Sock Yarn Stashdown: May Update

In April I mentioned my goal of ending 2011 with less sock-weight yarn in my possession than I had at the beginning of the year. Since it's the end of the month, I figured I'd better take stock of the situation.  The results were not encouraging.

Score at the end of April: -1
New skeins acquired in May: 4
Skeins used up: 0
Skeins destashed: 0

Score at the end of May: +3

Uh, that score is going in the wrong direction.
 
The good news is that last night I finished a sock.

Pattern is Knotty or Knice by Chrissy Gardiner

And I cast on the second one immediately.  It's not much, but it's progress.

What I do when I'm not knitting

Most of the time, this is a knitting (and now spinning) blog, but occasionally there is just too much awesome in the non-yarn part of my life that I have to share.  This past weekend was the Columbia Triathlon.

This race was the first time I attempted an olympic/international distance tri (.9 mile swim, 25 mile bike, and 6.2 mile run), which is twice the length of some the shorter sprints I've been doing.  Not only is it a longer race, Columbia is known for being challenging (read hilly, really hilly), but there I was bright and early around 6am walking into Centennial Park to join this mass of people and set up my transition area.

Even though my swim wave wasn't scheduled to start the race until 7:40, the morning flew by and before I knew it, I was seeing Mike off, squeezing into my wetsuit, and hustling down to wade into the lake.  The swim went pretty smoothly.  It took me about half the distance to feel warmed up, but I didn't get shoved around too much or kicked in the head--always have to be happy about that.

I was a little disoriented coming out of the water but recovered pretty quickly, got to my bike (easy to spot with my new bright yellow handlebar tape), and was off.

The bike portion of the course is where I was the most nervous.  I'm not a strong cyclist, and even though I'd ridden the course several times, it has some tough spots, and I wasn't sure how tired I might feel after the swim.  The course was crowded which stressed me out a little here and there, but I felt surprisingly good.  Being familiar with the course was a huge help, and I rode it faster than in any of my training rides.  As I turned back into the park, my chin quivered for a few seconds, and I almost had to fight back a few tears since I knew with the bike leg behind me I would be crossing the finish line even if I had to walk the entire run. 

I had another good transition and was soon jogging along with just six miles between me and finishing my first olympic tri.  The run didn't go terribly well but not terribly bad either.  The heat started to wear me down, and although I tried to fight up the hills, my legs just didn't have the strength.  I ended up walking parts of just about every hill.  By the time I hit the top of the last hill, I was too tired even to be relieved. 




I trudged on and felt a surge of relief as I heard volunteers shouting "last mile".  As I neared the end, I tried as hard as I could to enjoy the experience and my first oly finish, but I was too tired to think anything other than "just keep running".

Mike had started well before me, so he was at the finish line to cheer me on.  When I caught sight of him, I threw my arms in the air for a second and powered to the finish with everything I had left. 

It was over.  I had done it.  My first olympic triathlon.  My first finish on the daunting Columbia course.

The race took me 3 hours, 12 minutes.  Not speedy compared to the superstars that participate in this race, but I was thrilled.




I cooled off in the grass and listened to everyone's stories, then headed home for a shower and a long nap.

 

If you think it looks like I barely have the strength to hold up that cup, you'd be correct.  But it was worth it.

Crystal Vest

Two posts in two days?  Wow, I think that’s a record for me.  And I'm not even posting at 4am.  Bonus!

So, despite my attachment to my new spinning wheel, I did find time in the last few weeks to finish a knitting project.

Pattern:  Crystal

Ravelry Project Page

Yarn:  Brooks Farm Solo Silk

Needles: 7 US

This project had a slow start.  First there was the website problem when I tried to buy the pattern.  Then the ten knots in the first skein of yarn I wound (thankfully, the second skein only had one).  Next I got stuck on the lace pattern instructions.  When that was finally worked out, I swatched.  Swatch was big to begin with and blocked even larger.  Being too impatient to swatch again, I simply went down two needle sizes and cast on.  I knit up to the v-neck divide and got stuck again on pattern instructions.  This one required designer-consultation, but the designer got back to me super quickly and cleared up the mistake.  The vest was pretty smooth sailing from there.  The knitting went quickly, the lace pattern was easy to memorize, and I didn’t run into any lace shaping problems.  I ended up needing to knit the neckline twice, but that was the only stumbling spot.  

When I finished and tried it on, I was pretty happy with the fit, except it was a little shorter than I wanted. I knew it would stretch when blocked, and oh, did it stretch.  I pulled a dress out of the water instead of a vest! I was initially rather frustrated and swore off using yarn with silk for anymore garments, but once it dried and I tried it on, the loose style and waist tie made it all okay.  I happily wore it all day Monday. 

