Friend. Good.

Was there ever a more poignant movie scene about new friendship than the one between Peter Boyle and Gene Hackman in "Young Frankenstein?"  Probably.  But those other scenes manipulate kittens, flowers and butterflies, crying children, puppies and rainbows and so don't elicit the same tender feelings from me.

It's always great to be encouraged by a friend when you're learning something new.  It doesn't matter whether they are a new friend or someone you've been talking to for years.  Outside input and encouragement makes a difference.

The Mistress of Shadowmanor is one of those cool friends who knows how to make Bridge Mix out of garlic cloves and common crickets and sews her children's Halloween costumes.  If you don't already know about her blog, you should.

The delightful thing about her is -- well one of the things -- is that she's much more conscientious about the job of blogging than most and she will find something interesting for you to mull over almost every day.  Her encouragement and pointing me to tutorials that were actually helpful is directly responsible for the felted eyeball pictures today.

Jumping from present to past, I have pictures of sheep left over from the Wisconsin Sheep and Wool Festival that I haven't posted because I've not had the time to study all the breeds of sheep.

I'm already familiar with the Jacob, though, and this fellow was one of the friendliest rams I've ever met.  He made me question the rumor that Jacob Sheep are mean, tempermental spawn from hell and only suitable for clearing brush and weeds in unpopulated areas. One of the handlers said that Jacobs have personalities and so frighten farmers accustomed to dealing with walking slabs of meat.

I don't need to crack any books on this particular breed. I first learned about Jacob sheep with their 4 to 6 horns (on both male and female) and spotted fleeces not long after I started spinning.  I had been buying roving and top from dealers on Ebay and decided to take the next step with a whole fleece.

I dealt with some pretty dirty and nasty things that arrived in the mail.  One fleece hadn't been skirted at all and was full of dung tags and another -- a merino fleece -- required three washings before it was clean enough to spin.  But of all the fleeces, I would buy a Jacob again in a heartbeat.  If it is well skirted (the four arm-pit areas, the neck, belly and the briches area should be removed) it washes easily and dries quickly and on a sunny day you can have fiber to spin by nightfall.

The white wool has some long guard hairs, but they're obvious and easy to pull out when carding or combing.  The hard-wearing white wool is lusterous and long with a wave and reminds me of a shorter, softer Mohair.  It makes excellent worsted and I have warped a rigid-heddle loom using only single-ply white jacob.  The brown and black wools are spongey, dense and soft, and perfect for spinning woolen.

Loading a hand card with light on one side and dark on the other  makes it possible to spin a variegated yarn that takes dye well and produces a lusterous intense single. While I wouldn't want to wear the white close to delicate skin and the dark isn't merino, the wool is still wearable as hats and mittens and maybe even socks.  (Oh look what I just did.  Now a Jacob Sock Experiment is going to haunt me until I buy a fleece.  :::sigh:::)

Jacob fleeces are pricey because they are easy to clean, a joy to spin and create variegated yarns that dye very well. They are worth every penny.

Schrödinger's Toilet Paper

I'm sure that everyone reading this blog is completely familiar and comfortable with Erwin Schrödinger's Verschränkung that involves a box, a cat, and a random number machine.You can follow the link for a refresher here on quantum mechanics and who was arguing about it when, or take my quicky explanation which is -- a lot of things (on the quantum level) don't actually happen until you see them happen.

What does that have to do with knitting? Well, I'll tell you.  

I would very much like to learn how to make my own 'porcelain' dolls eyes for my Halloween Shoggoth Hat and that is because most truly eerie and chilling eyes cost $9.00 a pair.

 

Nine bucks a pair would be prohibitive for a Shoggoth anything, and a chocking hazard to boot, but frankly right now I don't have the time to learn a new craft for one piece. I've compromised my horrific artistic sensibilities and have substituted glow-in-the-dark yarn for the whites of the eyes on the Toddler version.

