Blocked

Finally! The sweater pieces and the shawls are blocked. I also washed the Romney skeins since the spinning and plying are finished. I have just under 100 yards of a worsted weight 3 ply yarn. Not sure yet about the use, but something will come to me. I was surprised to be able to get the shawls dried (mostly) outside yesterday. I thought we'd have rain all day. I got 2 loads of laundry hung on the line, too, but had to finish them in the drier - too much humidity in the air. 15 minutes is better than 45 minutes of drier time, so it's still a help.

There was a discussion going on Ravelry recently regarding superwash wool and whether it felts. (Apparently sometimes it does). The mention of driers brought out the fact that a lot of European households don't have driers, and those people were surprised to hear that most American homes do, and a lot of Americans couldn't imagine life without a clothes drier. That went on to a discussion about Home Owner Associations and how a lot of HOAs don't allow clothes lines (and a lot of other things). Health issues were mentioned (one person said that her kids allergies were much worse when she dried linens on the line) and energy conservation as well as the difficulties (or near impossibility, in some cases) of using a clothes line. For instance, if you live where there is 4 feet of snow on the ground or the humidity would keep clothes from drying totally at all. Very interesting.

I hope to get at least one seam per evening sewed on my sweater. Wearability is in sight!

Pogona is finished. Very interesting construction and I am pretty sure I'll knit another of West's designs. I'm not sure whether I'll keep this one or gift it.

Cladonia is finished and I love it. I might gift this one, too, but I am not sure I can part with it. OTOH, I can knit another .....

It's time to start planning vacation knitting. I can't decide whether I want to take a few smaller projects along or start a sweater. If I decide to start the sweater, I have to settle on which one, swatch, block, measure, etc. so that I'm prepared with the appropriate supplies before leaving. If I choose several smaller projects, I have to gather those and all of the necessary needles and markers, etc. too, so planning is important. There used to be a knitting shop in Montauk, which gave me a safety net, but it's closed now so it would be a considerable drive to get to another one if I forgot something important. Planning is the key. I always have my knitting and spinning projects packed before my clothes. One must have priorities. ; )

There's been a lot of rain here just recently, which we can use but the Midwest needs desperately. I can't even imagine what they are going through. July here was difficult enough. They had it harder and are still dealing with the drought and high temps.

I judged knitting at the Montgomery County Fair on Saturday. This was my third year doing it, and in general, I enjoy it. I like to give feedback to the knitters so they know their strengths and weaknesses, especially since I really appreciate those comments when I enter a competition. It can sometimes be hard to work with another person who has different criteria that you do, but it also widens your outlook on things. We were judging for over 6 hours, though, and that was a long day (without lunch). It was tough near the end when the really big decisions had to be made. I think we made the right one, though, on the Grand Champion.

Speaking of competition, I am going to try to get myself and my projects to gather this week and see about entering some in the state fair. Usually we are on vacation at the end of the fair, so I have no way to get my projects back, which prevents me from entering. This year we'll still be here on the day the projects have to be picked up. I have a few things that I feel are appropriate to enter, though I suspect none will win ribbons. It's hard to win ribbons at the state fair. I'll get the input on them and be happy.

Cucumbers. We are producing cukes like crazy! Fortunately I have been able to give them away. I am not a kitchen person, so the idea of pickling or something does not interest me at all. I might freeze a few tomatoes, though, for additions to sauce. The tomatoes are finally doing better and we are able to pick and eat some of them. We ate the 3 ears of corn that were produced in the garden. It was very tasty and tender. It's a shame no more seeds sprouted, despite re-seeding. I am ready to give up the garden and turn it back into grass, but Bob wants to try again next year. I don't think we've gotten enough out of it to justify our work and $$$. We'll see. He really does the hard work, so if he just wants me to plant seeds and plants and then harvest, I'll go for that. We'll try bush beans instead of pole beans next year. Our green beans have been very stringy and tough, no matter if I pick them early or not. The tomatoes are yummy this year, though - an improvement over last year.

Shaking, shaking, shaking

The most frequently repeated comment/suggestion/hint I have gotten about the vm found in Madeline, the Jacob fleece (other than cry or mulch the garden) has been to shake it. A lot. I put some in the dryer on air - didn't do much but I think I'll try it with more fiber in the dryer now that I know that it won't felt it. Maybe more volume in there will help it tumble better. I put some in a lingerie bag, leaned out over the railing on the deck and shook it, smacked it against the railing, shook some more and while you can see little flakes of things falling, it does not make an appreciable difference. There is still too much vm in the fiber for my use.

I tried using dog combs - that fluffs it up and helps the stuff fall out, but with dog combs it will take me a year to get this stuff clean enough to want to use it. I'll probably have about half the fleece left by that time - the rest will go out in waste. Unless, of course, I get tired of it and all of it goes in the garden.

