The Tour...

...or as they say in more than one place we've lived: the turr.

Once again, I'm participating in fiber-centric games on Ravelry.  This time its the Tour de Fleece.  The basic premise is that roughly 1300 spinners have decided to spin every day the tour rides.  The idea is to challenge yourself, expand your horizons, and to do something amazing.

I spun an obscene amount in the first few days of the tour.

4oz. "Cauldron" by Hello Yarn, singles

BlueMeany Laceweight singles, carded by yours truly

8oz. "Field of Screams" by Spunky Eclectic

8oz. "Field of Screams" plied (left) and 8oz. "SuperYarn" plied (right - it's one ply "Cauldron" and one ply "Garland")

And then the night photos began.  This is the only one with which I'll torture you right now.  Understand that the *yarn* is nice, it's just the *photo* that's terrible.  

4oz. "Grunge" by Hello Yarn

Then there was the most fun girls' weekend in Washington, and a back injury...both of which have slowed my progress.  I'm also working on a somewhat-secret project that I hope to have descriptions and pictures of here in the next few weeks.  And it involves roughly 3 lbs of fiber!

Stay tuned...

Socks of Joy and cleverness!

I'm slightly obsessed with socks.  I think they're somehow the epitome of knitting.  As if, once you knit socks, you've finally arrived.  Keep in mind I only started to feel this way after I figured out how to knit socks, but I digress...

The benevolence and patience that is my husband, tells people he knows when I'm knitting socks because my language takes a turn for the worse.  Heels in particular make me cuss.

These are some of my early attempts.  They all have their little flaws, but I love them because I made them.  All by myself!  The obnoxious pink and purple one is from my very first pair.

Now, this next pair is a stroke of self-proclaimed genius on my part.  I won't tell you how much I paid for the sock yarn in question, because you will fall over.  What I WILL tell you is that I will never buy this yarn again.  I walked through the heels of these socks on their very second outing.  Since this is some of the prettiest yarn to which I've ever succumbed, to say I was upset doesn't quite cover it. 

Enter Handspun Yarn ex Machina!  The new heels on these socks are handspun, navajo-plied Wensleydale.  Wensleydale is a coarser wool than you'd ever buy in a commercial garment.  Its staple length (the length of the individual hairs) is roughly 8 inches, categorizing this as a longwool.  Merino, by comparison, has a staple length of around 1-1.5 inches.  The long long staple length of the Wensleydale means that it will wear like iron.  The heels of these socks will probably be unearthed, in totally wearable condition, by archeologists after Battlestar Galactic becomes our Bob Dylan soundtracked future.   In short - I'm awesome and these heels please me to no end.  

Lastly, we have a heavenly slice of someone else's genius.  These are knit from self-striping, self-patterning yarn, handdyed by The Painted Tiger.  They are brilliant!  I'd lost my knitting mojo (knit-jo?) for a couple weeks, until I saw this yarn.  It's so not me, I tend to hate self-patterning sock yarn, but I could not resist this particular siren's song.  I took this picture approximately one and one-half days after the yarn arrived at my door.  Bliss.

Now, tell me, doesn't that make you want to knit socks, too?  

Sampling

I'm usually too much of a weenie to do any sampling when I spin.  I don't want to waste a single gram of my delicious handdyed fibers.  Ironically, fabulously handdyed fibers are generally the ones that would benefit the most from sampling.

As I'm still learning how to photograph things before I start deconstructing them, there are very few beginning-of-this-project pictures in this post.

If you'll recall the singles mentioned in THIS post however, we'll get off to a decent start.

These singles are Targhee wool in "Garland" from my Hello Yarn fiber club April shipment.  They are bright and happy and wonderful, but I only have 8oz. and I'd really like to stretch it as far as possible.  

My May shipment of club fiber is a luminously sinister set of colors in "Cauldron," also 8oz.  

I really wanted to combine the two - mainly because that way I'd end up with almost a pound of the same yarn, but also because I've been dying to blend up two colorways and see what happens.    I asked the wise yarn sages over at ravelry and was informed that it would either be a brilliant pairing or a muddy mess.  Ugh.  

I braided the two colorways together (you're going to have to take my word for this as there were no photographs taken,) and asked the long-suffering Mr. YarnMadeMe for his opinion.  His answer of "I have no idea, you're the yarn expert" was both flattering and totally unhelpful.  

This is where sampling comes in.  I split each long strip of roving into six (more or less) equal widths and spun one long strip of each color, plus another half ounce of "Garland" on it's own.  

The horribly edited photo above is fairly representative of the outcome.  The skein on the left is 1ply each of "Garland" and "Cauldron."  The skien on the right is "Garland" alone.  While I'm completely in love with "Garland" all by its vibrant lonesome, I love the blended skein enough that it's where I'm headed next in the particular yarn adventure.  

Stay tuned for picture of a POUND OF SUUUUUUUUPERYARN!!  Dun dun dun!

Batts in the Belfry...

I have not been able to get these batts off my mind.  Apparently, this state of affairs gives me corny post titles.  I'm going to run with it. 

I'm hoping to participate in this years Tour de Fleece on Ravelry.  The basic premise is to set a spinning goal for yourself, and spin towards it every day that the tour rides - ostensibly watching the tour now and again.  There are teams to join.  I'm on Team Rookie and Team Monkey Farts, which is the Spunky Eclectic team, named after a favorite colorway.  The entire endeavor is basically a loosely organized, free for all, with prizes.  

