Weekend Goals

1. Dye the skeins of yarn that are already soaking in the bucket.
2. Help my friend price her merchandise so that she can get her store open.
3. Clear off the dining room table.
4. Hang up the clothes that are in a pile upstairs.
5. Pick up the stitches to start the next section of my shawl.
6. Load Quickbooks on laptop and upgrade.
7. Get my yoga stuff together in prep for taking class Monday.
8. Reskein dry yarns and load them into etsy shop.

March Forth

After much ado, the shop is open!

This weekend I am instituting a no green dye zone! I would dye green after green if I could!

Today's List is "My Playlist."This has been the rotation as of late:

1. Whatever is on NPR. (Sadly, it's pledge week, so that limits things)
2. WXRT, Chicago's rock station. They play classic rock to new things. I like the morning DJs, but I usually don't listen that early.
3. Springsteen, always. I can listen to some albums (Greetings from Asbury Park, Darkness on the Edge of Town, Born to Run) every day. For others (Nebraska, The River, the non-E Street ones) I have to be in a particular mood.
4. Mumford & Sons, Little Lion Man
5. Podcasts (knitting related, The Moth)
6. David Sedaris, When You Are Engulfed in Flames

Jumping on a Bandwagon, Try Again

Okay, if you saw the post from yesterday, ignore it because it has been disappeared. I, apparently, cannot follow instructions.

So, I have decided to jump on the 30 Days of Lists bandwagon (after falling off once already.) Here goes:

#1 A Few Things About Me
Knitter
Dyer
Wife
Cat Person Who Also Loves Dogs
Shoe Enthusiast
Boot Collector
Bad Housekeeper
Good Cook
Former Professional Stage Manager
Former Executive Director of a Not-for-Profit Dance Company
Springsteen Fan

#2 Things I Am Good At
Cooking
Starting Projects
Writing Grants
Bargain Shopping
Finding Something I Have in Common with Almost Everyone I Meet

#3 Thing I Am Looking Forward To
Moving to Another Place When My Husband Retires (PNW, please)
Visiting Boston for the First Time in Forever
Having a New Kitchen
Warm Days on the Porch/Balcony
Walking By the Lake When it Isn't Freezing
Visiting Estonia
Many More Happy, Healthy Days with My Cat, Pitch
A Vacation with My Husband This Year

Soon, My Pretties

I know I have been yammering on about the dyeing forever. Some of you have been hearing about it for forever and a day. I promise that there will be yarn in the etsy shop next week, if not sooner.

This weekend I delivered a wholesale order to a new shop opening here in my neighborhood. I could not be more thrilled. The shop is going to be GORGEOUS. The owner has done a magnificent job, and has done it up right: nice, neutral fixtures, thoughtful space design, great lighting, and well-selected product lines. I am thrilled and honored that I get to be a part of it.

If you would like to be on Fleur de Fiber's notification list, head over to the etsy site and contact me and I will add you.

Root Beer

As of late, my routine is something like this: I get up, throw on my dyeing "costume," which consists of black yoga pants, a black shirt, a fleece jacket, wool socks, dye-spattered Birkenstock clogs, and a wool hat. It's been pretty cold here, and the craft dungeon has been a bit chilly, but there's no question that it's a lot of look.

Tonight the husband picked up dinner and was kind enough to bring me a diet root beer, one of the old-fashioned ones in a vintage-y brown bottle. Those bottles just make you want to blow into them while you're drinking, making crazy wind whistle sounds, which is just what I was doing. My husband looked up from his dinner, saw me in my dyeing get-up and said, "You look like a yarn hobo." I couldn't deny it.

Goodbye, Little Lion

Papel. Pel. Pelly Bel. Babyhead. Little Lion. Trotwood. Little Boy. Little Furry Buddy.

He grew into his ears, but kept his kitten voice. Never walked when he could trot. From the little tuft of hair on his left ear to the "racing stripes" around his back legs to his Q-Tip tail, he was the cutest, sweetest, most lovable tabby cat ever, and we told him so all the time.

Decisions, Decisions

Today I made the decision not to dye. My friend's shop is opening a bit later than I thought, and I have a bit more time to finish her order, which I should be able to do with no problems once the new motor for the electric skein winder gets here, provided I can install it without causing harm to man, beast, or object. My knitting has been sorely neglected, and I have some projects that need to get moving. I designed (on paper) a cowl that needs to be knit up pronto. It's for a swap, and the sooner it gets done, the sooner I can write up the pattern (if it is worthy), and the sooner the package can get mailed. One less thing to cause me distraction.

