DesigKnit

Which, unfortunately, is not destined to remain sleeveless.

Unless, of course, sleeveless striped raglans are suddenly in style.

I’ve been procrastinating on casting off the body stitches because I wanted to teach myself the tubular cast-off and hadn’t gotten my act together, but I finally sat down last night and just did it. I really, really like how invisible it is, and how stretchy. This may become my new go-to cast off (at least until it is replaced by the next shiny one that I see). I like grafting, and the bind-off was really an easy pattern to follow once I got the hang of it. I’ll save photos of the edge for when there is actually light. I have no excuse for needing to take a flash picture on the livingroom floor…it was a beautiful day today and there were any number of more attractive photos that I could have taken. But I didn’t. So the pretty shots will have to wait, I’m afraid.

I’ve started the first sleeve, and it is moving along quickly (I’m knitting it separately, so there’s nothing to see in the photo above). I’ll have to see how the sweater looks on a body to decide if I’ve really converted to a stripe-liker or not. I really like them in small chunks, but as an overall pattern I’m not too sure yet. I was a little nervous doing a raglan-style with the stripes, too; it seems like they might make for small-looking shoulders. In this photo, it looks a little bulgy and misshapen, but I’m pretty sure it will block nicely. And some sleeves might help to balance it out, I suppose…

So at this point, I very much like the yarn, and the stripes are keeping it interesting to knit, but I’m not too sure overall of how I’m going to like the final product. The fun of experimenting lies in always pushing boundaries, though, so I remain hopeful that it might turn into something I really like, rather than just something I’m ok with.  (At least I know that the recipient will be ok with just about anything I give him, considering the evidence of sweaters past…)

As someone that has lived all of her life on the coast, I have always been free to enjoy the electric thrill of a heavy thunderstorm with no real concern for my safety.  Watch the storm come in from inside the house, and it’s perfectly safe to sit back and enjoy. It was a bit of a comeuppance, then, about a month and a half ago when a perfectly good thunderstorm was interrupted by my neighbor knocking to say we were under a tornado warning. We gawked a bit at the thought, and began to gather ourselves together to head to the basement just as the sirens went off.

Over the next few days, I talked to several people about the possibility of tornadoes here, and they all assured me that they were extremely uncommon and that we get about one warning a summer in this area.

Well.

Last Wednesday, I was out doing some errands and decided I really, really didn’t like the look of that sky. The wind was blowing like crazy, and it was hot, humid, sticky air. I came home quickly, and sure enough, we were under a warning again. One of the guys in my lab was over at the Minnesota border for a camping trip that night, and he said that there was a touchdown within 15 miles of their campsite. (Fortunately, there was also an old military barracks from the cold war, which has to be the safest possible place to be in a storm.)

Around 3:30 today, another warning was issued for the northern part of our county (we’re in the mid-to-southern side). The radar showed the storm quite a bit north of us, and there was no sign of it here, so I took the bus home as usual, and got back just as the big, heavy drops began to fall. So far, there have been two touchdowns tonight. One was about 15 miles north of here, and the other was 60 miles due west. Another high risk area was heading our way from the West at about 30 mph a few minutes ago.

Thankfully, the cats and I are safely stowed in the basement (much to their chagrin…they hate carriers, and especially hate being rudely thrust therein in a hurry to leave the house).

Thankfully, I have knitting and a computer to keep me busy while we wait it out, but living in the midwest definitely puts a whole different perspective on a summer thunderstorm.

***As I finished up the last paragraph, I got the email saying that the storm has moved past us, and we’ve been downgraded to a tornado watch. They’re not promising that it’s over, but the worst is past. I, for one, am very glad to see this storm go.

There are some things that I never, ever utter, and “too hot to knit” is among them. I am the person that can wear a wool sweater for an hour in late June because I’m excited that I just finished it. I can be cold when it’s 70 degrees out. I don’t sweat, and I am never too hot.

But today, this weekend, right now, I am too hot to knit. A big, still, humid pocket of air has settled over the city today, and it is warm. I think the real problem is that it only got down to 70 last night, so nothing cooled off overnight. When it’s hot by 8 am, it’s going to be a hot day.

There have actually been a few nights this week where pulling a large, heavy wool sweater over to work on was just really not appealing. So I’ve been working on other things. Cleaning the loom (oh my, it is dirty!). Reading. Taking my cue from the cats and laying around in a languorous heap.

Last weekend, I spent the warm part of the day finishing up my current weaving project. I took the fabric off the loom, washed it, and hemmed the ends. And I now have a set of tea towels:

These have been on the loom for a while, and quite frankly, haven’t been getting much attention. I’m happy to have them finished now, and it is very satisfying to have a little pile of handwoven items to pet.

Here they are all laid out so you can see the patterns:

The thing that I find endlessly fascinating about weaving is how many different fabrics you can get by just changing the order in which you pick up the shafts. All of these pieces were woven using the same warp threads; all of the vertical strings are the same. The only difference is which ones you pick up when, and which colors you use to weave the weft (the back and forth part), and yet you end up with entirely different fabrics. It boggles my mind to think of all the possibilities.

