Etherknitter

Deep Winter

The snow came down and down on Christmas morning.  Then there was sun.  The herd of juncos had a junco party at the birdfeeder.  I think their usual food sources look different now.    

The cardinal showed up intermittently to let them know who is the real boss.  The chickadees are fierce.  Everything is white and icy and tinkly.  Now I have to go look for the hat.

 

I knit shawl after shawl.  A rare sweater appears.  (Brando is done and I owe you pictures.  I have worn it twice, and will discuss the outcome.)  I stopped knitting scarves because I had some.  That was dumb.  A knitter gets bored with the old, sifts through the drawers, rejects the finds, and thinks about knitting a new scarf for herself.  But what I really need?  More hats.

 

I blogged a year ago about the Irish Braid hat.  Indeed, it was finished soon after the post.  Indeed, the post flogged me into finishing it.  I do love it, and have forgiven the graft.  This is my second Swans Island yarn project.  LOVE the yarn, and love the FOs.

 

New Year's always seems to be focused on a new year.  It was also my thirteenth blogiversary.  The years seem to blow past with a whisper.  I would like that to not happen quite so much.

 

In 2015, my word was PRESENCE.  In 2016, I used RESILIENCE.  Both changed how I see and experience.  I did not have a 2017 word.  My blog buddies persuaded me that a word for 2018 would be a good thing.

 

Nothing came immediately to mind.  It needs to be something actionable, that one can DO rather than just think.  And I found it.  PATIENCE.  This can change how I see and experience.  The action is a deep, slow, quiet breath when I am impatient and irritated.  I find I am doing that often.  :(  

 

So rather than be a sad emoji that I am doing this often, I will look at it with patience.  A FB meme about people doing stuff for 100 days with deliberate practice also forces the realization that nothing happens overnight.  

 

And so the year begins.

 

 

Three on Thursday

In like a lion, out like a lamb.  

1.  I am at the end of a weaving staycation.  Rather than go back to Vavstuga (known as the Weaving Sweatshop in this household), I created my own.  Plans!  Hopes!  Dreams!  I knew I was overoptimistic.  However, that was an important part of planning my own weaving sweatshop.  

The big thing was to do a back-to-front warp with no Vavstuga handholding.  So many questions and uncertainties arose.  The beaming of the warp onto the warp beam is the one part that I have done only once five years ago at Vav.  "It's only yarn", insisted my weaving Muse.  

It worked.  I had one thread out of 440 out of place, and that was an easy fix.  

I cleaned up the weaving room.  Papers and drafts and cones of yarn were put in order.  

Then I warped something else.  It is blue (of course it is) and not threaded yet.

2.  Black Friday and Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday got me.  Quince, and Sunday Knits, and a new interchangeable needle set from Webs.  Yarn!  Patterns!  And, of course, enough to knit for at least a year when, indeed, I needed to buy nothing at all.  So it goes.

3.  Winter is rolling in slowly.  That means we will get hammered later.  (You saw it here first.)  I made a lamb stew today with no recipe.  Sear the lamb in olive oil, add a bunch of chopped vegetables - whatever is left in the refrigerator from Thanksgiving.  This meant carrots, a parsnip, celery, a pepper, a half jalapeno.  Deglaze the pot when the vegetables are soft with whatever wine is in your glass (a nice 2016 Morgon Beaujolais).  Then add beef stock - enough to partially submerge most of what was in the pot.  Simmer for whatever length of time it takes for lamb stew and kabobs to transform from hockey pucks to dinner.  Serve the rest of the Morgon with it.  Salt/pepper to taste.  I briefly thought about making a roux and thickening the sauce, but it would have delayed dinner for another 30 minutes.  It was fine.

 

 

 

Old friends

Look who!  Back for another year.  In the Etherknitter world, it is Thanksgiving.  Menus are drafted,  ingredients make their circuitous way into the house, and things are cleaned.  But...

 

I was at the Mall today.  It really doesn't matter which one.  The same thing is happening in all of them.  It is Christmas.  And it is Christmas, because people want it to be so.  (That was an epiphany for me.)  This is nothing that the retailers are foisting on a gullible public.  People WANT the holiday, and they WANT it now.

I was there for a cooking class.  And then I was sorry I had to leave at the same time that the entire mall emptied out.  

But I did get some good recipes.  Vegetarian!  Delicious!  Easy.  So it was a good day.

 

Saturday

Finally, the latest first frost in recent memory: 11/9/17.  I left the bellwether plants out to track this, ones that turn black and ragged with the least kiss of 32F.  Dahlia.  Hot pepper, Moonflower.  The moonflower bloomed stupid late this year, but gamely kept on until the last.  This pretty girl showed her brief face on 9/3, after the rain:

I slouched into the office this morning (another hard freeze last night, about 19F) to sort and pay bills.  Found several.  The website for one would not let me in.  How can I pay if I don't know how much?  Maddening.  Technology has turned the corner, and has become more of a time waster than a time saver.  

