March Count

I have been a bit under the weather for the entire month. I only finished three projects this month. I planned to finish at least twelve. That should not have been too difficult for me!

 

I did finish three, officially finishing less than a tenth of a mile of yarn this month, so the yarn count did go down slightly. Six of the twelve were already in progress, and should have been easy finishes. Nope. Two are very close, just not finished yet. Three were Thujas, a pattern I can knit in my sleep. Nope. One is at about 75%, the other two will use the same needles. The remaining three projects were a fairly easy short sleeve sweater and two fairly easy scarves. The sweater is mostly done and one scarf has been started.

On the plus side, I now have a LOT of projects that are nearly finished and should give me some quick satisfaction next month!

Handspun

I don't spin as often as I'd like or as often as I should to improve. I think I may be at the point where I need lessons from a professional to continue. I have never had a knitting, crochet, or cross stitch lesson, but those are more technical art forms and spinning seems to be a more artful art form. For the first three, you follow a pattern, practice your techniques, and make sure you don't pull too tight. Everything is fairly organized, you can learn what different stitches look like easily from diagrams and YouTube, and while tension can be a problem at first, after you practice and get the rhythm of the motion down, it becomes easy as well.

Copper Moose Natural Corriedale

228 grams/140 yards (total)

2-ply, ~9 wpi

Roving was tossed in my dyeing crock pot with three packets of Lemon-Lime Kool-Aid and one packet of Blue Raspberry Kool-Aid, then spun on my Kromski

Spinning, not so much. I have drafting down, I understand the basics of twist, and I can make a reasonably consistent single. My plying has been pretty balanced as well. Now, however it seems like I can make yarn - not yarns, but one type of yarn. Maybe a thick version and a thin version. I don't know what different drafting methods are really supposed to look and feel like, I'm not too sure about wheel ratios and all that, and I really want to get my spinning to be technical enough to spin for the project I want to make rather than spinning the yarn I know how to make and finding something, anything that matches the general size and yardage. Which I have yet to do, or at least, yet to implement.

Copper Moose Mahogany Crush

121 grams, 94 yards

3 ply, ~7 wpi

Paired with the above, this will make a nice shawl. It will either be the border or a transition color to a solid blue border, since I still have a bunch of that lovely blue roving left.

Copper Moose 1 oz. Mountain Meadow, 1 oz. Mahogany Crush

56 grams/71 yards

2 ply, ~11 wpi

I'm not displeased with my handspun thus far, but I want to get better and more technical. I'm an engineer, I like technical - I want to create specifications and meet them!  Alas, more practice is needed, and lots more guidance. Not more fiber though, I still have pounds and pounds of that!

Copper Moose Natural Corriedale

374 g/268 yards of marl

 3-ply, ~8 wpi

11g/6 yards of brown

Navajo plied, ~7 wpi

32 g/32 yards of white

Navajo plied, ~8 wpi

I spun all the singles, then dyed 2/3 brown, and dyed 2/3 brown some more. I plied the undyed and two brown plies together, then chain-plied the leftover dark brown and undyed. I love how the white turned out, but the rest of it is mostly under-plied and loose. I may re-ply some of it before actually using it.

Hey Look! A Thing!

I finally went back and remade the cross stitch that didn't work out last month:

It's going to my desk at work as a motivational guide.

I should make myself another one that says "No. It's a complete sentence." I have a habit of saying yes far too often and taking on too many things. Yes, it works, but not everything is easy, there's more stress and rushing than there could be, and I don't take the time for me things like puzzles, a dance class, playing my violin, horseback riding, brushing up on Spanish or ASL, or this semester, taking time for friends and family. Most of the knitting I've been doing has been during homework, lectures, bus rides, or other times when I'm also doing something else, except those few times I make it to knitting lunches and evenings. I got the work part, and part of the problem in getting the "life" into the work-life balance is I love the work I'm doing and really enjoy a lot of the readings and projects I'm working on. I'm just doing a bit much, and need to remind myself that I can in fact say no to things, even if they will look good on my resume or "not take much time".

Lee laughed when I showed him this - I took the time to stitch a reminder to do fewer things. Having grown up in the '90s, my question is, is this actual irony or Alanis Morissette irony?