In any case, I would like to try my hand at laceweight yarn, having never spun it on purpose.  I have big plans for a ginormous circular shawl, on which I can knit all summer, that will be light enough knitting for when it is 100 degrees outside.  We all know what they say about good intentions, so let's just watch this particular project out of the corners of our eyes, shall we?

The idea for this shawl was born of the most spectacularly blue fiber ever, dyed onto one of the scratchiest fibers ever.  So, I purchased a much softer blue fiber to go with it, hoping to end up with a heathered yarn that wouldn't tone down that magnificent cobalt too much.

Yes, intrepid readers, we're back to night-time photography!  The big twist of fiber in the foreground is the beloved blue.  The mess in the background is my concession to wearability.  In more technical terms, the cobalt fiber is 8oz of Norwegian Wool in "Violet Beauregard" by Spunky Eclectic, and the lighter fiber is 4oz. of Corriepaca (corriedale/alpaca blend) in "Blue Moon"  

I hated to tone down the brilliance of "violet" too much so I split up the fiber into 2:1 ratio and prepped it for the carder.  Each batt is two layers of "blue moon" alternated with 3 layers of "violet."  Nevermind the seemingly incompatible math, the fiber ratios are the same, I promise.  The "blue moon" layers are just thinner than the "violet" layers.  See?  My brain isn't completely gone.  

For a truly heathered batt, I'd need to run these through a couple more times, but now I'm looking forward to a bit of striping.  We'll just have to see.  

Don't check back for updates, just let them flow.  We don't want to jinx it.  Y'all know you're just here for my fabulous photography anyway.

Nancy's Shawl(ette)

A co-worker of mine is retiring this year.  She's spent her victory lap keeping me sane.  Since she's moving, in addition to moving on, I thought a Traveling Woman shawl would be appropriate.  This is designed so that she can throw it on and go.  I hope she loves it.

You'll have to forgive the exhausted nature of this post.  The school year ends June 1st, after which you can expect me to collapse, and THEN recommence blogging with a bit more energy.  Until then, here's a few more photos.

Told you there'd be more photos of my fence!

Spinning from the last couple weeks

First up, the penultimate skein from our colorwheel project!  It's 100% corridale wool.  This is the skein from the crockpot.  I have yet to spin the top from the oven.

It's not exactly what I'd envisioned, but I think I like it.  The Monster is completely enamored.  I think I'll try and crochet it into a Queen Anne's Lace Scarf for her.  All 4 year olds need wild scarves.

Next is a skein I spun for a co-worker.  She's retiring this year and is a knitter!  She and I have plans to hang out next year and knit.  It's always nice to make things for people who understand them. 

The top was Spunky Eclectic's "Chocolate Covered Cherries" colorway.  I didn't think I'd like it as much as I do.  I'm hoping it has enough red in it for Jane.  

This next skein is for She To Whom He'd Best Propose (aka - my baby brother's girlfriend.)  She's completed her commitment to the United Stated Air Force and should have more free time on her hands in the coming months.  Also, she crochets.  You see why He'd Best Propose?  

The top was also Spunk Eclectic, in the Feb '09 club colorway of "New Day."  Not only are the colors something I think she'll like, but the name kinda fits.  I love it when yarn comes together!

Lastly we have Spunky Eclectic Nov '09 club colorway "Istanbul Sunset."  I'm not actually a walking advertisement for Spunky Amy, I just have a LOT of her stuff.  And I like her.  And she's great.  Okay, maybe I'm a bit of an advertisement.  But in a good way, so it's okay. 

Hopefully, this skein will allow me to complete my Tappan Zee cardigan.  I'm doing evenly spaced rows of yarn overs instead of the diamond motif.  The lace was getting overwhelmed by the yarn.  My way is much better.  I promise to post pics when it's all done. 

Only two and half more weeks of school!  

Best Zucchini Bread EVER

I can be admittedly superlative much of the time.  But this time it's completely justified.

I rarely bake, as it usually ends in disaster.  This afternoon, after spending 45ish minutes in our tornado closet listening to the sirens go off, I needed some food-shaped comfort.  As impulse would have it, I had all the fixin's to satisfy a wicked craving for zucchini bread.  I whipped it up as I do most things, by tossing in whatever I had at hand, and it. is. unbelievable.   I started with Betty Crocker, as she tends to be a solid foundation, and improvised the rest.  It's dark like the night, surprisingly light as a feather, and not too sweet.

Drool-Worthy Zucchini Bread
3 cups shredded zucchini with all the juice
1 cup sugar in the raw
2/3 cup barley malt
2ish teaspoons vanilla
4 eggs
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 cups (ish) white flour
2/3 to 1 cup ground flax meal
2ish teaspoons baking soda
1 heaping teaspoon salt
1 heaping teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
3/4 teaspoon baking powder

1. Preheat oven to 350.  Move bottom rack to lowest position so that tops of loaf pans will be in the middle of the oven.  Grease the bottoms of two 8x4 inch bread pans.

2. In large bowl, mix wet ingredients throughly.  Stir in dry ingredients making sure the batter remains fairly wet and pours easily.

3. Pour evenly into two loaf pans and bake 50-60 mins.  Cool in wire rack.

4. Gorge.