Tour de Fleece, Day the Last

Well, darling Readers, the day has come. The final day of the Tour de France, of which I have managed to watch not a single moment, and with it the final day of my third year participating in the Tour de Fleece.

You may recall that my goal was to spin every day of the Tour. It wasn’t a supremely difficult goal, and I didn’t have to stretch myself a huge amount to get it done. But I did have to get up out of bed a few times and plug myself into my iPod for half an hour at the wheel to be able to say I spun that day; if you know me and how much I love my bed, then you understand that this Tour wasn’t ALL fun and games. I didn’t really play along in any of the challenge days, and my two days of rest didn’t coincide with the Tour itself, but I did manage to spin every day save two, and I did manage to finish two of my three bobbins of CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula in addition to finishing the Whammy Kiss yarn:

Look upon my achievements and tremble!  I would have finished Bobbin #2 last night, but for the third time in his life Darcy decided he wanted to sit on my lap, and it quickly became clear that while some spinners are able to operate a wheel while their laps are full of cat, I am not one of them. Whether or not my inability to do so is related to the fact that my cat is Decidedly Not Small, I am uncertain. But since he was a kitten, Darcy hasn’t been much of a cuddler, so I’ll drop what I’m doing to encourage kitty lap time whenever it presents itself.

In the last 23 days, I’ve also done a great big whack of knitting. So much knitting, in fact, that I’m taking at least the morning and afternoon off today to let my wrist rest! It’s crackling in a you’d-better-stop way, but not a you’re-in-trouble way, so I suppose I’ll listen. I did block the Ishbel, though, so here it is!

Next Wednesday my dad arrives with my youngest brother (age 10). I’m not sure what effect their presence will have on my knitting, spinning, and reading time; but I’m fairly sure it won’t increase it by any great magnitude. My dad seems to think that knitting, while a pretty and ladylike activity, is akin to doing nothing - a sentiment that drives me batty every time we go head to head over it. I think it’s because I refuse to allow him to control what I knit and for whom, but that might just be my residual teenaged angst showing through.

I plan to spend this week plowing through the projects I want to finish before I leave Coal City. To that end, here they are listed in all their glory:

1) CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula yarn
2) Cheraphim
3) Knee high socks
4) Girasole

Three of those four things are within my immediate control, and if I can ever get THB on the phone to send me the final skein for the Cheraphim, I just might do it!

Tour de Fleece, Day ...

What day is it? I have no idea. I don’t even know when the Tour ends, so maybe I’ll just continue to spin a little every day until I go home.

So far I’ve reached my goal of spinning every day but rest days. What dates the actual rest days are, I have no idea, but I’ve only missed 2 days through the whole Tour, so I’m calling it a success so far. I’m over 1/2 way through the second bobbin of CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula, and have reached that interminable part of the spinning project where the bobbin keeps getting more full but the fiber next to me stays the same size.

On Wednesday, I went to a Cubs game!  My friend from back in the Ashland days, Brandon, lives out here and got tickets from his boss, who couldn’t go, so B invited me and we spent a lovely afternoon at Wrigley Field. Our seats were even in the shade, so I didn’t get a sunburn! Although it did mean that the contrast washed out my pictures of the game. Ahh, well - one picture of a baseball game looks much like another.

I love baseball games, and Cubs games most of all. No one except Cubs fans sell out games when the team is as loser-ish as this one, and we as a body expect the loss, so we go because we love the game and the atmosphere - especially when the game is exciting. And boy, was this game exciting! We picked up a single run in the first few innings, and held on to the lead until somewhere around the 7th or 8th inning. At that point, B and I started to look at each other and say, “we could be here for awhile...”

And we were. There was a heart-wrenching moment in the eleventh inning where the bases were loaded and Fukudome was at bat - something that would strike fear into any pitcher - and the whole crowd was on its feet, waiting. But the mighty Casey struck out, and the game went on:

Everyone was tired, and even the hawkers with their beers and hot dogs had gone home. In the top of the inning, the Astros scored three runs, and people began to pour out of the stadium; I suppose three extra innings of hope can wear on even the most dogged Cubs fan. And then, someone hit a home run - I don’t know who - that brought us two runs and elicited a cry of “are you fucking KIDDING ME??” from somewhere in the vicinity of my seat.

