We are always thinking ahead here at Martita Rampage.

For instance, I have my knitting projects planned (in my head) through Spring 2006. There are a few gaps, though, and of course now there are spinning projects to plan, too. Which brings me to today's spinning question for my expert spinning friends out there in Blogland:

Could I conceivably--you know, if I knew what I were doing-- spin this (Meilke's Farm Rose Quartz):

with this (Mielke's Farm Sunset)?

Or would it be better to spin the two separately and ply them together? The project I have in mind for this combination would be Butterfly, modified to be a cardigan, because I have belly issues. The issues would be that my belly sticks out in an unflattering way, and the wings of Butterfly would merely create a lovely frame for the protruberance. Again, we have the critical striping quandary, now left in deeply inexperienced hands.

Or would blending these two wools into one yarn make a muddy mess? They are variegated already, after all; perhaps I shouldn't mess about with the colors.

So here, just to recap, are the questions at hand:
Can you spin two variegated wools together?
Or is it better to spin them separately and ply them together?
Or should you leave them alone already and stop fussing?

Progress

Here's my most recent spindle-business:



I'm working hard on my spinning and plying tightness. There seems to be a fine line between just twisted enough and overspun. This batch was ever-so-slightly overspun. I was experimenting with keeping a little extra twist in to see if it would prevent the slubbing during plying. It's still a little slubby, but it's beginning to look like yarn! I mean, you could knit with it.

With a few minutes' practice every day, I notice improvement, which is very satisfying. As an adult, you generally don't have that many experiences any more where you can watch yourself improve. For the most part, we do all our learning as children; by the time you hit your mid-30s, it's been a while since you learned anything from scratch. Which means that when you finally do, it can be very frustrating for a while (witness my learning to ski at 32--it's a wonder I didn't break my skis over someone's head), but extra-satisfying when you finally get it.

And didn't a study recently say that learning new things as you age can help stave off Alzheimer's? Skiing at 32, spinning at 42... maybe when I'm 52 I can finally learn to sail.

You spin me round round, baby, round round, like a record, baby

Remember how I said if I could spin dog fur, I was buying a spinning wheel? I was joking...


but not entirely. I can't dismiss any idea that will reduce the tumbleweeds of dog fur in my house. (Yes, I have heard of vacuuming. From what I hear, it is not much fun, and the machines are expensive. And you have to change bags! All that money, and you have to swap parts out every month?)

Yesterday, after a lovely drive with Ms.Melanie, during which we discussed the highs and lows of goth music (I don't know, Melanie, I still think of "Wish" as "The Cure Sell Out," but I'll try it again), we arrived at Claudia's fantabulous fiber party, where my joke became a lot closer to being the truth. Thanks to Spindlerose, Scullery Maid & our lovely and charming hostess, I can now spin lumpy, mishapen yarn on a spindle! Note: please do not think my teachers are responsible for the lumpiness of the "yarn"; that part's all me. They are all very talented spinners.



And thanks to Scullery Maid & Claudia, I now have a CD spindle & roving to practice on.



I met so many knitters and spinners yesterday, I am trying desperately to remember all your names and blogs. Thank you all so much for your help & gifts, from the bottom of my heart. I can't wait to try it all out.

I know I have to practice a little each day so I don't forget. Here is today's effort:

A kind person might call it "slubby." It seems to be going all fine and dandy, smooth and fine, until I get to the plying stage, where it becomes "slubby." Plying is hard (whine).

And a note to all my new spinning friends: I am not buying a wheel. A spindle, sure. I know it's a gateway drug, but I can handle it. Really. It won't become a problem. It won't affect my work or my social life. Especially since I could spin at work, and half my social life is fiber-related! A wheel is not in this year's budget. Maybe next year...

Edelweiss, edelweiss...

That's right: I'm knitting Snowdrop.

My excitement about Snowdrop last night made me realize that I would never get through the Summer of Lace Shawl Challenge if I knit the same pattern three times. I could not face the bird's eye pattern again. And so far, about 20 rows in, I am loving Snowdrop.

Unlike the bird's eye pattern, Snowdrop has lots of just-plain-knitting. And unlike the bird's eye pattern, the pattern stitches are only on the right side of the shawl--the wrong side is purl all the way. SO much easier, and should knit up faster, too (I hope). No, it doesn't look as much like you spent a lifetime tatting, like bird's eye, but I think it has more visual interest because the pattern has more than one element.

Speaking of bird's eye, here's a picture of the blocked shawl. Ignore my cranky expression:



It'll do.

Whew!

Read pattern, came to my senses. Now, with two months left to the Summer of Lace Shawl Challenge, is not the time to try a new, fairly intricate pattern. Snowdrop can be my honeymoon in Canada project. And then I'll finish Rogue. Between my Canadian knitting patterns and my fiance/hubby celebrating the return of hockey, there'll be a lot of "O Canada" around my house this fall!

Although, now that I look at it, without the triangular edging, Snowdrop shouldn't be that bad. And the shawl would be pretty without it. Just not quite as pretty. Hmm...

Lace Blocking

Wow. Lace sure stretches a lot when you block it. My shawl is about 3 times larger now. And so gorgeous! So sheer, so lovely... so pleased.

Here it is on the blocking wires:




and a close-up of the wires and pins for those, like me, who have never used blocking wires before:



(Profuse apologies for the poor choice of blocking towels).

Yes, as Yarn Harlot suspected, threading wires through wet lace is only slightly more fun than "licking cactus." My pattern luckily has little circles in it, ideal for threading wires through. And yes, I could have used pins, but it would have taken thousands and I wasn't up for that. While threading blocking wires through itty-bitty circles was tedious, it wasn't half as bad as sticking pins in every single itty-bitty edge circle would have been.

