Works in Progress (various)

The Tour de France continues... and so does the Tour de Fleece.

The 10 finished skeins so far.  I still have a lot of orange to go, but should be plying again today.  I ought to have enough yarn to make a sweater for my Ravelympics project.

Here's my little gem of a Kuchulu, all filled up with Dicentra Designs BFL/silk.  I started another cop today.  Fun seeing a little progress on this long-term spinning project!

For my yarn-along project, I'm still working on my Black Roses stole (a.k.a. Lady MacBeth because my homemade dye job comes off on my hands as I knit).  I've been taking it to swim lessons the last few weeks and am finally almost done with the long slog.  The Madhur Jaffrey cookbook I borrowed from the library... oh my, such good recipes!  I've tried ground turkey kebabs flavored with yogurt, coriander and mint; some pan-fried fish, and several different recipes for different kinds of dal.  Yum!  It's not that difficult to cook some cumin and mustard seeds in oil and saute onions with them, and it adds so much flavor to a dish.  I could really get to like Indian cooking, and so could my family.

Here's the aftermath of one of our meals, before the turkey kebabs were gone.

My machine quilting is at a standstill as I gather courage and strategize how to replace the worn plastic tracks that the rollers have to move on.  You can kind of see in this photo how cracked and abraded they are.  That means bumpy quilting and very little control.  I have the replacements from the Grace company but have been postponing putting them on.  It scares me to dis-assemble the Megaquilter because it's so touchy to get set back up right.

And here's the quilting UFO for July I need to work on.  I haven't touched these little 6" log cabins for years, and it's time to finish them up.  I don't know if I want to make more or just finish a lap quilt.  Probably finished will be better than perfect, as it usually is.
The summary of WIPs:

• purple arrowhead blocks - no progress this week
• baby Jack's chain binding - no progress
• log cabin blocks - evaluating
• knitting Black Roses Stole - 85% done!
• knitting "Summer Flies" - minimal progress this week
• spinning Tour de Fleece - I've spun about 1000 yards of 3-ply yarn so far!

Check out other WIP action at Freshly Pieced!

Monday: Time Trials

On the design wall, nothing has changed since last week.  I've been almost exclusively focusing on spinning, with a little knitting during swim lessons.  No quilting, not even a stitch on the arrowheads blocks.  But the parts for the Grace Frame have arrived and I am trying to get them uncurled.  Once they are a little more relaxed (and I am too), and I have some heavy-lifting help from Steve or Daniel, I'll try to put them on, reassemble the Megaquilter, and get some machine quilting done.  I'll probably also need to buy thread.  I have big ambitions to get Jack's Chain, Orca Bay, and Farmer's Wife all quilted this summer.  But you know, summer is always too short!

The Tour de Fleece is speeding by, and I have spun up about half of the orange superwash for my second Rhinebeck sweater.  I'm washing the 10 skeins I have today and hanging them out on the line to dry.  After plying the yarn and measuring it off, you are supposed to "set" the twist by soaking or washing it gently, then giving the skein a few good thwacks against something hard, like the edge of the sink.  This seems to shock the wool fibers into good behavior for some reason, and any extra twist in the yarn from over-spinning or over-plying goes away.

I noticed that in the Tour de France, they present the winner of the Maillot Jaune with a bouquet of yellow roses and a stuffed lion.  It just so happens that this little stuffed lion was in the bag of things from the girls' room that were supposed to go to Goodwill.  So I appropriated him as my mascot.  Now I don't know if he'll end up at Goodwill or not!

Of the 10 skeins so far, each one a different permutation of 3 different plies (there are 5 dyelots total, so I marked the skeins "123, 124, 125, 134, 135, 145, 234, 235, 245, 345".  Now, in my attempt to make every skein different, I'm going to ply 2 strands of the same dyelot with 1 strand of a second; I won't have enough to try every possible combination, but that's probably just as well.  I really like dyelot 1 on the left of Aslan: it's a rich reddish copper that I'd be happy with if I had reproduced every time.  But I also like dyelot 3 on his right -- a very saturated orange with red mixed in.  The other dyelots have pluses and minuses; 2 can be a little too tangerine, 4 a little too brown or incompletely saturated, and 5 has a definite black/gray cast.  But combined in various ways they definitely make a yarn with continuous interest.  I'm looking forward to making the sweater during the Ravelympics!

