I may have a problem

My daughter was impressed with how little knitting I was bringing on a camping trip. . . until she realized it wasn't just the small red tote. The backpack is coming, too.

Hackey Sack, Anyone?

This hat was designed to use up bits of yarn. The two ounces of handspun, naturally-dyed yarn from a workshop used for it has been sitting, unused and unworn, for longer than I want to admit. Even if I feel that this hat looks like something someone much more committed to hippie fashion than I might proudly wear, at least the yarn is a garment now, not just a skein.

Besides, camping trips are just made for this sort of look, right?

Two done

A sweater with handspun yarn as some of the colorwork, proportions and shaping figured out on the way, along with a fully-handspun (except for the ribbon!) hat. Now, on to other not-yet-done knitting.

Double or Nothing

We're supposed to be coming out of a heat wave here. While I know that many areas of the country suffer from much more extreme weather, I reiterate -- we're not prepared for this. With neither thick walls nor artifically cooled air, these old Victorians (especially in rooms under eaves) are just hot.

How better to enjoy weather like this than to drive inland, away from any errant sea breezes, and walk around on asphalt all day long? Yes, it's county fair time, and I'll be baking myself out there tomorrow like a crazy person. Let's hope the folks tightening bolts on the roller coasters were sober enough.

Oh, and why not, while I'm at it, throw in a little Eco Wool knitting? I can't stop working on this baby because I have finally (!) figured out how to knit two sleeves on two needles. It took drawing, talking to my sister, and many many rounds of "nope, that's not it, take out the needle and turn it around" before I finally wrapped my head and subsequently my fingers around the technique:


That's not so easy to see. one needle is I believe 24" long, while the other is 60". That way, I can tell them apart. But the shorter one makes spreading the sleeves out for a picture a bit tricky. Folded is a little clearer.


I don't think I'm ready to write up a tutorial, but for me, I divided the sleeves into "fronts" and "backs" and each one has one needle. Two sleeves, one side, one needle. To knit, then, one needle gets knitted across one side of two sleeves, necessitating one yarn change. If I start with the fronts, then I knit both fronts. Then I drop that needle and knit two backs.

It's easier, much easier, than I had managed to make it for a bit. Maybe this will pump up my speed on lots of things, like mittens! Christmas is coming, make no mistake. But first, this and a couple of other sleeveless sweaters.

Castaway

Sleeve Island, what a lonely place to be.

So little left to do on this Cotton Sweater of Many Ends


And yet, picking it up to knit some more rounds of a sleeve feels a bit like running away from the Thing behind the door in a dream. My hands move slowly, and surely a sweater this size shouldn't weigh 25 pounds! The weight of resistance burdens every stitch.

And yet, I do want it done, and the deadline for county fair entries looms. What to do?

Well, I did finish some spinning.



And how I miss the good camera, which is hurt and out of commission right now. Turned out I got about 500 yards of singles from the Grafton Fibers batt. Once they were skeined up, I washed and shocked them with agitation and repeated plungings from hot to cold water so that they'd be slightly-fulled. I don't trust my singles spinning that much yet.

Even with the rotten pictures, perhaps you can tell why I can't wait to get this knit up into something. This yarn wants, I believe, to be a warm, squishy hat. Exactly which warm, squishy hat is still in debate.


I must not be the only spinner who waffles about finding the Right Pattern to complement finished yarn. Commercial yarn doesn't carry the weight that handspun does for me. I've loved every one of my few handspun knitting adventures, so I probably should get going.


Once I finish 4.6 sleeves, that is.

Read. The. Pattern.

Cheerfully resurrected Odelia by Julie Weisenberger to simply finish off the sleeves and voila, have a sweater for summer.

Except, eight inches ago, I neglected to continue the edge decreases.

Guess I'll just rip that puppy right out to the point where I left the pattern to wander in the wilderness and redo it the right way.

Grrrrr.

Thank goodness the high school team won States again! Seven years of domination sort of make up for redoing eight inches of sweater.

Sort of.

Should've made it longer

. . . although I barely made the deadline as it was. Seriously cute, even if it's too short.

This almost makes up for the three sweaters stuck on Sleeve Island.