue, or purple. hehe. But I have a few more skeins made, and I have a few more to go.

Alpha

Golf

Foxtrot

 

Maybe it's because they're all looking so much the same? I have tended to use one plain-ish color, like grey or oatmeal or tan, but I think NaturallyKnitty is right; the more different the two colors are, the more interesting it turns out. This last one, Foxtrot, was much more colorful. It stands out in the Idlewood, too, but never mind. I can always overdye the whole thing if I hate it in the end! LOL.

On the knitting side of things, here's the Idlewood last time I tested the fit.

Nope, it's not upside down. That's the insanely long neck, which will bunch up to be nice and warm. I'm actually about 4 inches past the underarms now.

This one is "Chicane" which is sock number 2 in the Tour de Sock. I am now up to the gusset decreases. I may or may not finish this one sock by the end of the month. Probably not, though. LOL.

 And I'm up to the official 50%-done mark in my Potions OWL, which is 18 inches. So far there we have 6 inches of 1x1 ribbing, 3 vikkel braids, pi up to about 35 decimals, a few sine waves, 13 cute little Daleks, some dioxyribonucleic acid, and a few Fibonacci lines (where I changed colors after 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8 and 13 rounds). In the 8-wide strip I wrote out my Ravelry name (Alrischa) in binary, which took up all 300 stitches! Binary is not exactly short hand :)

Next, when I get organized enough to make the charts, will be chess pieces, and then we will look into this Steek business. I haven't done any secret messages so far. I just can't decide on anything. Well, it will be nerdy at least :)

The only other finished thing is a small pair of socks for Jas. I got this rainbow yarn at Bendigo last year, and I separated it into 4 balls so that I could knit two at a time with two strands and have the colors line up, more or less.

And now, back to the Jen. I want to finish this Delta today so I can start the Hotel when the Tour de France and the Tour de Fleece begin!

More six-ply

Two more mashup skeins to report. This one

Echo.

is my favorite so far, I think. It was a nuisance to spin the Autumn one, because it's a mix of merino, tencel and angora (and angora is fluffy lumpy stuff) but the grey one was hand-dyed merino and silk. I've already knit it up into the top of the Idlewood. 

It's hard to get a photo of the right colors, though. The grey goes from dark to light, so in the next skein I'll knit the grey in it from light to dark.

Juliet.

I've organized my plans so that as I knit and change skeins, the new skein will have one color from the previous skein and one new one. So the first five skeins will be

Echo - Autumn and Skelegro
Juliet - Skelegro and William 
Alpha - William and Sand (to be spun next)
Charlie - Sand and Oatmeal
Golf - Oatmeal and Strelitzia (to be spun after Alpha)

Aside from the spinning I finished off 5 plain garter stitch blanket squares. They've been sent off to Peanutzmom (on Ravelry) who puts them together for all the babies that get born in Slytherin :)

And I finished off the pair of Tern socks for my sister, Kelly's, birthday

and the Romney-alpaca socks for my sister-in-law, Kylie's, birthday.

The Tour de Sock has started, which is a sock speed knitting competition that raises money for MSF (Doctors Without Borders). But I was on night shift, so I didn't get a good start, and then I decided that I just don't like the first pair enough to persist. I'd rather spin. So my OWL and my Idlewood and my spinning wheel will get a little love and attention for a while, until I see what the next pair of socks looks like :)

Progress

OWL progress:

Not much to look at yet, but there are about 6 inches of 1x1 ribbing, 3 vikkel braids, the numbers of pi up to 35 decimals, I think, a few sine waves, and the beginnings of  Daleks. The Daleks have been trying to exterminate the project from row 1, which I had to knit, tink, knit, tink and knit again due to a problem that, apparently, didn't exist after all. Sigh. After the Daleks I think I'll do the DNA strand. So far it's about 9 or 10 inches long, so half way to the underarms.

Mash-Up progress:

The Bravo mix went into Potions class

102g, 134 yards of six-ply

and the Charlie mix went into Charms

110g, 138 yards of six-ply

Bravo is dark and zombie-like :) (we were studying Draught of the Living Death in potions) and Charlie is light and sparkley. But hopefully, when all the mixes are done, there will be enough mixing and matching that it will work together in one top. In any case, it will be warm.

The only other thing I've made this month is a cowl for Mother's Day, which I did on night shift Friday and Saturday night before Mother's Day. I cast it off at breaky time, as Nathan got the kids ready for church and before I went to bed, so this is a tired look... ;)

Now I'm going back to work on Daleks and spin some more of the Echo mix. Lots to do before the end of May.