Book review: Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques

The Great Redwall Race of 2012 -- The short story: earlier this spring Daniel challenged Quarta to a chronological read-through of all the Redwall books that she hadn't yet read or had read to her.  He was supposed to read them all, not skipping any.  Well, he's backed out in favor of re-reading the Belgariad, but Quarta has finally caught on that these books are a great thing.  She whined a lot at first, but patience and good children's literature won the day and she's working on The Long Patrol now.  Here's the chronological list we're going from.

If you haven't yet experienced the Redwall books, what in the world are you waiting for? If there's a child in your life, that child needs a bedtime story like these.  You can start with Redwall itself or with Mossflower, but why not join us with Lord Brocktree and experience from the very beginning the panoramic sweep of the grand tale of the goodbeasts who must fight for freedom against vermin hordes?  Join Dorothea Duckfontein Dillworthy, Dotti for short, that young haremaid of Fatal Beauty, along with Lord Brocktree the badger, questing for Salamandastron, the fabled mountain ruled by an ancient line of noble badgers.  Other beasts, moles, shrews, mice, otters, and squirrels help them along their way.  There is always good food, gentle humor, positive character development, and a clear delineation between good and evil.  In this book, the evil role is taken by Ungatt Trunn, a wildcat with an unnatural liking for spiders and world domination.  He conquers Salamandastron and Our Heroes must raise an army to win it back.  Thanks to teamwork and self-sacrifice, and helped a bit by the tendency of the evil hordes to turn on each other, they will ultimately be victorious and provide a stirring tale for young creatures to hear after the feast.

If it sounds familiar, it is basically the same plot in every novel.  And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that.  Tune in for more book reviews in the Redwall race as the summer progresses.

Randomday - the spinning edition

I've not been doing much more than the Tour de Fleece.  The Tour de Fleece was made for stressed-out teachers like me on their summer break!  At the end of the day today, I figure I've spun almost 1.5 pounds of the 2.5 pounds of superwash wool that was my goal.  Here was July 5's spinning, the bowl balanced on my toes so you can see how it matches the dahlias.  I think my Dutch heritage has given me an abiding love of the color orange.

Now, I have been learning about the Tour de France while I'm participating in the Tour de Fleece.  The Tour de France is fascinating.  We all know about the maillot jaune, the yellow jersey that the overall leader wears.  But there is also the green jersey for the contestant with the most points, usually for sprinting over level ground.  And the polka-dot jersey for the best mountain climber, and the white jersey for the best rookie.  And it is a much more violent sport than I had realized.  The main pack of riders is called the Peloton, and they are racing literally wheel to wheel at 70 mph going around hairpin turns; there have been some gruesome crashes.  Sometimes the riders get right back on their bikes and race off again, and then the medic car will catch up with them and the medics will lean out of the car window and evaluate him as he pedals.  The 2nd place yesterday finished with a dislocated shoulder or something; there are riders still riding with fractured bones.  Yikes!  NBC carries some weekend coverage, but I've mainly been watching online, either live if I can tune in early enough on one of the Eurosport channels, or the 5-minute daily highlights version here.  I love the awards ceremony at the end of each stage.  Winner flanked by 2 beautiful girls in yellow, who garb him in the yellow jersey, present him with yellow roses and a stuffed lion, then kiss-kiss-kiss, kiss-kiss-kiss, shake hands with the VIPs (must seem like a let-down after the beautiful girls and the kiss-kiss-kiss).  Tomorrow is the Jura mountain range, and I'll be very interested to see it after reading Caesar's Gallic Wars.