Early in the game, Brandon told me that if we lost, it was because I wasn’t clapping enough. This is a joke, you see, because at a baseball game I tend to buy completely in. I’ll drink terrible beer at exorbitant prices, boo at the umpires, and clap with every stupid calliope song that plays across the loudspeaker. B made fun of me and said that I just wanted to clap, which may be true.

THB told me that if we lost, it was because I was at the game, since I’ve never been to a Cubs game that the Cubs have won. When I called him at work he told me to GTFO before I jinxed the team.

I should have left, still clapping.

Except I didn’t, because baseball is baseball, but Cubs games are a delight.

And after the game, we headed to the Goose Island Pub for a much-needed beer, some garlic fries, and great conversation with other Cubs fans.

I also, of course, tortured THB with the above picture, as a good sister should.

***************

Of knitting, there has been a lot. I finished Grandma’s Overspun Ishbel:

Handspun SW Merino, “Whammy Kiss”

320 yards

which is currently soaking and will be blocked in a few minutes. Then I wavered between starting a giant green Galveston (Rav link) out of the Forest Heather Shadow yarn I bought earlier this summer, or the Zephyr Girasole I planned when I was still in CA. The Girasole won out because there is a slight possibility that I can finish it before I go home. I’m about halfway through the sunflower pattern, and it’s looking a lot like the sea urchin that its similarly colored, fuzzier predecessor resembled. This one, I am hoping, won’t shed as much and so will actually be wearable. But I’m not holding my breath.

Then yesterday Grandma’s Knit Picks order came in: two balls of heathered red sock yarn and a set of 24” size 1.5’s. When I placed the order I tried very hard to resist the urge to earn the “free” shipping and buy $50 worth of stuff, thus earning me the title of “the Heroically Resistant.” I managed to avoid the temptation - mostly, so no title for me. Two balls of Felici in Green Veggies managed to slip into my cart (I swear without me knowing!) and since the arrival of Grandma’s needles liberated my own, I promptly started the top-down knee-high pattern I’ve been turning over in my head.

I didn’t realize it until I stopped knitting to start my Tour spinning last night, but I might have a thing going for green.

The Cheraphim is still at a stand-still. I will indeed run out of yarn, so I’m waiting for THB to send me the last ball of Knittery yarn to finish it up. Given that I called him during “Take Me Out to the Ball Game,” it might have to wait until I get back home and can dig it out myself.

Midwest Fiber and Folk Festival

On Friday, I got up at 6, grabbed coffee, set up the GPS, and headed to St. Charles to meet up with the adorable Meghan and her precious son, Owen. It was delightful to meet someone I’ve corresponded with for so long, and we all 3 got along like peas in a pod.

Our first stop was at Meghan’s favorite coffee shop, The Four Beans in Batavia, IL.

This little place is not just a coffee shop, but also a coffee roaster, and I was thrilled that Meghan’s taste for Good Coffee was so amazingly, well, good! Smooth, fragrant Americanos (and a pound of Tanzanian peaberry coffee for home) in hand, we headed to Libertyville for the Fair. According to Meghan, last year the fair was both indoors and out, with some animals and such. This year it was both bigger and scaled back; the animals were gone, but the entire thing except for the food tents was in an air-conditioned convention hall, for which we were exceedingly grateful given the 90+ degree heat!

We strolled up and down the aisles, recognizing popular Midwest shops like The Fold, and Knitting Notions (from whom I purchased my swift a few years ago) but also some favorites from Stitches Past!

Diane was, as always, charming and talented. When she saw us she came rushing out for hugs and hellos, and showed off her new colors. I’ve been a fan of Diane’s since I first met her at Stitches ’08, right at the beginning of my Fiber Career, as it were. In the intervening 2 years, her color sense has evolved in a way that’s difficult to explain, but plain to see. Her work is one of those that can be recognized at 50 paces, or across a crowded convention hall, and she’s walked away with a chunk of my money every time we encounter one another. And yet somehow, I never seem to mind...

I actually didn’t buy from anyone else at the fair, which is just as well considering how much I’ve blown my yarn budget - or rather, my ENTIRE budget by buying yarn - since I’ve been here! But I did stop by Trader Joe’s to pick up some lavender sachets for the surfeit of wool in my possession.

