Friends... do what? (Heather)

It has been so long (possibly a week?) since I worked on Sizzle, or indeed, any knitting at all. Work is keeping me very busy during the day and pretty darn tired at night, and besides that, it is hard to feel the urge to knit when it is so bloody hot night and day. And when you don't knit, it is hard to get around to blogging.

It was also too warm to be a cat.



When FabricFan was visiting, it was so warm in our apartment that I put a wet washcloth on Phlox... and he stayed there cooling off for quite some time. Neither of the cats ever panted, they were just lethargic and slightly grumpy... just like the humans.

SpillyJane and her husband came to visit the humid wonder that is Toronto in August this past weekend, and she practically FORCED me to take her to the local yarn shops. She then forced me to get some Fleece Artist Merino Silk roving...



And as luck would have it, the day they left, the humidity dropped significantly enough for me to pick up my brand new spindle and give it a whorl. It was fun to spin, less hairy than the Wensleydale-Teeswater that I tackled last, but very very soft with vibrant colours.



I didn't get too much done, just enough to get a taste for it again. This spindle spins like nobody's business! Took some getting used to, I had to up the hand-eye coordination quotient.

Something else I have been working away at is sewing. I picked this summery cotton twill ( I think) out with FabricFan when she was here and am attempting to tackle it on my own.



Armed with my new Stylish Skirts book, my Vogue Sewing Quick Reference, and my speeddial, I am turning two yards of fabric into a cute zippered, fitted skirt with four pleats. This has been a slow process so far. I managed to wash, iron, fold, and press the yardage, then cut out one piece before I realized that I needed some way to actually get the pattern lines onto the wrong side of the fabric. I somehow managed to accumulate three tracing wheels without actually knowing how they were used. A phone call to my mother sent me to Fabricland where I became the proud owner of tracing paper (so smudgy!), dressmaker's chalk pencils, and a year's membership. For some reason, this seems like a much steeper learning curve than knitting.

One interesting difference in sewing versus knitting is the yardage... with knitting you can always joing on another ball, but with sewing the fabric has to obviously be continuous. When we were buying the fabric for this skirt, Fabricfan and the cutting table girl had a great debate over whether I needed 1.5 yards or 1.75 yards. I said to just give me an even two, and they both looked so surprised! The fabric was only 4 bucks a yard, and I can't see how it would hurt to have a little more than I need. I wonder if this is a result of me being a knitter first?

And finally, a shout out to Bertha, who named Adriana and me 'Rocking Girl Bloggers'.



I have swayed more than rocked in the last few weeks, but Bertha seems to be one of those superwomen who work, knit, AND manage to make and raise one of the cutest babies in Blogland (Sorry your gums hurt, June! You looked SO MAD in your latest picture...), so I am very very puffed up that she nominated us. Thanks Bertha! I am sure that June's teeth will be as cute and formindable as June herself.

Ciao everyone... wish me low humidity and high energy levels!

Sizzlin' (Heather)

It's been a busy week here in the Big Smoke as FabricFan has whirled into town!

She brought me a Hound for my birthday:



Here pictured on my dismembered spinning wheel(!), a Hound Designs 'Dervish'. And boy, does it ever live up to its name! This bad boy spins so fast and true that you can barely see it. I can't wait for a chance to use it more, but humid dog days do not inspire me to play with wooly fluff.



What do you think? Is it a dog or a tulip? A subject of much controversy 'round these parts this weekend.

As you might have inferred from above, having a handy presence inspired us to deconstruct the Ashford Traditional that has been lodging with me in order to remove the wobble from the wheel. It has since been reconstructed and awaits a drive band, a brake band, and a wee dowel for tensioning the brake band. I have no idea how much these items might cost (apart from the dowel, I should say) but considering that this wheel is priced at $479+ new, I would say I am far ahead of the game.



The wheel itself has a slight but noticeable warp to it, but it spins nicely now, and without wobbling.

In other news, I wore Coachella to work last week and was so buoyed by comments there in addition to the comments on Ravelry that I cast on for Sizzle.



The yarn is Brown Sheep Cotton Fleece, and the colour is Limelight. Think of this as the sort of sizzle you get from a Thai curry. Despite my constant protests against cotton, I am quite enjoying knitting with this yarn, and have already received a few random comments on the colour. I was afraid it was too green to wear, but I love it so much that I just don't care. I have been pulling it out on the subway quite a bit since the knitting is pretty mindless, so it is coming along nicely.

Some more birthday yarn...



...and a gorgeous Argos-eye pottery bowl all the way from Thetis Island. Pretty good week, eh?

Dribs and Drabs (Heather)

February is not my favourite month. Lots of good things happen in February, like lots of birthdays and sometimes Olympics, and leap years, but the holidays are all kind of arbitrary (Groundhog Day? Valentines?) and the weather is bleak and all we have to look forward to is March (ick!).

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate winter per se, I just get tired of it by the end of January. The only thing February has going for it is that it is short, at least.

Anyway, all that served to do was explain that February ennui has extended to my knitting.

As previously noted, I finished an orange sleeve, one subway sock for Mike, Mike's hat, and started a bunch of projects which were promptly banished to the basket. I ripped my manos-hat-in-progress and reclaimed the wool. I did finish spinning my Fleece Artist Wensleydale-Teeswater single:



and even plied it. proving that it is perfectly possible to regress completely in one month of spinning neglect.



I am thinking it would be much easier to ply with a wheel, not least of all because the singles would be on bobbins instead of on the spindle you need to ply with... this requires me to wind off my singles into skeins and then into balls, which even washed are very kinky and unpleasant to work with. I ruined quit a bit of single when it tangled irreparably on the swift. And I hope that my plying will even out when I don't have to stop to wind every metre or so.

Upon some urging from Adriana, I swatched for Odessa with my reclaimed Manos... I did a massive swatch to see how many repeats I would need, since the gauge was obviously very different from the pattern. I did a little quick and dirty math, pondered it for a day, and then cast on 80 stitches... and it worked!



I can't believe how long this is taking. For lack of knitting. I finished a regular Odessa in about 8 hours. This one has taken a week, just because I am only doing a row or two at a time. I am really starting to adore it, though, and that combined with this cold snap might motivate me to finish it. If I have to wrap my clap around my head one more time people are really going to be wondering...