And here is the spinning I accomplished yesterday.  Yesterday was not so great for wheel spinning because we had Daniel's graduation party, along with 4 other young people from our church, at Hazel Dell park.  It was open house style, and after making the sandwiches and picking up the cake I didn't have to do anything in particular, so I brought the Kuchulu along and spun on that Dicentra Designs "salt marsh" BFL/silk blend.  It's almost a 2-year spinning project now.  People kept asking me what I would make with such a fine yarn.  It's actually more like thread.  I have a pattern for another shawl-I-won't-wear in mind, but let's just wait to see what actually happens between now and whenever I finish spinning the roving.

After the picnic yesterday, Daniel brought his buddies home with him for an all-night geek-fest.  It involved lots of Minecraft and a few other games, the consumption of all the leftover cake and sandwiches, and two runs to McDonald's.  Steve, Tertia and I went to a piano recital, then brought one more buddy home for Daniel, then pretty much collapsed and were oblivious to the gaming and McDonald's runs.

Still upright but punchy at about 8:30 a.m. ...

but not upright for long.
Tertia and Quarta finished one round of swim lessons Friday and will start a second on Monday: Quarta will be moving up to level 4; Tertia is staying in level 2 and very happy just to be there.  She is the tallest, or almost tallest, kid in her class for once in her life.  She jumped off the diving board without needing someone to catch her!

Might as well do the weekly stash report: no change in quilting fabric but I've been adding quite a bit of yarn:

Fabric used this week: 0 yards
Fabric used year to date: 50 yards
Added this week: 0 yards
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2012: 22 yards

Yarn used this week: 0 yards, making progress on Lady MacBeth
Yarn used year to date: 3406 yards
Yarn added this week: 1030 - Tour de fleece, 10 skeins, plus one ball of T-shirt yarn made
Yarn added year to date: 2338 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 1068 yards

Tour de Fleece, day 6

I missed blogging on the 4th of July.  This photo was taken yesterday morning, but is actually of Day 4's spinning (July 3).  I finished bobbin 5 and plied my first two skeins that day.

This photo was taken this morning, of yesterday's spinning, so Day 5.  I made the boys run the barbecue and did very little prep work other than making the potato salad and answering the constant stream of questions... everything from "do we have this?" or "where is this?" to "how do I do this?" so that I actually did have to get up and down quite a lot.  Still, it's probably my most productive day yet.  I plied two more skeins, then refilled bobbins 1 and 2.  I haven't washed any of the 4 skeins yet.  I'm trying to keep records of which colorways are used in which skeins, and how many yards they total, but I'm not always terribly scientific.

Vancouver goes insanely all-out for the 4th of July.  Everybody seems to volunteer at one of hundreds of fireworks stands supporting different clubs, and everybody (except us) seems to buy hundreds of dollars worth of fireworks that make going to sleep anytime before midnight on the 4th extremely dicey.  Allergies combined with all the smoke in the air make most of us very stuffy-nosed, and the kids tend to be grumpy the next day.  And anything that didn't get exploded last night will be waiting for us tonight, I have a feeling.  All of this, and the temperature is still in the 60s... no heat wave in the Pacific Northwest!

I'm a bit frustrated with my ineptitude with photo editing.  I've apparently exceeded my quota for this blog, but it still lets me upload photos from my computer for my daily posts, just not to dress up my sidebar or anything.  Apparently I have a Picasa account although I don't know how to use it.  Other people on Ravelry are making lovely collages of their work in the Tour de Fleece.  I know how to do that with some programs, like beeclips which I used last year, but it would probably take a long time and I'd rather be spinning for now.  Eventually I'll get around to having somebody who understands computers teach me how to manage the photos I take for the blog.  It seriously can't be that hard, and hopefully could be done without obligating myself to lifelong monthly fees.  When I scale that particular Mt. Olympus, I'll let you know!