Meghan and I spent the rest of the afternoon sitting on the lawn chatting and  watching Owen play. It was a fabulous day, and I enjoyed myself immensely - not the least of which because Meghan was even more fun in person than from a distance. I didn’t get a picture of us all together, but as we have firm plans to get together a few more times before I leave, I’m not too worried.

Tour de Fleece: Just Keep Spinning

Every once in awhile, I try to use the “stash” option in Ravelry and am completely thwarted by my own laziness. I do try to input all the yarn I buy, specifically because I am crap at remembering what I have unless I can see it - one of the slight disadvantages of being highly visual, I suppose - so unless I faithfully input skeins as they come in, I am in some danger of buying the same yarn twice, simply because I like it and forgot I own it already.  But my recent (read: since September) inexcitement over photography has led me to Stash Management Laziness.*

All this to say, the EKF yarn from which I made these socks:

Enchanted Knoll Farms, SW Sock Yarn, “Cornucopia”
Yardage Unknown

wasn’t in my Ravelry stash.  Yes, I did finish those in about 3 days; I may have mentioned that it’s quiet around here! Grandma and I have taken to laying bets on who is on the other end of the phone when it rings - THAT is how exciting it is to be here.

But small towns in the Midwest have their charms, too. The sweet lady who has been doing my Grandma’s hair for nearly 25 years has taken excellent care of her through the trauma of losing her hair. My grandma, like me and my aunt, is excessively proud of her hair. When it began falling out, she was horrified and I think that was when the full impact of Having Cancer really hit her. The side effect of her disbelief in the Big C - or one of them - was that she didn’t do what everyone said she should do and order her wig ahead of time. Thus was my poor grandma bald for a couple of weeks:

that’s her and my uncle Tony, looking more alike than either of them is comfortable with. But on Tuesday, Cathie came to the house and brought Grandma her new hair, refusing to charge her for it and cutting it to fit right in the bedroom.

Isn’t that a sweet picture? I think I’m going to have it printed and framed for each of them.

Meanwhile, Grandma has claimed the Whammy Kiss handspun for herself and ordered a shawl “to take with [her].” I tried to explain that it wasn’t meant to be shawl yarn - it’s overspun and a little ropy even for socks! - but she will brook no argument; I gave in when she asked me why I didn't want her to wear "something I made her in the next life." Manipulation, party of me! So I started an Ishbel for her out of the handspun, and while I’m not particularly happy with the product, I’m fairly certain that she won’t really wear it until she’s being laid out (such are the “special occasions” that Spanish women talk about), and by then it won’t matter that it’s a little overspun. I know it sounds callous to say such things, but I don’t think she’s going to die any time soon. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone more stubborn than she is!

Last night I finished my first bobbin of the CMF Be-Bop-a-Lula! I’m trying not to overdo the spinning, since it’s the marathon of the Tour de Fleece that seems to make me abjure spinning for the rest of the year. This time around, I’m simply trying to spin a little every day, and if I get in a good groove it’s just a bonus. When I get home I’m going to have to do some rearranging and some purging so that my cherry Schact will fit in my bedroom and I can continue to spin a little every day. Lord knows that if I spun for 10 minutes per day for the rest of my life, I’d barely make a dent in the magnitude of fluff in my house. Space Saver bags might make it seem more like a mere hill, but I know the mountainous truth!

So you know those socks I mentioned? Based on previous calculated sock yardage, they probably come in around 275-300 yards for the pair. In celebration thereof, I opened my box from The Loopy Ewe yesterday, introducing FAR more yarn into the stash than I knitted out of it. Somewhere around 1975 yards, to be precise - mostly of Lorna’s Laces, I know you’re shocked. Self control, why hast thou forsaken me?

Oh, that’s right. You were never mine to start with.

Tomorrow I’m going to a fiber festival with Meghan of Stitch It! We’ll have a blast, eat too much fair food, get sunburned, and probably spend too much money, which is why I’m planning to take a good look at my fiber stash on Flickr tonight. The only thing I really find myself wanting is a good monochromatic white/grey/black roving to spin up, but I also want it to be the CMF SW merino, so I may just have to dye it myself when I get home.



*Edit: as of uploading this blog, I have entered all the yarn I've bought this trip into Ravelry. It's staggering, so excuse me while I got knit now. And maybe faint.

