The Zen of Weaving

A lot has been written about the zen properties of knitting. Knitting can put the knitter into a semi-trance, inducing a sense of calm and relaxation associated with more traditional forms of meditation.

Far be it from me to disagree. I've felt it myself -- it's one of the things I enjoy most about knitting (and I do enjoy a LOT of things about knitting).

However, I can't help but feel that the relaxation thing is only one small part of the meditation experience as a whole. If you want a true "fiber meditation," try weaving.

Why, you ask? (OK, you might very well not care. If that's the case, skip over this post entirely and head here, where you'll find lots of knitterly stuff without any undue philosophizing.)

It's simple. A huge part of meditation is discipline. The discipline to meditate every day, whether or not you feel it's "working." The discipline to meditate even when your brain is running all over the place like a three-year-old at an ice-cream party. The discipline to meditate even when every fiber of your being screams that the whole exercise is pointless.

That's where knitting as meditation falls short.

Think about it. When you want to knit, you pick up needles and yarn and you knit. Maybe you take the time to pick out a pattern first (or maybe not). Maybe you debate over needles and yarn (or maybe you just grab whatever's on top of the stash pile). If it's a project where gauge is critical, you'll probably take the time to do a swatch or two. But no matter, since it's knitting you know that within a relatively short time you'll be doing what you like to do best: turning miles of yarn into square yards of fabric.

And as you sit and knit (and relax into its meditative aspects), you'll probably get into a groove and let your mind drift away, especially if you've chosen a relatively repetitive or straightforward project like a plain stockinette hat or socks and not something designed to make your eyes bleed like a 15-color Fair Isle sweater. In fact, by the time you tune back into your surroundings again, you'll look down at your hands and see...fabric! In the time you've been zoning (or maybe chatting with friends, listening to music or simply watching the world go by), your fingers have been doing their thing with minimal input from your higher consciousness, resulting in the pleasant surprise of making seemingly effortless progress on your knitting. Unless you're so zoned out that you drop a stitch and have to tink back, which can destroy that meditative calm pretty darn quick. But, I digress.

Contrast that, then, with weaving. In my post of two days ago, I had just begun to warp my loom in preparation for making two linen-and-cotton placemats. Just to remind you, at that time after several hours' work, my loom looked like this:
















I then worked for several more hours last night, at which time my loom looked like this:
















I also worked on my placemats tonight, and my loom now looks like this:
















If all these photos look essentially the same to you, you're not imagining things. This is my point about weaving and discipline. I've just worked for hours and hours over a period of three days and what I have to show for it is...string. Lots of string. None of it remotely resembling fabric, mind you -- just miles of parallel strings, stretching between two bars on a loom.

Talk about discipline.

This is meditation at its most down-and-dirty. This is the discipline shown by those monks who sweep sand into intricate patterns every morning simply to have them trampled by feet and blown away by the wind every night...and yet they go right back the next morning and do it all over again. This is the discipline to do something even though you're absolutely, positively certain it's all for naught, that you're making no progress, that yours is a task worty of Sisyphus and that the fun part, the actual weaving of fabric, will never, ever happen.

Can I tell you that even now, after 3 days of warping my loom, I'm not ready even now to begin the actual process of weaving? That's right -- before I can weave, I first have to wrap my weft yarns around my shuttles:
















Those are the shuttles you see lying across the warped loom above. I need to wrap one with half the skein of Euroflax and the other with the black cotton.
















This next photo shows the shuttles standing up alongside the loom, just to give another perspective on how friggin' long and awkward they are. There is no easy way to wrap these shuttles. It will take me yet more hours, especially as the black mercerized cotton, which I'm using doubled, insists on sticking together and knotting at every opportunity. After I finish wrapping my shuttles, concluding what will be a minimum of four days' and many hours' work, I will then and only then be ready to first begin weaving. If I had put this many hours of effort into knitting, I'd have a full placemat finished already and a second well under way.

Discipline.

You'll excuse me; I'm off to meditate at my loom.

Warped

While there are lots of things that this title could refer to -- my husband's sense of humor, the state of the nation -- I was really referring to my rigid heddle loom.






























I started warping late this afternoon while Baby M took her nap. I continued this evening after dinner while DH played video games and the dogs napped at our feet. I'll finish sometime tomorrow, either before or after Auntie & Uncle P's visit with Baby E in tow. We're scheduled to head to a local Native American Pow Wow tomorrow afternoon, so if I can get the house tidied up early I may finish this first step in warping before the P clan arrives; otherwise, I'll do it in the evening to the sound of grunting PS2 boxers and canned ringside pep talks.

