Why I Heart Vermont!

The pics say it all!

Spinning Notes

Okay, so here are some pics of me spinning. (note: click on the pics for larger viewing.) Don't laugh! It's in our TV room, which is kind of getting cluttered with all my STUFF. It's not in our cleaner living room, so most of the mess is in here. You'll see lots of knitting and spinning stuff around me. It's like my throne room! Lol. And, it's about 11:30 or midnight, and I think i was watching Indiana returns or something political. Note our beloved rescue kitty Tigger, who is perched on the table next to the wheel--the flyer is spinning--hence the blurred shot. He'll sit there for hours, occasionally swiping at the moving parts of the wheel, or he'll try to bit the knot of the drive band whipping by...

The fiber is something I bought probably 7 or 8 years ago. Now that I'm fundless I'm trying to use up what I have. I bought 1 pound of the corriedale wool with the pretty colors. The single is coming out mostly blueish, with some nice reds and other colors here and there. I also have 8 oz of light grey merino with silk noils.

I have the damnest time with blogger, trying to get the pics to go where i want them! The pics have a mind of their own. It doesn't matter if i choose no format, or even a format. Anyone with blogger have an idea how to place these wherever you want? Maybe I have to have more text than pics so that the text flows around the pics. I'll just have to type more. Oh, I see, if there is enough text to go around all the pics I can place them on the right...duh...

Anyway, the fiber is really long, which is great for doing a wicked long draw. It will probably fluff up a bit after plying and washing (I always wash my skeins after plying and letting them rest). So, I'm spinning for sockweight yarn. I was getting kind of tired last night when I started the second bobbin, which i got 1/2 filled, but my spinning started to suck. It was getting down to laceweight and thinner. One thing I've noted, since I've been spinning so much thinner yarn lately, it's very hard to get back to spinning the way I did in the first couple years of spinning. I've been spinning for over 15 years now. When I attended SOAR '96 or '97 in Smugglers' Notch, Vermont, I took a workshop with the fabulous and talented Rita Buchanan. It was "spinning bulky yarns". What a hoot!

ETA: pic of the two skeins I plied last night. At the right, you can see how the color of the plied yarn is mostly blueish green now. It's wet, but I am hoping it is less blue than green. I have a really cool vest I want to make with it. Vermont Gay Men's Knit Group tomorrow! More on that later...

Have a great day and enjoy the pics!

Spring's Eternal Bliss...or something like that!

It's a lovely day in NW Vermont. Almost 70 degrees f. Here's a little snapshot off of one of our need-to-be-replaced decks... In the background are some birch trees I let grow about 4 years ago. They create a nice light backdrop for the flowering crab tree. The leaves are burgundy red on one side and a coppery tone on the other. They pale to a greenish color in the summer. The blossoms are a light pink. We have another one that stays red/bronze all year, and the blossoms are a darker red. Picture in a couple days when it flowers.

Two or three years ago we had a heavy March snowstorm that broke off the center right leading branch. You can see about 40% up from the bottom the tree now kind of goes to the left. some branches are filling out in the middle and there is one leader that may strengthen....

Spinning: here is a pic of the last three things I spun. Left: is the shetland I got from Carolina Homespun. Really nice. Long fibers, spun up really stretchy, and fluffed up after the wash. In this case, I found that I could spin it thinner than the desired end result. In the middle is the merino/alpaca blend. I got that at Paradise Fibers. It is 70/30 merino/alpaca. I have enough for socks....yum! The skein on the right is the romney wool/angora bunny blend. Maybe only 20% bunny, but it's REALLY soft! I have about 8 oz of each of the fibers.

Blogging: Oh! What to do?! I emailed Zhenya about all the wonderful things in life I want to blog about: knitting, spinning, cooking, Zen, being gay and alcoholic in Vermont, etc. Each one in itself is time consuming. Oh wait! I also have to spend the time DOING the things! Lol. I'll try to do a short blurb about each one, if there's anything going on about it.

Have a great day!

May in Vermont

Two weeks ago it was 82 degrees here in northwest Vermont. Today it was 60. Kind of springlike, but it's damp and cold. Like our trip to Portland, Oregon in November '07. The trees are budding, the daffodils are gone by, and it's just about time for J. to do the first lawn mowing. I cook. He mows. And takes care of the compost for our organic garden! (He does eat well, I must say.)

Tonight I made a Thai/Indian dish. Curried broccoli and Quorn (vegetarian fake chicken breast-type food...yum) with organic golden rose short grain rice and red quinoa. I used Indian curry from our trip to India in '06, Thai green curry paste, and some of my homemade yogurt. It was yummy.

Knitting updates:

• Audacity yarn from blackbunny (rav): it's part of a fund raiser for my guy Barack. It's 100% superwash merino, yummy feel and yummy colors! I was planning on making socks from it, but i have several pairs of socks planned/done and maybe I'll do a scarf. Was goggling scarf patterns last night. Just need to find the coolest one!


• Sun ray shawl (1950's dinner cloth/tea table garment in shawl disguise). I'm only on row 98 of 7 billion! Seriously, there are about 260 rows. But, the stitches are increased by 1/3 for each section. I just went from about 213 sts to 640! So each row will now take 3 times longer to do.

Other things:

The Men's Spring Knitting Retreat in Easton, NY is only a couple weeks away! I can't wait! Gay male knitters! Whoo hoo! Joe and Ted have done a lot of work for this. I'm teaching a short workshop on spinning cotton. Joe, Ted, Dan O. and Mr. DV are attending. Such esteemed people with loads of talent! I'm honored and humbled--to share my knowledge and to learn from them.

Off for now, gotta load up pics. more later...

knitting update

Here's an update on my UFO's now FO's:

• Finished my "yes we can" socks, yarn from Mama E's C*eye*ber fiber on etsy. Really nice colors! these were my first toe-up socks. Once I got used to knitting with the two circs, it went quite smoothly. I actually like starting the socks at the toe much better, as I can try them on for size while I'm knitting them. I like learning new techniques. I hate getting stuck in old ways, just doing them because that was the way I was taught. Like going from the inchworm method of spinning most people do--not even a short draw, as they let the twist go into the drafting triangle--to the long draw, and then various modified versions of that.
• The second pair of socks I used Trekking XXL color 165. I LOVE the color scheme! I made the sock pattern up, combining the toe-up technique, ribbed instep, short row heel, then an OXO pattern from a sock book for the top. Adding the ribbing gave more arch support. The OXO pattern in the book wasn't technically accurate--it was missing one part and was more like an X morphing into an O. The O is supposed to be nestled into the arms of the X, so the pattern needed a repeat. Top of the O, then bottom of X, then top of X, then bottom of O.

Chris Blogs!

Finally! I've entered the age of blogging. I'll be working on the design of this in the next week or so, and I'm excited to share my talents, creativity, interests, and of course, photos of my life in Vermont with my partner Jeff, our rescue kitty Tigger, and my spinning, knitting, and gardening.

My blog title is the same as my name on Ravelry. If you don't know about it, and you are a knitter or spinner, check it out! I learned about it from Kyle, a super nice fellow knitter in California, whose blog I stumbled on a couple of months ago. You can learn more about Kyle at Kyle Knits.

On the right is Tigger. Mr. Spoiled, Mr. Anxiety-boy. Our rescue kitty. He thinks he's a dog, so we call him doggy-kitty! He follows us around the house, and when we call him, he comes running/trotting like a dog. He's sweet, although he doesn't want to sit on our laps, he has to sleep right next to me. I.love.him.