A few more February projects

In Muggle Studies we studied Leap Years, and I made a woven "blank" and painted it with 29 stripes (in honor of Feb 29)

Worked out the math so that each stripe would make 2 rows of a hat (with the occasional 3-row color just for fun and randomness)

which I then knitted into a hat for Astronomy. We studied Galileo and his heliocentricity ideas. From the top it looks very circle-y)

This was for the Slytherin's Lingerie-a-long :)

and also part of my homework for Potions, wherin we studied Shrinking Solution.

And I finally started some Quidditch. This term we can make 15 items that go into one of three sections. I didn't feel inspired to make anything until I realized I could dye some wool for the Charity section. This is going to be used for Socks for Pakistan

The top 4 are self striping, and should make 10 stripes per sock. This is what it looks like just after dyeing, and before re-skeining it. To dye this self-striping yarn, I made a massive skein, wrapped around a fence post and a chair 9.5m apart. I dipped it slowly into a dye pot, and it used up the dye as it went in, making the gradient. Then you have to reskein it into a manageable size! Making four of these required 3.2km of walking, just to skein and reskein. But it's fun, and worthwhile :)

Kissy Update: Last time I tried to weigh him he was well over 4kg (but wouldn't cooperate!) Now that Nathan has made this feeder box and Kissy doesn't have to wait on our convenience and patience, he's getting much fatter! He's even been out playing with his older cousins, jumping and running. But he's just as happy to follow Zach down the paddock, bouncing around him. Just like a puppy! :)

Edited to add: Oops! Forgot to mention the lamb earlier... it's the Slytherins I've been talking to... Anyway, one of the Ewe's (Barley) was sick. We now think she got septic from a dead twin, because one was born dead, and she wouldn't feed this little runt. We got some milk replacement for him, though he would barely suck, and when he was about 36hrs old we found Barley dead. So he's been living in an enclosure by the back door. He was 3.2kg in this photo, and about 2 days old. Bag of bones, sick and hunched up with no energy, and hardly any desire to drink milk. But he somehow survived :) He's exactly like a puppy, and very affectionate. Byron called him Kissy.

Larva Larva Larva Larva....

(ten points if you can guess that reference)

Happy Valentine's Day, all. We don't usually celebrate it at our place, thinking it a bit silly and commercial, but the hubby then turned up with chocolate, bless him, and mucked up my good run of healthy eating in the nicest possible way :D

Byron had his first day of Kindergarten today, where I wasn't there. I stayed on the first day (last Tuesday) because he'd stressed all week, and so I promised I would. I stayed half the second day (last Thursday) having put myself down for "Morning Tea Helper", but left him (very unhappy... for ten minutes) after that.  Today, I left him there at 9 (I snuck out when he was distracted) and picked him up at 1... a short day, but he was happy, more or less!

I headed to Mum and Dad's to drop off Jaz and Zac, went to the Blood Bank (aka My Fortnightly Lie Down) and then whizzed back home to feed the lamb. Then I picked up the boy, headed back to Mum and Dad's for a bit, and collected the kids.

Hot day, today. It's been cool all week (which I hate in the Summer!) but today was so nice! We let Byron stay up late to watch Star Wars (the one with little Anakin, whatever that's called) which he loved, and now he's unconscious.

So far in February I've finished off two things: a cover for my Kindle (Les Miserables is at 45%... getting there slowly!) and one spin.

Detention

Care of Magical Creatures

I have a few other projects in the works. Did a fun dyeing project, which is almost knitted into a hat now, and spun one single for a 2ply. And I've done a few more inches of the Ginny. I started my OWL vest (which is the "Back to School U-neck Vest" on Rav, but when I tried it on it was way too big, so that got frogged.

I've also bought some yarn. No photos, but there is a bucketful of Luxury from BWM (good for dyeing and hats and stuff) and another bucketful of undyed sock yarn I found online. Not sure when I'll get to knit and wear it, because I can't seem to get in the mood for socks at all, but dyeing them will be fun.

More from January

Australia Day Hat, made from scraps of Noro Silk Garden (History of Magic)

Big warm hat made from handspun. The 'antlers' are for Defence Against the Dark Arts.

We went fishing in Muggle Studies, so I made some water-color handspun

And for Arithmancy we studied Tesselations, and I went with a Three Theme. Three prime colors onto white merino/silk...

...and then spun into a three-ply yarn.

The beginning of my Ginevra's Pullover. I think I could "live off" Madeline Tosh Vintage for the rest of my life, if I had to :)

500g spun into singles. 1800m/1968y. 

And then navajo-plied into 600m of yarn. Hopefully 650y will be enough. It's kind of short, so it might be ok.

Zachary 2

This little jumper has been my Large Project of the Month. It's Zac's birthday jumper (2 on the 22/1/12) and I saw the pattern in the magazine Kelly had sent Mum for Christmas. Not wanting to borrow hers (and risk it getting wrecked) I found a copy and started making it early in the month.

It's been a while since I made something with seams like this! I did the plain back first, and then started on the front. Then I discovered my hatred for Vile Intarsia :) and it stalled while I mucked around with other projects. I picked it up again when the time limit started looming, but only got as far as the top of Timmy's white body before the torture became too much, and I finished the rest in green. (There's a headless picture on the rav page linked above :) if you like headless sheep)

I did the rest in green, finishing the crazy-long arms (as you can see, much longer than necessary) a day or two after his birthday, and duplicate stitched the rest of Timmy, which I quite enjoy doing. I sewed it together (not as much fun) and ribbed the neck (fun, now that I'm knitting Continental). There's a split on the left where you put some buttons, and that was fiddly. I didn't pick up and do more ribbing for a button band, but made loops. In the end, I discovered it fits over his head well enough without undoing the buttons at all!

