Checking in, catching up, chilling out and calming down

Woke up this morning with the almost inevitable post-Kirkwall headache, so it was a complete downer to open my mailbox and find an upsetting mail message.  I have had a day of tears and temper and unpleasant memories. My every instinct tells me to reach out for some clean white wool and to knit some lace…

…but there are disciplines to be observed and so I turn to the blog for some soothing activity. Last week passed in a frenzy of KnitCroBlo and I am mindful that we have some real catching up to be done here. There are Works in Progress and Finished Objects and parcels to be told of. I scarcely know where to begin!

Our last WIP report (as far back as 16th March? really?) mentioned 4 projects. The Ruffled Fichu was blocked, at least in part but still awaits attention to each of its 52 bells individually. I had one Mood sock finished then –  the pair is now complete.

The test knit shawl – Asterope – is finished, was blocked, and posted off to my MiL for Mothering Sunday…

…since when I have knit a whole new test shawl, Sakaki.

I’ll tell you about the grief it caused me another day. For now I’ll just tell you that it is a small shawl/shaped scarf designed by Romi and will be available soon, to raise funds for aid to Japan. For now, the pattern is still under test.

The weaving project remains static.

New on the needles are my April Silk Road Socks – Afshari. I’m making them in Jitterbug and they can hardly wait to jump off the needles – the first sock took less than 2 days to knit.

This sock has an unusual gusset shaping. I love the socks and I adore the yarn.

I mentioned the other day that we had been shopping, and how much I liked the laceweight yarn. Well, Gill and I had planned to share the four skeins but she decided that she needed more than two, so she took all four and I… I placed a second order! It was delivered last night.

This time around I bought four of the laceweight skeins for myself  (and this is what I want to reach out for and cast on with to soothe my rattled nerves today) …

… but I made good use of the postage and added a few other items.

I got myself some tasters of new-to-me sheep stuff: Grey Norwegian, Brown Finnsheep, and some Teeswater. I also ordered some of the wool/silk sliver to compare with Ashford’s product. This was something of a disappointment, as the colour (not very nice) bears very little relation to the product shot (gorgeous) on the web site.

Also in the parcel – one of the 500g bags of “Botany Lap Waste“.

At first glance — not particularly thrilling, with some lurid shades included, and rather a lot of nude pink that isn’t quite “me” either.

However, a little judicious rearrangment and some quiet thinking time…

… yielded three piles for blending into batts: pink/brown/ginger; greens assorted; and hot pink/violet/grey and also…

… an inspection of the white stuffs revealed: a workable amount of a single fibre; a small amount of stuff with all of the characteristics of a midsummer seaside cloud; and two unidentified but interesting-looking blends to play with – possibly silk in one, and Tencel or perhaps bamboo in t’other.

Plenty to play with anyway.

The lace book that I mention ordering also arrived. I cannot show you that, as Gill has it. I thought I would be far too busy to look at it for a while and, as I said above, there are disciplines (concerning The Great UFO Reduction Plan) to be observed.

The small fact that I have already wound off one of the laceweight skeins is, of course, completely irrelevant.

That’s my story, and I am sticking to it.

Now. A question:  Does anybody know of a foolproof method of completely cleaning a drum carder of its previous fibres?

And now, back to the second Afshari sock. They should be an FO by Friday.

2 Comments

  1. April 6, 2011
    Reply

    Teeswater is lovely to spin!
    You got more variety than I did in my lap waste bag, I got very large quantities of very bright green merino!

  2. April 6, 2011
    Reply

    Teeswater is lovely to spin!

    It looks gorgeous – would I be right in thinking it’s not unlike Wensleydale longwool?

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