Fair warning: I will be moving this site to another host in the near future. During the move, this site will be down for a while, perhaps for a day or three.
My plan is that no one will notice the difference, once it’s up and running again… but plans have a tendency to head off on their own.
Hang on with me, and we’ll see what really happens!
Things have been pretty exciting around our family lately!
Our newest grandson arrived in a hurry, without any complications, and went home with mom the next day. Fortunately, she had just packed for the hospital the day before, even though she expected to have to wait a week or more. Of course, babies are notorious for not paying attention to anyone else’s plans – including our plan to have his blanket all done in time to come home.
So we punted. I got the last bit done on the main part of the blanket the night he was born, finished off the loose ends and washed it, then dropped it off at the hospital on my way to work the next morning in plenty of time for his homecoming. It still doesn’t have its border, but I’ll get it back soon to finish it properly.
I think it’s only fair to state that the last-minute status of this blanket is not all on my shoulders; my daughter and I spent quite some time finding just the shade of green she had in mind, then ordering the yarn in both cotton and superwash wool and wash-testing the swatches before the final decision and ordering the yarn. In the meantime, I searched for just the right pattern. It needed to be something that would keep me from dozing off while knitting, and I wanted it to be reversible. I decided that a traditional tumbling blocks pattern done with different stitch textures would fill the bill, but to my surprise, couldn’t find what I was looking for! So I designed one. Once I get the blanket completely finished, I’ll write up the pattern and post it here, with a link from Ravelry.
Baby T and his Optical Blocks Baby Blanket
In the meantime, I’m working on his Christmas stocking. Since it uses 12 colors of yarn, it’s not exactly a take-everywhere project, so I started a pair of socks for him, too. And then I realized that while I was making a sock to fit his tiny foot, the stocking will be nearly large enough for him to sleep in! Well, probably not any more, at the rate he’s growing now… I’d better finish the little socks before he outgrows them, too!
Both for the same little guy!
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Shortly after the Kansas State Fair, I got to do something I’d been thinking about for a long time… I went with a bunch of spinning and weaving friends to tour Mid-States Wool Growers Cooperative. This came awfully close to sensory overload for us fiber types!
Here are a couple of views of what we saw on entering the warehouse area:
Bins full of wool
Way more than "three bags full"!
Wool expert Alex McClure explained how shipments arrive from all over this part of the country and are tracked for each individual grower, then graded for quality and sorted…
Our guide, Alex McClure
Where the grading is done
One of the grading criteria - staple length
Baler
… then baled and sent on to processors. He was very patient, and answered all of our questions.
He had even set out a number of fleeces of varying fineness and quality for us to look at, handle, and ask even more questions about!
The whole happy group
Then, best of all, we were able to pick out and buy any fleeces we wanted! Laura (Sugar Bunny Boulevard yarn shop proprietor) and Marsha scored the reserve champion fleece, splitting it 50/50.
A pair of happy fleece owners
One of the advantages of being the tour arranger was that I got dibs on the grand champion fleece!
My lovely, lovely wool
I think it would satisfyingly complete the cycle if I spun and knitted something from this fleece, then entered it in next year’s fair, don’t you?
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I happened to have a few pictures to illustrate the steps from beginning to end, so thought I’d share them with you.
It all started with the visit to a local alpaca breeder two years ago (Sunflower Alpaca Farm, shortly before they moved to Fort Scott, KS). I was completely charmed by the animals, and took quite a few pictures.
L to R: Frosty, Mocha, Molly (in front), Levi (in back), Dulcie
Of course, I had to buy some wool in all the different colors!
Gorgeous colors...
Having specific motivation at last, I started spinning it in August (two years later)…
Five of the six colors: from the top, Levi, Frosty, Molly, Mocha, Taffy
Add white to those shown above, and you’ll have all the colors I had to work with. Once I started knitting swatches, the light grey turned out to be a much greater contrast to the white than I had expected, so I blended two other colors to use in between.
With all the ripping (I probably knit enough for a third glove!) it took longer than I had hoped to finish the gloves I’d planned from the beginning. After an all-nighter, I did get them finished just in time to check them in at the state fair.
Finished Alpaca Fair Isle gloves
I may find out tomorrow how they placed in the new ‘item-knit-of-handspun-yarn’ class, and will let you know. But whatever happens there, I’m delighted with my first pair of gloves, and will definitely knit more!
UPDATE: I just heard from a friend – my gloves won the class! There was at least one other entry, and I hope the class will have even more entries next year!
*End of post* I see that there is advertising below, at least on some views. Please feel free to ignore it!!
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