Spinning for Color

I finally wound my first 50 grams of plied yarn for Color Affection into a skein.

I'm very happy with the look and feel of the yarn.  I was aiming to match Knit picks Palette, because others had used that for the Color Affection successfully.  50 g of Palette has 231 yards.  My skein came in at 258 yards.  Whoohoo!

Now here's the problem.  I've looked at a lot of finished projects on Ravelry that used the Palette Yarn, and almost all of them used more yarn than I just spun.  What did I look at before?  I know it was weight, not length.  I'm wondering if I need to add fiber to one of my other chunks to make more yarn.  Trying to make it come out just perfect seems like a recipe for disaster.

Getting Started on Christmas

Looking forward to a beautiful weekend of knitting while listing to General Conference at my Mom's Cabin, I wound a few balls of yarn.

I bought this yarn a long time ago for my mother-in-law who loves purple.   It's Araucania Nature Wool Chunky.  I love that it's hand-dyed in Chile by a women's coop using vegetable dyes.  I'm going to make her a small circular blanket/shawl for keeping warm while working on her laptop this winter.   I'm going to assume she's not reading this blog, or I've just blown her Christmas present!

My kids and nieces and nephews had a great time winding the balls of yarn.  My swift got a good workout.  We also wound this yarn up to make leg-warmers for my daughter, who requested some for ballet.

This is Knit Picks Palette yarn, hand dyed by me.  I've got plans for a whole line of ballet inspired knitting patterns, and this will be the first I knit up.

Spinning for Color Affection

If you follow Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, theYarn Harlot, you might have read her posts about the Color Affection shawl.  The desire to knit it became so great at one retreat that they started calling the Color Infection, which seems true because the infection was so strong it reached over the internet.  I've been dying to make this shawl ever since.  

I'm on a yarn diet, however, and despite many looks through the stash, I found nothing right to knit it with.  I even managed to resist a sale at Knit Picks on the right yarn.  I kept telling myself I had many too many other projects to finish first.  

Happily, I finally remembered that I have fiber in my stash too.  

This is some wool-ish roving I've had for a year or two.  I say wool-ish because it is mill ends guaranteed to be at least 80% wool.  There is something else really shiny and fluffy in there every now and then.  I tried a burn test, and I don't think it's synthetic, so I'm hoping it's tussah.  It sure feels silky.

I read a lot of people's finished projects on Ravelry, to try to decide how much to spin.  I finally split off segments of 50 g, 45 g, and 40 g for each of the three colors.  I decided to spin first and dye after, though that decision alone took me a few days.

I just finished plying up the 50 gram bit.  It has just a touch of brown in it, but is mostly creamy white right now.  I still have to decide on colors for the finished shawl!

Yarn Diet

I've just re-dedicated myself to my yarn diet.  The idea came to me from Wendy, who said she wasn't going to buy any more yarn until she had used up every bit of everything in her stash.  Wow.  I've been watching all sorts of great things come off her needles and hooks since then.  She makes whatever the yarn will work for.

I couldn't bring myself to be that good.  I decided to knit only out of my stash for a year.  Then I added the exception that I could buy yarn I needed for a gift.  Then sales became an exception too.  My stash is now bigger and better than ever.  I mean worse, don't I?

I've been knitting away, but I really have to make the yarn I have fit in the space I have, so it's back on the diet again.  I am committed not to buy yarn until all that I have fits in the bins I have for yarn.  (Should I admit how many bins there are?)  

The only trouble is...I'm hooked on a pattern, thinking about it all the time, and I don't have any yarn for it.  In all those bins, nothing will work.

But I remembered I have a spinning wheel.  And a fiber stash.

Summer Garden

We have raspberries this year!!  I knew that you were supposed to cut back raspberries, so last year I cut them all back.  Then I found out that raspberries only grow on second-year canes.   No raspberries last year.  But the kids and I picked these this morning.  They are delicious!!