I'm warping my loom with Euroflax (the variegated orange/red/black) and doubled mercerized cotton (the solid black). My goal is to make 2 fringed placemats. The pattern and mix of yarns is the result of my buying 2 skeins of Euroflax as an experiment, thus not having enough to weave placemats solely out of that yarn. I happened to have the cotton in my stash, and I figured it would do to "pad" my linen. I came up with the color pattern myself, and the weave will be plain ol' tabby (the only kind I know).

At least my lower arms are feeling better -- hardly any pain at all, and certainly not what I was feeling these past couple of days, when I pretty much felt a pulling in the tendons up to my elbows all the time. It's good I'll be weaving these next few days to really change my hand/arm motions and hopefully stop any repetitive-motion injury from developing.

The "knitter's finger" feels infinitely better -- all the more reason for me to keep cooling it with the knitting for a bit longer. Besides, I haven't woven anything in quite awhile and I'm looking to experiment. I still have a stash of bamboo yarn in a gorgeous orange/yellow/cream colorway that I want to make up into a shawl once I feel confident enough about getting a decent selvedge.

By the way, this is how I warp a loom:




















Direct warping -- what a godsend! Check out the Ashford Book of Rigid Heddle Weaving for easy-to-follow directions.

Alpaca (Sky) Blues

I am in love with alpaca. Take a look at this:




















That's my skein of sky-blue, glitzy alpaca, newly-washed and hanging to dry (don't worry, I didn't leave it to dry on the metal wine rack -- just long enough for a pretty photo and then back on the icky-looking but non-rustable plastic hanger). Notice anything?

No hanging weight.

That's right, my first skein of yarn that actually turned out balanced -- no wild kinks to take out with a water-filled spray bottle hung off the end of the drying skein.

I am in awe.

I'm sure someone who knows about these things can explain why this happened. Maybe it's the "lack of memory" I've heard alpaca has...? (If this is what lack of memory does, may all my yarns develop Altzheimer's.) Maybe it's something to do with crimp, or a lack thereof...?

You can see I'm pretty much tossing around bits of info and cool-sounding jargon that I don't really understand; bad spinner that I am, I've never really read the spinning books that I own cover-to-cover and absorbed the technical information about various fibers the way other spinners have. As far as I know, alpaca may be full of magic pixie dust which is responsible for its wonderful spinning properties. Basically, I pick up fiber and spin it. If it turns into yarn -- and it always has, although of what quality is often up for debate -- I'm okay with it. But this beautiful, balanced skein is really the crowning achievement of my little-over-a-year's-worth of spinning experience, and I'm perfectly happy with giving all the credit to the alpaca and none to my own skills as a spinner.

I will say, though, that my plying is getting better.




















Not too shabby, if I do say so myself. No really un-twisted, fat-n-puffy sections; no really over-twisted, help-me-I'm-a-corkscrew sections; just a nice, fairly even ply that seems to have made a fairly nice, even yarn.

Again, I'm ready to give credit to the alpaca -- there must be something in the fiber that allowed this to happen. But I have gotten somewhat smarter about plying from both ends of a center-pull ball. I've pretty much come to grips with the fact that there will be no easy way, for me at least, of plying from both ends. Some people do it with ease. They sing the praises of the double-ended ply -- "no leftover yarn!" "easier than Navajo plying" -- but it always seemed to turn into a tangled mess for me, no matter what I did.

Once I finally accepted that I would never be able to simply pull smoothly from both ends of the ball, I tried unwinding a length of yarn from both ends of the ball and then plying that length. It slowed me down in the short run since I had to stop and unwind the next length every time I'd plied what I'd previously unwound, but it saved time and effort in the long run because I didn't have to deal with a bird's nest of tangles. All in all, I'm pretty pleased.

Now to take some close-ups of my new-to-me Country Craftsman spinning wheel. A kind Spindler contacted me and told me about the CC that she rescued -- now we're going to exchange photos and hopefully I'll get a better idea of what I've got and what I should do next with it.

In Lieu of Knitting

Here's what I've been working on these past couple of days:


















I finished spinning my sky-blue alpaca singles yesterday and today I plied from both ends of a center-pull ball to get the bobbin you see above. I just love how my Louet bobbins hold so much yarn! I don't know how many yards I have, but I think I'm going to try making either a neck warmer or an Elizabeth Zimmermann dickey (hoping I have enough, of course). The alpaca is so incredibly soft, and I love the subtle glint the little bit of glitz gives the finished product. Now I just need to set the twist and it'll be all set.

