Cripes, how is it the end of the month already? Gah. I had a lovely day today with Madam, riding our bikes to Lakeside Fibers, eavesdropping on people who were talking about my spinning, getting a very odd pattern of pinkness from the sun (I'd put on sunscreen, but haphazardly). I didn't buy anything except food, although I had a nice think about a Theoretical Future Sweater in Classic Elite Premiere, a really lovely cotton/tencel blend. I'm not a huge fan of the pastel colors, but it might work in white or black.

Somewhere in the middle of this I realized that this blog hasn't been much about craft stuff lately, has it? Mostly because I haven't been doing much. There's a couple of hats I haven't photographed, and I'm working on a very plain pair of socks. But I didn't finish talking about the stash two weeks ago, so I'll continue with that.(HOW was that two weeks ago? How?!?)

This is the spinning stash. Unspun fiber takes up so much space that it consumes about the same volume as the yarn stash.

The Shetland I've been working on for a sweater. I bought two pounds, I've lost all sense of how much I've used. Comparing it to the original bags, I'd guess a little less than 1/2. I'm still slowly working my way through it; there are 2.5 bobbins' worth of singles sitting around ready to get plied as soon as I finish that last half-bobbin.

A general grouping of "fancy stuff"

Clockwise starting in the upper left corner:

Red/multicolor Ashland Bay merino top; being spun into laceweight yarn that I've showed a few times here. I'm finally on the last bit of it, maybe 1/2 ounce out of the original 4 left.

Green multicolored silk/merino blended top. I started a bobbin of this a while back, I'll probably get back to it when I finish this batch of Shetland since I'm getting a bit tired of it. It's a neat color combination, I've sketched out a willow-leaf-y lace pattern I'd like to try with it, though I'll probably need to buy more than the 2 ounces I had originally now that I know what I'm going to do with it.

Gray multicolored silk/merino blended top, probably Ashland Bay though it wasn't labeled. My original plan was to do a plied yarn with this and the green silk-merino, for socks, but the green had so much gray in it to begin with that all the color was lost when plied. So instead, I'm adding a blob of this into the green yarn once in a while. I'm hoping it will give a slightly varigated effect when knitted up. I'm really thinking about the way the light goes when you're lying under a willow tree, trying to capture that greeny-grayish fluttery thing.

Red Hand-dyed silk top, from Blackberry Ridge. About one ounce of the two has been spun; you can just see the spindle hiding in there. I'll start back in on this when I finish that merino. Spinning up beautifully, I can't wait to turn it into something.

Undyed silk top, one ounce, from Halcyon Yarns. I spun about 10 yards of this for a little swatch, and am still thinking about using it as an edging for whatever I do with the dyed silk. It spins beautifully, though, very smooth.

Undyed merino, an ounce or two, that I got from WEBS. It's incredibly soft, and it's the thing that has sat around unspun for the longest. I'm just not sure what to do with it, but it deserves better than to sit unused in a box.

Hey, those feet edging into the picture, they have handknit socks on them! Official Craft Content! Success!

A few months back I bought a bunch of one-ounce bags of fibers I was curious about from Halcyon Yarns, one of the only companies I've found that sells non-specialty fibers by the ounce, and reasonably priced. This was a great chance to just feel a lot of different fibers, see what they're like. I've done at least a little two-yard sample of each of these, but I haven't gotten much farther yet, though I am spindle-spinning some for a felted project in off moments. Most of these are from that purchase, which is why they're all in identical little sandwich bags.

Top row, left to right:

Tiny leftover bits from what woman that sold me my wheel gave to me. Not sure what most of it is, I'll probably add it to some other fiber.

Jacob, which is probably my favorite "rough" wool fiber. Very sheepy. I want to make it into slippers, eventually, though I might need to buy more. Oh well.

