ASTITCHMATISM

June 8, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Restoring ReStore yarn

I often look for yarn at thrift stores, but rarely find anything other than acrylic.

(And not the better acrylics that I would consider using for charity knitting and whatnot – the nasty stuff that is most often bright obnoxious red or an inexplicable white.)

During the last few months of winter and early spring, despite periods of beautiful weather, the weekends were often nasty, so we fell into a near weekly ReStore habit. We brought home a few more books, a few tchotchkes I’ll probably end up selling online, weights that had regular use for only a few weeks, and some vinyl records – but never the little piece of furniture or two we were actually seeking. But on the last trip, I spied some good yarn – some luxury stuff, and a decent amount of lovely rustic tweed for 50 cents each.

The tweed was a sad victim of carpet beetles – some of the balls had the telltale broken ends without any mothly webbing – I carefully examined each, left three behind and snatched up two that seemed to be in the clear, along with a ball and skein of the soft stuff.

Since I knew the bastard beetles had been near the yarn, I didn’t take any chances – wrapped the yarn tight before leaving the store, stuck it in a zip lock bag outside, threw the shopping bag into the recycling outside, then tossed it in the freezer for a week. Then let it warm up for another, then froze it again, then warmed it again – all the time shaking vigorously to see if anything fell out.

But all seemed well, so I re-skeined it all to wash. No breakages either, so I felt better knowing that these were spared from direct attack.

The yarn on the right was wound into a ball too tightly – might be hard to see, but it was thinner and flattened a bit, but it was still nearly the full skein.

And the tweed is a lovely teal. My camera can’t shoot teal, but this is close, and the raspberry bit of tweed is accurate and shows its era…

Yep, here we are back in the ’80s (maybe early ’90s, sometimes knitting style lagged) but I love teal, so I’ll put up with the raspberry. I won’t, however, put up with back buttoning garments – I can still feel the buttons jabbing in between my spine knuckles on a hard-backed chair…

They both had a nice long soak, followed by another vinegary one, then spun out and dried.

And they’re back to a pleasant fluffy, beetle-free state.

Technically, this failed my yarn buying ban, but it was only $2 total – the two skeins of Road to China alone would have been over $30, and though the color is lovely, but a little too fleshy by itself, I’ll probably combine it with a few other complimentary things in the stash – it might become part of a luxe scrappy stole. And I’ve got a small collection of tweed that needed a bit more to become something, and these two new skeins should complete it – if not, it would pair well with handspun, or make for some nice mittens.

On the one hand, I don’t believe a knitter should pass along infested yarn or risk infesting a thrift, but on the other, I’m glad this wasn’t just thrown away…

Early harvests

I’m having a hard time to adjusting to being sans job this time around. The last time it happened, I had to hurry up and deal with the sale of our old house and all of the packing up, storing, and moving to the next state over, so too much was going on to really feel the break. But this time, I’ve been getting up and going into my home office every day since we’ve lived here and I can’t shake the feeling that I’m slacking off if I’m not sitting at my desk. Though if I sit at my desk and try to do something mildly constructive like write a bit about fiber or put up some ebay listings, I’ll easily forget my train of thought. Or the dog starts to act nutty…

Or I’ll wander off for a snack and see a paper bag in the kitchen and think maybe I have a forgotten tasty sandwich or chocolate croissant ready to surprise and delight me with deliciousness but then remember it was just some random bit of home improvement I picked up at the hardware store a few hours previously…

But I’m trying to find a new rhythm and hopefully in another week or so things will lean to normal. (Though I started writing this over a week ago, so maybe I’d better hope for another few weeks or so…)

The garden is finally fully planted and/or germinated. The only total failure so far was fennel, and I’m in a current aphid war in one tomato bed, but not the other, yet.

(The neighbors also just rebuilt their retaining wall near the property line – thanks neighbor, well done!)

May’s dirt is a time of impatience then sudden chaos – one day I’m thinning baby greens…

And enjoying their first meal-sized portion after N’s culinary intervention:

And then in a few days, we have a sudden, aggressive bounty of lusty, verdant young adults…

And we’ll be crowded with green, barely able to keep up, but reluctant to share, for weeks (fingers crossed).

Gardening and unruly dog handling have left my wrists sore, so I’ve done little to no knitting, spinning, and sewing. (Worrying about the dog chewing up or swallowing fiber tools has also curtailed my activities – I can’t leave anything lying about at the ready as I’m wont to do.) But I hit the thrift one last time in the early spring to gather up some yarn-harvestable sweaters before they disappeared for the season.

One was a lovely olive wool/cashmere? blend – I already misplaced the label as that is one of the things I often leave out while unraveling. But I think this might become a Paris Toujours instead of the brown cashmere I’d planned, though I’ve a hundred yards or so less of the olive. This yarn begs for something garter-stitch-squishy though (and I’m thinking of a poncho-like thing in the brown instead… maybe.)

