Gutting it Out

That's what I'm doing. Gutting it out. Saying no to the pain, saying no to the fatigue, saying yes to my goals. Just like a real athlete. As if. LOLOLOLOL

Seriously though, the last few days haven't been that terrific.....a summer cold/flu. Ick. So I've had to change my Ravelympic line-up a tad. I started with Whirling Dervish II rather than WDI. The reason for the change in the line-up? Spinning the fiber for WDII is almost like cheating. It's a pencil roving that is already so thin that absolutely zero drafting is warranted, thus totally mindless and each time I sit down at the wheel, once I find the groove, I can do it one handed, if needed, and not even look at what I'm doing. Which is a godsend when one is sneezing, coughing, hacking, and blowing their nose as often as this cold is demanding; an added plus with all the world records being smashed left and right, exceptional performances in gymnastics and diving, and all the underdogs getting their day in the sun I can't keep my eyes off the TV. :o)

Here is what I've spun so far.



442.5 yards of cream
514.5 yards of brown

This is why it is so easy to spin.


The top loop is not drafted the rest of it is. Notice all the pills and nups? It's impossible to draft and spin an even single so instead of fighting it I'm just spinning it as is. Super fast, and super easy. Cheating????

I've often wondered while reading blogs what a person meant by using the word "sprongy" as a fiber adjective. I of coursed could glean what it was they were saying, but couldn't really relate to it. Now I can. This fiber (all of them, cream, dark and light brown) are super "SPRONGY". I'm looking forward to some day getting my hands on some well prepared sprongy fiber, something that doesn't have pills, nups, and lots of VM. :o)

It's been another learning adventure spinning this fiber. Everything I've done up until now has had very long staple length and little crimp. This has a much shorter staple length and LOTS of crimp. I'm not too sure I like this very crimpy fiber but I'm reserving judgment until the day I have some well prepared fiber of this sort.

As I'm sure many of you spinners out there who are spinning just for spinning's sake often daydream while sitting at the wheel as to what the yarn you are creating will ultimately become, so am I. I'm thinking this will make a fabulous jacket. I'm considering a fairly boxy shape with a slip stitch/mosaic pattern, or perhaps a nifty intarsia design, or maybe, just maybe something with some cables. Of course daydreams can only go so far when I have know idea what kind of gauge this yarn is going to work up in, but I'm thinking the gauge will be about 3 to 3.5 stitches to the inch. I'll end up with about 430 yards of the 3rd color for a total of approximately 1300+ yards. Enough to do just about anything actually. :o)

I have also been working on my Hmmmm project. Saturday, the day after the Games began I finally decided on a pattern. It's another no brainer, something I can knit while I watch the Games kind of thing. That of course was one of deciding factors when choosing a pattern for this Ravelympic event, but there were others that were much more important. It had to be something that would "honor" my first handspun, warts and all (cuz no matter how warty it is I'm proud of it) AND it had to be easily executed in a number of yarns that don't quiet match in color. That's a lot of stipulations, but I found the perfect pattern. The Panel Jacket from Unicorn Books. The pattern as written, is worked in garter stitch, I am doing it in stockinette, (garter stitch would hide too many warts) I've got one panel, the sleeves and the lapel/collar to do. I'm skimping a little on the width of the panels, a sweater with a 52" bust measurement would just look silly on me. I'm liking it. A lot. This pattern just might have a few do-overs in it's future.

Ravelympic Training

Today I began my Ravelympic training. I'm entered into a one event, but have multiple projects. Whirling Dervish I is my attempt to dye (my training done today) so it will spin into a yarn with a really long color sequence. Below is the 493 grams of pencil roving I started with . It is part of the Motherload windfall of last summer.



I'm not going to bother with the particulars of how I figured the length of the color sequence at this point. IF it works out OK then I will go ahead and explain it, but if it doesn't work then it'd just be a waste of time to document it here. I have taken pretty decent notes so if it does work, then I'll be able to do it again. (sometimes I am smarter than I pretend to be I actually took notes!!!) :o)

Even though I was in town Thursday, Friday and Saturday, (more times I've been in town in the previous month!) I didn't even think about buying more dyestuff, thus I had to use what I had on hand today. Obviously my intelligence is fleeting.

The color sequence begins with yellow then green, blue, violet, purple, red, orange, and repeats itself for 3 full sequences and ends with another yellow. None of the colors are exactly the same. The first sequence was dyed with Easter egg dye, the second and third sequence were dyed with food color (some regular some neon) and the last orange and yellow were dyed with Koolaid. Each color is approximately 13 grams or 11 ft of pencil roving.