Gray Shetland. I like Shetland better than Merino (I know, don't tell the Knitting Police); not only is it bouncy and quite soft, but it's easy to buy from more local, small-scale shepherds, and I don't feel as ethically sketchy as I do buying merino. This isn't local, but I used a bit of it in my Sugar on Snow hat, and it's wicked bouncy.

8 ounces of Corriedale that I got from my in-laws for Christmas. I think I'd like to try dyeing this, but I'm avoiding adding any new crafts until I graduate.

Middle Row:

A bit of corriedale mutt that I used to practice on the wheel. It's the chemist in me that always wants to leave a bit of raw material about, in case something goes wrong and I need to test what I have. I don't think this method is relevant to spinning, I'll have to remind myself of this in the future.

Less than an ounce of BFL. Spinning this up now for a felting project.

Bottom Row:

-Corriedale, maybe I'll mix it with the 8 ounces of corriedale I have.

-Raw alpaca. I tried to process a bit of it and made such a mess I'm waiting awhile until I can do the thing properly.

So, there's the spinning fiber. Lots of tiny bits; maybe this Christmas will be another felted slipper year, but with some handspun mixed in.
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There was a comment after I showed the yarn stash about how small it is. The recovering-Catholic part of me cringes at the thought of causing other people to feel guilty: just because I don't envy larger stashes doesn't mean that I consider them an morally inferior way to live. It's just not *my* way to live.

Being surrounded by too much stuff bothers me. I see a big pile of things, and I see all the time it takes to care for them--to buy things that will keep them organized, to organize them, to keep them clean and critter-free, to look for the thing I want among the pile of things I don't. I'd rather spend all that time riding my bike, making money, taking a nap, or enjoying the things important enough to keep.

Other people are comforted by the thought that everything they love lives in their house, that they can be surprised by finding an item they'd forgotten about, or that, if harder times come, they have years of entertainment all saved up.

They both work.

There are a few approaches that bother me when talking about possessions. On one hand, there's the coy "Oh, shh, don't tell my husband, but I haven't the slightest bit of self-control!" people. That's behavior I find obnoxious and immature. Or, there's people who DO guilt other people about their purchases, which is sort of that "I'm virtuous because I'm dieting" thing, which is self-serving, also obnoxious.

People are who they are. There's no need for apologies or guilt.

Last night I fell asleep an hour earlier than usual, and woke up two hours later than usual. Partly, I blame the extremely overcast rainy day for not giving me the "daytime" signal, but partly I think it was the last bit of recuperation from the conference, and the catching-up-from-the-conference running around I've been doing the last few days.
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A gross yet cool fact: your body contains more bacterial cells than human. In your gut alone there are 2-5 pounds of bacteria.

We can't live without bacteria; they did just fine for a billion or so years without us. Who's the more advanced species?

Another symptom of near-academic-maturity: going to talks and thinking they're lame. Time was, I thought of going to talks like going to class--you try to understand what's going on, and write everything down, and assume the person has all the details right. But there were a few talks at the conference last week (not many, it's a good conference) where I wrote disparaging commments in my marginalia, because their science was so bad.

That's new.

I haven't completely disappeared--I was just at a conference most of last week, and thoroughly overestimated my ability to get everything done in time.

Conference good, though. Met a lot of people, had a lot of thinking time. It was nice to think about something different and to ignore the thesis for a day or two.

It's odd that I feel like I was ignoring my work, because I presented a poster, which involved pretty much talking about everything I've done nonstop for 2 multi-hour sessions. And I saw tons of things that would link in beautifully with my work. I suppose that part of it is that a lot of what I'm doing right now is tying up all these spare loose ends I keep finding everywhere. I'm finishing experimental repeats, and drawing figures, and doing statistical analysis. What I got to do for the last few days was to really think about big pictures without worrying about the details, which has always been my favorite part. I love those cheerful, idea-filled, wandering scientific conversations where everyone leaves feeling smarter and full of experiments. I haven't had much of that lately, partly because I'm trying to separate myself from it--any ideas I have now are just going to make more work.