I’m still totally over silk though.

My modifications were pretty minor:  three-needle bind off at the shoulders, reduced the armhole depth and took out a few short rows on the armhole edging, and I did an i-cord for the waist tie instead of a crochet chain.  

Even though it might be a tad bigger than intended, I’m loving the loose fit.  The relaxed style is a nice change after years of knitting super-fitted sweaters. 

So a finished project (yay!) and one more stash project down.  This brings me up to four.  I’m a little behind the goal of twelve, and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to decrease the stash when I’m constantly adding to it with handspun. Might need to start working on a better storage solution rather than trying to just knit faster.

May what?

I looked at the calendar today and realized it is May 17th.  May is already over half over?  I have no idea where the time is going.  Oh wait, yes, yes, I do.   

May 7-8 was the 38th annual Maryland Sheep and Wool Festival. I spent a fantastic Sunday afternoon wandering around the fairgrounds and visiting adorable sheepies.  This was my fifth year attending MDSW, and I’m fairly certain I can point to this festival as my downfall in all fiber-related obsessions.  After this year’s festival, I thought back to previous years, and it was fascinating to me how much has changed in those five years.  My first year, I had only been knitting a few months.  I remember coming home with bunches of Tilli Tomas silk and my first Malabrigo skeins.  I had no concept of hand-painted yarn or indie dyers, and I don’t even remember seeing fiber or spinning instruments.  It just didn’t register. The next couple years were all about the sock yarn, and even though last year I brought home a spindle and some fiber, I still went mainly for the yarn.

This year was different.  I saw yarn and even picked up and inspected a few skeins, but this year was not about yarn.  In fact, the only yarn I came home with was yarn I produced myself.

On a spur-of-the-moment impulse, I sent in that colorful skein of yarn that I wrote about in my last post.  I entered it in the novice spinning class.  Seeing that first place ribbon was a really nice start to my day.  At the end of the judges’ comments was the note:  “keep spinning”.  That might have been more encouragement than I needed.  I may not have purchased yarn, but I did come home fully prepared to make lots of my own.  The fiber haul:

You can see I was so eager to start spinning my new fiber that I finished a skein even before I gathered the purchases together for the picture.  Why so eager?  Well, I also brought home this:

Oops.  Okay, not really. This was a completely planned purchase.  I’m terrible about making decisions.  Terrible.  Especially big decisions that cost a lot of money, but I headed to the festival with my main purpose being to shop for a spinning wheel.  After trying a few, I was struck with the overwhelming urge to slow down, not rush into anything, and do more research.  I sighed to myself, disappointed that I was going to let my indecision get the best of me.   As I continued to hem and haw over a wheel purchase, I did start making fiber purchases.  By mid-afternoon, I decided I had more fiber than I was going to want to spin on spindles.  So I told myself the wheel was practically a necessity.  And of course, the judges had said to "keep spinning".  I browsed some more and eavesdropped on wheel conversations and finally settled on the Lendrum double-treadle that I had been testing at Carolina Homespun.  It wasn’t long before I was lugging a big box out to my car.

I’m happy to say, I’m thrilled with the purchase.  The wheel assembled in five minutes and within another five, I was spinning.  I’ve barely stopped since.  That would be where May has gone.  Well, spinning and a good bit of swim, bike, run training.  The Columbia Triathlon is this weekend!

And just because no MDSW post is complete without animal pictures, here's a really cute alpaca. 

I already can't wait until next year.

Lesson Learned

I am certain that I am not the only knitter who has experienced the following phenomenon:  Learn to knit.  Realize there is a whole big world of breathtakingly beautiful yarn in local yarn stores.  Fall in love with gorgeous variegated colorways.  Begin to acquire lovely variegated yarn.  Start knitting. Realize that variegated yarn may be gorgeous in the skein but that I don’t actually wear multi-colored clothes.  Wise up and learn to buy solid or semi-solid yarns and chalk up the unused variegated skeins to a learning experience.

Although I learned my lesson quite well when it came to yarn, I was not clever enough to apply this logic to fiber.  I recently posted some lovely fiber purchases.  Here is one of them again.

I started spinning this braid almost immediately after I came home with it. I finished spinning and plying early this week, and I have sat and admired my pretty skein for the last several days.

Last night, I wound the yarn, and began knitting what I intended to be the first of many log cabin squares for an afghan.  I stumbled across the most beautiful afghan on Ravelry a few weeks ago—(picture HERE)—a blanket of blocks, each of which was knit with a different handspun yarn.  I’m pretty sure discovering this project is what jolted me into my current spinning fervor.  I love this blanket.  I want this blanket.  I’m totally going to copy it.  It’s the perfect use for spinning.  I can spin several different colors and it will all have a specific purpose.  I like things to have purpose.  Spinning yarn just to sit in a drawer doesn’t work for my goal-oriented personality.  Anyway, so I started knitting.  I got a few rows in, and even from this little bit, I realized it was way too colorful for me.