While visiting friends this weekend, the three of us were watching the news. I was working on my hats when a commercial featuring an abrasive woman's voice chastised a man for leaving a "naked" roll of toilet paper sitting on the water closet.  A can to house the TP was touted as the "solution" to the "problem." 


My friends, who are world travelers and members of the intelligencia have used bathrooms belonging to friends, relatives, lovers and complete strangers and so have had the opportunity to be confronted by the doll-in-a-hoop-skirt toilet paper cover.  They asked me why any sane person would crochet something like that and I said I'd already decided it was because some people just can't stop knitting/crocheting -- or perhaps they had traumatic potty-training issues and can't pee unless someone is watching.


And so, they gently suggested that my Li'l Shoggoth hat would make a perfect TP cover.  Ahem.  Well!  Okay.  They're right. It would also (with some minor alteration to the pattern) make a superb tea cozy.  And dammit ... it will be one.

I CAN stop knitting anytime I want to stop.  But they've already started putting Xmas decorations up in the stores so it would be a bad idea to quit right now.

I'll be taking pictures with an infant model later in the week.  Until then ...

Wool Gathering

I imagine that the telepathic message the border collie was sending the sheep went something like, "I eat you, you don't move, you stupid, omnomnom,"  or "I am wolf in bunny clothing, hurry to safety of blond lady."  This dog got a lot of applause.  Not all dogs can move so many sheep at such a distance so adroitly.
 
The image is deceptive though.  I "photo shopped" it.  Well, truthfully I used my much cheaper and easier to use program, Paint Shop Pro so it's not technically photo shopped, but then that border collie on the left isn't technically that close to the sheep.  With your mind's eye, double the width of the picture and put the Border Collie on the far left edge.  Yep, that dog was a good 50 to 100 yards away from the sheep while willing them into the pen.  

The dog's blond handler on the right of the picture also technically has a face, but I didn't technically ask her if I could use this picture on my blog so I smudged her at the same time that I moved the dog closer to the sheep.  No offense lady, just protecting your privacy.  You have a genius dog though.

I took a few pictures at the Wisconsin Sheep & Wool Festival, but I won't be posting them all today.  Some will be going up over the next couple of weeks, others will pop up when you least expect them.

I'm bummed.  I didn't get to take a class I really wanted to take.  It was cancelled day before yesterday. I was so looking forward to meeting Jacey Boggs and learning her technique on slub and coils that I took a whole day off work. Anyone who knows me understands that I only take off a whole day's work for amputations and/or oral surgery.  

BUT, I did get great roving and a new and necessary tool.  So I'm not TOTALLY bummed. 

I've been wanting a smaller niddy-noddy for taking off novelty and art yarns as I make them.  Nels Wiberg, inventor of my favorite spinning wheel, makes a little one-yard niddy-noddy out of PVC and it's less than $10.  I also picked up two large balls of dark brown jacob roving for $4 each, and a 1.5 oz. ball of Cormo Sheep's Wool blended with Angora Bunny.  

Prairie Moonrise Farm out of Minnesota had Bunny Fur for sale at $6 an ounce and they had it in those clear plastic take-away containers ... the kind that hold a full sized meal.  You know the size I mean, the size that is contributing to the obesity of this nation?  That size.  

I'm hoping they start selling it on the internet soon because I keep stopping and getting up  from the computer to go over and touch the roving.  Wool from a sheep whose daddy was a corridale and whose mama was merino all carded up with fluffy bunny.   It's something.

 $6 an ounce may sound expensive, but there is a LOT bunny fluff in an ounce.  

Finally, I ran into one of the owners of Argyle Fiber Mill.  I've been wanting to visit them for some time because they're an honest to goodness fiber mill in South Central Wisconsin that processes local wool.  50 Mile Fiber is what they call it.  They also hold what sounds like absolutely hilarious and fun knitting get-togethers at their mill.   Who knows ... maybe they'll let me take pictures.  