And another was a printed cotton/rayon cardigan. I’d been wanting to play with a printed knit that would turn into variegated yarn, but I hadn’t finished the thought as to what I’d do with it. The kinks remained after washing – likely because of the rayon? but that doesn’t matter too much, since I’ll likely double or triple it with something else or itself. And I can’t accurately count the yardage to save my life…

The others are wool and wool or cotton blends – I went out of my comfort zone a bit in order to get some interesting yarns and have some wool-free options if I ever get around to selling things (either the harvested yarn or something made from it). And several of these were less than ideal since they were cardigans with cut and stitched buttonholes, so one panel is left on several that will need to be sewn into something, or if I’m desperate, I could still harvest a dozen or so yards between the holes.

(Of course I still have dozens of other sweaters waiting to be unraveled as well, but those are still packed up – much easier to just find new ones…)

Thank god he’s not human…

I’ve been wanting a dog back in my life on a full-time basis for well over a decade.

After grad school and before N, I worked a more than full-time job, a part-time job, and freelanced in the evenings. Only an aloof cat would have been marginally appropriate in my life, and though I like some cats (usually not the aloof ones) I’m fairly allergic to them and I have an issue with litter box feet on my eating surfaces. Once I shacked up with N, we occasionally spoke of dogs, but we both worked long and often irregular hours, were in the middle of a fairly intense home renovation, and didn’t really have a yard. Then we did the long-distance relationship thing for a few years and I was back to long hours at work, then we were in an apartment, then once again in a home reno. Finally this house done enough to have a furry (not a furry) resident, and for the last several months my telecommuting status was perfect for potty breaks and midday walks… but then we thought that that might end and another move might commence, so it still wasn’t a good time. Then it all ended, just ended, and though it is/was a terrible time for me mentally, I have all the time in the world (or at least more than I’ve had in a long time).

Was it the perfect time to get a dog? No.

Is it ever? Probably not.

I once had a perfect dog. We all knew at the time that she was rare – very smart, entirely obedient, and always eager to please (though not without some goofiness). She came from a shelter having originally been a “stray” then returned because of a new owner’s “allergies.” Within her first month or two with us, she had a seizure and was diagnosed with epilepsy – likely the reason that she was abandoned at least one or more times. She responded very well to medication, though it needed to be increased over time, and quickly reached a healthy weight. Her shelter name was “Foxie” and in my teen angst mind, I though “Toxic” was more punk rock and ironic and tried to change it, but she bore a close resemblance in size and shape of a fox – especially an Arctic one since her coat lightened and darkened with the seasons – so she remained Foxie. She lived a long, loving, good life – just how long we don’t quite know as she was at least a few years old when she came home with us – but I still miss her and I know not to expect another dog quite like her again.

I’ve been certain for most of my life that I did not want children. When I was young, I had vague thoughts of …oh, maybe my kids would want this one day… or …I certainly wouldn’t do that to my kids… But later in my teens I realized I was only thinking of kids as a concept, and never as a direct desire.

(There was a brief moment during my study abroad time in Italy that I thought, holy shit, maybe I would consider children when I saw how they were better integrated into people’s lives and society there, but that thought was exceedingly short, and I chalk it up to the general euphoria of being 19 and free and open to every goddamn possibility that this glorious life has to offer.)

And as the years passed, I braced myself for the “wait ’till your biological clock goes off and you’ll sing a different tune.” Then my hormones peaked, and my tune remained one I happily whistled solo without the need for accompaniment. (This tale could veer into an angry rant about my experience being denied sterilization in my 20s, trouble with insurance covering birth control, and a plethora of body-controlling bullshit, but I’ll refrain.) The only thing that has changed with my stance on children is that it has softened slightly over the years in regards to some of them – I’ll admit now that there are a few that I actually do like, for short periods of time, and I’m really happy that they’re not mine. (And most kids are still germ-infested menaces to public safety and health.)

But a big reason for not having them regularly in my life (apart from my lack of “maternal instinct”) is that I don’t want to give something so much of my time – I even chafe a bit in adult relationships. Well, scratch that sentence to a degree, it sounds entirely selfish, and selfish isn’t entirely my stance… It’s more that I can’t function when I have to give something or someone all of my time and attention. If I were born a decade or so later, I’m sure I would have had an early diagnosis of ADD or ADHD or rather ADD with fatigue? I’m happiest and healthiest when I can do things the way my brain dictates to some degree. I’ve functioned in the workplace well because my field involves some research, problem solving, visual interest, and periods of mind-numbing boring tasks that I can comfortably zone out to. But a child doesn’t allow for erratic, intense, and whimsical working patterns and periods of mindless repetitive brainless tasks – at any given moment you need to make sure it’s breathing and fed and changed and burped and solve why it is sad; then ensure it’s not playing in the oven or climbing the floor lamp or eating out of the litter box; (then it dents your car and drains your savings and lives in your house way longer than it should).

