Enchanting Juno

Emotion in yarn

I'm prepping a yarn sale - make a note!  tell your friends! - for probably next week and so I have been tracking things down all over my house, looking up prices, winding yarn balls, taking pictures, finding stray swatches, writing yarn stories and generally tossing the stash sky high for the last couple of weeks.

What is blowing my mind is how much of my relationship with knitting is pure emotion.  (Most of the rest is color.)

I thought I knit because it was fun, because I like sweaters, because it brought me great people, because it's tactile and so am I.  Lies.  All lies.*  I just love yarn and people look at you funny if you collect it like Hummel figurines.   Which I totally do.

Look at these.  I want them all.  New York Twilight #10 I want 12 skeins of to knit into a magic sweater, but the rest, I want in some kind of moth proof gallery space, in rosewood and ebony turned bowls, under harmless light to just ...visit.  Maybe swatch.  The world is better because these yarns are in it, you will never convince me otherwise.  Yarn is good. 

It isn't fitting in the yarn closet very well anymore, and that's my personal line between pleasing collection and not really knitting very much because I cannot connect with what I have.  Or see it very well.

As I have gone through the stash, essentially curating it, I've revisited the days I bought these skeins, the company I was in, how that company affected the purchase, my ideas about myself and what I was seeing when I thought about it as clothing to wear on my body, which is such a profound expression of self even before you get to the part where you spend a 1000 hours MAKING.

A lot of what I'll be putting up here soon is from early in the blog, early in knitting - there was SO MUCH NEW - not just material but emotional, new important friends and new important personal milestones.   Was I projecting a desire - who I WISH I were?  Was I borrowing a friend's eyes and idea of me?  Or is my change in taste really a mirror of another aspect of the ways I've changed over the last half decade?

There is NOTHING I cannot see as a tool for self knowledge.  It's my best quality AND my most irritating.

 

* Not lies at all.  Trues.  But for the purposes of this blog post...LIES.

We are pleased.

This has been in the bottom of my purse since the beginning of September - it went to Vermont, the office, the gym, the grocery store.  It has had Stuff on top.  There has been Friction.

It looks pretty damn good.

Classic Elite Wool Bamboo on 4 mm needles.  Bamboo is a remarkable material.  Though I have a bamboo T that isn't holding up as well - maybe its the wool/bamboo combo?

(I fell asleep at 9 o clock last night.  While watching Serenity.   Which tells you how tired I was.  Woke up at 10:30 to move from the couch to my bed.  Only knit about 3 rows on the scarf.  So this is all I have.  But worth knowing.)

This is the way we wash our ....

yarn.

I have a terrible problem with colourmartUK.  All that cashmere.  I get a bit flushed (fans self).

There is a fair accumulation of coned yarn around the place at this point, and somewhere in my recent swatch frenzy, I started experimenting with how to get the best out of it.  Originally I was charmed by coned yarn because of the lack of ends to weave in - so efficient! - but the oils make it hard to predict bloom and final gauge.  And anyway, if I'm going to bother to knit with something exquisite, I would enjoy wringing every last ounce of tactile pleasure from it, instead of running the harshness of machine oils through my fingers for 1800 yards.

Once I discovered that it was completely possible to fit one 150 gram cone of dk cashmere in a single niddy-noddy load AND that it all fits neatly and easily into one ball-winder ball, well, it became open season on the cones.

Autumn Tweed was an early acquisition, almost 2 years ago when I first discovered ColourMart.  A very soft 2 ply, it actually looked good enough to work with on the cone.  This one responded very well to hot water, sink and hand agitation and though I am sure it shrank a bit, it was not noticeable to my eye.

 

In the picture, the coned strand looks nearly the same as the washed skein, but a side by side of a washed and unwashed skein shows (or it least it would if I had not apparently failed to photograph this stage) at least a third greater volume and a significantly softer texture.   The construction is two plies of a very soft single and I expect was originally intended to be knit on idustrial machines into a sweater.  I love it.  Can't wait to knit it.

