Feb 08 2010

Busy Sounds Like Fun

Category: Bittersweet, Designing, FO, Knitting, Spinning, dyeing, events — Mistress Rows @ 1:26 pm

It’s official, I’m building up my dyeing habit. I have to be careful, because I haven’t been feeling particularly great over the last few weeks, but I’m doing what I can and enjoying it. Wednesday evenings, no later than 10 p.m., are being set aside for updates. I’m not sure if my schedule will always include dyeing every single week, but I can definitely see myself dyeing enough for an update every two weeks at least. Knock on wood. Coming up this Wednesday are two new colors of sock yarn in lighter, spring shades, and two stunning lace yarns, one in a tonal chestnut, and one in a dazzling rich sapphire with eerie mint contrasts. Momma’s got a new shade of blue, and restocked her citric acid, so watch out!

There’s news on the knitting and spinning fronts too, stuff’s happening all over the place.

Test Knitting: My scarf pattern is being knit by several people, and aside from a stitch count error, which was fixed early on, it seems to be going well for people. The biggest issue that they’re coming across is finding just the right yarn. I’m going to change the requirements to note no larger than worsted. Also, apparently Noro can lead to some fugly chunks of color, so a variegated or solid yarn might be better when it comes to commercial yarns.

Modern Mob Cap

Designing: The hat I’ve been designing is done, photographed, and completely written up. I’ve got three small process photos to shoot, but as it is it’s ready to send out to test knitters. I love the hat, really love it. Because my hair is kept snug inside the slouch section, I don’t get static-y hair from tugging it out from under my coat, and then my scarf. It fits me perfectly. Not so much in love with the black dye globules that were evident when I gave the hat a bath. Very much in love with what the bath did for the drape and definition of the fabric. An FO post will come when the pattern is ready to publish.

Spinning: I finished spinning up some top I dyed a couple of years ago and forgot I had. It was a great spin, and I love how the finished yarn came out. Pictures and an FO post no later than Wednesday. I’m inspired to dye some of the top I have in the basement, I know there’s at least one or two of you who’d like to see more Sea Glass if I do nothing else.

 

A Warm Return, in progress.

January I joined my first SAL (spin along) in support of my friend Cris of Into the Whirled. Members of Cris’s Ravelry forum voted on member submitted photos, and the inspiration for three months worth of ITW loveliness was born. The club is very reasonably priced, and you can purchase your spot as they go up, one at a time, so there’s no large outlay of cash. This month’s color “A Warm Return”, was inspired by a photo of a Robin’s nest inside a bush. I’m loving the way it’s spinning up, and my plan is to chain ply it for socks.

Last, but not least, if you’re local, please don’t forget about the Stir Crazy Stitch & Spin on March 6th! I created a page for it on Facebook and some of the guests have suggested it to their friends as well. I have high hopes that I’ll see quite a few new faces, and of course my much loved regulars. Tonight I’m emailing a promotional flyer to several local yarn shops in the hopes of reaching even more new faces. If you’d like to hand one to your own favorite LYS owner or S’nB group, you can download and print one here. I hope to see you there!

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Feb 04 2010

Ooh, shiny! Jing tsai, da bianhua!*

Category: Bittersweet — Mistress Rows @ 11:49 pm

The last of the most recent yarn goes up tomorrow night at 5:30 p.m., most of it’s already listed! If there’s something you liked in the photo-montage from earlier this week, now might be a good time to pick it up. Think of it as color therapy for the winter doldrums. Now if only you could get your doctor to write you a script, you’d never have to feel guilty about your yarn purchases again!

In other good news, I got my stockpots in the mail, only two days after I ordered them. Now that’s some fan-damn-tastic free shipping! Boscovs gets points for that. Not as much fun? The fact that they didn’t list the pots as being 2nds. None of the flaws makes them unusable for my purposes, but still, you’d think in the interest of full disclosure. For $10, I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, I’m just happy to have them. It makes me wonder about the other items on their closeout site though.

