Learning To Drop Spindle

Posted on May 7, 2020 by atangledyarn84

I might need to send Etsy a thank you after this self isolation period. I think I have been coping pretty well with not over eating or being overly sedentary but I have been kind of soothing my fears and anxiety with small business online shopping. I was disappointed about missing Knitting in the Heartland back in April whereI was supposed to take a drop spindle class. So I grabbed life by the bootstraps and ordered a drop spindle I knew nothing about on Etsy. When it got here, I just fired up YouTube and started watching lessons….

I watched about 40 minutes of tutorials and just got myself started. I pulled some mystery wool roving from my inherited spinning stash and go to learning. I am using the “park and draft” method of drop spindling on a top whorl spindle. I have no idea how many ounces my spindle is. It’s nice and heavy and seems to making yarn quite nicely.

Drafting has been a steep learning curve. I am working on a long draw method that focuses on getting a thin line of fiber without breaking it. I am still working on this skill. My wool was in roving form and I’m peeling off strips and spinning from those. The fiber is not the nicest but it’s working fine for this beginner.

My yarn is definitely thick and thin in nature. I’m working on not over twisting and getting consistent drafting. I’m not sure I’m succeeding but I am sure having fun! I have about an ounce of this mystery fiber so it shouldn’t take me that long to spin up. I’m really interested to see what comes our of this? I am definitely spinning a singles yarn as I have zero brain space to ply this small amount of fiber.

Happy Spinning!

Adding To Weekender

Posted on May 6, 2020 by atangledyarn84

I’ve been quietly working away on my Weekender Sweater. And as of last night I hit the pattern mentioned 15 inches of body knitting. I’m using helical knitting and I’m pleased with how the skeins are working out color wise.

Now here’s the deal, I have a friend from college theater group who also knits and she knit the Weekender last year. She did not add any length and regrets it. I want a big cozy sweater and I feel like my waistline post two babies and how tall my torso is……that 15 inches is not sufficient. I need to add some undetermined amount of body length.

My project has been made even cheerier by the unicorn stitch marker ala Hannah of the Corner of Craft. I have knit maybe three to three and half inches of body since I last blogged about this. I’m going to move my marker and keep knitting the body.

I hope to actually be allowed to see my Mom soon and have her help me measure my torso. I’d like to get an idea for my length from underarm to torso so that I can do some maths to figure out an optimal body length using the pattern schematic. And also to make sure I’ll have enough yarn to make decent sleeves, lol.

Happy Knitting!!

The Third Block

Posted on May 5, 2020 by atangledyarn84

I did manage to get my skein of Apothefaery Fibers suri alpaca in Snowdrift skeined up with no major issues. I need to pay homage to the knitting gods for giving me good luck with floofy yarn….before I am struck down with tangled yarn.

I have also officially ran out of of the last the original skein of suri alpaca and now just added the snowdrift skein. The plus side of floofy yarn is that I can spit splice EXTREMELY easily! You really can see the first two of the three color blocks. I am intrigued to see how the third lines out.

My next decision point is to decide how slouchy to make this hat? I have a recipient in mind and she hard gorgeous natural big beautiful hair so I need to noodle through how to best fit for that. In the meantime…..lots of glorious round and round stockinette to soothe my trouble away.

What is soothing your troubles these days?

Yarn Mystery Box

Posted on May 4, 2020 by atangledyarn84

I have been listening to the Nomad Yarns podcast for a couple of years now. It is a married couple who ran a yarn shop turned into yarn truck as well as dye independent label yarn. They have small children and pretty much speak my life. In this time of cancelled events and social distancing they advertised mystery boxes. You pick your price level and give them some suggestions of colors, weights of yarn, etc and they put together a surprise.

You guys….this was so worth it! It was a happy mail day indeed. My box was bursting at the seams and full of goodies!

I received two skeins of West Yorkshire Spinners Aire Valley DK in a nice blue, a skein of Nomad Yarn Twisted Branch sock yarn, a custom needle gauge, two mini skeins of Nomad Yarns Pallete, a set of Carbonyz Size 2 double pointed needles, a set of Knitters Pride stitch markers, and some waste yarn.

I loved everything in my box and it was neat to not know what I was getting. I have zero idea what to do with any of this and my stash is already at SABLE but this was a good investment. I supported a small business and I got to have the joy of new to me goodies.

Would you every order a mystery box?

All The Yard Work

Posted on May 1, 2020 by atangledyarn84

Happy May Day!!

Today I will regale you with my yard work adventures from last weekend. We have a large landscaping bed off the south side of our house. It’s out of sight and out of mind and long neglected. Well, bring on a global pandemic and I decided I needed to be outside and away from kids! The area looked like this to start.