This other yarn - also from ColourMart - is a much less soft 6 ply.  The vendor takes fine singles for weaving, twists them into two-ply laceweight and then plies 3 strands of two ply and I have to admit that though I adore the color - olive heather - I was initially disappointed.

The resulting yarn arrived looking a little bit strandy and felt a bit hard and  I didn't see how it could turn into something nice to wear and knit.  I washed a skein in the sink a few weeks ago with detergent and hot water and a plunger - a successful technique with the first yarn
- and it improved.  But not enough.  It didn't bloom.  It didn't feel like cashmere.  I wasn't satisfied.  Saturday I decided it was worth a potential 35 dollar loss to learn more.

On this intellectual whim, I stuck it in a small (to minimize freedom of movement) lingerie bag in a load of towels, with regular laundry detergent (BioKleen) and a warm wash, warm rinse.  Extreme skeinwashing.  Maybe even Xtreme.

I may have been a little feverish.

When it came out, I was sad.  Oh I was sad.

Very, very sad.

But I'm a determined woman.  I pulled and stretched and yanked. 

I cranked the swift as wide as I could.

The autumn cashmere skein - which fits completely over the green one - was wound on the same niddy noddy. 

20% loss? 25%?

But it looks pretty.

Very pretty.

Not felted.  Not matted.  And soft.  Like luxury air.  Like cashmere.

I think I can see a difference.

I can feel it too.

A few quick calculations caused me to run and quick order another skein, since there's no denying there was some significant yardage lost to this experiment.  I don't recommend trying this with something that isn't replaceable without a 2nd mortgage, or if you are not the type to be able to shrug off the loss of 100s of yards of cashmere, one way or the other.  And I expect it might be possible to generate a similarly lush result with less shrinkage.  But I'm glad I tried it.  I learned something.  Next time I have a load of towels I'm sending the next skein through and when they are all done I'll have something that's a pure pleasure to work with.

I had the skeins on the desk next to me while I wrote this.

Guess I am not the only one in the house who likes her cashmere fluffy.

green traffic light.

I kept meaning to garden this past weekend.  I went as far as driving partway to Lowe's before I remembered that I wanted to buy my flowers from a small, local nursery and also, it was too hot to live.  So I stopped.

I refuse to turn on the air for two reasons. 
One:  Still May
Two: The Electric Bill 
Three (Because apparently there are more than 2):  Once the a/c is on, then the house becomes a no-outdoor zone, no sound of the creek, no air movement, just a wall of pre-packaging between me and the rest of the world. 
This is what is wrong with residential America anyway - we should be sweating on the front steps and talking to our neighbors instead of sitting in splendid, frozen isolation in front of the computer or TV.
Talk to someone.  Read a book.  Experience the actual temperature of the earth.  While we can. 
You know.

Live.

So I came home last night still ungardened, but with some new yarn I wanted to photograph.  Ahem.  So I stepped out into the back and took a picture of the shawl as things presently stand (about a third done).

Which caused me to notice that the Miraculous Rosebush of My Maternal Lineage was blooming.

This is a shrub that has always been a tall stick of no particular beauty in its habit of growth.   But it makes a flower - one at a time, maybe two if we were lucky - that smells divine and was my mother's favorite rose.   So much so that it was one of the things she took with her when she moved over a 10 year period.  So much so that when she moved to the southwest she invited me to take it.

I think we all know that when I say invite I mean insisted in a tone that reminded me forcefully of discussions of what was wrong with my ensemble, age 13.

So I did.

I plunked it in the ground, this tall stick with a bit of greenery at the top and there I pretty much ignored it.  I watered the first season because I really think if I let it die I might be out of the will, but other than that it has enjoyed 6 years of the most gloriously benign neglect possible.  And last year something odd happened.