Tour de Fleece, day 4

As before, Day 4's picture is of Day 3's spinning.  I now have 4 full bobbins, and most of the 5th is full.  I have 5 8-oz. bumps of superwash wool, each from a different dyelot.  My goal is to begin plying either tonight or tomorrow; there will be 3 plies, one always one of the 2 "true" oranges, and one always one of the 2  more experimental, far-ranging oranges.  The one on the bottom of this picture (it was supposed to be the right, why did the picture flip like that?!) is more brown with some spots of undyed fiber to dilute it further, and the one I'm spinning now has blackish/grayish bits in it.  So I should probably take careful notes of the different combinations in the plied yarn.  But my basic color recipe is to have lots of variation, in a controlled way.

I went on a thrift store shopping expedition last Saturday, and found a lot of neat stuff.  The plate is Delft, half price at Goodwill ($2.50!)  A dress for Quarta, a length of chambray for the quilt stash, a sweater to unravel, a couple of Redwall books for my prize box, an old volume of Horace in Latin, a vintage P.G. Wodehouse novel, Yoga book, a replacement for the Immortal Poems of the English Language book I had to bury awhile back, and a black Speedo swimsuit for me, in a size I don't like to think about.  This was to replace my Land's End swimsuit that vanished into the ether along with Tertia's and Quarta's sometime after Spring break.  (Sadness, because it cost $90 and looked half decent on me.  Maybe I will do lots of Yoga and Pilates and then look good in a swimsuit again.)

We have two teenage boys in the house who need practice driving, and I am finding it to be quite nerve-wracking.  The girls are both having swim lessons, and then will have another 2-week session starting next week as well.  The roof is patched but the drywall has not been, yet, and we will probably have to wait another week until the girls' closet is usable.

I think I'm going to relax and spin for the rest of the evening.

Reporting: Stash, Design Wall, UFOs, Tour de Fleece

My design wall has a few more purple arrowhead blocks on it, and there are a bunch more cut, starched, and partway sewn.

Jack Junior is off the frame.  I made a bunch of bias binding for all those edges, enough hopefully for the bed-size version as well.  I got distracted from my original schedule for the June UFO, but since finishing the Jack's Chain quilt was a 2-month job on my schedule, and I finished the big top and even wrote a tutorial, I'm counting it as June's project linking this up to the UFO report.  July's UFO is #3, which is a bunch of log cabin blocks I've had sitting around for awhile, should be doable as long as I don't try for a bed-size quilt.  I'm also at a holding point with any more quilting I do on my Next Generation Grace frame; the plastic tracks have worn out (resulting in very bumpy quilting on Jack Junior) and I'm waiting for some replacement parts.

That should give me time to work on the Tour de Fleece.  Here's my Day 3 photo, of Day 2's spinning (well, Day 1 was most of the right bobbin).  This will be for my Ravelympics project.  They have complied with the USOC bullies and have chosen the name "Ravellenic Games," which is actually classy and dignified of them.  But for me it will always be either the Ravelympics or the Knitting Olympics.  And for those who argue that Congress has granted the USOC the exclusive trademark to the word "Olympic" or anything that resembles it, I would ask if this is the same Congress that passed a massive tax on the middle class without even realizing it was a tax?

Stash Report:

Fabric used this week: 1 yard for bias binding for Jack's Chain quilts
Fabric used year to date: 50 yards
Added this week: 1 yard blue chambray purchased on thrift store expedition
Added year to date: 28 yards
Net used for 2012: 22 yards


Yarn used this week: 0 yards, nothing finished
Yarn used year to date: 3406 yards
Yarn added this week: 0 yards, no spinning counted yet
Yarn added year to date: 1308 yards (all handspun, not purchased)
Net used for 2012: 2098 yards

Tour de Fleece, Day 2

Regarding the Tour de Fleece photos: this is actually the spinning from day 1; I prefer to take the photos the day afterwards.  Usually the light is better.  Yesterday I spun about an hour and a half, enough to fill most of a bobbin.  Today I spun more than 2 hours and filled this one plus one more, and may do a little more before bed.  I forgot to mention my equipment for the Tour yesterday: it's an Ashford Traveller double drive.