Febrary Frenzy: Yarn Count

Final post for February-related things! Last post, I said that I did well over the course of the month, and by those metrics, I certainly did. Looking at a different metric, however, gives very, very different results:

Yep, yarn count went up. Not as much as I thought it would,but still, wrong direction! I purchased Christmas yarn for my family and yarn for some thank-you Thujas I'm knitting in March, plus I spun six ounces of my fiber stash. I can't call the spinning a bad thing, moving fiber from one stash to another and improving my skill, but it does add to my total yarn once it's in yarn form. Sigh. I also don't count partial work here, so all those single socks and the two sweaters I'm working on are not a part of the yarn count. I should finish at least one of those sweaters and all of the socks this month. I foresee a large decline in my next update, at least one mile. Unless of course I accidentally bring home more yarn!

February Frenzy: Wrap-Up

This month, I showed that I am (still) bad at daily blogging, though every few days I can put a string of posts together. I also showed that I work on a LOT of different projects all the time; this month wasn't particularly different than many months projects-wise. If Blogger had a better webcam function, I would try to do a daily what-am-I-working-on post, but I think I'd fail at that if I have to dig out the camera, take pictures, and upload them daily. I also want to take better project pictures. Some projects of mine were well-photographed, but the majority are poorly lit and framed because I feel I have to get a picture in for one reason or another. Webcam shots in that category as a look-what-I'm-doing thing would not bother me, but I want to be a bit more deliberate about actual project pictures in the future.

So, crazy tangent to say: I liked the idea behind the February posting, would like to keep a short, daily post going on, but Blogger doesn't give you a few seconds delay to take webcam shots (like Ravelry does) so I probably won't.

What did I work on, and what did I accomplish this month? Well, let's look at the list:

Day 1: Sheldon Pirate Shell (modifying hat, not yet finished)
Day 2: Bear Hat
Day 3: V-Day Cross Stitch
Day 4: Sock #1 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 5: Dyed Roving
Day 6: Sock #2 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 7: Baby Bootie
Day 8: Coaster
Day 9: Cross stitch (that isn't working out as planned!)
Day 10: Sleeve (sleeve is done, but not the rest of the sweater!)
Day 11: Stash Organization
Day 12: Stash Update
Day 13: Valentine's Day Card
Day 14: Baby Bootie
Day 15: Julia Test Knit
Day 16: Singles from Dyed Roving
Day 17: Singles from Dyed Roving
Day 18: Disney Cross Stitch
Day 19: Brown Singles
Day 20: Cat Bed
Day 21: Blue Singles
Day 22: Plying the Green Yarn
Day 23: Plying the Other Yarn
Day 24: Headband
Day 25: Baby Booties 
Day 26: Sock #3 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 27: Sock #4 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 28: Nothing new?!?!?!

I worked on 20 different main projects, breaking them down into components like dyeing the roving and each ply of the yarn. Of those 20, five were meant to be completed next month for the Harry Potter challenges and one is my current large cross stitch that won't be finished for some time. I met my goals for the Harry Potter projects and finished eleven out of the fourteen other projects. I still need to completely rip out and re-stitch that cross stitch that didn't work out as planned. Soon. I'd say it was a pretty good month!

February Frenzy: Day 28

That sock from yesterday took a long time to finish - each toe took forever! So I didn't get to work on anything else, but I did finish that sock, and worked on five individual toes:

I did the recommended stockinette heel and stupidly picked up one stitch per slipped stitch on the edge for the gusset. That works well when I'm doing a 48-row slipped stitch heel, but for a 32-row stockinette heel, that is not enough gusset! It fits well enough, but I'm kicking myself for thinking "hey, quick gusset!" rather than "dude, pick up more stitches!"

Final List:

Day 1: Sheldon Pirate Shell (modifying hat, not yet finished)
Day 2: Bear Hat
Day 3: V-Day Cross Stitch
Day 4: Sock #1 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 5: Dyed Roving
Day 6: Sock #2 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 7: Baby Bootie
Day 8: Coaster
Day 9: Cross stitch (that isn't working out as planned!)
Day 10: Sleeve (sleeve is done, but not the rest of the sweater!)
Day 11: Stash Organization
Day 12: Stash Update
Day 13: Valentine's Day Card
Day 14: Baby Bootie
Day 15: Julia Test Knit
Day 16: Singles from Dyed Roving
Day 17: Singles from Dyed Roving
Day 18: Disney Cross Stitch
Day 19: Brown Singles
Day 20: Cat Bed
Day 21: Blue Singles
Day 22: Plying the Green Yarn
Day 23: Plying the Other Yarn
Day 24: Headband
Day 25: Baby Booties 
Day 26: Sock #3 (finished! but needs a mate)
Day 27: Sock #4
Day 28: Nothing new?!?!?!