Episode 11
1. Production Scheduling
1. Events
1. Crooked River Fiber Fling in Peninsula, Oh August 4th-7th.
2. Ann Arbor Fiber Expo October 22 and 23rd at the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds.
3. Yankee Peddler Festival in Canal Fulton, OH 3 weekends in September the weekend of the 10th, 17th, and 24th.
2. Production
3. QC Inspection.
4. What's in My Tea Pot?
5. Materials Sourcing
6. After 5
2. Production – I've been cleaning up the odds and ends in my UFO pile this week. Nothing got finished but I'm enjoying hopping around a bit and knitting on various things.
1. Ruffled Scarf by Pam MacKenzie one of the members of my kitting Group Cuyohoga Falls Knit and Hook is collecting purple scarves for Domestic Violence Awareness Month. The DVAM committee chose purple as their color so all the scarves have to be knit or crocheted in easy care yarns in any shade of purple. I'm knitting mine in Loops and thread Impeccable (which I think is Micheal’s “House Brand”) in Amethyst. I'm on my second ball of yarn for this scarf. The short rows used to create the ruffles really eat through the yarn. The pattern is easily memorizable and remember-able. I started this scarf in November. (Eeek! Pre podcast!) and I still remembered the repeat when I picked it back up this week, (though I did check the pattern for accuracy.)
2. Plarn Lopi Tote - This tote began life as the Fulled Lopi Tote by Adrian Bizilia. I',m knitting this out of plarn. (which is plastic yarn made from plastic shopping bags.) I knit through my plarn stash this week so until I get some time to cut more plarn this one is back in the drawer for a while. I did get to use my new stitch markers I made at wool fest on this project the coiless safety pins were just what I needed. My son Nate watched me knit on this one this week and was particularly blown away that I could knit with plastic. He's ordered a plarn backpack. I have no idea how I'll pull that off. Maybe one of those draw string jobies I see the college students wearing? I think I'll just get through this bag before I make too many plans for another. :)
3. The Embassy Scarf by Amy Polcyn found in the Knitscene summer 2011 issue. I have half the swatch for this on the needles. I’ll be knitting this out of Knitpicks Shadow laceweight in Foxtrot.
3. Quality Inspection
1. With the relative lack of knitting Progress you'd think that there wouldn't be anything in QC. I'm also sure that the last thing anyone would expect to be in QC Would be of all things a SWATCH! This just serves as testament to the type of week I've had this week. I should have known before I even cast on that I was going to have problems. I think a couple of episodes ago we talked about how I don't have a swift or a ball winder. Up until fairly recently this hasn't been a problem. Now more and more of my yarn is coming in skeins and not in commercial balls. Usually I'll have my favorite swift, My husband Joe around to hold the skein while I wind the ball. Things have finally picked up for Joe's company so he wasn't around this weekend. Which left me to wind the lace weight by myself. (I guess I could have waited for him to come home.... but there was knitting to do!) SO when I wind by my self I sit on the couch with my feet straight out in front of me and I loop the skein around my feet to keep it taught so it won;t tangle. Everything went well until I was ¾ of the way through and thought those famous last words. “I'm almost done it won't tangle.” Yeah... right. It tangled. It was a mess for about 45 minutes. Instead of putting it down and stepping away. I pushed onward! This pattern is a drop stitch pattern. I was expecting to drop knit stitches and instead this pattern drops YO's off the needle. The 1st attempt on the swatch I had all these loops sticking out every which way and I was convinced I had done something wrong so I tore it out and took a look at the picture an reread the pattern before casting on again. I figured out that I did have it correct the 1st time but this time I organized my loops a bit better. The stumbling block came in line 8 of the repeat. In the pattern it has has the YO's cast on in the previous lines. Line 8 should have had them dropped of the needle. The pattern as written in Knitscene does not have that. It just has you knit 5 rows of garter. Looking at that I knew something was not right. Knitting all of the YO's left a row of “eyelet” where there should have been another row of drop stitch detail. So I took to ravelry to see if anyone posted the errata. Can you believe no one has mentioned it in any of their finished projects? I finally went to Knitscene.com to look for a corrections page and there I finally found it. “Clarification: Row 8 is to be worked the same as Row 2 (dropping all yo’s off needle). Rows 9-12 Knit.” I'm going to tear out my swatch after I post the podcast tonight, I'm not worried about gauge as it's a wrap and I have 2 skeins of this yarn. I think I'll just take the plunge and cast on. AT least I know the pattern repeat. It's another easy one to remember though it may slog a bit being on sz 7 needles in lace weight.
4. What's in My Teapot
1. Sweet Potato Pie from Adagio teas
2. The back of the box reads:Flavors in tea can serve several purposes. You can literally make the tea taste like something else, you can accent a flavor that's naturally in the tea (like blending peaches with white tea, for example). You can also do it to support the tea in a textural way... and sometimes that can be the most surprising of all! Sweet potato pie is a traditional favorite from the South, but a stranger to the tea world. When paired with brisk and sometimes gently malty Ceylon black tea, the sweet potato flavor really comes through in hints of starchiness and texture. Toasty, sweet and smooth. Pleasant and playful cup of tea. Extra toasted marshmallows, please!
3. This one is OK. Just OK. It's not bad but I'd not great either. I don't think I would have recognized this tea as Sweet Potato Pie. Because I know what it is I can smell the sweet potato in it, I also can detect that the liquor is vaguely starchy. If I didn't have the box I wouldn't know what this was. This tea is also only good for one or 2 infusions the second infusion is tasting a bit watery and I over steeped it.
4. Would I buy it again? No probably not.
5. Materials sourcing
1. Week one of Tour De Fleece is over!
2. This week I've produced 4 Navajo Plyd skeins of yarn and 1 and ¾ bobbins of singles. So all together 5 and ¾ bobbins of singles.
3. I've carded every day this week and by my eye I'm about halfway through the bag O' mystery wool. I've been tweaking the way I make the rolags as I go along. I think when I started my rolags were more Puni's being more compact. I've since adjusted how much fiber I'm using and making them more light and airy. They seem to be spinning better than the overly compacted ones.
4. The fiber is still filled with veg matter tons of hay and seeds and still a ton of second cuts.\
5. I'm still loving the long draw and the fiber is taking well to woolen spinning. I'm still pulling off a ton of slubs.
6. I'm spinning for the Rookie 2011 team and Team I got Ewe Babe. I've been spending most of my time with the ladies of I've got Ewe babe. They've been very welcoming and very supportive! And are turning out some great yarn! Especially of note is some wool plied with a cassette tape! Who woulda thunk it! Check out the thread on ravelry for their pics. If you keep an eye on the show notes page I've been posting my Uber boring updates nightly. I'm beginning to wish I made my goal something with color. :P
7. Lesson for this week. Oil is important! (for cars and spinning wheels) I had some wheel troubles this week. While plying I couldn't get the plied yarn to take up onto the bobbin. So I went through the check list. Drive band is on the bobbin.... check. Yarn is not wrapped around the hook.... check! Tension is on.... check! Nothing looked wrong I was still getting twist so as a lat ditch effort I oiled the wheel. Tadaa! Everything was back to normal.
8. I have been navajo Plying my singles I had mentioned the you tube video I saw for this a few episodes ago and this week I was pointed to a better one. This one is by Sarah Andersen and is posted by Interweave videos. This video is very clear and gives a good look at hand position and good description of what your hands should be doing. This video improved my technique by about a million percent. If you're having problems check this one out.
9. So what's going on with the race? Yeah I haven't even caught the highlights! I've been too busy spinning.
6. After Five
1. When I was in school we were read a book called Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. I'm sure you can tell what it was about by the title. Well, it's been one of those weeks!
1. The car broke down … Twice.
2. My absence from the office to take care of the car caused drama there.
3. Joe is working mandatory weekends and I'm stuck in the house! Which usually isn't a problem but he's also been working OT and hasn't gone grocery shopping either.
4. It can only go up from here! Right?
2. She forgot he purse!
3. While B was napping I turned on The Tourist which is a movie starring Angelina Jolie and the oh so yummy Johnny Depp. I usually don't let B watch grown up movies but he walked out while Angelina was dropping Johnny Depps character off at the Venice airport. She asks him to tie up the boat and hands off his luggage which is placed on the dock. She then unties her end of the docking line and drives off in the boat leaving Johnny and his luggage on the dock. B watches this and comments a little loudly and a little panicked. “She left her purse!” and then “Why is she leaving that guy?”. My thoughts? Yes B... why is she leaving Johnny Depp indeed.” But more to the point how does a four year old become concerned over some woman leaving her purse?
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