Not to say life hasn’t been fun.  Mr. MmmYarn took me out for my birthday last night, to a restaurant at the top of a fancy hotel downtown. We got all dressed up for it (I was in heels), had a tasty dinner, and did a bit of dancing. I find the dressing up part fun, as long as I don’t do it too often. It’s too bad it was so foggy that all we could see was the lit-up sign at the top of a nearby hotel. The rest of the world outside those windows was a wall of solid white.

I am not participating in the Ravelympics. I set myself plenty of self-imposed deadlines and I did not want to add a real one to the mix. I will do some deadline knitting shortly, though, as I have signed up for Mystery Stole 4. Want to see the materials I picked out? The yarn is from the stash (I swatched last night) and I went bead shopping earlier today:

The Mystery Stole may be madness for me, as Mr. MmmYarn and I are going on vacation the Friday after clue #1 is out, meaning I may not even get clue #2 before we leave depending on what time of the day it’s released. So it may be out for travel knitting and I’ll have a ton of catch-up work to do on three stole clues when we get back.

Oddly, though, even doing vacation planning and watching that much TV the week has been productive fiber-wise and I have progress photos to share today.

The little hat grows very slowly as I’m only knitting on it in short bursts, such as waiting in line for my turn with the surprisingly and unusually efficient postal clerk yesterday:

Why no marathon hat knitting? Because I’m working on the Apres Surf Hoodie almost exclusively on bus rides and at home. The sleeves are done, as you know, and this is the back at the beginning of armhole shaping:

Why, oh why, the color must be so washed out every time I snap a photo is a mystery to me. Imagine the green more the shade of a spearmint Tic Tac candy and you’ve just about got it.

Under the Ott-Lite, the 2 ounces of thin orange singles I managed to whack out photographs bright and bold. This is for the orange and purple 4 ply. Here it is, 25% done, atop a background of one of Mr. MmmYarn’s early weaving projects:

All in all, I can’t complain. Except that the baby sweater’s neckline continues to be uncooperative. It’s entirely my fault for not writing down any part of my thought process.

I’ll go put another inch on Apres Surf before it’s time to go chop okra and onions for bhindi do pyaaza for dinner tonight. Yum!

I am working a larger size for the lower half and a smaller size for the top half. The back looked like this today when it was time for me to take over driving:

This is all just car knitting this weekend, I got no other knitting done. We got home tonight and I spun some more of the electric orange singles and now I’ll go work on the hoodie while we watch the recorded Opening Ceremonies of the Olympics in Beijing. 4 1/2 hours recorded? Gads. I bet with fast forwarding the presumably abundant commercials we can cram it in in less than half that. I like the parade of nations. It’s a great refresher of 9th grade geography.

This fiber felt rougher, longer, and more crinkly than the natural white merino top I spun a few months ago.  I don’t know whether this is because of the individual sheep’s wool or the top’s preparation, or whether natural moorit merino is simply different in texture than natural white merino.

Fiber: 100% merino moorit top
Colorway: Moorit
Quantity: 1 ounce
Finished yarn: 1 skein, 32 yards, worsted weight
Spun at 12:1 on 7/6/2008, Navajo plied at 8:1 on 7/29/2008

This is my first mostly successful Navajo ply project. There was no cursing involved (!) this time around, simply because the singles never broke. I recently bought Judith MacKenzie McCuin’s Handspinning book and it both has photos of how to start a Navajo ply and offers the tip of pulling through several loops before starting the wheel. This did the trick for me. Usually what happens is I break the strand over and over, trying to get the chain started. I call this project “mostly successful” because the chains are not even and the finished yarn is both lumpy and overtwisted. In other words, I made yarn with character!

I did have one area of trouble while plying. I use my right hand to chain and the left both to control the singles coming off the kate and to smooth out any chains as necessary. Doing this, my left hand constantly was in the way of the right and I had to twist my body. With only 1 ounce of fairly thickly spun yarn, though, plying went quickly so I wasn’t too bothered. Now, had I been able to read bowerbird’s post that includes a little sentence about keeping the singles on the right (about 1/3 of the way down that post) before I tried this, or even thought about perhaps MOVING THE KATE TO THE RIGHT SIDE OF MY BODY when my hands were running into each other (duh!), I wouldn’t have had this problem. Location, location, location. Next time I’ll know better

On the wheel for August: traffic-cone-orange merino that I will spin 2 thin singles of, to ply with 2 thin singles of Grimace-purple merino. Wish me luck; the last 4-ply I did took me 6 months.