The Black Welsh Mountain fleece looks to be in much better shape. Of course, it was coated and now I really understand what a difference it makes. I hope to start spinning some of that soon. I am looking forward to doing a lot of experimenting to see what works best and what kinds of choices I have regarding plies and spinning methods.

I have both sleeves (leaf and picot cardigan) on the same needle now. I have a half inch of knitting and then start sleeve cap shaping! I am still enjoying the knitting.  ; )

Bob's socks are at the point where I will change from 3 x 3 ribbing to 2 x 2 ribbing for the cuff! Yippee! In honor of that, I cast on the second sock for Sharon - Calendula sock. Soon I will be down to one sock on the needles again.

Fleece Scouring

I have been a busy girl, scouring my fleeces so that I can get to play with them. Both are actually now washed and are either dry or drying on racks in my house (the weather didn't cooperate for outdoor drying). Clematis, the Black Welsh Mountain fleece, is in pretty good shape, I think. I still have some scurf to deal with but it is otherwise a clean fleece. Madeline, the Jacob fleece, is another story.

The Jacob fleece is full of vm. I don't mean just hay or grass, which I could pretty easily pick out. It is the seeds and other tiny bits in there that have me worried. I plan to try to shake the fleece out, in sections, outdoors and get rid of what I can in that way. I have been reading, and I think that combs are the way to go to clean fiber like this, but I don't own any and can't really afford to buy them. I found plans on line to make a set of combs, but DH is busy right now and won't be able to get to that for a while. I read about someone putting a dry alpaca fleece in the dryer on air and getting rid of vm that way, but I am not sure about that plan. I can certainly try a small bit to see if it works. I will not buy another fleece that has not been coated.

Thursday last, I went into work but came home early due to not feeling well. I had planned to work from home on Friday and it's good thing. If I had to make the drive, I would have stayed home sick anyway. I wasn't deathly ill, just headachy, slightly nauseated and feeling washed out and weak. I stayed home from knitting night at the LYS too.

Saturday we got some stuff done in the morning and then headed down to Silver Spring to have dinner with friends. They treated us to a wonderful meal, good wine and great conversation. It was also our wedding anniversary - 34 years! On Sunday we decided to try going out on the boat. The forecast was for possible thunderstorms in the afternoon and evening, so we weren't sure how long we could be out, but decided to give it a try. We were home in plenty of time - the boat motor overheated and we actually spent the day at the marina working on the motor. Oh, well. It was a beautiful day and we were together. It appears to have been a pretty inexpensive and easy thing to fix, so that's good news, too. I finished scouring the Jacob fleece once we returned home, and watched the thunderstorms roll over us from the safety of the house.

The sleeves for the leaf and picot cardigan are about half complete, maybe a little less, and I am enjoying the knitting. I wove in some of the ends on the vest last night, in preparation for blocking and sewing the shoulder seams, too, before getting to sleep.

All in all, not a bad weekend at all.  Friday evening will be a spinning gathering at my house and, hopefully, a trip on the boat.

I hope you enjoyed your Easter.

Raw Fleece

I am getting an education. I am learning just how dirty sheep can be and how much work goes into making clean fiber available for me to spin.

I have two raw fleeces to clean and prep. One, as I have mentioned before, is Clematis, a Black Welsh Mountain - a beautiful deep black color. The other is Madeline, a Jacob fleece that includes white, brown and black all in one fleece. I'm doing pretty well getting the grease and dirt out, actually. I have a system and it's working well. The VM, on the other hand, especially in the Jacob, is going to be a big undertaking, I think. The scurf, a dandruff kind of thing may actually be more of an issue. I did find that shaking the clean fleece vigorously helps a lot of it fall out, but I am going to have to decide whether to toss some of the fleece or just live with the scurf in the yarn. It is not intended as a next to the skin fiber, so I may just deal with it.

The weather is not being very cooperative with my washing efforts. I washed 3 batches of wool today and put them outside to dry. Within an hour it was drizzling enough to get them wet again. It's chilly enough that the heat came on in the house and helped dry them, but I would like to get most of the fiber dried outdoors. The more wind the better.

The sleeves of the leaf and picot cardigan are coming along nicely. I find that I have to check the pattern for most rows but then knit the row without having to watch each stitch, so it is a pretty relaxing knit.

Tomorrow is our wedding anniversary. Bob and I will have been married for 34 years. I am happy to report that we are still happy and glad to spend time together. We will be having dinner with friends. If the weather cooperates, we'll go out on the boat for the first time this season on Sunday. After Easter baskets. Yum. Chocolate!

Have a good holiday.