It grew branches from stems that had always been thorn alone.  It flourished.  It thrived.  It stuck out new and shining bits of greenery.  I thought about pruning it, but I forgot.   It seems to be fine with that because it is covered with buds and three glorious blooms.  Two of which are now in my kitchen stinking up the place in a marvelous way.  Because while I was out there last night I sort of accidentally weeded the place into a ruthless respectability.   I find that gardening has to happen in an of-the-moment kind of way.  Planning for it just makes me want to have a little lie down on the chaise with a cold compress and maybe some smelling salts.

Oh, and I did  take a picture of the new yarn.  Eventually.  After I picked the thorn out of my foot.  Because accidental gardening does not have the forethought to put her shoes on before stepping in the rose prunings.

Sport weight merino/hemp from Dzined in teal and black.   This is great yarn.  Every time I see her booth I am compelled to stop, to touch the hemp blends, to buy something.  Which, now that I think about it, is pretty unusual.  We all know I can shop, but there aren't that many vendors I can never pass buy.   But I love this blend, these fibers together - it has this fantastic textural quality that I can't keep my hands off of.

The Closet.

A couple of sapient souls looked at the sale and drew some conclusions about the remaining stash which are as true as they are embarrassing.

Yes, I like yarn. I have...some. 

This is the yarn closet.   

 
Circs on the door to your left, boxes of buttons on the top shelf - between the printer paper and the interlocking floor tiles.  Running down the leftmost side of the shelves, from the top, is a box for dpns, a box for notions, yarn, two boxes of sock and lace yarn, some candle making stuff I've never used, and a fourth blue lidded bin.

Almost all the bags are devoted to a single project's worth of yarn, except for that middle ziplock on the left, which has a few small things - mostly orange, for some reason.  Technically, these belong in the blue bins, Small Quantity City.  The top shelf with the canvas bin?  Mostly coned yarn.  The canvas bin towards the bottom is mostly cotton.

Another angle for the right side of the closet.  Top bin is accumulated swatches.  The rest are mostly project amounts of things.

The left hand stack of bins just visible in the back are EMPTY, beautifully empty, miraculously empty, NEWLY empty, thanks to you all for helping me lighten my load.

Imagine: Room for my handspun to begin to have a place and also, ahem, room for the three or four batches of yarn I gathered up from the rest of the house while I was cleaning last night.  I need to inventory them before they go in.

Yes, there is an inventory. 

Shut up, it isn't a spreadsheet.  Yet.

No, this does not include the fiber.  Most of which is on the living room floor.  Think I'm joking?

Still working on a system for that.  Some of the proceeds from the yarn sale will be focussed in that direction.

The rest of my life is not as organized as the yarn closet (the living room is in a particular state right now and as soon as I finish typing this and fold some laundry it will be restored to a more civilized condition) - as I was just reminded by my neighbor who delicately inquired when I planned to do something with the front of my house.  He's expression implied that he found it a bit ghetto.
Which I must admit is true in all senses of the word. 
Though I already knew he felt this way because I heard him talking with what turns out to be his contractor about whatEver those people were thinking about THAT house outside my door a few days ago.  When I mentioned this to him he said, Today?  So they've obviously had this conversation more than once.

The inside of my house is rather nice, but the outside is ..sketchy.  It has never been a problem before because this neighborhood is also in some ways a bit sketchy. And its on the list.  There's a lot of things on the list.  Furnace. Repair ceiling where roof leak came in.  Upgrade bathroom.  And yes, paint the house.
I was just talking tonight about getting some prices to get it painted today in fact.  Now I want to leave it shabby-assed and patchy for another 3 years.

It makes me annoyed that he's so clearly worried about my house dragging down his.  It makes me angry that I explained myself to him rather than cheerfully agreeing that yes indeed I am a scandalous hillbilly.  And it depresses me unutterably that my lovely, quirky, friendly, half-restored Victorian 'hood is ....becoming tasteful.   Possibly even....upscale.  The sudden influx of new dogs in the park trailing unfamiliar young professionals and the new families I've seen are taking on an ominous cast.