It hurts a little, too, this finishing thing. I've spent nearly 6 years defending my work, saying how it's so critical, it's so interesting, it's so important. I'm finally to the point where I can have an idea, run into the lab, and have an answer soon after. If I had another year I could probably get 2 or 3 papers out--all the messy bits are done! It's time for the fun work! But I really only get the struggling--I'll pass off the parts I think are fun to the next grad student, who will struggle with them until they get to *their* "fun part". My contribution to this area is pretty much done--wherever I end up I'll be doing something different. It's a little sad to say goodbye to 6 years of intellectual obsession.

I'm very much ready to go. This life has been hard on me. But the conference was a fun hurrah.

Yarn stash talk:

Last year, I showed what yarn I had in my stash, what plans I had for it, etc., etc. It was in the middle of a wave of people showing off their stashes, making jokes about hiding yarn from their partners, or about trying to decide between yarn and food. I found a lot of that talk offensive, frankly, in part because I've seen enough real addictive behavior to know that it's never humorous.

But I do like knowing how people's brains work, and their own descriptions of purchasing choices are interesting. The commentary is way more enlightening than pictures of piles of unlabeled yarn, y'know? so this is a redux of my original post--seeing how my stash has changed over the last year. Last year, all my spinning stuff fit into one small bag, but I have more of it now, so I'm including spinning fiber this time around.

Stuff that's getting used isn't shown, because it's a mess. Right now, the only stuff in progress is my stalled Fair Isle sweater and a sock--not much, though sort of all over the place.

Also not shown is the pile of acrylic that sits in the basement. That pile has gotten a lot smaller this year--I did a couple of baby blankets, and all the recent sweater and hat knitting from it. I'm still planning to donate whatever's left when we move.

Part 1: Oddballs

Comparing to last year's picture, there's not much change. Used a bit of the gray Cascade 220 (for the pi hat), and I'm thinking of taking the purplish blue and the bright blue and doing some kind of colorwork hat with them. The rest is inoffensive, I'll undoubtedly use it as stripes or small bits of colorwork in hats or mittens.

Lightweight Stuff:



The eight multicolored balls on the top are Dale Baby Ull. I used some of this in the past year, and bought some--the gray was for a Christmas present, the blue is going into a near-future baby project, along with bits of the rest. Baby Ull is turning into one of my main fallback yarns--it's washable, it wears well, it's quite soft, it has tons of saturated, cheerful colors. And this yarn is an example of "good stash": it inspires me, and allows me to do things I probably wouldn't bother with if I needed to buy 6 balls of yarn for small bits of colorwork. I don't imagine I'll go out and buy more of a particular color when I run out, but I do like having a few leftovers to play around with. It works for me.

The two multicolored green ones are the only unused sock yarn I have left. I'm thinking about doing some socks that would involve this yarn and the black Baby Ull. Maybe entrelac, or courregated ribbing. Not sure yet.

The red on the bottom is Lacey Lamb(sic)--SUPER soft wool laceweight. It claims to be superwash but I probably wouldn't test that. There's enough here for a good-sized shawl, but I haven't decided just what it will be yet, but it will certainly be fabulous.

Lame Picture of Boring Yarn:

Navy Cascade 220. Was in the stash last year. The only big-project amount left (except, arguably, the Lacey Lamb, which hardly takes up any space). At the moment, I'm thinking about the Threepenny Pullover from the Fall 2004 issue of Interweave, or at least thieving the cabled edges and putting them on something else. I might do those edges in the dark gray alpaca handspun I used for my Sugar on Snow hat; I have about 200 yards of that yarn left.

I Have A Lot Of Handspun:

I have a hard time not thinking of this stuff as finished work and not stash. As you can see, there's a lot of it. And besides a few bits in the upper right corner, I didn't have any of it last year. So, I *have* been productive with at least one sector of my craftiness.