I'll be posting again later in the week as I finalize some designs I've been working on for the Drooling Crumb-Crusher Line of Halloween Haute Couture.  I have a model lined up for the "Punk" and "Li'l Punk N Head" Halloween hats but the "Li'L Shoggoth" hat is giving me problems.  Making a three dimensional static representation of ... a terrible, indescribable thing vaster than any subway train—a shapeless congeries of protoplasmic bubbles, faintly self-luminous, and with myriads of temporary eyes forming and un-forming as pustules of greenish light all over the tunnel-filling front that bore down upon us ... particularly one that people might actually buy to put on their 6-month-old's head, has proved to be challenging.  

How's that for a convoluted Lovecraftian sentence married to an gross understatement?  Until later this week ...

What Regretsy Taught Me - Ask for Feedback

Beaded Little Leaf Lace in Sage

I just got through listing several berets and neck laces on Etsy and it seems like that was a lot more work than actually making the things.   I decided to NOT use the word steampunk as a keyword, style, description or any other thing, anywhere on my listings because

a. Nothing has clock parts knitted into it and
b.  I know better than to call something Steampunk, particularly if it actually IS steampunk. 

I did use the tags of Edwardian, Victorian and Goth for my neck laces.  So I'm asking for feedback on that.  If you believe that I've misused the descriptive words Edwardian, Victorian or Goth anywhere in my Etsy shop, please let me know.

While I was posting the berets I've been making, though, it occurred to me that I can offer something I've not seen elsewhere.  After knitting a couple of berets using hand spun it occurred to me that I couldn't possibly charge $200 for a beret -- so I shouldn't be using hand-spun exclusively when I knit my designs.  

I should concentrate my spinning time on novelty/art yarns and use them to enhance berets that had been knitted primarily in commercial yarn.  And that is what I've done.  Though one or two of the berets are completely hand spun, most start with a base of Lion's Fisherman's yarn and go from there.

Thick N Thin with Flags Novelty

It was just a small jump from that to the idea of offering berets with extra novelty yarn so that customers could knit their own matching scarf (with suggestions on how to use the novelty yarn to best effect -- or not.)

The beret here, for instance, is primarily White Fisherman's wool with a couple of different novelty yarns.  Hems of novelty on both ends of a garter stitch scarf would be easy to do, and when the customer is finished they could say "Hey, I knit this scarf just for you!  And here's a hat too!"  ... but is that too odd?
 

Next Lace -- Neck Lace

I checked a few online dictionaries and not only is the word pronounced neck-less, no where in the definition is LACE mentioned at all.  I suppose it was irrational of me to hope for a detailed etymology of the word online and I'm starting to wonder if the internet is the best thing for absolutely everything -- like as a replacement for a trusty unabridged to get that wordophile fix.  True it's English and obvious right now, but the closest most online definitions come to the actual individual words in the necklace portmanteau is the probable date of the word's creation -- 1590. Elizabethan, of course. 

If you google "neck ruff," you will find pages like this Elizabethan Ruff tutorial or truly delightful items for sale that you could only wear on Halloween or to a Society for Creative Anachronisms get-together.  With many of the more expensive Ruffs tipped in extravagant (machine knit/sewn) lace you can see where the word actually came from.  Most lace "edging" patterns I've seen have a handy row of eyelets written into the pattern.  I'd always thought them ugly, and they are, but they are also perfect for sewing the lace to the edge of a ruff or threading a ribbon or gold chain through to make a Neck Lace.

I don't want to buck any sumptuary laws so I'm going to keep it simple -- which isn't actually all that simple. Once I translated the written lace pattern to a grid there are only four pattern rows. Unfortunately, the pattern rows are all distinct strands of stitches and holes.  It's not something that can be easily knit like the perennial shetland lace favorite, Feather and Fan.  My first set of Necklaces will be of little leaves and here's a completed piece, with gold seed bead accents.  