But with a dog, though many of these essentials and repetitions are the same, you can put him in a crate and leave the house for an hour or two, he can learn things more rapidly, and he doesn’t really have thumbs or long enough fingers to climb up and fall out of trees, so hopefully in a few months you can settle into a comfortable routine of eating, walking, shitting, naps, play, walking, naps, play, eating, shitting, naps, play, walking, sleep- or some variation thereof and eventually have freedom of movement again in your own house along with companionship. But those first few days/weeks are too much like the needs of all of the stages of human childhood for me – constant supervision, marking piss clean-up, figuring out wants and needs of a being that doesn’t speak yet can expresses in various ways, praise instead of discipline, calmly confronting defiance, and the warm fuzzies of someone who’s awesome and happy and goofy one minute, suddenly pricked the next when he’s standing on the kitchen counter with his face in your freshly toasted crostini, or slamming into the door to eat or greet the mailman…

(Perhaps the worst part is the neighbors referring to you as “mommy” or “momma” to this creature that has no business being associated with human loins.)

But I am exhausted.

For the first time, a living being has entered into a true love/hate relationship with me.

Rocco was surrendered to a South Carolina shelter because his “family didn’t have time for him,” was an “easy peasy” foster for a few weeks while he finally got fixed, was loaded onto a deluxe pet transit van and driven north, and then came home with us nearly two weeks ago.

He has in fact been “easy peasy” in regards to being already house trained, crate trained, a non-picky eater, and knowledgeable of a few basic commands – especially if followed by belly rubs or treats – but he is also at times defiant and inspired by invisible mists of insanity and hyper-focus. We don’t yet know if we’ll be a good fit for him, or he for us – just when my heart swells in puppy love, he does some act of confounding canine assholery.

I know not to expect another Foxie – I know any new dog in the house will have a period of settling in, of making mistakes and messes, getting up to antics, and being a bit fearful or overly reactive to new sites and sounds. I was expecting to clean up wormy excrement, my dinner being open for grabs, zoomies in too small spaces, and occasional wtf moments, but this guy is a bit more of a challenge for me/us and will meet with a trainer/behaviorist soon. I have hope that he, and we, will succeed, but I also believe that we’re not doing him any favors if we can’t incorporate him into our lives as we’d/he’d like.

I don’t know what’s been happening over the last decade and more – dogs of yesteryear led happy lives with us people without kongs and nylabones and expensive “meat” treats and fancy spas and day cares – and trainers were just for service animals and show dogs. I didn’t know any dogs with separation anxiety growing up, and overly aggressive ones were put down. There weren’t any television shows or online videos or celebrity trainers rehabilitating dogs the average person has no business keeping. Sure, some had issues and behaviors that we didn’t like, but eventually it all worked out well enough for the two and four footed alike – and certainly some folks treated dogs in ways we no longer find acceptable or with downright cruelty, so the past was not better in that regard.

Acquiring a dog now is also very different than before. The dogs in the shelters closest to us are most often fighting breeds – we met a very lovely pit bull mix at one of them, but in our state, breed discrimination is allowed so we wouldn’t be able to get homeowner’s insurance, or rent an apartment, or use some kennels and day cares if need be. (There’s no reason for us to buy a dog from a breeder, so that option was not on the table.) And since people have finally accepted getting dogs fixed, not many friends and neighbors have puppies to unload anymore. So our best avenue was to go with one of the local rescue groups who put their charges up on sites like Petfinder.

I’ve never participated in online dating, and this seemed close – we’d fall for a picture, then read a description, and either move on if something shouted crazy, or contact the group to set up a “meet and greet.” We first fell particularly hard in online love for a little husky mix with a busted knee – it was meant to be – she needed time for her knee to heal in a quiet house and I’m still nursing my own busted knee. After filling out a 8-page application and several phone interviews, we were approved over 9 other applicants for her adoption – before we even met her – then the day before our first meeting, the rescue called to say her foster wanted to keep her instead, so we were crushed… Our next doggy date was a spirited little mountain cur that showed up at a shelter 45 minutes away. He was batshit crazy and I loved him, but N wasn’t ready for a 20 pound dervish that needed to be trained in every which way – which is when the nice shelter folks brought out the gentlewoman pit bull mix who had been bumped around to this higher adoption rate shelter in order to find a home that she very much deserved – we felt so much guilt leaving her behind… But the next day the original rescue contacted us to see if we’d like to foster Rocco. We agreed immediately, but then had to nearly immediately agree to adopt him instead because he’d had several applications. In hindsight, we should have said no, and waited for another dog who had been fostered locally to come available – that was bad on our part, but the rescue seemed so earnest that he was the right fit for us – better than the little husky mix, so we agreed to the arranged marriage.

