Thises and Thatses

Sometimes I surprise myself by how much I can accomplish in a day. I smelled pretty bad after sloshing fish fertiliser all over my veggie garden yesterday – even after a shower! And I need to do it again today on my dye garden. Somehow I always manage to get some on myself and it’s a persistent scent. Yum. Dead fishies. Excellent for the garden though. I’m such a good plant mommy. The things I will do for my little green babies.

I also took advantage of yesterday’s perfect summer weather (gone again today, sigh) and washed and blocked some of my winter woolies:

Do you see a colour theme going here? It’s a bit more obvious in person but the theme is Autumn for sure. From the bottom that’s Evelyn Clark’s Flower Basket Scarf in handspun dyed moorit shetland, her ubiquitous Swallowtail Shawl in hand-dyed cashmere/merino, Ysolde’s Ishbel in hand-dyed bamboo/nylon and a plethora of fingerless mitts: (clockwise from the top) Jacoby, my own Earthly Mitts, Hooray For Me fingerless gloves and October Leaves, the only ones I didn’t knit myself. They were made specially for me by my buddy beentsy. (All links are Ravelry, some mine and some the designer’s pattern page.) I have more scarves and sweaters I’d like to wash and block but I’ll wait for sunny weather again. Maybe tomorrow. There was room to squeeze in another shawl on the mat but I ran out of blocking wires.

The Segue Socks for T-Man are coming along.

I’m totally used to my Blackthorn dpns now and love them lots. Though I wouldn’t want to sit or step on one! Ouch. They are much harder than bamboo. So far T is really liking these and can’t wait for them to be finished so he can wear them.

I’ve also started another really big project for my sweetie. It involves this:

A lovely black Corriedale fleece from Stuart Albrey of Fine Fibre Farms, NZ, via Brenda from Penelope Fibrearts. It’s one of the youngest fleeces in my stash, having only been there for just over a year. Heh! At least I was smart for once and washed it all last summer. I’ve promised T-Man a sweater out of it and there’s two candidates. I’m thinking Jared Flood’s Brownstone which I’ve already purchased in anticipation. I’ll need to figure out how to match his Shelter yarn in handspun Corriedale which isn’t quite as fine or springy as Targhee/Columbia. It’s been awhile since I’ve done much spinning so it’ll be a challenge. However there’s a couple of other sweater options: Ann Budd’s Hero which is a little fancier and Kate Kuckro’s Charcoal Ribbed Cardigan which is obviously a cardi instead of a pullover. I already own the magazines for these patterns. So now I’m going to have to get T to choose which one he prefers. Interestingly each sweater has around 60+ versions on Ravelry.

A man’s sweater needs a lot of yarn! Worsted weight is always hard for me to keep consistent if I want to keep it to a 2-ply. I always want to go down to DK or fingering so I’ll have to keep a touch sample hanging on my wheel to keep me on track. And it has to have some loft while still remaining durable. Klaus, the Louet S-90 wheel should help there with it’s very positive draw-in. Yeah, I know. Sample, sample, sample. At least I get to haul out the Pat Green Deb’s Deluxe drum carder and finally give it a real workout. First things first though. Teasing up the wool and filling up my big basket with black clouds. Delicious.

What else? I’ve been slowly winding little 25g skeins of a very fine rayon weaving yarn from my stash for Spectrum Dye Day on Thursday. We’re exploring quebracho and have 4 colours of dye extracts: red, brown, black and yellow to test out. These are muted earthy colours which might also be used as toners for any of the brighter dyes and are good on cellulose because of all the tannin. I need to get my skeins mordanted today after I’m done winding so they’re all ready to pop in the pot.

Never a dull moment around here. However while I’ve been busy doing other things, the dust bunnies have been romping through my house reproducing as they go. Dumb bunnies. I can’t do everything.