And here are the beaded necklaces that I made yesterday:





























I wish my camera could get a better close-up shot, but this is as good as it gets. The first necklace is in oyster shell (if I'm remembering correctly -- they're the square orange beads), blue coral and rough-cut amethyst with sterling silver findings. The coral beads are pretty cool -- it seems that they grow on sunken subway cars and the iron in the cars turns the coral naturally blue. Whoda thunk it?

The second necklace is mainly quartz chips with bali silver, glass (the large central bead) and seed beads.

Aside from keeping occupied with every other craft besides knitting, I'm also planning my next knitting projects (tendonitis, shmendonitis). This afternoon I ordered the Icosa Welt Ball Pillow pattern. This too-cool-for-words spherical pillow is knit in what look like mitered equilateral triangles that are then grafted together to form a ball. You can see a finished version on Bente's Blog.

The only place I found the pattern was at Knit-Purl in Oregon, which charges a flat $6.50 shipping fee to anywhere in the continental U.S. -- great for folks buying in bulk, kinda sucky for someone like me who only wants to buy a single pattern.

I even looked into buying the yarn from K-P just so I felt like I wasn't getting so very screwed on shipping. However, there was no freakin' way I was buying 6 skeins of Koigu at $12 each to make a pillow! I headed over to Knitpicks instead and picked up some fingering weight at about a quarter of the price. I don't know when I'll get to it, but knowing I have a cool project just waiting in the wings makes me very happy.

Finally, I've decided that since I'm spinning so much more these days I'm going to invest in another Bossie featherweight. I've already contacted Sheila to see what woods and weights they have in stock, so with a little luck I'll be able to place my order this week. Then I'll finally be able to try my hand at spinning a little silk...mmmmmmmm, silk....... ;-)

In other news, I went out and bought a couple of little treats to tuck into my MDK Warshrag Swap package. I've also been checking in on my partner's blog and have discovered that she likes beads too; I may just have to include a couple of beaded stitch markers in my package. Photos to come....

Christmas in August (Or perhaps I should say Chanukkah....)

Today my friend IV, who just happens to be Jewish (hence the Chanukkah reference), gave me a huge gift:
















That's right, folks. What you see is a floor loom
















and a spinning wheel.















Can you believe it?

And when I say "gave," I mean exactly that. The loom, she explained, had been a gift to her several years ago. She had never learned how to work it and had finally decided that she wanted the space in her home more than she wanted the loom, so she was ready to pass it along to someone else who would love and use it. The loom is marked "H.M. Stuart," but when I googled the name I came up with nothing. I've never used a floor loom and have only worked 2 or 3 projects on my RH loom thus far, but I'm excited to learn and can't wait to get started.

The spinning wheel is a Country Craftsman, which is now sadly discontinued. I found the email addy of the maker and contacted him to see if I could get an instruction manual and perhaps some direction as to how to repair the wheel. Yes, the wheel needs repair, which is why IV gave it to me. Unfortunately, she purchased the wheel from someone who was less than honest with her and she eventually found that she couldn't spin on it and didn't want to invest any more money in fixing it. Since she'd done nothing but curse the person who sold her that wheel, she said, she figured she'd give it away and at least I couldn't be mad if I, too, found the wheel too much trouble to deal with.

Honestly, I would have been delighted with just one new-to-me fiber toy, but two? How lucky can a girl get?

So, I spent much of the afternoon hangin' with IV, checking out her new garden paths and talking natural dyestuffs. M-I-L was watching Baby M, so I had the whole day to myself. I even managed to get some beading done -- a real rarity these days with the baby around ready to shove any errant beads into the nearest available orifice in a split second. No photos of those finished pieces yet; I was too excited about the loom and wheel to remember to snap pics of my jewelry. But I did crank out not one but two necklaces -- one in rose quartz, silver and glass and the other in rough-cut amethyst, blue coral and silver -- and a handful of oversized beaded stitch markers, perfect for those projects on size 13s and above. Will try to remember to take photos tomorrow to post.

Oh, and I've decided to join the ninth Secret Pal swap. I love swaps and this one sounds particularly fun. Meanwhile, I think I'll be sending the MDK warshrags that I knitted specifically to match my kitchen over to my MDK swap partner instead. I checked out her blog and there was a great post showing a skein of yarn she'd bought at some fiber festival. Lo and behold -- the colos were exactly the same as in my kitchen. With me off knitting for the time being and the swap needing to go out in a couple of weeks, I figured this was definitely the way to go. My kitchen will simply have to wait to get coordinating warshrags.

For Pure Inspiration...

...check out this blog:

http://www.bentemor.com/blogg

Don't freak when you first see it -- Bente writes all her posts in Norwegian but translates them into English at the bottom of each. Don't I wish I were that fluent in any foreign language?? Be sure to check out the giant "Icosa" spherical pillow -- absolutely stunning!

