Weaving Class

Weaving has been encroaching on my knitting recently. I'm attending a 4 Harness Weaving Class at The Craft Center at UCSD. Week One was how to warp our rental looms. Week Two was weaving (in my case TRYING to weave) 14 different Twill patterns with varying success.



It's amazing how easily I got confused about what pattern row I was on! Even when there were only four rows to the design!!

Week Three we finished our sampler and warped again. This time I'm doing a hounds tooth two-color pattern. Turns out for me the hardest part is counting (who would have thought). Anyway, after several mistakes, pulling warp out, string everywhere and re-doing I got the loom warped and the pattern started. If I sound surprised that's because I can't believe I got it to work.



I'm enjoying the 'learning something new' part of this class but I don't think weaving will ever replace knitting as my craft of choice; my need to do it so I don't go crazy and take everyone along with me. There really is something in my brain that is soothed with knitting; if I have to wait in line or on the phone I can remain calm if I have my knitting otherwise by the time I get to the head of the line I'm really not fit to be talking to anyone let alone trying to solve a problem.

Speaking of Knitting, only two finished objects this past week. The first is a Pinwheel pillow, a sample for the Shop. It's a pattern from the current issue of Knitscene Magazine out of Marble Chunky. (BTW this is a great 100% acrylic chunky yarn. It really sells well, everyone seems to like it as much as I did.)



And Saartje's Baby Booties made for my niece who's expecting a girl this May.


Oh - I should tell you it's been raining off and on this week and should continue through Monday and Tuesday - YEAH! It's been fun seeing the reaction to our mini-summer in winter from Bloggers talking about TNNA. (Great pictures from Anne on Knitspot. Mid-January entries)

The Photographer passed along a couple of photos of Sam and Annie from Christmas:

Sam trying out all the extra chairs around the table


Annie with her stuffed chick present. She always knows there's a present for her; we have to hide it because she can smell which one is hers out of all the other wrapped presents.

continued warm, sunny and VERY dry

I haven't been doing much to blog about. It's been warm for weeks (very little winter here, which means a third year of drought) although nice outdoor spinning weather.

Do you see that huge bag of fleece? That's 6.5 pounds of Corriedale that I've been working on for the last few weeks. Bought it at Black Sheep Gathering 2007. Seems to have marinated nicely in the fiber stash. I'm spinning modified long draw; this method fills a bobbin faster than me doing short draw.

I've nearly filled all my bobbins, time to start plying. Since I have no idea what I'm going to make with the yarn I've made a few samples to see what it wants to be. I'm lazy; it's too hard to spin to specification. I spin the yarn then find a pattern that calls for that weight of yarn.

Here's a two ply knit on size 7 needles on the left and 3 ply knit on size 9 needles on the right.

Singles


2-ply


3-ply


So now I'm ready for a worsted or chunky weight pattern. Time to go and check out my Ravelry Queue and see what might work with this yarn. I'm open to suggestions.

I've also been working on my Barn Raising Squares. I'm still enjoying watching each square's design emerge as I knit. It's a slow version of that Spin Art they use to have at the Fair. Remember you squirted paint on a spinning paper.


Last Saturday I started taking a 4-Harness Weaving class at UCSD's Craft Center. Mostly we're still getting all the looms warped.

So many people in the class it's slow going waiting for help but I'm liking it so far. Who knew that weaving would be so popular right now?

Here's a picture of my friends at Two Sisters and Ewe where I work.

left to right, Karen, Jessica (who also works there), Marie and Carol; they all make Open Knitting on Wednesday afternoons so much fun. All week I look forward to our time together. There are others that drop in but these Ladies are our hard-core knitters! It took the whole group to help me figure out where I was on my Curlicue Afghan. Turns out there was no mistake I'd just gotten lost. Thanks Ladies! In the future I'm going to have to write down exactly where I am each time I put that project down. It's either that or I'll have to keep pulling into the Yarn Shop to ask for directions.

Welsh Traveling Socks plus Toes

Here are the finished Welsh Traveling Socks

and a close up of the pattern (click on the picture and you can see a close-up on Flickr)


So what do you think of the color of the yarn I used for the toes? I'm still not sure about it but no matter what anyone says I won't be pulling it out. The pattern calls for yarn with 450 yards I used a yarn with 350 yards; I never noticed until the tail end of the yarn hit my hand. Surprised doesn't cover it! This was my blind faith I had enough yarn - No, I didn't compare my yardage to the pattern requirements. For some reason I was confidant that this yarn would work for this sock. I think I was led down the rosey path of dilusion because this yarn was so similar to the look of the yarn pictured in the book. I feel so dumb!