Derailed and detoured:  should I shop for spices?  Let me look at the website and see if I can remember what I need.  WAIT.  I want a different iPhone case.  Does the company who makes the one I have make one for the new iPhone?  Where is my old iPhone so I can look?  Yay, it is in my pocket.  I check, and surf.  Then I write a nasty note to The Company Store for charging a kings ransom for shipping, then two days later, offering free shipping, then taking a week to get the package to me despite the kings ransom I just paid.  (Never again.  Ijits.  Stronger words were indeed used privately.)

Better go write at least one check.

 

 

 

Guardsmans Pass

November blogging is fun.  Timelines are meaningless.  That brings us back to Utah.

Last year, Mr. Etherknitter and I were led on the Grand Tour of Utah by the King and Queen of the Realm.  Margene and Marshall took us to The Best View Ever up on Guardsmans Pass.  Then over the Pass (closed in winter), around the bend (hairpin turn) and on to Silver Fork Lodge.  I don't think any place does a better breakfast, especially their crispy homefries.  Then to Silver Lake, and after that, wandering around Sundance, American Fork byways, and ending up in Salt Lake City at Red Iguana.  

This year, there was snow.  Frosting on the Park City golf courses looked to be about three inches of fluff at the higher altitude of the Pass. At the top, a muddy parking lot and a Port-a-Potty beckoned.  As we left our car, two other travelers were crossing the road to access the mountain.  They were carrying scratched and dented snowboards (known as rockboards, the ones you use for early season forays).  We exchanged snow-lover conversation, and watched them ascend to get first tracks on unskiable terrain.  I suppose one attempt at a turn (or two), successful or not, would be Snapchatted or Instagrammed, and would get them bragging rights for 2017.  First turns in a season are satisfying.

So, yeah, this year, we used the Pass as a stunning way to get to shopping on the other side of the Range.  Breakfast was, indeed, had at Silver Fork, where there was also a wedding going on.  These Utahns must have ice water in their veins, because the bride didn't even look cold at temps that could not have been more than 37F.

Guardsmans Pass, which has been purchased now by Park City to preserve it, on a moody broody early-winter day -

FFNE (Fiber Festival of New England)

The consolation prize for New Englanders who did not make it to Rhinebeck is the Fiber Festival of New England.  It is an indoor event.  There are scads of vendors.  I can hug my vendor buds.  It is cool.  This happens the first week in November.

Camnesia ruled, as always.  I was one step removed from camnesia: in downloading the necessaries from my big handbag to my fannypack, I forgot the camera.  My traveling companion this year was a colleague who had graduated from the residency three years ago.  She is a knitter, and an intrepid fiber woman.  (Alas, she does not spin, apparently has little interest, so I backed off on that one.)  This was her first fiber festival.

I bought Judy-yarn (Ball and Skein) for a pattern I saw recently in the Webs catalogue.  I showed it to Mr. Etherknitter, along with the yarn.  He knows about the lace couch.  He has seen the laceface.  

"That looks complicated."  Then he grinned.  And said, "Maybe all those holes means it will be less work."  

Toldja

The best of intentions go exactly where everyone says they do.  So tonight makes QOD [every other day (from Latin quaque altera die)].

BYOP:  Bring your own puzzle.  So we did.  We knew that the balloon festival was happening.  Balloon craziness ruled.  We spent HOURS.  DAYS.  (I am not exaggerating.)  He would pick out pieces, piece by piece.  I would flash in, throw in gobbets of pieces, collapse from frustration, and retreat to knit.  The puzzle was finished by the time our guests arrived for dinner on Thursday evening.  

Can you guess?  Of course you can.  We take pictures, then disassemble the entire thing for the next crazy-people.

Don't Get Your Hopes Up

So yeah. November the One. Inevitably not every day but maybe more often.  Deal?

I have taken no pictures of fall, so seasonality will not open the month.  Rhinebeck noted my distinctive absence, therefore no seasonal knitterly pictures will surface here from that. I was sad to not join in the celebration of the craft. 

Pictures from the Tour de Fleece sit somewhere in my digital archives, but the memory of what each skein was sits nowhere in my wetware.  I plugged my little camera into the desktop just now.  I was horrified to see 256 pictures downloading.  I am sure it is a camera/software mistake, but I may be wrong about that. Perhaps there will be something worth sharing after all.

We woke at the earliest part of sunrise to see AutumnAloft in Park City. The magic cannot be explained.  The balloons, massive inflated things, are laid out on the high school playing field.  A small window after sunrise offers somewhat predictable winds.  Once the shell is extended, and the lines are untangled, the wicker basket is attached.  Huge fans blow air into the envelope.  Once the balloon inflates, gas powered heaters warm the air.  Slowly, the balloons attain upright posture, and strain at the ropes.