Cheaters Never Win....

Well, I set off with the intention of making some headway on A's baby kimono even though I'd been warned away from knitting for the time being by my orthopedist. And wouldn't you know it, cheating on my knitting "diet" got me absolutely nowhere!

Somehow, I managed to mis-read the kimono pattern -- never mind that I'd made it twice before with absolutely no problem -- and I discovered halfway through the darn thing that instead of two sleeves of equal length I had a right sleeve long enough to clothe an orangutan and no left sleeve at all. Grrrrrr....

Serves me right, I suppose. I don't have photographic evidence because I discovered my error on the car ride home and immediately frogged back to before the sleeve increases, which was waaaaaay farther than I'd hoped I'd ever have to frog this thing. I did play a bit of catch-up in the car (making absolutely sure I was doing the sleeves correctly) but held off on knitting tonight in favor of doing some more spinning on my sky-blue alpaca. More to tell of that in another post.

Aside from the knitting, we all had a wonderful long weekend with Auntie G and Uncle Godfather. We went to the Fort Rickey Children's Discovery Zoo, which is an absolutely amazing, family-run petting zoo. If you're ever in the Utica, NY area, go. We got to pet a porcupine, hold a giant snake, play with tiny baby goats and watch an amazing interaction between two fully-grown timber wolves and their trainer (who also happens to be the owner of the zoo). I also got to pick a palm-sized piece of bison fluff off a fence and keep it, with permission of the zoo owner, of course, who then kindly agreed to let me know if they ever collected a bagful so that I could use it to spin. I spent the trip home carefully picking guard hairs out of my fluff (and full of guard hairs it well and truly was!), and now I just have to wash my little bison puff before getting it ready to spin. I'll finally get to try out my dog-hair combs on some fiber -- yaaaayy!

While the zoo was ultra-cool, the highlight of the trip for Daddy (aka DH) and Baby M was playing on the grass outside the art museum that we visited on Sunday. DH was busy rolling on the ground and doing silly tricks to make M laugh, while for her part, M was busy playing with sticks and trying to emulate her daddy's antics. The two of them truly crack me up.

We took it slow coming home today, arriving around mid-afternoon with just enough time to unpack and still make it to the playground for an hour or so before dinner. It was DH's first time seeing Baby M walking around the playground like a big girl (she's been walking on her own for less than a week, remember), and he was delighted. He was like a big kid, playing on all the equipment and helping M play as well. All in all, it was a wonderful long weekend, beginning to end.

Travel Fiber

Well, we're off to visit Auntie Gigglepants and Uncle Godfather this weekend. Here's what we're taking to keep the baby occupied:

















And here's what we're taking to keep me occupied:





























Since the doctor has told me to lay off the knitting for awhile, the bulk of what I'm bringing is spinning stuff. On the right you can see my Golding Swan Lake spindle, already wound up with a cop of purple New Zealand wool. There's a sad, sad story behind this spindle.

My DH gave it to me as a Valentine's Day gift. Needless to say, I was stunned. I immediately started spinning up the purple fiber you see here, and I absolutely loved it. That spindle truly sang. Then, the unthinkable happened. As will happen with drop spindles, it dropped -- right onto our hardwood floor -- and the wooden post holding the hook cracked. I was devastated, but DH contacted the good people at Goldings and they fixed it right away. For free, no less.

I resumed spinning, but more cautiously. I padded the floor below me with layers of towels, but still I was nervous. Naturally, as I was spinning the yarn separated once again and the spindle headed for the floor. This time, my reflexes took over and I clapped my knees together as it went, trying to keep it from hitting. I heard a sickening crunch and found that I'd caught the spindle right at the whorl, crushing the delicate carvings.

It's taken me months to even be able to write about it, I was so heartsick. DH offered to buy me a new one for our next holiday, but I told him I obviously couldn't be trusted with it. He then glued mine back together for me, dear heart that he is, and if you didn't know to look closely you couldn't even really tell it was ever broken. It doesn't quite sing any more as I spin -- it wobbles just the tiniest bit -- but the upside is, I'm not afraid of dropping it and I can certainly take it on a trip, something I never would have done if it hadn't been broken. Now, of course, I'm sure I'll never drop it again...ain't that always the way?















But, back to my travel fiber toys. In addition to the Golding, there's a Bossie featherweight that I simply adore. I was leery of using such a light spindle, but Sheila over at Journey Wheel said it would be the best thing for the silk fiber I wanted to spin, so I gave it a shot. Right now it's got a merino/silk blend on it that I'm spinning insanely finely. I have no idea what I'll ever do with this sewing thread, but I'm sure I'll figure something out.