I applied the dye with an eyedropper and/or paintbrush. Each color was wrapped in plastic wrap. When it was all dyed I wound it into a huge Tupperware container.

The first layer.



the next...



Another layer.



One more layer.



And a little bit more.



It was an awfully tight fit, both in the container and the microwave.

I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with this yarn yet. I'm only spinning it for the Handspun Heptathalon. I might squeeze two sweaters out of this by working it along with a another solid rather than using it all in one sweater like the typical Rainbow Kauni Cardigan. (the link is to the pattern pdf) The colors here are a little much for me and I think they will only get brighter when spun, but maybe toned down nicely by working it with a solid.

The yarn is still cooling. I'm being extra careful not to handle it too much. Hot, wet, roving, might felt just by looking at it! LOL Tomorrow is supposed to be warm, hot actually. There's a heat advisory already posted for the area, we're expecting temps of 100+. Everything should dry nicely outside tomorrow.

Whirling Dervish II, my second project for the Ravelympics, is merely to spin this stuff up. There is 449 gr of the natural cream color, 446 gr of the natural lt grey, and 483 gr of the natural dk grey. Total grams 1378.



I know 1378 gr sounds like a lot to spin, especially if it is the 2nd of 4 projects I have planned, but I still think it is doable. Take a closer look at how this fiber is prepared.



Honestly I could knit with this as it is, but I want to add a bit more twist to it and make a 2 ply. I'm not keen on unspun type yarns. I'm guessing this was prepared on some Viking combs and then drawn through a very tiny diz. This too is from the Motherload, it's natural and still pretty sheepy, lots of lanolin.

Whirling Dervish III is this batch.


It is 647 gr of a variety of browns. It too is from the Motherload and was originally pencil roving like that of the first picture above but had been dyed already. Last Summer I washed, predrafted it and rolled it into the balls you see here.

The fourth Ravelympic project is "Hmmmmm" For that one I'm going to make a cardi out of the handspun I just did. (I think I told you that already) I still don't have the pattern picked out but there are several in the running. I know it's prob'ly crazy to have this project on top of all the others, but I've got to have something for bedtime knitting, it's not like I can spin while I'm lounging in bed!

Handspun Heptathalon

I've decided what I'm going to do for the Ravelympics.....sort of. I've named my projects "Whirling Dervish" and "Hmmmm"

"Hmmm" is going to be a cardi (pattern to be determined) out of some of this yarn spun that first week I was spinning. Pictured below is all the yarn I did that week.


A little bit closer left to right, almost in the order in which it as spun.








Most of the yarns in the first pic are worsted wt. and Navajo plied. The second pic is about half 2-ply and half Navajo plied, most are aran wt. In the last pic all of it is 2-ply and 'round about a dk wt. I'll post the real WPI and yardage in a couple days. A really rough measure of the dk celery green is 750 yds. I think for project "Hmmmm" I'll use this yarn for the cardigan and trim it out with some of the other heavier wt stuff. You can't imagine how excited I am about actually knitting my first sweater with yarn I actually spun myself!!!!

I haven't done anymore spinning since the other day cuz all my bobbins look like this.



OK, that's a lie, the others (6 in all) are full, but all are sitting in wait for the new bobbins to arrive. Boy did I guesstimate the delivery date wrong!!!

The Whirling Dervish project is going to be my attempt to spin a yarn with really long color graduations. Think Kauni type yarn. I'm breaking out the undyed pencil roving I have and will be dyeing it as part of my "training" in the next few days. I'm going to spin enough for two maybe three sweaters. At least one sweater will be a colorway that will go well with a solid shetland I already have (something I've reclaimed in the past) Another will be a sweater of the long colorway displacing the colors like Ruth Sorenson's Rainbow Cardigan although I think I'll use a different pattern, and the 3rd, if there will be one, will be the long colorway worked with a semi-solid that I will also dye and spin. Phew! I think that will keep me busy don't you? Then again, maybe not. I am sooo like a fish out of water trying to figure this stuff, and you know the Yardage Nymph always has her eye on me. It should all be very interesting, certainly a major learning experience! :o)

Remember the other day I spoke of festooning the house in post-it notes? I did it. Wanna see the one that gave Joe the biggest chuckle?



No need to go to Babel Fish I'll zoom out for another self-explanatory pic:




:o) I can't imagine we'll ever have the need to inquire about a cat's litter box when traveling, but I was on a roll. LOL