The Amazing Disappearing Belly

Okay, you guys are probably going to be sick to death of my pregnancy soon, but this is just too funny. I really am at a stage where the tum is nearly invisible from the front but very visible in profile. M took some photos of me this weekend, including several in front of the mirror in the girls' room. He literally made me stop on my way out on Saturday and said, "Wait til you see these, they'll blow you away." He was right - too funny!

One of me has a belly, the other does not!

I am no longer a victim of belly envy, either. This "disappearing belly" is unlikely to last long, and just between last weekend and the weekend before I have totally pooched out. The growth spurts definitely happen in waves. I can already tell that full bellyville will mean discomfort and trouble sleeping (gasp! this is my favorite activity right now!), so I'm fine as is. Next time back to our regularly scheduled knitting/crocheting/spinning - promise!

Raspberry Merino Tencel

Last week was rough. I pulled some pretty long hours preparing for a presentation in SF that I gave yesterday, and taking care of our sweet Caia girl, who is succumbing to age, despite our valiant efforts and her own. During the week there were only stolen moments of knitting and spinning here and there to maintain my sanity. So on Saturday, I allowed myself to have a complete and total Julia day. I spun the rest of my second bobbin of raspberry-colored merino tencel, plied the singles, spun another skeinlette on my maggie spindle, plied that on my pilchuck spindle, returned to the wheel to spin a wonderful thick and thin chocolate covered cherries singles, knit on one of my gift berets, and then knit some of my handspun for the first time ever. We take our Julia time seriously over here at chez MOW. It was blissful.

Two bobbins of merino tencel, side by side.

Although I know I'm famous for my long-ass windbag posts (and this will no doubt be one, too!), I'm not enough of a windbag to cover everything I did and saw this weekend (Sunday was another Julia day, spent in SF with Emily at the DeYoung Museum, but that, too, is another post), so I'll start with telling you about the raspberry merino tencel here.

The plied singles on the bobbin. This made me soooo happy.

As I've said before, the raspberry merino tencel project was my first somewhat longer-term spinning project on the wheel. Before this, everything that I've done could have been accomplished in a single day, albeit a long one. For this project however, I was going for a finer plied yarn than I've created in the past. The singles were so fine that it took me about 6 sittings to spin each bobbin, and I'd estimate that each represents about 8 hours of work at a minimum. The plying took me about 2 hours, and I was afraid that it was going to take a heck of a lot longer.

Moxie played the role of Margene (of whom he is completely and totally unaware) while I was plying. I was so excited to see the finished yarn I was almost jumpy - chomping at the bit. He kept reminding me that I was supposed to be enjoying the entire *process* and that I shouldn't be concerned about getting to the end product as much as enjoying the spinning that I was doing. I knew he was right, but I thought I was going to kill him. I wanted to see the yarn!

When I was finally done plying, I was left with less than two feet of unplied singles. This made me insanely happy, as I have an obsession with using every little bit of yarn - to the point where it is not unusual at all for me to come very dangerously close to running out of yarn on a knitting project. It's stupid, I know, and I always counsel people to buy more yarn than they need when asked, but I can't help it. I save everything, and I can't stand to have half-skeins of unused yarn hanging around.

Plied singles on my brand spanking new niddy-nosty from Amy at Spunky Eclectic. A truly wonderful tool.

I wound the skein onto my niddy-nosty (love this!) and ended up having about 290 yards of yarn. To be honest, I was hoping for closer to 400 yards, but still, this was almost three times as much as I've ever spun in a single skein, so it was still really impressive to me.

Here's the skein right off the niddy-nosty.
For a zoomed-out shot click here.

Because I had spun the singles over the space of two weeks, there was no way to tell whether the skein was balanced right off the niddy-nosty. (I warned Moxie of this, and his disappointment was palpable. He revels in the fact that I make him guess whether each and every skein is balanced, just prior to niddy-noddy removal. It is prime entertainment for the entire family.) Here it is all curly, but after wetting it hung straight, and is still straight after drying (I thwacked the hell out of it, but did not weight the skein). It looks balanced to me, though I'm sure that there are more experienced spinners who could chime in and let me know how to be sure. (Hint, hint - chime in!)

I love this skein. There are still thick and thin points, but overall, it represents the most professional-looking yarn I've made to date. I'm hoping to knit a shawl from it. I'm not sure that I'll have enough to make Evelyn Clark's Swallowtail Shawl (I've been drooling over Jared's since he finished it), but I'd like to give it a go. If anyone has a good approximation of how much fingering-weight yarn it would take to make the swallowtail, or even exactly how much lace-weight it took, I'd love to know. In the meantime, here are the stats for the yarn:

Fiber: Raspberry Merino Tencel (70/30)
Weight: 4 ounces
Source: Carolina Homespun
Wheel: Majacraft Rose, fastest ratio on the slow whorl
Yards: 290
WPI: 16-17 (fingering weight)

A Dog and her Boy

Because we can never have enough pictures of the ones we love.

And because my handspun is still drying.