On the left is my newest fiber toy, a Spindolyn supported spindle. I got this recently in trade for some superwash merino and I've been waiting for a good chance to try it out. I figure a four-hour car ride is as good as it gets.

And, of course, there's the ubiquitous MDK book and SnC cotton. I know, I know, I'm not supposed to knit. But I have a baby shower to go to on the 9th, people! I have to at least finish this baby kimono and a couple of coordinating bibs. I promise I'll go slow and take frequent spinning breaks.

And did I mention that Auntie Gigglepants is a beading guru? There may be some jewelry-making in my future this weekend....

Blue Skies and Baby Steps

When I was a kid, my favorite color was sky blue. I still remember exactly how the sky-blue Crayola looked, brand-new out of the box, and how much I loved using it.

As I got older, sky blue went the way of crayons and coloring books. My wardrobe filled up with blacks and the occasional red, and I didn't think much about sky-blue until I unexpectedly received a whole bag full of glitzy, sky-blue alpaca roving.















Shasta "guarding" the spinning wheel

The roving sat in my stash until yesterday, when the orthopedist told me to cool it with the knitting for a few weeks. I decided I needed to spin up something bright and fun to cheer me up, and glitzy sky-blue alpaca seemed to fit the bill just fine.















The beginnings of a bobbin of alpaca singles


Can I tell you, I love this roving!! It spins like a cloud, like air itself. I've even been able to do a little bit of long draw, something I was never able to accomplish before. Half of me can't wait to finish spinning because I'm dying to see the finished yarn and the other half doesn't want the spinning to end. If I had to be laid up and out-of-knitting-commission, this is certainly a good way to do it.

Maybe I'm just in an extra-good mood today because M finally, at age 16 months, decided to walk all by herself for the very first time. In the past, she would walk while holding hands; she would cruise along the furniture; she would even take half a dozen tentative steps towards a beloved adult, all the while stretching out her arms and practically falling at our feet when she reached us. Then, all of a sudden, she decided that she could do it on her own -- and she did. She spent the day walking everywhere, turning right, turning left, falling down and getting right back up again. I can't remember when I've been so proud.

I took her to the playground this afternoon and it was the first time she went around without clinging to my finger the whole time. I watched in awe as she walked away from me, heading off to investigate an inviting-looking step or an interesting patch of gravel. And I thought, she'll only walk farther and faster from here on out. It made me the tiniest bit sad, made my heart ache just a little bit even as it was bursting with pride. She's on her way, one baby step at a time.

Whaddaya Want for Free?

OK, Blogger is seriously making me nuts. I've been trying to post for two days now but Blogger won't upload my photos. This has happened at least weekly since I've gone back to blogging. What the heck?! Yes, I realize that for free, I probably shouldn't complain. Still, it's frustrating in the extreme to not be able to complete posts because the photo upload is buggy or overloaded or whatever else is causing the problem.

Let's get with the program, Blogger -- work, dammit!!

Hands

I've been thinking a lot about hands lately. Take a look at this:















It's a table runner made for me several years back by my mom. My mom has been doing "handiwork," as she calls it, since she was in first grade. Her main thing is crocheting, but this particular Christmas -- the Christmas of the table runner -- she decided to do something different. Did I mention she hand-makes all her Christmas gifts every year? You gotta admire that.

Anyway, that year I think she'd scored a bunch of free fabric and she thought, why not put it to good use? And so she hand-sewed -- yes, you read that right, hand-sewed, without the aid of a sewing machine -- a table runner for me and one for each of my cousins. We're talking serious time here, and serious effort. I always knew that, but then again, that's my mom. Over the years, she's made everything from little hand-crocheted doilies to full-out tablecloths (sheer madness, I know -- who crochets a cloth for a table that will seat 12??).

The year mom gave me the runner, I put it out on the table a few times; after that, it mainly lived in the corner hutch in my dining room. Nothing against it or her -- I'm just more of a tablecloth gal...the wash 'n wear, no-iron kind.

Then yesterday I pulled that runner out and looked at it -- I mean, really looked at it. The stitches are minute. The thread matches the color of the fabric. There have to be at least a hundred of those little circles, each of which mom meticulously cut out of fabric the old-fashioned way: by hand, with a sewing shears, using the bottom of a glass as her template.















Not all that long ago, my mom mentioned that her arthritis was acting up. She talked about how doing needlework was too painful for her these days -- the mere act of holding a sewing needle in her fingers was too taxing. She still crochets, but her sewing days are for the most part over.

