… and life goes on
Day 89 has come and gone since my husband has applied for a work permit and visa to the United Arab Emirates. We are not sure if we were overly optimistic in hoping for a 6 week response or if this is just a regular wait period. It can be testing, especially since we have planned everything out: picked a moving and storage company, packed away the first few boxes of items we seldom use and recycled or donated goods we do not need anymore. There is not much more we can pack away at this time without impeding our day-to-day life. This became apparent when we had friends visiting the other day and could only find one vase to hold the flowers. Who would have thought we would miss something already?
Too much fretting is futile and producing something with my hands makes me happy. Yarn and fibre in all their colours brighten any day, no matter how grey or rainy it may be. This cute, little jacket was knit for Cherryl’s baby who arrived quite surprisingly about a month early on February 14th. Just the day the last stitch was knit. On Monday I found these fun bird buttons at Wetcoastwools and now it is ready to be delivered.
The shades of fuchsia and purple fibre I had shown you on a bobbin two blogs ago has been transformed into an equally pretty, marbled yarn in a sock yarn thickness (2.5-3 mm needle). Success! This is my first 4 ounce (110 gm) braid of merino fibre I managed to spin fine and long (425 m) into a soft 2-ply yarn. The twist which holds the fibre together is not high enough for it to be knit into socks, but a lace scarf could be its future. The spinning took two weeks to fill the two bobbins with the singles and another 3 days to ply. “Forever” in my impatient mind. I was astonished by the long hours of spinning, but now understood why most of my previous spinning resulted in DK or worsted thickness (needle size 4-5 mm) yarn. They just spin so much faster!
My next spinning adventure will be a 1-ounce braid of a merino-silk and 20 gm of silk both hand-dyed at Knotty by Nature in Victoria. The colours have some similarities which will show better once spun up. I have not decided yet, if they will be knit together as two separate yarns or plied together (for a more mixed and marbled effect). Stay tuned for the results…
To keep things interesting I like to learn something new every few months. There are so many different methods of knitting out there that I have to wonder how I managed to only know long tail-cast on, knit, purl, yarn over, knit together and a standard bind-off for three decades. It still boggles my mind that there are so many techniques just to start a knit garment. Not even to mention all the bind-off ones. One website Knitting at large assembled 11 online tutorials! And there are more! I have tried about half of those and find that my favourite beginning is still the good ol’ long tail-cast on. It is the fastest one and my muscles can practically knit it without thinking. Today, after years of hearing that knitting two-socks-at-a-time on a circular needle in a magic loop is the fastest way to knit a pair of socks, I ditched my double pointed needles (DPNs) and used a 3 mm x 100 cm long circular needle for a first trial pair of socks from the toe up. This video by Patty Joy showing an even easier cast-on than Judy Becker’s is ingenious and my new favourite: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrUTWaIgdMk
I will time my knitting to see how long it will take and compare that to another pair knit on DPNs. The race is on!
Have a great week!
beecosydesign 
Actually, the green baby sweater is mindful of the parrot. How fascinating.
I vowed i would never do a two socks on one needle ever again. I found the process extremely awkward.
89 days & counting is pretty rough to take.
Your fine spinning takes a really long time.
My 2 grapefruit bobbins plied into one thick one – is now ready to be made into a braid headband.
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