A Failure to Comply

I’ve been doing well at saving both calories and money, but occasionally I splurge on both. These weeks in Illinois have done something to help me get out of the rut I was in while in California; I’m outside more often, eating more healthy food (and less of it, thank goodness!), and knitting/spinning regularly. I had been running - that dreaded R-word! - but I’ve fallen back on my old method of starving* my body into submission rather than having to exercise.

You may recall a few days ago when I received some ungodly number of yards of lace-weight yarn - some 4.75 miles, to be honest. I do prefer knitting with the lighter yarns, but their yardage does add up something scandalous! I didn’t think that the yardage would toss me right over the 12-Mile Barrier I made for myself, though. Frankly, I didn’t really think at all, more’s the pity, and now I’m faced with the prospect of not only completely ignoring Stash Equilibrium, but also not completing the 12-Mile Quest this year - especially given that I may (or may not) have ordered more yarn from The Loopy Ewe today (I did). I can only plead an excess of sun, and maybe a lack of food. Sure, that’s it.

I toyed with the idea of counting every pound as a free mile on my Quest total, then on my incoming total. Then I thought that maybe for every mile I run, I could give myself 100 yards of slack, to be assigned as necessary. But then I realized that if I did any of these things and succeeded in my quest, I wouldn’t feel like I’d won fair and square using the rules that I just made up. It’s supposed to be a challenge. It’s supposed to be well-nigh unpossible. I’m supposed to fail a few times - maybe a lot of times - before I succeed. Such is the nature of a Quest. And there you have it.

But there has been progress on various things! Today was a little more overcast, so I re-shot THB’s Last Chance Socks:

The yardage is still unknown, but just think how much fun it will be to weigh everything and get yardage totals when I get home! (Do you understand how quiet it is around here yet? Calculating yardage has moved from “satisfying” to “fun.”)

I’ve also been spinning - it is the Tour de Fleece, after all. I missed a day due to I can’t remember what - it couldn’t have been fatigue! - so I’ll spin tomorrow in order to make up for it. Last night I spun while watching an episode of House and thought to myself that I would probably get a lot more yarn made if I spun for more than 42 minutes/night, but like Scarlett O’Hara, I will think about it tomorrow. Back to the subject at hand! There is definitely progress on Bobbin #1:

See? I told you. It’s note even one of those infintesimal flip-back-and-forth progresses, known only to spinners. That bobbin is definitely chubbier around the middle.
And since I finished THB’s socks, I’ve made progress on yet more socks - this time for me, and thus blessedly smaller:

 

  

The yarn is from Enchanted Knoll Farm; it’s their Superwash Sock Yarn in “Cornucopia,” and it was in my welcome package from The Loopy Ewe. It’s also very similar in feel to the Lorna’s Laces I am so fond of, which is a huge plus. I’m trying a variation on my standard plain sock - this one is longer and involves decreases in the leg to account for calves - and I like it very much. I’ve also carefully written down the pattern so I can test it a few more times before I write it up. This one might be the one, friends. I’m sure you’re awash with antici-

pation.

My obsession with socks that take up the fewest number of yards possible has subsided, I think. I’m moving on to new and different ways to make sure that I eke every possible stitch out of my sock yarn without resorting to a sock swatch blanket. I know other people have them, and they’ve worked out well, but I am about 120% sure I would never, EVER finish one, so I’m looking for other alternatives. Striped socks have gripped my imagination at the moment, so we’ll see how far that takes us. The royal us, you understand.






*No, not actually starving. I’m at my Spanish grandmother’s house, where if you’re not chewing, you’re sick. It’s a challenge just to diet, much less starve!

Brought to You by the Letter "T" - Tour de Fleece, Days 1-5

Since I began spinning two and a half years ago, my fiber accumulation has vastly outpaced my handspun output. This, I understand, is not completely unusual, neither for me personally nor for the spinning world-at-large. But in keeping with my motto of “if you’re going to sin, sin boldly,” I tend to spin for a mere month out of the year, and acquire fiber rather more often than that. Said month is, of course, July during the Tour de Fleece. Once again I have joined Abby Franquemont’s Team Suck Less, <> and I’m re-using my badge from last year - not having Photoshop with me to adjust it for the current year’s date: 

My goal this year is to spin every day of the Tour, even if only for 10 minutes (thus putting me on a secondary TdF of “Ten Minutes/Day”). So far, it’s worked quite well. I have my Victoria set up in front of my shiny new laptop that plays Netflix DVDs extremely well, and I’ve managed to do quite a bit of spinning while watching the third season of The Tudors. Tangentially, The Tudors is a terribly watchable show, completely tawdry and trashy, and I treasure it.