Starting from the top left and working my way around clockwise:

1 skein of laceweight, from the handdyed silk top I got at Blackberry Ridge a few months back. It'll be the primary spindle project once I finish the yarn next to it. Definitely something lacy, but I only have two ounces so it'll probably be a small scarf.

5 skeins of laceweight merino, from the Ashland Bay multicolored tops. This is the Fiber That Will Never Die. I just finished a 220-yard skein, but the fiber supply never seems to diminish. I did a little swatch recently just to play with it and see what size needles would work (short answer: tiny ones) and I really look forward to the project I'm thinking about. I'll have to see how much yardage I end up with before I plan it too thoroughly though.

A random heap, mostly early spinning. The brown is Border Leicester, the first wool I bought. I want to do something with it, but I keep drawing a blank. It's not soft, but it's not so harsh that I want to use it as a rug, or anything. Info on the breed tells me that felting isn't a great option, or else I'd make some lovely wooly potholders with it. It's certainly not being thrown away.

4 skeins of sportweight Shetland, which I'm spinning for a sweater. The project on the wheel right now, although when I finish this next batch I might switch to some smaller, more colorful project for a bit.

Dark gray alpaca, some of which went into the Sugar on Snow hat. I mentioned above that I'm thinking about using it on the edge of a sweater knit with the blue Cascade 220. I can't decide just how stupid this is: soft things on edges probably won't last very long, but on the other hand, I may as well maximize the enjoyment of the fiber by using it where its touch is the most noticable.

Some... Romney? that the woman who sold me my wheel sent. Enough to get thrown into a hat somewhere, someday.

8 ounces of sheepy mutt, DK weight 3 ply, first purposeful wheelspun. I have a plan for a Big Awesome Aran Christmas Stocking, not that I've done more than think to myself "Big! Awesome! Aran! Christmas! Stocking!"

Soon: The fiber stash, some analysis of the stash, and a Special Treat.

I amused myself last night by watching a PBS documentary about obesity while cooking the entire time. Baked samosas (which were the thing that took most of the documentary time to prepare), and tofu curry with rice. Mmm.

Too bad I left my lunch in the ^**$# fridge this morning.

Last fall, I knit a sweater for my husband.

(You may recognize it from the zombie story.)

At the time, I feared I would run out of yarn and so went and found the last lonely little skein at the yarn shop, several months after I'd bought the original yarn. A very lucky thing. Except, I ended up several yards short of actually needing that extra skein, though I was glad that I bought it because it was a very close thing.

The extra skein sat around for a while, doing nothing.

A couple of weeks ago, J asked me if I had any of that yarn left, because the sweater felt a smidge too short after having been washed and dried several times--it's cotton, it does that sometimes. So I sat around and figured out how to set things up.

Tricky things:
1) The leftover skein was the same dyelot as the rest of the yarn, but the rest of the yarn had been washed and dried enough for there to be a slight difference between the two.

2) The yarn put up was in 93 yard skeins, worsted weight. That's not a luxurious amount with which to add several inches around the bottom of a sweater. So, maximizing the yarn I had was the order of the day.

3) The sweater was knit flat, from the bottom up. Picking up stitches from the bottom of the ribbing and working down would leave a lumpy bit at the bottom of the ribbing, and would be offset from the bottom-up ribbing by 1/2 stitch. The ribbing at the bottom is a 1k1p rib, so that would be quite noticable.

What I did:
1) I unpicked the seam up a few inches from the bottom of the sweater. In black yarn which has been washed until it's set in its ways, it was annoying to find the ends, but doable in good light.

2) Then I cut the yarn one row below the top of the ribbing, and undid the stitches the whole way across. I haven't given this enough thought to figure out why, but 1x1 ribbing doesn't unravel upwards. By starting the unraveling in the ribbing section, I gave myself insurance against the possible disaster of trying to catch patterned stitches and fix them upside down in pattern. But by doing it just one row in, the ribbing being knit in the opposite direction didn't look obviously wrong; that one row kind of blended in with the transition from ribbing to stitch pattern.