Other decisions are looming. Our "baby cat" (who is 14) is not doing so well, and we may have to make a decision about that sometime soon. He's been having occasional rough days for some time, but he always seems to bounce back, though he's just a shadow of his former self. The bad days seem to be coming a bit more frequently, and it's clear that, even on a fine day, his batteries are drained. But, every time he trots from one end of the house to the other (he doesn't walk unless he's punky), we look at it as a positive sign. He's been especially chilly, so this morning I wrapped him up in a fleece blanket burrito. Sometimes he still looks like a kitten.

I wish there was a yarn that was as soft as the fur right behind his ears. It is the softest, sweetest thing I've ever touched.

My Dr. Might Sew, But He Doesn't Knit

True story: If you tell your osteopathic surgeon that your hands are blue because you are dyeing, he's going to think you just told him you are dying. Lesson learned. Homonyms will getcha.

I'm Dyein' Here!

I am spending copious amounts of time in the Craft Dungeon. All this dyeing means that there isn't much knitting. Not much at all. As in none. Zip. If not for knit night on Tuesdays, it would be a knitting desert around here.

Today I'm dyeing up a seacell (rayon) and silk blend lace yarn. It is gorgeous, shiny, luxe stuff, but it smells awful--really, really, really awful--while it's being dyed. The end result is so gorgeous that it's worth a bit of suffering on my part.

When I buy yarns, often they arrive packaged with ribbons, tissue paper, and plastic bags in a shipping envelope. The plastic bags seem like overkill, and don't get me started on the ribbons. They are pretty and festive, but they often end up in the trash, and who needs that? My plan is to wrap the yarns in natural, unbleached tissue (recycled and recyclable) tied up with yarn, plenty of which is lying around the Dungeon. I'm going to ship in Tyvek envelopes (unless a box is required), which are water resistant. What are your thoughts on packaging? (I should also note that I'm going to be sending a little extra with the yarn--tea from Steven Smith Teamaker. Their teas are exquisite, and if I like them, I think you will, too!

Comfort Zones and Accidents

We all have them, and we spend time trying to step out of the former and avoid the latter. One that I have been fighting for some time is the concept of dyeing a skein of yarn that isn't my personal cup of tea. I remind myself time and time again that there are infinite combinations and just because a particular skein is not the first one I'd grab doesn't mean that someone else wouldn't fall in love.

In my teens, my friend and I used to mutually despise yellow. We even went as far as to be a bit superstitious about it, blaming unfortunate incidents on the presence of yellow in the immediate surroundings. At some point, that changed for me and, in this house as well as my last, I have had yellow or gold rooms. My current house has four. I am sitting here looking at two balls of golden yarn destined to be a shawl. Yellow has gained ground in my color world.

Dyeing can be thrilling, and sometimes there are unexpected results. A while back, I put some skeins in the pot with the three different dyes that make up the colorway. The secret to that particular colorway is to limit agitation so that there are flashes of color without much mingling and the natural color of the skein still remains visible. For some reason, I stirred the pot, literally. Oops. What came out was a new colorway because it shares very little resemblance to its cousin, and it may just be one of my favorites. And it has yellow in it.

Getting Ahead of Myself

I do it all the time. I get so caught up with the possibilities that the here-and-now gets in my way, and I end up tripping all over myself.

Today I found myself thinking about seeds. Here in Chicago, you really can't plant things outside until after Mother's Day. That's a long way off, and there's much to do between now and then. Additionally, I've not had much luck with my own seedlings. They tend to be spindly, weak, little things that wither in the urban jungle of my backyard. I do, however, have a worm bin just packed full of castings (that's a polite way to say worm poo) that could provide a better starting medium than what I've used in the past. I'm going to be ambitious and try it again.

There are seeds of a different kind that have been germinating here for some time. As you may remember from posts-long-gone, I dubbed the basement The Craft Dungeon, and in said Dungeon, experiments of the dyeing type were taking place. I became more comfortable with my technique and my materials, and I was producing colors that I thought could be attractive to yarnaholics who weren't just me. Last winter's fall and subsequent surgery postponed my plans, but didn't dampen them. So, I finally feel ready to tell you all that there is a new yarn line soon to be out in the world.

I will be launching the etsy store soon. You'll be the first to know.

So You Think You're So Smart...