I have a couple of completed items to add to my Twelve Mile Quest 2010 total, as well. The Cherry Seraphim (Cherraphim?) shawl is still in Time Out, and will probably remain there for the foreseeable future. But in keeping with my WIP count limit of roughly 3 - not counting UFO’s - I sucked it up and finished THB’s Last Chance Socks (the picture for which should go here but won't because it was AWFUL. New photoshoot scheduled for this afternoon.)

When I packed for my summer in Coal City, I tried to think of things I would need for finishing projects: darning needles, extra cables for my Options set, several sizes of needle tips, my swift*, etc., but I deliberately left two things at home that I thought I could do without: my kitchen scale for estimating yardage, and my ball winder. Of course I quickly discovered that both of those things were, if not technically required, at least an element of Knitting Happiness and Management, respectively. I am, it seems, crap at both winding yarn by hand and estimating how much yarn a pair of men’s size 11 socks uses.

The second finished item I have should probably wait for its own post - after all, I have had precious few Finished Objects this year - but since the posts would go up at the same time anyway I’m just going to put everything all together. But first, a teaser shot:

These singles were started at the first annual CogKNITive Fiber Retreat in Tehachapi, California in October 2009. I may or may not have taken any pictures of them on the wheel, but I finished the second half of bobbin #2 and most of the third bobbin over a couple of days leading up to the Tour. Then I discovered that the Lazy Kate that comes with the Victoria wheel was missing the center post (it’s removable so it fits in the bag), and I have a vague memory of it being in the bottom of my spinning basket back in California. On the 4th of July I legged it to Ace Hardware and bought two 1/4” dowels, some kite string and a package of rubber bands. Combined with a loosely woven basket I found in my room, the ingredients made up a quite functional tensioned Kate. I felt like MacGuyver.

On the 5th, I finished plying:

And on the 6th I had skeined, washed, and whacked it into submission. Behold, my first finished yarn since last year’s Tour was over! 

Yarn: Bee Mice Elf SW Merino “Whammy Kiss,” 335 yards

I’m quite pleased with it, especially as I wasn’t sure about the consistency between the bobbins of singles. There is probably another 20 yards of chain-plied yarn left over from after the first bobbin ran out of singles, but it’s still sitting on a bobbin waiting to be wound off into a mini-skein.

In the mean time, I started on what turns out to be my favorite Old Standby: Crown Mountain Farms Superwash Merino, this time in Be-Bop-a-Lula:

Before I left CA I divided the 8.5 oz bump into 3 parts by weight, but my scale was acting up a bit so I’m not 100% sure the weights are accurate; when I get home I’ll have to remember to change the battery on the scale. I haven’t finished the first bump yet, so my options are still open as to chain-plying or getting one of those fancy 1-ounce bobbin winders like Jasmin has. Maybe I can find an antique one hereabouts; I’ve seen several Amish stores around, and where there are Amish there are usually beautiful handcrafting tools.

Whew! That’s about all the update I have, other than that Grandma is doing well. She had her second of eight chemo treatments on Tuesday, and she’s been so tired today that I haven’t even gotten to speak to her, she’s been sleeping so much. These next few days will be even more quiet than usual around here while she alternates between Dreamland and drinking tons of water to flush the poisons out of her system. Mr. Darcy has taken to sleeping in the hall between my room and Grandma’s so he can keep his eye on both of us lest we should move or offend him in the middle of the night. He’s adjusted fairly well, but my Uncle Tony is coming with three Chihuahuas tomorrow, so there might be a Big Shakeup in our future. Ahh, the entertaining life I lead!!


*Yes, I brought my swift. It was a big suitcase!

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

I had forgotten how much like a whirlpool this book can be. This is my third time through it; the first time was in print and the other two in audiobook, and I have loved it more every time.