Now, time to start winding balls of yarn for Shawl #2! And now that I've had another look at Yarn Harlot's snowdrop shawl, I think I might just make one for my bridesmaids. It might take too long, though (clock is SO ticking).

The Cat Lady Sings

A quick kitty update... The vet suspected an infection and put Dinah on antibiotics and anti-inflammatory steroids (prednisone). She takes the pills much better than anyone expected and is already feeling so much better she has eaten 4 cans of cat food and has beaten the dog up twice. We knew she was feeling better when she attacked the dog last night. Back to her old self!

Blocking begins tonight with a good soak in Eucalan, followed by a roll in a towel and grape-like stomping, then stretching and shaping on blocking wires. I can't wait to see how it turns out! Hope I don't rip it...

One almost down, two to go!

Here's shawl #1, pre-blocking:



My sweetie had to take the picture, so there's a good possibility I've jinxed our marriage, but considering he saw the shawl all through the knitting process, it's kind of too late anyway. I don't even really believe the wedding dress jinx. However, I do believe any and all Red Sox jinxes and the jinx that you can't knit your loved one a sweater or the relationship will fall apart. I guess I'm selectively superstitious.

The Travails of Dinah

Well, poor Dinah is back at the vet today to have her mouth and throat checked. Since she bites they have to put her under anesthesia to get her to open her mouth. Now see, if she were a nice cat, all this would be unnecessary. But because she is far, far from docile, it is costing me big bucks to determine why she is not eating. Not that I'm bitter.

I have to remind myself that Dinah does have her good points:

--If you sing "I've Been Working on the Railroad," only you change the lyrics to "Dinah, dinah dinah dinah...," 60% of the time she will come running up to you, mewing.

--She chases the dog around the house, but the dog is so dumb she thinks Dinah is playing. So it's kind of a win-win. The dog gets a playmate, the cat gets to beat the dog up.

--She talks incessantly. She understands English better than I speak cat, so our conversations are usually bilingual: "Hi Dinah, how was your day?" "Mew." "Sorry to hear you were bored. No birds out the window?" "Mew, mew mew. Purroww."

--She is an excellent, undeterrable alarm cat. And she's snuggly in bed, as long as you don't disturb her.

Scant progress on the shawl lately. I had to fly to Pittsburgh for my cousin Parker's memorial service this weekend, and I didn't dare take it with me for fear the needles would be confiscated--and with them, the shawl itself. I am casting off but am concerned that Michelle may be right: it might not be as wide as I would like it to be. But it is so long that I felt I had to stop. I am hoping that the magic blocking process will increase its size, sort of like the products offered in all those spam emails we all get! If not, it's okay--after all, we all know that size doesn't matter.

P.S. (10 minutes later) Just talked to the vet--they found NOTHING. In one week, I will probably have spent $400 on this cat and she's probably not eating just to spite me.

How much is that dog yarn in the window?

From an interview with Lyndall "Granny" Toothman in Foxfire 10:

"...You don't really teach anyone to spin. They've got to learn by trial and error. You've got to get it in your hands until your fingers do it without your thinking. You kind of get in a rhythm....Until you get to the point where you can think about something else and spin, you're not really spinning....You've got to get it in your fingers instead of your head.

"Dog hair is much easier spun and much softer than sheep's wool. I do a lot of dog hair spinning now. Of course I do wool, camel, llama and all the traditional spinning yarns [but I like spinning dog hair the best].

"Sheep wool has to be washed and picked and carded before it is ready to spin. Dog hair is easier because you just pick it up from the combings and run it through the wheel. ...You just wash your dog and comb him when he's shedding.

"Cat hair doesn't spin as well as dog hair does. They only have one coat of hair, and you have to be very gentle with cat hair. You can't handle it or anything, or it will wad. Cat and rabbit hair both wad, but rabbit hair is not as bad.

"...I even spun some penguin fur one time....it spun beautifully....I can spin duck down if I just get the down [and not the feathers]."

Note: she has even spun human hair, including quite a few shaven beards.


And speaking of cat fur, my poor evil cat Dinah went to the vet yesterday and had blood drawn. It was a very traumatic experience for her. She had to be muzzled to keep her from biting anyone--the muzzle even covered her eyes so she couldn't see. It must have been frightening, but she seemed to calm down actually. Then she had to get her nails clipped and paws restrained so she couldn't scratch anyone. Even I felt sorry for the little devil--although at the same time I thought in the back of my mind that she does bring all this upon herself by not being a nice cat. I know, she looks nice in the picture, but she can take you down. See how her eyes glow?

Look Morticia, I brought you some flowers...

Your favorites! I bet you all thought I was kidding about the hollyhocks. Now do you believe me? I have half a mind to complain to Burpee. They were supposed to be lovely cottagey pastels.

Here's another shot, demonstrating the full effect of the hollyhocks next to my gorgeous peach roses:

"Luke, I am your father..." (spoken into a fan)



So what did I do this holiday weekend? Read and knit. Only one more year left to the Civil War and about 200 pages. Disease and worthless Confederate money are Mary Chesnut's biggest problems. In 1863 Virginia, using Confederate currency, it cost about $60 more to buy 24 yards of flannel than it does today using US dollars. The diary is a real reminder of how hard life was in the 19th century-even without war-and how astonishingly easier modern medicine has made our lives. So many of the diary entries reference entire families killed by smallpox and women and their infants dying in childbirth. And we complain because they haven't discovered a cure for the common cold yet.

And I do believe that shawl #1 is just about done. I held it up to my back last night on its needles, and it hung down to my butt. And I expect it to grow a bit in blocking. Now I'm just waiting for my new blocking wires to get here!