Scarf and Soups

I completed the Flaxen Kernel Scarf and blocked it out Friday night with the new to me set of blocking wires that I bought from Maxfun. They were great to work with! I dropped it off this afternoon at Knit-Purl and promptly used some of my store credit to buy 'yarn' for Christmas projects for my mom and mother-in-law, Judy.
Scarf:

It was cool to find out that because of the Habu Silk Transverse Scarf sample that I had knitted for the store that it had been doing its job and inspiring people to buy the silk to make their own projects. Satisfaction!

Yarn, Habu Textiles A-60 Shosenshi Paper - 100% linen, colors, Eggplant & Apple Green:

Intended pattern is from AlterKnits and are paper shades for lights. You'll have to wait to see them if you haven't seen the pattern in the book. ;-)

I've spent the last couple of days making soups from these:

 

I have two different squash soups that are in the freezer and just waiting to be pulled out for lunch/dinner. I've also made a couple of 'beer' soups - cheese & potato and cheese & cauliflower.  The first one for Brandon to have to alternate his normal lunches he makes and the cauliflower for me. I'm the only one in the house that likes cauliflower. They seemed like nice fall soups to make and have around. Luckily I have an upright freezer in the garage to help store them until needed.

Norbert had his ear surgery on Thursday and currently wearing the 'cone of doom'. Turns out he also had two broken upper molar type teeth that might have been playing a part in his finickiness in eating. It was suggested that they be removed, one had pulp showing. The teeth of course were difficult to remove - breaking in bits when attempted, so took longer to get out and of course made for a more expensive process. Sigh. I thought he was a 'gold' dog before but he's definitely moved into the 'platinum' range with this last visit.

Finally have the cormo/silk blend that I've been spinning up as singles. I have the bulky head on the wheel and have started plying it. It's going to be a bit of time at the wheel before its done. I've started work again on Kaisha's Fairy Wings - yes, I do realize they are really late now, thank you. I also have a spider, spider geisha fingerless mittens and a Jayne hat to make all before the end of the month. Burning the needles on these! So you dear reader will have some more pictures of finished projects in the near future.

I've gone 'batt'y

I've spent time in the last couple of weeks washing alpaca fleeces. It's been a learning experience. ;-) I figured out why the Gypsy Rose fleece a lovely rose-grey color (meaning its mainly grey but has some reddish brown tips or reddish brown patches) was so freaking dirty. I mean a half inch mark of dirt that looks like it showed up after last year's shearing. What I originally was passing off as a black seed or grass seed were in actual fact upon closer inspection fleas. Poor girl was flea ridden. Luckily by the time I was dealing with the fleece they were all well and truly dead. There was a lot of time spent picking their bodies as well as real black seeds, pine needles, grass seeds and hay out of the fleece. Then trying to get it cleaned. For some reason I thought my SOAK would get it clean along with the hot water. It did after about four or five wash cycles through my kitchen sink. Then I figured out that I could add Borax - the 20 Mule version, not harsh to the wash water and things cleaned up much faster! I still ended up with some that could have used a good wash cycle more, but I'll have to deal with it in the finished yarn.

So I had the Magnolia fleece (coal black - huacayas ) from World Wide Spin in Public day purchase, Gypsy Rose (rose-grey - huacayas) and Quiet Legend (red-brown - suri) from working the Parking Lot Sale at OFFF. All had to be washed, dried, fluffed, picked. All in preparation for the electric drum carder that a group of us rented for a week.

I'm still new to the whole drum carder concept and got a late start on it Thursday. Plan was to hand it off to the next person on Friday. In hindsight I may have wanted to pass it along to her on Saturday. No big deal though. I ended up with eleven batts of Gypsy Rose's fleece -  started out with two pounds and ended up with 20.25 ounces cleaned and batted. There are eight batts of Quiet Legend fleece. It was like drum carding my own hair.

Gypsy Rose batts

Quiet Legend batt (others in bag below it)

I have twelve batts of a combined Magnolia fleece, four ounces of silk and eight ounces of merino. This is where I could have used more time with the drum carder. I only did one pass of the blending and I think if I had run the batts through a couple more times they could have become more blended. I'm sure it shouldn't effect the end product too much.

Black is so difficult to photograph and show just how saturated the color.

I'm still in the process of spinning of some cormo/silk that I bought at last year's OFFF. I really truly hope to finish up the roving tomorrow at the next Portland Spinnerati meeting. Then it will get a rest and I'll ply it to the other single. This really has very little silk content, its been hard to pick it out of the roving and is a bit of a disappointment. I think though that this will end up being dyed, what color I'm not sure right now.

Lots of knitting that needs to happen. I had hoped to have Flaxen Kernel all ready to be delivered to Knit-Purl, but due to a death in the family and all of the above work. I'm 75% done but won't be able to finish it today and drop off tomorrow. Need to wrap up Kaisha's gift, get one done for Corbin and also another for Bailey. The last two are both spider related. One will be a knitted toy spider and the other will have spiders on fingerless gloves. Then its on to some serious holiday knitting. Still a number of projects that I'd like to get done and some that are changing from knit items to sewn or handmade things.

Interesting Evening!

I've been washing the alpaca fleece and rewashing some of it. I have now figured out the key steps to successful washing without a lot of steps. Yea! Ask if you want them. ;-)

I loaded up my seven copies of the Outlander series and had hoped to arrive by 6pm at the Cedar Hills Powell's. Brandon and I arrived at 6:15pm and found the parking lot full. That was a pretty good indicator that there were a lot of people there. Sure enough the seats in the main area were full and the ones out into the mall were also full. After snagging a couple of tickets for the book signing, this left standing along the sides.  We started at one point and I moved forward. Brandon was off to check out the Sci-Fi area and got to chat with Peter the Awesome.

After Brandon was safely ensconced in the Sci-Fi area he texted me to let me know his ex-wife was in the audience. This after I moved up a couple of aisles and ended up right across from her. ;-)  So there was much texting about the experience. I'm not really sure if she saw us together because as far as I knew she had never seen me before. She saw me there and I was looking in her general direction many times, but I couldn't tell if I was being sent evil glares or not. I just wish her a happy life. We're happy, so hopefully she is also.

I think that there might have been about 300 people for the book signing. One of the ladies that was standing near me was doing the math with the rows of chairs and chairs per row and its about right. After the actual book signing portion started and I was knitting on the Kernel scarf, a lady in the row ahead of me gave me her ticket and her friend also game me hers. One was a significant bump in the number line and the other was just a few numbers before the ones I had picked up. I passed one of mine off to a lady that had been standing behind me during the talk which was a huge bump up from her number. Then during my second time through the line I passed on the other ticket and really made a lady happy. We all won. ;-)

So I was able to get four books signed the first time and it took another forty-five minutes to get the last three signed. Brandon joined me shortly after the first series, since the ex had her books signed and had left the building with her girlfriend.

Still more fleece washing to be done. I pick up the drum carder Wednesday night. I would also like to be able to drop off the Kernel Scarf Saturday afternoon after the Portland Spinnerati meeting. Wish me luck in getting it done!

Before leaving for the signing had to do another phone call to Knit Picks. I'd been too quick to try to cancel a duplicate order but apparently their system deletes a second order if the dollar amounts are the same. So when I told the lady to delete the one, it deleted both orders, so no shipment. Sigh. Read the order that I wanted and it will be shipped. Should be in time to still be able to get the hat done, but glad I thought to check or it might have been a challenge to get it done.