Also in Bittersweet news, I’ve set up a business page on Facebook. If you’re on FB, and you’d like to show your support for the shop, please consider becoming a fan of Bittersweet Woolery? I’ve linked my Artfire shop right into the page, and soon will be moving away from Etsy all together aside from a few odds and ends. Artfire just offers so much more in terms of flexibility and offsite extras (FB kiosk, sticky cart, discount codes, etc.). I love Etsy, and I’ve been with them in one form or another since they were less than a year old, but they simply haven’t responded to the changing needs of their vendors the way that Artfire has from the get go.

Coming in the future? A Bittersweet Woolery site of its own, complete with onsite vending and its own mini-blog. If I can figure out a way to keep it connected in some way to Rows Red, I will. No matter what happens, don’t think for a minute that Rows Red is going anywhere. I love this blog, and what I’ve built here. I can grow the Woolery and keep my blabbermouth ways, of that I am sure.

*Points to whomever can tell me where those quotes come from. Steve, you can’t play, you’d know right away.

**Extra points to whomever can also tell me what the second part translates to, and yes, you can look it up in an appropriate fan resource!

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Feb 02 2010

Dye Pot Diary: 2/2/10

Category: dyeing — Mistress Rows @ 1:37 pm

Do you smell that? *sniiiif* Ahh… that’s the smell of wet wool and dye people, and it is lovely. Something came over me last Friday night, and I blame my iPod. I cranked up my “Cleaning” playlist (good rhythms, good sing along music), grabbed some yarn from the basement and set up my pots to dye. Singing at the top of my lungs, I mixed colors and had a grand time!

Bramble in sock and lace, Blueberry Morning in sock and lace.

I had an idea, based on the knowledge that a skein of sock yarn and a skein of lace yarn will take up the same colors very differently. I decided to put a skein of each in the pot and see what happened. Let me tell you, the results were striking! The cold (blueish) winter light made photographing some of them difficult, but here are side by side photos of what I’m calling the Strange Siblings series. All went into the pot at exactly the same time, for the same exact length of time.

Dragonfly in sock and lace, Jammy in sock and lace.

Pretty cool, eh? The first few are listed in my shop already, with another round going in tomorrow night. I’m excited to share them with you, I feel like I’m really getting a handle on the two or three dye styles I want to focus on this year. My favorites right now are tonals (one color applied to varying intensities) and pours (two or more colors poured into the pot at different times).

Whirled Peas in sock, Daffodil in sock. They don't have siblings, but I wanted to show them off too.

I don’t have my studio yet, but we’re taking steps to get ready for production. I’ve ordered more citric acid and Synthrapol as I am now completely out, but I’ll have to make do with what dye and yarn I have for now, which is enough for a good while. Dyes are not cheap! 8oz of four or five colors can easily run upwards of $100. What is really got me doing the happy dance is one fantabulous internet find on my part… 16qt stainless steel stock pots, which usually run around $25-$30 each, I found on the Boscovs outlet website for $10 each! TEN DOLLARS. And free shipping. We ordered eight, for when I have two stoves running side by side in my dye studio.

As my dad would say, “kiss the hand”.

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Feb 01 2010

Manic Monday #199

Category: Internettage — Mistress Rows @ 11:39 am

What was your best day of the week last week and why?
That would have to be Friday night. I had the house to myself and was completely overcome with the urge to dye. I had a sudden wellspring of energy, and I spent the evening singing at the top of my lungs while dyeing yarn for the shop.

What’s the longest you’ve ever gone without sleep?
Three days, when I was in Jr. High. I was having horrific nightmares about me and my friends, and was terrified to go to sleep. Instead I’d stay awake and write about it so I could get it out of my head.

Is how old you look and/or how old you feel right now different from your actual age?
How old do I “feel”? I feel 31, just like I am. I mean, what is 31 supposed to “feel” like anyway? My body feels older, because it hurts, my mind feels old, because I’ve lived through some tough shit, and my spirit feels old, because I often walk in dark places. I don’t connect those to a physical age in any way because I’ve always felt these ways (minus the pain), even as a child. And I’d like to add, that “old” doesn’t equal “bad”. Old, to me, means full of experience and lessons. It just so happens that all that experience and learning takes a toll on a person.

