Spinalcat's Crafty Adventures

Yarn: Noro Taiyo Needles: US 8 Body Plan: sleeveless drop-shoulder, no shaping below the neckline/shoulders, knit flat and seamed Ravelry details and more photos here . It was my intention to blog throughout the design process, but I accidentally finished the sweater in a week and a half! I think it's still long and wide-necked enough to hint at 80s styles without looking dated. I wanted to keep the neckline practical and fuss-free to wear to work, so I measured bra strap distance and added 2 inches to allow for an inch of ribbing on either side. I took Deborah Newton's awesome advice from Designing Knitwear and used a string to decide on a depth and general shape for the neckline. Trying to figure out the exact rate of shaping was driving me nuts. After staring at several reference books, I finally got out some knitter's graph paper, marked the width and depth, and sketched in the curves until I thought it looked ok. This turned out to be a perfectly fine way to do t...

Here's some of the stuff I've been doing with the Two Small Farms CSA box this summer. No photos for the most part. Too tasty to wait! In general, I do a lot of stir-fry, often with Trader Joe's beef Bulgogi. When I get way behind, I do soup in the slow cooker. Lori's peaches/CSA strawberries- preserves This is the same recipe Pam used with her girls. I used about 4 cups sugar because I had less peaches than it called for. I didn't add any pectin. I don't do canning, and I like to have a really chunky, oozy result to put on toast or desserts. http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,1923,154171-246195,00.html Lori's peaches- peach ice cream This recipe is for a giant ice cream maker. I halved it and left chunks in the puree. I added a dash of nutmeg too. http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/peach-ice-cream/Detail.aspx Walla Walla onions, tomatoes, lettuce, scallions- cast iron burgers from Cooking Light This is one of my favorite things to make. I use the Semifredd...

July's Phat Fiber theme is Seaweed, Ships, and Scallywags! I sent in some Merino/bamboo top in Kraken and 50/50 Merino/silk sock yarn in Dagon. Here's what the full size items look like- All of these are in the shop now except for Merino/bamboo top in Dagon. I am saving the last one until boxes arrive, but I will dye some in other fibers tomorrow. My source of this particular Merino/bamboo top has dried up, but I am happy to start a waiting list for when my new shiny fiber bases arrive. All purchases from my Etsy shop in July qualify you to enter the contest on the Phat Fiber Ravelry group. I'll post the link to the thread when it starts.

So, I've been on a bit of a neon kick lately. See here and here for inspirations. I impulse-bought these 8 skeins of Noro Taiyo at work last week. I decided I needed something brainless to knit on and a finished garment that I could actually wear in the summer. It's not the thinnest yarn (heavy worsted), but I like it a lot. I'd probably be wearing it most at work (which has a/c) and in the evenings, anyway. I can't stand 100% cotton, but Taiyo is great. It's like a much softer version of Silk Garden. It's 40% cotton, 30% silk, 15% wool, and 15% nylon. Unfortunately the mindless knitting is about to come to an end, though I'm extending it by putting the front on hold and working the back to the same point. It's getting close to time to decide on neck and shoulder shaping. The original idea was to do a simple tee sort of like this one but without the cowl. I've since decided to go with a somewhat oversized 80's look since I'm kn...

I'm not really much for rules, but I tried to get some spinning done over the long weekend. I finished plying all the Targhee supercoils. I had 3 bobbins of singles and could fit about half a bobbin of singles on the plying bobbin after plying, so I had lots of chances to play with the singles twist. I was happiest with the results when I added a fairly high amount of twist. I did weight the skeins during drying, but with only 1 plastic coat hanger*. The skein I made from singles with moderate added twist seemed to need it least. Most of the time, the coils looked too loose at a point where the yarn seemed to be close to being balanced. The strands you see above were made with singles with an almost horizontal singles twist. I thought that would make the most sense in terms of physically being a balanced yarn, but it was harder to work with. (The common problem of keeping enough tension on a thin spot of a high-twist single.) The skein still twisted around itself quite a...

A huge thank you to everybody who came out to the Oakland Fiber Festival. It was amazing! The sunlight really showed off my bamboo blend and silk blend yarns, which was totally great. It also gave me a dorky clog tan. Rachael Herron was signing books a few feet from my booth. When she finished the project she was working on, she started a toe-up sock in one of my self-striping yarns. I had to sneak away from the booth every so often to feel it. Love that MCN! I get to start a sample of my own soon because I messed up the dye job on a skein of the purple/black/turquoise. I'm going to be doing a few new self-striping colorways soon, especially "guy-friendly" ones. My first yarn customer ever, Ana, posted to Ravelry (and Flickr ) an adorable clutch she knit in my aran weight Merino. It's the first FO I've seen in my yarn! Squee! ETA- Janice is spinning up some of my Merino/bamboo top for the Tour de Fleece!