These days I'm having my own hand problems, too. The orthopedist just told me I have "knitter's finger," which means a cortisone shot (my second this year) in the short term and possibly surgery in the long. It also means no knitting for the next little while. "I know you gotta knit," he said, after asking me where my LYS was (who woulda thought the orthopedic surgeon would be knit-knowledgeable??), "but you might want to hold out for six weeks, just to see if it helps."

I think of my grandmother's hands, twisted and knurled from arthritis; my mother's fingers the same way; my grandfather's even worse. I feel the telltale pains not only in my finger, but in my elbow, my wrist -- not arthritis, the doctor assures me, just narrow tendons, something he can fix in an hour with a light anasthetic (for me, not him) and a couple of quick incisions. I recognize the wisdom of avoiding surgery and vow to avoid things that aggravate the condition (though the elbow flares up in pain when I type, yet here I sit blogging away). Fifty years ago, people went their whole lives without repetitive motion injuries...or maybe they were just tougher than we are. When there's nothing to be done, why bother complaining?

Anyway, I'm off knitting for the next little bit. I'll spin, I'll weave, and I'll go easy on the typing while I'm at it, just to give myself a chance to heal without aid from a needle or a knife. I'll keep my table runner out on the table where it belongs, a testament to my mother's determination and love of her family.

Much nicer than a store-bought tablecloth any day.

One Month and Counting

So there I was, just starting to cast on for my third ballband warshrag to match my kitchen, when I suddenly remembered the baby shower I'm attending on September 9. Yikes! Off came the brick-red SnC and on went the slate blue. So far, I have a miniscule stockpile of 2 MDK baby kimonos (both of which still need seaming) and zero bibs/burp cloths. Sad, sad, sad.

So, Christmas knitting will be put aside (OK, except for that one washcloth that I'm in the middle of knitting to finish off a pair to go with my ballband bathmat...and except for my m-i-l's scarf for those days when I want to work with wool instead of cotton...and except for my mom's lace stole just because if I don't keep doing a couple of rows every few days it'll never be finished in time for the holidays) and baby knitting will commence in earnest. I've already gotten to the first set of sleeve increases and I hope to have at least half the kimono finished by tomorrow. I'm thinking two or three matching kimono/bib sets...only 31 days and counting....

Some Good News on the Knittng Front....

Well, I did it. It took a week and a half, 44 ounces of PnC/SnC and gave me shooting pains in my right index finger, but I finally finished my first Ballband Bathmat.

As you can see, the ends still need to be woven in, but aside from that I am well and truly done! I actually can't complain; I really enjoyed knitting this bathmat, moreso than the Absorba, which always seems to bog down towards the later, longer rows.

As soon as I finished, I cast on a matching washcloth, which I finished in one sitting while watching Armageddon. Nothing like a cheesy Hollywood flick for mindless knitting.

Tomorrow I think I'll bring my rigid heddle loom up from the basement, where it's been languishing since May, and warp it up with Euroflax (possibly interspersed with crochet cotton) for placemats. I'm thinking more and more about buying Euroflax worsted weight, which (from what I'm told) is actually more of a DK or aran weight than a true worsted. Does anyone know of a good source of linen patterns besides Louet?

A Day at the Frog Pond

If only the Marx Brothers had filmed that movie -- maybe I'd be able to laugh a little harder at my own rip-it rip-it rip-iting!

So, after reading that Euroflax won't bloom after it's been washed, I frogged what I'd knit on size 4s and went down to size 2s. After knitting more than I probably should have, I discovered -- naturally -- I still didn't like the way the stupid fabric looked. Grrrrrrr!

So it's back to the frog pond for me, and now I'm wondering what to do next. Someone pointed me in the direction of washing the Euroflax before knitting with it, which should allow it to be knitted up more tightly than if it hasn't been washed. I'm not quite sure how I feel about that, partly because the more I've been thinking about the intended purpose of this yarn -- placemats -- the more I've started thinking I may just break out the RH loom and weave the darn things instead of knitting them. A simple tabby weave will certainly go faster (or at least feel like it's going faster) than doing a fussy knitting pattern on size 0s, which is the direction this project seems to be quickly heading in.

So now, I'm stuck in a whole other direction. I was initially so excited about using linen yarn that I scoured the internet and found a place that sells in bulk, twenty cones or bags of skeins (either 1/2lb or 1 lb each depending upon grist) for $24 each. They also have the largest variety of grists I've seen in Euroflax, everything from the finest laceweight (14/1, 5200 ypp) to a nice heathered bulky (685 ypp). A friend and I decided to go in half and half on an order so that we're each only spending a slightly insane amount of money on this. I was toying with the idea of getting a bunch of the sportweight plus maybe a cone or two of 14/2 laceweight for a shawl, but after this experience with the placemats I'm now wondering if that's what I want to do at all. I can certainly see how Euroflax would make nice clothing -- I really like the top-down Euroflax sweater on the MDK blog site -- but I'm wondering about what grist I should get. Maybe a worsted weight would be better overall than sport weight? (And, to tell the truth, the Euroflax sport weight seems quite thin to me -- far more like a light fingering weight than a sport weight in wool would be.) And that bulky Euroflax is tempting, too. Although, of course, I could surely use the sportweight for a lovely shawl or two....