Like some parents (I’d imagine) I feel a little guilty that some of my favorite times with Rocco are when he’s sleeping. His legs and head are strong and he likes to gracelessly lunge and flop, but his resting body is long, lean, and fluid – frequently becoming a napping violin f hole or a river otter paused underwater…

His breed isn’t just one or two, but likely three, or four, or more, but his size and silky coat likely come from a spaniel of sorts, or the vet suggested border collie… And yes, we had him at the vet early – he’s been sneezing so hard that he wipes himself out if it happens on the hardwood floors. Thankfully, he’s fine, just battling our local pollen and I’ll try him on the same stuff I take if he’s still especially bothered in another day or two.

His jaunty two-tone tail with surprise sparkles does remind me of Foxie a bit – she too had a jolly flippy rear.

So now we’ll continue with patience and professional training – he’s made remarkable progress in these last few days – looking at us more and succeeding most of the time at new commands followed by disgusting bits of ragged boiled chicken. My fingers smell of meat and “meat” even after a few washings and my clothes are taking on some soft dark removable shadows, but I’m optimistic.

(But I don’t want to jinx it.)

10 Comments

Filed under home, unemployment

Tagged as adopting a dog, childfree by choice, defiance, dog training, dogs, exhaustion, he's so soft, mutts, pets, rescues, shelters, spotted tongue, territorial behavior

May 18, 2016 · 1:00 AM

A change other than the seasons…

I showed up here after I lost my job the first time around.

But that turned out to be only temporary, and I got it back first by half time, and then full – happily telecommuting all the while – and things started moving forward and building up steam and for the last few months I was preparing to uproot my (our) life all over again to return to the city we call home though neither of us was born there, and we’d literally just gotten around to unpacking here…

But then I didn’t get the job, “my” job that I’ve been wedded to for nearly 15 years.

Complaining about the reason why would make me an asshole, and I am not one.

(At least in this circumstance.)

So now I’ve got to start all over again, without tearing at my breast screaming injustice, and wallowing too much in what I’ve loved and lost – it was a divorce, not a death, so I can’t grieve and move on – I have to deal with teary phone calls, people choosing sides regardless of my desire for them not to, colleagues and constituents asking me about things the new “wife” doesn’t know (and won’t for some time), and trying to explain to future employers in guarded language and lies that technically aren’t, why I “left” my last job.

But there is also a bit of relief – things have been maddeningly up in the air since last November, and many more things were delayed (like the garden) since we thought we were going to have to hurry up and sell the house. But now much of that has turned into anxiety as I scramble to get things back in order for life here while cutting the strings with finality from our old home city and fully completing our move here with all of the administrative annoyances – closing and opening bank accounts, no longer paying taxes in places I no longer live but still worked, changing health plans again (nooooo!!!!), and closing vastly underfunded retirement plans, etc., etc., etc.

It’s almost as if we have moved again, only without the back pain.

(But our backs are screaming in pain due to rushed garden improvements – some new raised beds, blueberry bushes! a gooseberry bush! rhubarb!, and some decorative landscaping.)

And though I’d been searching for stable work and attempted and failed to go back to school while I was underemployed a few years ago, I thought that things would eventually turn around and I’d have the option of going back at some point in the next few years, but that point came much sooner than expected and with very unexpected results. Now, the job search and/or figuring out the next thing has a greater sense of urgency (though thanks to N we’re not going to starve or loose the house in the meantime) and I have even less desire to pound the pavement and jump back into the morass of shitty politics of my specialty in my field, yet I’m too many years away from other areas in the field so I’m no longer competitive in other specialties I’ve had in the past…

(And it was a happy fluke that I was able to telecommute for nearly four years too – that usually isn’t an option at all in my work – I’ve grown to really enjoy working from home and the thought of a several hours a day commute makes me nearly physically ill.)

The taste in my mouth right now is awfully bitter – the widest stretches of the world of art only ever serve the rich and their whims and needless needs, and it is a class in which I will never be comfortable, welcomed, or wish to bow to – so I don’t see much point in continuing a career in temples of poor dead people’s stuff.

I’d like to work in something far more fundamental or necessarily – life and death, food and shelter…

But I don’t particularly enjoy children on a regular basis, I haven’t the stomach for other’s bodily fluids, and waiting tables and construction require stamina and strength that I don’t have much of these days.

So I have no fucking clue which color of parachute I’d prefer now…

(But I know I’m still coming at this from a place of relative privilege, so all in all, as usual, things could be so much worse.)

*And I’ve no idea how or why this robin ended up tits up in our garden, or this squirrel began melting into the yard (though the troublesome feral cats are likely to blame for him) but N gave them both proper burials underneath a bird-favorite bush that has become the boneyard for small wild things.

