At the eery end of my summer I had obligatory feelings of guilt at the fact that I accomplished very little. I have continued a bad habit of reading very little, I didn’t really write anything of consequence. I didn’t do much work for TealArt. I didn’t give any attention to projects like “Where We Ought to Be,” and I didn’t really attend to psychology projects.

That said, I think I would like to point out a few really rather valuable accomplishments that I made. I knit a lot. Discovered that I could follow a pattern (well, at least those written by Alice Starmore), and I discovered that I actually like making socks, and that I have a great love of patterned work (even if I still don’t really care for cables. I learned a lot about myself as a teacher, both through my experience of working in the yarn store and as I helped people with computer issues. Maybe I could have made more money or published more, but really, that’s ok.

The other lesson that the summer has offered me, comes I think from the contrast of my summer with the way my life is turning out at Beloit. My classes (a normal load!) challenge me, but don’t really overwhelm me. I’m working on a number of academic related projects that inspire and engage me, without petty. And I really like my psych major, in a way that I haven’t before.

At this moment, I’m daunted not by the amount of work that seems to pile up on my plate each night, or the fear of what’s to come, but rather, the lenght of the semester. I’m left wondering: will I remain interested in all these classes, projects, and commitments in the middle of november? Will that be enough?

Time will tell. But in any case it’s good to be back

I wrote this entry a number of weeks ago, and then didn’t post it, and then I my offline weblog editor needed to be registred, and one thing lead to another. So here it is. Don’t hold it up to the usual Standards. Please. Cheers, and check back soon.

I had this little promise with myself going, where I told myself that I wouldn’t post here again about knitting stuf until I did some critque kind of post. So here it is. Critique requires an active enguagement with other work, if not dirrectly in the piece, then as a secondary effect of interaccting with other work and ideas. I’ve become woefully bad at this in the past few months, and I suppose that’s why I haven’t been writing. I’m going to make a mental note to fix this. Being a bad citizen of this owrld, I haven’t read Harry Potter, not any of them, so that might be a project to embark upon in the near future, and I have all of them with me, so now is as good a time as any.

I have been watching television a bit more than usual which I suppose doesn’t say very much given that I go months without watching even a spec. Now I’m not turnning into a mindless numb, but I’ve found, TV, is helpful in the persuit of knitting. I think I’ve gotten so used to knitting as a background feature to the rest of my life: durring meetings, while reading, while waiting, while riding in the car, while listening to lectures, etc. that I have a hard time devoting all of my concentration to a knitting project, so now, when I don’t have to concentrate on other things, if I’m just knitting I get antsy. So there I am.

I’ve been watching a lot of Farscape. Seems' the internet connection where I reside now, has a Usenet sever that carries binaries. Which I think is mostly responsible for the fact that out of 140 gigs of storage avilable (40 from the ipod, and 100 on this powerbook) I have about 10 free at the moment. I might be able to eeke out another one or two out of the ipod, but needless to say, I need more stoarge. Firewire drives, here I come.

But about the televison. Here’s what I’ve been watching: Farscape seasons 1 and 3 (coincidence, haven’t found any season 2 yet, and wouldn’t have space for it if I could). Stargate (both series, I’m almost compleatly up to date, having seen all of Atlantis, and all but a very few SG1), and I’ve been rounding out my Babylon 5 collection, because I feel I’ve been remis.

On my list of things to get: There was a spell of really good episodes of B5 in the middle of the third season, and I’d like to have those. I also want to get Firfely, because those episodes are the kind of thing that I’d really like to have in my collection (but I have friends who have the DVDs and given my lack of hard drive space, that puts that on hold for a while. And so that’s that.

As I watch more Farscape, I find it reminds me a lot of Firefly. They both adopt a “wild” view of space, that is where governments don’t or can’t extend control over interseteller territory for the most part, and starships with a reasonable sized cast operate. Also I think there’s a definate similarity between Malcom Renolds and John Crition. They’re both spunky leaders who don’t dake themselves terribly seriously, and I find that to be an attractive characteristic in TeeVee science fiction. I’m not sure that I like it as much when it’s written, but that’s just me.

When someone asks me “how was your day/week/summer/year” I, like everyone else say, “pretty good on the whole.” I mean really now, is there anything else that someone can say?

But that makes for a really boring essay, but I when I think about the quality of my days, weeks, summers, and years, I think I tend to think about them in terms of what I’ve produced.

