Knitting, Spinning, Meme-ing

Heh, heh... even if I'm not up-to-date in my blog reading, I'm making an effort to be up-to-date in my blog posting : )

Knitting Update

I'm still working along on my sweater-length, top-down version of the Serpentine Coat from Knitting Nature. I've finished the yoke and one sleeve (the bottom half of which I re-knit several times to get the right fit).




There's one hitch: I've read over and over again that when doing stranded knitting you need to be sure to keep the floats loose. I think I took that way too seriously (doh!) - hence, my floats are too loose (making the stitches around them wonkily loose, too), and I think I'm going to have to try to redistribute the extra yarn in some fashion - probably by shifting the slack row by row to the edges, cutting the yarn, and weaving the ends in. I honestly think this will be much faster than starting over (I'm not a speedy two-color knitter, and it took me a while to finish knit the yoke, which I guess is arguably not finished yet...)


Dublin Lake Redux

So, what did I do with the other half of the lovely "Dublin Lake" Bluefaced Leicester roving I got from The Painted Sheep?



I split the remaining roving lengthwise into halves, then split one half into 8 lengthwise pieces and the other into only 4 (this is something I've seen suggested by Kristin of All Spun Up - another wonderful fiber artist - on the Ravelry boards). This resulted in longer color-runs on one bobbin, which you can see here:




Here's a close-up of the singles (I just love the colors):



I plied the singles from the two bobbins together, aiming for a bit of extra plying twist. Since my bobbins weren't very equal, I ended up having to transfer about half of the remaining singles to the empty bobbin, spit-splicing the ends to my two plies before finishing plying. As you can see, I still ended up with a little bit of singles left over:




...and here it is after finishing:



...and closer (click to see better):



The yarn seems nicely balanced. (I washed it in hot water and whacked it on the tub a few times before hanging it to dry unweighted.) I ended up with approximately 345 yards (2.15 oz.) of 22 wpi yarn - which is more or less a lace weight (I think I spun my singles finer on average than I did for the Navajo plied yarn... oops!). Here's my 2-ply hanging out with the Navajo plied yarn for comparison:




I like them both!


A Quirky Meme

Brandy of The Purl Parables tagged me (a while ago!) for a quirky meme. The rules are as follows:

* Link to the person who tagged you
* Mention the rules in your blog
* Tell about six unspectacular quirks of your's
* Tag six following bloggers by linking them
* Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged

1. I will look at my (non-digital) watch to see what time it is, only to promptly forget what it said. This is generally only an issue when someone else, having just seen me check my watch, asks me what time it is : )

2. I prefer very dry, chewy raisins to plump, juicy ones (so I'm not a big fan of raisins in baked goods).

3. I like yarn a little too much... yes, some people would consider that a quirk - why do you ask?

4. I often look down to check that I'm in gear ("Drive") while driving in an automatic transmission vehicle.

5. I like to have a salt shaker handy when I'm eating dinner in case I need a little extra flavor.

6. I would rather not have a cat pacing back and forth between me and my keyboard while I type, wooshing it's tail in my face and snuffling my fingers with each pass. (Pretty quirky, I know!)

If you would like to participate, consider yourself tagged. Have a great week!