The Prezioso sweater was nearly done but I decided on the bus yesterday that I really didn’t like the neckline, so I ripped out the last 2 inches and it now looks a little shorter than this:

This is a good thing.

Mr. MmmYarn and I went to the Mid-State Fair in Paso Robles last night. I was particularly interested in seeing the sheep and the home arts building. As I walked in the sheep barn, I realized I didn’t recognize a single breed. Not that I could have recognized them visually anyway, as all were sheared, but each stall bore a small placard listing the sheep’s name and breed. I came to the conclusion that since these were raised for food, meat breeds must be different than wool breeds. Years ago, when I first learned to spin and was still living in this area, I went to the fair and someone had a llama. She gave me a small bit of the fiber for spinning. No fiber at this year’s fair.

The home arts building housed entries in quilting, sewing, baking (most cookies and pies still looked pretty tasty, but having been on display for nearly 2 weeks some of them looked unappetizing, to say the least!), and, of course, knitting and crocheting. Some of the knitting was very well done with some original patterns, too. The first place winner in the baby clothes category was a well-knitted Feburary Baby Sweater (from Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitter’s Almanac). I was surprised that the first place winner in scarves was your basic 12-stitch garter stitch scarf on fat needles with fluffy yarn. I found some of the other scarves far more interesting and technically challenging than the winner. Perhaps the fact that the yarn was in patriotic red-white-blue helped its cause.

I also saw a chicken getting a beauty treatment as she was going to auction in the morning. First she got a soapy bath in dishwashing soap, then a dip in some rinse water, then a thorough blow-dry. She looked lovely when finished. It’s too bad her breed was “roaster” as this makes me certain of her destiny when the fair is over. All animals get cleaned up before going before the auctioneer: cattle get vacuumed so their fur really shines.

It’s coming along quickly. The sleeve in the picture is nearly done and I’ve already worked a few inches on the body. I’ll join body and sleeves and work a raglan yoke in the round until I get to the point at which I want to start the button placket for the front. Then I will work back and forth. I’m still thinking about what kind of a collar to put on it; I’ll have to decide that once I see what the placket looks like.

Pattern: own
Yarn: Schoeller Esslinger Fortissima, 75% wool, 25% nylon, color 085 (navy blue) held together with Froehlich Wolle Blauband Maxi Ringel, 80% wool, 20% nylon, color 7705 (blue stripes plus a green one)
Needles: size 2
Finished size: Toddler
Started 7/25 and finished 7/26/2008

On Thursday I soaked and blocked the finished sleeves of the Apres Surf Hoodie. I had some tense moments while the yarn was wet, pinning out the suddenly and suprisingly gargantuan sleeves. My gauge swatch, that I actually soaked and blocked (an unusual move for me), apparently lied! The sleeves were supposed to be 23″ long total and mine were nearly 31″ when I pinned them down. I actually pinned the sleeves very loosely, stretching them widthwise very minimally and lengthwise not at all.  Dry, my gauge is off by 1/4 stitch and 1/4 row per inch. I can easily adjust for that and need not worry that my sweater’s sleeves are better suited to an orangutan than to me. I have forgiven the gauge swatch.

Now it’s Sunday night, the little hat is finished, Apres Surf is at a non-portable stage, and I have nothing for the bus ride tomorrow. Back I go to the giant pile of yarn I strewed across the bed this afternoon, to see if I can find something that jumps out at me.

Oh, one more thing! The recipient of the 4 chemo hats I wrote about last month finally got them, and while the Swirl Cap is indeed too small (as I expected), she likes and wears the other three. I am glad I was able to do one little thing to help out.

This next photo is a gratuitous one I took at my friend’s request. The player at bat had rather an impressive rear end; unfortunately, my phone’s camera doesn’t zoom or even have a lot of power to begin with, so you’ll have to use your imagination. Or look up player #33 and hope to find something other than a head shot:

The game was pretty good. I found it to have a little less action than the 3 other games I’ve been to, so I spent some time admiring the WIPs and many hand-knitted garments in the stands around me. Some of the babies had exquisite little sweaters on, clearly the children of or closely related to some great knitters. With the bus ride to and from work, then back out to the ballpark and watching the game, I finished the hat, another of the rebel-baby color choices:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Zitron Trekking Pro Natura, 75% superwash wool, 25% bamboo, color 1603, held doubled throughout
Needles: 2
Finished size: Toddler
Started 7/21 and finished 7/22/2008

Fortunately, I come prepared for just such a calamity, so the back of the Apres Surf Hoodie saw some baseball action too:

I know, not much to see there yet.