Unlike his first birthday jumper (which was too small in weeks) this one will fit for a while. And he loves it! He didn't want to take it off, despite the fact it was 31 degrees celcius. He did want to dip his arms into the bucket of water he was playing with, though, so I took it off and put it away for a few months!


In other news, I have a handful of other January projects to report ;) in a few days, and all my OWL yarn is spun into singles. It should be plied up soon, so that will add a few meters onto my spinning ticker :)

I also started my next pullover yesterday. It's a top-down seamless one, and I got almost down to the underarms last night during night shift. Unfortunately, I think I've left my Interweave Knits magazine at work, so I'm not going to get much further until I find it. I find myself hoping it will take a lot less yarn than I have, so I can use the same color for Jasmine's birthday jumper. She'd love the pinkness!

Knit All the Things!

So far in January.

Finished off a hat in my handspun (Detention)

Dyed my merino in green-blue. The rust spots were an unexpected present from the wire mesh basket I made to lift it from the slow cooker, but its ok. Just adds flecky interest...

Jasmine, wearing the woven scarf I made her (Potions) in Three Hours. It's 2.6m long.

New baby lamb, and her mum, Daisy.

Lorna's Laces Shepherd Sock yarn.

LL Solemates sock yarn

Manos del Uruguay Silk blend

More Manos del Uruguay Silk Blend

More LL Shepherd Sock :)

And a jumper-worth of Madelinetosh Vintage in Sequoia. Very pretty red-brown.

I've spun 2 of the 5 braids for my OWL (into singles, anyway) and then, bored of plain blue-green :) dyed some merino-silk into rainbow colors. Half of that is spun so far. I've started Zach's 2nd birthday jumper (11 days to go); I've done the back and half the front, though the intarsia is hateful challenging frustrating something that I won't bother to do again for a while! (The concept is simple. The ends are making me crazy!). I've also started two hats, one in handspun and one in Noro scraps. For Quidditch this term, I'm going to make lots of little sheep, I think. (At least, I'll make one and see if it makes me want to make more) And for my Order of the Phoenix mission, I'm approved to make Ginevra's Pullover.

I feel busy.

The Slytherins have a saying: Knit All The Things!! It comes from this funny blog post, which always cracks me up. It's hard to read it and not say "Oh no... that's me!" hehehe.

Merino

I have some merino socks that I just darned. I wore them for one day, and there are two more holes! Luckily, I am enjoying the darning at the moment, but soft merino just isn't good sock wool for me. 

But the last time I was "at" Petlins, looking for a dye set, I decided to get some plain white wool to spin. As I said, I'm using it for my Transfiguration OWL next term of the HPKCHC. I had an option to buy "Crossbred" for $5.75 per 100g or "Merino" for $7.80. I decided to get the soft stuff! And it arrived yesterday

along with a lovely little boxful of Ashford Dyes. Last night I spun up the extra 30g that they'd thrown in, and realized that my "spinning without thinking" thickness has decreased! My 2ply turned out to be thinner than the yarn needed for the vest. So I spun a tiny bit more, and 3-plied it. There you go. 9 wraps per inch is Worsted Weight. Perfect.

Only that means that I now need to spin three 1000m plies instead of two. I know I still have time to do that, but it just added a fair bit of time to the project.

So my $39 of beautiful, clean, carded merino will give me many hours of lovely spinning, and then a vest. I'm sure to have a few leftovers, too. I also found this website which has given me lots of good advice about yarn balance and twist. Once I choose a color to dye it, I'm ready to go. On January 1.

sigh.

The kids are waiting for Christmas. And I'm waiting for the New Year.

Stash Up 2012

Today I did an approximate weigh in:

3.8 kg - Worsted weight+ box
4.4 kg - Fibre and Handspun box (2.1 fibre and 2.3 handspun)
1.8 kg - DK weight (warm colors) box
4.3 kg - DK weight (cool colors) box
5.2 kg - Zero to Sport weight box
3.9 kg - Madelinetosh Underbed box

---------

23.4 kilos.


The reason it's approximate is that I know there is yarn lying about, in WIP's and such. It's hard to be too accurate! I might attempt to collect it all at the end of the year, and get a more accurate number.

Next year I'm having a Stash Up.

I had a stash down in 2010, which didn't work very well. As soon as I finished the yarn diet, I overindulged :) This year my plan is to Knit All The Things (as the Slytherins say) and still gain 5kg of stash weight, from Jan 1 to Dec 31. It's the only New Year's Resolution I'm going to make. He he he he.

I also have an OWL worked out for the Winter Term (though it's Summer here, of course.) For the subject of Transfiguration there is an Option that says "Dye and Spin enough fibre to produce sufficient yarn to craft a small adult garment." I bought 500g of nice merino (which hasn't arrived yet... must add it to the stash when it does) to make this vest. I'll dye the fibre, spin it into a 2ply worsted weight (about 2km of singles), and then make the vest.  Technically you don't have to knit the garment, just make enough fibre for it, but I think I can spin 100g a week pretty easily (I did in the Tour de Fleece) and an OWL is supposed to be a 8-12 week project.

The OWL advisors look at the projects you've done, and the time it takes you to do things, and I'm not sure they would have approved just the spinning. Anyway, you've got to challenge yourself!

I would like to make a new jumper, but I think I might leave that project for an Order of the Phoenix Mission (which is supposed to take 6-8 weeks) and make Ginevra. I have some pinkish matching worsted and lace weight...

...It's nice not to worry about Christmas at this time of year! All the 11 scarves are finished (I had to twist the longer fringes), washed, ironed and wrapped, and the 7 I had to post are long gone. I asked for World Vision donations for myself, though I did get myself an Ashford Dye set. (I may also be waiting for some more yarn from overseas... hope it will arrive soon!)