forgetgutenberg

So we’ve been experimenting with weaving. It certainly has an interesting learning curve. The basics are incredibly simple; it’s vastly more intuitive than knitting (or, in fact, the little square peg loom), but technically it’s pretty complicated to get it to do exactly what you want. Ah, well, it’s a challenge – and a pretty satisfying learning experience.

This first piece is warped with a merino/tencel blend (it’s what Lucy uses for sock blanks). The weft is handspun … so far it’s a merino/tencel two-ply and a three-ply merino. The best part? Totally how much of the stash I’ve gone through.

The second one is warped with cotton. Practically thread. The weft is Manos (wool) and more of the cotton thread. It looks awesome, but it’s kind of a pain. (Less so than the manos warp, though.)

Yeah, that’s me. Maybe I should become the All-Inclusive Fiber Harlot. It just doesn’t have the ring of Yarn Harlot, though, so I won’t.

In the interest of having one more thing to do with fiber, I pulled out the Weavette. Which, um, I haven’t really used, oh, at all.

I was right – there are some sock yarns that really want to be woven. The purple and green (which matches the socks I’m wearing) makes a very nice plaid.

The square on top is the evil soysilk handspun that I’d been pointedly ignoring, since I had no idea what I was going to knit with it. Well. It works pretty well as a woven thing, I think. Which solves my what to do with strange yarn problem. Who knew?

Now I have this strange urge to do something with water-soluble interfacing. Fortunately, I can’t think of anywhere to get something like that at this hour of the night. Maybe I’ll have come to my senses in the morning.

So this afternoon, I posted pictures of a shawl. (Did you see the shawl?) It was, to be frank, sopping wet and pinned out on the living room floor.

I went out to register to vote (because I am virtupus, and because I’d like to be able to rant and rail against the government for the next four years, and I feel obligated to try a little first), was successful, and realized (with a bit of help from my favorite bad-idea cohort) that in fact a hairdryer, judiciously applied, would speed the blocking up. A lot. Enough, in fact, to take my shawl to hear the Yarn Harlot.

(I don’t think anybody saw her; the entire room was knitting. I’m shocked, I tell you. The shawl-in-progress down the row from us was gorgeous.)

Great idea. Not only did I convince my housemate (and company) that I’m even weirder than they thought I was, I got to take a genuinely spectacular (seriously, it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever knit) finished object to the one place it was most likely to get great reactions.

My favorite was the “What yarn is that?” It’s handspun. I spun that. And then I made this awesome thing out of it.

(There was oohing and aaahing from complete strangers. It was fantastic. I did not wait around in line to get a picture of the Harlot with it. I need to take a picture of it that isn’t blurry, though, so I can show the internet.)

She’s entertaining, and she’s never going to look at a room full of people knitting and think they’re not paying attention to her. Also, she has some incredibly smart things to say about knitting, and craft, and being a real writer. She’s not too short. I’m really glad I took my shawl to hear her talk.

Really. All right, maybe not. Maybe listening to Lucy was actually what I did right – it often is. Suffice it to say that I have cast off the second Adamas shawl, with a tiny ball of yarn leftover (at least I’ll be able to fix holes in it with matching yarn), and then … then! Something strange happened! I sewed in the ends! I dunked it in warmish water! (It really wasn’t exciting enough to warrant all this punctuation.) And you guessed it, I blocked it.

It’s still really, really wet, so I won’t be able to wear it tonight, but I’m sure the Yarn Harlot will understand.

Maybe she’d think I should wear it anyway.

It’s going to be serious lace when it grows up:

That’s a twelve-inch ruler along the center line, for scale. There’s hope for this one. (I’m dreading my first shawl’s blocking experience even more; it’s circular, and about four feet across without stretching. I might get around to it one day, though, if the improvement in definition of the lace pattern on this one is any indication.)

So there’s a new addition to the family here in the Troll Cave :

Son of Frankenwheel. Bride of Frankenwheel? Anyway, there’s now a second working spinning wheel in the house. I feel bad for the one that doesn’t have a flyer. I should fix it. (The new wheel isn’t mine, but … well, it gets to live here for a while.)

And there was some spinning. (We took it over to Lucy, who sat down and tested it out. So now it has a fancy sticky driveband, which helps on the whole spinning thing.)

And some more spinning.

It’s such a darling wee wheel. It’s got some problems, but do you see how it has scotch tension (that’s the little spring at the bottom of the last picture)? That, let me tell you, is pretty cool. Eventually, it’s probably going to want a new screw for drive band tension, and maybe some new bobbins, and … Eh. It spins, and that’s what really matters. And, hey, my house can become a home for wayward wheels. I’m sure none of the housemates would mind. Much.

A skein (212 yards) of sort of mostly purple yarn in merino/tussah silk for my friend Sara:

Painted jacket based on an image I used for a broadside:

(and I ought to work on dealing with light in my photography, because this is not the most accurate representation of color…)

The last thing is something I am becoming increasingly fond of. It’s the Adamas shawl (from Mimknits), and it is most definitely a large-breed puppy. But hey, I’m using handspun singles that are almost but not quite laceweight, and it’s pretty neat.