12 Comments

Filed under gardening, home, unemployment

Tagged as changes, dead animals, fuck the rich, gardening, life changes, loosing job, moving, robin, Spring, squirrel, unemployment, what color is my parachute

May 11, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Latest Lacy Baktus

Spring came on early- warm and dry.

I wasn’t ready – a few nights were outside of my comfort zone – and working outside for more than quarter hour required rehydration at the ready.

But then it went back to its proper cold and damp state and required woolens.

I realized if I hurried along my latest baktus, I’d actually be able to wear it immediately instead of packing it away for the autumn.

And so I did and have been – it still needs to be blocked, but the weather might turn warm again before it dries…

In the meantime, I’m cozy with it-

or all three…

They’re becoming invasive in my woolen collection…

And in outdoor news, the march of the invasives in our yard continues…

This front yard patch of bugleweed is doubled from last year, soldiering through the lesser celandine.

I gave up fighting the ground invasives unless I hear about something magical and effective, but natural and easy – and perhaps the bugleweed will take over my ultimate nemesis the Japanese stiltgrass – I do like the intense blue too, and I don’t think it’s technically invasive, just non-native and aggressive, so I wouldn’t mind if it took over that part of the yard completely…

And the lilac is doing so much better after its year free of Chinese wisteria. I’ve left a tiny patch of that stuff to attempt to train, but perhaps that isn’t responsible – it would just take one untended season and the stuff would take over the hillside again.

Pray for me as I go in for the first of several annual poison ivy tear-outs soon too – too bad that is the only native stuff.

And now I should return to the knitting I’ve ignored for the baktus – none of that will be ready to wear in these last cool days…

(perhaps not even by the time the cool weather returns in a few months…)

Handspun helmet

To kick off my last hatmaking binge, I started with a ball of one of my earlier handspuns…

(I thought it was older than this, but I called it a year old in 2013, so it isn’t that old…)

But anyway, a few (or one or two) years before 2012, I bought a pound of variegated dyed roving online that I thought would be mostly mustard, and it ended up being mostly lime green. So I bought another pound of mustard only and did a spin with it as one ply green and one yellow, and two of green, to see which I liked better or both, and tried to achieve a not too dramatic thick and thin yarn that was mostly bulky overall. (I think the final project was going to be one of those open cardigans with the spiral backs.) Then, like many things, I ~~ignored it~~ let it marinate in creative fairy juice until I got around to swatching, then spinning more.

But the colors, though I loved them off of my body, still weren’t convincing me that they should be on it.

Fast forward to a few months ago – those aforementioned hats were a birthday gift for one of my brothers who has indirectly kept me in yarn making equipment over the years from some nice gift certificates to a big spinning place, so something in handspun seemed appropriate for him and he’s cool with bright colors.

So I grabbed the cheery ball, thinking a hat could also finally be a swatch and I probably had enough, but the stuff was stiff and unyielding, and not having his head nearby to assess the perfect fit, I went with the stretchy patterns in soft superwash instead and put this one aside.

And later finished it up for me – albeit very slowly – the stiff yarn is hell on the fingers.

(These pics are before blocking, so things look a bit bumpier than they should be.)

It is a close-fitting woolen helmet, or cloche-like thing and I like it, though I’m still not convinced the colors are best for me – I can wear most greens and some yellows, but some greens are tricksters and look fine in some light and tragic in others – I don’t really care though.

A nice long bath softened everything up, but it is still dense, but perhaps not dense enough on the ears, so I might line them, but need to get some more winter wear in first to test them out. The late winter flirtations told me it had promise, but I didn’t leave the house in high wind which is often the achilles heel of bulky knit hats…

But this was another reminder that I have to pay more attention to my spinning, and loosen the hell up more. My favorite handspun yarns have been singles (though I still often have to run them through to take out a bit of spin afterward), some made from rolags, and from the fluffiest merino rovings. Otherwise, I’m getting a stiffy – not pre-drafting or fluffing up enough beforehand (I do have a lot of dense roving though), and giving it too much spin – at least I think those are my biggest problems…

So it’s back to the books and the basics a bit for me, and I think I’m going to let go of the thoughts for a bigger project with the variegated green stuff and play with it a bit instead…

2 Comments

Filed under dyeing, knitting, spinning

Tagged as cloche, fiestaware, green, handspun, handspun hat, hat, helmet, knitting, spinning, swatching, wool, yellow

April 27, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Necking again…

While packing projects for vacation last summer I pulled this thrifted sweater out to unravel. But it felt so utterly buttery soft, so I tried it on…

The fit was decent – roomy but not too baggy – the color, definitely not my favorite, but better than pale pink or blue – but the neck, good god the neck – not quite a mock turtle, not quite a funnel; not quite ’60s mod-shaped, not quite ’90s – and it hit me right where I often feel easily choked (not to mention it didn’t really have shoulders and I do have them)…

So I decided to de-neck it instead.

