So much fiber, so little time

Final auction result

The blanket sold for $190 in a flurry of last minute bids.

Reversibility

Presenting one reversible qiviut hat, pre-felting. It doesn't need quite as much felting as I had originally thought, but it does need to shrink enough to cling to the head just a bit more.

And let's hear three cheers for the cold front, which is arriving as I type this. The temperature is plummeting like Monty Python's sheep in trees.

The hat

OK, I decided to finish the hat and felt it. If I'm successful, it will become a nice, reversible, cloche-like hat. If not, I only wasted two ounces of leftover qiviut yarn that I really didn't feel like ripping and reknitting. And I'll still have enough qiviut left in both colors to line a cable-brimmed hat.

Keesmere blanket update: it's currently at $111 with over four days left in the auction. Not bad in a summer where most of the country is baking!

Survey says

I don't think fiber blogs were what they had in mind, though.

Dilemma

Today I neared the end of the qiviut hat and discovered that I'm not terribly happy with it. At the moment it's both wider and shorter than what I had envisioned, which leaves me with two options:

1. Rip back a long ways and redo the shaping.
2. Continue to the end and felt it to a smaller size and different shape.

I'm going to let it sit overnight while I cogitate. Either option will still give me a reversible hat with a nice herringbone border.

Dewpoint 64F!

Happy, happy, joy, joy! The air is starting to dry out, and although it's still far too hot, at least I don't feel like I'll mildew if I stand still. Phhht to summer!

The Keesmere blanket has had a few bids so far and stands at $70. I'd really like to see it hit $200. Hmm, would that even hit the milli-cent per stitch mark? Doubt it, which is yet another reason I should weave blankets rather than knit them, except I didn't feel like dyeing yarn so that I could produce something more interesting than gray on gray. (And, no, fuzzy Kees is not what I'd choose for huck or Bronson or any other woven lace. This yarn weaves up better as 2/2 or 3/1 twill, or some derivative thereof.)

Blanket auction

The KSRF auction started tonight and runs through July 27 at http://www.ramsey-furkids.com/auction/auction.cgi. Items are listed alphabetically, so the blanket is filed under "K" down past the middle of the page.

Better view

This picture shows more of the blanket and how the sections fit together. Now let's just hope it brings in a decent amount for KSRF. The next one I do should really be woven, though: much quicker to do and easier to give washing instructions.

Re-inventing the wheel

Sometimes I think knitterly ignorance of older crafts knows no bounds. My latest jaw-dropping encounter with it came while reading Yarns to Dye For, where Kathleen Taylor laboriously describes the process of winding a 40 foot skein by choosing stationary objects around the house. Now, this book was published by Interweave. Hello there, editors, do the terms "warping pegs", "warping board" and "warping reel" ring any bells?

(When I implement my secret plan to take over the fiber universe, all knitters will be sent to re-education camps for spinning and weaving lessons. Maybe they'll finally understand yarn and stop throwing hissy fits over knots in skeins. Bwah-ha-ha!)

Anyway, I'm still trying to get a decent picture of the Keesmere blanket for the auction. Maybe I should go into furniture stores, throw it over an attractive sofa, snap a picture and run ...

The qiviut hat is past the halfway mark. I weighed both the hat and the remaining yarn, and, fortunately, the ball of brown weighs more than half a hat + needle. I won't have to add stripes to finish.

The Department of Missing Links

I saw this in a job posting today:

Accruacy, attention to detail and strong organizational skills are essential.

Um, you betcha!

Blanket blocking

Voila! I finally washed and pinned out the Keesmere blanket. It's in the garage-tent (hence the murky picture) which keeps dirt off it and dries it faster in the heat. In fact, it's probably dry now, but I think I'll wait until later when it's cooler to unpin it.

I really, really have to get a table to work off the ground, or at least some kneepads. There's still a circular shawl to block, but I haven't wanted to crawl around to do that one.

In the meantime, I'm knitting a double-layered reversible hat in leftover black and brown qiviut on 2mm needles. It will probably only be wearable by a bald person living in Arctic climes ...

Robocat

Jeeves is home, microchip and all. He's not even too groggy, because they did the surgery in the morning. Unless he gets an infection or eats something stupid, he doesn't need to see the vet again for a year. Ah, the benefits of young critters!

The jester socks are within a very few rounds of finished, so I'll have pictures tomorrow.

Odd conversation

I was wearing my spinning and weaving T-shirt while running errands today. A drug store clerk noticed and mentioned that her sister wanted to learn and "she was strong enough". Dumbstruck, I eventually managed to say "huh?". Apparently, they thought treadling a wheel took vast amounts of muscular effort.

Anyway, I assured the clerk that her sister just needs to be able to sit upright and told her when the local guild meets. Maybe we'll acquire a new member in the fall.

Jesting along

I've turned the heel of the second jester sock and am cruising down the instep. It's odd to work on something that goes so quickly after doing the behemoth of a blanket. Of course, said behemoth still needs to be blocked. I did pick up another cardboard gridded board (on sale, no less), but the weather probably won't cooperate until Friday.

Jeeves gets "tutored" tomorrow. The poor little guy is also getting his second immunization, second dose of wormer and a microchip. I hope he's not too groggy when he comes home - it's hell to keep a rubber-legged cat from jumping and climbing.

One completed sock

Here's one Jester-on-acid sock. I resisted the urge to knit a curled-up toe with bell, knowing how cat-attractive that would be. (BTW, that's Ammo the Amoeba guarding the top of the sock.)

TypePad made changes to the system over the weekend, but I hadn't realized until today that I have five times the disk space and twice the bandwidth. Very nice, even though I haven't pushed the limits of either yet.