Now, ask me if I feel like a “grownup”, and that’s an entirely different story. Choosing to remain childfree by choice, and making time to do the things that bring me joy mean that in a lot of ways I feel quite young on the inside. I don’t feel uber responsible, even though I behave responsibly. I don’t feel weighed down by life, people, and things that need my attention, not in a daily grind kind of way. I know the house needs my attention, and I do what needs to be done. I know what my responsibilities are in the world, and I take care of them as a rule, if not in perfection. However, thanks to the pursuit of my passions, and my wonderful husband, I feel young at heart. I don’t feel the way society tells me I’m supposed to feel. I feel the way I build my life to feel, and how my personal challenges feel.

How’s that for a staight answer?

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Jan 28 2010

The Year of the Pattern

Category: Designing — Mistress Rows @ 10:47 am

Those who know me well as a stitcher are well aware that more often than not, I design my own patterns. Despite having hundreds of books and magazines full of items to choose from, when it comes to non-sweater items, I am more likely to put together my own vision culled from my stable of stitch dictionaries. I mix and match components until I get what I want. Though it can be intensely frustrating at times, I really enjoy the process. My library is a source of inspiration and knowledge. The rest of the time my library serves as a welcome refuge for those times when I fall in love with a design, or my needs leave me wanting something ready at the get go.

My craft book library. The magazines will go on the opposite facing case.

I have declared 2010 is the year of the pattern. I already have a pattern template made up, and have since ‘08. While I released a couple of patterns in ’09, I’m not going to hold anything back this year. I worried for a long time about accuracy, and appearing self-important. The first part is more easily solved than I could have imagined. Not only do I have a few readers who love to do that kind of thing, but I also found a group on Ravelry for just this very purpose. The rules are clear, the group is very active, and it specifically states that there is to be no compensation other than honest appreciation. It’s 100% volunteer, and I believe it to be priceless resource to budding designers. As to having the temerity to self-publish? If I put my best out there, and keep up my professionalism, that’s all any reasonable person can ask.

So… would anyone like to test knit a scarf pattern? This is the one I’m considering submitting to Spin Off. Amy Clark Moore spoke to me about it at SOAR ’08 and said I should submit it for publication to the magazine. I can do that right now since the pattern is already written, but just in case I don’t go that route (or get rejected), I’d like to have a couple of test knitters already working on it. The pattern calls for a smooth, non-fuzzy, worsted weight yarn, but it doesn’t have to be exact. Something in the range of DK to Aran would be fine, and the pattern is easily adjustable. I need at least one person who’s willing to do it in a nice, busy handspun, and another who’s willing to knit it in a commercial yarn like Noro Boku, Cascade 200 Paints, or Knit Picks Shamrock. A yarn with multiple colors in the ply, or busy variegation is recommended.

A leafy start to the Modern Mob Cap.

Coming very soon will be a hat pattern I’m 2/3 done with. Assuming the decrease aesthetics don’t do me in, it should be ready for test knitters in 7-10 days. I’ve been photographing and formatting the pattern on the fly so this one should fairly fly out the door. It called the Modern Mob Cap, features a double thick, toasty warm brim, and calls for two contrasting colors of worsted weight wool, 50g of the accent color and 100g for the main body. I can’t wait to wear it!

Happily, there are at least three more patterns in my head just waiting to come out. It’s going to be an exciting year.

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Jan 27 2010

Genetic Whimsy

Category: Ramblings — Mistress Rows @ 5:00 am

I’ve been told that I was born with a white hair. It is, on my mother’s side, hereditary that we go white (not grey, but sparkling white) very early in life. By the time I was 20 I had one I could pick out easily. By the time I turned 25 I had a little hydra-like cluster in the baby fine hairs near my temple. As I approached 30 I had “more than 60″, which is when my husband gave up trying to count them for fun. Now that I’m 31 the white hair has literally exploded, and I find myself in an interesting position. The change is happening so quickly now that if you don’t see me for several months at a time, you might literally be shocked by how much white hair I have compared to before.

Hair down, no easily visible white.

