Hemmed In

 

Whew.....back to where I started and it all looks like it's going to work out this time.

Here is the back of the loom where I spent a great deal of time over the past few weeks straightening out and then threading each of the 300 plus strands of cotton. 

There was one scary moment where it looked like I made another threading error but it was just a twist in the strand and it was an easy fix. I was beyond relieved when the hem was finished. 

The first bit of weaving is just to get everything situated. It's cut away from the towel. The towel starts at the hem and I use this very fine thread so I can turn it under without a lot of bulk. It's always a big moment of truth.

That's all my heart could manage in one sitting. Stressed out is an under statement. Now I can get to the fun part. I have to decide on the order of colors and start winding bobbins so I can start the pattern. This is going to be one crazy looking towel.

Wednesday WIPs: Premier Fruits

 

The day I discovered that my newly finished kid socks were too small for the Grand we went online yarn shopping. He wanted these. 

They don't seem like "snow" socks to me and...gasp-they are acrylic but the heart wants what the heart wants and he wants these so here they are. I have to admit they are cute. Notice there are two balls in front of one of the pair because.....knots. Ugh.

While we continue to wilt from this terrible heat, all my other wool projects are in slow motion but I do pick up the Hummingbird socks every morning. I can't think of the last time I could open a window around here or felt a cool breeze.

I'm starting to feel like Sam and Frodo on Mount Doom. I would love to open the door and not have a blast furnace in my face. 

TNT: Slowly but Surely

 

Kitty got a blanket this week. It doesn't look like much but it was a lot of stitching and I've still got a lot of that blanket to go.

I have three more colors to go on this block of the needlepoint project. 

I knocked out another block on the Patchwork quilt. I'll be working on this one this week. 

Even Dear Jane got some attention this week. Her borders are finished, Now I have to connect all those little pieces and figure out how to applique them down. 

 

The Reel Thing

 

In 2020 I was tempted to buy several of  the new Knit Picks limited edition sock reels. 

I thought it was great fun to knit right from the reel but the resulting socks were terrible looking and blocking didn't help at all. You can't achieve any sort of even tension with kinky yarn. 

I had the bug to cast on some travel socks since my travel bag was empty and I thought I might as well give this yarn another try.

This time I unraveled it first.

Will you look at this? It was awesome looking but who could knit with this?

Even after a good soak it was still kinky. I tried hanging it with a weight but it didn't make a bit of difference.

I went online and looked up what the folks do who recycle the yarn from old sweaters. They soak it and then wrap it tightly around a big soda bottle. I didn't have one so I used a plastic deli container that I weighted with a bag of lentils so it would hold its shape. 

After a few days, as it dried, I moved it to two containers for more air flow. 

By yesterday afternoon I had two reasonably well behaved balls of yarn cast on for my travel bag. It was a lot of work for what's going to be an ugly pair of socks. The Rugby Stripe colorway is very pretty in the reel but is pretty awful once it's knit up. There's a lot of gray and very little stripe but at least it's something to keep my hands busy on long car rides. 

 

Chicken on Sunday

 

Poor Spiral Chicken has spent the summer being ignored. 

My plan to work around the perimeter to make sure I didn't run out of the gray color didn't go so well. Moving the fabric every few inches along the frame is tedious so I did everything I could to ignore her existence.

Since she's sitting in plain sight, guilt started to weigh in. My solution to getting her back into production was to buy more of this. Luckily, the Etsy vendor had more to sell so I bought three more bundles. One for each corner. 

It's a much more pleasant experience to work in big chunks so that's what I'm going to do. This may not be her summer to be finished but it just might be her year. 

So Close

 

I haven't given up on that mess on the loom yet. If I get up out of this chair and walk over there I'll be finished with all the re-threading. If all goes well there should be some weaving going on next week. Fingers crossed. 

Friday Fluff: Catching Up

 

There hasn't been any tours to watch this week but before the Women's Tour was over on Sunday I finished spinning the rest of the fiber I had leftover from the drop spindles. 

Then I had to join and transfer what I had on another bobbin and off the drop spindles themselves. Now I've got a lot of singles to ply during the Vuelta de Espana that starts next Saturday.

I ran out of yarn for the Wonky Thermal Mitts and had to ply the singles I had on the Ashford Traditional. I'm hoping the colors will work because these singles came from a different little carded nest of Merino than the other ball I was using.

The Unicorn Barf Pi Shawl is in its never ending orange era it seems. I could use a color change right about now. It's getting a bit monotonous.