Ravenclaw :)

I've spent six terms (two calendar years) playing the HP game as a Slytherin, but this term I'm leaving the Dungeon and heading up to The Tower. Ravenclaws, it seems, are also a crafty, ambitious lot, and (as in the books) are a clever bunch, too. So I thought my Potions OWL should be nerdy, at the very least.

See this tshirt made out of sock-weight yarn?

It's Kate Davies Tortoise and Hare Sweater. It's cute and all, but I'm going to replace the colorwork with some of my own. It will have secret messages in codes, little Daleks, quotes from nerd culture, and whatever fun things I can think of. A "swatch" is required for an OWL proposal, so last month I made myself a hat-swatch

It fits me because I blocked it very hard and kind of wrecked my DNA strand, but it was good practice, and gave me some ideas about what I like and what I'll do differently with the tshirt. I like that Vikkel braid (the one that looks like a column of sideways knitting right above the ribbing). Fun :)

My proposal is already approved, and I've done about 20 rounds of ribbing so far. I'm doing 1x1 ribbing in dark green, and my cast-on was 270st. I'm using sport-weight yarn and 3.5mm needles, hoping to put in some positive ease. Liking it so far.

I've also started my Giant Mashup. I'm doing the mix I called "Charlie" (gave the paired up fibres Radio Alphabet names), which is BFL/silk/angelina that I carded together, and a tan-colored merino/seacell mix from EGMTK that I call Sand. The BFL is a natural greyish color, and the tussah silk and silver angelina give it a shiny silver look. Only fluffy. hehe.

I did a trial run in April to see whether I liked 2ply or 6ply better. I divided some Kathy's Fibres merino in halves (Octavia and Rosy Red)

I spun the 2ply first, 50g of Octavia and the 50g of the Rosy Red right on top of it. Then I wound it into a ball, and pulled one strand from the outside and one from the center, and plied them both. It worked pretty well, but it didn't take very long, and I find I don't like spinning "thickly" any more. Anyway, the 2ply came to about 16WPI, which is about DK weight, I think. I like it

but spinning thinner is easier, and I'll get more points. And I have time (I think)

This one is the 6ply.

Sorry about the different lighting. Same deal here, colored yarn first and then red, only I spun it thinly. The plan was to pull yarn from the outside and center again, but at the same time to "navajo ply", which is basically a long crochet chain with big loops.




Singles are twisty, though. They want to twist back on themselves, and you have to have enough limbs to keep some tension on it as you ply, or you end up with little twist worms getting plied in and sticking out of your yarn everywhere. In the end, after cutting out tangles and failed bits, I decided to do one step at a time, and loosely 2plied the whole thing, which balanced the twist somewhat (as you ply in the opposite direction to how you spin). Then I put the whole 2ply through again, navajo plying.


It does mash the colors more, I think. I like the barberpole effect of the 2ply, but I like the interesting look of the 6ply better, and spinning it (in spite of the plying issues) was more fun. And it was about 600y of singles instead of 300. More points. hehe.


Two other things to report. This cowl

which is Bertrand Louis, is a squishy sort of cowl done in "half brioche" and Malabrigo Rios. I've been wearing it lots since I made it. It's cowl weather.

Also, Byron came home with a note about his first School Excursion which contained the phrase: "bring hats or gloves according to the weather" and he took this to mean "your mum needs to make you gloves with fingers in school uniform colors." I tried to gently talk him out of fingers; no deal. LOL. So here are his Rios gloves in Paris Night with a stripe (according to his directions) of Ravelry Red.

He wore them all day at the Wildlife Park and didn't lose them. So I was happy. All those fiddly fingers were worth my time   :-)

News of the day

I have continued to walk around the lake, knitting, and so finished the orange hat and a green one

They're the same as the brown stripey one (which I posted before) because I put them into "Charms class" when I was studying a duplication charm. (lol) The orange one was so non-pooling that I had decided dyeing with iceblocks was a great way to get yarn guaranteed not to pool. Then I knit up the green one and was surprised to see it pooling in diagonal stripes. Now that I look at the orange one again, it has very faint diagonal stripes, too; I guess there's no avoiding color pooling with variegated yarn!

I also whipped up this one

for Jasmine, because I got a felted flower badge with a fibre club I joined (where you pay for a fibre surprise - fun!) I wouldn't give her the fibre to love and cuddle (much to her disappointment) but she loves her flower hat.