*smile*

Pink Lemonade

Moxie: "Where do you get all these colors? It looks like Cotton Candy....."

[wait for it]

"That someone peed in."

Pinewoods, Tina's Hand Painted Fibers Lemon Sherbet Blue-faced Leicester, procured at the 2005 Rhinebeck Festival by the lovely Cara. Even Moxie admits that this roving is much more evenly spun than the last. With the Chocolate-Covered Cherries, my aim was simply to get used to spinning and to create enough yarn to ply. With the Lemon Sherbet - more Pink Lemonade to my thinking - I'm going for an even yarn, that is a little less overspun to ply into DK to sport weight sock yarn for footies. I think I've got it!

Wheelspun

In a matter of days - hours, maybe - fall has come to Southern California. For the middle of the day, this means we have temperatures like coastal Canadian summer days - 70's and sunny, dry and perfect. The main changes occur in the night, causing dusk and dawn to be pleasantly chilly. I've put aside my flip-flops for my shearling booties, and this morning, I had to grab Clementine out of the closet to keep cozy, since I refuse to close the screen door or the windows.

The first real skein spun and plied on the Rose.

This one's for Marnie.This happy chill brings on thoughts of real, stovetop cocoa (like my mother used to make with real milk and baker's cocoa, but doctored with a cinnamon stick, vanilla, and a dash of cayenne if Moxie isn't drinking), comfort foods (for me this means huge vats of Indian okra and pulses from the pages of Madhur Jaffrey, God bless her!), and wool - much, much wool. So after finishing up Thelma and wearing her to death, this week I laid aside my knitting and just spun, spun, spun.

Over the last month, I have tried a lot of wheels, and I have even spun up a skeinlette here and there. But this is the first time I've really had to sit down at the Rose - rented from The Weaver's Cottage - and spin a really big hank of yarn. So as not to overwhlem Moxie, who fears that I may be spontaneously transported back to the 17th century where I obviously belong ("Who invited Holly Hobbie into our living room?"), I spun one bobbin of Amy's Chocolate-Covered Cherries each night, and waited until a third night to ply them.

I have to admit that for a while I had to tell myself that it was all about the process. My singles were clearly, seriously, way overspun - so much so that I had little dreadlocks popping up on the bobbin. And the situation didn't improve much with plying, nor did it look better on the niddy-noddy.

Moxie: "Wow! Your first ugly chunky yarn! Tell me again why you wouldn't just buy that finished rather than spending $700 on a wheel? What are you going to knit with that - a hammock?"

Me: "Yes!" "A banana hammock - for you! I may strangle you with it in your sleep."

We have a special love, Moxie and I.

But then I tied it off and took it off the niddy-noddy, and everything changed. I won't tell you this is like blocking lace, because honestly, this stuff really is a poor specimen of yarn. The thing is, I love it and I don't care. To me, it looks like designer yarn. I can easily see Colinette selling stuff like this for $30. It's freaking gorgeous. And it's not even too unbalanced, if you look at the shot on the lanterns. The only sticking point is what to knit with it. Perhaps a Christmas gift for Moxie. Heh, heh.

It's a Sock Mandate!

After running the poll for a little less than a week, things have finally started to slow down, so I'm recording today's numbers as the final tally. The results are:

Out of 197 voters:
13 hate the sock (7%)
66 like the sock okay, but aren't groovin' on the color (34%)
32 are tacky and know it (16%)
86 may be smoking Mary Jane but are yellow shell sock lovers (44%)

Since our President won by an even smaller margin...

Looks to me like a sock mandate!

I know you're humming "Hail to the Sock" in your head right now. For the record, Moxie actually voted against my sock, on my computer! He was fair about it, and asked to see the sock again to properly appraise its virtues (or lack thereof) prior to casting his ballot.

Because I like to be familiar with my constituency whether they vote for my sock or not, I asked Moxie a few hard-hitting questions in order to fully understand his position. Since I needed a baseline for evaluating his sock tastes, I asked him what he thought of my Crusoe sock, which I think has greater mass appeal. (Not a better sock mind you - the masses don't always know what they're talking about.)

Here's Crusoe for comparison. I rather like them together.

Moxie: "You mean to wear?"

Me: "Well, not for you - for me."

Silence.

Me: "Not with shorts or anything. (You wouldn't catch me outside of the gym in shorts anyway!) You, konw, with jeans. You'd just see them peeking out a little..."

Moxie: "Oh! You should have said that. For non-viewing socks they're great!" (Looks self-satisfied because he thinks he's said something nice about the sock.)

I am still laughing, and that was several days ago.

I have tested my sock pal however, and short of saying "I've finished one sock and it is yellow" and giving myself away, I have done everything in my power to make sure that she does not have any strong feelings against socks such as the ones she is receiving. She seems like a fun, colorful woman, if not a tacky one (which, honestly, folks, is what most of us really need in a knitted sock pal), and I think that she will appreciate these socks in the way that I and 60% of you (tacky and non-tacky alike) do. Plus, now she'll have socks that are famous. Who can beat that?

