Tag: yarn

knitting

Long Term Goals

LindeyLeave a comment

This is the world’s easiest “lace” pattern. It’s just yo/k2tog across on one side, purl back on the other. Yeah, it’s got a tiny border of garter stitch to neaten up the edge, but generally speaking, this is a thing anyone can do with no pattern, and I’m doing it, a few rows at a time, long term. It’s sitting in my office next to my computer, as something to do with my hands when I need to stop writing for a moment and think, because I think best when I have something like this to do at the same time. the simplicity of the thing helps because it doesn’t require any thought, so it’s just a physical distraction, not a mental one. At this rate, though, it’s going to take all summer to finish. Maybe longer.

The color of the yarn is, despite it being both the colors I’ve most often had my hair in the last 40 years, not something I’d ever wear, so I suspect I’ll give it away to someone on patreon after it’s finished. Still, it’s going to help me write some books while it’s in process!

knitting

The Rainbow Connection

LindeyLeave a comment

The Rainbow Connection V-neck Boxy sweater, that is. This:

Once again bathroom mirror pic, but it’s not the worst picture. Partially because of the happenings of the previous post and my rift sweater, I decided to knit it in a size that wasn’t overly large on me. In this case, since the sweater is supposed to be quite large, that meant knitting it about 4 sizes too small. I knit the body in the smallest size available, the neck in my own size, and then, because bringing the body in that drastically meant the sweater hit my upper arms, not my elbow or so, I made the arms deeper, just by knitting the top of the sweater to 8-9″ before joining under the arms.

The yarn I have left:

Between the size change and the 3″ sleeves, since I don’t especially like sleeves that come past my elbow, I used all but a few yards of every color, for something like 1500 yards of Miss Babs fingering weight yarn. I’d been planning on making the Muppet shawl by Lyrical Knits with this, and even bought it as a kit, but when I started to see the spoiler pictures of it, I realized it was in a shape I don’t really wear much. Plus I just forced my poor co-writer and PA to take a whole bunch of knitted shawls earlier this month. Knitting a bunch more isn’t the answer, even if I do love a good lace knit.

Now I guess I should go work on finishing that Tiong Bahru that’s been on my needles for . . . (checks notes) almost eleven years. Oops.

knitting · spinning

The Passport Blanket

LindeyLeave a comment

So, some time ago, I was on etsy, breaker of bank accounts and destroyer of lives, and I saw some CVM for sale. That’s California Variegated Mutant for anyone who doesn’t spin, and it’s a lofty, bouncy medium wool, which is also the first thing I ever handspun—on a drop spindle, no less. So I was taken by a moment of fancy, and decided to get some more.

The clever person who owned the farm asked me . . . do you need a SE2SE passport sticker?

And I fell right down the rabbit hole. Apparently, it’s a program to try to preserve rare and threatened sheep breeds, sending collectible stickers to put in a “passport” when you purchase wool of the breeds in question from farms taking part in the program. Included are breeds from Shetland, which has long been a favorite of mine, to things I’d never heard of before, some of which sound downright made up. Florida Cracker? Barbados Blackbelly?

There are a total of 20+ breeds, and while I doubt I’ll ever find them all, I thought . . . wouldn’t it be interesting to put them all together in one project? So I started buying the wool in question, in small 4oz lots, with the intention of spinning them all to a similar weight, and block by block, building an afghan out of all these rare sheep breeds. Because that’s the kind of nerd I am. The fun kind.

So here it is, my passport, in which I’ve collected a whole bunch of stickers, but only just started the immense undertaking of the spinning, with this, that first Lendrum bobbin, 1/3 of the CVM I bought at the beginning of the month:

Wish me luck with what’s almost certainly a bigger bite than I’ll ever manage to chew!