Anyway, the yarn was wonderful to work with, the yardage problem was all me. I bought it from emilyparson.etsy.com more than a year ago. It's called Starry Night in Sophie's Toes Sock Yarn.

I finished and blocked my Noro Striped Scarf and still had half a ball of both colors of Silk Garden (270 & 264) and decided I should make matching fingerless mitts.


I pulled out my favorite pattern for fingerless mitts, Maine Morning Mitts played around with the stitch count to get it to work with a 1x1 rib and I was off knitting in circles. (I added one stitch to get an even number next time I'd subtract a stitch or three. The gloves are a bit large because the 1x1 rib doesn't pull in as much as the original pattern's 3x1 rib.)


Tuesday I spent a foggy morning with my garden club taking a ranger guided tour of Presido Park, the site of the very first California Mission. 1769 Father Sierra claimed the land for the Church and Spain making San Diego one of the older European settled Cities in North America.

This cross was made of brick salvaged from the ruins of Fort Presidio, what was left on the site when the priests moved the Mission 6 miles east to get away from the soliders.

Edit: I was ask where to buy the Grayce's Scarf pattern by someone that didn't leave me a return email address. The pattern only has an email address: pearlyqueentx@prodigy.net There is no other names or address on the pattern. I bought this pattern at the Taos Wool Festival.

Trying to stay cool

It's HOT in San Diego - hot (90's) and humid (high 50's). For San Diego this isn't record setting temps but it's d#@ uncomfortable! So I've been hiding out in our north facing downstairs family room, sitting right in front of the tower fan. Watching DVD's, historical stuff off the DVR and I totally caught up with my Bloglines backlog - (I was something like 400 entries behind, never thought I'd empty it out.)

Even with the heat I've been knitting, small things that don't have to rest in my lap.
(there aren't many pictures this post as my main computer is upstairs - 3rd floor, where it's over 100. Nothing is worth doing if it requres sitting up there!)

I'm up to line 171 on Mystery Stole #3. Still enjoying this project and I'm getting much better at getting to the end of the row with the correct number of stitches.

Finished the first sock of a plain vanilla ribbed pattern in a gray tweed superwash sock yarn. (The label is upstairs and I'm not going up to find out what brand it is.) Cast on the second sock and knit three inches today while we went for a drive to appease the dog.

This morning Annie was beside herself with energy after being closed up in the house with us for four days. We loaded her into the car ("in the car" is her second favorite activity right after dinner) this morning, cranked the air conditioning and drove up to Carlsbad on Hwy 5, took the Village off ramp and drove west to old 101. Then we slowly crused south enjoying the beach views (packed with people and no where to park). We drove through Leucadia, Encinitas, stopping in Solana Beach for gelato at 11 am. The things you'll do during a heat wave. Then we returned to 101 in Del Mar; enjoyed the sights while we drove over the dog beach bridge - there was this black lab bounding through the water - very cooling sight. Del Mar was full; the beach and the races really packs them into that small town during the summer. Torrey pines was beautiful as always; the sand was wall to wall umbrellas and shade tents. Lots of surfers no waves to speak of; I think they may have just been enjoying the coolest spot in the county. Then past The Lodge and UCSD, a short jog onto 52 and we were home.

All over blogland and Ravelry people are knitting a very colorful stripped baby sweater. If one where to buy the yarn called for in the pattern the sweater would cost over $100; there are sites where you can buy a kit for $40. I wanted to try the pattern so I pulled out all the colors of Knit Picks Wool of the Andies and Cascade 220 that I had and put together some colors that I thought would work. The original called for nine colors; I used six.



The i-cord ties and both sleeves are all that's left to do.

I have been spinning my Alpaca/ Rambouillet from Black Sheep Gathering; due to the heat I've only been spinning after 9pm when I can turn down the fan. Fans on high and super light pencil roving just don't mix - we won't even discuss what sweaty hands do.

The cats are just limp puddles, hiding from the heat by sleeping through it. Here's Ty who's only awake because of the camera's clicking noise.

courtesty of The Photographer.