Growing up I knew very well that I would go white prematurely. My mother had been dyeing her hair regularly from the time I was a toddler. I don’t, in fact, remember a time when she didn’t dye her hair. From brunette, to redhead, to her current various shades of blonde, our house was no stranger to the dye bottle. It was just a way of life for her, and not something I thought about in any negative way. I have, over the years, dyed my own hair various shades of plum or black. For my wedding I dyed my hair back to my original dark chocolate and had professional wine highlights put in. Frankly, It was awesome. Since then, over three years ago, I have dyed my hair only once or twice, and not at all in the last year. I’ve been curious, you see, about what I will look like with salt and pepper hair.

I have no sense of youth or beauty tied up in my hair. I can thank this healthy attitude to the practical knowledge that it has nothing to do with my actual age, and everything to do with genetics. People have always thought I’m older than I actually am, just because of how I speak and carry myself. Having white hair won’t change that fact. I think having white hair is kinda cool, and it makes what little I do with my hair more interesting by defining the waves and semi-curls in my hair. Don’t let the photo below fool you, there’s an enormous amount of white hair around my face, but for some reason it’s hard to photograph.

Hair up, visible white everywhere the hair is pulled back.

The question now, is what to do, if anything?

Do I care that white hair makes me look older? I don’t know. FAR more important to me is my good skin. Primarily blemish free aside from eczema flare-ups, I have not a single wrinkle. I can guess where my first will appear (a vertical line between my eyebrows), but I am happily line free. Thanks Dad, oily skin does have a plus side! Dyeing my hair will have me passing for a late-twenty-something for a very long time, I think. I’m more concerned that once I start dyeing it now, I’ll have to continue or face the dreaded skunk roots. One of the women I admired in my old guild had the most gorgeous corkscrew curly hair and it was completely steel and white colored.

If you have any white hair, how do you feel about it? Am I alone in being fascinated by this sign of genetic whimsy and social maturity?

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Jan 26 2010

Spinning FO: Saturn

Category: FO, Spinning — Mistress Rows @ 2:39 pm

Fiber: “Saturn”, Blue Faced Leicester from Seekay Craft
Wheel: Lendrum DT, 10:1 ratio whorl
Weight: 5oz/141g
Yardage: 1,252 yards, 2 ply
Diameter: Lace weight
Techniques: Spun worsted, plied from a cake.

Saturn

From the moment I dug through Carolyn’s stock, pre-Jersey, I knew that this BFL would be coming home with me. Never mind that my stash is large. No, never mind any hint of reason. The fact of the matter is that Carolyn dyes rich, moody colors, and I like rich, moody colors. Saturn spoke of the gloaming, that in between, twilight time when shadows are thick in the air. Every time I pulled this bobbin out someone complimented the fiber, people really loved the dyeing.

8 oz of BFL in "Saturn" from Seekay Craft.

I prepped the fiber by stripping it down the middle. I then pulled off a length to work with, opening it up and fluffing it out. With a few gentle tugs down the length the BFL blossomed into a silky, effortless spin. You know the fiber is good when it begs to be spun as thin as thread, and does so with absolutely no effort on your part. Spinning this fiber required nothing but endless patience, an unfortunate byproduct of very fine spinning. It took me much longer to spin the initial single than I would have liked because I was, at the time, only spinning at Knit Night.

100% BFL, "Saturn", dyed by Carolyn of Seekay Craft. Like buttah.

Once I finished the single it sat on the bobbin for a very long time. Being only the first of two 4 oz braids, I wasn’t sure what to do. I wasn’t in the mood to spin that fine (for that long), and by the time I was ready to do something about it, the initial bobbin had been sitting so long that I’d be plying a hyper fresh bobbin against a mellow old bobbin. In lace weight? It didn’t seem like a good idea to me. So what to do? Navajo ply it? Maybe, but I really to have an actual lace weight two-ply in my bag o’ handspun. That left only plying it against itself from a cake.

Like shadows and sunsets.

Have you ever plied a thread weight single from a center pull ball? A tightly packed, massive, center pull ball? Great care was taken, let me tell you. The fact that the center strand only snapped twice is a testament to that care. Amazingly, both times I was able to easily find the snapped end, though I thought for sure the first time I was a goner. It had snapped *inside* the ball. Be still my heart. Thankfully all it took was pulling out a tiny bit of yarn barf to locate it, and all was well.

I see a shawl in my future.