I am working on a version using larger needles and higher grist yarn in a different color for a choker that will be attached to itself with seed bead buttons.  I also picked up some #10 cotton thread and #1 needles to take another crack at that elusive Kali Choker as well.  And I'm still on a treasure hunt for online sources of lace inserts and edgings that lend themselves to this type of ornament.

The beret knitting frenzy has not stopped either.  It's just slowed a bit as I spin some yarn for 'variegated windows' and rolled novelty brims.  I'll be adding several new berets to the Etsy store and will preview them here for you first.  Next Week. 

Lacey

As promised I've created a PDF file with the extremely basic plain watchband pattern and a more complex lace wristlet complete with a lace graph.  You can get  Free Prodigal Sock Patterns by clicking here or by going to the Prodigal Sock website at 

http://www.prodigalsock.com  

You'll also find a pattern for my "Yellow Wheat Sonja Van Gogh Ear Warmer" pattern that uses any bulky size yarn.  And no, it is not sized for one ear although you could wear it like Sonja Henie would have, while ice skating.

In the next couple of weeks, I hope to have the navigation fixed on the Prodigal Sock website so that you can get anywhere from anywhere ... so remember, until then use your back-button early and often.

A Sudden Fascination

I've developed a sudden fascination for patterns which depend on proportion, actual measurements of the person for whom the item will be made, the gauge of the yarn being knitted up on the favorite needles and the room to improvise.    I found a perfect Beret pattern online and you can check it out at  Beret Recipe - A Kirsten Kapur Design.  I have been so delighted with its versatility that I've been knocking them out these past few weeks.  Here is one for which I specifically spun yarn.  

The two-ply used to make the body was lightly spun english long draw.  Then that yarn was dyed with un-spun roving which I used to make the thickNthin two-ply for the brim.  It's just been through the washer and is now drying on a plate.

Here is a detail of the yarn texture so you can see how the mild variation of the body yarn, knitted stockinette, works with the greater variation in the brim yarn which is purled for bumpy effect.  

In addition, on this beret, I've knitted in ribbon holes around the bottom of the brim because there is no ribbing to adjust the size.


I'll be running some gold ribbon through that later, and I can see that this version of the beret will be excellent for dour colored men's berets of the Scottish military variety.

For the most part, though, I've realized that it is far more time and cost effective for me to use commercially prepared 100% wool for the body of these berets and  save my hand spun for detailing, like the brim above and this slip-stitch detail to the right.

The  dark brown is Lion Brand Fisherman's Wool and you can see the glossy sheen of the lanolin they leave in this yarn.  The orange-yellow-red is the last of the roving I space dyed in a roasting pan with Scarlet and Sunshine Yellow Jacquard Acid Dye and then spun worsted and Navajo Plied. 

I found this slip-stitch pattern from my copy of Homespun And Handknit which is so old and used that I've had to put it in a 3-ring binder via plastic page protectors.  I believe this slip-stitch pattern was first documented by Barbara Walker in her knitting stitch treasury as a "honeycomb" type stitch.  When off the mannequin the colored squares do recede.

With the rest of the Dark Brown I'm knitting up matching fingerless mittens that I will be adding a small picot edging to at knuckles and thumb using the last of the Navajo Ply. I'll be offering them as a set on Etsy.  And where did I get the Hobo Glove pattern? The web of course.  I like to have my thumb knuckles covered so it was necessary for me to find a good generic pattern for mittens and I did with the Forepaw Socks  pattern designed by Judy Gibson.  Who, I might ask, with monkey toes can possibly resist a pattern called Forepaw Socks?  They WILL fit me and any other medium pawed woman.

I feel as though I'm finally armed with a great pair of patterns that provide a decent canvas on which to display novelty and art yarns in the future.   Next post will be of my simple patterns on wrist watch bands, sometime next week.