Okay, about that cowl and my "improvements." Well, I solved a design issue, but I created a construction issue. For some reason that I just can't discern, grafting the two halves--which, theoretically, should have been seamless--caused some areas of the pattern to create weird little poofs. They're a bit too odd to be "design elements" and so it's back to the drawing board. I think what I really need to do is get out some knitting graph paper and design my own cowl. It will be a good exercise for me, and I'll let ya know how that turns out. By the way, do you know how long it takes to kitchener 119 stitches to 119 other stitches? I believe that unit of time is called a foreffingever.

One One One One One

That was predictable, right?



I wish I could say that 2011 has started off with a bang, but, alas, it hasn't. It started out with sniffle, then a whine, then a honk, and it progressed from there. The sofa in the knitting room still has a dent from the three days I spent there, both day and night. Admittedly, I do not suffer illness of any magnitude well, but this cold wiped me out. I am feeling better, but now my sleep rhythms are completely upside-down, and I was fully awake until 5am this morning. Fortunately, though, the calendar has provided me with a do-over of sorts, so I am declaring today the first day of my 2011. It's got an extra "one" in it, so that counts.



I've got some new projects on the needles, both of which have been subjected to my tinkering. I started one of the many pairs of mittens out there that are based on the ubiquitous Owls sweater. After knitting 90% of one mitten, I decided that the construction wasn't making me happy. The thumb was accommodated with a series of increases that essentially followed the lifeline on the palm, and while that sounds interesting, it resulted in a mitten that pulled in an odd way, and so it went to the frog pond. Instead, I am Frankenknitting a few patterns together to make a mitten that's making me a bit happier.



I have signed myself up for a Mardi Gras swap on Ravelry. I have decided to knit my giftee a lacy cowl made with some of my hand dyed yarn. The pattern is pretty (but I shan't name it here because of the Ravtroversey which, apparently, surrounds it), but it isn't symmetrical. The motif at the top and the bottom are mirrored, and the stitch pattern in the middle runs gracefully and logically from one side, but then it kind of slams into the border at the other end. After knitting 75% of it, I decided to frog it and make some changes. I am knitting it in two parts, from the ends in, and I am going to graft the halves in the middle. In the past, I have said my knitting would go faster if I didn't stop to admire every row. It would also go faster if I didn't re-knit every project at least once.



I am doing that "Pay it Forward" thing that's been making the rounds. It's the one where I promise you something handmade if you post on your blog or Facebook page the promise to do the same. I have one more slot open, so if you are interested in receiving something handmade by me in 2011 (it could be anything, mind you, not just knitting, as I wield some mean recipes and I own the Cadillac of hot glue guns), you must promise the same for five others. Comment here or on my Facebook page, and the next person I hear from is in. (If you decide to do it, I can provide you with the "text" for the Pay it Forward promise.) I'm really excited about the folks who are on the journey with me so far. One of them is a male friend from high school who I haven't seen in about 25 years! I have already been plotting and planning about the "right" items for each of them.


It's a beautiful, snowy day here in the city, so I need to do a bit of shovelling. Perhaps I'll take a bit of a snow walk for some exercise and to help ease myself toward being tired enough to fall asleep at a normal hour. Wish me luck, but if you see me Tweeting in the wee hours, you know I'm in deep trouble. (Insomnia often results in reckless internet shoe shopping, and that's just not good...)

One One One One

Hi there. Wow, it's been a long time. I can't promise how often I'll be stopping in, but I'm gonna try to be better.

Since it's 1.1.11, it is de rigeur to set a few goals for the year.

1. Less takeout and more cooking at home.
2. More exercise.
3. Less retail therapy. Shop in my stash more often rather than buy new yarn. Desire a new pair of shoes? Go to the shoe closet and pick out a pair rather than succumb to the temptation for a new pair. (I admit it: this will be a hard one.)
4. Plant the garden this year.
5. Rearrange the rooms I have wanted to revamp for a while: the TV/knitting room, the upstairs living room, the back room upstairs, both pantries, the office area.
6. Purge/clean the basement.
7. Purge the cookbook collection.
8. Hang all art/pictures. If there isn't a place to hang it, purge it.
9. Spin more.
10. Waste less time. Limit computer time. (Use an egg timer if necessary.) Turn on the TV less, but always multi-task when the TV is on.
11. Spend more time on the business.
12. Purge the Ravelry queue, if only a little bit.
13. Fewer pajama days.
14. Spend more time with friends.

All right, y'all, hope to see more of you in he coming year. Happy start to the new year, and see you soon!