I was afraid of putting too much twist in the single, so initially this came off the plying head slightly under spun. After being passed around, the other Knit Night ladies concurred, and I ran that sucker back through. Strangely, both times Wendy and her husband were at my house. I knew I couldn’t re-cake that skein, it barely fit as a single and no way was it going to be rewound in one go as a two-ply. My solution? Spin it right off my free standing wooden skein winder. It worked like a charm! After being re-spun and given the usual scalding bath, beating, and dry by the fire, the skein passed inspection… no excess twist in sight.

Very, very fine.

I’m extremely pleased with this yarn. It’s everything I could have hoped for, and I’m tempted to knit with it immediately instead of waiting to enter it into Rhinebeck. I think I’ll wait, no matter how tempting it is. It’s not often that I spin a skein where I’m not picking out flaws. The fact that it happened to be made from my friend Carolyn’s roving is the icing on the cake. I bet she’d flip if it placed at Rhinebeck, I know I would if I were her! I have one more braid of this left, and since it’s brighter than the first, I think I’ll try spinning it in a different style for a separate project. The fun’s not over, not by a long shot.

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Jan 25 2010

Simple Things

Category: Friends & Fun — Mistress Rows @ 6:56 pm

My friend Amy, who I’ve talked about on the blog many times before, is one of those people who inspires me through her own thoughtfulness. I’ll never be half the woman she is, just through sheer scatterbrained-ness. Somehow she manages not only to remember all the big dates in the lives of her friends and family, but she does things like random acts of kindness. On Tuesday I found a package in the mail, small, and from Virginia. Inside there was a birthday card and gift card for Steve, and a knitted gift for me. Say what?

Simple Things

Just because she felt like it, she sent me this soft, delicately colored shawlette scarf. The colors are out of my comfort zone, but in a good way. I know this because I got compliments and a threat of theft when I wore it out to the local crafting night here in Athens. The pattern is Simple Things, and the yarn is from NH Knitting Mama, an indie dyer that Amy purchases from often. The yarn is soft, and it’s very warm, just the thing to help keep my internal body temp up in our chilly house! I wish I could have gotten action shots of me wearing it, but the lighting is awful at night when I wear it most.

Thank you for the lovely gift, it means a lot that you thought of me while knitting it. I can’t wait to see you in February for your birthday!

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Jan 25 2010

Manic Monday #198

Category: Internettage — Mistress Rows @ 2:36 pm

If you could only have one section of the bookstore to visit, which section would it be?
Oh, this one is easy. The fiction section. Surprised? Thought for sure I’d pick the crafts section? I wouldn’t be shocked at all if you thought so, especially given the enormous and publicly displayed fiber crafts bookcase. However, my bookish heart lies in the fiction section, specifically the supernatural and fantasy shelves. I love fiction, I love a really good story that sucks you into another world for a time and leaves you at the other end of it all feeling like you took a journey of the spirit. THAT is why I read fiction, why I read at all, and why I love my chosen method of unplugging my brain from all the things that demand of me, for that which I demand for myself. Give me magic and mystery, battles and lovers, heroes both shining and tarnished. And all of it the better with fangs, thank you very much.

If you could only subscribe to one publication for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Oh, this is a tough one. If we’re talking the fiber arts, I’d say Spin Off Magazine. I learn something every single time I open the covers, and I cherish my collection of spinnerly knowledge. If we’re talking non-fiber… definitely The Sun. We only subscribed for a year, but it was amazing. I definitely need to subscribe again. It’s full of thoughtful writing, challenging viewpoints, and stunning photography. And not a single advertisement. That alone is priceless.

What activity always makes you lose track of time?
Reading. Knitting and spinning is done while watching television or listening to podcasts, both of which have built in markers for the passing of time. 30 minutes, an hour, you know that the time is passing as each episode or movie ends. With reading, there is nothing but silence (or soft music), the page, and I. It is golden, and precious.

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Jan 21 2010

O’Dark Thirty Sale, 2010 Edition

Category: Friends & Fun, Loot — Mistress Rows @ 6:46 pm

Warning: Reading this post you’ll mostly likely be certain that I’m a manic airhead. I would like to point out that I’m only a manic airhead when I’m overstimulated and super excited. Like I was today. Ahem.