Don't you need another one of those?*

One of my great knitting accomplishments of the week was getting my first lovely Koigu Crusoe sock off the needles:

Now for a confession: I am no sock expert. Crusoe marks my third sock ever, and the first two were made long ago and far away, so it felt like a very new experience. Luckily I have several blogging pals who had been in Crusoe territory before and were happy to offer advice. The thing I heard most regularly was that although beautiful, this was a tough sock to fit - easy to get too tight and easy to get too loose. This is no doubt due to the lovely stranding pattern, which shows off the koigu beautifully, but is not particularly resilient.

Anyway, armed with this great bit of foreknowledge, I decided to leave the sock more than a wee bit small (my sock is my swatch - it's a tiny enough thing that a traditional swatch seems silly) and see how it went. As you can see it went quite well - tough to get on the first time, but fits like a glove ever after. I love it!

Having said that, I was not comfortable making this sock for a foot I hadn't had the pleasure of measuring personally (i.e. my sockapalooza pal!), so for that special someone, I've decided to use one of my friend Mary's (She of the Fabulous Socks) pattern recommendations - Little Shell Socks. These are also in koigu, though in a very different colorway. I've already started and you'll be getting a peek soon. Until they're done, I'm not starting the second of this pair. I suppose I'll be padding around the house in a single Crusoe for a few weeks!

*Yet another quote from my darling dearest - one to add to his running commentary on the state of my knitting. At this point I'm thinking that I will start keeping track of these little nuggets and gather them together for the "moxie awards."

Knitted Feats and Knitted Feets

First the knitted feat, though it really wasn't a big deal: Asana is finished!

Aren't these labels cute? My "happy 3rd anniversary of my 30th birthday to me" gift last month, courtesy of The Yarn Harlot's Christmas Gifts For Knitters links.

Well, at least the knitting and seaming portion is done. I have a wee (very wee) bit of sewing to do, and then I just need to size it for others, send it off to Knitty and hope for the best. Not to jinx myself, but I will be shocked if it doesn't get published - I'm very excited about the way this one turned out. (But I'll still love ya regardless, Amy!*)

Wallce, on the other hand, is not finished, but perhaps I'll get to work on it during the SuperKnit. I mean Bowl. Superbowl.

Now for the knitted feet. First, for all of you who have been coveting the fresh baked bread that my little tootsies recieved last month, my friend Mary has kindly provided the "recipe", which you can find in the extended entry. It is a recipe in Southern style - an amalgam of sockish wisdom, though not perhaps something for the sock uninitiated - my favorite kind!

In addition, I have been busy getting ready to knit some feet myself. After scouting around my Sockapalooza sock pal's blog to figure out what colors she likes, I picked out a bit of koigu for her while we were in LA. She likes "bight colors." I'm guessing these will fit the bill:

Loverly, eh?

Since she also likes ankle socks, I thought Crusoe would be a good choice. I may have to make a pair of these for myself as well....

Finally, I could use a little fabric moral support. I found this great stuff at G Street Fabrics the other day and am planning to use it to make fabulous curtains for the bathroom:

I think it's rather hard to resist....

Moxie has made exactly two comments:

"It looks like a flower threw up."

and the real winner:

"Don't get creative in my environment."

Ours is a candid marriage.

*Speaking of La Knitty Queen, did you see that Amy re-worked my teeny tiny sweater pattern to fit her Blythe dolls? Too cute!

Mary's Sock Recipe and Yarn Info

"Here's the sock poop:

I wasn't following a specific pattern when I made your socks. I generally cast on 64 stitches on size one (2.25 mm) when I'm going to do stockinette with sock weight yarn. (When you work with 5 needles, a cast on multiple of 4 will make ribbing easier.) I work about 1 and 1/4" with whatever ribbing I feel like, then I do stockinette until the leg is about 7 and 1/4". I work a heel flap of 32 rows over 32 stitches, turn the heel and pick up and knit the gusset stitches. I pretty much use the same heel and toe methods that Sally Melville writes about in her sock pattern in her "Knit Book," except that I make the toe more round (by decreasing every other row down to 5 stitches on each needle), and I pick up a couple extra stitches on each side when I do the gusset. I knit down the foot until it is about 2" short of the length I want, and begin decreasing for the toe. I graft my toes following the directions for Kitchener stitch that you can find in the back of every issue of Interweave Knits. It's the clearest instruction I've ever seen for Kitchener stitch. Unless I'm knitting for someone I know has larger or smaller feet, I start doing toe decreases when the foot is about 7 and 1/4 to 7 and 1/2" long. That will fit most women who wear a size 7-8 shoe.

The yarn I used was Froehlich Wolle - Special Blauband that I bought at Cloverhill Yarns in Catonsville, MD. In August. I was there on Friday, and they don't have any more of that color, although they do have several tweeds in other colors. Aylin's Woolgatherer in Falls Church also carries that yarn, but I haven't been there in a while, so I don't know what the current color choices are. Special Blauband is one of my favorite sock yarns."