Cache Gran Fondo 2012

I did it!  I rode my bike for 51.4 miles in the Cache Gran Fondo 2012.  I only decided to try and do this ride less than 2 weeks ago, so I didn't have too much time to train.  I also don't have the kind of bike you're supposed to have, but the Gran Fondo is a ride, not a race, and billed for all levels.  I hoped I'd be fine.  Of course, when I signed up, it said it was a 40 mile ride.  Then it became 50, and I got worried.

By the time I showed up Saturday morning, I was really nervous.  I felt embarrassed to be the only one (it seemed) with a bike for riding around town instead of speed.  Mark came to see me off and give me moral support, which I really appreciated.  I hoped everyone would pass me quickly so that I could just ride at my own pace without feeling so self-conscious.  The 100 mile riders and 70 mile riders all started earlier, and at 7:15 am, our 50-miler group was off.

The course was pretty flat, so I did fine for a long time.  I started out in about the middle of the group, but people steadily passed me.  Every time I was pretty sure I was the last one, someone else would pass.  But it wasn't until nearly 20 miles into the ride that the young boys on mountain bikes passed me.  I decided that was really probably it--the last to pass me.  Then we did a little one mile sprint and I passed a couple of the boys.  No offense kids, but that was kind of fun.

At the first rest area, they had really good breakfast food that I didn't feel hungry to eat, and bike repairs offered.  My bike chain had started squeaking continuously as I pedaled, so I asked if they could oil my chain.  The guy was so nice.  I was embarrassed about my bike again, and he was very complimentary: probably just to help me feel good.  He also adjusted my shifters so that I could get into 8th gear (my highest) which wasn't working before.  Yeah!  I rode off feeling like I'd had a free tune up.

Then I hit the hill challenge.  It was about a mile and a half and looked straight up from the bottom.  I was determined to ride up the whole thing, even if I had to rest and then ride some more.  It seems really hard to walk a bike up a hill after pedaling so hard; I've tried it.  Not far into riding up, I realized that everyone on the hill was walking their bikes.  They yelled encouragements to me when I passed.  Bikers are nice!  Seriously!  Once I was done, I felt like the rest of the ride was in the bag.

Somewhere after that, I started having random thoughts like, "I should have shaved my legs," and "These bike shorts really helped!  I'm only getting really sore right now!"  Some ladies taking a break on the side of the road told me I was doing really well with that kind of a bike.  So nice!

The weather was fantastic: cooler than it'd been in weeks, and overcast.  Kind of sticky, but worth it to have the sun behind clouds.

At the 40 mile rest stop, I was really glad I still had 10 miles to go, because I still felt good.  The ride back in to Logan was fun, but I could start to really feel the tired muscles.

Mark and the little kids came to meet me at the finish line.  Lots of bystanders cheered, which was really fun.  What a great ride!  I'm so glad I did it, and I have to admit, it's a lot easier and more fun for me than running.  I'm taking a couple of days off now to rest my aching muscles and knees.  I forgot to look at my time when I rode through the finish arch, but it was pretty close to 5 hours and 20 minutes.  And I didn't finish last.

Tour de Fleece

I keep hearing about my fellow fiber enthusiasts' goals in the Tour de Fleece.  This is where you spin every day that the the riders in the Tour de France ride.  I had great intentions to participate.  I haven't spun in a long time, and I'm dying to let some wool run through my fingers, even in the heat.

I also heard about the Gran Fondo bike ride in my community to support the hospital.  I've often wanted to participate in a fun bike ride through my beautiful valley, but I'm so intimidated by the experienced people in most races.  This one sounded perfect, because a Gran Fondo (Big Ride in Italian) is truly a ride, not a race, and is supposed to accomodate all levels.  There was a 40 mile ride that seemed about right for me.

I told my husband I wanted to ride, but the cost (which is a fund raiser for a good cause) seemed really high.  Well, my husband sponsored me and I started to ride last week.  That gave me a whole week and a half to train for my ride.  Let me just say that it hurts to sit.

So my deal with myself was that for every day I "spun" on the bike, I could spin on my spinning wheel.  This would have been great!  But I've biked almost every day, and haven't done a lick of spinning.  Maybe after the Gran Fondo on Saturday.