I can't decide if I care about being the topic of disparaging conversation between people I barely know, I'm troubled that I might act, or modify my actions because of the disapproval of others.  I was planning on weeding my walk and planting some flowers in the planters next week.  Would it be small if I left it all scraggly and bare a little longer?   

Yarnageddon.

So I ordered some yarn yesterday.

I KNOW.  Say what?

But I wanted some of those felt shoe liners for stocking stuffers (I laughed when the woman I spoke to said people had been ordering them all day), and I threw in a snake scarf kit to knit for my nephew, and then I got thinking about this great sweater I tried on at the festival and wandered over to Beaverslide Drygoods for a gander at some appropriate worsted weight...and then I clicked over to Webs to get some Skye Tweed in the Rosey Glow colorway for a Sunrise Circle jacket......and I stopped.

This is sick.  Really, really sick.

The Rosey Glow is gorgeous, so is the Marmalade and I'd really, really like it...but I just got back from Rhinebeck.  I have three spinning wheels, 9 fleeces and a yarn and fiber store already in my house.  And all the things I have I really love and want to use.  I've got some gorgeous Wonderful Wool in a spicy oatmeal that would make a great Sunrise Circle.

This is the fiber blogger's lament.  Too much.  It's an interesting problem to have, this too much thing.  It makes me kind of squirmy and not in the good way.  I have too much, I use too much: I am too first world.

I've been trying to do more conscious living these last few month - replacing traditional light bulbs with compact fluorescents, cooking more at home, packing lunch part of the time, using reusable packaging when I do, wearing a sweater instead of turning up the heat, cleaning with non-toxic agents.  It's overwhelming to try to change anything, can feel futile.  But every little bit does chip away a tiny bit.

I'm not a charity knitter.  I'd rather send an organization a check they can use for their own purposes than shawls or afghans or hats.  Those things are wonderful, kind, generous gifts of time and warmth, just not my style.  But these last few months I haven't been sending the check.  The new roof had me feeling overwhelmed, I lent some money to a friend in a jam, I've been traveling a lot - I've been worrying about my own resources, feeling pinched. 

But somehow I had enough money for a third wheel, bags of fiber, a hotel room, a gorgeous meal at the CIA.  I shouldn't have.  But I did.  And I'll be OK after a tight month.  But it makes me think a little.

I think it is time for a little yarn break.  I know, I know, famous last words.  But still..... every time I think about buying fiber - look at something on ebay, browse Webs and click something into the basket to consider, feel lust in my heart for some yarn - I'm going to make a note of the dollar amount instead of buying it.

And at the end of the month - Thanksgiving weekend here in the US, appropriately - I'm going to add up the might-have-beens, have a hard think and write a check to MSF for at least 10% of the total.  I'd like to say 50% or 100% but I have no idea what the number might be.  None.  So at least 10%.   

To begin: 16 balls of Rosey Glow at 3.99 each = 63.84

And in the meantime, The Worsted Witch has some notions about ways to make holiday gift giving less of an affront to the earth.  Also worth thinking about.

Stuff.

Um, there appears to be some new wool in the house.  How could that have happened?

I was aiming for moderation this year and I sort of made it.  Sort of.
Except for - ahem - this. 

Can't sneak anything by y'all. Though in my defence, I was just picking this up.  The deal was done a couple months ago.  Vermont Wheel.  Cherry.  Iron ivy detailing on the rim.  Grafton fiber on the bobbin.  Good.  Very good. 

New collage feature.  In no particular order - some fiber from Spinner's Hill (they are devilish temptreses), Maple Row, Handspun by Stephania, Grafton, Skaska and some bitchin' red cashmere laceweight from Rabbit Tree Farm.