It unraveled in four sections – front, back, and the two shoulders.

I kept trying it on until the mock was sufficiently dropped.

But the front still felt too high, so I unraveled just that section for several more rows.

And marked where I should pick up stitches to round it off.

(There’s probably a better way to do this, or I could have employed some steeks, but it was simple and worked for me.)

Then I then picked up and knit (with a few K2togs at the raglans) 1 x 1 ribbing for a few rows with US6 needles, then dropped down to US4 for the last three rows, finishing with a regular bind-off back on the US6s.

I bent back and sewed down the extra bit of triangle from the rounding off to the inside, and it is invisible from the right side – adds a slight bit of pleasant collarbone padding…

And now I have a comfy non-strangling sweater perfect to throw on over a t-shirt.

The wool has an almost cottony sheen and overall appearance, so it is a good stealthy wool sweater for the summer without looking too tweedily inappropriate for the season.

I opened up the side seams at the bottom to ease up the fit too…

But then realized the culprit of the too-cinched band was near cobwebs of elastic running through it – finding those and ripping them out took far longer than it should have, but the fit is now good.

(The nearly invisible elastic in on the left).

And the only issue with the sweater now is it’s a bit pilly. Or fuzzy with a low nap – hard to explain, but it’s got some whitish fuzz fungus coming out of it (seen on right) that isn’t too much of a bother since this is more of a cabins and campfires kind of sweater, but it’s odd that it’s coming out a bit of a different color since (at least according to the tag) the yarn isn’t a blend and doesn’t appear to be heathered…

I suppose another issue is the color – we’ll call it what, celery?

I rather hate celery…

But I’m afraid of loosing the butteryness and sheen, and slouchy but not too sloppy fit, if I dunk it in a dyebath, so I’ll wear it as-is for now…

******************

Update: I’ve been wearing this for a few weeks now, and the pilling is entirely out of control – it looks like I rolled around in sheep trimmings or got caught in a wind tunnel with cottonwoods and tent moths – it is very comfortable, but I’m glad I didn’t spend the time unraveling and re-knitting it only to find out that this yarn is an utter mess…

2 Comments

Filed under knitting, recycling, thrifting

Tagged as celery, de-necking, fixing sweaters, knitting, necking, necks, re-working clothing, summer sweater, thriftscore, too pale, wool

April 20, 2016 · 1:00 AM

$15 mistake; Middle-aged dreadlocks

I’ve gone to the last couple of fiber festivals with only $30 to spend on wool. This has actually been a blast rather than depressing because I take a penny candy approach to fiber and only buy an ounce or two of something here and there, and come home with a riot of color and new breeds to try out. If I’ve got a little extra cash after seeing all of the booths, I’ll go back for something in 4 ounces or so that caught my eye and spend my last $10-$15.

What caught my eye at the last NJ sheep festival was some Gotland – I had “gotten” some the previous year in a pale grey and loved spinning it. This was a darker chocolately grey – not too light, not too dark. I fondled some roving that was loose in a basket and asked if the breeder had more for sale.

I got it wound flat and sealed in a bag – it looked a bit odd to me, but I’m still a bit of a sheepy noob and figured it was just processed a bit differently…

But when I got home, it was what I feared – a felted mass.

It could have nearly been a sheepy collar as-is.

I’m not going to call out the breeder (who I spotted at Rhinebeck as well) because it was my fault for not inspecting it before I bought it, and frankly, not exactly knowing what I was buying to begin with – perhaps this wasn’t really roving but woolen rope? Instant dreadlocks? A chair pad? When I asked for roving, the breeder thought I said, do you have a spiral of felted mess for sale?

So I ripped it apart and tugged it a bit to see if it could be salvageable into yarn.

(I didn’t want to leave it as felt – the point was to spin some more Gotland, and I wanted to get what I thought I got.)

The resulting “roving” was a limp yet stiff, lifeless mess.

So I tugged, and tugged, and tugged some more and managed to free a lock:

But I nearly freed some tendons and joints from their connective bits in the process, so it was not going to be worth it to try to completely free the fiber back into a softly spinnable state.

So I ran the whole shebang through the wheel to add a slight bit of twist to help round things out.

It was the fastest spinning I’ve ever done.

After a nice long soak, it looked even more like dreadlocks.

I had to try them on – playing with them took up more time than spinning them…

But now I’ve got a tad over 20 yards of mega bulky Gotland…

And I might end up needle felting it into a chair pad after all…

3 Comments

Filed under home decor, knitting, spinning

Tagged as dreadlocks, felted, felting, fulled, garden state sheep breeders, gotland, grey brown, handspun, new jersey sheep festival, nj sheep, spinning, wool

April 13, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Driving away

I had a full day of good bad luck recently.

The brakes in my car went out while I was driving…

…out of the state car inspection garage.