I’ve had a good summer on the whole, but I haven’t gotten much writing done, I’ve completely neglected a minor academic project. At the same time, I’ve grown a lot as a spinner, I’ve discovered and developed a my inner pedagogical side, and I have a basket of some pretty cool knitted objects to my credit.

I think that I’ve produced about as much this summer, as I did the summer I wrote the first 42% of the book. (That is the summer before my junior year of high school for those of you keeping track at home). But of course it’s in a much different form.

That summer, when I was done, I had an intellectual creation which, especially in retrospect isn’t that great, but seemed really promising at the time. When I was writing Circle Games, I thought that I had a half decent shot at getting it published, and I thought that one way or another that professional/freelance writing would be a large part of my career both in the long term and in the short term (during the end of high school and college). That’s something that hasn’t quite panned out, and while writing remains a large part of my future career plans, it no longer has that sort of vocational aspect that it once did. I don’t get home at night, and say, “gee, I hope I can get a few moments to write tonight.” On the other hand, in many ways, life and days at school revolve around writing, so maybe that’s a healthy reaction.

I guess ultimately the difference between my knitting and my writing, is that my essays and the book had, at least on the conceptual level, the ability to live on and beyond me. Even on the much smaller scale of this blog, I have the possibility of affecting people by these words who I don’t know and have no connection to except the words I’m putting together. The knitting is different. It’s artistic and creative all the same, but the effect is different. I affect myself, as knitting is entertaining, and I affect the people I teach knitting to, and the people I who wear things I’ve knitted. But it’s much more direct, more concrete, and finite. Especially in response to the “how was your day/week/summer/year” question.

Being who I am, with the analytical lens that I seem to have, I think I should draw attention to the gendered aspect of this comparison. I think knitting has been a women’s activity, not particularly because of the impact of the industrial revolution (but I won’t deny that that has had a huge impact on knitting), but because of the more ephemeral aspect of the craft. Since the advent of agriculture, women’s work has tended towards activities that didn’t have an enduring quality, and I think knitting is very much a product of this trend. I mean of course there are lots of factors at play here, but I think this idea should be incorporated into gender and knitting related historical analyses.

In a related tangent, I’m going to read a book called “No Idle Hands; A Social History of American Knitting.” It looks really cool. I’ll get back to you on this.

So there. And I didn’t even tell you what I’ve been knitting, so stay tuned.

I’m breaking the rule of one subject per post a bit, but I have a few things to point out:

• On Friday, 8 July 2005, I posted three times. Now in fairness, one of these posts was before I went to bed on thursday in the wee hours of Friday Morning, nevertheless it is important to note that the world did don’t come to an end.
• I finished the sweater I was working on. The wonky dye-lot didn’t seem to affect it terribly, but I’m still going to have to have a word with the maker because it’s sort of inexcusable to buy 5 skeins of the same dye lot and find them radically different from each other half way through the body of a sweater. I’ll report more on this in a bit. I’m going to write up the pattern so there will be notes.
• I decided on the Webs option for the yarn. It seems webs is having a sale now, so most of the yarn I want was marked NFD (no further discount) and was therefore not subject to the “orders over 60 USD get an automatic 20% off). This didn’t deter me from getting several projects of yarn.
• I have started to knit socks while I wait for this yarn to come in. Wow. I like making socks, it’s just, I think I need to stick to worsted weight socks from here on out, because the fingering and sport ones are just too much for me.
• I think I’ve figured out a way to knit set-in sleeves as in the EPS seamless yoke manner. News forthcoming.
• Yes I am obsessed with knitting. No it isn’t all I think about. Yes I may in-fact post about something else one of these days.

Thats all folks.

I had the opportunity to scour the shelves of the shop today, and I’m coming to the stark realization that sport weight yarn is really not that easy to come by. It’s not hip, it doesn’t go by that fast, and I’m looking for what most would consider fairly boring yarn. Plain wool or wool like fiber. So be it. Additionally, I learned that the shop isn’t going to be stocking Dale of Norway in the future, so getting yarn for the St. Moritz sweater is out. (I’d have to buy the colors we don’t have in bags of 10, which won’t do if I need 2 balls of one color) Furthermore, the chances of a cherry tree hill order coming in while I’m still here are slim, especially if I want this to be my next project. So my current plan of attack is to: hold off on the dale pattern: I’m not ready to make it yet anyway, and it looks like I’m going to have to order that on line, anyway. As for the other sweater, I have a number of options, and mostly for my own purposes I’d like to review them:

Lets keep in mind: Cheap is good, but I’d like to avoid skimping. I’m aiming for sport weight yarn. Because I intend to knit all-over stranded color work, I want to use fine yarn so the end garment isn’t too thick, and because I want this to take a while. I need about 1000-1200 yards of each color. I’ve thought about having one variegated strand against one black strand. So that’s where it stands

Elann Alpaca Option: I’m really a huge fan of alpaca. Its such a nice fiber, and really I’d like to try and use it when possible. I’m not going to pay a lot out of my way to use it, but given the nature of this project I have been considering it heavily. This yarn is 70/30 Baby Alpaca/“Fine” Merino, and I’ve been thinking about a Juniper/Celestial Blue combination, or a Pearl Grey Tweed/Saxony Blue. The total price would come to $49.84, before shipping. Pros: price, fiber content. Cons: color.

Knit Picks Andean Treasure Alpaca Sport: This has been the alternate to the yarn that I would find in the shop. I’ve not actually experienced it, but I trust Knit Picks' reputation. I’m leaning towards Summer Sky/Mystery color combo, with a fog/granite option running a close second. Total Cost: $75.80. Pros: Fiber, Color, Free Shipping. Cons: Price, Slightly Limited Color Options, and heat (too warm to work on in the summer).

**Top of The Lamb Sport:**I’ve been really fond of this Brown Sheep Yarn for a while. It’s sport weight, knits up real nice. It’s like their much more popular lambs pride yarn, except without the mohair, it has less guard hairs, and I think that makes it feel nicer. It would be in my best interest to buy two 1 lb cones, undecided about the color, but I like this color card more. I’m partial to some combo Charcoal Heather, Cobalt Blue, Blue Flannel, or the Teal. But I’m open to suggestions. Total Cost: ~$52. Pros: Color, Cool Looking Yarn, Possibility for leftovers (and not having to worry about running out); Cons: Just plain old wool, less portable.

**Webs Option:**The colors aren’t great, but gosh the price is. If I can go into an order with someone, webs gives 20% off orders over 60 dollars. It wouldn’t take a lot of convincing for me to get a cone of this for a shawl, I’d jump on this for this project, but there really isn’t a good color for this sweater. Anyway, I digress. The colors are limited but I’m thinking about Sage/Teal or Blue/Moss. Total Price: $3o. Pros: Price! Cons: Limited Color Selection, don’t know how it feels, maybe a very slightly bit bulkier than I want.

I think that’s all the options at the moment. The Elann Alpaca option seems to combine a number of good features, but I’m unsure about the colors, I like top of the lamb as an option, and it might be light enough to work out in this season. The TotL is a yarn that’s always going to be around, and the Webs option is the right price and it’s closeout so that might be nice. I think the Knit Picks option is loosing at the moment though.

Anyway, I expect people to comment and give me strong advice, none of this “you’ll decide the best option” stuff. Be firm, if I don’t like it, I won’t listen to the advice, but I need help here. So yeah. There you go. Cheers.

So I’ve Made a New Pact To Myself: Only Blog about one thing at a time. That is, if i have an update about my personal life, I’ll separate it into a different post from all my knitting related content, and so forth. There is no precedent at TealArt, for only posting once a day, so I don’t think it would break up our format to break things up. Frankly there isn’t a precedent for posting once a day, but that’s another issue entirely.

So having finished the endless white merino spinning project, I decided to add some color to my spinning project. Most of my spinning, like my knitting, is geared towards larger projects, I tend to look for wool in 1.5-2 pound lots, and spin enough for a sweater. None the less, the shinny fibers have attracted my attention and found their way into my spinning basket. (doesn’t that sound quaint? “my spinning basket” well itis_ a basket, just one of those ever handy collapsable laundry hampers._). So I use some of these nifty fibers as interim projects, while I take a breather from looking at the same old white merino roving, or whatever I’ve been spinning for the past month.

So my interim project this time around was a 2 or 4 oz (I forget) lot of this amazing blue and green silk/merino 50/50 blend. In my effort to be able to get a whole project out of it (a whole project that isn’t a pair of hand warmers) I spun really rather fine singles. I wanted to get lace weight, and I think I got there more or less. It’s singles, and I’m setting the twist a lot. It’s almost dry, and we’ll see how it holds up. I’m totally giving this away, because there isn’t that much of it I would want to do with it, and someone will enjoy it more than I.