The giveaways at this year’s game were a Stitch & Pitch baseball hat and apparently a giant pile of Malabrigo that I missed out on by waiting until the 4th inning to go get my freebie. I found 5 large, empty tables and one table with a small pile of black hats. Here we are, in our hats, enjoying the game:

Sorry for the blurriness; a stranger took the photo and she wasn’t familiar with how my phone worked. I’m on the right.

The Giants won, 6 to 3.

This actually worked very well. I was concerned there might be felting because of the steam generated by my tea but the cozy is doing just fine.

Friday’s pink hat is done:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Fearless Fibers 100% Superwash Merino Wool in Peppermint Pink, held doubled throughout
Needles: size 2
Size: Toddler
Started 7/18 and finished 7/20/2008

The yardage in this Fearless Fibers yarn was very generous: 550 yards to 4 ounces. I made a pair of socks for me, booties for my niece, and this hat (with the yarn held doubled only for the hat) and I still have enough left over to make stripes in something. A great bargain!

I’m trying to use up some sock yarn scraps so you’ll be seeing a few more hats here in coming posts. Perhaps also interspersed with progress on the Apres Surf Hoodie. Sleeves are almost finished.

Had there been advertisements before the previews, too, I’d probably have hit the crown decreases before the show even started. Why, if a movie is scheduled to start at 8, doesn’t it start at 8? If I wanted to see advertisements and previews, I would get there at 7:30. But it turned into good knitting time for me, and, mercifully, there were only previews to listen to before the show.

The Apres Surf Hoodie sleeves are nearing the caps.

Last week’s bus booties are finally done. The nearby cafe has those silver tables you frequently see my knitting posed on, but the fellow there had just packed those up so I made do with an obliging mailbox. I won’t tell you how often the wind skittered those little booties right off the curved edge of the mailbox. Mmm… bright booties in jelly-candy colors:

Pattern: own
Yarn: Zitron Trekking XXL, 75% superwash wool, 25% nylon, color 158
Needles: size 2
Size: newborn - 6 months
Started 7/3 and finished 7/14/2008

This Trekking XXL seems slightly thinner than other Trekking XXL I have used. I usually use size 2 needles, and did for these booties, but for the Jaywalkers I made a few months ago I ended up going down to size 1s. These booties will hit the washer and the dryer tomorrow so they can tighten up a little.

We visted Mr. MmmYarn’s parents over the weekend. They live just outside the same town I lived in until I moved here 6 years ago. That town used to have a yarn shop but that one closed in 1999. By coincidence, I ran into the former shop’s owner at the local farmers’* market on Saturday morning, and as she also ran the knitting group I used to attend and knows how gung-ho I am about knitting in public and with others, she told me about knitting and beer that afternoon in the garden behind a new shop that opened in past year or so. Well, now, I couldn’t pass that up, could I? I couldn’t have any of the wonderful-looking home-brewed beer (driving, you know) on that warm afternoon but did find a consolation prize (Click for big, as usual. This skein is quite pretty):

Plus I got to catch up with 2 people from the old gang. Very nice indeed.

Lest you think I’ve been a lazy knitter, making only a pair of booties since my last post, I did knit an entire scarf out of some of my handspun but it’s too short so I need to frog and re-think the thing, plus I started the Apres Surf Hoodie:

The yarn is Baruffa Aerobic and it’s a very brilliant spearmint green; the dull color here was caused by the sun dipping down below the tops of the buildings a minute too early. That big line on the right sleeve is where I blocked my sleeve/swatch, which turned out to be exactly the gauge I needed so I put it back on the needles and forged ahead.

In family news, the little baby surprise jacket I made of Tofutsies back in March and the matching booties I made in April have a wearer to go with them as of very early Tuesday morning.

* I see this written as “farmers,” “farmer’s,” and “farmers’,” and I never know which one’s right. They all could be, I suppose, depending upon your interpretation of the phrase.