This is the fibre: Merino/tencel 70/30 from Kathy's Fibres. 150g. I'm going to spin it in May :)

I have two more plans for May. (Well, two main plans, and lots of other plans... hehe) The first is a Potions OWL. I'm planning on using up some sport-weight stash and knitting a colorwork vest, using this as my guide but making up my own colorwork. The swatch is done; show you next time ;)

The other plan is to spin a Giant Mashup, practicing my 2ply and using up some stashed fibre. I'm going to mix 2 plies each of a bunch of different colors, and make an Idlewood top. It would actually have made a good Potions OWL, but I'm convinced I could get more points by submitting each part to a class. So I'm... researching... Points Maximisation.

And playing with the fibre stash.

The last thing I spun was some pretty, multicolored BFL/mohair from Kathy's Fibres. I loved the mix last time, and I love the socks, so when I saw some more I grabbed it, though it was not a colorway I would have chosen.

I can't think why.

I love it, and it's going to make bright, happy socks. Good Winter socks.

Anyway, the news of the day is that Slytherin won the House Cup again! We have won more than our fair share these last 6 terms, because we are awesome, obviously. Next term I'm going on a little tour to spend my seventh year over with the Ravenclaws! There are a lot of nice people up there in the Tower, and I'm looking forward to seeing how differently they organize themselves.

It's Sorting Week. Want to come and play?

:)

NEWT 2 all done

Well, I finished off Byron's top in time to get all the points :) and he's been wearing it quite a bit during the cool autumn days. He loves it.

I don't think I'm happy with the shape; it's really wide under the arms, and the collar looks ok when off, but weird when it's worn. But who cares, if he's happy. He has been pestering me for a matching hat, and Jasmine wants one of her own. lol. That's because they know the image came from this...

Toothless, from "How to Train Your Dragon", their current favorite, which they are watching for the twentieth time as I write :)

The whole NEWT

I also did another rolag and woollen-spinning experiment. I used some black alpaca Kelly had sent me from London, mixed with sparkly bits, and some "Licorice allsorts" merino from EGMTK. NaturallyKnitty gave me the good idea of making rolags on the carder. (She made these) and so I mixed up my merino/alpaca/angelina and made 12 ten-gram rolags up.

I spun from the ends, letting up the twist and stretching it out, and ended up with some shiny dark yarn with flecks of color all through it, if you look up close.

It's so hard to get a picture with accurate colors. Anyway, it's a bit rough, as you see, and I'm going to prefer worsted spinning for a long time, just because I like it even and smooth, but it certainly is fun to try something different. It goes against the grain to let twist up into the fibre like that, though. hehe.






Well, it's April, which means it's the month between "terms" in the HPKCHC, and I'm having a month off :) to try and finish some unfinished things. Mainly I'm planning to work on Gala and Vivian, although I may have started some socks and some spinning... heh.

Finished stuff

The Order of the Phoenix mission (knit four socks, preferably single socks) is done.

I did Hedgerow socks for Gryffindor, in a BFL sock yarn called String Theory Bluestocking. The color was Firecracker, and I loved knitting with it. The pattern is basically columns of moss stitch.

The yellow ones (for Hufflepuff) are Embossed Leaves, and they'd be a great start to lace, I think, as it was pretty simple but looks good. The yarn is Wollmeise Twin in Olio Vergine.

The blue Ravenclaw socks are Tern, and I used Lorna's Laces Sportmate in Navy Pier. The color wasn't really dark enough, so I dyed it a bit bluer.

The Slytherin Green ones are the pattern Brave, which I got in the Tour de Sock last year. The yarn is Shire String (it's all speckley and I loved knitting with it) in the color Samwise, dyed by Pacasha from the House Cup game (see also blogs on the right). I think I started these first and finished them last!

This lot is my handspun Cormo from the Ton of Wool Project. I got 100g or so of it at Bendigo last year, and spun it into 325m of 3ply. It's 20 or so WPI...

I probably could have fit a few more strands into my inch marker there...

Mostly this month I've been getting the socks done and working on Byron's red jumper. It's getting there; should be finished in a few days :) The other thing I have been doing is walking around the lake, and it occurred to me that I could knit as I walked reasonably easily. So

Dyeing this month

Made the yarn for the Hat In Progress with dyece (food dye ice blocks in the steamer)

And dyed some sock yarn with Fair Trade Coffee, stuffed into the jar and left in the sun all day :)

This one is just a dip-dyed-in-a-pot  with green, teal, blue and purple. Should spin into a bit of a gradient; we'll see, I suppose.

And now, back to that silly dragon jumper! Sigh...