(Moments later, I’d have been on the highway, instead, I coasted into an uphill parking spot just outside the garage – and still passed the inspection!)

I had many other errands planned that day, but had to wait for a tow truck instead.

But I’d brought some knitting along at the last moment, so I had something to do while waiting.

I’d just downgraded our automobile club membership from the longest towing allowance because we hadn’t used it in years and the yearly fee is much higher now than where we used to be.

But it was still enough towing to get me back to my town.

I didn’t wear a coat when I’d left the house that morning because it was sunny and I would be running in and out of places.

But when I started the long walk home from the garage, it dropped 15 degrees and started snowing.

But I had inexplicably put on walking shoes instead of my usual clogs that morning, so at least my feet were fine.

The garage called to say my entire brake line was rusted out and my car would be in the shop for days.

And N had just left town for a three-day weekend with his.

So I was stranded in the house, which is where I’d normally prefer to be most of the time, but I was unmoored and annoyed to not be able to do the stupid running around crap I’d planned do, so with my thoughts on autos, and mood bend on frustration, I ripped out the van sock and removed the offending skein to overdye it.

I only had violet and yellow food coloring gels and a smattering of stinky drink mix on hand.

I wanted the neon to go away, and I was still going to knit it with the other burgundy/cranberry/orange yarn, so as long as I could turn it into some form of purple or brown, or a favorite of mine, purpley-brown, or at least just all toned the hell down, all would be fine.

I started off with just the violet, but it turned the yarn very dull and almost grey – acceptably muted, but surprisingly unpleasant (I usually like muddy, dull, muted colors). So I jabbed in some yellow and liked that it was heading to a brown. But then for entirely unknown reasons, I tossed in a packet of grape drink mix.

I decided that fake grape is the only drink mix stink I can somewhat, just barely, not quite really, tolerate.

But I got something acceptably purple-ish.

And rinsing the whole shebang was fun – the colors broke in the wash, so at first the rinse water was pink, then cyan, and then green when I remembered to pick up the camera.

There was still some color left in the pot so I tossed in some natural white (not quite cream) roving for shits and giggles.

And it cam out an intense orchid that I would hate to wear alone, but will be a nice occasional addition in a spin.

The yarn came out mildly nasty on its own, and has a bit of that lifeless dullness that comes with food color dyeing…

and you can see the areas I jabbed in the yellow vs. the violet…

but it’s just what this pair of socks needed for me to take off with them again.

(While I’m waiting to get my car out of the shop… and on the water treatment equipment repair guys, and my new tooth, and now possibly the washer repair person or new delivery, and the lumber delivery that we planned before everything else went to hell… this is becoming a helluva expensive month.)

3 Comments

Filed under dyeing, knitting, spinning

Tagged as bad luck, brown, dyeing, fingering weight, food coloring, good luck, knitting, muted colors, overdyeing, purple, roving, superwash, wool, yarn

April 6, 2016 · 1:00 AM

Lost on the stairs

I’m quite proud of all of my hand-refinished oak floors in the house.

And I like our cheap-fix painted basement floor – so much so, I’m not even thinking of what we’ll do to improve it in the long run.

But the basement stairs – those still really sucked.

This was the state of things when we first bought the house – a toxic green tunnel leading roughly down into a cheap-paneled hellhole.

The unpainted/unsealed stairs and balusters were likely put in about a decade and a half ago when the original owners received a grant from the town to improve safety in the home. (At the time they also had a one-story drop off from the back door as well…) The wood used on the treads is a soft pine and is well-dented, gashed, and full of too-wide nail heads.

I thought about re-finishing (or finishing for the first time) the treads anyway, but the wood really sucked. I thought about painting them, and prepped and primed them to do so, but the color I picked out was too dark, and a lighter color was going to be too light, and the wood was still shit, so painting it would just be painting over shit, which would make it look like painted shit, which is only marginally better… And then I wanted to carpet them. I hate carpeting except on basement stairs. It’s a practical thing because I’m a klutz and most likely to fall on basement stairs and I don’t clean the basement often enough so carpet helps to trap dust and sawdust and whatnot from being tracked up into the house. So I went shopping for the cheapest, not too light, not too dark, low-pile grey carpet and didn’t find anything that would cost less than $100 which was my top limit on the project. (I wasn’t able to find a cheap remnant place around here either…) My next option was to find cheap jute or rag rugs to “carpet” the stairs, or else a fairly wide runner to cover up most of the painted shit – and though I came close, most options still topped off at or over $100, though those would have been nicer than cheap grey carpet. For half a minute, I considered weaving something myself, but since I don’t own much of a loom, that put me way over my budget, and then I considered knitting, sewing, or felting something, but that would mean I still wouldn’t have something covering up the stairs for at least another 7 to 10 years…

So clearly, I was craving a challenge for something super cheap and somewhat interesting, and with color but not too colorful, and light but not so light that every dirt clod would show, and somewhat fast.