5 Things I Learned This Week

1. I realized just how much I love Mason Jars. Love. I love them for storing things, for making sun tea, and for generally being cute.
2. I have learned that if you renovate an old house, nothing is square, therefore, don't put a tile floor with very straight lines in that old, non-square bathroom if you have OCD tendencies. The fact that the tiles aren't perfectly aligned will keep you awake at night.
3. Your cats will forgive you if you have to keep them confined in one room while you are renovating. They will pout, whine, and whinge if you have to put them in a different room every few days, even if it is for their own good.
4. That I don't care if sitting on my porch for hours at a time and for days on end gets me the reputation as the neighborhood crazy lady. It's my porch and I like it out here.
5. It was reconfirmed for me that some relationships suffer nothing from either distance or time. Some friendships are built for the long haul no matter how unusual or unlikely they may be.

My New Favorite Place

Given the chaos inside my house, it's only natural that I would seek respite outside. The front porch has become my new favorite place. Tonight, it's me, the netbook (the WiFi signal is better on the porch than it is inside--how weird), some incense to ward off the bitey bugs, scads of lightning bugs (which I adore and which are not bitey), and a nice cool breeze.

I've been spending my days knitting, computing, reading, brewing sun tea, and just generally relaxing out here.

Yesterday's Brew: Octavia Organic White Blueberry Tea--yum!

Today's Brew: Intelligentsia King Crimson Organic Hibiscus and Lemongrass Blend

Once the workmen have cleared the upstairs, I will likely shift operations up to the second floor balcony (where the cats also get to hang out), though the exposed balcony does get strong afternoon sun. I've really been thinking I need a hammock, though that would probably be best placed in the backyard. I am so fortunate to have these lovely outdoor spaces here in my little corner of the city, and I am taking greater advantage of them than ever.

There has been knitting. A few weeks prior to her being "Harloted", I bought some yarn from Wolle's Color Creations. My intention was to double strand it with Diaketo DiaSantaFe, which has been working out well. What am I making? Another skirt--one in a long line of them, it seems. The long color shifts of the WCC and the shorter shifts of the Diaketo are making an interesting tweedy fabric of a very nice weight. (Sorry for the weirdly skewed shot that is not only sideways, but makes the skirt look wider than it is long. The striping is, in fact, horizontal, and the skirt goes from navy at the top to gray to light blue at the bottom. I so wish I had been able to take Franklin Habit's knitwear photography class this past weekend.)

I have to weave in the ends, add the tulle ruffle trim to the hem, and make a cord for the waist before she is street ready. (Hmmm...that doesn't sound quite right.)

Last night at SnB, I swatched for my next skirty project. I'm going to use a pattern I got at Churchmouse (my favorite yarn store--wish I didn't have to fly 4 hours and take a ferry to get there!) and some dark purple CotLin.

Knitting the Old and the New Together

As I have mentioned before, I live in an old house. This is her 100th anniversary year, and, to be frank, she is showing her age in some places. I would love to make all of the updates and changes she needs in one fell swoop, but unless there is some great windfall, the changes will be made as we can. We are in the first stage of renovating both bathrooms and turning the upstairs kitchen into a laundry. (We live on both floors of our two-flat, so we have duplicates of everything.)

I have felt very strongly that we need to respect the house and her architectural style. While we don't live in a neighborhood of tear downs (many neighborhoods in Chicago suffer from this), lots of folks buy homes similar to ours and gut them, creating more modern, open floor plans. Sure, I would love one of those houses where the spaces flow seamlessly, but I feel compelled to retain the integrity of the house's historical period. That's not to say that we're not making updates--we are--but those updates are done with an eye toward what makes sense for the old girl. So, as I hunt for floor tiles, fixtures, and amenities, I'm trying to knit together modern aesthetics with historic sensibilities. We are exiting the "Oh my, this will never be over, and it will never look like anything but dog food" phase and entering the "Hey, there really is a bathroom under all that dust" phase. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

By the way, if you are going to have only one working bathroom downstairs due to the demolition of the upstairs loo, and you sleep upstairs, it might not be the best idea to drink gallons of iced tea every day unless you want to make the nightly treacherous decent through the obstacle course that has become your home. Strangely, it's a lesson I have yet to learn, and it has been weeks.

Ups and Downs

And I mean that in a good way. Slowly, for the first time since mid-December, I can raise my left arm above elbow height and not see stars. It's a process, to be sure, and I am still stiff and sore, but my range of movement is getting better. Sleeping is still an issue, and I'm having a rough time when I roll onto my left side, but better is, well, better.