Once I finished that, I had two options. I have 2 pounds of alpaca, and 24 or 28 oz of this awesome grey corriedale. I decided on the corriedale, because I wanted more practice before I dove into the alpaca. I’ve been calling this gansey yarn. Probably because Stephanie is spinning the same basic stuff (except she’s washing and carding the wool herself. Brave woman!) for a gansey.

I’m trying to spin a bulkier yarn. In part because my efforts until now have all been for slimmer yarns. Also, the corriedale is more harsh than merino (I wouldn’t say significantly, but it has gaud hairs, and I can’t see a reason for an outer garment to be so finely knitted.

Another thing I’m doing, is two ply (this is what the title references.) I’ve until now been navajo plying everything. it’s easy, it keeps color order in the singles together, and you don’t have to worry about spinning two equal amounts on two bobbins, or needing to have a ball winder (to make a center pul ball). But I figure, if I don’t get equal amounts on two bobbins, I’ll have enough chance to even it out eventually, I might not be so willing to go about it this way with smaller lots, but with this huge lot, I’m not worried. I’m really pleased with the process and the result is pretty good. I’m not good enough for this to be really even… I fear that it’d make a lousy gansey, but it’d be nice for some sort of overcoat, if I have enough, But I suppose I can get more.

Anyway, worries for another day. It’s nifty. Two ply is sweet. I’m going to move on and end this post before it gets any more disjointed.

I was about to title this entry “Yarn Tribulations” But I realized that I’ve done that already. So be it.

Having blathered on sufficiently about spinning last night, I’m going to take this opportunity to bather on about a few yarn purchase decisions. that i’ve been going over.

For starters, given my current employment at a yarn shop (and the resulting discount), I’m going to order myself a St. Moritz 2003 sweater kit. Because the shop carries Dale Yarn, and I’m not going to get any better deal on this one. I don’t expect that I’ll start knitting on this one terribly soon, but it’s worth a shot. For those of you who don’t remember for the past 8 months, or so, give or take, I’ve been quite interested in a Dale of Norway, sweater called “St. Moritz 2003” Apparently it was the official sweater of the Swedish ski team for the 2002-2003 season. Whatever, I think it just looks really cool. Probably hideously complicated, but no matter, I’m determined. The XS size for the adult sweater is, get this 44 inches. If the pattern for the kids sweater isn’t bad, and just looks like the adult one, then I’ll do that (the kids XL size is 41 inches, and while still a wee bit big, probably just right for this experience). This will probably be my winter break project, as I’m in no great rush to finish it.

Slightly higher up in the cue, is a sweater idea that I’ve been toying around with for a few weeks. Inspired by Wendy’s Ingridsweater, I’ve wanted to take a simple color work pattern, and using sport weight, make a sweater. I really like Wendy’s idea of using one variegated/hand dye strand and one solid strand. The store where I work caries, Cherry Tree Hill Sock yarn, which is a slightly more economical version of the Koigu (in my opinion). It’s superwash, which doesn’t bug me that much in this case. It’s still expensive, and I’ve run into a little stumbling block with this yarn. According to the website, and the label the hand dyes are 420yrds./4oz, and the solids are 370yrds/4oz. And the yarns are the same as near as I can tell.

Update: Apparently: the solids are dyed at the mill, which makes a yarn that’s slightly, but apparently unnoticeably more twisted. This accounts for the difference in yardage.

In competition with this are what I think are amazing yarns from Knit Picks. Now the quandary is that, I feel like for this summer when I’m working at this yarn store, I should buy yarn from them, because I have opportunities to get yarns (at prices) that I’ll never find again, and Knit Picks is going to be there later so I’m not in a rush with them. Having said that, knit picks yarn for this project, and Cherry Tree Hill yarn price wise are about equivalent. My Knit Picks choices are also alpaca yarns (in all or in part). On the other hand, there aren’t solids and hand-dies in the knit picks option.

First off I was thinking of this yarn, it’s sport weight, and baby alpaca is always amazing. The pattern could get lost in the fuzz, but I’ll have to get enough color contrast. I was thinking of Summer Sky/Mystery, Fog/Granite, or Fog/ Woods. There’s also This yarn which is an alpaca, silk, merino mix. It’s bulkier, but the yardage is only 14 yrds, less per 50 grams, than the sport weight alpaca. So I don’t know. I’ll probably make sweaters out of both of these options.

So that’s it. I have a private knitting lesson in an hour and some chores to do before then, so I’ll stay in touch.