Fiber Fluff & Stuff.

So, my friend Jim the Odinsman has just gotten into knitting. It's been exciting to watch the stuff he has been posting. It is equally exciting to see how excited he is about this new craft in his life. He is a little self-conscious about his mistakes, but, honestly, he is doing a lot better than I was when I first started out. My rectangles and squares came out lopsided and could only be called such in the loosest of senses. He seems to have a natural knack for keeping his tension even. I'm still not good at that and I've been trying to figure out this knitting stuff for about eight years now. (Not counting the time when I was eight and my Grandma K. tried to teach me. That was just a mess and I gave up.

Somehow, things came full circle. After Grandma K. passed, I inherited some of her knitting stuff and among the fist full of knitting needles was that purple set of circular needles she gave me when I was small and I handed back in great frustration. I also discovered the sweater she had started for me when I was much younger. It is half finished and it looks like she ran out of the same style of yarn for the back. It is bitter sweet. I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to approach the matter. A part of me says I should try to finish the thing, another part of me says that it won't fit me, and then I've got yet another part saying that it would be better to use that yarn for something like the baby hats for the NICU at Strong.)

My spinning got interrupted last week by the snow days. I wound up spending more time trying to keep the kids out of trouble than I did spinning. So, I am attempting to get more done this week. I am still using that rainbow colorway that I was before. I have switched from the turkish spindle over to the french spindle. This is not because the turkish spindle is full as much as I really want to do a 2 ply yarn from the singles off of the french spindle. Because it is tricky to work with that super fine stuff, I am going to spin up another full spindle on the french spindle. I am starting to get kinda close to that. It helps that I figured out how to make what I am calling a 'table top' distaff.

I picked up one of those silly things that look like a giant lollipop with smaller lollipops inside. Because the 'lollipop' opens up into two hemispheres, it has a very stable base when I am resting it on the open side. Inside the sphere portion, there is a plastic divider with holes that the sticks for the lollipops go. I figured out that I could pop that divider out and pull out the styrofoam block inside. I then filled it with some stones and popped the divider back in. The side with the divider is where the 'stick' of the thing attaches. So, I wound my fiber around the end of the stick pointing up in the air and secured it like I would on a larger distaff.

Wouldn't you know it, the darn thing is perfect for using a supported spindle at the table. It stands up a little bit over a foot, which means I'm not waving my arms around like a madwoman. I have found that this means that my shoulders don't bother me so much and my arms are less likely to get fatigued by it. I also found that it makes stopping spinning an easier affair as well. Instead of somehow wrapping the fiber around the spindle when I set it down, I can just wind the single up on it until I can rest the tip of the spindle in the bit of fiber where the drafting triangle is. Nothing gets unspun or tangled. It just sits there nice and tidy, waiting for me to come back and work some more. I think this was a great idea and I'm very pleased with how it is working.

I am almost on the last third of the ducky scarf. It is coming out a bit shorter than I anticipated, but I have a plan for how to compensate for that. I'm going to add some buttons and a loop for closing the two sides of the short scarf around the wearer's neck, like some kinda fancy cowl or something. I've seen a few interesting ideas that I am trying to decide which is going to work best. Still, I am going to finish this damn thing because the gift is now three months late. It is very annoying for me.

It is still the beginnings of this large shawl/cloak that I am crocheting. It has 5 points, including the two ends as one point where they meet. I'm making it up in shades of purple. I will be doing some white in this as well. The idea was inspired by looking at a chunk of amythest. I'm pretty sure that I don't have the right number of points for the crystalline structure, but I'm not going to worry about it. I am in the planning stages for Yule gifts. I am seriously thinking about making something with Pi on it, like a scarf or something. The other thing that I am considering is that I may do something needlepoint. As I was falling asleep last night, the idea hit me that I could do something cross stitch with the number 3.15 shaped to look like an apple. I may have to play around with that to figure out how to get it right. But it could be super cute.