This is the problem with buying yarn without a definite project in mind, although I certainly had a project in mind for the sportweight and look how that's turning out. Suggestions, anyone?

Another Day, Another Dammit

I took the train into work today, which means that in between eating, reading and sleeping (did I mention I have a LONG commute??) I got a nice little piece of knitting done:















This is the beginning of a Euroflax placemat, modeled after the Euroflax hand towel in MDK. Unfortunately -- and here's where the "dammit" comes in -- it looks like I'm going to have to frog the entire thing and go down at least 2 needle sizes to get a fabric I like. Right now the knit is way too loose; I had hoped that washing the Euroflax would make it bloom and fill in the gaps somewhat, but that's not what people on the MDK-Knitalong blog seem to be saying. *sigh* Oh, well...size 2 needles, here I come!

Still missing Fatboy and feeling that this is all very unreal. DH and I started looking at photos this evening but stopped...still too sad. Here's one we did look at, though, which brought back good memories.

It was taken at our annual spring BBQ; that's Fatboy in the front and Shasta in the back. All the dogs love the BBQ because everyone spoils them and feeds them scraps all day long. I still can't quite believe Fatboy won't be there for our next one.

Requiem
















At shortly after midnight this morning, our bulldog, Fatboy, died.

It was completely unexpected. We had had him to the vet that very afternoon to get his bordatella vaccine, and he had been just fine.

Shortly before we went to bed last night, Fatboy's breathing became even more labored than usual. Now, if you know bulldogs, you know that they snort, they snore, and by the simple act of breathing they make a good ol' racket just about all the time. So, we weren't overly worried. Fatboy's breathing would get louder and faster in the heat or after running around, but after resting it would always go back to its normal dull roar. We all went to bed thinking nothing was wrong.















Fatboy on the beach in Maine, summer 2003


But shortly after midnight, our other bulldog, Kobe, woke us up with her barking. At first, we thought she had to go outside; instead, she was trying to let us know that Fatboy had died. His face was all wet -- she had obviously been licking him -- and his body was still warm and soft. It must have just happened.

Today was a pretty awful day for all of us. We were up till after 2am, crying and caring for Fatboy's body, our other dogs (Kobe and our shep mix, Shasta) and baby M. We finally got to sleep only to get up a scant few hours later for work. DH's boss, when informed of the situation, told DH to take the day off, which he gratefully did. I didn't have the same luxury. So, after we took Fatboy to the vet for cremation, DH and I drove to his parents' house where he stayed with M and the dogs while I went in to work.

I feel like a wreck. My eyes are sandy and have been burning for hours. I have a headache and am exhausted in body and spirit. I keep wondering if there was anything we could have done. What if...? What if we had gone to work yesterday instead of staying home (which we did because on the way to work the car got a flat and the baby got sick all at once)? Maybe if Fatboy had spent the day in the cool basement as he always does when we're at work he would have been okay. Or what if we had given Fatboy a bath yesterday afternoon? We had been planning a bath for him for days -- maybe the cool water would have kept him from overheating, which is what we think in the end caused his death.

DH says there's no point in thinking about "what ifs," and intellectually I know he's right. DH says it was probably just Fatboy's time. At least he didn't suffer; he didn't go through a long illness and a lot of pain...just slipped into sleep and was gone.

Poor Kobe. She and Fatboy have been together all their lives. She's so sad, and so stoic. She just walks mournfully around the house and, when she's not doing that, she sleeps.

I want to remember Fatboy as he was: a happy, good-hearted, good-natured dog who never really knew his own strength and was always eager to jump in the nearest lap and slobber all over whoever and whatever came within reach.

He will always be loved. He will always be missed.

Somewhat-Finished Object

It may not be the prettiest yarn, but it's my first attempt at Navajo plying my homespun, and I'm pretty pleased overall with how it turned out. It's lumpy, bumpy and overspun, not to mention partially boucled, but it's mine. Oh, and did I point out that it looks exceedingly like a mop?















