what's new? detoured!

here's what's new... details later.

yarn details: the main color of the sweater will be Jo Sharp Silkroad DK Tweed in "Berry", with same in "Ambrosia" as one
accent color (both of these are 85% wool, 10% silk, 5% cashmere and oh so soft and luscious). The other commercial yarn
is Elsebeth Lavold Silky Wool in red (65% wool, 35% silk). Most of the handspun yarns for this project are merino/silk and
some will have cashmere, too. and now i'm not sure exactly what pattern or design i'll use for the sweater, but it will
probably be a cardigan. will get into that soon, but it's 4:16 a.m. and i need to go to bed. have been waiting up while Jim
tried to get in touch with someone in Crete where we want to live for 3 months next fall. they are 10 hours ahead of us and
when he got someone on the phone at 2 a.m. was told the person he wanted to talk to would call him back in a few
minutes.... no return call yet, so we're going to bed!!

a new orchid and decided on colors for next sweater

While in Duvall, Kate (DDIL) and i took a little retail therapy trip to Woodenville to check out hanna anderson, OshKosh, and my favorite place, Molbach's nursery. the first place i always head for is the sale plant corner because they usually have some
orchids at 50% to 70% Off and i've always found one or two that looked healthy and usually still blooming. i was not
disappointed... found this one with one pretty bloom left on it. something i havent seen on other orchids i've bought is little
bulblet or pod things where the blooms have dropped, and a few of these have roots growing from them. i think i'll carefully
remove a couple of them and see if they will grow on their own. if anyone has any ideas whether this will work, please let me
know! i am still very much in the learning stage of orchid growing and am quite pleased that they've all lived so far!


The sweater project has moved past the just thinking about and looking through books for charts. I recently dyed some
superwash merino/tencel and realized that these are the colors i've been seeing in my mind for the design panel front and
back, which will be handspun wool/silk and/or maybe some cashmere/silk plied with wool/silk. i found a really pretty
commercial wool/silk (dont remember the name, but know where it is in the shop!!) that i want to use for the other parts of the sweater. may also use a soft mauve-y color in it. hope to dye the fiber tomorrow and start spinning it over the weekend.
stay tuned....

Zylie's eggplant hat

Back from Seattle (Duvall, actually, which is east of Redmond) last night after 4 days playing with the grandkids (mostly delightful, sometimes exhausting). Zylie loved her eggplant hat and insisted on wearing it at this jaunty angle. It was wonderfully sunny and crispy cool on Friday, so we
went to a new park close to their house. Next small project is a strawberry hat for Alex and i have some recently dyed yarn
all ready for it.

Aurelia fiber with yarn sample

the way this fiber is processed makes it easy to spin for totally different effects. for this sample, i pulled a length of a color
off the roving, spun that and repeated til there was some of each color. then plyed it to itself. also, spun a single this way
and plyed it with black. the other way i tried was to spin from the roving without separating the colors first, then ply it with
itself. am not as pleased with the last as it really looks muddied up to me. will post pics of 2nd and 3rd yarns later. the
website for this fiber is: http://www.aureliawool.com/


here's a swatch of the 3rd yarn described (more muddied looking) and the separated colors single plyed with black.
and i have no idea what it will become after it
is spun.

gift fiber

more on this later, but here is the fiber i got as a gift today:

weekend

and here it is.... saturday night at the world and i spent it eating a lovely meal that Jim fixed. although ANY meal that
someone else fixes for me is lovely, he often tries something new. tonight it was salmon filet baked with a glaze that
included a bit of chili pepper and brown sugar and i dont know what else. the other new dish was sweet potato/chunked
pear lightly mixed and baked on the potato skin.... pretty tasty! and i spun some cashmere/silk blend that i found in my
stash...... dear goddess, i love that stuff! it feels so good and spins so fine.. and i have no idea what the yarn will
become as i dont like to knit with yarn that fine. and we watched the Trailblazers break their record and actually win
3 games in a row. it was a pretty good game when i could tune out the damn wordy game announcers. they annoy me
no end with their need to fill any available silent moment with their inane comments and advice for how the game should
be played and what the coach should do. i will be able to completely block out the whatever big game tomorrow as i
will be enjoying the company of my twisted sisters at our way-delayed holiday party. we will also celebrate Linda's
significant birthday which happens 2/11. i'll probably stop at Baskin Robbins and get a yummy ice cream cake... one that
is as chocolate as possible. do they make triple chocolate? i bet they do!

next project decision made!!

sometimes for inspiration i get out my old magazines (SpinOff, Knitters, etc etc) and lots of my books, and just spend some
time looking through them. usually, i end up with a couple of stacks of them with pages marked for different ideas. now,
i've just finished that process and come up with a pattern which i think will work. it is shown as a cardigan in Winter 1995
issue of Knitters and i want to make a pullover, and i really lucked out on this..... it is knit in the round and steeked!!! i can
just not cut down the front of it and i'll have my pullover. now, just to figure out how to use the panel idea from the Turkish
design shown in yesterday's post. uummm, also need to figure out colors, which fiber to use, dye and spin, look at the
pattern again and see if i need to make adjustments, take a deep breath (or ten) and get started. am really enjoying the kind
of unofficial semi-retirement thing and not spending as much time dyeing and selling and teaching and doing shows. i even
took a class last saturday at NW Wools and learned the basics of crochet.... wow! now i can do more than a chain stitch!!

picture of the cardi

and here's a case of not thinking it thru completely (a duhh moment). as much as i love to knit a sweater in the round and not have seams to sew, if i want a panel with charted design i will have to knit it in pieces. so will have to find a pattern or do
the figuring out myself and i'd really prefer to take the easy way and NOT have to do my own figuring! damn!! oh well, one
of these days i'll make this cardigan just because i like it.