Considering that my knitting and spinning is primarily done on my commute, this is not a productive time for me. It's bloody cold out here. We've been below freezing for a couple of weeks now, with no end in sight. It the moment, I'm writing to you from the confines of my shawl, wound tightly around me. I have heat here, but the windowsills are cracked, so I get *plenty* of crisp fresh air.

I actually have eye-candy for you today:

Okay - no I don't - seems you can't do pictures on the free service. Will work on that.

I've been meaning to post for a while, but life intervenes.

I finished my triangle shawl a couple of weeks ago, and, true to form, I don't like it. I'll probably frog it and weave it into a wide scarf instead. For now it's just living on one of my kitchen stools. The yarn is fine, the knitting was fine, but it's not flattering.

Speaking of unflattering, I get to wear a bathing suit today! I'm training for my first open water swim (perhaps). This body was not meant to wear lycra. And the swim cap and goggles make it feel like someone's trying to suction your head. Jaj! We'll see how it goes. What sane person would want to jump into the Hudson anyway?

My hunch about the gloves was on the money - a total no-show! At least I only knit one.(with the premise of saying I wanted to make sure it fit before doing both.)

Things are pretty quiet here. I'm on my last ball of alpaca/shetland for that shawl. I could spin a little more; I have about 4 oz of fiber left. I'll probably do that. The sucker's getting pretty heavy.

At the moment I'm simply blogging to keep my hands off of the potato chips I foolishly bought. (Impulse buy - I haven't had any in a while.)

Ah - I did sample last night. Sorta. I'm toying with the idea of blending angora and thel - no project in mind. I carded a few blends to see how they spin up (less angora, 50/50, more angora, all angora) and spun them. I also spun a cabled bit of corrie for the hell of it. The samples are dry but I didn't have small enough needles handy to knit them up. I'll have to do that later. I may just scrap it and do some 100% angora yarn.

When I'd first bought the angora, I had the damnedest time spinning it. I couldn't get it to hold together, and when I did, I made razor wire which was also too fine to be of any use. So I put it all aside until my spinning skills caught up. Well, the vendor from whom I got the angora (a couple of years ago) found some samples from the batch she'd sent me, and didn't like the quality compared to what she's producing now ... so she sent me more angora, gratis! I thought that was nice. So now I've dug up the old angora (cuz, of course, the new angora is too nice to waste on sampling) and I've been playing with it. I'm having a much better time of it than before. A little processing goes a long way. I think before I was trying to spin from the "lock", on a scotch tension wheel, on which the take up was probably too tight. But carding and spindling it is going just fine. So maybe I'll just do something in angora. I don't know what. (I'm not a fuzzy bunny sort of person.) Suggestions are welcome.

The triangle shawl is moving along. I really have no concept of what the finished size will be. I don't recall from High School how to correctly project that mathematically. (Shh, don't tell Mr. Horn.)

I'm not doing any holiday knitting. I was going to give a sibling some gloves, but considering that their birthday scarf is still sitting around (never came by to pick it up) I don't know if it's worth the effort.

Otherwise, there's not much to report. The head honcho around here gave the whole place the two Mondays off (in addition to the Tues./Weds. we would normally get off for Christmas eve/day and New Year's eve/day) so I'll have a couple of 5 day weekends. Maybe I'll have time to play with the loom - but I doubt it. When my family hears "day off" for some reason they feel "chauffeur" is implied.

In ordering my holiday gifts, I bought a copy of Michael Moore's Stupid White Men for someone. Amazon had a deal on the desk calendar so I got it for myself. I really like my Stupid White Men desk calendar. I'm trying not to read it all at once, although I'm already into March.

Funny, as I was looking up the Amazon links, I typed "Stupid White Men" into the search field. It brought up the book I was looking for, but it also pegged me as someone who might like a Maxim subscription. LOL

I'm the snake print
Doc Marten...
I'm a wild child and I live on the edge baby!

Which Doc Marten are you?
(by *coffeebean*)

Why do we do projects we don't like? The year before last, I'd knitted 3 triangle shawls. I don't really like them because they're not flattering to my figure (like I really need anything to point to my butt) and I get bored with them way before they're as wide as they need to be. So basically, I don't do them.

So what did I cast on for 2 days ago? A triangle shawl. Damn that Emma. The movie's been playing on cable a lot recently and they're all wearing these shawls of various sizes and constructions. Feh. I've also been wearing one of my cashmere shawls ( Truly Tasha's Shawl) a lot at work, and I want one in a different color ... and not in garter stitch. So I'm knitting a very plain triangle shawl in some black Alpaca/Shetland that's been sitting around for a year or so. I had spun it for a sweater, but I don't think there'll be enough. It's simply stockingette - my lumpy bumpy spinning gives it interest. I may border it with yarn of a different color, depending on how big it is. Basically it's cast on 3, selvedge stitch, yarn over, knit (turn) selvedge stitch, yarn over, purl... ad infinitum, until I run out of yarn (I have a pound and a half). Will I have the patience to finish it, once each row starts taking more than 5 minutes to complete? Only time will tell.

Yes, I could have woven it, but I don't yet have the balls to cut up that much of my handspun, especailly when I'm not totally sure I want a shawl. At least I can rip this out again.

I think I'm having a rediscovery of simplicity. Generally when I used to start a project, I'd come up with a design concept, find some yarn to suit my purpose, look for a stitch pattern or draw one, gauge, etc... Now I just sort of cast on and let the chips fall where they may. Hmm, this could be a sock, or it could be a glove, or it could be a shrug ... we'll see. And I'm not feeling any interest in stitch patterns. Every now and then we all need the mindlessness of stockingette. Sometimes I don't even realize I'm doing it - it's just my hands moving - like people who drum their fingers without noticing. Plus I'm having a "function over form" phase. I don't care what it looks like as long as it does what I need.

And sometimes, simple is best. I saw my plain-old boring cashmere scarf again last night. It's not perfect, but it's still the best thing I've ever woven. So I think it'll be a lot of plain weave and stockingette this season for me.

(It's going to be a long winter and I'm going to go through this every damn time I see it. Someone suggested I should just "borrow" it and not give it back. Not only would I not do that, but I think its owner is particularly fond of it, and not likely to let it out of sight. I can't believe I gave that away. I don't particularly regret it, I just don't believe it. Apparently, that was one hell of a crush.)

I hit the wall on Saturday at the garage. I couldn't spin any more. It didn't help that my thumb cracked (dry skin). I don't even have any grease wool to spin as therapy. So I've started knitting the gloves. I have a real problem making things for people who are larger to me. (Luckily, this doesn't come up very often.) I'm following the pattern, but the gloves look odd and they don't fit (me). I'm sure they're fine. The pattern I'm basing them on is one I've used dozens of times.

I'm also up to the part where I was planning to insert a small fair-isle section, for visual interest, but I still haven't charted anything out. (feh!) I'm trying to come up with an interesting design, that isn't too swishy. I guess, I'll just break out the graph paper and doodle. That seems to work best for me. Nothing I've seen in any of my books has really appealed to me. (I was debating on the Greek Key pattern, but it's too recognizably ethnic. It's Greek - y'know like on the diner coffee cups. LOL)

Naturally as I've been going along, I'm realizing I won't have enough yarn, so I guess it'll be back to the spindle.