I raked, scooped, shoveled and pulled weeds for a solid three hours. The bed at one point had a wooden mulch layer but I scooped that out as well, no thank you termites! I managed to get down to a pretty nice even dirt layer. I did use a quick spray of weed and grass killer to discourage new growth. My next plan is to call a local quarry and get some rock delivered. I want nay NEED low maintenance ground cover. I do plan to roll out and stake down some weed barrier before the rocks.

I could barely move my arms and legs the next day (or two) because I moved a metric poop ton of debris! I filled two trash bins and five large yard bags with junk. I probably should have left the sanitation workers a tip…

Anyone else out there sprucing up their yarns or gardens in this time of #stayhome?

An Antagonist Heel

Posted on April 29, 2020 by atangledyarn84

And just like that, I have a heel in my Antagonist socks!

I worked the toe up gusset heel ala Wendy D Johnson and I’m started up the leg. I haven’t decided what kind length of socks these want to grow up to be. I really do need more shorties in my drawer but this is really nice auto pilot knitting. I may not be ready to start the toe of the second sock….

I think I will sleep on it for a couple of days. Happy Knitting!!

More Floof

Posted on April 28, 2020 by atangledyarn84

I have been steadily cranking on my Fluffy Sockhead Hat made my Apothefaery Fibers and I very quickly realized I was going to run out of suri alpaca. I had some funds laying around that I had earmarked for the (cancelled) Knitting in the Heartland Event. So I decided to get more suri alpaca and support an indie dyer at the same time.

I hit up Apothefaery Luxury fibers and added four skeins to my cart.

I purchased two skeins of Snowdrift (white) and two skeins of Sterling Silver (grey) thinking that this will be nice solid colors to have in my stash to work up with the perfect future project, no matter the other yarn color. In the meantime I am going to skein up one of the snowdrift skeins and add to my aforementioned Fluffy Sockhead hat. It will be lighter than the original suri alpaca skein but will end up adding a third color block section to the hat.

I’m just going to consider it an unintentional design feature! Happy Knitting!!

Self Care Cocktails

Posted on April 27, 2020 by atangledyarn84

In these times of change and only the necessities I’ve been challenged to make due with what I have around the house. Last work week was brutal in ways I cannot even explain. I’ve been working from home for a month and I think I think I’ve almost doubled the number of hours I put in a week and i’m farther behind than I’ve ever been. But I digress.

On Friday evening, I realized we had run out out of wine. I’ll pause for the gasps of horror. But I was nonetheless deterred. I googled recipes that would use up the odds and end of our very dusty liquor cabinet (leftover from the pre-Jellybean and PB days where we would have actual proper parties with stout beverages).

I had some standard vodka and some creme de cacao so my first lesson was a chocolate martini. I dusted off my cocktail shaker and drizzled some hershey’s in a frosted class….a promptly poured a double after the kids went to bed. It was delicious and just the trick to take the edge off a long week.

On Saturday night the hubby got in on the action. He told me he was going to surprise me and came downstairs with this lovely concoction! It was a pour man’s White Russian or as he called it a “salted caramel white russian”. Please excuse the lack of proper glasswear…we have two kids and there is a global pandemic, any glass will do in my book!

This was one was ice cubes with one part vodka and two parts salted caramel Kahlua all topped off with vanilla almond milk. (We save the cows milk for the kids since we aren’t always sure the store will be stocked). And you guys….this was AMAZING! It was like a cold salted caramel coffee. I will TOTALLY do this one again.

And the best part was we didn’t have to leave our house and we are using up bits and bobs that hopefully aren’t expired and will kill us. Either way, salud!!

Dyeing Finished Objects!

Posted on April 24, 2020 by atangledyarn84

You guys, I have a dying FO this week! The weather turned a little nicer so I sneaked outside on a break from work and took photos of our Easter dying attempt.

The tie dye turned out very nicely! It was very muted compared to the yarn but I’m guessing that is the difference between a plant fiber and an animal fiber. I have zero idea of what we will do with this fabric as it literally just tiny remnants. But Jellybean was really pleased with this “art” and that might just be enough for me!

I think the yarn made a very lovely variegated skein! As predicted we have white/undyed spots for sure. But it’s not a bad first attempt. I have not yet re-washed this skein to see if I am going to have any dye loss. I will for sure do that before working this up into a project. I 1000% percent do not trust my dyeing skills…lol.

I think this looks really nice skeined up even! This skein was a partial leftover so its around maybe 50-60 grams? I’m not sure what I would even want to do with this once I’m safe the dye won’t run on me. But all the value of spending time with Jellybean and forgetting about the state of the world for an afternoon was well worth it. Even if I never knit this!