Decoupage was my answer, my cheap savior.

For a moment, I wanted to use fabric, but as much as I love the above, my fabric stash isn’t so vast and a little too precious for the floor.

Then I looked hard at the paper bag floor. There are many, many tales of successes and surprises (hi Grackle & Sun, I bumped into yours!) and techniques and alternates with colored kraft paper and red rosin and the like… But I didn’t want brown – I love brown, but there is enough of it in the house already, and I didn’t want just one color, or one stair in one color and another in another, in a motley sort of way…

So how about paper maps?

I had a few too many in my car, so I made a test step.

(The obligatory shoes with something on a floor pic I would have posted on my instagram if I had a smartphone of my own and posted regularly and ironically.)

I let it dry, gave it a coat of poly, let that dry, and in a few days deemed it successful.

I started decoupaging all of the edges first – I used the map’s edge against the riser and tread’s edge to mimic the look of a runner and reign in the scrappy visual chaos a bit.

After the edges were all framed out, I tried to do a couple of treads and risers every evening, and in the morning, I’d give them one coat of poly. This made the stairs still functional for a few hours a day…

And after a week, I was done, and gave the whole thing another coat of poly.

Though I still need to do another coat… and perhaps one more on the treads only after that, but maybe not…

I’m quite pleased – the transition from our lovely upstairs oak to the painted cement works – casual but not too crude – and the subject is appropriate for our basement library too…

The functionality is good – not too slick in sock feet, but it might be a bit slick for dog paws, so we still might need a runner at some point.

Since the map paper is thin, and I used a self-leveling poly, the texture of the wood still shows through – I like that it does.

And the final cost?

About $13.00!

(Because we only needed more poly)

The nitty gritty: I used plain paper maps – the kind you get from AAA – I could brag about recycling and whatnot, but I’ll spare you. The glue for the decoupage was some fancier acid-neutral PVA leftover from my book repair and binding years (roughly 15) ago. It was fairly lumpy, but still usable, and I cut it with water maybe at a 1:3 ratio – but mostly it was globbing some in a yogurt cup, filling it with water halfwayish, and stirring it somewhat until it looked milky. I brushed it on the back of a torn piece of map with one of my old fancy oil painting brushes, positioned it on the stair, and brushed over it again. I couldn’t brush it or re-position it too much or it would tear. I tried to distribute colors and leave meaningful places in visible spots, but after the first step or two, it was a geographic free-for-all except for color distribution. It was also very uncomfortable for me to be sitting on a step in a spinal twist, so even if I wanted to work on bigger chunks at a time, it was painful, so spreading it out over a week worked for me. I used a triple-thick, self-leveling, satin finish polyurethane and I’d brush on the first coat about 24 hours after the decoupage to insure it was well-dried (our basement currently has about 50% RH). After the whole thing was decoupaged and had its first coat of poly, I coated the whole shebang again. I am about to put on a third coat. And I might put on a fourth just on the treads. We already had about a half of a quart on hand, so when it’s all said and done, it probably took about a quart and a half.

Some things to consider: the acid-neutral glue I used will not yellow (I can’t say the same for standard white school glue – I think that stuff might yellow) and the water-based poly should not yellow either (oil-based most certainly will). I don’t know if the map paper is acid-free or not, so that could yellow though it is no longer exposed to air, and the stairs were sealed with primer, so they shouldn’t leach too much yellow-inducing acid either. I like the triple-thick poly because you don’t have to use as much and the coats go on thick enough that you can safely sand between them if so desired – but it goes on translucent and if left too thick, could dry with a bit of a milky haze – again, not a problem since the maps had a white base, but if it was dark surface, I’d be more careful about thinner coats. (But generally for wood that stays wood, I only use oil-based products – yellowing only adds depth and richness over time.)

And how will it wear?

It should be fine – the same as poly over finished wood – it will scratch and gouge under extreme circumstances, and will eventually need to be re-coated. If there’s a particularly bad spot, I can patch it with more map. Dirt can be swept/vacuumed up and ick can be wiped up with a damp cloth. You could probably even decoupage the whole thing just with poly instead of glue, but it would be messier, dry more quickly making re-positioning harder, and perhaps the paper might dry more translucent instead, but I’ve no idea.

I’m eyeing a few other things in the basement that could benefit from some decoupage now too…

3 Comments

Filed under collecting, home, home decor, recycling

Tagged as basement stairs, cheap fix, creative re-use, decoupage, decoupaged floor, DIY, home improvement, maps, paper bag floor, paper craft, recycled maps, recycling

ASTITCHMATISM

Restoring ReStore yarn

Early harvests

Thank god he’s not human…

A change other than the seasons…

Latest Lacy Baktus

Handspun helmet

Necking again…

$15 mistake; Middle-aged dreadlocks

Driving away

Lost on the stairs

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