As The Yarn Turns

Jaywalking No More

Take a good look at this Jaywalker sock because you won't have it to look at much longer. It's going to be ripped out.

I like the way they look and they are a fun, easy knit. I just don't like the way it fits. As I was trying it on for the 40th time tonight, I decided there wasn't much point in continuing. The pattern creates a lack of stretch that just doesn't work well on my leg when combined with the other parts. Maybe it's just my feet and legs. Rather than do still more fiddling around with the pattern, I'm going to quit and try something else. Maybe I'll try the pattern again some other time. In the meantime, I'll leave you with a picture of Katie.

"I am queen of the couch you mere human."

by Sydney  |

A Little Spinning

I realized the other day that I hadn't picked up my spindle in ages. I've been spinning on my spinning wheel but not on the spindles. So I rummaged through my stash and finally found two of my favorite spindles. It's funny, if I want to spin very fine and even, I can usually do it better with my spindles. I would expect it to be the other way around. Course when I started spinning with spindles everything was large and lumpy.

One of the spindles I picked up had some merino - kid mohair fiber started. It's part of some fiber samples I picked up some time ago. I've been spinning a little of that from time to time lately.

This fiber spins into wonderfully soft yarn, and even though it's a multicolor roving, the end result is subdued. Getting from fiber to yarn is not easy though. Well once you get it into draftable sized chunks, it's not so bad. It's the loosening up and pre-drafting part that is difficult. So spinning it on a spindle is perfect. It's easy to stop and prepare a bit of fiber, spin it into a single, grab some more fiber, and start again. It's been a handy thing to work on while I'm at the computer. Katie, on the other hand, has decided that the spinning wheel needs a little attention.

"Let's see, the fiber goes in there and along those hooks..."

 

by Sydney  |

Saturday Evening Sky on Sunday

I almost forgot to take a picture of the Saturday Sky yesterday. Luckily I remembered just in time. Here's a picture of our Saturday Sky yesterday around 7 PM. This was taken on our downtown main street (which is called Court Street) looking north towards the University of North Alabama at the end of the road. Why yes, I did stand in the middle of the road to take this picture - quickly.

It has been a busy weekend. We did a bit of magic as an opener for Elvis impersonator Mike Adams at the mall on Friday and Saturday as a fundraiser for The Arc of the Shoals. The Elvis impersonator did a great job and everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun. Plus it was a good way to escape the heat that has returned.

I am going to answer some of the comments on the knitting machine here because I figured other people might be interested. Crazy for Yarn in Alabama wanted to know if you could make things other than straight pieces. You can do increases and decreases but they require manual manipulation. It's a very simple machine. The larger, more elaborate machines can do much more automatically from what I understand. If you had a lot to do, it would be easier to do it with hand knitting. Susan asked if you could knit the boring parts of a sweater, like the back. This one isn't really big enough to do the back of a sweater unless you joined two halves together. You are limited to 50 stitches. You can do that with the larger Bond knitting machines, like the Ultimate Sweater Machine. Imbrium made the comment that knitting seem like cheating. Yeah, sometimes I feel the same way about them. One day, though, I was talking to the sales person at the yarn store about this long knitted dress pattern. We both liked it but it was all stockinette stitch. I figured it would be out of style by the time I finished it. Then Bonne Marie made a comment once about using them to do the boring parts and I thought I would try one sometime. So this was a cheap and easy way to play with one to see how much I liked it.

Oh, and a housekeeping note that I meant to mention last time. I changed my list of blogs I read to my Bloglines Blogroll. It was taking me forever to update my list on the web. I have a hard enough time remembering to add blogs to Bloglines.

I'll leave you with a picture of our dove Sophie. We've been taking her to the office for her outside the cage time that free from cats and ferrets. I've been practicing taking pictures of her flying. She's coming in for a landing on Rick's hand.

by Sydney  |