3) I decided to pick up and knit down in the round rather than knit two pieces from the bottom up and graft so that I could maximize the yarn. I'm really bad at estimating yarn usage, so it was safer to just keep knitting until the yarn got used up.

4) I unraveled the ribbing that I'd separated from the sweater, and decided to use this at the bottom of the ribbing. Thinking about the slight difference in color between the "fresh" and "used" yarn, I figured the change from pattern to ribbing would cover up the first color change, and a slightly lighter edge at the bottom wouldn't be too noticable either.

5) I knew that the yarn shrank slightly, both from the swatch I'd done originally and from J's experience with the sweater. So for the parts of the ribbing that were knit with the previously-unused yarn, I used a size 5US needle (which I'd used in the original pattern), and when I switched to the unraveled, preshrunk yarn, I used a size 3US needle. A 4 would've been closer to the actual difference, but I didn't have one handy, and I'd rather have ribbing pull in a bit more at the bottom rather than flare out.

6) I did a sewn castoff, which is stretchy but which took a while with so many stitches.

The end result worked pretty well. The ribbing at the bottom is pretty wide, about 4 inches vs. the original 1 inch, but it looks all right as it is, and the extra 3 inches at the bottom better suits J's modesty.

If I'd had an unlimited amount of extra yarn, I would have removed the yarn a row or two into the patterned area, knit two pieces from the bottom up with the same amount of ribbing as was previously on the sweater, and grafted these pieces to the existing sweater.

I'm so glad I'm not the only one.

Granted, I do this sort of thing much less than I did when I was young; adults are often in a rush, or thinking about Important Grownup Things that get in the way of thinking about where one's feet are.

But I've always liked patterns, and I've always been telling my mom that I'm not walking funny.

I was looking at my referral logs and noticed that someone got here yesterday by searching for "dried apricots stuffed with Nutella".

Now I want that. I shall have to endure with my chili, but I might buy some apricot jam on the way home tonight. (We've already got Nutella.)

I'm so proud of my stupid joke.

Health-Conscious Zombies Terrify Hippies Across the Nation

Madison, WI: A trend among the nations' zombies has experts concerned about the new direction the former brain eaters' appetites have taken.

An official at the American Institute for the Undead has confirmed that within the past 10 days, nearly half of the 150,000 Zombie-American population has rejected a brain-rich diet in favor of one containing organic grains, vegetables, and wheatgrass shooters.

In a press conference on Saturday, the AIU official stated that the cause of this change is, as yet, unknown. "We currently suspect that this is some type of disease, tranferred from an otherwise healthy human attending a Midwestern Wiccan Equinox celebration on the 21st, to a zombie who was attracted to the celebration by the strong odor of unwashed people. The disease has spread quickly, due in part to the many open sores present on the bodies of these undead vegans."

The official declined to comment on the precise nature of the disease before further testing of afflicted individuals.


A tree-hugging vegetarian runs for his life

RainTree McMillian, a member-owner of the Willy St. Co-op, was working on Friday evening when a ravenous gang of several dozen zombies entered the building and left with hundreds of dollar's worth of merchandise.

"It was horrible," McMillian said, cleaning up the herbaceous carnage. "By the time we found the baseball bat, the [produce department] was completely ravaged. I knew there was a small Zombie-American enclave nearby, but I've never seen them in here."

Auburn Kabbalah had a more direct run-in with the surprisingly mellow horde. "I was biking home with my weekly CSA [Community Supported Agriculture] vegetables, and they just appeared out of nowhere. I was lucky to get away with my hemp sack... oh, God, what will I bring to the Food Not Bombs rally tomorrow? Won't someone think of the peace-lovers?"

The zombies issued a released a statement at 9am EST which contained only a single word: "Brans."