Our heroine is a young, mousy girl who is being trained as a companion for world-jaunting women of a Certain Age and Status. Then Maximillian de Winter appears in Monte Carlo, and a convenient bout of flu leaves Our Girl on her own. De Winter’s first wife, the titular character Rebecca, has recently died, and all the world knows he is completely wrecked about it. But life must go on, and de Winter forms at least a passing fancy for Our Girl, sweeping her away from the vulgar Mrs. Van Hopper and into the role of the Lady of Manderly, de Winter’s ancestral home.

But Manderly is not all it seems, my precioussesssss. The servants laugh at our Fresh Young Heroine, who is a bit of a Country Bumpkin and has NO idea how to run a great house. The housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, might be one of the most insidious villains in the history of novels, and is absolutely the template on which the despicable Nurse Ratchett was founded. She’s just that creepy.

To say more about the plot would begin to tell the story (plot and story being two distinctly different things, pets), and if you have not read this book I refuse to spoil it for you. Suffice to say that it’s kind of like Space Mountain; even my jaded, too-many-movies 21st century self is still surprised by the dark and twisty turnings. The tidbit of fact that du Maurier was fascinated by Brontë’s Jane Eyre (both book and heroine) makes Rebecca that much better - it is at times in direct contrast to the paragon of Jane, at times meshes seamlessly, and sometimes - dare I say - surpasses the original.

Three things I adore about this book:
1. The heroine is never named. She is only ever called “Mrs. de Winter” after her marriage to Maxim.
2. The title is, therefore, not about the person telling the story, but about the first Mrs. de Winter: Rebecca.
3. The descriptions of conversations, places, and people are brilliant, and despite remaining nameless, the New Mrs. de Winter is fully realized as a thinking, interesting person.

10 of 11 yellows, because it’s not as much of a rush the third time around as it was before I knew the Secret.

P.S. - For those of you who like Jasper Fforde as much as I do (is that even possible?), he is also a big fan of Rebecca. Yay!

A Distinct Lack of Humor

 Note: Since there's no internet at the house, I've been writing blogs and will upload them as I get to  the coffee shop, backdated for the appropriate time. So no, your reader isn't messed up!


There’s not a huge amount to do here in Coal City. My grandmother isn’t really very self-sufficient, but she does sleep most of the time, so I’m on my own a lot. I’ve been running just shy of 2 miles in the mornings, getting my homework done quickly, and then have most of the day to do whatever. It’s nice, but I keep waiting for some observant family member to call me and tell me what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s a very strange feeling.

I’ve noticed that my sense of humor is absent, and I’d like it back, please. Usually I get my entertainment and amusement from various corners of the internet, but this sleepy little house is still living in about 1976. Grandma watches Wheel of Fortune, the Catholic Rosary channel, and Dr. Oz while I hide upstairs and watch The Tudors and Dr. Who on my shiny new laptop. Maybe I need a funny show instead of dramas...

On Monday I caved and ordered yarn from KnitPicks because despite the fact that I carefully printed patterns, chose appropriate yarns, and packed them all to come with me, I’ve found a project I’d much rather for which I didn’t have the necessary yarn, either here or in my stash back home. Isn’t that always the way? I ordered two shawls-worth of Shadow lace yarn, one in Forest Heather and one in Nocturne Heather. (Both of these pictures are from the KnitPicks site because I couldn't photograph them properly. Argh!) I also picked up one of their tote bags on sale for $7, and I’m quite pleased with it! It’s a lot bigger than I thought it would be, and will make a great beach bag for the summer.

 I’m not going to start my new shawl until I’m finished with my Seraphim - or I run out of yarn for the Seraphim, which is a distinct and annoying possibility. I’ve got slightly over 40 rows to go and the yarn is starting to look pretty skimpy. I haven’t decided what I’ll do should the worst happen, but it probably involves tears and wine.

I’ve also been reading a lot, and I’m pleased to say that since I’ve been here I’ve finished three print novels - Inkheart, Inkspell, and The Big Over Easy - and almost two audio ones - Gone with the Wind and Rebecca. It’s amazing how much novel reading I do when there aren’t blogs around!

Really, that’s about it. Grandma heads in for her second (of 8) chemotherapy treatments on Tuesday, so think good thoughts for us when you get the chance.