I've been spinning on this "mystery wool" for a long time now, but I finally managed to finish not only the spinning but do the entire plying job today while hiding out from the heat in our basement. DH, M and I got waylaid this morning by a) a flat tire, and b) M's sudden relapse into vomiting and diarrhea (a repeat of last week's "summer virus"). No work for DH and me; no day spent with doting grandparents for M. Instead, DH worked from home, I got the tire repaired and the dogs vaccinated (in between cleaning up vomit/poop...charming, I know) and M played her little heart out when she wasn't busy soiling herself. All in all, an interesting day.

But I did manage to squeeze in some spinning, as the photos attest. I think my next task will be to Kool-Aid dye the skein. I have half a dozen packets of something that should dye red, and with the heat we've had lately I'm tempted to dump them all in a plastic baggie of water and vinegar and set the mix in the car for a day -- down-n-dirty "solar dyeing." Otherwise, I may just pull out my Twisted Sisters sock book and figure out how to dye from that. I've never dyed wool before, nor have I used Kool-Aid as a dye. My dyeing experiments were mainly high-school attempts to Rit jeans and T-shirts -- nothing nearly as fancy as trying to dye my own homespun.

DH is talking about possibly getting me an I-Pod (something I've dearly wanted so I can listen to books from librivox while knitting)...if and when that happens, I may just have to make myself an I-Pod cozy from my Kool-Aided homespun. All the more reason to get me a-dyein'.

Feelin' hot, hot, HOT!

It is hot. WAAAAAAAY hot. Hotter than it has any right to be, even though it is August in New York. It's so hot that there's a Heat Emergency in effect. I don't know what this means for sure, but it can't be good.

And so, with the temperature at a record high, what should I work on but the bathmat that is quickly turning into the Biggest Ballband Ever!


This bathmat is quickly taking on the proportions of a blanket, with weight to match. It'll make a super bathmat, but for now it's an exercise in knitterly zen (not to mention knitterly determination and knitterly nuttiness) just to sit under it and do a few rows.

I never thought I'd hear myself say I wish it were winter, but right about now I almost do.

Nothing to see here, folks....

Not that I'm not knitting; I'm just not photographing (or...er, finishing, either).

The great Ballband Bathmat continues apace. The tremendous advantage of working with great big needles is offset by the tremendous disadvantage of working with a total of TWELVE strands of yarn, 6 and 6. Eventually it will get all knitted up, and then I'll weigh the monster and see just how much cotton it takes to make the biggest ballband ever.

Work on my m-i-l's Christmas gift (the yak/merino scarf to go with the double-thick Fair Isle hat in the same yarn) has been suspended because it's way too hot to even think about knitting with wool.

I did manage a row or two on my mother's silk stole today, but the laceweight yarn and Madiera Mesh pattern make for slow going.

My one FO: the first ballband warshrag in colors that actually match my kitchen. No photo, but once the others are done I'll take a shot and post. Ballbands make for great mindless car knitting, and I'm using a nylon circ so heaven forbid we get in an accident I won't -- as DH constantly warns -- stab myself with my knitting. Can you imagine that obituary??

Bathmats, Bathmats Everywhere....

OK, so I'm over my little snit of yesterday. As Kathy wisely pointed out, it's often hard to come across in writing the way one wants to. So, no hard feelings, MDK blog folks; I'll be over there blogging again in no time.

But first, here's my latest bathmat-in-progress:















Cool, eh? It's based on the Ballband Warshrag pattern. I used 6 strands of Sugar-n-Cream on size 15 needles and cast on 51 stitches, all white for the slip-stitch rows and a mix of yellow ombre (Peaches-n-Cream, actually) and solid yellow for the other rows. It's coming out sooooo soft and squishy, I just can't wait to sink my toes into it. I'm pretty sure this will be the pattern I use to make my Christmas gifts: Ballband Bath Sets (a bathmat, two hand towels and two washcloths).

Oh, and the red/orange/maroon warshrag is there to provide a sense of scale; it's done with a single strand of SnC on size 6 needles, exactly following the Ballband pattern. Amazing what multiplying strands and going up a few needle sizes will do to gauge, isn't it?

And Kathy, since you asked, it's the same "formula" for my Absorbas: 6 strands of PnC on size 15s. For the bathmat in the previous post's photo I used plain white for 3 strands and off-white for the other 3. And thank you so much for the nice compliment. It never would have occurred to me to knit a bathmat of all things before reading MDK, but now that I've started I just can't seem to stop.

But lest it seem that the only thing I'm interested in knitting these days are bathmats, take a look at the absolutely stunning skein of hand-dyed merino I just received in trade from Jaye in Ohio:















Is it not just gorgeous and scrumptions and to-die-for? And it feels even better than it looks. Mmmmmmm..... I'm thinking moebius scarf for the fall, and this project I'll keep for myself. :)