The airport bar scarf.  It would be longer but I've done it on several different needle sizes so it is this size times about 4 in another dimention.  I hate it when that happens.

A very excited dog. Can you see the ears saying "throwthefrisbethrowthefrisbeethrowthefrisbee"?

I thought you could.

And though I'm trying not to dwell on the acquiring.....

This is the Buffalo Cashmere Silk from Skaska.  It is even better than it looks.  You are sorry you can't touch it.  You really are.

Oddly, I seem to have bought a sock kit.  If only I had remembered that I don't knit socks.  Hmm.  But when I asked them if the kit would fit my size 12s and they said a straight up no, I was so dazzled I couldn't help myself.

Makes no sense, right?  Unless you know they dug up another kit's worth of yarn at a very reasonable discount so I could have socks as big as I wanted.  Plus they're beer socks.  How could I walk away?  Go check out the Oktoberfest sock site for pictures and stuff. 

 

And last ....but certainly not least.....my pink merino felt shoe liners from Morehouse.  My feets were warm.  Is good.

(There's some other stuff maybe too. So maybe the moderation didn't work out so well.  Oh well. )

Wool.

So I had wool company this past weekend.  Wool company being the kind of guest you show your stash to.

I could go on and on about it - there was wool, frank conversation, a wide variety of laughing and some very good Indian food.  But the details are untranslatable.  I'm just very lucky. 

And I totally never even took my camera out of the bag.  Oops.

But while touring the wool, we found a shocking thing - a couple of "caraway seeds".  And by caraway seeds I mean mouse poop.  Yes, I have vermin.  I generally have no beef with the mice - first I've ever seen of one in the house, but hey, we all have to live, right?  Just not in the wool closet.  That's my bottom line.  So everything came out to check for damage.

The mouse, bless her heart, apparently only likes cellulose fibers because the victims were an ebay mistake cone of rayon-cotton and a cotton sweater I'd kept for its measurements.  Totally painless - and hey, stirring the stash must happen a couple/three times a year anyway.

But you know....a few weeks ago I was all het up about bootees and was yelling "I have a niece, I have to go to the yarn store!"  And a friend said to me - but you have one in your house.   Turns out she was totally right.  I have a leeetle bit o' wool.

What the mouse showed me:

Kind of an oops moment. (Doesn't look too bad, you say?  Each of those bags on the left holds a sweater's worth of wool.  And there are two more stacks behind the front one. All the cones are cashmere.  I need a ball of yarn for scale.)

The big plastic boxes behind and to the left are fiber (under the drum card table), the rest is yarn.  There's a little bit more here and there, but that's...erm...85%?.  Maybe 90%?   I haven't dragged everything out like this in about forever.  I'm - not embarrassed...more stunned.  Over all, it was good to get reacquainted with it all.  To remember why I fell in love with it all in the first place.  But.  That's a lot of wool.

But wait, there's more!

My kitchen.  Because I dunno where to put this yet.  There are 3 fleeces and 1/2 a pound of a third still dirty in there.  Plus 4 fresh from the processor and one from another blogger, clean and fluffy and ready to twist in my hands.   And some miscellaneous bits and fleeces elsewhere.

I've always been a bit inclined to throw myself into things....but this is silly.    Can I get the rest of it all clean before Rhinebeck?  And not buy anything else - no wool, no yarn, no needles, no patterns, nothing until then?  I think that would be a very good idea.  I've got wool in the sink and budget mindedness in my heart.  We'll see.

In the mean time I better get some sleep if I am to have the energy to keep up with my hobby.

First of the new fibers - taupe Rambouillet - which is tightly spun and plied.  Maybe too much so and wildly uneven  (I still have trouble spinning more lightly on the production wheel) but I love it.  It is as soft and springy as the organic merino I bought at Rhinebeck last year.  Promise.

Gluttony: or I'll have it all and ask for more.

(something is weird with my pictures.  Click for big and, more importantly, clear.)