There are very few things that I’ll get up at the butt-crack of dawn for. Very. Few. Things. As it is I have to get up a half an hour earlier to compensate for the extra ten minutes it takes to get to work (strange math, I know). So to get up at at 5:30, you know it’s got to be something special, and on a workday too! This folks is what the O’Dark Thirty Sale will do to you. Don’t look at me like that, Robin had to get up at 4:30. Because I still underestimate how long it takes to drive through town to get back to Catskill and the bridge (stupid 30 MPH in town), I was running late. I flew, flew I tell you, all the way to Great Barrington. Thank Goddess there were cars in front of me in Egremont because there one of Jess’s cop buddies was sitting in wait, otherwise it was 70 any chance I could get. I pulled up in front of the store at 7:01 a.m. to find the perfect spot free, amazingly enough, and everyone still waiting to get in. Robin was near the front of the line, I was at the back.

The line was pretty long this year, recession shoppers are savvy!

Why all the trouble? Well, 40% off all yarn at the biggest local yarn store within an hour’s driving distance is quite the incentive. Even though they overcharge as a rule, as long as you know your prices, the sale still saves you anywhere from 20-30% off of ACTUAL retail. Considering the yarn store is approximately half again the size of my entire house, that’s pretty awesome. I go every year because it’s a tradition and an adventure, but because I really don’t “need” more yarn I keep my purchases to minimum. My spending money was cut by almost 40% with the new house budget, so I really had to save my spending money to afford it.

Robin ponders pricing.

This year none of my usual cronies wanted to go, but I was fortunate to have Robin to share the adventure with. Let me tell you something, this is a woman I can shop with when I’m on a mission. Unfortunately I had to be back to work no later than 9:45 for my performance review, so if we wanted to get breakfast we’d have to be super quick about it. She and I TORE through that place and we were on line waiting to pay by 7:36. Thirty six minutes! And it’s funny, it didn’t feel like we were rushing, just really focused. By 8 a.m. we were seated and starting to eat our breakfast at the Friendly’s across the street. Props to us!

Cars were lined up the full length of the street and then some.

I went in thinking I wanted to get an acrylic/wool blend, enough for the Stained Glass Afghan that’s been in my queue for a couple years now. Doing the math in my head, even on sale, it was going to cost almost $75 in Plymouth Encore, my favorite blend yarn. Holy crap! Yeah, that’s a lot of money for a crocheted afghan. I reconsidered. Staring at the Encore I noticed something I’d not seen before, they have a tweed… and not a tweed with clown barf colored nepps like so many others, no. This tweed has classy neutral beige nepps. ZOMG love. I kinda sorta bought two sweater’s worth, one in black (eee!) and one in a dusty lavender (double eee!). Yes, I did indeed buy yarn that wasn’t blue, teal, or a shade of red. You may be saying to yourself, really Tina, sweaters in mostly acrylic? Only 25% wool content? I say unto you, judge not, for heavy is the heart that knits a sweater in Cascade 220 only to find that it pills like a mofo when you look at it cross eyed. And for $$22 a sweater in a silky soft and more durable yarn, I am content.

Tweedy love.

I may have also had a little accident in the sock yarn room. But one of these, the brown one on the right, is for my Sole Food swap partner, so it’s not that bad. You see that? I bought something kinda yellow. We had quite the conversation about mustard colors today, Robin and I, for she is smitten with the shade, and I am not. Asking me, “do you think this will look weird on me” when holding up a skein of mustard Cascade 220 instantly promotes a logic loop, for mustard is automatically weird to me and therefore yes, you will look weird. *LOL*

L-R: Madelinetosh Sock, Colinette Jitterbug, Cherry Tree Hill Supersock, Colinette Jitterbug.

Whew. I blame the somewhat random and squee-ful tone of this post to wool fume over exposure. My brain is floating on a fog of wooly goodness, laughter with a friend, and enough greasy spoon cuisine to kill an ox. It was a good day, thanks Robin, for sharing it with me!

Robin and I. Robin believes strongly in action shots.

Oh, and my review was good too, praise Laneus.

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