Next, I am planning to make a scarf with these:

Last year, my aunt sent me a package for Christmas containing three skeins of Lion Brand chenille. I love the colors, and I love the look of the yarn, but it’s not the kind of stuff that I knit with. I thought it might be good woven, though, so I bought a cone of bamboo to match the color.

I wound the warp this morning (i.e. I used a gadget Branden made me to measure out 100  5-yard lengths of yarn for the warp threads), and tied them on to the back of the loom, ready to be threaded through one by one. I cannot say how much I love the color of this yarn (the photo of the yarn on the loom is more true to its real color). When this project is finished, I think I’m going to do a textured weave with just this color as both warp and weft.

This will be just a narrow piece; a scarf about 10 inches wide. With such a thick weft yarn, it should go very quickly, and I’m really excited to see how the chenille works up. I am always amazed at how differently fibers perform in weaving and knitting, and I think that this yarn is really going to shine in a woven cloth. And, I can work on it when it’s too hot to knit, which is an added bonus.

I’ve been avoiding my wheel lately for fear that I will finish the sweater spinning and run out of projects (not to mention getting one step farther ahead of my knitting than I already am).

On Sunday night, I stole away to the dye studio (aka the basement) to make sure there was some backup spinning should I happen to run out.

I dyed up the 8 oz of Finn top that I bought along with the sweater fiber in a mixture of blues and greys. I wasn’t expecting to have so much white left in the final product, but I rather like it as is, so we’ll see what happens. I’m thinking laceweight for this one, as long as the color changes aren’t too dramatic.

I also dyed up a set of samples for the summer sampling project, since the summer is half over and I have not yet spun a single sample. Best laid plans and all that…

I am absolutely thrilled with the way these came out. The colors are perfect, and I think it will be really fun to see how they spin up. I would have been tempted to start them tonight, but I spent most of the evening washing down the loom, cleaning away 5 or so years’ worth of grime. There’s a lot of work left to go, but judging by the color of the wash water, progress has been made.

And now, I am going to put my feet up, and knit.

….when you can have a craft house?

A friend of mine told me a while ago that she has a loom sitting around unused, and that she’d love it if I’d borrow it for a while.

Branden enthusiastically enabled, but it wouldn’t fit in our car.

Then another friend told me that she had a truck and would help me move it.

Then a third friend (who also happens to be our awesome downstairs neighbor) helped us carry it up the stairs.

A few friends and a lot of enabling later, I have a loom in my livingroom (dining room chairs and cat added for scale…).

It may still move to the craft room, but it’s really becoming harder and harder to maintain the appearance of segregation between crafty activities and living space. And that isn’t entirely a bad thing, right?

We have a lot of books.

(And no, that’s not quite all…)

When we moved last, we swore we weren’t getting any. more. books,  a vow we knew we’d break even as we were making it.

We’ve been pretty good, but then Interweave had their hurt book sale. I made the mistake of opening the email.

I may have gotten a few spinning resource books (I had only two before).

And this one I just had to have, because I don’t know the first thing about weave structure and it is such a fascinating and complex world.

And then there were a couple for the inspiration section.

If you need me, I’ll be reading.

On this day last year, we landed in Germany. I stayed until November, Branden until February.

Tomorrow, Branden will be getting on a plane for Atlanta, where he will spend the next four and a half months training for his new job. He’ll get back in mid-November.

This year has kind of an odd symmetry to it; 5 months together, three months apart, three months together, 5 months apart. We weren’t thrilled when we learned about this latest separation, but it’s clearly the right decision, he’s excited about the new job, the training is going to be fun and very useful, and at least Atlanta isn’t as far away as Europe. (Though the last week of his training will bring him to Austria, a few hours’ drive from where we lived in Germany…see what I mean about symmetry?)

So what’s a knitter to do with an impending separation?

I cast on a sweater, of course.

Fortunately, even Branden’s sweaters don’t take 5 months to knit, but there will be warm wooliness waiting when he gets back (in November when one can yet again appreciate warm wooliness).

I think the Eco Wool has finally found its calling.

I have one very inflexible rule when it comes to buying yarn: it must have a purpose.

This is mostly to avoid unnecessary stash enhancement, and it has worked very well in keeping my purchases reasonable, even when I might be tempted to let them get out of hand. It’s also so that I know how much yarn to buy, because my stash is full of “almost enough” skeins that never quite turn into anything, obtained in the months before the stash rule was put in place.

Sometimes, though, having a project for the yarn gets in the way of me actually using it.

I bought enough Cascade Eco wool for a full-sized afghan about 3 years ago. I love this yarn. I loved the cables. I hated knitting the long, scarf-like strips. I put it aside, three skeins in.  I’ve never gone back.

I’ve tried to pick it up again, but it just hasn’t stuck; this project is simply not working. (Not to mention the fact that I have since discovered that any knit object left within the cat’s range will be full of pulls from their passionate and blissful kneading.)

A few months ago, I officially crossed that project off the list of UFOs, and off the list of stash earmarks. It’s time for that yarn to reach its full potential, don’t you think?