I finished my second knitted skirt (the lacey skirt with bows by Kat Coyle), and am about to cast on another skirt. I don't know why I'm fixated on skirts, but I am. Cotton Fleece is a great yarn for them, save one quibble. Like most cotton or mostly cotton yarns, you can see where the ends are woven in, no matter how hard you try to avoid it. I have pulled out ends and tried again and again, always with the same result. It's a frustration, to be sure, but I'll keep trying.



Sadly, it looks like my trip to Estonia this August is postponed until 2011. Most disappointing is the fact that I won't get to see my friend who lives there unless he has a business trip to the states. (He usually flies through Chicago when he does, so I'd get to see him that way.) I'm still hoping to get there at some point in the not-too-distant future. Coincidentally, I was supposed to be gone during Stitches Midwest, and I had registered for two Estonian knitting classes with Merike Saarniit, which I thankfully had not yet cancelled. That will have to do, and perhaps I will get to pick her brain a bit about must-see and must-do places and events.



I had a funny realization a few days ago. My friend and knitting teacher, Cat B0rdhi, stayed with me for several days while she was in Chicago teaching. Would you believe that we didn't knit a single stitch here in the house during the five days she was here?! We had great conversations, however, and I did get to spend a lovely afternoon at the Art Institute with her and Franklin Habit, which was great fun.



I need to leap off and do some around-the-housework. We are starting some home renovations next week, which means that things need to be moved and organized before the contractors get here. I'm excited to have the work done, but the process of renovation is always nerve-wracking. Still, it will be nice to look at a freshly tiled and painted bathroom instead of the nasty peeling paint I'm looking at right now.

Knitting on the Other Side

I am just 5 days post-surgery, and I feel pretty great. Sure, I'm stiff, and movement is limited, but...I CAN KNIT! Hah! I'd learned to compensate due to the injury so that I can knit without significant movement in my left arm and shoulder, so the knitting continues. I can't knit for long stretches, and the Hempathy project is out of the question (not enough give), but I may have another knitted skirt finished very soon. I need to be careful about over extending myself, but I am chalking the knitting up to physical therapy. (Mental therapy, too!)

When getting ready to go to the hospital, I wasn't going to take anything with me. I had a 1:30 surgery slot, and I figured that by the time I got checked in at noon, tests run, and the glamorous hospital fashions donned, I wouldn't have time. Good thing I tossed the project in the bag at the last minute. My surgeon got backed up on his first surgery of the day, and by the time I went to the pre-op holding pen, it was after 4pm. The husband and I did get to wait in a very nice private room with free movies during the lead up, so it wasn't as annoying as it might have been. The worst part was that I hadn't eaten since 8pm the night before, and the room was right over a vent for a cafeteria, so I could smell burgers cooking, and it was making me a bit cranky. In fact, I've been craving a really good burger ever since!

A Tale of Two Scarves

There is a clock ticking in my head. I'm on the final countdown to my shoulder surgery (woo hoo!), so I have a limited amount of time to get some things done before I'll be in recovery mode. I'm knitting like crazy because I'll be off the needles for a few weeks. I'm also shopping for tile, bathroom fixtures, flooring, and doors for our upcoming renovations since I won't be able to drive for several weeks. (We're updating two bathrooms and converting a kitchen into a laundry.) I'm organizing and cleaning in anticipation of a most esteemed house guest and the upcoming renovations. But what am I doing this moment? Blogging with the TV on.

This week I cast on a modified version of Anne Hanson's Rivolo which I narrowed to three repeats and with an added beaded cast on and bind off, a la Sivia Harding. It was a pretty fast, satisfying knit. The scarf is made with Kraemer Silk and Silver that I kettle dyed a while back. It is intended as a gift for a friend of a friend in Estonia. (Gifting knitting to an Estonian is a little like giving tulips to a Dutch person, I suspect, but it's what I do.)





I've also cast on a project from Veronik Avery's new book. It is a mesh tank that I'm making with Hempathy. It is slow going, my friends, slow going. The combo of knitting haltingly right now, the unstretchy yarn, size 2 needles, and the 252 stitches in each round means this is going to be a slog. Urgh. But I want the finished product--now. Right now.

So, while preparing to wash and store winter things, I unearthed the first knitted garment I ever made. I think I took my first knitting class in 1995, and this is the teaching scarf pattern that my instructor devised. It incorporates garter, stockinette, rib, and moss stitches, increases and decreases. It doesn't make for an elegant garment, but it was a useful teaching tool. It was a great way to learn the techniques while ending up with a finished garment.