Oh festival, that parts me from my wallet, I cannot resist you.

Really, I'm going to have to stop going if I keep up like this.

So, you might have heard there was this little get together in Maryland?

Friday Cass came down from the city and watched me run around like a fool forgetting everything and failing to find the rest of everything else.  Fortunately we are nearly one person, so she found the things I couldn't and we took turns reminding each other of the things we needed to pack.  It's a bit scary. 

Then we drove to Maryland, checked into the hotel with the Etherknitter, met up with Cl audia and Sil, Theresa, Julie, Jenn, Norma and Rachel H.  And suddenly there was a little party going on.  There was wine.  And spinning.   (So maybe not a party by some standards, but that's pretty much my speed these days.)

Bright and early the next morning Laurie and I were off to the the fairgrounds.  Cass very sensibly stayed at the hotel, and drove over later after coffee and more rest.

It's a blur, okay?  I saw SpindleRose and her friend Carol and The Village Knittiot and her fabulous and  charming husband Mr. Knittiot.  I met my new wheel.  That bit is all clear. We all walked and talked and shopped and sat and talked and ran into Cara and Jodi and Rock Chick and June (June!), and Wendy and her friend Phyl and later Naomi and her friend Kristen and Lanea (Lanea!  Love the Lanea.) and Judy and her sister Linda and, and, and....it was wonderful and completely overwhelming.

Sunday was much quieter as people wandered less frenziedly and said goodbye and I ended the day sitting on the grass with Cass and our shopping bags - very much as last year ended.  It was a pleasing  end to meet ourselves going that way.  Circular and peaceful.

I'm only just getting myself sorted now, but I have some photographic evidence for you.

Bloggers at large:

      

        

Loot:

                    

Fini:

Bonus Picture:

(I'm too tired to link.  I'll add them tomorrow.  In the meantime, use your google-fu.)

For the Love of wool.

I spent last Sunday in my kitchen.  I never showered, I was still in my nightgown, and most of the day I was wearing lavender sheepskin slippers and those hot pink rubber gloves you can get at whole foods.  It was a look entirely without charm, although I know a few people who'd like a picture.

But it was OK, I was washing Gladys.  See?

It's a big box, but that's not even the half of it.

Today I went to the dollar store to purchase large plastic covered bins for Gladys and her once and future compatriots to live in during their transitional lives.  I hate the dollar store and I really hate large plastic bins.  They give me aesthetic difficulties.

But it was OK, it is for the well being of the wool.

Hell, I was excited to have a proper home for everyone.

Notice how the fleece is an individual?

Yeah, I've lost it.

Ladies and gents, meet Maureen.

3 pounds of really soft ecru merino.  4" staple length, at least as far down as I've gone in the box.  And I got that great  sheepy smelling rush when I opened the box.  I like it.

Nothing's too good for Mo and Gladys.  Plastic bins?  No problem.   Rearrange the kitchen to make room for the drying racks?  But of course. 

My therapist wants to know why I keep making excuses for my lame, uncool, fleece-loving, wool- hording ways, when all this makes me so happy.  It's a good question.

I wonder if I have time to wash her before I leave for the holiday? 

In other news:  Cast on for the second sleeve. 

Bulky yarn is certainly fast, but it is VERY hard to keep an even tension with fat needles.  Note to self - really, you are a DK kind of girl.  Just accept it. 
Jo Sharp makes some nice stuff.  I really think that the various incarnations of Silkroad are my favorite commercial yarn(s) - texture, color, knittability - and mustn't forget the DK wool either.  I have 9 projects worth of Jo in the closet - this one, two Desert Garden cotton, 3 Silkroad aran, one Silkroad tweed DK, two DK classic - that doesn't count the Silkroad aran tweed I sold to a friend last month.  And they are all gorgeous.  I just wish the Silkroad came in a DK weight. 

Maybe it is better that it doesn't.

And for your amusement, the tragically deflated bosom of Truffle.