Since I don’t have to wear the afghan, somewhat variegated is acceptable, but I thought of what this square would end up looking like, pictured a whole blanket of variegated squares, and felt a little nauseous.  I’m not sure “ugly” is the right word (although it very well could be), but whatever it would be is definitely not how I’m picturing this project.

I thought about a few other recent fiber purchases, all of which I sort of intended to use toward the blanket project. 

 

Um, no, pretty sure none of these are going to work.  Each braid has simply too much color contrast.  While walking away from pretty painted fiber may be difficult, it must be done.  Lesson learned.  Again.  

It could be worse.  I could have learned this lesson after the Maryland Sheep & Wool Festival. 

Taking the Hint

I've been spinning like crazy for the past several days (a post for another day), but I decided today that I wanted to start a new knitting project.  I've had a cute vest pattern in mind for awhile and  perfect yarn from last year's Maryland Sheep and Wool festival--Brooks Farm Solo Silk.  I started winding the first 400 yard skein.  There were ten knots.  Seriously.  Ten.  Discouraged but determined, I decided to forge ahead and just deal with the idea of weaving in a lot of ends.  I went to buy the pattern.  The site was experiencing problems and wouldn't let me check out.  I sent a message to customer service and they got back to me super quickly.  The site is still not working for me, so now I'm waiting for a paypal invoice and they'll email me the pattern.  Okay, great, but a few hours have gone by, and I want to start knitting NOW.

Moving on, I decided I would start a Clockwork scarf, another project I've been planning for awhile.  I've had a deep red skein of yarn for several years now.  It's only 330 yards so not enough for a shawl on its own.  No problem--I'll get a pretty contrast color and make Clockwork.  Perfect.  I ordered another skein of the same yarn--Three Irish Girls Kells Sport Merino, which arrived a few weeks ago.  This was the first time I ordered directly from Three Irish Girls, and I was so impressed with the package, I had to take a picture. 

 

So nice, right?  I'm in love with the tape measure.  But I digress--okay, back to the scarf.  The yarns look gorgeous together, yes?

And having struck out with the Crystal vest, I decided tonight was the night to start Clockwork.  I bought the pattern, downloaded the PDF, and was immediately struck by:
     Color A--420 yards
     Color B--295 yards

420!!!  WHAT?!?!?!?!?!!?

I don't have enough yarn.  Each skein is only 330 yards. That sucks.  And it was right there on the pattern website, which if I had only read, would have saved me buying a pattern that I won't be using anytime soon.  Crap.

Fine, universe, fine.  Have it your way.  No new new project.

Catch up

Last month my knitting took a little trip.

That would be the view from the apartment I stayed in for a week in mid-March in Cullera, Spain (a small beach town outside Valencia).  I felt like I knit very little on the trip, but knitting-wise, it was a major success.  My needles made it through both security checks in Paris, and I finished Flamboyan.

I said the finished shawl was either going to be awesome or really ugly.  I don't think it ended up as either.  I was rather underwhelmed by the finished product at first.  Even though the yarns are nice individually, together I thought they looked sort of drab.  I was a little bummed that after having made a couple great choices pairing yarns, I was back to my old tricks of bad combinations.  What the shawl has going for it is its nice size, and it feels amazing after blocking. Both yarns are a bamboo/merino blend (Sanguine Gryphon Kypria and Rainy Days & Wooly Dogs Gothling Ricin) with beautiful drape and sheen.  Over the past few days, the shawl has really grown on me. 

It's not take-your-breath-away beautiful, but that's okay. It's finished, it's wearable, and I feel a little better about taking on more intarsia projects.  Since I have yarn waiting in the wings for Chadwick, a little more intarsia confidence is a very good thing.

At the end of 2010, I joined a group challenging knitters to knit 12 projects completely from stash yarn in 2011.  Flamboyan puts me at three.  More importantly, however, it used two skeins of sock yarn.  My own personal challenge to myself this year is to knit down my stash of sock yarn.  I don't have a specific goal in mind; I just want there to be less by the end of the year.  I'm in a sock club that sends one skein every month, so at the very least I have to knit up or destash one skein per month just to break even.  Here's where I stand as of today:

New skeins acquired since Jan 1:  7
Skeins used up:  3
Skeins destashed: 5 (2 sold, 3 gifted)
Current score:  -1

I figure this little challenge is like golf--the lower the score, the better I'm doing.  Not too bad so far, but definitely room for improvement, and with my new spinning obsession taking significant time away from knitting, it could be an uphill battle.