The Stars and Stripes always goes up first. We sing the Star Spangled Banner. Kids, adults, dogs all clap in glee as one after another, the ropes are released and the magic of bouyancy is true. 

Each balloon gets about 800 hours of life before the stitching and the construction are less reliable.  A simple one costs $60,000.  Complex balloons like Mr. Owl start at $100,000 and climb upwards from there. There evidently is a circuit. The owners travel from one place to the next to fly. 

This is not a ride event, so, no, I did not go up with them. I stood on the hillside on a hiking trail, and watched magic. The balloonists learn to read the landscape. The mountains and trees and buildings are like rocks in a river for a white water person. They give clues to where the wind will change, and how it will carry the balloon. No prediction is perfect - the chase trucks go follow where their balloon lands. 

You can see the flames from the heater in this Stars and Stripes picture. I have trouble picking out which balloon is my favorite. Based on how many pictures I took of this one, I think it is the spiraling upwards rainbow striper in the picture below.  It is the balloon on the left.

Dinners were had, and we may have seen the Salt Lake City Queen of Knitters.  

 

Single minded determination

I blasted through four ounces of South African Fine, which wasn't.  This was a difficult spin.  More than a year later, I rememeber the impossibility of getting clean drafting, then finding curlycues just short of corkscrews:  the hallmark of overspun singles.  While I was plying (again with the two-ply), I could feel the curly bits pass through my fingers, and knew the yarn would be an unhappy yarn. Getting it DONE was a reasonable goal, and it is now done.  Singles below.  (My typo, which I should not have corrected, said "singles blow".  Yeah.) But of course Typepad put them above.  

I moved on to what I think is Enchanted Knoll Polwarth/silk, 4 ounces on one bobbin.  I decided to break my own rule, make the yarn vomit center pull ball, and pray.  When I took it off the yarn winder, magic had appeared.  It was a perfect gradient.

The braid had not presented itself as a gradient.  I had not worked to spin it as one.  Now I own a dilemma.  I want to keep the colors together.  If I do an N-ply, I will have no useful yardage.  If I do a two ply, I will have confused ungradiented marl.  And I did not plan the twist for a single.  I actually, even at this late spinning date, do not even KNOW how to plan the twist for a single.  I am not in the habit of framing my yarn for continued admiration.  A decision must be made, and I did.  It will be somehow used as a single.  Mr. E suggested using it to weave something.  No. Not enough for warp, and using it as weft will not do it justice.  I am thinking of Reverse Psychology.  The pattern has a lot of ribbing in it, which initially served as a reason to not queue it.  But the pattern will do justice to a gradient, and the shape of the shawl may even forgive the potential biasing of the random singles yarn.  

The yarn is heavy lace to light fingering, so it may not work.  But it is probably worth a try.

And I get to move on to a fifth set of bobbins.  

 

A Day Late and a Bobbin Short

The Tour de Fleece started on July the One.  My Tour started on July the Second.  Imagine completely missing the first whatever it is (time trial?) because you made assumptions about when/where/what.  Your team would lynch you.

I didn't have to give much thought, way back in June, for what my Tour would be.  I have bobbin after bobbin sitting around gathering dust.  Literally, alas.  I set up the wheel with the biggest flyer for the best view of the yard and birds.  

It is embarrassing to have to tell you that I have no idea what I am plying.  It is red.  It has browns and beiges in it.  My guess was BFL.  Thank goodness I had notes to consult.  Wool Peddler, yes, BFL.  Colorway Berry Bark.  I remember buying this, and being extremely proud that it wasn't blue.  Eight ounces, and my notes say worsted short draw for a 2 ply.  I am amused by these notes.  I finished plying it (pictures at the end of the Tour, most likely), started on the next 2 ply and saw that the bobbin compacted much less in this second yarn.  So, indeed, evidence suggests that the red/brown is worsted spinning.  (Now I have to figure out how to get the eight ounces of the woolen spinning to fit on the bobbin so I don't have a 6 ounce skein and a 2 ounce skein.  But I am getting ahead of myself.)

I haven't counted the exact number of bobbins.  Too depressing.  I doubt I will get through the entire whack.  I ply every day, with clearly one day off at the beginning.  It took me three days to ply eight ounces, so that means 7 groups of three days  x 8 ounces = 56 ounces, or perhaps something like seven yarns.  It will be more than that, because I see some 3 and 4 ounce bobbin fills.  Those will need to be divided (more time consuming) but since there is less to ply, perhaps it will all even out in the schedule.  (Briefly considered making a center pull ball out of the singles, but it is not my favorite form for plying. Too much yarn vomit.)

The bobbin shot, on the Kate, with computer cord running underneath, because, after all, who single-tasks these days?  I am watching Man in the High Castle and not sure I am loving it all that much: